I wondered if she meant on Billy, or into her old room. I didn’t ask. Instead, I said the words I never thought I’d say. ‘Would you like to share with me?’
Her face opened into a smile. ‘That’d be good. That’d be really good.’
‘I’d like it too.’
Pamela went pink, giving me a hug before she turned away and melted into the crowd.
I FOUND LAWRIE, AND STOOD close beside him. ‘My mother would never believe all this,’ he said, drawing his arm in an arc across the gallery. ‘She’d love it though. What a snowball. It’s just got bigger and bigger.’
‘Lawrie,’ I whispered. ‘I have to tell you. Quick’s – she’s dead.’
He turned to me. ‘What?’
‘I found her. Last night.’
‘Oh, Delly. I’m so sorry. Are you all right?’
‘Not really.’
‘What happened?’
‘I’ll tell you later,’ I said – for how to explain, at the launch of his exhibition, that I didn’t think the paintings around this room were by Isaac Robles at all, that the real painter behind these works had died with her secret intact? Cynth had warned me to keep all my ideas about Olive Schloss and Marjorie Quick to myself, if I wanted harmony in my love life. But if this entire exhibition was predicated on a lie, that sat uneasily with my sense of creative integrity. I was struggling to work out which was more important – Lawrie’s feelings, or Quick’s artistic restitution. If it was me who’d painted these pictures, I’d bloody well want everyone to know.
Lawrie took my hand. ‘I know she meant a lot to you.’
I hadn’t thought of mine and Quick’s connection in that way before – in terms of affection, or quality. Nor did I think I’d ever communicated such a sentiment. Until now, I’d treated Quick as an interesting conundrum, a diversion, both a source of inspiration and an obstacle. But Lawrie was right. She did mean a lot to me. Despite her mercurial manner, Quick had welcomed me, helped me. I liked her. And it was too late to tell her so. There was still, at the back of my mind, some niggling thought that she had wanted me for something, but that now it was too late.
‘Dell, do you want to leave?’
‘No, of course not. I’ll be fine.’
‘All right. Listen, Gerry wants you to come over for dinner. He’s here, you know.’
‘Really? That’s good he’s out and about.’
‘Yes it is, I suppose. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. But he’s always asking after you. When he read your story in the London Review, he boasted to his friends he knew a writer. I think you’ve got a fan.’
‘I’m not a writer.’
‘Of course, I forgot. You’re a typist.’ The exasperation in his voice made me turn. ‘Well really, Odelle,’ he said. ‘Are you going to keep on like this? Do you know how many -people would give their eye--teeth to be in the London Review? I wouldn’t waste it.’
‘I’m not going to waste it,’ I said. I was tired, unable to keep the hurt out of my voice. ‘And it’s not up to you to tell me what I should or shouldn’t call myself.’
He up put his hands in surrender. ‘All right. I just – you must keep writing, you know.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘You sound like Cynthia. You sound like Quick. Everyone wants me to write, but they never try it themselves. If they tried it themselves they might shut up.’
He shrugged. ‘Quick did you an enormous favour. And I bet if she knew you were dragging your heels—-’
The last few hours finally caught up with me. ‘I’m not dragging – don’t use her – she dead, Lawrie. She dead. I don’t – I can’t – we don’t all have paintings we can sell, you know. I have to do other work.’
‘You’re right. Of course. But sometimes I do think you need reminding how good you are.’
We stood in silence for a few minutes. I knew it was true that I had stalled again on my writing. For once, I was too caught up with actually living my life to stop and turn it into words. -People like Lawrie – who never wrote a single line of prose, as far as I knew – seemed to want those who did to walk around with a pad and pencil hanging round their neck, jotting down the whole thing, turning it into a book for their own pleasure.
As if he knew he’d trod on tender ground, Lawrie changed the subject. ‘It looks like there’s a -couple of -people interested in buying Rufina,’ he said.
‘That’s good.’ I saw his rueful grin. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘Grass greener for Rufina. Told you I was a poet. Thing is, now there’s a chance I’m not going to have it any more, I’m rather reluctant.’
‘Well, it’s not any old painting.’
Lawrie looked across the gallery, where the colours of Rufina and the Lion glowed, the -people crossing back and forth, intermittently obscuring our view. ‘It certainly isn’t. But what am I going to do with it, Dell? I don’t have any money and it isn’t going to feed me.’
As we looked at the painting, vanishing and reappearing again and again behind -people’s heads, I knew that Lawrie and I were looking at different things. In its uniqueness, I read multiple stories. Through its technical brush--strokes, I experienced metaphysical sensations. It was a one--off I should do my utmost to protect and keep in public view. I could guess at the impulses behind the artist’s decisions, I could meditate on how the painting made me feel, but I understood that I would never know its truth.