A Trick of the Mind (32 page)

‘You won’t.’

I continued to move back down the stairs, talking to him up the stairwell. ‘I know that you were born with one leg. You let me believe I did this to you! I didn’t! And I’ve
left my job, abandoned my friends. For you! Because you let me believe I owed you. Well, I can’t take any more.’

I turned and began to run down the stairs towards the doors, and freedom.

I turned as I reached them. ‘Please don’t come after me.’

‘You might not owe me my leg,’ he shouted, ‘but I can still tell the police you ran me over that night. I can still sue you. I can still demand compensation. I had head
injuries! I was unable to walk because I’d sprained my other ankle! No one walks out on me unless I let them. No one disobeys Patrick McIntyre. I’ll find you, Ellie.’

His tone changed as I pushed the button that released the main doors and they slid open.

‘Come back, Ellie. Please. Please . . .’

And he began to sob.

But I was getting into my car, Pepper in front of me, slamming the door and driving away from him before he could catch me, and stop me for good.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

‘Finn, it’s me.’

‘Where are you?’

‘In my studio. I need to see you.’

‘You must be ready to ship?’

‘Yes. Almost. They’re picking up on Tuesday. I’m flying ahead tomorrow.’

Tomorrow lay before me like a beacon. My flight to New York was all booked and I’d managed not to tell Patrick that I’d brought it forward. He wouldn’t know that I’d
gone! I would be thousands of miles away.

George Albini had said I could stay with them in their Manhattan apartment, help put the show up. Once I was on that flight I would be safe. Then, in New York, I would have time to plan my
future.

The painting had what I’d intended it to: a sense of things lying beneath the river. The colours and light and shade captured this, and towards the top, where it faded to white to indicate
the open space of the sky, I’d crisscrossed it with fine lines to represent the perpetual motion of the cable cars and the trains and the aeroplanes, the rhythm of the human landscape around
the natural one.

The picture was meant to work on many different levels.

But did it?

I needed Finn’s objective critical judgement one last time. Only he could help me decide how best to know when to stop, when it was finished, only he had a deep knowledge of my work and
would be able to reassure me I had worked on it enough.

He was in Mile End having coffee, he said. I could go and see him, but could I come quickly?

‘You couldn’t come down here?’ I asked. The minutes were closing in on me. ‘I haven’t got long, I need to finish today – this morning preferably.’ As
long as I was still in the studio, Patrick would be able to catch me. He’d do something unexpected as he had done to Stef.

I was sure of it.

I had to get out. Disappear from his radar. I’d pack the painting and be gone.

‘Not just now, no, maybe later,’ Finn was saying.

‘I need to ask you for some advice.’

‘Come and have a quick coffee with me,’ he said. ‘Take a picture of the painting on your phone and I’ll see what I can suggest.’

He sounded strange. He was nervous, I realised, his voice had a quake to it.

‘It won’t take you long to get here if you hop on the Docklands Light Railway and change at Stratford. There’s something I need to talk to you about in any case. But I need to
stay around here.’

I looked at my mobile. It was ten thirty. It shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes at the most to get to him. And I could be back here in time to complete everything and leave my
painting for the couriers. There was no point in driving as the traffic would be heavy. I’d parked my car on the far side of the wharf beyond the lighthouse, where I could leave it all
day.

And so I did as Finn told me, wishing as I hurried away from the studio, Pepper under one arm, that I wasn’t so dependent on his opinion as to let him drag me across London when my
deadline was right upon me and my fear of Patrick’s arriving unannounced, to show me I was his, hung over me.

The DLR came straight away but the Tubes were held up due to some engineering work further down the line. I stood on the platform, praying for the train to arrive. I remembered those nights I
had first gone out with Patrick and how he had made me laugh about the announcements and how he had a theory they were tailored according to the social class of the passengers.

How in love I had thought I was.

It took me over an hour to get to the cinema coffee bar. But now I was on my way, there was no point in turning back. And something was propelling me, more than the need for his critique of my
work, something else. There was unfinished business I had to sort with Finn – and this might be the chance to explain why things had gone so awry between us. To make amends somehow. Perhaps,
if we could make up, Finn would let me sleep at his tonight. And I would feel safe.

I pushed open the doors of the cinema, went into its cool dark interior and looked about the high-ceilinged room with its bare brick walls and enormous film noir posters, its
mismatched assortment of vintage furniture, sofas from the Seventies, school chairs from the Eighties or Nineties, Formica tables with metal legs and velvet cushions. I could see the back of
Finn’s head, his ruffled dark hair that I had loved for so long, over on the far side, on a bright green Ercol sofa, his back to me. He was with someone and it took me a moment to realise
that the closeness of their two heads indicated something more intimate than a working meeting or two friends having a casual coffee. I cursed the Tubes for being late. No wonder Finn wanted me to
come quickly, he was obviously meeting a new girlfriend.

I walked across, hesitated, unsure whether I should interrupt them. Pepper began to growl.

As I drew nearer, the back of the head of the other person seemed familiar, bleached curls cascading past her shoulders. My stomach plummeted. Finn was with Louise!

I considered turning around and walking away again. But I had to talk to Finn. I walked around to where they sat, hands intertwined, Finn’s nose buried in Louise’s neck. He was
playing with her hair, just the way Guy had done that night at the cottage – what is it with men and curly hair? Pulling it out, letting it spring back into place, as if they regress into
children when confronted with natural curls. I was thinking,
but Louise doesn’t go for men like Finn. She goes for men with bronzed bodies and long blond hair and big biceps.
Finn,
though he had a beautiful face, was hardly the type to model underpants in a glossy men’s magazine, as Guy had looked as though he might, and Louise had seemed so proud of Guy. The way she
had looked into his eyes as if no one on Earth would ever match up to him!

I felt awkward, standing there over the two of them as they smooched on the couch, their arms round each other, and wondered if I could make an excuse and leave. Then Finn glanced up and his
face flushed. He had seen me.

He got up, took a step towards me and went to hug me but I shrank from his embrace. I don’t know what it was. Pride, or hurt, or jealousy, but it wasn’t a good thing to do.

‘What’s up, Ellie?’ Louise looked up at me, frowning, as if she couldn’t imagine I might be taken aback by their being together.

‘You two!’ I said brightly. ‘Hi!’

I tried to look as if I wasn’t in the least surprised to see them there together, that Chiara had told me, that I was fine with it. I didn’t know what else to say. I ought to
congratulate them but the words simply wouldn’t come out of my mouth.

‘Oh my God, you didn’t know?’

Louise laughed, pulled Finn to her, and kissed his floppy hair.

He flushed again, and squeezed her hand.

‘No, I didn’t,’ I said. ‘So! How funny. I had no idea. Well . . .’

I shouldn’t mind, I told myself. I had no right to mind.

‘I’ll get coffees,’ I said. ‘What would you like?’ I needed a few minutes to assimilate this new information, and to deal with the ache that had come to my chest,
that had no right to be there.

‘We realised,’ Finn told me, catching up with me at the counter as I ordered the coffees, their two lattes and my espresso, ‘and ironically, it was through you, in a way, that
we came to realise, that we’d always liked each other.’

‘How was it through me?’ I rummaged through memories of the previous few months, unable to identify a moment when I somehow engineered their liaison, but could only remember how
wrapped up in Patrick I had been.

I’d thought I could run around with Patrick, and ask for Finn back the minute things didn’t work out with him. How arrogant of me! How short-sighted.

I had to be big about this, grown up.

Back on the sofa, seeing the two of them together, everything fell into place.

The subtly exchanged glances, the discreet conversations I’d thought were about me. The time Louise had come when Finn was visiting me at the studio.

They were all about what was going on between
them
! Artistic meetings, swapping of paint and canvas and graphite and bitumen and the shared outings to the galleries.

I’d thought Louise was simply out to win the commission off me – it had never occurred to me that she might be trying to take Finn from me.

What was I telling myself? Finn wasn’t mine! She hadn’t
taken
Finn from me, he was free for the taking. I had chosen to end my relationship with him all those weeks ago. And
then I had become involved with Patrick.

My old life, the one I had so determinedly left, but which I thought I could pick up and carry on with whenever I wanted to, had moved on without me.

‘So, what’s the problem with the picture, Ellie?’ Louise asked. I didn’t want to talk about it to Louise. Finn’s criticism was the only one I
valued and trusted. But I couldn’t tell him in front of her. I felt weak and vulnerable, and helpless, and looked about for some talisman, something to make me feel safe again, failed to find
one. I glanced over my shoulder anyway, three times, the urge to do so more pressing than the fear of looking weird.

‘Finn said you were bringing a photo?’ she said. ‘Are you pleased with it? Can you show us?’

‘I think I’ve finished,’ I said, ‘but it’s at that stage, you know, where you are not quite sure whether to keep working on it, or to stop. To leave it
alone.’

‘Ah,’ said Finn. ‘Let’s see the photo then, if you’ve got it.’

‘I haven’t.’ I said. ‘It needs to be seen in the flesh, so to speak.’

‘Do you want us to come later and look at it?’

‘Yes. No. I’m not sure, I . . .’

Louise moved closer to Finn, and spoke into his ear so I could just hear. ‘Don’t forget we’re going to Gavin’s film preview at the ICA this afternoon. Then we’re
meeting the others at the Coach & Horses.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know. But there would be time if I went right away. If she wants me to.’ He had said
I
, this time, not
we,
and I wanted to hug him.
‘I could get the Clipper up to Embankment, in fact,’ he went on, ‘couldn’t I, Ellie? From Trinity Buoy Wharf?’

‘Yes. The Clipper goes from North Greenwich, you have to call the
Predator
to take you across.’

‘The
Predator
?’ This was Louise.

‘It’s an ex-police boat that runs a ferry service over to the other side,’ I said. ‘You have to call it up. It only runs when there are enough passengers to warrant a
crossing.’

‘Sounds very anachronistic,’ she said. ‘I thought the wharf was supposed to be ultra-trendy?’

‘Anyway,’ said Finn. ‘I could do that if we left straight away. Meet you on Pall Mall, Louise?’

I felt Louise prickle and I knew what I had to do.

‘No,’ I said, ‘It’s OK. Thanks, Finn. I can manage. There’s no need. You should go with Louise or you might miss the film.’

It was time I was able to judge my own work. It was what I had wanted all those weeks ago when I’d made the decision to end my relationship with Finn, to be independent, to stand on my own
two feet both artistically, and in life. Patrick had interfered with the latter, though I was freeing myself from him, now. So I must deal with the former myself. I’d won the commission
without Finn’s help, without anyone’s help. I could complete it on my own.

‘I’ll see you two soon,’ I said. ‘Have a good time at the ICA. Come on, Pepper.’ And I left them, without looking over my shoulder once.

Finn caught up with me as I got to the doors.

‘I found this the other day. But I was afraid you’d be angry with me for interfering.’

He thrust a printout of some local Southwold news into my hand.

‘It was just, when Louise told me you’d caused an accident on your way down to Southwold, the weekend you didn’t invite me’ – he shrugged and pulled the corners of
his mouth down – ‘when she said you hadn’t gone to the police, I knew it sounded more like one of your old obsessive thoughts about hitting something in your car. All those times
you thought you’d knocked someone over! So after I saw you the other day, and realised how convinced you were you had to put up with Patrick when it was clear you were unhappy, I did a bit of
research on the internet. Here.’

I read it on the Tube.