The Space In Between
The two fingertips are almost, but not quite, touching.
With their muscular arms outstretched towards each other, there is still a small gap between Adam, lying completely naked on a grassy hill, and God, floating above him in the heavens, his pink cape billowing out behind him, surrounded by cherubs, as he reaches out to touch him.
‘Why aren’t their fingers touching?’
‘I think it’s more powerful that way, don’t you?’
With their necks cricked right back, Flick and Maggie were standing in the middle of the Sistine Chapel, staring up at the frescoed ceiling and Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam.
‘There’s so many theories, about it being the moment humanity is created, before the spark of life jumps from God’s fingertip to Adam’s.’
‘It reminds me of that moment in E.T.’
‘E.T?’
‘When he touches Elliott’s finger.’
Maggie turned to look at Flick, and she blushed and pulled a face.
‘Oh bollocks, did I just say something really stupid?’
And now she felt like a complete idiot. She knew Maggie had owned a gallery and was all knowledgeable when it came to art and lots of other middle-class things.
But if Maggie thought her a philistine, she didn’t show it.
‘No, not at all,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Maybe Spielberg was inspired by Michelangelo?’
They both smiled, then turned back to staring at the ceiling, along with the rest of the tourists who were being herded through the chapel with slack-jawed awe.
‘Why’s God always got to be an old white man with a beard?’ observed Flick. ‘Why can’t God be a woman? Or a person of colour? Or my age?’
‘I think in the old days that was supposed to be the traditional image of wisdom.’
‘What’s changed? The world is still run by old white men. Pale, male and stale. Look at politics.’
‘Do we have to?’ Maggie groaned. ‘I’d rather look at these beautiful frescos.’
But Flick was feeling irked now. That was the problem with all these old religious paintings.
These famous masterpieces that were always painted by men hundreds of years before she was born, and which she was always being told were important – but why exactly?
She could never see herself or her generation reflected in them, could never relate to their view of the world.
OK, so these old guys might be good at art – hell, she could barely draw a stick figure so she was seriously impressed by their skill – but so what?
‘They might be beautiful, but they don’t mean anything to me.’
That caught Maggie’s attention.
‘I mean, this painting might have changed your life, but it’s not going to change mine. For starters, I’m not religious.’
‘It doesn’t matter, you don’t have to be. That’s the wonderful thing about art. It’s never just about the subject, but about how it makes you feel. It allows you to see things within yourself. Everyone sees something different. Everyone gets something different.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like in this painting there’s a tension. It’s this big, dramatic moment, and yet it’s so breathtaking in its simplicity.’
Titling her head on one side, Flick squinted up at the ceiling.
‘I don’t see it.’
‘Look at that gap, between the fingers. To me that symbolizes that space in between where life truly happens. Like that moment just before a storm breaks, before the lightning crackles and lights up the sky. When the atmosphere changes and you hold your breath and wait for it to begin.’ Maggie gazed up at the ceiling.
‘It’s the split second before you walk onto a stage, or leap into the unknown, or make any big life decision. When you first meet someone and there’s an electricity, an anticipation, a spark between you both. Before you kiss someone for the first time. That’s when you feel most alive.’
Flick nodded and tried to think about Rory, but nothing came.
‘All those things come flooding back when I look at this painting. It makes sense of all those emotions and feelings, in a way that I can’t explain properly—’ Maggie broke off, flushed. She suddenly felt rather embarrassed. ‘Sorry, I went on a bit there, but does that make sense?’
Flick looked at her, curiously.
‘If you love art so much, why did you drop out of art college?’
There was a pause and Maggie uttered four words.
‘Because my brother died.’
How can four words describe the magnitude of such an event?
It wasn’t the answer Flick was expecting and she turned to Maggie. ‘Sorry, I had no idea.’
‘It’s OK. It’s a long time ago now. Motorbike accident.’
Short phrases. Keep it simple. Even now, all those years later, the feelings threatened to come flooding back. The knock on the door. The policeman. Her mother dropping to her knees, howling.
‘My parents needed me.’
Her brother’s bedroom, kept exactly the same as the moment he left to go back to university that term, never to return.
The duvet cover freshly washed each week.
The faded posters. The silence. The blame.
Her parents’ marriage never recovered. Had any of them?
Funny, sweet, clever, reckless Charlie. He was twenty-one, just a year between them.
Her big brother. Motorbike mad. Skinny-hipped, biker jacket, patchouli oil.
Even now she couldn’t smell that scent without thinking of him ruffling her hair and feeling the weight of his fingers on her scalp.
‘So, have I changed your mind?’ Forcing herself back to the present, Maggie turned to Flick. ‘Does it mean anything now?’
Flick nodded. ‘Yeah. Maybe.’
‘OK, I’ll take maybe.’ Maggie smiled.
‘And I admit, it’s a very good painting.’
‘I’m sure Michelangelo will be pleased to hear that.’
Flick grinned and went to pull out her iPhone from her bag to take a photo but was stopped by a security guard who spoke a torrent of Italian and waved his arms.
‘No photos,’ translated Maggie.
Flick quickly put away her phone.
‘You’ll just have to remember it. Like we used to do when we’d travel before smart phones and we’d run out of film for our cameras.’ Catching Flick’s horrified expression, Maggie laughed. ‘Take a photo with your eyes instead.’
‘Like how?’
‘Like this.’ Maggie stared up the ceiling without blinking.
‘Imagine you’re going to have to describe it later to someone, notice the colours, the use of light and perspective, then really focus on the details, look for the surprising ones, hidden away, like little jewels for you to uncover.
’ She paused, her eyes searching them out.
Flick watched her. Transfixed. She’d never looked at art like this before.
No one had ever explained or talked about it in this way.
On school trips, she would race around art galleries, bored.
She remembered once when she’d gone to Paris and seen the Mona Lisa.
She just remembered how small it was. How disappointing.
Couldn’t see what the fuss was all about.
But this. This was different.
‘Think about how it makes you feel, how it inspires you or takes you out of yourself into something bigger; think of all the people who have stood where we’re standing now and looked up, all their dreams and aspirations projecting onto the ceiling above.’
All those people who won’t ever get to stand here and see this, thought Maggie, an image of her brother swimming before her eyes.
And suddenly she was right back in that space in between.
Between throwing her arms around his neck in a casual goodbye and the sound of his voice – ‘Bye, Mags, see you in you the summer’ – and the knock on the door.
They were so close and yet so different.
The joke in the family was that she got all the looks while he got all the brains, but that wasn’t true.
He got both. While she failed every A-level except art, Charlie excelled at school.
He was studying medicine to be a doctor, just like their dad and grandfather before them.
He would tease her that he was taking one for the team, so she could pursue her life as an artist. In the three decades since he died she’d been seeing art for him, looking at it with her eyes and wishing he could see it too.
‘OK, I’ve got it.’
Flick’s voice caused Maggie to zone back in.
‘It’s saved to the memory bank. Better than a photo.’ She grinned. ‘No carbon footprint from data storage using up all that energy in some building out in the desert somewhere.’
‘Er, right, yes.’
Before coming on this trip, Maggie had thought doing your bit for the environment meant recycling and reusable carrier bags, but sometimes being with Flick felt like being on holiday with Greta Thunberg.
It was both educational and terrifying. That said, Greta would have never got on a plane, so there you go.
‘I don’t think he’s here. At least I can’t see him.’
‘Sorry, what?’
‘Our romance fraudster. Theo C. Stratin. Or whatever he’s calling himself now.’
Maggie snapped back to reality. It took a second to realize who she was talking about. For a moment there she’d been somewhere completely different. She’d forgotten all about Him.
But now she was sharply reminded.
‘No . . . no, me neither.’ She shook her head.
She knew she should be disappointed, but it was hard to conjure up dismay when she was looking at something so beautiful.
Art did that to her. That was its power.
After Charlie first died, she used to visit art galleries and sit on the benches for hours and just stare at the paintings, as if somehow their beauty would cancel out the pain.
‘We could try going to the Colosseum. Or the Pantheon . . . is that how you pronounce it?’
Flick was chattering away and had pulled out her phone and was reading from it again, despite the security guard circling.
‘Yes . . . yes, we should . . .’
Maggie heard herself mumbling. She didn’t want to think about Him. Not here. Not ever. She felt annoyed by his intrusion.
‘You know, I’m reading this list of all the things to see in Rome. There’s loads, he could be anywhere.’
And then immediately foolish. Why do you think you’re here, Maggie?
a voice in her head piped up, sharp and critical.
You’re not on holiday, you silly idiot. And now guilt and shame were piping up as well.
How could you fall for all his lies? Of course he never loved you. How could you be such a fool?
‘Oh look! He’s posted a photo!’
‘Sorry, what?’ Dazed, Maggie zoned back. Her euphoria from looking at Michelangelo’s ceiling had now disappeared and been replaced by self-loathing.
‘Aha, I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist. Look!’
Flick was waving her phone in her face and she had to step back slightly. Not just because she needed her glasses and couldn’t focus, but because seeing him again, so sharply, was like a strike to her chest. She hated herself for letting him have that power over her. She felt so pathetic.
‘That’s the Colosseum,’ she managed.
She felt almost woozy. Her heart was hammering and she had to steady herself against the railing.
‘What’s he doing? Trying to be the Gladiator?’ scoffed Flick.
Maggie rolled her eyes, affecting the expression she knew was required of her, while trying to mentally pull herself back together.
‘Scusi!’
And now the security guard had spotted the phone and was making his way over.
‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ said Maggie, grabbing Flick’s elbow, ‘before we get thrown out.’