After they’d ordered, he went to the bathroom and she watched him cross the restaurant. His teenage lankiness had become elegance; there was grace in his movements, the way he stood aside for a waitress, dipped his head to avoid the branches of the potted olive tree. The place had been refurbished, the terracotta cushions on the banquettes, pale wooden tables and Moroccan tiles chosen to echo the Mediterranean and North African menu. When she’d come with Jacqueline and Marianne, the atmosphere had been formal, crisp white tablecloths, pre-laid glasses for water and red and white wines, roast lamb and beef in traditional French sauces. To save going home again, she’d borrowed one of Marianne’s dresses that night, a pale green silk shift so short that Marianne had to wear it with leggings though on Rowan it had reached a semi-decent mid-thigh. They’d sat next to each other, facing Jacqueline across the table. She’d ordered a bottle of Chablis to go with the salmon they all had to start, the idea that they were seventeen and not legally allowed to drink either not crossing her mind or dismissed without mention as irrelevant.
Tonight they had red wine. Rowan knew she was drinking quickly but her hand seemed to be reaching for the glass of its own accord. She wanted to be slightly drunk, to let the edges blur for a few hours and numb the constant throb of anxiety, but she knew she had to stay in control, even if Adam’s glass was emptying just as fast. They talked about her work, and moved on from Catholic safe houses to Julian Assange, Guantanamo. Marianne hovered at their shoulders, the unseen third person at the table, mentioned but not discussed until Adam, soliciting Rowan’s say-so with his eyebrows, ordered a second bottle.
He was quiet while the waiter went through the whole production, showing the label, cutting the foil, twisting in the corkscrew, but when their glasses were full again and the man retreated, Adam swallowed hard and said savagely, ‘I hate the new pictures.’
Taken aback by the sudden change of direction, Rowan hesitated to speak.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘And I know they’re good but it doesn’t matter. I just can’t bear to look at them.’
‘I think I understand,’ she said cautiously.
‘The mental pain – the anguish. To see it like that, all beautifully painted – I mean, we knew, we had an idea anyway, but to see it from her perspective, to see what it felt like, being inside it . . .’
Through the alcoholic haze, Rowan struggled to think. Usually her thoughts were crisp, like decisive steps on a hardwood floor, but someone seemed to have put down carpet between her temples. ‘At the time, do you mean?’ she said. ‘When it all happened – your dad?’
He looked at her and she was momentarily transfixed. Adam’s irises were green, an aqueous colour pale enough to be mistaken for blue in bright light but rimmed with a darker grey-green. They were Marianne’s eyes, and for a dizzying couple of seconds, Rowan felt as if she’d slipped down a wormhole and here she was, her seventeen-year-old self again, looking at the best friend she would ever have. But it was more than that: they were her own eyes, too, because although their colouring had been so different, Marianne’s hair so dark, hers tawny, their eyes, bar the flecks of yellow that circled Rowan’s pupils, had been very similar. ‘Like sisters’ eyes,’ Jacqueline said once.
‘Do you think you could ever completely get over it?’ Adam said, pulling her back. ‘When you’ve been so bad?’ He broke eye contact and looked down. Pressing up a small piece of bread crust, he turned it between his fingertips. ‘It has to stay with you, doesn’t it, in some form? Memories – a shadow? You couldn’t forget, not completely. I don’t know – she wouldn’t ever talk to me about it. We were open with each other about so much else, relationships, money, everything, but never that. I think she was ashamed of it, even with me.’
‘Ashamed?’
He glanced up again then dropped his voice. ‘You know she had a breakdown – well, everyone does now. But it was more serious than anyone really knows. She was hospitalised.’
‘Was she?’
‘At the Warneford. Not that she could ever say the name – if she had to mention it at all, it was “the nut house” or the “loony bin”, even with the doctors. They thought she was a danger to herself.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘It pains me – it actually physically hurts – to think that she’s gone but those pictures are still here. Like a hideous Cheshire Cat smile. I wanted to cancel the New York show – I still do – but Mum won’t have it. She said Marianne painted them and she wanted them shown. I don’t want people to think of her like that – I don’t want them to associate her with those feelings. That wasn’t her – that wasn’t my sister.’
‘I don’t think people will see it like that, Ad. Honestly. It’s embarrassing to admit but even I didn’t, not straight away.’
‘Really?’
She shook her head, remembering how humiliated Cory had made her feel. Did Adam know about him, she thought suddenly, his portrait? She battled the haze in her frontal lobe: had Cory said he’d told Jacqueline about it? She couldn’t remember. If Adam didn’t know, she should tell him, she had to, but the conviction was superseded by the equally rapid recognition that this wasn’t the time. She needed to be sober, clear-headed.
Adam took a swig of wine. ‘What a waste,’ he said. ‘What a fucking waste. My lovely, lovely sister.’