In a Good Light (49 page)

I went into the studio and pulled the blinds to let in the milky afternoon light. It was a beautiful room, with windows on two sides, and a long bench with wide wooden drawers
where I stored all my paper and completed work. There was a draughtsman's adjustable drawing-board, which I used instead of an easel, and a chest with lift-out sections where I kept my pencils, paints, Rotring pens, brushes and inks, all in meticulous order, so I could put my hand on anything I needed without any scrabbling around. On the wall was a pinboard covered in source material for the book in progress: photos, magazine cuttings, sketches, postcards, samples of other illustrators' work that I only needed to glance at to feel inspired. Mervyn Peake, Kit Williams, Helen Oxenbury, Janet Ahlberg. Soon I would have to start packing up and moving out.

Perversely, thoughts of my imminent eviction fired me up to get to work on a fresh painting. I only had three left to do to complete my current job,
Jack's Journey
, a treasure-hunt book about a lost glove. I had already planned what needed to go in each picture: it was just a question of committing myself to its execution. Starting is always the hardest bit. Sometimes I could sit poised over a piece of virgin cartridge paper for a whole day and never make a mark, but today I could feel that rare and exciting urgency to begin.

I'd just assembled my materials, and located my original sketches and the section of text I was supposed to be illustrating, when the doorbell rang. I left it for Christian, frowning with the effort of maintaining concentration. It rang again, and I remembered that Christian and Elaine had gone to the garden centre to help Dad choose a tree to replace the sumac that had come down in the most recent hurricane. I slammed down my pencil. If it was someone flogging replacement windows or trying to get me to change my energy-supplier they were going to get a gobful. I snatched the door open, primed for a row.

It was Donovan. He was holding a bunch of tulips in one hand and a rope-handled carrier bag in the other.

‘Hello,' he said. ‘Am I disturbing you?' He looked faintly amused, and I realised to my horror that I was wearing his jumper, and that I had less than half a second to decide between providing some sort of plausible explanation, and carrying on blithely as if nothing was amiss. As there was no explanation that didn't make me sound demented, I opted for the latter.

‘No, I was just working,' I said, standing back. ‘Come in.'

He stepped into the hallway and looked self-consciously at his boots, which were caked with cement dust. He bent down to unlace them.

‘Don't take them off,' I said hastily. For some reason I couldn't bear to see him in his socks. ‘There's no carpet.'

He straightened up and handed me the carrier bag, which bore the name of a boutique in South Molton Street that I would never have presumed to enter. Inside was a brown suede skirt and white shirt, approximating to the ones that had been ruined, but five times the price. ‘I had to get some advice from Penny on sizes,' he said, while I gaped in surprise and gratitude. ‘But I've left the receipt in there so you can take them back.'

‘This is very kind,' I said. ‘I thought we'd established it was all my fault.'

He shook his head. ‘And these are to say sorry for my outrageous comments on the way home,' he added, passing me the tulips. They were dark aubergine in colour: black in a certain light.

‘What comments?' I asked. I knew very well, but I thought I might eke out the apology a little. It was such a pleasant sensation.

He looked uncomfortable. ‘The stuff I said about your . . . private life. What an arsehole. I don't know what I was thinking. You should have told me to sod off and mind my own business.'

‘Didn't I say something like that?'

‘No, you were far too polite. Anyway, I've been cringing about it ever since. I told Penny about the conversation on the way home and she was horrified. She said I was completely out of order and I'd better come round and grovel.'

‘Do you do everything Penny tells you?' I asked with a smile.

He considered this for a moment. ‘Only in matters of female psychology where I'm out of my depth.'

‘The funny thing is,' I said, ‘the moment you'd left, I thought of all the things I could have said.'

‘Such as?'

‘Well, for instance, there was a time when you didn't think a married woman was out of bounds yourself.'

Donovan looked suitably embarrassed. ‘Like I said: what an arsehole.'

‘But you were completely right, of course. It's no way to carry on. And in fact I'm not.'

‘Not what?'

‘Carrying on. I ended the relationship yesterday.'

‘You didn't!'

‘I did.'

Donovan was appalled. ‘Jesus!' he said. ‘Not on the strength of my interference, I hope.'

‘Not entirely. It would have ended anyway. It was talking to Penny and you that woke me up though. I must have been sleepwalking before.'

‘God, I feel even worse now,' said Donovan. I could see he was rattled.

‘Are you coming in?' I asked. We hadn't advanced further than the hallway.

‘I can't stop. I've been laying a base for a shed.' He held up his cement-grey hands for my inspection. ‘And I've got to get the mixer back to the hire shop by five. I just thought I'd better drop the clothes off, in case you had nothing to wear.' He looked pointedly at my top half. ‘But I see you managed to find something.'

‘Oh, ha ha,' I mumbled. ‘I'm sorry about that. It just came to hand.' I couldn't even whip it off, as I wasn't wearing anything underneath, a fact I was glad to have remembered in time.

‘Keep it,' he said expansively. ‘It looks better on you.' As he turned to go I felt the same twist of disappointment as before. It seemed imperative that he shouldn't just vanish.

‘I'm afraid you've missed Christian again,' I said, for something to say.

‘Ah well,' he replied. ‘It was you I came to see.'

‘He'll be sorry not to have been here,' I said, taking desperate liberties with the truth. ‘If you're ever passing this way again, perhaps you'll drop in?'

‘As a matter of fact, I've got to go and price a job in Godstone next Saturday. I could call in when I'm done, if you like.'

‘Good. Do that. I'll try to make sure he's around,' I said, and I was able to wave him off with a sense of relief that I had managed to spare myself the frustration of an indefinite farewell. As soon as he'd gone I put the tulips in a vase on the window sill. Black: strange colour for a peace-offering. Then I tried on the blouse and skirt: they fitted
rather better than the ones I'd bought myself. That's money for you. When I looked in the mirror I noticed my face was strangely flushed.

The glowing ember of creativity that had been interrupted by the doorbell was now a roaring fire, so I went back to my drawing board and worked with feverish concentration for what must have been hours. When the sound of the key in the lock brought me round I realised dusk had fallen and I was sitting in darkness, the only source of light that old wax lantern, the moon, and the reflected whiteness of my paper.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING,
Monday, I woke up feeling terrific – full of energy and optimism, and brimming with goodwill for the world. Even the prospect of going to investigate the flat above the dry cleaner's couldn't depress my spirits.

‘Hiya,' I called to Elaine, who was out front, planting the acer that she and Christian had picked up at the garden centre the day before. ‘It's a beautiful morning.'

She looked at me warily. ‘You're very cheerful,' she said, teasing out the potbound rootball. ‘Where are you off to?'

‘I'm going to check out a flat on the hill. Or rather a room,' I said, bracing myself to withstand a storm of advice.

Elaine dropped the tree into the hole she'd dug and shovelled the displaced earth back in with her strong, smooth hands. On her third finger the ruby glowed as if lit from within. She sat back on her heels and squinted up at me, sweeping her long, woolly mane off her face, leaving crumbs
of compost clinging to the hairs. ‘There's no rush for you to move out,' she said.

‘No, I know,' I replied. ‘But I may as well start looking. See what's out there.'

‘If you don't find anything suitable, there's always my house in Oxted. It's a three-bedroom semi. You could live there. It's not too far from here, and it's never going to be any use to us because of the stairs.'

‘But you could sell it. It must be worth a fair bit.'

‘I don't want to sell it. I'd rather keep it as an investment.'

‘Then you could rent it out for way more money than I could afford.'

She considered this. ‘You could give us whatever you'd be paying for a single room somewhere, but have the whole house.'

‘That's very generous of you, Elaine,' I said, taken aback by the spontaneity of the offer. ‘What's in it for you?'

‘I'd be getting a reliable tenant. Anyway, there doesn't need to be anything
in it
for me. We're going to be family, after all.'

‘It seems a bit of a weird arrangement.'

‘The arrangement it's replacing's not exactly what you'd call normal,' she replied with a smile.

‘I suppose not.' Something held me back from committing myself. Perhaps it was the life-swap element that disturbed me. Or perhaps I simply distrusted any solution that seemed too neat.

‘Well – go and look at your flat on the hill,' she said. ‘But the offer's there to fall back on.'

‘Was it Christian's idea?' I asked, suddenly wondering if he'd put her up to it.

‘No, Esther,' she said, patting me on the arm. ‘I managed to think of it all by myself.'

As I'd feared, the flat was grim. I was expecting it to be cold – once you've become acclimatised to the fug generated by our hypocaust, most places are – but this place was cheerless in the extreme. The available room was approximately eleven feet square, unfurnished, and without a single attractive feature. An oblong picture window, aluminium-framed and dressed in nets of such forbidding opacity that they could have served in the blackouts, gave directly onto the street. Over all four walls Artex had been whipped to soft peaks, and on the floor there was a bran-coloured carpet, once fitted, but now stretched into ridges and furrows by repeated cleaning. There was a faint smell of bleach. I couldn't see how I would ever fit the contents of my bedroom and studio in the available space or, once there, that I would ever feel inspired to work. The state of the shared bathroom and kitchen – soulless, functional and not entirely clean – did nothing to convert me, and I could hardly concentrate on the landlady's spiel about the individual electric meters in the hall cupboard, and not drying clothes on the convector heater, so eager was I to escape.

‘It's very nice,' I said when she was done. ‘But I've got a few other places to see.'

‘Well, I've got a few other people coming in to look,' she retorted, and we smiled at one another across this impasse.

When I got home there was a message on the answerphone from Rowena, asking if I had any intention of dragging my arse back to work in the foreseeable future. I thought that was a bit much, given that I'm hardly ever ill and have never taken my full holiday allocation in all the time I've
worked there. I was inclined to let her stew, but instead I rang back and left a message saying I would be off for another week. I wasn't sure why I was so recklessly courting unemployment. It must have been the fever of change coming over me. I'd lost my lover, and was about to lose my home: why stop there?

The giving of presents must be one of life's finest pleasures. The bestower feels purified; the recipient feels cherished. Both sides are enriched. It was with these elevated thoughts in my head that I went shopping the next day to find something that would repay Donovan's generosity – or rather symbolise repayment, since I couldn't hope to match him pound for pound.

While I was browsing in House of Fraser, flitting promiscuously from Homewear to Small Electrical, to Cosmetics, I came across a cast-iron skillet for making crepes and some highball glasses for Christian, and a long, fringed velvet scarf in peacock blue for Elaine. I also bought a Diana Krall CD for Penny, and a sequinned snake-belt for Cassie.

In the Menswear department I noticed the identical twin of Donovan's zip-neck sweater, which I had now appropriated as a painting overall. As a reciprocal gesture it could hardly be bettered, so I paid for it and started to make my way out of the shop.

It was only as I was passing through Sportswear and my eye fell on a pair of Nike swimming trunks similar to Dad's that I remembered with a sickening jolt that it was Tuesday, and I was supposed to be at the Holiday Inn pool. In fact – I looked at my watch – it was now past lunchtime and the Evergreen session would be long over. I ran all the way back to the car, the cast-iron skillet clubbing the side of my leg
reproachfully, and drove with furious disregard for public safety to the Old Schoolhouse (now
Beltrees
). Dad opened the door, his hair still damp and vertical from his lonely swim.

‘Oh, there you are,' he said with relief. ‘I thought something had happened. I've left a few messages on your phone.'

‘Sorry!' I bleated. ‘I completely forgot. I just lost track of the days.'

Dad looked at me narrowly. ‘Never mind. As long as you're all right.'

‘I went shopping,' I went on in the same apologetic tone, and then with a flash of inspiration: ‘I bought you a present.' I handed over the Diana Krall CD. Penny would have to go without.

He looked surprised and touched. ‘How kind,' he said, turning it over and studying the cover notes. ‘I keep telling myself I must go out and buy one of those CD players . . .' I struck my forehead with the heel of my hand, but he carried on. ‘You're just in time for lunch. I was going to have a boiled egg, but since you're here we might as well have something nice.'