‘Here, for the most part, to maximise the time. We worked around her schedule – she’d work and then when she needed a break, we’d talk and I’d sketch.’
Famous as she was, Rowan remembered, Hanna Ferrara had blocked out time in her schedule so that she could sit for him. Considering how much she was paid per film before he destroyed her career, it must have cost her millions. By contrast, Marianne had made Cory, so much more established than she was, fit around her. Rowan suppressed a smile, that’s my girl, but then had another, more disturbing thought: if he was prepared to do that, he must have thought he was on to something good.
‘Did you work up here?’ She turned and saw his face washed in the cold January light spilling from the studio.
‘Yes. It was where she was most herself.’
She made a noise meant to communicate ‘Interesting’ but he was right, of course. And it told her something else: Marianne had let him spend time up here. She’d always been protective of her studios, the one in Bethnal Green, too; she’d let people see them, she wasn’t precious or superstitious, but in the years Rowan had known her, she and Turk were the only people Mazz had ever let spend longer than a few minutes in her work-space.
Two sets of feet echoing on the boards today. The pictures were behind the old bathroom wall, hidden from view, but Cory headed straight for them. She followed then stood back and watched him. Again, the apparent lack of social awareness: as soon as he saw the paintings, it was as if she ceased to exist.
His way of looking was physical. He moved frequently, standing away from the pictures and then swooping again to home in on a detail. At one point, his face was so close to the girl in the fourth picture Rowan thought he was going to kiss her. He tipped his head this way and that, pulled back, narrowed his eyes, brought his fingertips to within half an inch of the canvas and followed the movement in the paint as if he were stroking it.
For a couple of minutes, neither of them spoke. The silence in the room became a bubble that held them both inside, part of the world but separate from it, too. Rowan thought of the afternoon Marianne had drawn her naked, the way time had seemed to ebb and flow like water.
‘You’re right.’ He spun on his heel.
The bubble burst and the world rushed back in. ‘What?’
‘They are brilliant.’
Rowan smiled, proud for Marianne and relieved not to have embarrassed herself.
‘They’re a self-portrait, obviously – you know that.’
‘What do you mean?’
Was it her imagination or did Cory look as if she’d disappointed him?
‘Did she tell you that?’ she asked.
‘She didn’t need to.’
‘What are you saying? That she had an eating disorder?’
Now he looked at her as if she were the village idiot. ‘Plainly not. How well did you know her?’
Stung, Rowan bit down the sharp response that jumped to the tip of her tongue.
‘She’s expressing how she feels,’ he said. ‘Consumed, destroyed from the inside out. It’s not about eating or not eating – it’s about being eaten.’
Rowan’s face was still burning as she followed him back downstairs. She was furious with herself: the idea hadn’t even occurred to her. He might not be right, necessarily, but she should at least have considered it. And now he thought she was stupid. Of course Marianne hadn’t been anorexic – Rowan had never thought that for a second. She’d only said it because he’d put her on the back foot.
‘Was she popular at school?’ he asked over his shoulder.
‘Popular?’ Embarrassed and angry, she had to shut down the acid voice that said his real question was whether Marianne couldn’t have done better for herself, friends-wise. ‘Well, not in a cool-gang sort of way,’ she said. ‘Knowing her as well as you did’ – she couldn’t resist – ‘you’ll know she didn’t have a group mentality, but, yes. She was funny and interesting – people liked having her around. She was always invited to parties.’
‘Makes sense,’ he said. It had seemed like the start of a line of questioning but when they reached the hall, he stopped abruptly and turned around. ‘My coat’s in the kitchen. I’ll get it then I’m going to go.’
Rowan bristled. No doubt it was a cultural difference, just a way of talking, but the announcement irritated her, the implication that he was the one who decided how things were going to work. She listened as he took the stairs to the kitchen and tried to picture his movements, estimating how long it would take him to round the end of the table and fetch his coat from the chair. The seconds stretched. Maybe she should have gone down with him. What was he doing? She was on the point of going after him when there were footsteps on the tiles and a series of quick creaks as he jogged up.
He went straight to the telephone table where he casually took a pen from the pot and scribbled something on the pad. He tore off the top sheet and handed it to her like a doctor with a prescription. ‘That’s my cell. I’ve got yours, obviously. I’m going to be in Oxford for a few days so . . .’