Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing) (6 page)

“Sure, why not?” I’m curious about Sophie’s latest boyfriend. A movie producer, this time. Probably bald, short, and aggressive, but that’s just a guess.

Sophie sets my tea on the night table. “Come downstairs when you’re ready. Leftovers for dinner. Nothing fancy.”

But it is, and we dine by candlelight on chicken curry with strawberries and cream to follow. And when I’m feeling too full to stand up, Sophie hands me a towel. “I’ll wash and you dry,” she says, glaring at the dishwasher. “Bloody thing’s terminal.” She puts on a long, white apron that makes her look like a tall Mrs Tiggy-Winkle or perhaps a slender Jemima Puddle-Duck.

“How’s your mother?” I say.

“Independent, impossible, and driving.”

I almost drop a plate. “Driving?”

“Mum finally got her license.”

“You’re kidding.” Last I knew, Claudia had failed her driver’s test so many times, they told her not to bother again. No point, the authorities said. You’ll never pass.

“I wish I was,” Sophie mutters. “She must’ve bribed someone.”

Images of Claudia careering along narrow country lanes, scattering cows and tractors like confetti, flash through my mind. “Does she like living in Cornwall?”

“Loves it. Why don’t you go down and see her?”

“We could both go.”

“Maybe next week,” Sophie says. “Now, it’ll be cold by the river. Wear something warm.”

It’s a ten-minute walk to the embankment. The Thames, thick and silent beneath a duvet of mist, reminds me of all the spy movies I’ve ever seen—suspicious figures in trench coats and trilbies leaning against lamp posts smoking cigarettes.

The movie set—cameras, lights, and clapperboards—fulfills most of my expectations. Ian Remmington does not. He’s tall and slender with long hair and soulful brown eyes—a nineteenth-century poet masquerading as a twenty-first-century film mogul.

He asks Sophie to join him on location in Sardinia the following week.

“Not this time, Ian. Jill and I have other plans.”

He bends to kiss Sophie’s cheek. “Okay, how about Fiji, in November? We’ll call it a honeymoon.” He winks at me and goes back to work.

“Are you guys serious?” I ask.

Sophie laughs. “Ian’s the ideal boyfriend, but he’d make a perfectly dreadful husband.”

“How would you know? You’ve never had one.”

“I think of Ian as dessert,” Sophie says, “rather than the main meal. He asks me to marry him at least once a month and I always refuse. It works both ways. I feel desirable and he gets to indulge his romantic fantasy as the spurned lover.”

“Didn’t you ever want kids? A family?”

“Once, maybe. But I got over it. Now I have dogs”—she grins—“dogs and lovers.”

“What are you going to do about Colin?” Sophie asks the next morning. We’re having coffee at her kitchen table. On the tiles beneath our feet, the puppies scarf down what’s left of our scrambled eggs. Sophie’s kitchen is comfortingly shabby, with mismatched chairs and faded chintz curtains. Along one wall lies an enormous Welsh dresser filled with Portuguese pottery, baskets of tarnished silverware, and a collection of Toby jugs I remember from Claudia’s old dining room.

“Nothing. Everything. I don’t know.”

“Can you be a bit more specific?” Sophie says.

“What the point? He’s married.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“He’s involved. Same difference.”

“I wonder why he never got in touch.” Sophie feeds her last bit of bacon to the smallest puppy, then scoops up her hair and fastens it with a red plastic clip. “You know, after his dad got in all that trouble.”

“Why didn’t you didn’t ask him at Keith’s party?”

“I didn’t want to rake up old hurts.”

I get up to pour coffee. “I can’t imagine doing that.”

“Raking up old hurts?”

“No. Cutting myself off from old friends.”

Sophie looks at me. “So, what do you call running away to the States, then writing two months later to say you got married?”

“A monumental blunder?” What began as an extended holiday—touring New England with Richard—turned into something neither of us bargained for: a baby we ended up losing. I feel a familiar stab of guilt. I should’ve told Sophie what was going on, but at the time I was so embarrassed over my dreadful mistakes, I hid from the world, including my best friend. In a brief, blistering phone call, Sophie told me I was a fucking coward. We didn’t speak again for two very long years.

It was Claudia who saved our friendship. She told me not to give up, to keep in touch with Sophie even if I didn’t hear back. “My daughter’s a wee bit stubborn,” she said. “Just give her time. She’ll come around.” So I wrote cheerful letters and sent baby photos of Jordan, until one day Sophie telephoned to apologize for being, in her words, ‘a bloody rotten excuse for a friend.’

She drops three lumps of sugar into her coffee. “But there’s one thing I can never forgive you for.”

My heart sinks. “What?”

“You cheated me out of wearing peach chiffon and puff sleeves at your wedding.”

I relax. “Silk ribbons? Stephanotis? Sweetheart roses?”

“Matching high heels, long pointed toes?”

“Winkle-pickers.”

Sophie grins. “Fuck-me shoes.”

We had it all planned. She’d get married in ecru lace and I’d walk down the aisle in white peau-de-soie. We’d each have six bridesmaids and a flower girl to toss petals in our path. Our mothers would wear outrageous hats. Hugh and Keith would be in morning dress and Sophie and I would stand—veiled, virginal, and vulnerable—at the altar with the men of our dreams. In my case, it was always Colin. In hers? Who knew? Back then, Sophie dated one boy after another in a whirl of parties, point-to-points, and weekends at country houses. I figured it was only a matter of time before one of them put a ring on her finger. But here she is, thirty-five years later, still single and loving it, while I’m divorced with two grown sons, a crumbling beach cottage, and way too much debt.

Sophie asks again. “What about Colin?”

I shake my head. What’s the point? It’ll only lead to more hurt. More loss. I take a deep breath. I’m in London. I’m with my oldest friend. It’s time I got reacquainted with my heritage.

“Let’s play tourist,” I say.

Sophie raises one eyebrow. “Tacky.”

“Of course.”

Sophie drives me to Hampton Court, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the Tower. We browse the markets in Camden Town, ride an open double-decker bus through a maze of city streets, and go shopping in Harrods where I buy a tin of Scottish shortbread for Lizzie to thank her for taking care of my cat. We stroll through Green Park and wander up the Mall toward Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. We view the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum and laugh at the mummers and clowns in Covent Garden. Tired and thirsty, we return to Sophie’s house via a pub where we drink beer and play darts.

I sink into a squashy old wingchair by Sophie’s fireplace and kick off my shoes. I haven’t done this much walking in years; not on pavement, anyway. Sophie digs into a pile of paperwork that’s accumulated on her desk.

“I’ve got to get this lot sorted before we can swan off to Cornwall,” she tells me.

The telephone rings and I answer it.

“Hi, it’s me,” Lizzie says. “Have you heard about Cassie?”

“Who?”

“The hurricane that’s in the Bahamas right now.”

Is my flood insurance paid up?
“Will it hit Connecticut?”

“Too soon to tell,” Lizzie says. “With luck, it’ll blow itself out. They usually do.”

“How’s Zachary?”

“He’s fine,” Lizzie says, “but he’s not eating much. I’ve only had to refill his bowl twice.”

“No problem,” I say. “He’s probably out in the marsh, snacking on rabbits and mice.”

There’s a pause. “So, have you seen him yet?”

“Seen who?”

“Colin.”

“No, and I really don’t expect to.” I glance at Sophie. She’s frowning. “We’re going down to Cornwall,” I tell Lizzie. “To see Claudia.”

Sophie looks up. “
You’re
going. I’m staying here.”

I cover the mouthpiece. “Why?”

“Because I’ve buggered up my calendar,” Sophie says, slamming her desk drawer and scattering papers all over the floor.

“Lizzie, I’m sorry, but may I call you back tomorrow? Sophie seems to be going into meltdown.”

Lizzie laughs. “Sure. I’ll be around all day.”

I hang up and Sophie waves a piece of paper in the air. “That big catering job I booked for a week on Friday is really
this
week. Thank God I checked their purchase order.”

“Then I’ll stay here and help you.”

“Better not. Mum’ll kill both of us if you don’t show up,” she says. “You can either hire a car or take the train.”

I don’t want to drive. “Have you got a timetable?”

Sophie nods. “It’s around here somewhere,” she says, rummaging in her desk. “Ah, here it is. Paddington to Cornwall. Mum can pick you up at the station in Truro. She often goes there to buy art supplies.”

“I think of Claudia every time I smell paint,” I say. “Remember how she taught us to draw?”

“She taught you, not me. I was hopeless.”

“I wonder if she’d enjoy drawing on a computer.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“No. Seriously. I bet I could teach her to—”

“My mother,” Sophie says, “can’t handle anything more complicated than a bamboo carpet beater.”

“She drives a car.”

“And you,” Sophie says wickedly, “get to be her passenger.”

“Oh, shit!”

Sophie’s grin widens. “So, just how brave are you?”

“I’ll rent a car.”

“Good idea.”

Cornwall

September 2010

Driving southwest, I think about Claudia. When her husband died last year, she was left with debts she didn’t expect and a house she could no longer afford. Instead of feeling sorry for herself, she sold everything and trundled off to Cornwall to begin a new life—a gutsy move for someone just turned seventy-three.

The sun’s getting low by the time I reach Claudia’s village. It’s so small, Sophie says, that if you blink while driving through it, you’ll miss it completely. I stop and check my directions. I’m to go past the church and take the next right turn.

It’s little more than a cart track.

Claudia’s cottage lies against the landscape like a small brown animal that’s burrowed into the ground but is slightly too large to fit into its hole. Its thatched roof, interrupted by the curving eyebrow of a blue-framed window, stretches up and out to embrace a center chimney that even now, in the warmth of a September evening, emits a small curl of smoke that hints of welcome.

For a moment or two, I feel as if I’ve stumbled into the past … a place where things move at their own pace, where clocks and computers and airline schedules don’t matter, and the only sound worth listening to is the muffled roar of waves pounding on rocks. It’s familiar, yet elusive. An impression just out of reach, and—

I slam on my brakes.

Heart thumping like sneakers in a dryer, I roll down my window. “Jeez, Claudia, I’m sorry. I almost hit you.”

“Come along and don’t waste time with your suitcase,” she says. “I need help with these squirrels.” Without waiting for a response, Claudia picks up two wire cages and disappears behind the cottage.

I abandon my car and follow her.

The vintage Morris Minor is almost hidden from view, obscured by a vine-covered trellis and a rusty wheelbarrow that’s propped against the wall. Claudia heaves her cages into the back seat, takes off her gardening gloves, and tosses them on the floor.

“Let’s go,” she says, climbing into her car. She turns the ignition and mashes the pedals with her Wellington boots. The car belches smoke. The engine snorts with surprise.

I jump in and slam the door.

Claudia grinds the gear into reverse. Her car shoots backward and hurls me against the dashboard.

“Oh, bother.” Claudia wrenches the gear lever in the opposite direction. “Sorry about all this. I’ll explain in a minute. Let me get out of here first.” She executes a clumsy three-point turn and we’re off like the clappers, pitching through potholes the size of small bomb craters. I hang onto the armrest and hope Claudia’s mechanic has plenty of spare parts because I think I just heard something fall off. We jerk to a shuddering halt at the end of Claudia’s driveway. “That miserable old bugger drove off half an hour ago,” she says.

My heart’s still trying to catch up with the rest of me. “Who?”

“With a bit of luck, he’ll stay down the pub till dark.” Claudia cranes her neck, glances left and right, then swerves onto the main road. Her chin barely reaches the top of the steering wheel.

“Is it really ten years since the last time you were here?” she says. “Sophie rang me this morning—said you haven’t changed a bit. She’s right, of course. And you look lovely. I like your hair. It’s a bit shorter than I remember, and I hope you’re not too hungry, but I’ve got to get these animals away from here first. I’ll fix dinner when we get back.”

Have I blundered into the pages of a Beatrix Potter book gone horribly wrong? I turn to look at the tiny Squirrel Nutkins in Claudia’s wire cages. “What exactly are you doing with all these animals?”

“Relocating them.”

“Why?”

“That bloody farmer across the street is setting traps,” Claudia says, swerving around a corner. “Then he drowns them in the pond behind his pigsties.”

“What have they done to deserve that?”

“They’re eating his grain.” Claudia’s grip on the steering wheel tightens. “But his cows and pigs won’t starve because a few hungry rodents help themselves to some corn now and then.”

“Gray squirrels are considered vermin where I live.”

“There are right ways and wrong ways to control pests. Keeping them in cages till they’re half starved and then drowning them is unconscionably cruel.”

“Where are we taking them?”

“Right about here.” Claudia yanks up the handbrake and the Morris Minor judders to a halt. “Hurry up. We’ve got to get back before he does.”