Page 68 of Days You Were Mine

‘Wonderful news.’ Robin has a firm smile for me as the two of them walk away to secure the deal.

Jake says, ‘Please don’t let it ruin your night. We can do as many pietàs as you want. I am your forever life model.’

The gallery is filling up now with the young and beautiful, Robin’s hand-picked crowd of artists, musicians, actors and models, art buyers and journalists, photographers with cameras slung around their necks. Jake is more used to this, and when a photographer from theDaily Expressapproaches us as we stand beside the pietà with its little red sticker, he puts his hand around my waist.

‘Could you just turn towards Jacob a little, Alice?’ the photographer asks, framing the shot.

Instinctively, I rest one hand on my stomach, emphasising the pregnancy in that unconscious way of new mothers.

‘A little closer together, please.’

Other photographers have begun to gather around now, and they join in, calling out requests.

It’s easiest for me to look at Jake instead of the photographers, and so I stare up at him and he drops a kiss on my forehead, both arms curved around me, and this is the shot that will make most of the papers tomorrow, the one my parents will see.

Now

Luke

The childhood of an adoptee is characterised by its secrets. Rarely, for example, is the true genetic identity of the child revealed. A successful reunion between adopted child and natural parent relies upon stark honesty between both parties.

Who Am I? The Adoptee’s Hidden Traumaby Joel Harris

Rick has a studio in Clerkenwell, a few blocks down from his apartment. I know exactly where to find him. I’m intrigued to see this place and a little bit excited to catch him unawares, but I hadn’t counted on having to deal with his abrasive assistant first. Of course Richard Fields has an assistant. Doesn’t Damien Hirst have about fifty of them? I should have expected this.

The studio, actually the ground floor of a former factory, has an intercom beside its locked double doors, announcing several companies and the intentionally misleading ‘Fields’.

I press the buzzer and a male voice, not Rick’s, floats towards me.

‘Hello? Can I help?’

‘Yes, I’m here to see Rick.’

See my cunning employment of the abbreviation by which he is known to his friends.

‘Do you have an appointment?’ The man seems unimpressed.

‘No, but if you tell him Luke is here, that will be enough.’

‘Look, Luke, I’m sorry, but Richard cannot be disturbed when he is working. And if you were someone who knew him well, then I wouldn’t need to tell you that.’

‘Perhaps you should tell him his son is here to see him. That might help change his mind.’

Electrifying silence between us, then the buzzer goes and I push open the front door. Behind another closed door I hear male voices, Rick’s slightly raised and his assistant’s more of a murmur. They come out together, Rick frowning, the assistant, a tall man around my own age, with undisguised curiosity on his handsome, model-like face. He’s wearing a white T-shirt that readsLove is the Drug, with paint-spattered Evisu jeans, the iconic ‘E’ visible on both arse cheeks when he turns around.

‘Luke, this is a surprise. Just to say, I hate, loathe, detest being dropped in on, and if it wasn’t for your shock declaration about our relationship, you’d never have got past my assistant. This is Henry, by the way. But now that my concentration has been well and truly wrecked, what can I do for you?’

I struggle, momentarily, for words. Why am I here disrupting this intensely famous artist, who looks fucked off to say the least? But then I remember. Actually it’smewho is fucked off.

‘Shall I say in front of Henry?’

My voice is as hostile as I feel. Rick considers me in silence. He looks at the watch on his wrist, an elegant thing I’ve noticed before, silver with a navy-blue face.

‘Is this your lunch hour? Shall we grab a coffee? I won’t be long,’ he says to Henry, who is watching this interplay virtually open-mouthed.

I follow Rick out of the building and along the street and neither of us says a word until we reach a café with bleached wood floors, white walls and two hostile-looking baristas standing behind a counter.

‘Best cup of coffee in London,’ Rick says. ‘There’s a roastery out the back.’

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