On Wednesday night, Lily made sure she got to the tower early, but Ronan was already there.
He was busy at the easel and did not look up straight away.
Lily stood on the threshold for a moment watching him. His hair had grown a little longer in the weeks since they’d first met and she wondered if he would get it cut. She tried to imagine him with shorter hair and decided that, long or short, he would still look as tempting as he did now.
She stepped forward and Ronan looked up; it was only then that Lily realised what he was doing.
‘Y–you’re packing up?’ she asked in a faltering voice.
‘I think it’s better,’ said Ronan. ‘For both of us.’
‘No, Ronan, please. You have to let me explain about Grandmama. What happened on Saturday was a mistake. She got it all wrong and she said terrible things, but only because she doesn’t know you. If she could just meet you . . .’
He laughed, a derisive, scornful laugh that cut Lily to the heart. ‘Yeah, I can see that happening.’ He put on a posh accent, ‘Do you take tea, Mr Carver? Will that be one lump or two?’ He shook his head, pulled the black cloth from the window, wrapped his paintbrushes in it and pushed them carefully into his backpack.
‘Grandmama’s not a snob,’ protested Lily. ‘Not really. Okay, I can see how she must have appeared that way at the White Hart but that’s because – because she wasn’t expecting to see me or – or you – especially not in a bath towel!’ added Lily, trying to make him smile.
He did smile, but not in the way she wanted. It was a cynical smile, full of hurt and disillusionment. ‘So you reckon that if your grandma met me somewhere else and I was wearing clothes she’d welcome me with open arms, think I was the ideal boyfriend, introduce me to all her posh friends?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Grandmama would love you if she knew you, Ronan.’
‘You’re delusional!’ he snapped, sweeping palette knives, spray bottles, scissors, spatulas and sponges off the shelf into a plastic bag and dropping it on the floor.
‘I’m not!’ said Lily. ‘If you’d just give her a chance to talk to you, get to know you, see your art even, Grandmama would discover that you’re not what she thinks! She might even be able to help you.’
‘Help me?’ scoffed Ronan. ‘Sure, she’d help me right back to the council flat where she thinks I belong.’
‘She wouldn’t! Grandmama’s not like that – she’s different from anyone I know and she’s interested in young people and art and fashion and – and loads of other things. Okay, so she behaved badly on Saturday but that’s because she didn’t know – she had no warning that –’
‘– that her granddaughter was going out with a boy from the wrong side of the tracks?’ asked Ronan, his voice dangerously quiet.
‘No – I mean, I can see how it looks that way, Ronan, but the fact is you don’t know Grandmama any more than she knows you and – and –’ Lily put her hands on her hips and looked him in the eyes. ‘The truth is, you’re judging her the way she judged you – without knowing anything about her!’
He paused in his packing. ‘Okay, fair comment. But even if I liked your grandmother, so what? She’s already decided I’m not good enough for her precious granddaughter.’
‘Don’t say that!’ cried Lily, distressed.
‘Why not? It’s what she thinks,’ said Ronan tersely.
‘Well, she’s wrong and we just have to show her –’
Ronan kicked the bag of painting things savagely across the room. ‘We have to show her nothing!’ he snarled. ‘I don’t have to justify myself to anyone! I know who I am, Lily, and I don’t need you or your grandmother or anyone else to approve of me or like me or be there for me!’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ retorted Lily. ‘I get it, I get that no one can know the real Ronan Carver, and I get that you’re mad because your dad betrayed you and your mum and ended up in prison and you’ve both suffered ever since!’ She took a breath and said gently, ‘But it doesn’t work to stand apart and try to keep real people and the real world at bay. You taught me that, Ronan.’
He stared at her for a long moment and then, to her surprise, he laughed, a strange, bitter laugh that made her stomach turn over.
‘You think I stand apart,’ he said, his eyes gleaming. ‘That’s pretty funny.’
‘Why?’ asked Lily, her heart thudding uncomfortably as Ronan reached up and pulled the dust sheet off the easel.
‘You have the whole world at your feet, Lily de Tourney,’ replied Ronan, lifting the canvas from the easel and turning it round to face her. ‘But you still choose to hide up here in the tower, and wait for people like your dad and your grandmother and Arathula Dane to tell you who you are and how you’ll live and what you can achieve when you should be deciding for yourself!’
Lily would have liked to argue, but the painting literally took her breath away.
At its centre were two exquisitely painted Madonna figures. They sat back to back with their faces turned to the front so that they gazed directly at the viewer. The figure on the left had a thick fall of golden hair that fell almost to the floor; her wide blue eyes were full of tears, but on her lap she held Thalia’s mask of comedy. The figure on the right wore her hair in a golden coronet that wound around her head; her eyes were bright and a faint smile lingered on her full red lips, while on her lap lay Melpomene’s mask of tragedy.
The women were almost Renaissance-like: each of them painted with fine, delicate brushstrokes; their ethereal, translucent beauty a stark, almost shocking, contrast to the great grey stone tower that loomed, huge and forbidding, behind them. The tower was painted in thick, heavy layers, its surface scratched and textured so that the stones looked real. It gave the painting a strange, three-dimensional quality, as though the two women were both inside and outside – trapped and free. The picture was majestic and claustrophobic, exhilarating and terrifying, and unlike anything Lily had ever seen.
‘Is . . . is it me?’ she whispered.
Ronan turned the painting around and gazed at it for a moment. ‘You inspired it,’ he said.
‘It’s amazing,’ said Lily softly. She looked directly at him. ‘You’re amazing. I think you’re the most amazing guy I’ve ever known and I don’t want to lose your friendship because of some stupid misunderstanding.’
‘You think your grandmother’s reaction to me was a misunderstanding?’ demanded Ronan incredulously. ‘Sorry, Lily, but it’s way more than that.’ He stared down at her. ‘This is two worlds colliding. Your world and my world – two separate, totally different entities that are not meant to invade each other’s orbits.’
‘No –’ began Lily, but Ronan interrupted.
‘No matter what you say, nothing will ever alter that fact.’ He stared at her, stony-faced. ‘I’d love to be with you, Lily, but I’m pretty sure this is where it ends.’
‘No, Ronan, I –’ Tears rolled down Lily’s cheeks.
‘I want you to have the painting,’ he said abruptly, holding it out to her.
‘I don’t want it,’ answered Lily.
‘Suit yourself,’ replied Ronan, shrugging. He put the painting back on the easel, then reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, crudely wrapped package. He held it out to her. ‘I carved this after we’d been to the Third Dimension. If you won’t take the painting, then maybe you’ll take this.’
Lily stared at him, her eyes bright with tears. ‘I don’t want anything that means goodbye.’
‘So think of it as a souvenir of the night you got out of the tower,’ said Ronan. He pressed the parcel into her hand, then bent down and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Goodbye, Lily D.’
He wheeled away, his face grim, his hair whipping against the collar of his jacket.
Lily put out her hand to stop him, but he moved too quickly. His long strides took him from her faster than she could think.
She wanted to run after him and throw her arms around him, to inhale the smell of leather and linseed oil that she knew she would forever associate with Ronan Carver. She wished they could ride away on his motorbike and go back to the churchyard to sit beneath the linden tree; just the two of them, safe and alone, telling each other their secrets . . .
‘What about the painting?’ she cried, hoping he would turn back.
‘I’ll come back for it,’ said Ronan as he strode through the doorway. A moment later, he was gone.
Lily didn’t know how long she stood there, waiting, praying that Ronan would change his mind and come back to her.
Eventually, she turned away from the door and dropped dolefully onto the window seat, his final gift held tightly in her hand.
She stared at it blindly for several minutes, reluctant to open it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be reminded of the wonderful night when she’d taken a leap of faith and followed Ronan Carver into the unknown.
Eventually, she unwrapped the paper and saw at once that it was another carving.
This time it was a tiny tower, its brickwork and crenellations incredibly detailed, its large, open arched window a replica of the one behind her and, climbing from the window, her long hair falling away as she abseiled down the side of the building, was Lily.