Page 67 of Days You Were Mine

Rick is already here, drinking champagne and chatting to Robin’s guests. Unlike me he is entirely at ease amidst a room full of art lovers, thrilled to be introduced over and over again as Robin’s ‘latest discovery’. If he carries on with his avant-garde portraiture, Robin has intimated that the next show will be his.

‘Your paintings look so beautiful,’ he says, hugging Jake and I in turn. ‘I actually wept when I saw them. See that guy?’

He points out a collector he recognises.

‘The one in the red corduroy jacket and black polo neck? Robin told me he dropped eight thousand pounds in this gallery last year.’

Corduroy Jacket seems fixated by the pietà, titledApparition, me seated with Jake asleep in my lap. I like the way his dark hair flops over my left hip, his hand curled between my thighs, his face, eyes closed, so beautiful in repose.

Robin comes over carrying two glasses of orange juice (Jake has avoided alcohol for three months now and is in better shape than ever).

‘I invited Jasper to come before everyone else,’ he says, nodding at the man. ‘Early reports are favourable. He’ll buy a few tonight, I think, but that’s the one he likes best.’

With his established artists, Robin takes a sixty per cent cut of the sales. As a lowly second-year art student, I was awarded a generous advance, but all the takings go to the gallery.

‘If we sell the lot, there’ll be a big bonus for you,’ he said at the time, ‘and dinner at San Lorenzo either way.’

‘I don’t want to sell that one.’ The words are out before I can stop them. Both Robin and Jake look at me, confused.

‘But, Alice, my dear,’ Robin speaks slowly, as if to a child, ‘all the work has been priced up. I bought it from you with the advance, I thought you understood that.’

It’s a moment before I can speak, irritated to find I’m fighting back tears.

‘It’s so personal. Me and Jake. I don’t think I want it hanging on someone else’s wall. Can’t we put a red sticker on it?’

‘It’s the best painting in the show. With the highest price tag.’ Robin’s voice is neutral, patient; he wants to be kind.

‘You can do another one,’ Jake says, a whispered aside.

I shake my head and have to wait before I’m able to speak. Even so, my voice cracks a little.

‘You can’t just knock out copies. It doesn’t work like that. The reason I love that painting is because it holds all my feelings about you. Why would I want someone else to have it?’

Jake says, ‘Robin? Could we keep it? Alice will give you back some of the advance. How about that?’

‘The whole thing,’ I say, ‘if you like. I haven’t spent any of it. I just want to keep that painting. It’s too personal to sell.’

I wonder if my pregnancy hormones are getting the better of me, but I don’t think so. I need to protect Jake’s vulnerability; this painting leaves us too exposed. My love for him, my desire to keep him safe from the darkness he tries so hard to hide. The self-loathing I now understand. It’s all there in this picture.

At exactly this moment, Jasper turns around and catches sight of the three of us talking, Jake with his arm wrapped around me.

‘Ah,’ he says, ‘the artistes.’ He pronounces it with an exaggerated accent. ‘Congratulations. Your work is wonderful.’

We shake hands, and although I avoid Robin’s eyes, I canfeel his fierce scrutiny. I know what he is thinking:please don’t mess this up. He may be at the top of the food chain, but he still has bills to pay; he can’t allow an overemotional girl to get in the way of his business sense.

‘I’m particularly interested inApparition,’ Jasper says. ‘The style is reminiscent of classical religious art. Is that what you intended? You spent the summer in Florence, I believe?’

And so I tell him about my visits to the Accademia, my obsession with the work of Stefano Pieri and in particular his pietà.

‘There was something so sad in that picture, sad but not in the slightest bit sentimental, almost as if it had been caught off camera. That’s what I wanted to capture with this show.’

‘And why the title,Apparition?’

‘I suggested that,’ Robin says. ‘I’m not sure exactly why. I just got this peculiar sense of déjà vu when I first saw the painting.’

‘It’s a very private piece,’ I say, and Jake squeezes my hand.

‘Exactly,’ says Jasper. ‘That’s what I like about it. It’s full of emotion and love and pathos. I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to buy it. And a couple of the others too.’

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