fallen beneath its wheels. She also knew why she felt like this. She had that morning received a letter from her ex. It had just stopped raining and there was a break in the clouds. Sunlight fell onto the other side of Bristol, emphasising the lumpy forms of the university building, the glass edges of the city office blocks, and, pointing up between, the spires of Christchurch and St Mary Redcliffe; Bristol’s skyline was urban but not unpleasant. She could also see the parklands of Ashton Court and the gardens of Brandon Hill, for it was May and the trees were blossoming and fresh.
Smudgy sunlight on pinkish stone, pastel blue between moving clouds, it’s definitely a watercolour, thought Tessa turning from her window and back to her art, but her canvas was dark and red and large with jagged forms like a gaping dragon or a charred accident.
She poked at her work with a brush dipped in vermilion, but only half-heartedly. ‘It’s not savage enough, it’s blunted and dead.’ Letters from Murray always had this effect on her. Tessa’s walls were laden with other brooding canvases; she sold approximately one of these a year. The rest of her work lay in folders, because Tessa was an illustrator; watercolours of gardens, country scenes, Bristol sites, for calendars, birthday cards and coffee-table books. It was Murray who owned the gallery in Bath where she had first exhibited fourteen years ago and they had been lovers for eight of them.
Murray Maclean now lived in Edinburgh reinventing his Scottish roots. He had opened another gallery there, mostly for young Scottish painters. He still had the gallery in Bath but he showed only an indifferent attitude towards it, like he showed towards other left-behind projects. And Tessa was another project, she knew that. His letter was like a public relations handout, with a list of all the artists who would be exhibiting that summer, what cafés he had visited and who would be coming up for the Festival. His letter was like him, smart and to the point. Murray was in his fifties now, tall and elegant with thick grey hair. At the end he said, ‘If you’re up for the Festival Claudia and I would love to see you, that is if she isn’t too busy buying clothes at Baby Gap.’
Tessa stabbed at her painting again with red paint as thick as a placenta. Right from the start she had said to Murray, ‘I don’t want kids. Kids drive you mad.’ They had stayed with that but when he turned fifty women of child-bearing age became more attractive. Claudia was twenty-nine and had just had his baby in March. He met her some months after he split up with Tessa but that didn’t make it any better. ‘We’ll still be friends,’ he said, but he meant, ‘I’ll still sell your paintings.’
The other letter she had received that morning was from her agents and in an hour’s time she had an appointment to see them. Murray had introduced her to Wessex Artists so at least she could be grateful he had given her a living.
*
She left for her appointment on her bicycle and in her cycling gear. Her lodger in the basement, whom she had nothing to do with apart from collecting the rent, referred to her as ‘that dyke’; but what did she know, she was a chirpy English student, what did she know about sharp-looking forty-six-year-olds?
Tessa was sleek and wiry. Her hair, if it had been long, would have been corkscrew curly but she kept it short. It was dark brown, nearly black and the strands of grey at the front she dyed bright red. She wore black or grey, Trousers never skirts. Boyish casual clothes and sometimes a red velvet scarf. Her appearance was clean-cut and unadorned. She looked like she would prefer a day’s cycling to a morning in front of a mirror. She had the taut sun-touched skin of the very fit.
Some women might adopt the boyish look as a tease, ‘Guess what, I’m a real girl underneath,’ but with Tessa it was more complicated. Her appearance said, ‘I’m a woman, but I’m independent,’ or more usually, ‘Clear off’ – but Tessa was not a dyke.
Wessex Artists were on the eleventh floor of a block in the centre of Bristol. The view was panoramic. Tessa waited, watching squalling, reeling seagulls and rain clouds gathering. ‘They’re ready for you now,’ said the secretary.
Coral and Pumpkin looked Tessa up and down. Pumpkin sniffed as if Tessa had arrived fresh from a pig farm.
‘Do sit down,’ she said.
They were misnamed. Coral was round and squashy in voluminous florals. She had fuzzy hair. It was Pumpkin who more resembled a calcinated sea-creature. They were at least ten years older than Tessa, preserved perpetually in a mould made sometime in the fifties. Nice gals. Pumpkin’s suit was tweed-grey like her hair; she was small and neat.
‘Did you read the letter?’ Her voice reminded Tessa of metal tinging.
‘Sure.’ Tessa crossed her legs.
‘Well, what did you think?’ Pumpkin tapped her desk with a pen.
‘It’s OK.’
Pumpkin’s tapping became louder, her mouth pursed.
‘I don’t know what you expect me to say,’ said Tessa after a while; ‘I’ll do it, you know that.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Coral was becoming agitated. ‘It’s just that,’ she caught Pumpkin’s eye, ‘we had a little talk the other day, and eventually, after some time … it was a long talk, Tessa …’
Pumpkin glared. ‘It’s your attitude I’m worried about.’
Tessa laughed. ‘Come on, Pumpkin. I’ll do the work. What is it? Six Christmas cards, the suspension bridge at night, bunny rabbits?’
Pumpkin was silent. Coral fidgeted nervously, wobbling.
Pumpkin patted her skirt. ‘You see, Tessa, you’re good.’ She paused.
‘You’re very good.’ She picked up some papers for emphasis. ‘You’re in demand and yet …’
‘Your watercolours are lovely, Tessa, so sensitive,’ interrupted Coral, ‘… and yet, you treat it as though it were—’
‘Rubbish?’ suggested Tessa.
‘Your other work won’t sell, it won’t ever sell.’ Pumpkin’s voice was steely. ‘Especially now that Murray’s in Scotland,’ she added.
‘I … don’t … care,’ said Tessa like a two-year-old. It was a manner guaranteed to irritate Pumpkin.
Pumpkin sat up straight and smoothed her skirt again. She threw Coral a look. ‘Tell her about the assignment, then.’
‘Oh, yes, well, it’s really nice … last summer do you remember The Historic Houses of Oxfordshire? Well, of course you do.’ She smiled, regarding Pumpkin with caution. ‘They liked your work, said it really made the book … so this time they want …’
‘Seven more books to make a series? Eight more? Fifty more?’
Pumpkin made a hissing sort of noise.
‘Er, no, no, Tessa,’ Coral said, ‘just one more book actually.’ Her eyes were on Pumpkin. ‘They would like you to do six out of fifteen, so you’ve got the lion’s share. Pumpkin, she’s got the lion’s share, hasn’t she … Pumpkin?’
‘Yes,’ said Pumpkin suddenly; ‘six houses, three sketches of each, pencil and wash, there’ll also be photographs, you know the format. So you’ll do it?’
‘Oh, Pumpkin, we didn’t say where, did
