Life Class (12 page)

‘It’s an illuminating exercise in more ways than one,’ he said. ‘And one you can easily do at home. No need for a model. Simply set up a still life, close the curtains, and turn on a directional desk lamp. You can even experiment using chalk on black paper and there you are, Uncle Robert.’

She turned to him with a querying smile. ‘Uncle Robert?’

‘Sorry … Bob’s your uncle! Bad family joke. Something my dad used to say.’ He paused, momentarily absorbed by a study of her face. ‘You should maybe look in a mirror before you go to coffee.’

‘Are you telling me I’ve charcoal all over my face? Thanks.’ Her smile broadened and she rubbed haphazardly at her cheek with the back of her hand, making matters worse. ‘Um … by the way, how were those mugs you bought?’

As he straightened his answering smile was automatic. ‘Excellent. Thanks for your assistance.’

‘It was my sister who gave the advice. Fran’s the assertive one.’

‘It was good advice, anyway. Easy to remember; china for tea.’

Chapter Twelve - Fran

Gripped by frustration, Fran stared at her computer monitor. She was going round in circles. After Googling the name Dan Brown, she’d seemed to spend hours wading through hit after hit – the vast majority leading to Amazon. Then there’d been the news articles about the
Da Vinci Code
plagiarism court case, or reviews of the books or films.

Earlier, she’d been upstairs, putting her drawings away. Despite Stefan Novak’s request that they keep everything they did, she’d thrown several straight into the bin for recycling; they did her no credit and, whatever he said, would not have reflected favourably on his teaching abilities. The others she’d signed and dated, as requested, before slotting them under the bed with the rest. While her mind was partially disengaged, the image of Dominic – so gorgeous, even with the piercings in his face – had swum into her mind. The thought had led on to Dan, her old boyfriend. He had worn a single earring, which had been sufficiently subversive and counter-culture to appeal to her but, in their day, studs in the face were unusual, associated only with the extremes of the old punk era. Almost without acknowledging her intention, she’d suddenly found herself in the study, typing his name into Google.

At the start of her search there were at least a few entries per page for a Dan Brown who wasn’t the multi-published author. The glimmer of hope soon faded when she looked at these entries more closely. Was it likely that after dropping out of art college in England he’d moved to the States, where he’d done an unrelated degree and risen to a professorship? It was equally hard to credit that he’d joined an Amish rock band, or studied architecture and set up his own practice in Seattle. Her Dan wasn’t an intellectual, nor did she recall a devotion to rock music – or religion, for that matter – that went beyond the average. As for architecture, she couldn’t remember discussing the subject with him, let alone a desire to even visit the US.

She sat up straighter, stretching her neck and back. Why did the man who’d begun to take such an uncomfortable hold on her imagination have a name that promised so much yet gave so little? The clunk of a door opening sent a jolt of shock zipping through her. She fumbled to shrink the screen, and click onto Live Mail, just in case Peter was en route to the study. She heard him talking to one or other of the dogs who would have seen his exit to the kitchen as a possible food opportunity. True to form, she heard a prompting yap, as if to say ‘Hello! I’m here!” The tap was turned on. As expected, Peter then opened the study door and asked if she wanted anything.

‘No. I’m fine, thanks, I’m just …’

Fran stared unseeingly at the monitor while her husband clinked about in the kitchen. Then she heard the kitchen door close and she knew he’d returned to the sitting room. Her heart rate slowed. It was ridiculous to feel so edgy. She knew he was not curious about what she was doing. Peter was a nice man and would show an interest if she drew his attention to something, but in general he regarded the PC in the study as
her
hobby. He used his own laptop as a tool to make his job easier, but otherwise his interest in the internet was strictly functional.

Though he personally failed to understand the appeal of ‘surfing the net’ he was relaxed and unsuspicious about Fran’s newfound absorption in the mysteries of the virtual world. At the same time, he vastly overestimated her expertise in finding her way around it. If he’d wondered at all about what currently occupied her attention, he would doubtless assume she was doing some work for one of her committees, or replying to her emails.

Once Fran’s heartbeat had slowed, she wondered how Peter would have reacted if he’d caught her red-handed, with ‘Dan Brown’ emblazoned across the screen. Other than the author, the name probably meant as little to him as it had to Dory. If she
had
ever mentioned her previous boyfriend to him, it was a fair guess that he would have forgotten by now. Even if he did recall the name, she doubted her secure and unsuspicious husband would make a connection. So the answer to her question was humbling. In reality, she knew he would not have reacted. It was her own sense of guilt and yes, excitement, at this tiny subterfuge, which made her heart beat faster and a flush of blood rush hotly to her cheeks.

When she felt safe again she continued her search, but time and time again found herself in a blind alley. Suddenly, a light went on in her head. As an adult, and possibly promoting a business of some kind, he would be using his full name, wouldn’t he? Especially if he wanted to differentiate himself from the ubiquitous bloody author! Even though several Daniels had come up in her initial search, they’d been American. Typing his full name into the search engine and adding ‘UK’ was bound to narrow down the search.

This time there were even more hits. Fran gulped, but began to sift through the initial pages. A county councillor, a footballer, a clinical psychologist, and even a writer, though this time not the famous bestseller, but a British academic. Touchingly, some were simply graduates who’d put their CVs up on the web in the hope of inspiring a job offer. There were a few artists, but it didn’t take long to establish that those that appeared, at least on the first twenty pages, were multiple entries for the same man – but not the
right
man.

She bookmarked a few other entries that might reward closer scrutiny, but Fran couldn’t imagine that Dan was now running his own UPVC double-glazing company or selling bar stools. But then, what did she know? Why assume he was doing anything art-related now? If he’d been trying to find her, he’d have made no progress if he’d presumed her to be painting landscapes or designing textiles. She was a housewife whose sole artistic expression was going to a life class once a week.

After a while, she found several sites that offered to play private eye. Fran trawled through them but none, as far as she could tell, offered a free service. And she and Peter had joint bank and credit card accounts. He wasn’t so relaxed that he wouldn’t query unusual payments popping up on their statements.

Where else to go? She clasped her hand to her head. Where to look? Melanie would probably know. Thinking of her daughter reminded Fran of Facebook, but that was a site for the young, wasn’t it? Then again,
she
was on it. She might only use it when alerted, but Dan might be an enthusiast. Nearly an hour later, she’d exhausted this avenue too.

Even if Dan had no domain name, wasn’t running a business that had a presence on the internet, and wasn’t on Facebook, he must surely own a computer. Everyone owned a computer, didn’t they? And if you owned a computer you’d get it linked to the internet, if only for the convenience of having an email address? She sat up straight. A wave of fear-fuelled elation thrilled her nerves. All she had to do was type in every variation of the name she could think of – ‘dbrown@’ or ‘danielbrown@’, or ‘brownd@’. And then put in the server names – Yahoo, or BT, or AOL or Virgin or …

As she went through the list of all the email hosts she could remember, her optimism faltered. There could be just as many again that she didn’t remember or had never even heard of. Then there were so many possible permutations just in the placement of dots and dashes. In any event, Dan might be married with a family, and the address could be ‘thebrowns@’ or even more sickeningly, ‘danandjuliebrown@’. All at once, another fatal flaw in the plan hit her with sick, stomach-dropping dismay.

Get a grip, woman! Multiple emails – even if none hit the mark – could generate multiple replies. Peter’s business emails were directed to his laptop, but all the others, from their daughter, from family, friends, and committee related, went to a separate address on the desktop. Though Peter hardly ever came into the study to use it – leaving all the personal stuff to her – the possibility could not be discounted. And she couldn’t stand guard for days or weeks, fielding the possible replies from unknown D.Browns.

She knew it was possible to set up another identity to which specific emails could be directed, but had no idea how to go about it, nor if it would be confidential. From looking feasible, the task to find Dan had gone through various phases. Now, again, it looked daunting. Pessimism gripped her.

When she walked into her sitting room, Fran was prevented from appreciating its beauty by her husband, sprawled across one of the sofas, taking up two of its three seats. His presence alone is enough to make a room look untidy, she thought. Evidence of his lunch, surely several hours old, sat amongst piles of receipts, letters, files, and handwritten notes which cluttered the surface of the low table. The overspill of documents was stacked in piles on the floor and more were propped up around his laptop, which occupied the third seat of the sofa.

Both dogs were now curled up together on the facing sofa. Nelson raised his head and looked at her anxiously, as if expecting a peremptory ejection. His feathery tail gave a few placatory wags. Peter looked up from his work and smiled. It was the smile she’d fallen in love with nearly twenty years ago, but all she noticed now were his greying, rumpled hair, his scruffy, crumb-strewn clothes.

‘Some people are so disorganised,’ he said, referring to the client whose tax affairs he was sorting out. She bit back the obvious retort and strode briskly across the room to the Georgian desk. All that was on it was a pristine, leather-bound blotter, an address book, an unused letter rack, and a vase of sad chrysanthemums. As she grabbed the vase and left the room, a sudden gaseous exhalation from the rotting vegetation turned her stomach. In the kitchen she pushed the offending flowers, head first into the compost bin. It was almost full, compounding the degree of impatient force required to crush them in.

‘You’ve left a petal trail.’ Peter had come into the kitchen behind her. Still bent over, head virtually inside the cupboard under the sink, she continued to fold and break the protruding stalks in order to get the lid closed. ‘That bin must be full, I noticed it earlier when I made a sandwich. I fancied some salad but the cucumber in the chiller drawer was turning liquid.’

Fran’s spine became rigid and she counted to ten before she straightened. Peter was smiling that smile again and holding out his hand, palm full of petals. He patently had no idea he had said or done anything wrong.

‘And I think I’ve just found it!’ Trying to control her voice, she asked, ‘You didn’t think of emptying the bin yourself?’

‘It wasn’t completely full.’ He’d apparently not noticed any edge to her voice. ‘I thought it could take a few more vegetable peelings, not a whole vase-full of dead chrysanths. Here, give it to me, I’ll do it.’ Peter took the weighty bin from her hands, adding the petals he’d picked up, and left the kitchen.

As she rinsed the slimy cucumber and plant matter from her hands, Fran watched him from the window. He crossed the large, leaf-strewn lawn, the Chihuahuas racing ahead of him. They disappeared behind the stand of beeches. The light was fading; beyond the far hedge a lazy curl of bonfire smoke was caught by a squall of wind and flagged out, spreading like gauze. Her annoyance had nowhere to go. Why did he have to be so bloody reasonable all the time? Several minutes passed before he came back inside.

‘Brr. There’s a cold wind. Inside, Jimbo! Nelson!’ The dogs pattered in and gave a few excited barks. Peter picked them up one by one and rubbed their paws with a towel, kept for that purpose near the door. ‘Anything from Melanie?’ Before Fran could come up with an answer, he continued, ‘You were on the computer, has she emailed?’

Fran gathered her wits. There
had
been an email from Mel that she’d opened when she’d first come in. Since then, her own concerns had completely absorbed her attention.

‘Oh … yes. She’s fine, seems to be having fun, but nothing new. She was just touching base.’

‘No news is good news, I suppose,’ Peter said, but he made no move to go into the study to read the email himself. ‘Magical, isn’t it? Her out in Thailand with nothing more than her Blackberry. And her messages arriving here moments later.’ He shook his head at the wonders of modern science. ‘And it doesn’t cost her a penny.’

‘That’s because
we
pay! Her bills come to us each month!’

‘We chose the wrong package, but I’m not talking about the phone and ISP charges, I’m talking about her Hotmail account. Do you remember when we first discovered she’d set it up? Before the days of Facebook. We’d been so careful not to allow her to have an internet connection for her computer up in her bedroom. And under our noses she was conducting these “secret squirrel” communications with her chums on our desktop in the study! How old was she when she did that?’

‘Not sure, but she was very young.’ Fran’s reply was automatic, her thoughts elsewhere. Why hadn’t she remembered that? And if her daughter, still at primary school, could set up a secret email account, then she was damn sure she could do it herself. Ironic that the solution to her problem had come out of the mouth of her husband. Suddenly, the muscles of her face had a life of their own.

‘And we knew nothing about it because nothing ever turned up for her in our email inbox! What are you smiling about?’