21. Lavender
I want a driver, I find myself thinking as Antonio pulls away from the curb.
Riding the Tube when this is all over will never be the same.
I give my head a little shake. I feel like I’ve gone to sleep and have woken in someone else’s life. Someone with a hot husband all growly and demand-y, the kind that can make you do things that, if a mere mortal asked you to do, you’d tell them to piss right off.
“I’m not in the mood to let you watch.”
I bite the corners of my mouth to stop myself from smiling like a total looney. I’d left the bathroom, too! Did as he said. Then I’d heard the shower, and I almost died!
Raif, naked in the shower. Thinking about me—thinking about what we’d just done.
I had a very stern word with myself about rolling out of bed to creep in and watch. For one thing, I’m not a pervert. Second, if I’d gone in there, I know I wouldn’t be able to walk straight this morning.
I thought I’d need to pretend to be asleep when he came back into the room. I imagined myself watching him through my lashes as he dried and dressed and—
“So you’re here, then?”
I roll my eyes at Tod’s tart tone and pivot to face him.
“I know I’m a vision,” I say, sweeping a theatrical hand down my light woolen dress, “but I’m not really a vision.”
He huffs, and his eyes dip to the little blonde by my side.
“This is Daisy,” I say, pressing a reassuring hand to her back. “Daisy, this is Tod, my friend.” His eyebrows pinch, and I find myself thinking he’d better be my friend or he’ll be paying rent.
“Hello.” Daisy offers her hand.
Tod looks at it like it’s a wet fish until I frown. With menace. He takes it. Awkwardly.
“Tod is an artist,” I say, hoping to impress her. And bingo, her blue eyes fly wide.
“That’s so exciting!”
“Yeah, it is,” Tod says, sort of wanting to impress but playing it cool at the same time. Bloody artists and their artistic temperaments.
“Tod made that,” I say, pointing at a clay model sitting on a white plinth under a studio light. I see he’s taken it upon himself to move stuff around again.
Though he hasn’t said as much, I believe the piece is loosely based on The Statue of Ebih-il, the Superintendent of Mari, an alabaster antiquity dating back to 25 BC. The priceless piece currently resides in The Louvre, Paris. Tod’s version has the same wide eyes and goofy smile as the original, but his holds a mobile phone.
“Really?” Daisy glances up at me, unsure what to make of it.
“What does it make you feel?” Tod asks. “Art should evoke a response. A reaction.”
“It makes me feel… like I can be an artist, too. But it’s very wonderful,” she adds politely. Tod is too self-absorbed to realize the slight.
“Thank you.” He nods gravely and, linking his hands behind his back, he bows. Like he’s about to be bestowed with an OBE or something. “I call it Talk Like an Egyptian.”
Even though the original is Syrian…
Daisy nods as though she completely gets his artistic vision. Or maybe she’s just heard The Bangles hit from the 1980s. It’s one of Polly’s housework favorites.
“You see, my upcoming exhibition explores the relationship between the tyranny of history and life as performance. I’m fascinated by the divergence of the past and the present, from both a simple and a complex narrative.”
“I see you’ve been practicing for Friday night,” I put in.
He nods and grins. “How do I sound?”
“Very eloquent.” If you speak arty bollocks, which I’m not sure anyone really does. Plenty can blag it, though. “Tod’s show is on Friday. He’s very excited.”
“An art show?” Daisy’s eyes are suddenly as wide as dinner plates. “He must be very talented,” she adds, her ponytail almost whipping me as she spins back around.
“Oh, he’s a legend in his own mind,” I say, sliding him a smile that dares him to contradict me. “If you go over to that cabinet, it has paints and canvases. You can use them if you like.”
Just when I think her eyes can’t get any wider, they almost fall out of her head. “Proper canvases—like the real artists use?”
“Yep.” We had a few weeks of canvas and cocktail gatherings, which went quite well. I should probably run them again.
“And I can have one?”
“You can have as many as you like, doll. Knock yourself out. Or rather, don’t. The door to the cabinet is a bit wonky. I don’t want to have to explain to Uncle Raif how you got knocked out.”
She giggles. “I’ll be careful, promise.”
“Off you go, then. We’ll go to my office and set you up an easel in there.”
“How exciting!”
She dashes off in the direction I’d pointed as I ponder why she’s so excited about art supplies. She lives in a mansion—her bedroom is so pretty and full of all of the things little girls are supposed to like. I suppose it could be a perky girl thing. Primrose has a thing for stationery.
“So?” Tod says, running his hand up the back of his head. “How are you?” His eyes flick over me as though trying to ascertain any changes in me.
He won’t find them on the outside.
“I’m good. Really good, thanks.” I find myself biting the sides of my mouth again as I recall a jealous, handsy Raif this morning. God, when he’d kissed my neck, I’d turned all wet and hot and melty.
Married life is much more fun than I imagined it would be.
“Sorry?” I’m sucked back into the present, realizing Tod is speaking. “I was miles away.”
“Yeah, I know. What’s up with you?”
“Nothing.” I pick my bag up from the floor and begin scouring it for my phone. “Why’d you ask?”
“Because you haven’t asked me how I’m doing. You know, after my traumatic weekend.”
“Tod.” I lean closer as I fold my fingers around the front door keys to my flat to stop myself from thumping him. “I don’t give a flying fuck about your weekend. Know why? Because your weekend changed the course of my life. Do you get that?”
“You don’t exactly look unhappy.”
“You want me to be unhappy?” I ask, rearing back.
“No. No,” he adds quickly. “That’s not it at all, but I didn’t expect you to come back married either.”
“You’d rather he would’ve just degraded me—shagged me senseless to pay back the three hundred grand you owed him? Do you have any idea how shocked I was when he said how much money you owed him? How the hell did you think I was going to cover it, Tod? How?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, his expression faltering. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I’d do anything to turn the clock back. Please believe me.”
The phrase that banana is already peeled springs to mind.
Act in haste, repent at leisure is another.
And I’m happy for him to repent because this could’ve worked out very, very differently.
Not that I would’ve let Raif rail me for money. Even if that’s all I could think about last night. In my current scenario, he’d be shagging me into oblivion for my money. Which is not the same as sex to pay of a debt that’s not even mine.
Or maybe I’m just kidding myself. Maybe I’d been destined to lose myself in his bed from the moment I walked into his office to find we’d already met.
“Is it really that bad?” Tod asks, his voice shaky with concern.
“Just be grateful you’re not his type,” I say, throwing my purse over my shoulder. “Or you might be standing here wearing this ring instead.”
And then I’d have to fight you…
As predicted, Monday is quiet. Tod hangs around the showroom like a wraith, scribbling on a pack of revision cards and moving his pieces, hither and thither, as Polly would say, as he attempts to get them in all the best spots.
I haven’t told him that Primrose will be in charge of Friday’s display. She has an eye for these sorts of things, and I know it makes her feel a sense of accomplishment when everything looks balanced and pleasing to the eye.
Type A through and through, that one.
If he gives me any grief, I’ll just threaten to make his solo exhibition a thematic group experience and involve other artists in his big night. That would piss on his Cornflakes.
Not that I would actually do it because a promise is a promise. Not to mention, I’ve already sunk money into advertising it as it is.
I plod into my office and pull up Friday’s emails. Everyone knows that anything hitting your inbox after three o’clock Friday is a Monday problem. I update the website, make a couple of calls, and send a polite reminder to the local newspaper about Friday’s big event. And I do all this while keeping an eye on my little charge.
She’s a dream, really. Though she does pull some funny faces while she’s concentrating, I think as I glance over at her. Daisy kneels on a cushion, drawing on paper we’d pilfered from the printer after she’d decided she needed a proper plan—and a practice run—before tackling the canvas and easel. She looks like Raif in a certain light, despite their coloring being night and day.
“You’ve been busy.” Primrose closes my office door behind her. She drops to her heels, picking up one of Daisy’s abandoned efforts. There are at least a dozen attempts at various castles and landscapes. “I like this one,” she says, examining a pink stoned castle.
“Don’t.” Daisy pulls the paper from Prim’s hand. “That one’s no good.” She sniffs, all sad eyes. “But I’m sorry for snatching.”
“No worries,” Prim answers, touching the little girl’s head. “I like it, anyway. Here’s your choccy milk.” With a theatrical whisper, she leans in and says, “Better drink before Lavender gets a whiff of it. I don’t know whether you’ve heard, but she’s been known to punch people for chocolate milk.”
This, at least, brings a smile to Daisy’s face.
“All right, Queen Grimhilde?” Prim says, pulling my coffee from the cardboard holder.
“Hardy-har,” I mutter as I take it from her outstretched hand. Only she would think calling me Snow White’s step monster’s name is funny. “Sugar?”
“Nope. I decided you’re sweet enough.” She rolls her eyes. “Zoe knows your order. You think she’d do you dirty?”
“Not Zoe,” I agree, bringing the fragrant cup to my lips. “But you might sabotage it.”
“Not by forgetting your sugar. Flicking boogers in it, maybe.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
We both fall quiet as we sip our coffees, watching the little girl stretched out on the floor.
“She’s a little intense, isn’t she?” Prim says in a whisper.
“I’m not sure intense is the word. It’s more like she’s… I dunno. Tightly wound?”
“Why do you think that is?”
“She’s had a rough start.” I’d already explained to Prim why she lives with Raif. “A parent dying kind of picks your world apart.” It certainly did mine.
“Yeah,” Prim agrees, peeling off the lid of her drink. She blows gently on it. I know she also lost her dad, but I’m pleased she doesn’t remember that time like I do. It’s little wonder Whit behaves like a mother hen, pecking at all of our heads. Lord only knows what would’ve happened without him because Polly’s world wasn’t picked apart. It imploded.
“I can’t do this!” Daisy throws down her pencil, curling herself into the smallest shape. Head pressed to her bony knees, she hugs her arms tight around them. “I can’t. Because I’m stupid. Stupid. Stupid!” She begins to bang her head on her knees, spurring Prim and me from our shock to motion.
“Don’t do that, lovely,” I say, rounding the desk. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not. I can’t do it because I’m so, so stupid!”
“You stop that,” Prim says softly. “No girl on earth is stupid. That’s for boys to worry about, not us.”
I slide my sister a look, and she shrugs, sort of like have you got anything better?
And the answer to that is no. No, I do not.
“You are absolutely not stupid. You’re the opposite because this one is lovely,” I say, picking up a random drawing. And it is. I don’t know much about kids or their artistic abilities. I also don’t really know much about art, which is weird for a person who owns an art gallery. But what I have is an eye—or so I’m told—an eye for the commercial. For the kind of art that sells. My issue is getting people through the door in the first place.
Anyway, this is a seven-year-old’s drawing, but I see the care in it. The beauty, too. I pick up another. “This one is good as well.”
“They’re all rubbish,” Daisy says on a whimper.
“Well, of course you think they are,” I say, wrapping my arm around her shoulders and pulling her tiny frame into my side. “Because you’re an artist. And artists are very, very hard on themselves. They want perfection. But you know what?”
She looks up at me with those big blue eyes and shakes her head.
“Perfection is overrated. Finished is much, much better.”
“But how can it be finished if it’s not done right?”
“That’s just the way it is. Perfection is pretty much unobtainable—you can’t make anything perfect, I mean. Because what is perfect?”
“It’s just an ideal,” Prim puts in.
I glance my sister’s way, wondering if it cost her to say that. We both handled the absence of a father in very different ways. I went off the rails, and she made sure not to deviate from them an inch. The wilder I became, the straighter she laced.
Maybe her behavior was more in tune with being my antidote.
The thought makes me so sorry.
“Primrose is right. Perfect is like make-believe. It’s also boring because it’s our mistakes that make us unique. You know what unique means?”
Daisy nods.
“The world would be boring if we were all perfect. Mistakes are real. And real is beautiful,” I say, wiping away her tears with my thumb.
“We have a philosopher in our midst,” Primrose murmurs under her breath.
“Trying to make things perfect zaps all the fun out of shi—shizz. You’re allowed to make mistakes, Daisy.”
“Like mum made Lavender,” my sister chirrups. If she was nearer, I’d probably kick her. Out of love, though.
“Joke’s on you,” I mutter, “because the best portion of you ran down Polly’s leg.”
“Eww, that is disgusting! I don’t ever want to think about Polly in those terms. Or how I came into existence.”
“Who’s Polly?” Daisy asks. Out of all the potential questions, that one is the easiest to answer. It’s also a good reminder of our audience.
“She’s our mum.”
“Oh.”
My heart aches for the little girl who is clearly missing her mother.
“She’ll be here later, and then you’ll see why Primrose is as silly as she is. But for now, I think you should practice making mistakes. Lots of them. On purpose.”
“Why?” By her expression, you’d think I asked her to go out and punch toddlers.
Because it’ll take the pressure off, I hope.
“Can you ride a bike, Daiz?” I ask rather than answer.
She nods her head. “Uncle Raif taught me how.”
Uncle Raif. A dad on the streets and a daddy between the sh—
So not finishing that thought. And really, the suggestion remains to be seen. And experienced. My tummy turns over, but I ignore it.
“Did you ever fall off while you were learning?”
“A few times,” she admits.
“Can you remember what you were thinking before you did?”
“Probably that she didn’t want to fall off,” Prim says, gathering Daisy’s artwork. The little girl nods.
“Well, that’s pressure. Trying to make something not happen usually has the opposite effect. So if you try to make mistakes—on purpose—what do you think might happen then?”
“I might not make them?” she asks doubtfully.
“It’s worth a try, right?”
“But when I make a mistake, I feel bad,” she says in a tiny voice. “And I don’t like feeling bad.”
“That’s not great, but it’s not a catastrophe, is it?”
“People might laugh at me.”
“People laugh all the time at Primrose, and she’s survived.”
My sister reaches up to scratch her nose. With her middle finger.
I don’t retaliate. Wow, this being sensible and sensitive takes it out of a girl.
“Look, Daisy. Nobody’s perfect. But you know what everyone wants?”
She shakes her head again.
“To have fun. So that’s what we’re going to do. Those old clothes you brought with you?” I say, curling my knees under me to stand. “Go and put them on. We’re going to do a little project.”