The gallery space was all glass and steel and highly polished wood. Angela’s work on the walls, framed and titled, was startling in its new context, professional, important. Laura and Fergus walked slowly through each room, and Laura felt her first flush of pride for what her mother had achieved, for the woman who clearly was, as the poster said, a botanical artist with a gift for evoking human emotion.
They watched as people clutched opening night drinks and drifted through. The older style botanical pieces were selling first. Investors, Fergus said. Kieran’s painting, marked Not for Sale, was on a wall separate to the others. I Go Looking for Signs of Contentment. It had been hung near a series of three the gallery had been storing for months for the exhibition: again the riotous foliage, the jungly colours, but among them human faces, eyes closed and mouths mute. He hurts me with his easy separateness. Laura picked up the accompanying brochure, Notes for an Exhibition – Angela Lindquist, and tucked it into Fergus’s back pocket.
She was relieved when the formalities were over and they could slip away. When they reached the car she put her hands to his face. She was right, she said, all those years ago. In the end you cling to what makes you feel you’re alive. She had one more week. Suddenly, it didn’t seem enough. I’d like to take a piece of that. Her finger on the soft skin behind his ear. She thought of her precious grafts at home in Umbria, the bound tree flesh. Or a slice from your palm, to graft onto mine. They drove slowly down the coast road towards their hotel at Coolum, the car silent with unspoken thoughts and a million solitary stars.
Cress made some chamomile tea and sat down beside Kieran on the lounge. She was glad, after all, that they’d decided against the long drive to Noosa. They were both exhausted; it was nearly six-thirty but felt much later. Even so she didn’t immediately prod Kieran to have his shower. Instead, she sipped her tea and played with his tangle of hair while he watched the end of ‘Whiz Kids’. His fingers twitched and jumped on the notebook in front of him as he watched the teams hesitate over their answers. In the ad break he turned and looked at her, expectantly. She smiled at him. He said, Celestial. They should have got that. Another word for heavenly.
It’s a good word, isn’t it? he was saying now. Celestial? He turned back to the screen. It makes me see stars.
Minutes later, after the program had finished and Kieran had wandered off, Cress was imagining a huge sky punch-drunk with light. She closed her eyes. A bride was dancing alone beneath it in a dress that was the exact colour of moonlight. She let herself remember it: the euphoria of love. In those early days with Ed, she felt filled up, as if a great emptiness inside her had puffed up like wind in a sail. She felt full, abundant; for the first time in her life she felt enough.
Cress leaned back in her chair, registering noises: Kieran humming as he undressed for his shower, the low rumble of the plumbing as he turned on the taps. Even now she could feel the scalloped hem of the dress lap gently against her calves as she swayed, dreamy, her arms crossed over her chest, over a double string of ivory coloured beads. She lifted her teacup to her lips but now, rather than chamomile, she tasted what she knew must be the flavour of pearls. It was smooth and dusky on her tongue: creamy, perfect, old pearls. She held the cup against her cheek. Then her eyes snapped open. Well, she thought. And smiled. I haven’t thought about Angela for hours and hours.