She’s produced a group of colourful paintings that at first glance look to be reproductions of classic canvases, but with mocking details of the present. Books are replaced with e-readers, fans with phones, and earrings with earbuds. They’re glorious and I love them.
‘I call them the plight of the modern woman, trying to get peace from the man for thirty-four seconds a day,’ she jokes as she waddles in through the back door with a canvas that’s taller than her. ‘Sometimes, I think they can’t even breathe on their own.’
‘Oh, I think some of them are perfectly self-sufficient.’ I reach for the canvas. ‘Here, let me grab that.’
She gives me a look. ‘You mean like Christopher?’
‘Right, so, Adam’s told you then, has he?’
‘We have ways of making him talk.’ She flutters a lead pencil by her mouth. ‘Also, because Kit rang this morning to say I had better be turning in my piece soon.’
‘He said that?’
Even when he’s not around, the surprises don’t stop. The fact he knows she hadn’t yet delivered tells me he’s still keeping a wary eye on our shared spreadsheet.
For a moment, I stand there in stunned silence. Christopher is possibly the only person I can think of who’s kept their word when the chips are down. Not many people would be so gracious as to continue supporting something they were no longer involved in. How is it that, in the depths of this, he makes me want to do better?
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Fiona leans into my line of sight, though she’s a little fuzzy around the edges.
‘I don’t know.’ My voice breaks. ‘Do I?’
‘It’s up to you,’ she says. ‘I’m here if you need an ear.’
I shake my head. I’m not sure I’m ready. Instead, I ask for her help hanging the art. I should have already begun this part of the process but have found myself too preoccupied. Whenever I’ve had a moment to consider it, it’s coming up to evening and the lighting hasn’t been great. Now that I have help, though, we make quick work of it.
I’ve spent the last few days trying to work out the correct placement for each piece, and my paper bag heart fills out a little more with each artwork we hang. To see the gallery come to life with colour is beyond satisfying. Not quite in the same way it would have, had my week gone to plan, but this is what I’m left with and I’m determined to make the best of it, to love the here and now.
It had always been such a pipe dream to open my own gallery, something I’d talk about wistfully with Lainey while chowing down on another soggy sandwich on the South Bank. So, I embrace the frustration of trying to get things exactly right, my spirit level dragged up and down the ladder constantly. I’m so glad I’ve got Fiona here, hurling about her jokes and generally being the tonic I need.
I’m halfway up a ladder when a courier arrives in the early evening, so Fiona signs for the delivery and brings it over. With its carefully packed exterior, it can only be one thing: more art. And it has to be from Christopher because we’re almost done hanging everything else and his display is still one painting short.
‘Looks like one final piece.’ She turns it over. ‘Oh.’
‘Christopher?’ I step down. She nods.
I want to tear at it to see what it is, to see how it places with the other pieces he’s offered. When it’s finally free of its protective layer, I feel a quick stab somewhere delicate.
It’s me.
I’m staring at a portrait of me, complete with dark hair and bright eyes, with a blue smear above my mouth. I’m bathed in light, and I don’t know what to do with what I’m feeling. Everything begins to bubble up through blurry eyes.
‘Oh, Katharine,’ Fiona gasps, taking the canvas from me and walking it into the back room where his work is displayed. ‘It’s like looking in a mirror. He’s even captured that mischievous look that hides behind your eyes. Whenever you wear that look, I know I’m in for a cheeky joke or ten.’
‘I think I love him.’ I bury my face in my hands. ‘And it’s so scary because I didn’t think it would feel like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘I thought it would be all-encompassing, lovely and soft like a Cupid-infested toilet paper ad, but I’m so distracted all the bloody time.’
‘That is the utter definition of all-encompassing.’ She takes my hand. ‘You can try and think about something else, but he’ll be front and centre, like a lifetime’s worth of pass-the-parcel, except it’s inside your head, which is on fire, and you never get to the middle of the parcel.’
As I watch her hang the last piece of the puzzle, I have a sudden, overwhelming urge to tell Fiona everything. She’s been around, she’s seen things, so I’m sure she’s got more than one or two pieces of advice handy for the way I feel. At the risk of sounding like broken record, I invite her upstairs for coffee.
I lay everything bare, the last few weeks of my life in painstaking chronological order. We chat about men and commitment, what it was I needed from the future and how that sat with how I felt about Christopher.
‘Do you want to know when it was for him?’ she asks, her eyes sparkling with all the secrets she’s bursting to share.
‘When what was?’ I plonk a teapot in the middle of the dining table.
‘When he fell for you?’
‘Oh, no, he does not love me.’ I roar with laughter. ‘He made that abundantly clear when I went out to Loxley the other day.’
‘Bulldust.’ She barrels on. ‘It was the moment you walked into our house that afternoon with Adam. I watched him as you stepped outside to greet him. It was all very flowers from the sky and soft vignetted edges.’
‘Stop it.’ I snigger.
‘I watched it happen!’ she squeaks. ‘He looked at you, his back straightened and, bam, he clutched at his solar plexus because you just went straight in for the kill.’
‘Oh, please,’ I say with a groan. ‘He did not clutch his solar plexus. He looked for his nearest exit.’
‘You know, he wants to think he’s this ultra-broody, mardy arse painter, but he’s a terrified boy who doesn’t know what he wants half the time.’ She hides behind her teacup. ‘Or, he does know, he’s just being a boy and dawdling to the conclusion.’
‘Don’t tell him that,’ I say with scandalised laughter. ‘He’ll argue you out of town with a pouty lip and big old frown.’
Talking to Fiona is always illuminating. I love how she refuses to bury herself in worries and, instead, takes things at face value. When I ask for her advice on the situation with Lainey, her answer is again simple and to the point.
‘There’s no competition in friendship,’ she says. ‘You aren’t going to win a prize by being the last to apologise.’
‘I know,’ I murmur. ‘I just don’t know what to say to her.’
‘Do you have to say anything?’ she asks. ‘I know when I see my best friend, Dottie, we don’t generally have to say anything. We just know. With best friends, you just know.’
‘Her fiancé told his friends I’m easy.’