Chapter 19
JED
Although Monday was usually one of Anastasia’s days off, she’d asked if she could work today so that she was in the gallery on the first day her watercolours were on display.
I thought that was a great idea. I’d driven to Anastasia’s cottage first thing on Saturday and loaded all her canvases into my car, taken them into my studio and carefully organised them into the ones I thought we should get made into prints, into greetings cards and a few less conventional-sized ones which we’d just sell as originals.
It would be a few weeks before the prints and cards were ready but there’d been no reason to delay getting a few originals on the wall so I’d hung them last night after the gallery closed.
Late in the afternoon, I heard a squeal. Heart pounding, I raced downstairs thinking Anastasia had injured herself, but she was jumping up and down, waving her arms in the air.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
‘I’ve just sold my first painting. I can’t believe it.’
I smiled at her, remembering feeling the same way when someone from the Sydney gallery called to let me know they’d sold a print from my first collection. I’d somehow managed to keep my cool on the phone but I’d raced outside and leapt into the pool, fully clothed, as soon as the call ended.
‘Congratulations! And, not only have you sold your first painting, it was an original rather than a print and on its first day up.’
‘I’m in shock,’ she said.
‘Now do you believe you can paint?’
‘I’m starting to.’
‘Did you tell them you were the artist?’
‘Gosh, no. They asked about the artist and I said she was local but I was too embarrassed to say it was me.’
I smiled at her, also familiar with that feeling. ‘We’ll work on that too and soon have you proudly declaring yourself as the artist and owning your talent.’
Tara would be thrilled that Anastasia had already sold her first piece.
I glanced over to The Chocolate Pot and, at that moment, the door opened and Billy and Pam stepped out.
They looked towards the gallery and Pam pointed but Billy shook his head and my stomach lurched.
Were they avoiding me? But as he linked his arm through hers and they walked slowly up the street towards the town centre, I knew it wasn’t personal.
His treatment was presumably tiring him out and he needed a rest now.
My phone rang moments later – Tara telling me that they’d just been in for afternoon tea and she’d found out that Aaron had joined the local swimming club and was swimming early every morning and several evenings.
That would totally explain why he hadn’t been back for another art lesson – poor kid wouldn’t have had time for it.
She also filled me in on her conversation about Billy’s response to treatment which reinforced what I’d thought earlier about why they hadn’t popped in to see me.
Lucy had spoken to her grandad a couple of times since his treatment started but she hadn’t been round to visit, keen to avoid her mother.
I’d said that was harsh on Billy but Lucy could be exceptionally stubborn when her mind was made up and, to be fair to her, I could understand why she wanted to stay away from Ingrid.
What concerned me more was that Ingrid had made no effort to maintain contact with Lucy or Erin which made no sense to me when she was in the UK for such a short amount of time.
In her shoes, I’d be trying to see my daughters at every possible opportunity but, as ever, Ingrid’s mind worked differently to mine and I remained perpetually disappointed by her behaviour.
When Anastasia called up the stairs to say I had a visitor late on Thursday afternoon, I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be Aaron after what Tara had found out about his swimming commitments.
‘Can I have another art lesson?’ he asked.
‘Sure. Come up to the studio.’
As I led the way, I wanted to punch the air with excitement. He had an incredibly busy schedule yet he’d found the time to spend a couple of hours with me. There were so many resources out there to help him improve his techniques but he was choosing me. That had to mean something.
As we entered the studio, he paused and looked over towards Wally on his chair by the window.
‘He’s been waiting for you.’ I inwardly cringed, wondering if that was a stupid thing to say to a twelve-year-old.
Aaron didn’t say anything but he didn’t roll his eyes either.
‘So, what would you like to work on today?’ I asked.
He shrugged off his backpack and removed a sketchpad. ‘Can you look at these?’
I flicked through page after page of a mixture of animal and human eyes and could see the improvement with each attempt.
‘These are excellent, Aaron. I can see you’ve been working hard. Do you feel like you’ve cracked it?’
‘It took a while but I think I’m about there. I can see a big improvement from the first to the last.’
‘Me too.’ I pointed out what he’d done brilliantly and gave a couple more small pointers which he seemed to lap up. ‘Do you want to do more eyes today or something different?’
‘In one of your pictures in the window, you’ve got a sheep on a windy day and, even if there weren’t swirling leaves and the word wind in the title, I’d know the sheep was being buffeted cos it’s like its fleece is moving. How do you do that?’
‘Great question. Let’s go down to study it and I can talk you through what I did before coming back up here for some practice.’
As we perched on stools with easels placed side by side a little later, I had a flashback to sitting at the dining table with him back in Sydney, both working on the adjacent sides of a colouring book and Aaron playfully chastising me for going outside the lines.
That was before he fell ill, before I lost him.
Since then, I’d dreamed of seeing him again but had never expected to so what a privilege it was to be sitting beside him, guiding his talent.
Hopefully it could be more regular than every three weeks, otherwise we’d only manage a couple more lessons before he returned to Aus.
‘I didn’t think I was going to see you again,’ I said. ‘I wondered if I’d given you too many pointers last time.’
He paused for a couple of seconds before resuming his pencil strokes, his eyes focused on the canvas.
‘It was helpful. I like people to be honest with me. How can you get better if people don’t tell you how to improve?’
‘It’s good you can take feedback. Lots of people can’t.’
‘There’s this kid at the swimming club I go to who’s always arguing with the coach. Thinks he knows best cos he wins lots of medals but he could be even better if he listened.’
‘Is that a swimming club in Aus?’ I didn’t feel it was right to let on that I already knew he was going to a swimming club in Whitsborough Bay.
‘No. I joined one here. It’s kind of why I couldn’t come back sooner. I go every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night so I needed to get into a homework routine round that. Also, I wanted time to practise – no point coming back to work on something new if the eyes weren’t better.’
‘I like your commitment.’
‘If you’re going to do something, you need to be fully in.’ He looked up and fixed his eyes on mine. ‘No point doing anything half-heartedly.’
I’d have thought that was a very mature thing for someone his age to say except I recognised the phrase as one of Billy’s favourites.
That said, butterflies swirled in my stomach as I couldn’t help thinking that was a criticism of me.
Thing was, I had been fully in and it was Ingrid and Declan who’d pushed me out against my will.
‘I agree,’ I said, not breaking eye contact. ‘Training as a chef and working in the café was half-hearted for me and I hated feeling that way. For everything else in my life, I’ve been fully in. Everything.’
I expected him to challenge me on that but he held my gaze for a couple of seconds more before returning to his canvas.
Had I managed to get through to him about my part in our separation without having to spell it out?
I hoped so. I really couldn’t bear him to believe I’d rejected him.
I didn’t want him to think I was capable of something like that but I also didn’t want him to be questioning himself and thinking that it was because I hadn’t loved him, hadn’t wanted him, hadn’t cared.