Keep You Close Read online

  He held the café door open and she went up a worn stone step into a muggy room permeated with the smell of cooking bacon. Clustered around small tables were about thirty other people.

  Greenwood went to the counter but within a minute he was back, unloading a milk jug from the tray, asking if she took sugar. He picked up a sachet for himself but then had second thoughts and put it on the table.

  ‘Thank you for doing this. And for the coffee.’

  He shook his head again: of course.

  ‘I feel very insensitive. Selfish. I’m really sorry – I should have thought more before coming. The last thing I want is to make things harder for you.’

  He gave a grim smile. ‘It’s difficult to imagine how things could be harder.’

  She looked down and straightened her spoon in the saucer. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d be at work.’

  ‘I have to, for the sake of my sanity. I’m just going through the motions but the idea of sitting at home …’

  ‘It was nothing like this, of course, but when Marianne and I fell out, I was – well, it doesn’t feel right to say devastated now, in the circumstances,’ Rowan inclined her head, deferring to his pain, ‘but at the time, that’s what it felt like. It’ll sound stupid but when you said she used to talk about me, it made me happy.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound stupid.’ Despite the heat, he’d kept his coat on and his cuff buttons rattled against the table as he put his cup down. He seemed to square his shoulders. ‘What did you want to talk about?’

  ‘Exactly that. I wanted to ask what she said.’ A flicker crossed his face. What was that? Surprise? Rowan felt a stab of alarm: what had Marianne told him?

  Greenwood picked up the sugar and tore it open. His spoon jittered against the vitreous china saucer. ‘I’m a bit shot,’ he said, looking at his hands, ‘so you’ll have to excuse me if I can’t remember exactly.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But also, she didn’t talk about you often, I’m afraid. I had the impression – no, I knew – that it was painful for her to think about you. What happened?’

  ‘She didn’t tell you?’ Rowan looked at the cup between her hands.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It was a mess. The whole thing.’

  ‘I know it was about the time her father died.’

  Her heart gave an exaggerated beat. ‘Yes. Because he died.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Rowan made herself meet his eyes. ‘I’m so ashamed of how I behaved. I understand why she didn’t want to be friends afterwards.’ He was waiting, watching her. Hadn’t she come to ask him the questions? ‘When Seb died,’ she said, ‘Marianne disappeared. I don’t mean she ran away – just, she vanished. She locked herself away. I wanted to support her but she wouldn’t see me. At first I understood – she wanted to be alone with her family – but after a couple of weeks, I started to feel rejected. I know,’ she glanced quickly at his face and then away again. ‘Even saying it now, I’m mortified. The self-centredness.’

  ‘It’s not th—’

  ‘Anyway, one day I went there when she’d told me not to and Jacqueline let me in. I went storming up to Mazz’s room and told her that I wanted to help her, I was her friend, but it came out sounding … aggressive. She yelled at me – rightly – saying that I shouldn’t have forced my way into the house, that Jacqueline shouldn’t have let me in.’ Rowan shook her head. ‘I was so hurt, I flew off the handle.’ She stopped for a moment and looked at her hands. In the past few days, she’d started biting her nails again and the tip of her index finger was red and swollen, throbbing. ‘I don’t know if Marianne told you but my mother had a heart attack at twenty-eight.’

  He frowned. ‘No, I didn’t know that.’

  ‘It was a congenital problem but no one knew until it was too late.’

  ‘She died? How old were you?’

  ‘Eighteen months. My dad brought me up but he was away a lot with work and there were a lot of babysitters and “aunties”. The Glasses became a sort of surrogate family so when Seb died, I grieved, too, but all of a sudden I was on the outside. It was like being bereaved twice: Seb first, and then all of them.’

  Greenwood looked pained.

  ‘But I don’t want to make excuses. I said some unforgivable things and she … didn’t forgive me.’

  ‘Her father’s death obviously affected her very deeply. More deeply even than you would expect.’

  ‘Peter told me. Turk.’

  ‘Yes, he worried about Marianne. How hard she pushed herself.’ His attention was caught by a movement under the next table: a pug curled at its owner’s feet, concealed from view from the counter by a tartan shopper. ‘Marianne used to say that about you,’ he said, focusing again. ‘You pushed her – challenged her. She said you made her think.’

  Rowan was sceptical. ‘She was surrounded by thinkers.’

  ‘Of a different kind. Her parents, her brother, were into politics, current affairs, but she said the two of you talked about novels and films. And art – she said you knew a lot, especially for a teenager.’

  ‘No. I’m interested but I don’t know much. She was fooled by first impressions. The day we first met properly, out of school, we talked about Andrew Wyeth and I’d just read a book on him. Pure chance. After that, I’ll admit, I used to mug up a bit.’

  ‘She said she worked in images and you worked in words.’

  ‘Total flattery.’

  ‘Do you write?’

  ‘No. Well, I start things, short stories, but then … I’m channelling my energy into my PhD. It feels more realistic.’

  Greenwood’s hands fluttered on the tabletop, a movement by which he managed to convey, Maybe but is that everything? Now the pug hauled itself to its feet and staggered arthritically in their direction. It went straight for Greenwood, bumping its head against his shin, and he put down his hand and made a surreptitious fuss of it. ‘At some point,’ he said to Rowan, ‘I need to pick up my things but I can’t face it just yet.’

  ‘No, I understand.’

  ‘But I do have to come round to the studio soon, I’ve been meaning to ring you. Saul – the gallerist in New York – he’s going ahead with the show and I told him I’d draft some catalogue copy. I always wrote her copy so …’ He looked down suddenly and she realised he was crying. To avoid embarrassing him, she put her hand down to the pug but it shied away. In her peripheral vision, Greenwood blotted his eyes with a paper napkin.

  ‘I’ve got a key but I’ll call ahead. I live in Oxford so it’s not a …’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was surprised by her surprise.

  ‘With the gallery being in London, I assumed you lived here.’ His media profile had led her to that conclusion, too, the pictures in Londoner’s Diary and Metro.

  ‘I moved when I split up with my wife. Marianne was in Oxford, obviously, but, quite independently, my daughter was about to start at St Helena’s. The plan had always been that she would board but, after the divorce, we thought she’d have more stability if she lived with one of us.’

  Interesting that he, not her mother, had made the move. But Sophie Lawrence’s job was in London, too, at Channel 4, and perhaps she’d preferred not to live in the same city as her husband’s new squeeze.

  He drained his coffee and looked at the clock over the counter, not realising that she could see him in the mirror. Rowan felt a burst of panic: he was going to leave and she hadn’t asked him anything yet.

  ‘Had Marianne mentioned me recently?’

  Greenwood frowned. ‘No, I don’t think so. Would she have? Why do you ask?’ He looked at her with new interest and she shook her head as if to dismiss the query, irritated with herself.

  ‘I suppose I’m just painfully aware that we won’t have the chance to make things up now.’

  ‘If it’s any comfort, I know Jacqueline’s pleased to be back in touch with you,’ he said. ‘She said she was sad when you parted ways.’ Shrugging back his
cuff, he rather hammily acted surprise. ‘I’m afraid I have to go. I’ve got a meeting at twelve-thirty.’

  ‘Apologies again for having ambushed you.’

  ‘If it helped at all, I’m glad.’

  Scrambling to think, she put on her jacket. Greenwood stepped aside to let her go first then reached forward to open the door. As casually as possible, she said, ‘Do you represent Michael Cory?’

  ‘Me? No. I wish I did but he’s with Saul Hander. Saul and I have a relationship – hence Marianne showing with him – and I had a small show of Cory’s photographs about eighteen months ago, but no, I don’t represent him.’

  ‘Marianne knew him.’ Blood boomed in her ears. So blunt, so unsubtle. ‘He was at the funeral.’

  ‘Yes.’ The door closed behind them, scooping the warmth and comforting hubbub back inside. A gust of wind ruffled Greenwood’s hair and his voice sounded colder as he asked, ‘Why?’

  ‘We talked about him a lot at the time of the Hanna Ferrara portrait,’ she said. ‘It intrigued us, the idea that a picture could have an effect like that in the real world – make things happen. Her nervous breakdown – the end of her career, essentially.’

  ‘That was never Michael’s intention.’

  ‘No, I’m sure.’

  ‘So … ?’

  ‘I just found it interesting that Marianne met – knew – someone we’d talked about as complete outsiders. I wonder whether she ever told him about it.’

  Greenwood looked at her. ‘It’s possible,’ he said. ‘They were spending time together, talking a lot. Michael was painting her portrait.’

  Thirteen

  Last night, preparing for the London trip, she’d gone looking for Cory online. She’d been met with near-silence. Despite the hundreds of articles about him, there was almost nothing he had written himself or even said. She’d found three quotes in total, two of those about Picasso’s use of colour in the portraits of Dora Maar.

  The third was included in archived copy about his second exhibition, portraits of young actors whom he’d met by going to auditions himself. The exhibition had been called Ambition. ‘What interests me about these people,’ he’d said, ‘is their confidence, hope, the will to do good work and succeed, but also, beneath the surface – not far beneath – their vanity, hubris, the fear of exposing themselves, failing publicly. Acting is intriguing because it’s an egotistical profession – at least it has that reputation – but to do it well is to erase oneself and become a human canvas for a portrait of someone else.’

  He’d been twenty-six at the time, and after that, he’d apparently gone off the idea of explaining himself. Just before midnight, however, she’d come across a reference to a book called Stranger in the Mirror: Artists and the Art of Portraiture, published last September. To her amazement, Cory was a contributor.

  She’d rung from the train to find out if Blackwell’s had a copy in stock and came directly from the station. As she walked through the door, she took a deep breath, filling herself up with the chemical smell of photographic paper as if it were the aroma of baking bread. Over the years, she and Marianne must have spent weeks here, looking at the posters and postcards on the lower level or up among the bookshelves on the narrow mezzanine.

  For the price, she’d expected a beautifully produced hardback but when she located the book, it looked like a periodical, even a student anthology, with its flimsy paper cover and grainy image of a gilt-framed mirror. The interviews inside, printed verbatim in Courier and laid out as simple Q&As, were like transcripts of police interrogations. Nonetheless, the project clearly had cachet: the list of contents featured two other very well-known names.

  The author, Elizabeth Rees-Hamilton, gave each artist a brief biographical introduction then interviewed him or her in depth about their process, how they selected subjects and conducted sittings, whether or not they worked from photographs, their influences and preoccupations. Most of the interviews covered twenty pages but a couple extended over thirty.

  Cory’s entry was seven pages, and the introduction took up most of the first. Clearly, he’d been a difficult subject. Other artists were keen to talk about their craft; their answers often ran for a page or more, taking the question as a starting point for broader discussion. Cory, by contrast, gave direct answers but nothing more. None of his responses exceeded a paragraph, and his brevity created an impression of impenetrability. Control. Asked if he would describe how it was different to paint a woman with whom he was in a relationship, his answer was ‘No’.

  At other times, impatience shimmered off the page. ‘I work exclusively from life,’ he said. ‘I never use photographs. They’re dangerous, they fix a person in a split second, and emphasise one aspect – the aspect of that second, which may not even be honest – above all others. People shift, change – they’re Protean. When I paint, that is what I want to capture.’

  ‘Lightning in a bottle?’ Rees-Hamilton suggested.

  ‘If you want,’ he’d said, and Rowan imagined a dismissive shrug. ‘For me,’ he’d countered, ‘a successful portrait is multi-layered, it reveals its secrets over time, like a person does. As a viewer, you get to know a good painting – you build a relationship with it. The layers of knowing are thin, fine – like paint itself. They are subtle. When I’m painting a portrait, my job is to take that knowledge, my understanding of the person, and express it. I get to know my subject intimately, understand him or her in a way that perhaps he hasn’t been understood, even known, since childhood.’

  ‘What do you say,’ Rees-Hamilton had asked, ‘to people who accuse you, quite literally, I think, of psychologically deconstructing your subjects, peeling back the “layers” you talk about until they are uncovered, unmasked? Naked.’

  ‘I say, yes, I have achieved what I set out to do. I have been successful.’

  St Mary’s was chiming six as Rowan left Blackwell’s, and the pavement was busy with students returning from their day’s work at the library or the labs on Long Wall Street. As she crossed the road, eyes down, she was almost hit by a man on a mountain bike. ‘Fuck’s sake – watch where you’re going!’ he yelled after her.

  Once she’d passed Wadham, the street grew quieter. Through the ornate wrought-iron gates at Trinity, the long lawn stretched away, empty and dark, towards windows whose yellow warmth seemed impossibly remote. Without the sun, the temperature had dropped sharply.

  Nevertheless, she was sweating. Greenwood must have known about Cory’s methods, his forensic psychological investigations – hadn’t he been worried? Why had he let her do it?

  ‘Let?’ Marianne’s voice suddenly, laughing in disbelief. ‘Let? You think I would let my boyfriend – anyone – decide what I could and couldn’t do? Come on.’

  ‘Yes, why did he let you? He knows about Hanna Ferrara, everyone does. Did he know about Greta Mulraine, too? A breakdown and a suicide, and he still let you do it? With your history?’

  ‘Maybe he knew it was what I wanted. Have you considered that? That you can love someone enough to let them make their own decisions?’

  ‘Did he know what you wanted? Really? I spoke to him today, Marianne, and I don’t think he knew you at all. Not the things that mattered.’

  When Rowan opened the door, Adam stood spot-lit on the step. He wore jeans and a dark jacket, no overcoat, but as he leaned in to kiss her cheek, he was warm, as if he’d worked up a cosy fug in the car on the way from Birmingham and it still surrounded him. She felt the old buzz again, still there.

  ‘You didn’t need to ring the bell,’ she said, letting him in. ‘How was the conference?’

  ‘Windowless room, terrible coffee – pretty standard. How was London?’

  ‘Oh, fine. Would you like a drink? Beer?’

  ‘Love one but I’d better not.’

  ‘Coffee? It’s not Peter Turk-class but it’s good.’

  ‘No, thanks. It’s terrible, the road to Cambridge, all cross-country, no motorway. I should get going; it’ll probably f
reeze later on.’ He looked at the table. ‘Any post?’

  ‘A few bits. They’re in the box.’

  ‘Great.’ Flicking through, he pocketed the bank letter and bill from Thames Water. ‘I’ll pay this before we get cut off.’ He glanced upstairs. ‘Right, I’ll run up to Dad’s desk then I’ll get going. I’ve got a supervision first thing with a student who actually does the work.’ He glanced at the book in her hand. ‘Catholic Gentry in English Society?’

  ‘It’s a page-turner.’

  He smiled. ‘Well, I won’t keep you from it.’

  Squashing herself into a corner of the sofa, she listened as he moved around the study, playing the old floorboards like piano keys in dire need of tuning. Seb used to pace while he talked on the phone, and she’d pictured him as a lion, compact and muscular, measuring that area of carpet as if it were the footprint of a cage from which he might suddenly spring.

  After a couple of minutes, the study door shut and there were footsteps on the stairs. Adam appeared in the doorway holding a thick A4-sized manila envelope.

  ‘You found what you needed?’

  He held it up. ‘Deeds. When the dust settles, we’re going to sell the house.’

  ‘Sell it?’ She spoke without thinking; the words jumped out of her mouth.

  ‘I know. But after what happened …’ The light seemed to fade from his eyes, as if he’d just remembered. ‘Neither of us can imagine living here again, Mum and I. Every time we looked at the garden, we’d just …’

  ‘No, of course.’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry, it was just the shock – I hadn’t thought. And I couldn’t imagine this place without you all here.’ As soon as she’d said it, she wanted to kick herself again but Adam nodded.

  ‘Exactly.’

  —

  His presence, brief as it was, made the house feel less alien, and when he’d gone, she stayed in the sitting room and watched TV. She was too unsettled to read. She considered going for a walk to try to burn off some of the nervous energy but she didn’t want to come back into the empty house. Even at six, she’d spun around twice on Norham Road thinking someone was behind her.