It was, perhaps, the smallest measure of time. The moment between sleeping and waking when everything was as it had been before. It was gone before she took her first conscious breath. Replaced in a rush of memory. In the near darkness of the early morning, she kept her eyes shut and willed herself to remain still as it broke over her. But her body betrayed her, calling up sensations, playing them out on her motionless limbs like a movie flickering on a screen. For a while she was unsure if it was memory or desire. And then she wanted to sleep again. Just to have him once more. Just to feel him leave her. Just to lose him again.
And then Will’s voice. “Mummy, did you sleep in my room for all of the night?”
She opened her eyes.
That morning, she made Will egg and soldiers for breakfast and then walked him to school, one hand in his, her other hand empty. Returning home, she climbed the steps outside the house, stopping before the front door, toes balanced on the top step, heels hanging off the edge, the polished lion staring back at her, brass ring clenched tightly between bared teeth. Not a hundred yards away on the opposite side of the road, she had spied the distinctive low haunch of the silver sports car. Surprise was not what she felt. She couldn’t see him, but she felt him watching her.
After a moment, she turned and walked back down the steps. As she reached her car she heard the hollow growl of an engine revving to life. She didn’t have to look in her mirror to know he was behind her as she drove into Shoreditch. She concentrated instead on the roads, gripping the wheel tightly as a black cab stopped short in front of her and lorries edged dangerously close to her lane. A bicyclist ran a stoplight just in front of King’s Cross and she caught her breath as a car missed him by inches. All around her the city was suddenly crowded and dangerous.
She parked her car within sight of the entrance and watched him enter the building. She sat in the car, hands still on the wheel. There didn’t seem to be anyone about, but she let five minutes pass before following him inside.
“You shouldn’t have done that. Someone might have seen you.”
He pulled her to him. She pushed back, but his arms were already around her waist. She gasped as his hands slipped under her sweater and up her back.
“No one saw me.”
“Someone might have.”
“No one did.”
“It’s reckless.”
He leaned his forehead against hers. He knew that her words were not intended for him.
“I know.”
His head slipped lower, his mouth moving on her neck. She tilted her head back, her body rising to meet his. And then he was pulling the sweater up over her head.
Later, resting under his hands, she looked down at the layered composition of their convergence. In the foreground the span of his arm across her waist. Below that, the long gentle camber of her thigh flung over his hip. Listening to his heart beating against her chest, she knew that it was worth the risk.
She scanned the room, taking in the well-organized space with its industrial furniture and fans and neatly labeled shallow drawers. The sleek metal tubes of paint, dangerously sharp pencils in their clean glass jars, unopened boxes of charcoal, pads of sketching paper, and different-size brushes and knives, laid out like in a surgery. The bright, neat space was far away from the rue Garancière. This building had originally been a factory. An efficient space designed to produce things. A place of expediency and of quotas, not of passion and creativity. It all seemed cold and contrived. Borrowed and temporary, like the car. Separate and distinct from Daniel. Above her, clouds swirled in the milky sky. Daniel shifted beside her. He was awake.
“Did they sell? The paintings in the show.” Her voice seemed insubstantial and small in the large space.
“Yes.” She felt him breathe the word into her hair.
“All of them?”
“Nearly. Martin wanted to save some for New York.” She tensed at the name, but Daniel didn’t seem to notice. His hands moved slowly, deliberately, over her skin.
She thought of the paintings and of what they represented. Arranged on the walls of the gallery, tracing the arc of their story. Now where would they go? Scattered in various strangers’ homes and offices and galleries. Separate. Out of context. She imagined the painting of her in the blue bath hanging over Malcolm Jeffries’s desk. What would their new owners see in them? They would never know their entire story, but maybe they would see pieces of the passion—both bright and dark.
She wondered if anyone would really know the entire story. Or if they would simply be drawn to the parts of it that appealed to them. And once they had found what they needed, they would stop looking for more. Had Daniel stopped looking after finding her? By leaving him had she given him back something to search for?
She closed her eyes and concentrated on his hands on her skin. She thought about how the paintings had become something other than what she had known them to be.
“It doesn’t bother you to give them up?” she asked, her eyes still closed. His fingertips did not leave her skin, tracing her shoulders, her neck, her jaw, mapping the constellations of freckles.
“No. They brought you back. What more could they owe me?”
Watching as the whole sky drifted past piece by piece framed within the windows above them, she moved the flat of her hand over the scarred topography of his body, reading it like Braille. She was sure that she remembered every last scar, but there were new ones now. She lingered on the thick, raised lines that ran along his wrist above his veins. And then slowly, deliberately, she drew her hand across the line of his shoulder into the hollow of his throat and then down his chest and felt him turn in to her, his hands seeking her instinctively.
He lingered just inside the door as she was preparing to leave that afternoon. As she came toward him he hesitated, his eyes on her face.
“Look. I’ve got some money coming. Enough for us. Enough for a long time. So you don’t need to worry about that. We can get a place. Maybe in Hoxton. Or in the country. Wherever you want.”
Kat wondered briefly where the money was coming from. If the bulk of the paintings had sold before the show had gained momentum, then the real money would be made in the aftermarket. The early buyers would be the true beneficiaries of Daniel’s success.
In the days that followed, she moved between them, the two halves of her heart. Each one perfectly formed, each whole within its own world, overlapping only on her body. The faint heat of breath on her skin. The feel of a hand in hers. A half-heard whisper. She was overcome by each, forsaking all others, but faithful to neither.
They didn’t have long. Only a few hours. She learned to tell time by the spreading shadows on the studio walls. She would go to Daniel after dropping Will at school, leaving in time to make it back down to Kensington to park the car on the street outside the house and then dash to collect Will from school. The two of them would walk home through the park, stopping to feed the ducks at Round Pond—shunning the swans that hissed at them. The darkness came so early that sometimes the side gates would be closed and they would have to walk up to Lancaster Gate to exit. As they made their way along the top of the park in the gathering dark, Will gripped her hand a little tighter and Kat wondered where all the lights she had seen from the rooftop had gone.
It was far from routine, but every time she made the journey, retracing the circle from one to the other and then back again, she felt the momentum behind her movements. She was aware that the lines between them were being built up. It was within these lines that Kat began to think about a house in the country. Somewhere with a good school for Will. Maybe somewhere by the sea. The images flashed across her consciousness, leaving trails of light in their wake. She knew that it wasn’t that simple, but maybe it wasn’t that complicated either.
It was only at night that she was alone. She slept soundly, a fact that surprised her, and if she had dreams, she didn’t remember them. She wondered at how quickly it became familiar. How easily he had returned to her. So that she was not entirely sure what she remembered from the day before and what she remembered from twenty years ago. She wondered where he slept. If he stayed at the studio or spent his nights at the Dorchester.
* * *
DANIEL WAS BENT over his phone when Kat arrived the next morning, checking his messages, she guessed. She walked around the edges of the studio surveying the canvases leaning against the walls in various stages of completion. She noted that there were no figures, only abstractions. The sketches of the girl that had been on the wall were gone. She picked an apple out of the bowl on the table and rubbed it absently on the fabric of her sleeve. A white paper coffee cup that hadn’t been there yesterday sat next to the bowl, a stack of unopened post beside it. She ran her finger along the top envelope as she passed by. The return address was the Tate.
“What’s the story with this?”
Across the room, Daniel lifted his head as she indicated the winter landscape. Its accretions of pigment pulled flat into thick, overlapping strips on the canvas.
He told her that he had found nature in New York City. That he had become captivated by certain trees in Central Park. Looking closer at the canvas, she noticed the long vaulted canopy of branches receding into the background of the painting and recognized the twin stands of elms lining the Promenade. The only straight path in Central Park. Seeing such a familiar place through his eyes delighted her.
“Do you like it?”
“I do.”
“It’s yours,” he said without hesitation.
For an instant she pictured it on the wide wall above the hearth in the drawing room. She caught herself almost immediately, but not before noting how the stark branches and bold shades would have provided an elegant counterpoint to the scene outside the window. As she turned away from it, her eyes came to rest on her parietal silhouette, suspended above the ground. He must have seen her looking at it.
“You’ll like that one better once I finish it.”
“What will you do with it?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
“Maybe you should leave it the way it is.”
“On the wall?” He raised an eyebrow. “It won’t last long there.”
“I like it there. I like that only we can see it.”
He stood and came toward her. His hands found hers, lifting them above her head and pressing them lightly against the wall.
“Of course, if I were to do something with it, the next step would be color.”
His fingertips stroked her open palm, moving down the inside of her forearm, flattening it against the wall. His other hand moving down the side of her neck, his fingers on her warm skin. She knew what he was doing. Seeking out all her colors. Arranging the progression of shades on his palette from light to dark. From the palm of her hand to all her shadowed places.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY Kat pulled the door shut behind her and hurried down the steps. Under her arm was a paper bag containing bread and cheese. They couldn’t live on apples alone. It was the same food she used to bring home for them in Paris. Tourist food, he had called it. Smiling at the memory, she was only partially aware of the sound of a car door being opened and her name being spoken.
“Where to, Mrs. Bowen?”
She stopped short, coming face-to-face with Jonathan’s driver, who stood on the pavement beside the black car. Farther down the road behind him a gate creaked open and a lithe figure emerged trailing several sleek brown dachshunds.
“Oh. Hello. I didn’t know you were working today. Jonathan is still out of town, I’m afraid.”
“His office rang me yesterday to say he would be returning sometime later this week.”
“Right.” Kat felt his words detonate around her.
“Is there somewhere I can take you this morning?”
“I think I’m going to drive myself. Thank you.” She attempted a smile, indicated her car parked behind his, and started away from him.
“Don’t think I don’t know your secret.”
Kat froze on the pavement and turned slowly back to him.
“Oh, and it pains me, it does.” He shook his head and then winked at her. “You taking the bus.”
She managed a strained smile to accompany his expression of sly amusement, backing away from him as the dogs passed between them, their tiny legs blurs of motion.
Kat checked her phone when she got to the car. Two missed calls from Jonathan. No messages. They had not talked in days. He would be back this week. A sense of urgency gripped her and she started the car and pulled away from the curb.
* * *
KAT WASN’T QUITE asleep when a steady knocking filled her senses. She sat up, panic spreading in her chest. It took her a moment to realize where she was. Was someone at the door? After a moment she realized it was just the radiator. She rubbed her eyes and looked around. The shadows on the wall told her it was late. The studio was cold. Daniel was on the opposite side of the room. She could hear him speaking in a low voice on the phone. She hadn’t had to tell him that morning. He had seen it on her face as soon as he opened the door. He hadn’t said anything, had just pulled her to him.
She stood up and dressed, moving into a patch of weak sunlight against the rough wall. She avoided looking at the charcoal silhouette. Daniel followed her as she moved around the room. Not so much with his eyes as with his body position. Conscious of where she was at all times even if he wasn’t looking at her.
She waited by the door. He put down the phone and crossed the room, stopping just out of her reach.
“I’m coming back, Daniel. I am.”
She saw a muscle twitch in his jaw.
“You’ll come tomorrow.”
“I can’t. It’s too risky.”
“It’s only a risk if you’re afraid of losing something.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is for me.” He stopped speaking and stood quietly for a moment. “Everything I want is in this room.”
She thought of what she wanted, what she needed, that was outside of the room. That at this very moment was in a small Victorian schoolhouse the color of clotted cream on a quiet road in Kensington.
It was cloudy when they left the studio. Stepping onto the pavement outside the building, she noticed that the glass shards were still on the ground. They had not been cleared away. A squat blue Renault was parked behind Martin’s car, its engine idling in the cold.
As she stepped sideways toward him to avoid the glass, Daniel reached his arm around her, pulling her into him until they were joined at the edges. As he moved in closer, she saw the flash of light, reflected in the glass by her feet. By the time it reached her, it had already happened. Like light from a distant star.
Time slowed, moving only in the spaces between her heartbeats. She heard the sudden growl of a car engine. They turned in unison to see the Renault start haltingly and then accelerate loudly out of sight down a narrow street. As the sound disappeared after it, he reached for her. But she backed away, her eyes fixed on the street behind him down which the car had disappeared. Her hands covering her mouth in a childlike pose of horror. She imagined the photograph in all its damning detail. His arm around her shoulders. His face next to hers.
“Oh God.”
“Kat…” He reached for her again.
She felt panic rising in her chest. “I told you. I told you it was risky.”
They stood under the unblinking stare of so many empty windows. After a moment, it occurred to her that the photographer might return and she turned and began to walk in the direction of her car.
She heard his voice behind her. “Was it so different?”
She did not turn to look at him.
“Was it so different when only we could see it?”
She kept walking.
She drove quickly, the route familiar now. She was angry. Daniel’s newfound fame had put her directly in the line of fire. The flash had obviously been a paparazzo looking to get a shot of the London art world’s latest darling with his latest darling. Her only hope was that the photographer would not realize what he had, but she knew that hers was a face not entirely unfamiliar to the London media. The thought crossed her mind that Martin might have tipped off the photographer. How much had Daniel told him about her? About them?
She parked on the side of Holland Park. She would cut through on foot, in case she had been followed. She waited in the car for a moment. It was quiet save for the occasional distinctive low diesel growl of a black cab in the distance. She opened the car door and stepped out into the cold air, gasping as it closed around her like a fist. She had no coat.
She left the path to cut across the uneven, barren landscape, moving deeper inside the empty, frozen place. Her shadow moved before her on the rimy ground. How well she knew this place in the summertime. Altered by season alone, it seemed foreign to her now. The fragile blue sky was empty, swept clean by the wind. Even the air was devoid of any familiar smells. There were no places to hide and nothing familiar. If not for her memory of it—of having seen it—she could not imagine what awaited this winter landscape. The riot of color and life that lay sleeping in the frozen ground.
As she moved deeper into the park, there was no noise. Here nothing moved except the wind. Thin and cold and knife-edged, slicing through the naked trees, racing above the frozen ground around her, through her—making her solid and brittle, until she was sure she would shatter if she fell on the ground. Her breath came quickly. The sound of her footsteps as they crunched on the frosty grass seemed indecently loud. With every footfall she heard the sound of something breaking.
When the phone rang later that afternoon, she answered it immediately.
“Tell me, Mrs. Bowen, do you read the newspapers?”
Recognizing the voice after a moment, she stiffened.
“As I have told you, Mr. Warre, I have nothing to say to you at this time.”
“Have you read the one about the wife of a prominent businessman caught in a compromising position?”
She was silent, as she had learned to be. It hadn’t been Daniel they were after. It had been her.
“The thing about stories—they can be told in many ways, from many different points of view. Or they need not be told at all.” He paused and she could hear his raspy breath. “This particular story hasn’t run yet and it’s of little interest to me. It would be very easy for me to forget all about it. But, as you are aware, there is another story that is of great interest to me. You get to decide which one is told.”
He waited. It was her move and they both knew it.
“Mrs. Bowen?” he pressed.
“You know as well as I do that the Mail is not going to print it. Nobody cares about this.”
He started to say something, but she cut him off. “Nobody cares.”
She put the phone down hard and caught her breath. It was true. She knew that it was unlikely that the Daily Mail would print the story. But she also knew that the city was rife with publications that specialized in stories just like it.
Clasping her hands together, she rubbed at the unfamiliar soft circle of skin around the base of a finger on her left hand. It took a single heartbeat for her to register the fact that her ring was gone and one more for her to remember where it was.