The Shades Page 9

  He ordered an orange juice and speculated on what that something might be.

  His first thought was that his parents were getting a divorce. That was most likely. They were polar opposites. He couldn’t remember any joy or physical affection between them; that only existed in photographs taken when they were young. Even those pictures were not trustworthy documents. As his research was teaching him, photographs were framed to create impressions; often designed to obfuscate and lie.

  By six thirty p.m. his mother still hadn’t arrived. He texted her to find out where she was as they were meant to meet at six.

  Waiting for a reply, he wondered if she had been in an accident. She wasn’t a great driver at the best of times—all jerky starts and stops, heavy on the brake pedal. He remembered being in the car with her. They were going through the village after leaving Grandpa’s funky commune, and she’d almost knocked over a man on a bicycle. The cyclist had seen them coming and swerved to avoid being hit. Rowan would never forget the shock on the man’s face as he registered what might have happened if it hadn’t been for his sharp reflexes. After she pulled back onto the road, leaving the cyclist to curse at her, arms waving—with his helmet, bum padding, and skinny Spandexed legs, he looked like an angry beetle—she’d apologized to Rowan with a sheepish smile, That won’t ever happen again, and he’d thought at the time, more likely it would.

  He acknowledged the possibility of an accident and let it go. Without confirmation, he wasn’t giving the idea any more space in his head.

  His phone vibrated her reply: Qill be there 7ish as arranged.

  What planet was she on? She was already thirty minutes late!

  He didn’t text back, as he wanted her to focus on the road ahead.

  While sipping his drink, he concluded that divorce was the most likely scenario. That wouldn’t be such a tragedy. He was sorrier for her that she had to drive all the way to tell him what he already knew.

  By the time his mother strode into the pub, looking as if nothing was the matter and as though she owned the place, Rowan had been alone at the Tudor Arms for over an hour. He’d watched the pumped-up group at the bar go somewhere else for more raucous fun, his companions in the alcove fossilize before his eyes, and he’d endured the sympathy of the waitress, “Been stood up, have you, luv?” she’d asked after his third orange juice, second bag of crisps. All the while he’d been wondering what he’d been missing at Stewart’s. They bickered about whether the rendezvous had been at six as he’d understood, or seven as she insisted; she was convinced that she was only ten minutes late because of traffic.

  “Agree to disagree?” He sounded like his father. This was what he said in family squabbles. She never was going to admit that she was wrong.

  “Agreed.” She was equally eager to make peace. “We mustn’t waste any more time arguing.”

  There followed a general inquisition about school, which he contrived to answer as generally as possible. He had to wait until the food was on the table before she would say what was on her mind. He’d ordered a veggie burger and she’d vaguely asked for “the same.”

  “I’m thinking of taking a lodger,” she finally told him. “Obviously, I wouldn’t make such a big decision without consulting you and finding out what you feel about this, or whether you have any concerns.”

  “A lodger . . . wow.” Rowan was stumped. Although he hadn’t been diligent about staying in touch, he’d maintained a comfortable perception that everything at home was the same as when he’d left. It was a definite adjustment to think that things were going on there without him knowing. “How will you go about finding someone?” He finally thought of something useful to say.

  His mother hesitated. “I already have. A young woman. Someone in need.”

  Rowan paused.

  Again, her answer required a mental shift. Her plan was further evolved than he would have supposed.

  “Right.”

  “She would need to have Rachel’s room. I want to make sure you are completely comfortable with this.”

  Now he understood why she was being so awkward.

  Rachel’s room; that colorful emporium, mysterious repository of stuff: makeup, jewelry, clothes bursting out of drawers and cupboards. He couldn’t imagine where it had all come from and how she’d managed to get so much of it.

  It was weird to think of someone occupying her room. Yet it didn’t exist anymore as he knew it, so he wasn’t sure why the idea of someone lodging there was disturbing.

  “Sounds like a good idea. Why should I mind?”

  “I don’t know . . . but I do think it’s important for you two to meet before we make a decision.”

  Rowan balked. The idea was creepy. “I don’t need to meet her.”

  “I wouldn’t let her move in without you meeting her first,” she insisted. “I would never do that to you,” she added, somewhat dramatically.

  He could feel her will, pressuring him to agree. He hated the way she did that. He wasn’t even going to be around, yet there she was, trying to impose a virtual stranger on him. “I told you it’s a great idea. I don’t need to meet her. The house has way too big a carbon footprint for a family of two. Why not make it three?”

  His mother’s face crumpled and she suddenly looked as if she were a hundred years old. He had wanted to rebuff her but not that much.

  “Look, if it makes you feel better I’ll meet her.”

  Her expression lifted. “Thank you,” she said with emotion. She was pathetically grateful. “You have always been such a brilliant, sensitive boy. I knew you’d understand.”

  Now that conversation was out of the way, she was more cheerful.

  She noticed the food in front of her. She pulled up the bun and looked at the patty curiously. Rowan thought it looked synthetic and greasy and he wished he wasn’t craving a cow burger. She squirted a thick layer of mustard all over the patty and began to eat with gusto. He was surprised that she could tolerate so much spicy food.

  “I’ll bring her to see you or you can come down to London,” she said, chewing. Her eyes were watering. Real tears or mustard ones? “I think you’re going to like her.”

  Don’t think so, Rowan doubted, but kept his thoughts to himself.

  The task of searching through piles of unsolicited photographs and transparencies that arrived at the gallery every week was unrewarding more often than not. Sifting through layers of derivative nonsense, reams of crudely executed crap, was something Catherine viewed with a degree of impetus and excitement but mostly duty and obligation—it wasn’t every day that she discovered a gem like Aggie. In spite of disappointments in Deptford, Catherine’s belief in the artist remained intact, especially as a call from a collector had confirmed her faith that Home would deliver many times over. During the period of her longest absence Lewis had asked to take over the “hopeful file,” as he sometimes called it, but Catherine refused to delegate, trusting only her own eyes to spot diamonds in the rough. Earlier she had looked at a pair of free standing screens, micro-mosaics of colored glass, cascading geometric shapes, gradations of yellow to red, submitted by a third-year student at St. Martin’s. The stained glass had a hypnotic quality that both compelled her and repelled. She had been sufficiently conflicted to reconsider her response, asking herself whether she could disentangle aesthetics from association, whether it was the churchy stained glass that was turning her off. To be diligent she put the image aside for further consideration, placing it on top of the file marked “Hold.”

  When Catherine started the gallery, taking out a forty-year lease on a former furniture store in South Kensington, she had divided the area into two. In the first part, she constructed the main exhibition space, with a steel-and-glass table and white leather chairs for Catherine or an employee to maintain a presence up front, subdividing the remaining space for everything else that she didn’t want seen—office, storage racks, kitchenette and bathroom—into four smaller rooms in the rear. Three times a week Elsa, her accoun
tant, came to do bookkeeping and secretarial work.

  Lewis sidled through the sliding doors with a letter for signing, outstaying his welcome by noticing the mosaics, making a discerning mmm sound while saying something about post-HIV rose windows. Whilst she’d made the same connection herself, she wasn’t in the mood to hand out Brownie points, and gave him a look to see him off. She was already out of sorts with him, as his lunch breaks had become ridiculously long, and peaked recently at an epic three hours. When she’d asked him to make sure he was back on time, he’d made an excuse about finessing a private collector, claiming that he’d been drumming up business for the gallery, but without any concrete result.

  He walked away with his head in the paperwork, taking small steps like a Geisha. For no good reason this annoyed her. She told herself to get a grip and stop being menopausal.

  She sat there awhile, waiting for the telephone to ring.

  She answered some general enquiries.

  Annoyingly, some personal calls for Lewis.

  She allowed her attention to wander outside. Through the wide picture window there was a view of the street. Spring had come late that year, released from the icy grip of a Siberian winter. The cherry tree had celebrated liberation with festoons of decadent blossoms and was already dropping them to make a drowsy pink bed of petals on the pavement outside. A young couple sauntered by, treading lightly without the burden of heavy clothes. They were careless. Carefree. She wondered how long it would be before they became careworn. Was anyone exempt from this progressive condition? She was surprised to see Michael walk briskly past and turn into the gallery. In profile, the features that he shared with their son were more telling: same willing jaw, playful retroussé nose, and high forehead—his becoming more so with the recession of his hairline. His unannounced arrival reminded her of when they first met. He would trot into the auction house, ostensibly a casual visitor with an interest in art, transparently a man with a crush. Amongst her younger colleagues, he was known as gentleman stalker. “Gentleman stalker in the house,” they would stage mutter as soon as he entered the building. At first she was obliged to talk to him. It was her job to liaise with visitors and answer queries—plus there was no way of distinguishing between a casual cruiser and a serious collector. She didn’t mind his inquisitions. He asked good questions and there was always a humorous undertow beneath each one. It wasn’t long before she began to think about him during the intervals between his visits; soon, she realized that she was looking forward to seeing him and was waiting for his return. With his enthusiasms and incorrigibly good spirits, she liked being around him. She liked the way he made her feel.

  He entered the gallery with a smile, holding up a bag with lunch from her favorite local restaurant. He’d been in the area showing a commercial space and had called ahead to find out that she was there—although that was hardly necessary. Unlike Lewis, she wasn’t in the swing of doing lunches every day. From her husband’s buoyant mood, she assumed the viewing must have gone well and that he had positive news to share. Only after she’d polished off with unusual appetite a Caprese with focaccia and an even more delicious insalata tonnato did she discover the true nature of his appearance. Moving the cardboard containers aside, Michael opened his briefcase and produced a photograph of his own, which he lay down before her on the table. It was one of Hamdean that he’d downloaded from the Internet, having searched thousands of sites to find.

  “I knew it,” he said, pointing in triumph to the center of the photograph. “There was a structure. See!”

  Catherine regarded the image.

  It was taken at twilight or “magic hour,” as the cinematographers liked to call the diffuse, flattering light. A man stood between two beautiful women; the females draped on each arm either side. As Michael was so pleased to discover, the louche group was arranged under the canopy of a raised open-sided gazebo.

  Michael tapped the man. “That’s Clive, the director.”

  The fellow was bland and balding. He was holding a Champagne glass up and forward not so much in a toast but as if he wanted it to be seen. His self-satisfied grin told Catherine that he was gratified by the presence of two attractive women, and was something of a braggart.

  Michael’s finger moved to the right, to a woman in a plunge maxi-dress.

  “Here’s your ballerina, Marine Deveaux.”

  Marine Deveaux was lovely. She had graceful shoulders and a long, swanny neck. She was unhealthily skinny, though. The lines of her ribs curved across her décolleté.

  His finger slid left, to Clive’s other side. “Stunning mystery woman,” he continued. “Don’t know who she is, but it looks as though she must have been a model.”

  That sounded about right. Whereas the dancer had a knowing beauty, gazing down her nose, face three-quarters, chin just-so, the woman on the left was less studied, with rambling corn hair and the pretty innocence of an angel.

  “And here”—Michael pointed to the bottom of the photograph—“is your friend.”

  In the foreground, on the edge of the platform and apart from the others, a young girl sat crossed-legged in shorts and a halter top. She was staring directly into the camera as if she were the only one who was honest enough to admit it was there.

  “It’s her,” she whispered, seeing Keira with the years stripped away.

  “Look at the topiary,” Michael said, pointing at the bottom right corner. Peeping out was a low box hedge, shaped into a square.

  Good for finding robins’ nests.

  “Much prefer it now without,” he continued.

  Catherine wasn’t listening. She was absorbed by the image and staring at the photograph transfixed.

  Naturally, the girl’s features were smaller, less pronounced than those of the young woman she’d met—her cheeks and nose had become more defined since, but her defiant eyes were unmistakably the same.

  “Funny she didn’t remember the summerhouse,” he added casually. “It wasn’t that long ago.”

  “Not especially,” she clipped. “Look how young she is—a mere child.”

  “At her age I could remember most of Keats and half of Wordsworth.” He shrugged apologetically for being a know-it-all.

  Catherine was exasperated at his lack of imagination. “You memorized Beowulf to impress your father. Children don’t care about property lines and posterity. Only adults care about these things.”

  “You may have a point,” Michael said, rising from the table. He cleared away the empty containers, tipping them into the carrier bag. “Memory is suspect,” he continued, “that is, all except my own.” He scrunched the foil wrapping, kneading it with both hands into a ball. He took aim at the bin six feet away. “Did I tell you?” he added. “I sold a garage today.”

  “Sorry?” Catherine was looking at the photograph again.

  “Buyer wants to knock it down to build a ‘lifestyle restaurant.’ That’s a gym and an organic cafe, the latest in yuppie gratification, where you can eat yourself silly and then go and work out. Or is it the other way around?”

  “So much for your flawless memory.”

  “Ah, yes . . .”

  When Michael didn’t move, she sensed that he was waiting for something: approbation, she assumed, as she hadn’t been listening. “Good for you, on the sale.”

  “I suppose it is.” Michael took his shot. “It’s better than a kick in the teeth.” He seemed cheered that his foil ball didn’t miss: it went straight into the bin.

  If Catherine was offhand with Michael when he visited the gallery and impatient about his investigations of the summerhouse, it was because she had more serious concerns: Keira had disappeared. She was far more worried about her safety and whereabouts than the location of an ex-gazebo from the past.

  Since Keira had left Hamdean, she had rarely been far from Catherine’s mind. The more she thought about her situation, the more she saw how precarious it was. With no vocational training, nor a plan of any substance, she could see that Keira w
as in danger of drifting, coasting without landing. This could only go on for so long before she became discouraged and depressed. Then, who knew what would happen when she was vulnerable? All this could change, subject to the meeting with Paige Wells. It was possible that with their confluent interests Keira and Paige might click. If Keira was lucky, she might find her way to an entry-level job at the magazine. On the day of the interview she had itched to call Keira to find out how it had gone, but had restrained herself knowing how the young hated being crowded. She’d wanted to give her the space to respond in her own time.

  She waited another twenty-four hours before calling Paige. She was aware that she was probably in the middle of a conference with Miuccia Prada, but what the heck, friendship was important too.

  Paige answered on the first ring and said in a low voice: “She didn’t show.”

  “You are joking.” Catherine was shocked. When imagining different scenarios, she had not conceived this.

  “Unfortunately not. She didn’t even call to cancel.”

  That Keira wouldn’t turn up to a meeting that had been set up exclusively for her benefit didn’t make any sense. “Are you certain? Could there have been a mistake?”

  “Not on my end. The arrangements were clear. Frankly, I was surprised since she was coming from you. Remind me who this person is?”

  “Keira Martin.”

  “Yes, you told me her name, but I meant, who is she? How do you know her?”

  “She’s the child of someone who used to live here.”

  There was a silence while Paige waited for her to provide details of a relationship or pedigree to offset such rank behavior. When Catherine wasn’t forthcoming, she unleashed: “Honestly, I am fed up with these flaky girls who think fashion is a soft option and come in here to bide their time. Don’t they know how hard it is to make art out of commerce? How many years we have slogged to get to do what we do? I had Stig’s daughter come to see me the other day. You remember Stig? You had dinner with him at my house. Number two and a half on all the magazines?”