The Very Picture of You (22 page)

‘Yes?’

‘I’m feeling rather… anxious and upset, actually.’

‘Why?’

‘I… think you
know
…’

‘Know what?’ I said innocently.
That I’ve fallen in love with your fiancé? Yes. I have. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.
I braced myself for Chloë’s censure.

‘Well…’ She pursed her mouth. ‘That… getting married is…
scary
.’

‘Oh.’ Relief flooded through me. ‘It
is
… I mean, it must be – but…’ I fought down my emotions. ‘At least you’ve made a good choice. Nate’s… very… nice.’

Chloë closed her eyes then opened them again. ‘I’m
so
glad you said that – he
is.
And he’s decent and hardworking – he’s intelligent,
and
kind. And he’s steady,’ she added earnestly. ‘That’s important, isn’t it? He’s also very generous – and loyal. And he’s attractive – did I say that?’ I shook my head. ‘Well, he
is
attractive, very, and I know I’m just so…
lucky
.’ Chloë’s mouth quivered, then a tear splashed on to her cheek. ‘Sorry, Ella… I’m a bit… overwrought.’

I fumbled in my pocket and found some tissues. ‘That’s
very understandable…’ I pulled a few out and Chloë pressed them to her eyes. ‘It’s the emotion of it all.’

She nodded, then regained her composure. ‘
So
…’ She looked at me, her eyes red-rimmed. ‘How will you get home? Do you want me to call you a cab? I can wait with you until it arrives,’ she added, brightening suddenly. ‘We could sit here and chat.’

‘It’s okay, Chloë, I’m going to walk – I need the air. And you ought to get back to your guests.’

‘You’re right,’ she sighed. ‘So…’ She flashed me a regretful smile. ‘I’ll see you soon, Ella.’

‘Yes – and… don’t worry, sweetie.’ I kissed her on the cheek.

As I went down the steps, Chloë’s words rang in my ears. She loved Nate so much that just the thought of it made her cry. She would soon marry him, and I would just have to be happy for her and try to view him in a different way.

When I got home I went up to the studio. Then I got out Nate’s canvas, put it on the easel, picked up my palette and began to work on it. As I did so I tried to understand why I was so drawn to him. Was it because I’d hated him to start with and found the realisation that I liked him exhilarating somehow? Was I competing with Chloë? If so I’d never competed with her before; I’d only felt protective towards her – I was six years older than her after all: nor had I felt even a flicker of interest in any of her previous boyfriends. I was drawn to Nate, I realised, for the simple reason that I found him so attractive and decent and so easy to be
with
. We had an almost effortless rapport.

I worked on his portrait for the best part of two hours;
then, satisfied with what I’d done, I cleaned the brushes and went to my computer to check my e-mails before going to bed.

There was a new enquiry from a Mr and Mrs Berger about painting them to mark their silver wedding anniversary. That was good news. There was also a message from Sophia, to say that her mother was over her cold, asking if we could arrange the next sitting. I was glad. It would be good to see Iris again. I typed my reply and as I pressed ‘send’ another message arrived. It was from my father.

Dear Ella,

I’ve still had no word from you, but I continue to hope that you’ll find it in your heart to see me, even if it’s only for a few minutes. So this is to let you know where I’ll be staying – at the Kensington Close Hotel, in Wright’s Lane. I’ll be in touch again nearer the time, but for now I send you my sincerest wishes, and my love.

Your father,
John

I stared at his message.
Hope… heart… love.
It was far too late for him to be using words like that.

I scrolled down to ‘options’.
Delete message?
I highlighted
Yes.

Then, without knowing why, I changed my mind and pressed
No.

SEVEN

‘Wasn’t the party fun?’ Mum said the following Saturday morning. We were sitting at the kitchen table in Richmond, having a cup of coffee before starting the invitations. She was in her dancewear, having already done the hour of Pilates with which she starts each day. ‘I think I drank a little more than was wise,’ she added. ‘I didn’t say anything
silly
, did I?’

‘No – you just had a bit of trouble with the word confetti.’

‘Oh yes.’ Mum rolled her eyes. ‘But it was a lovely evening – I liked Nate’s friends.’ She moved the well-thumbed copies of
Brides
magazine,
You & Your Wedding
and
Perfect Wedding
to the end of the table. ‘You know he’s in Finland at the moment?’

‘I do – otherwise I’d be painting him right now.’ I wished I
were
, I reflected ruefully. I longed to see him again.

Through the French windows I could see Roy, at the very end of the garden, by Chloë’s old wooden Wendy
house, toiling away in the long flowerbed that skirted the lawn.

‘I hope Nate won’t have to do too much travelling,’ I heard Mum say.

I looked at the horse chestnut waving its white candles. ‘I think it goes with the job.’ I sipped my coffee. ‘What he does is to look at companies with a view to buying them – so at the moment he’s putting together a leveraged bid for a liquid chemicals transport business in Helsinki. Its primary operations are in Scandinavia, but they’re expanding into Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. He’s also looking at a shipping company in Sweden.’

Mum’s brow furrowed. ‘You seem to know a lot about it, darling.’

‘Well… Nate talks about his work during the sittings.’

She opened her glasses case. ‘It’s sweet the way you pay so much attention to the people you paint – it must really put them at their ease.’ She took out the spectacles, looping the mauve cord over her head. ‘And have you had a busy week?’

‘No – the election threw everything into disarray. I couldn’t paint my MP, Mike Johns, for obvious reasons. Another sitter, Celine, had to go to France to see a friend – she said it was very important – so she cancelled our sitting. Other than that, I’ve been working on the posthumous portrait I’m doing. Did I tell you about it?’

‘You did.’ My mother shook her head. ‘That poor girl. And how’s her picture going?’

‘Not well.’ I heaved a frustrated sigh. ‘It’s just… flat. What I need is some close-up video footage of her, but there isn’t any.’ I refilled my coffee cup. ‘Then I had
another sitting with a lovely woman called Iris who’s in her eighties.’ I’d hoped that Iris would continue the story about Guy Lennox, but an electrician had been there, doing some re-wiring, so we’d only made small talk. I looked at the garden again. ‘What’s Roy doing?’

‘He’s planting lots of delphiniums, foxgloves and holly-hocks – they should flower just in time for July third. Then he’s going to do some weeding – with last week’s rain the beds are like Papua New Guinea.’

‘I’ll help him with that,’ I volunteered. ‘It’s too much for him on his own. Or maybe Chloë could give him a hand – she’s coming over today, isn’t she?’

‘No – she phoned first thing to say that she can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘She said she needs to go into the office.’

‘I see. But however busy she is, she should help you and Roy – I mean, this is all for
her,
’ I added crossly.

‘
I’ll
help Roy later,’ Mum said soothingly. She lifted her glasses on to her nose. ‘But you and I
must
get on with the invitations.’

‘Okay.’ I put my cup in the sink. ‘We’ll start.’

I went over to the large green box standing on the end of the kitchen table, lifted the lid and pulled out the first invitation. The card was so thick that it could almost stand up unaided.

‘Isn’t the font lovely?’ Mum said.

I looked at the flowing curlicues and extravagant swashes. ‘It’s… a bit fancy for my tastes.’

‘Well,
I
love it. It took me ages to choose it.’

‘Didn’t Chloë want to choose it?’

‘No. She’s left
all
the arrangements to me – except for the dress, which I’ve now seen, and I must say it’s
gorgeous.’ Mum took her glasses off. ‘Chloë told me that she’d been a bit unsure about it, given its history, but I said that there was no way Nate would try and get out of
their
wedding.’

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t.’ I felt a stab of guilt for then wishing that he
would
.

Mum put some printed sheets in front of me. ‘Here’s
your
copy of the guest list. I want you to do A to M while I do N to Z. The addresses are all in
here
…’ She thumped her Filofax on to the table.

I opened my backpack, got out my calligraphic pen and practised on a piece of scrap paper.
Nate, Nate, Nate, Nate.
I saw Mum peering at it, so then I wrote
Chloë, Chloë, Chloë, Chloë
then
Nate & Chloë.
‘It’s fine,’ I said.

‘Good.’ Mum unscrewed the top of her fountain pen then took an invitation out of the box, put her glasses on again, then began to write. I could hear the nib scratch across the card.

I inscribed an invitation to Mum’s friend Janet Allen and her husband Keith; then I looked up their address, wrote it on the envelope and carefully blotted it. ‘There’s the first one done.’ I slid it into the envelope.

Mum peered at it over her spectacles. ‘
Very
nice: don’t seal them, will you – we’ll be adding the accommodation list and RSVP cards afterwards. Right…’ She turned back to her card. ‘Here’s
my
first one.’ She inserted the invitation into the envelope then put it next to mine. I picked it up.

When I’d done my calligraphy course we’d studied graphology. I’d been sceptical at first, but studying my mother’s writing had convinced me that there must be
something to it, as all her personality traits seemed to be there. Her hand was forward sloping, indicating ambition and drive; the words were evenly spaced and of a uniform height, denoting organisational ability and self-control; the ‘i’s were beautifully dotted, indicating a meticulous character. Now I noticed that the tops of her letters were perfectly closed. This, I now recalled, pointed to a secretive nature.

‘What are you doing?’ Mum asked.

I put the envelope down. ‘Just admiring your writing.’

‘Thanks – it’s not as elegant as yours, of course, but it’ll do. Now, shall we listen to the radio while we work?’

‘Yes – in
fact…
’ I looked at the clock. ‘I’m
on
the radio – in five minutes time. I’d completely forgotten.’ I told Mum about the BBC documentary that I’d been interviewed for.

She went to the dresser and switched on the kitchen radio and we heard the tail end of
Travelling Light.

‘Now
Artists of the Portrait
,’ said the announcer, ‘in which our reporter, Clare Bridges, examines the fine art of painting people…’

We heard Clare talking about why it is that human beings have always sought to portray themselves, from the earliest scratchings at Lascaux to Marc Quinn’s iconic bust,
Self
, carved out of eight pints of his own frozen blood. There were contributions from Jonathan Yeo and June Mendoza, and a rare clip of Lucian Freud. Then I heard my voice.

I knew I wanted to be a painter from eight or nine.

Mum smiled as Clare back-announced me.

I simply drew and painted all the time. Painting’s always been, in a way, my solace…

Mum glanced at me, and I saw a flicker of something like guilt pass across her features.

I like painting people who I feel are complex: I like seeing that fight going on in the face between the conflicting parts of someone’s personality.

I realised that I often saw that fight going on in my mother’s face – the glacial serenity beneath which I caught glimpses of the struggle with her deeper emotions.

Now Clare was talking about the complex nature of the relationship between sitter and artist. Then I heard myself speak again.

A portrait sitting is a very special space. It has an intimacy – painting another human being
is
an act of intimacy …I’ve never fallen for a human sitter, no…

Then there was some discussion of the influence of the BP award, and of how portraiture, once seen as safe and conventional, has become almost cool and cutting edge. Then the programme came to an end, and I turned the radio off.

‘That was fascinating,’ Mum said. ‘You spoke well, Ella. But have you really never fallen in love with one of your sitters?’

‘Never,’ I lied.

‘Well, I hope you do one day, because it must be a wonderful way to meet someone – think of how well you get to
know
them – and they must get to know you very well, too.’

‘Yes – depending on who it is, and on how much I want to reveal about myself…’ I was walking on quicksand. ‘Now…’ I peered at the invitation list. ‘Why are you inviting the Egertons?’

‘Well, because they’re near neighbours, and because they asked us to Lara’s wedding last year. In fact, they’re about to become grandparents.’

‘Really? How old is Lara?’

‘She must be…’ Mum narrowed her eyes. ‘Twenty-four.’

‘She’s having her family young then.’

‘Twenty-four is young,’ Mum agreed. ‘Especially these days: I think it’s better to wait.’

‘But…’ I pressed the blotting paper down. ‘You had me when you were twenty-four.’

Mum’s pen paused in mid-stroke. ‘That’s true.’

‘And you were very ambitious – it could have ruined your career. I’ve always been surprised that you had me when you did – in fact, I’ve sometimes wondered whether you really, well,
intended
to have me.’

Mum had flushed. ‘Do you mean – were you an accident? Is that what you’re asking me, Ella?’