Artistic Licence (15 page)

‘Good morning, everyone, Rory.’ Molly averted her eyes from Rory’s luscious torso; it was probably too much before breakfast.

‘Hello, Molly.’ Thea negotiated her way through the people and the furniture to her friend. She felt a sudden rush of warmth towards her, for looking so good and for not complaining about anything. ‘Good night?’

‘Yes, darling. Of course, I always bring my own pillow with me. Now, who’s going to show me these pups which caused so much commotion. Toby?’

Toby seemed to retreat, although he didn’t move. ‘They’re over there.’ He pointed to where Lara and the pups lay in front of the fire.

Thea wondered if he saw too much of his cousin. ‘They may not want to be disturbed just now. What do you think, Rory?’ Belatedly, Thea realised she and Ben had become rather proprietorial about Lara and her pups, when actually they were Rory’s.

‘Sure, I wouldn’t know. But I do know that if I don’t get a cup of coffee soon I won’t be fit to live with.’

‘I’ll make it,’ said Petal.

Susan, who had been in the kitchen watching the proceedings like a spear carrier in a play, decided to exit, left. ‘I’ll clean the bathroom then, if you folks have finished with it,’ she said, having given Molly a look which told Thea that indeed, Molly had been in it for a long time.

‘I’ll cook breakfast,’ Thea stated. ‘Who wants eggs and bacon?’

‘I do,’ said Rory, ‘and sausage and tomatoes and fried bread.’ He gave Thea a grin which made her
wonder why she didn’t want to leap into bed with him. He was so delicious and cheerful. Ben seemed to have trouble finding his smile muscles.

At least in the kitchen
, she thought, debating whether to cut off the bacon rind or not,
I’m doing something useful and not taking up space
. There was a jostle for space at the moment, with Lara taking up so much of it. Petal was fiddling with something on the windowsill, glancing sideways at Rory, who was still only half dressed and was reading his post while scratching his belly. Molly was straightening things which weren’t designed to be straight, longing to create order where no order was possible.

Ben and Toby had gone for a walk, promising they would be back very soon.

At last everyone was settled round the table, drinking orange juice and eating yoghurt, cereal or a heart-attack-inducing fry-up, according to taste. Thea was just relaxing into a bit of toast and Irish marmalade, when Toby said, ‘Thea, why were you asleep in the bath last night?’ He didn’t speak particularly loudly – he wasn’t a loud child – but somehow at that moment everyone stopped crunching and scraping and swallowing, and instead looked at Thea.

‘You slept in the
bath
?’ Molly found her voice first. ‘Why?’

‘Jaysus, and there was half a perfectly good bed gone to waste,’ said Rory. ‘Was I too drunk to sleep with?’

‘If you’d said anything I’d have slept on the sofa,’ Ben sounded cross.

‘I can’t believe you slept in the bath,’ said Petal.

‘The answer to your question, Toby,’ Thea told him, ‘is that there wasn’t anywhere else to sleep.’ Then she felt colour creep up her neck and into her face.
I’m too old to blush
, she thought, trying to look insouciant,
and too young for hot flushes. Why is this happening
? Carefully, she loaded her last scrap of toast with marmalade and carried it to her mouth. She was aware of Ben regarding her, but without turning to look at him she couldn’t tell what sort of look it was.
Dear Toby
, she thought.
It might actually have been easier for me if you’d just wet the bed.

‘Well, now, Petal, you can give me a hand with the dishes,’ she said, and then realised people were still eating, ‘when everyone’s finished.’

‘I’d like to see your pictures, if I may,’ said Ben to Rory.

‘Of course. I’d be glad to show them to you. Until Thea came I never showed anyone, but since she liked them enough to tell you about them I feel a bit differently.’

‘After breakfast, then.’

Damn
! thought Thea.
I’m going to be stuck in the kitchen with Petal when I want to be there when Ben sees Rory’s work!
‘I’m going to make more coffee,’ she said getting up. ‘Who wants some?’

There were enough requests for coffee and tea to justify Thea evacuating to the kitchen, taking as many dirty plates as possible with her.
If they dawdle over their coffee and Rory has a cigarette, I’ll have this lot done and can go to the studio with them
, she thought.
Petal can dry up.
‘Molly, what are you going to do while Ben sees Rory’s pictures?’ she called, swooping and dunking her way through the washing up.

‘Oh, Molly,’ said Rory, reaching his hand across the table. ‘Are you not going to look at my work, then?’

‘To be honest, Rory, if pictures aren’t of anything I can recognise, I really don’t understand them. I think I’ll do some telephoning and find a hotel as there’s not room for us here. We’ve got the decorators in at home and Derek prefers me to keep out of the way.’ Molly smiled back at Rory in a way which told Thea that last night, when they were downing pints of porter, or chasers of Paddy, or Jameson’s Irish Whiskey, Molly and Rory had become friends.

‘Can I come?’ asked Petal, shyly eager.

‘Sure, come one, come all,’ said Rory gaily.

‘We can dry up later,’ said Thea.

Led by Rory, Ben, Toby, Petal and Thea trooped up the hill to Rory’s studio. He unlocked the shed, and he and Ben began dragging canvases out into the field. Thea didn’t comment, but she felt their power again. They were breathtaking, the colours so deep, made of pigments so pure that they could change from almost black to the most intense hue, depending on the light. They were so enormous that no ordinary house could fit one through the door, either. Rory had told her that one of the reasons he lived such a hand-to-mouth existence was the cost of the paint.

When they were all outside, leaning against bits of hill like huge, resting walkers admiring the view, Thea went back down the hill to look at them from a distance. She didn’t want to hear Ben’s opinion, or Petal’s, or Rory’s explanations. She just wanted to look at them while she could.

Later, Petal skidded down the hill to join her. ‘Ben’s very keen, but he says it’s going to be hard to find
somewhere to exhibit for a couple of years. It’s because they’re so big. Rory says he’s already waited long enough, so he’ll take them off to America where they understand “large”.’

Thea felt instantly proprietorial. They were British pictures or, at least, Irish. They couldn’t go to America to be exhibited.

‘Rory says he’s got lots of drawings and a few water-colours too. Sketches, mainly. Ben thinks he should get those framed, because at least they’re not ten foot square and they might sell.’

‘I always like drawings myself,’ said Thea, who really yearned for one of the paintings, a wall of coloured light, only she didn’t have a wall big enough. ‘What do you think of them, Petal?’

‘Amazing! They sort of blast you with colour and light, don’t they?’ Petal rubbed her arms, chilly in her sleeveless fleece. ‘I’m cold. I think I’ll go back to the house.’

‘You could do the drying up while you’re there.’ Thea, in Rory’s coat, wanted to go on gazing at the pictures.

Petal made a face.

‘Go on,’ Thea urged. ‘It won’t take you a minute, and it’ll –’

‘It won’t look good on my CV, Thea, if that’s what you were going to say.’

Thea was in the habit of encouraging her lodgers to get jobs, even if their parents gave them huge allowances, because ‘it would look good on their CVs’.

‘I was going to say it’ll earn you Brownie points with Molly and Ben.’

‘Ben’s all right, actually, isn’t he? I’ve never really
got to know him before. I was so embarrassed when Mum said he’d offered to collect my work.’

‘So you’ve dropped the “uncle” bit?’

‘Yeah. He said he wasn’t my uncle and he’d prefer to be just Ben. Molly was a bit shocked.’

‘But you’re not calling Molly, Molly?’

Petal shook her head. ‘Nah. She’d freak.’ Petal sighed. ‘I’ll go and dry up, then.’

‘Thank you, Petal. You’re a good girl.’

Warmed by the beauty of the paintings, more than the weak sunshine, Thea suddenly felt very fond of Petal.

Thea had stopped gazing at the work and was lying back on the scrub with her eyes shut. The sun had emerged from its cloudy veil and was now quite hot on her face. She was nearly asleep when Ben joined her. She sat up and tried to look intelligent.

‘Well, they are good, that’s for sure.’

‘And you agree with me that they should be exhibited?’

‘Yes, but where? I do have contacts in some London galleries, but they’re all booked up for years ahead. He says he won’t wait, but will ship them off to America. The gallery owner he first showed with has a gallery in New York and might well be keen to show him again, particularly now he’s matured a bit.’

‘But how will he afford to do that? He was telling me that even the cost of paint is crippling. He’d have to paint horses and dogs for years to afford to get them to America.’

‘Not if he sent slides to the right people. Someone would pay for them to go.’

Thea’s happiness threatened to vanish. She’d wanted Ben to like Rory’s work, she’d wanted the paintings to be as good as she felt they were, but she did not want them to disappear to America. ‘They’re my slides. Or they will be, when I get them back. I won’t let him have them.’

Ben sighed. ‘He can always take more slides, for God’s sake.’

‘But don’t you want Britain to have them? Or Ireland?’

‘Rory’s not really Irish, he told me. He’s just taken on an Irish personality because he lives here. He was born in Liverpool.’

‘Oh. Well, what has that got to do with anything?’

‘Nothing, really. It just means he’d be happy to exhibit in England, which makes it easier as I have contacts there.’

‘But those contacts can’t get us a show quickly enough?’

Ben shrugged. ‘I can ask around, but it’s unlikely. There’s been a huge surge of interest in art since Tate Modern opened and they’re booked up further ahead than ever.’

‘Can’t you find a new gallery? One that hasn’t got booked up yet?’

Ben looked at her. ‘No. I have a job, and a child and a nanny to support.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’ Thea realised that her enthusiasm was making her unreasonable. She sighed and closed her eyes. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll have to open a gallery myself.’

Ben chuckled, assuming she was joking. ‘Even you wouldn’t be mad enough to do that.’

‘No, I’m serious. I want to open an art gallery, to show Rory’s work.’ It suddenly seemed so obvious that she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before.

‘You really are mad! I thought it was just a persona you adopted. Do you know the sort of rents they charge for property in London?’

‘Very well, as it happens, seeing as I only moved away a couple of years ago. But who says the gallery has to be in London? If there’s no room for Mohammed in London, the mountain will have to move out of town or something.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’ll open a gallery in Cheltenham, or somewhere like that. We’ll make the Artylartary, or whatever they’re called, come to the provinces!’

Chapter Nine

Ben looked at her as if she were unhinged, but this didn’t faze her – she was getting used to it. ‘I’ll find premises near where I live and open an art gallery to show Rory’s work. And if I like it and can make a go of it, I’ll keep it open and show other people’s work.’

The more she thought about it, the more she realised that this was just the sort of project she needed. For the past two years she’d simply been existing; this was something she could really throw herself into.

‘You do realise,’ he said eventually, having waited for Thea to start eating the grass and tearing her clothes, ‘that it’s unlikely you’ll ever make any money?’

‘Money is not the only thing in life.’ She regarded him reproachfully. He should know that.

‘That’s all very well to say if you’ve got some. Without it life can be pretty desperate. Having a gallery is a fine idea, but you wouldn’t be able to afford to give up the day job for years.’

Thea wanted to put her hand on his, where it was crumpled into a fist on top of the short, glossy turf, but she sensed he wouldn’t appreciate the gesture. ‘I know, but I’ll have my lodgers, who keep the house
going. My day job earns me very little. I’d do better to run the gallery during the day and work in a bar at night.’

He frowned. ‘When would you sleep?’

Thea shrugged. ‘In the afternoons, when I’m sitting in my gallery and nobody comes?’

He smiled at last. ‘So you have at least been in a small art gallery, then?’

‘Yes. And I promise you, before I make any commitment I will visit a lot more, talk to people, find out what’s involved.’

His smile extended a little further and she saw he had small indentations in his cheeks, what would be dimples in a woman or a child, or even a different sort of man. ‘And all for the love of Rory?’

‘It’s his work I’m interested in. I just want it to stay in this country … continent. If he sends it to the States it’ll be lost to Britain for ever. Another artistic brain down the drain. And in a silly way I feel I
discovered
him. Perhaps I want a little of his potential glory.’