‘It’s been a long time,’ she said. ‘How are you? What have you been doing?’
‘I’m OK,’ he said, still slightly careful. ‘I’ve been working. I left Madrid a few weeks after you – kind of lost its charm then.’
‘Where did you go?’ she said. She thought she knew the answer. Africa. Tanzania.
‘Whitby,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a flat on the coast there.’
Whitby. She wanted to laugh. ‘You should have come across,’ she said. ‘We could have – I don’t know, something.’ He’d been so close, and he hadn’t bothered to get in touch.
‘I was working,’ he said. He moved across to look out of the windows. ‘This canal,’ he said. ‘It’s like the Brueghel landscape – you’ve even got the arched bridges and the dead trees.’
‘They’re alive in summer,’ Eliza said.
‘Artistic licence.’ He looked at her. ‘I’ve never forgotten what you said that time we were looking at the Brueghel together.’ His gaze moved to the canal, and he was quiet for a moment as he looked out of the window, frowning slightly. ‘I like what you’ve done. I knew you’d understand this exhibition.’
The slight tension that had been inside her all morning relaxed. That was the one factor she had been unable to control. Daniel might have hated her ideas. ‘Good. I’d better tell Jonathan you’re here.’
He shook his head. ‘It’ll keep.’ He was leaning against the window frame, looking out at the canal side. ‘So how do you enjoy being a curator?’
‘I love it.’ That was true. Eliza enjoyed interpreting other people’s work, presenting it in ways that would make people look carefully, think about what they were seeing, think about art in its context, not as a series of isolated pieces stuck like relics in an exhibition.
‘What about the painting?’ he said. ‘Your own stuff?’
The Madrid painting that was on her easel upstairs. She had discussed it with Daniel months ago when it first began to form in her mind. She had wanted to do – a modern triumph, not of death but of life, something that would encapsulate what Madrid had come to mean to her. She had been brought up in the far north of England where shadows and light merged, where night and day segued one to the other in an indeterminate creep of time. Madrid was of the south – a place of hard shadow and saturated colour. That was what the painting would celebrate.
But as Sheffield had closed around her, the dark winter, the solitary life she seemed to have chosen here, as though she didn’t want to commit herself to this place for longer than was necessary, didn’t want to make the ties that might hold her here, the painting had changed. The shadows of the north began to creep around the edges, the colours began to fade, and she realized that the painting was growing under her hands, turning into something different from what she had originally planned.
But she didn’t want to talk to Daniel about it, she realized. They had discussed everything in Madrid. But this wasn’t Madrid, and Daniel was different now.
She shrugged. ‘It’s easy to get distracted,’ she said ambiguously.
He pushed himself upright. ‘But you are still painting?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Show me what you’ve done,’ he said. ‘Show me what you’re working on at the moment.’
For a second, she thought he meant now, but he was looking round the gallery again. ‘I need to spend some time with this,’ he said.
‘I’ll leave you to it for a while, shall I?’ she said.
‘No. Walk me round it. Tell me your ideas for the rest. Then we’ll do the official welcome bit, OK?’
Eliza felt her slight depression lift. She got out her notes, and they went through the exhibition together, talking through problems, sharing ideas, disagreeing once or twice. Eliza saw Mel in the doorway at one point, looking a query. Eliza shook her head, wondering what had taken Mel so long, and she disappeared.
It was getting on for midday before they had covered everything. They had spent the time walking round the gallery, sorting through the pictures, experimenting with different arrangements on the walls and display boards. They had fallen back into the swift exchange of ideas that had marked their relationship. They talked about the things they missed, the people they’d been friendly with. ‘Do you remember…?’ they each kept saying, and then laughed as they thought about the places they’d gone to, the things they’d seen, the things they’d done. ‘It’s Madrid comes to Sheffield time,’ he said. She looked at him. ‘Ivan,’ he said. ‘He’s been in touch. He’s coming through South Yorkshire in a couple of days. He’ll be here for the show.’ He smiled at her.
Ivan Bakst. She couldn’t share Daniel’s enthusiasm.
Then he stopped abruptly and looked away from her, out of the window towards the canal. The sun had gone in and the light had faded. ‘I think that’s it,’ he said. She had the feeling that his attention was elsewhere. The words seemed to die in the air between them.
The upstairs gallery was very quiet. She had expected Jonathan to come up to see Daniel – Mel would have told him that Flynn was here – and she had half expected Cara to appear, drifting into the gallery from her flat, eager for company and conversation, but there was no sign of her. Eliza remembered the crying in the night. Suddenly, she felt tired and had to suppress a yawn. He noticed and said, ‘You’ve been working all morning without a break. You should have said something.’
Eliza shook her head. ‘Bad night,’ she said.
They were at the entrance to the gallery now, at the reception desk. Jonathan’s office was to their right. ‘Look.’ He checked the time. ‘I’m running late. I’ll get off now – I’ll give Massey a ring later. Tell him everything’s fine, just go ahead as we agreed, right?’
Eliza was surprised. She didn’t know what to say. ‘Oh. Yes, all right.’ She’d expected him to suggest some kind of further meeting, a drink, something. She wanted to talk about Madrid, put some kind of closure on their relationship, the closure it had never properly had. ‘When…?’
‘I’m going back to the east coast today,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back for the do, don’t worry.’
Today. ‘OK, fine.’ She watched him as he left the gallery. He stopped once he was outside, as though he was getting his bearings, then he turned away from town, towards the road that crossed the canal over Bacon Lane Bridge. There was a route on to the towpath there, she remembered. She shook her head, confused. She’d better go and see Jonathan.
He wasn’t in his own room, he was in the general office talking to Mel, who looked up with alacrity as Eliza came in. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s gone. He was in a hurry. Jonathan…’ She could hear her voice sounding flat.
Jonathan shrugged. ‘He’s known for it,’ he said. ‘Lots of enthusiasm, lots of How wonderful you all are, then he loses interest and fucks off.’ She was surprised at the hostility in his voice. ‘He’s OK with what you’re
