Page 24 of Days You Were Mine

Ben and Rick begin talking instantly, and while I race around the room filling wine glasses and checking the casserole and mashing the potatoes, I try to listen in.

Rick says, ‘I checked out your website this morning. I really like what you’re doing. Are you with a gallery?’

I’m quietly proud when Ben tells him that he has already had two solo shows in London and one in New York.

‘Sit down anywhere,’ I say, carrying the casserole over to the table, and it turns out that Ben and Rick are opposite each other at one end while Alice, Hannah and Elizabeth sit at the other. I perch in the middle, perfectly poised for both conversations.

The casserole and the wine are good and the noise level ramps up the way it does when your oldest friends come around. Already there’s a strange familiarity about Rick and Alice, almost as if we have known them for years.

And Hannah clearly feels the same, for I overhear her saying to Alice, ‘Funny how quickly you’ve fitted into our family. Like we’ve known you for ever.’

A confusing stab of anguish at this, my girlfriend’s faint disloyalty to my adoptive mother. Hannah and her family, wild, Cornish free spirits that they are, have tried and failed to connect with Christina.

When Hannah first got pregnant and we decided to keep the baby, they invited my mother and me to Cornwall. I’d been there once before, a golden weekend where I learned to surf and Hannah’s mother, Maggie, took us on a walk over the cliffs and taught me the names of the wild flowers that grew there. We’d built a fire on the beach and drunk hot cider from a flask, andwhen the tide came in, Peter, her father, took us cave-wading, a dangerous torchlit pursuit that left us up to our necks in freezing water. On the train journey back to London I felt strangely bereft, pining for a county and a family never known before.

When my mother came to stay, she drove the eight hours from Yorkshire and arrived in her navy-blue Golf with her Jack Russell on the passenger seat beside her. Seeing my mother arriving or leaving anywhere solo swamps me in sadness, I can’t help it. And as she entered Hannah’s brilliantly ramshackle house, stepping over surfboards and wetsuits slung down in the hallway, the family’s effervescence seemed to leak away. They’d been waiting with a home-made carrot cake and the teapot on standby, excited about the impending meeting, the projection of our shared future, the conversations we would have about the baby. But, instead, my mother’s formality (a mask for shyness, I’ve always thought) set them all on edge and suddenly no one was acting like themselves. Peter, one of the best conversationalists I know, seemed capable only of asking about the journey; Maggie, too, tested out topics – gardening, Tony Blair, the failing NHS – and dropped them one by one, until we were left with virtual silence. I was completely torn. Wanting so much to belong to this family but feeling physically divided, as if by an estuary: me and my mother on one side, the pink-skinned, curly-haired Robinsons on the other. I don’t want to be on my mother’s island, but I don’t want to leave her there either. Complicated being me.

Throughout this lunch, which becomes louder and more amusing with each new bottle of wine, I am happy to sit back and listen. I want to absorb the sensation of my old-new parents conversing with my best friend. Rick and Ben are talking about portraiture and what it is that makes a painting endure.

Rick says, ‘I always think good art reveals itself slowly overtime. That’s what collectors want. They want a work that shows you a little bit more of the process each time you look at it. For every hour of making, I try to spend another one looking. The critical thing is what you observe when you go back to your work.’

Hannah says, ‘Rick, this is exactly why you should give interviews sometimes. People love to hear about the process.’

‘I hate the press. I have no need of them, my work sells. Why should I tell people about my private life?’

‘Because you are public property in a way. People are fascinated with you, your art, your influences and inspirations. Isn’t it a bit hard-hearted not to share those details?’

‘I do share them. There’s always a press release that goes out with each show.’

‘Oh come on. Richard Fields, the persona behind the portraits. No one knows that. There’s virtually nothing true or honest written about you; it’s all conjecture.’

Alice says, ‘Maybe Hannah could interview you? You could trust her not to write something you didn’t like.’

‘Oh Rick, would you? I’ve so wanted to ask you but haven’t quite dared. I’d give you full copy approval. And anything else you wanted.’

Hannah’s lovely face is aglow with possibility; how could he resist? We are all watching Rick as he considers it, his reluctance is clear. Finally he smiles.

‘Hannah, of course. For you I’ll make an exception. It might even be fun. When would you like to do it?’

‘I’m back at work in two weeks and it would be amazing to have something lined up. My editor won’t believe it.’

‘Have you found an au pair yet?’ Elizabeth asks.

‘Not one we like and can afford. I’m getting panicky about it. Although Luke’s mother,’ Hannah stumbles infinitesimally on the word but carries on, ‘will step in if we’re stuck.’

Samuel is sitting on Alice’s lap, one hand clasped around her long jet necklace, his head nestled against her chest. I am sure we are all thinking the same thing, but it’s Elizabeth who hints at it.

‘Look how comfortable he is with you, Alice. Shame you can’t look after him.’

There’s a flash of intensity around the table; Hannah and I are unable to look at each other.

But Alice says, ‘Oh my goodness, wouldn’t that be great? He’s such a gorgeous baby. I wonder if there’s a way to make it work.’

Hannah says, ‘Could you, Alice? Even in the short term? I’d feel so happy leaving him with you.’

‘I’d love to help.’

‘We’d pay you, of course.’

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