Fifteen years earlier
After lunch we sat next to the fire finishing our wine and I told you about my dream of being a journalist. It was more than a dream, really; I’d been working towards it since I was twelve years old, writing for the school magazine and the local parish newsletter, and the thing I was most proud of, a string of articles that had been accepted by the Independent about life as a London teenager.
I’d joined the university newspaper in my first week, and secretly hoped to be editing it in my final year.
Then a graduate trainee scheme at the Times or the Guardian , a stint in the newsroom, after which I’d become an arts correspondent, all working towards my ultimate goal of editing one of the weekend supplements by the time I was thirty.
‘You’ve got it all worked out.
None of my friends have a clue what they’ll do.
We don’t even talk about it.
’
Privately I thought that might be because your friends were the kind who didn’t need to think about it, the kind for whom money actually did grow on trees.
You were reluctant to talk about your painting at first. I asked if you wanted to become a professional artist, and you waved your hand dismissively.
‘I’ll never be good enough.
’
It was the first time I’d seen a chink in that smooth public-school armour of yours, a glimpse of insecurity.
‘You are. More than good enough if that drawing is anything to go by.’
‘I’m better when I commit the time, by which I mean all day and all night.
Painting isn’t something you can fit round a life.
You have to do it non-stop if you really want to get somewhere.
’
‘What kind of things do you paint?’
‘It varies. Landscapes mostly, but recently I’ve started doing portraits.
’
That’s when you told me about a portrait you’d made of your father, working from an old photograph.
‘It was like bringing him back to life for a bit,’ you said.
‘His eyes, his smile. Suddenly I could remember exactly. And not just from the photograph.’
I registered how your voice changed whenever you spoke about him, quietening, softening.
I thought about asking you how he’d died but I didn’t have the courage, not then.
‘I’d like to draw you.
Will you let me?’
I shook my head.
‘Maybe one day.’
‘Why not now?’
I shrugged.
I was still trying to resist you at that point, my own private tug of war.
The start of a longing that would never cease.
You smiled your minimal quarter-smile.
‘You’re not making any of this very easy for me, are you? ’