Marriage and Other Games (35 page)
‘I know there’s a really strong attraction between us,’ he continued, ‘but I don’t want us to have some mucky, clandestine affair. It would be really easy, to slip down here in the week and spend time with you - and don’t think I’m not tempted. But you deserve better than that. And I don’t want to betray Catkin. She’s my wife, and I love her.’
Penny fixed him with a look.
‘You already have betrayed her. Technically.’
Sebastian looked pained.
‘Yes. I know. And I feel terrible about it. I took advantage of you, and I cheated on Catkin. Which makes me weak, spineless, despicable—’
‘Human?’ offered Penny.
He shrugged. ‘I’ve always found it hard to resist temptation. Especially when I’ve had a drink.’
Penny jerked away from him.
‘Right,’ she said, unable to hide the hurt in her voice. ‘So you quite fancy me, and chanced your arm because you’d had a few too many?’
He wrapped her up in his arms.
‘Penny,’ he soothed. ‘Penny, Penny, Penny. I just don’t want you to get hurt. And you would.’
‘What you mean is,’ she said sadly, ‘I’m not worth sacrificing what you’ve got.’
He sighed. ‘Don’t do this to me,’ he pleaded. ‘We might be a bit rocky at the moment, me and Catkin, but we’re going to come through. She’s the one who keeps me going. She’s the one who supports me; keeps me on track. I can’t jack in my marriage.’
‘You’d have a lot to lose, after all,’ Penny pointed out wryly.
‘Don’t be bitter.’ He looked into her eyes imploringly, and she felt herself drawn into his gaze. ‘And don’t think that, given a different set of circumstances . . .’
‘Who says I’d be interested?’ Penny tilted up her chin. If she didn’t fight, she’d cry. ‘It was just a drunken Christmas shag.’
And not a very good one, at that, she wanted to add.
Sebastian looked chastened. ‘We are still mates, aren’t we?’
‘Course,’ replied Penny, because she couldn’t bear the idea of not seeing him again.
‘And you will come to the exhibition?’ he pleaded. ‘It would mean so much to me - to have you there.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’ He put an arm round her shoulders, and she felt herself go warm at his touch. ‘You’ve been a fantastic friend to me, and I’ve treated you like shit. Come and have a wild time at my expense.’
‘I don’t know. I wouldn’t know what to wear for a start.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Sebastian crossly. ‘You women. Wear what you normally wear. You always look great.’
Penny rolled her eyes. He had no idea. She couldn’t turn up to the Rhombus Gallery in one of her usual outfits. She’d have to nip over to Exeter, see if one of the boutiques there could come up with something sufficiently trendy.
‘So, I’ll put you down as a yes, then, shall I?’ Sebastian was nothing if not persuasive.
‘OK,’ she laughed, and as he left her kitchen with a backward wave she realised one thing. She hadn’t been cured of him at all. His boyishly charming apology had melted her inside. Catkin didn’t know how lucky she was. More than anything, Penny longed to be the person Sebastian turned to, the person who supported him, the person who spurred him on. She picked up his empty teacup and stroked the rim where his lips had touched it. She suspected he was even more out of reach than ever. She rinsed the cup under the tap hastily, telling herself to get a grip. It wasn’t going to happen, and the sooner she got over it, the sooner she might have a chance of inner peace. Possibly even happiness.
Sebastian, meanwhile, was on a roll, even more so now he had made his peace with Penny. His conscience had been pricking him, but now he felt he had atoned for his thoughtless, selfish crime, and so, with the weight taken off his shoulders, he was able to get back to work with a spring in his step.
He was, for the first time in his life, genuinely happy with the pieces he had produced for his exhibition, because he felt they were pure and from the heart, and because they harked back to his original love of figurative drawing. There was no need to search for any hidden meaning in what he had done. The paintings were purely representative. If they meant something to him personally, then that was his secret. All that mattered was that his creativity had been unleashed, and he had been able to enjoy his work, instead of feeling as if he was working under some hideous sword of Damocles that was forcing him to perform. If he’d thrown out the rule book in the process, then so be it. Maybe his statement would allow other artists to break free from the tyranny of modern art and the apparent need to say something startlingly original if you wanted to succeed. In Sebastian’s view, controversy wasn’t art. He knew that, because he had courted it and peddled it and it was bollocks.
Surely just beauty was enough? He was determined that this exhibition would prove that. As Renoir said, ‘Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in this world.’
He was pleased, too, that he and Catkin seemed to have reached a truce. She had come back the minute the snow had melted away, and thrown herself into his arms, clearly distraught she had missed Christmas with him. They’d enjoyed a couple of days of domesticity together before she had to rush back to the studio, going for long walks and eating the casseroles that Stacey had left them, tucked up in front of the fire. He realised they rarely spent time alone with each other, and they both agreed they should do it more often. At weekends, there were always manic preparations for whichever guests were arriving, Catkin tense with pre-match nerves and Sebastian cantankerous because he didn’t feel like socialising. Usually by the time Catkin was due to go back to London, they had got on each other’s nerves so much neither of them could wait for the driver to arrive. But this time, she had clung to him, tears on her lashes, not wanting to leave.
She was also thrilled that he was being so industrious, although she was peeved that he wouldn’t allow her a sneak preview of what he had done.
‘Not until it’s properly hung,’ he insisted.
Instead, she threw herself into the organisation of the preview party. Sebastian frankly didn’t give a toss who came, and so he was quite happy for her to take over the guest list, the catering, the flowers . . .
He drew the line when she started fretting about his outfit.
‘Why are you women so obsessed with clothes?’ he demanded. ‘I’ll probably just wear jeans, as usual.’
‘You can’t just wear jeans. You’re the artist.’
‘Exactly,’ said Sebastian. ‘I can wear what I like.’
Catkin wound her arm around his neck.
‘If I choose you something,’ she purred, ‘will you wear it?’ Sebastian eyed her thoughtfully.
‘If it makes you happy,’ he finally concurred, and she clapped.
Ozwald Boateng, she decided. Or maybe something with a bit more edge. Galliano . . .
The week before the exhibition, Charlotte decided to visit the doctor. Her eczema had really flared up over the past few weeks, thanks to all the strippers and thinners she’d been using and the fact she couldn’t be bothered to wear gloves. Even though she liberally applied aqueous cream every night her hands were cracked and red and raw, and in some places looked in danger of becoming septic.
By chance she found she was booked in with Penny, who immediately prescribed her some steroid cream and told her off, mildly, for letting it get so bad.
‘Are you going to Sebastian’s exhibition?’ she asked, as Charlotte folded up her prescription.
Charlotte nodded. ‘How about you?’
‘Maybe,’ said Penny, doubtfully.
‘Oh, do,’ said Charlotte. ‘Sebastian would be disappointed if you didn’t.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘No, really,’ Charlotte insisted. ‘I think we’re his only mates. He can’t stand that pretentious air-kissing brigade. Oh, go on,’ she urged. ‘I won’t know anyone else otherwise.’
Penny shrugged and laughed. ‘If I can find something to wear,’ she promised.
As soon as Charlotte had gone, Penny typed up her notes on the computer, then frowned. The records stated that she was registered as Charlotte Briggs, yet Penny was certain she’d always introduced herself as Charlotte Dixon. She looked back through her notes, then spotted something that caught her interest. Fertility treatment? Why was Charlotte having fertility treatment? As far as she knew, she wasn’t married. Not that you needed to be married to have fertility treatment, of course, but it was more usual.
Penny scrolled back even further, looking for clues. She felt a little bit guilty, snooping like this. But Charlotte obviously had a secret. Was it breaking the Hippocratic oath, to snoop through her past like this?
Penny reassured herself that any good doctor would familiarise themselves with a new patient’s history, but deep down she knew she was just prying.
Well. According to the records she was married, with unexplained infertility. And she was called Charlotte Briggs now, not Dixon. Dixon was her maiden name.
Penny sat back in her chair, frowning. The name Charlotte Briggs was bothering her. It rang a bell, somehow. She typed the name into her search engine. She was surprised when a whole page of newspaper articles came up. She leaned forward to read them, clicking through all the articles carefully, astounded at the pictures of a glamorous Charlotte with her hair long, standing next to what must be her husband. Penny read on hungrily.
Bloody hell. Charlotte had always looked as if butter wouldn’t melt. But there she was, in black and white for all to see, apparently embroiled in a hugely distasteful fraud case. Her husband had run off with the profits from a charity ball, and lost the lot on an insider deal that went wrong. He was now inside.
There was a picture of them dressed up for the ball, Charlotte in a figure-hugging black dress, her hair pinned up, her husband next to her in black tie. With them was the man whose son had died of leukaemia, whose hospice the ball had been raising money for. The money Ed Briggs had embezzled. In the photo, they looked like a dazzlingly successful and wealthy couple. Charlotte looked a million miles from the girl she was down here, who was rarely seen in anything but jeans and was usually splattered in paint.
No wonder she had done a runner from London. No doubt she had been shunned by all her friends, sacked from her job, excommunicated from her social circle. Penny wondered if she had colluded with her husband in the scam. The articles in the paper indicated not, and her gut feeling told her it wasn’t the sort of thing Charlotte would be party to. But then you never knew with people. She, after all, had had no idea her husband was shagging his registrar until he’d announced he was leaving.
Penny rather hastily shut down her browser, feeling as if she was poking her nose into Charlotte’s private life. Which of course she was. And she had to admit she was rather shocked. She was dying to know more, but she could hardly ask Charlotte about it. For a moment, she felt a visceral desire to share her discovery with somebody else. There was nothing more pleasurable than imparting scandal, after all. Yet tempting though it was to spill the beans, Penny wasn’t a natural gossipmonger, and somehow she didn’t want to betray Charlotte. She’d never done her any harm, after all. And she’d obviously been through a lot. The revelations certainly shed light on what a girl like her was doing holed up in Withybrook.
Brooding slightly on what she had discovered, she called up her next patient’s notes before buzzing them in.
Thirteen
T
he Rhombus Gallery was so-called because it was shaped like a squashed diamond, each of its four walls the same length. It had a high pointed glass roof, like the spire of a cathedral, which let the sunshine flood in, and the natural light made it a favourite with artists. The walls were matt chalky white, and the floor black elm, and most of the people who entered its hallowed interior matched themselves to the monochrome colour scheme.
he Rhombus Gallery was so-called because it was shaped like a squashed diamond, each of its four walls the same length. It had a high pointed glass roof, like the spire of a cathedral, which let the sunshine flood in, and the natural light made it a favourite with artists. The walls were matt chalky white, and the floor black elm, and most of the people who entered its hallowed interior matched themselves to the monochrome colour scheme.
Tonight it was heaving with artists, actresses, authors, models, rock stars, glitterati, literati, media whores and pundits. They were all gathered in the spacious reception hall, waiting to be ushered through into the inner sanctum where Sebastian Turner’s latest exhibition would be revealed to them in all its glory.
Other books
Sharing Harper by V. Murphy
Desperate Measures by Staincliffe, Cath
The Extra by Kenneth Rosenberg
Flags of Sin by Kennedy, J. Robert
The Long Night by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
If Love Dares Enough by Anna Markland
The Trials of Tiffany Trott by Isabel Wolff
Sunwing by Kenneth Oppel
Missouri Loves Company (Rip Lane Book 1) by W.J. Costello
Escaping Destiny by Amelia Hutchins
