28. Chapter 28
28
K atie shook yet another hand, thrust at her from amongst the sea of faces, smiling and beaming at her.
The opening night show was crowded, as many people were there for a free glass of bubbly as were there for the art. The atmosphere was heady, excited artists connecting with would-be buyers and patrons. A chance for many, after months in studios and sheds and workrooms, to talk to people about their art and be celebrated in what was so often solo endeavours.
‘These are truly stunning,’ a formidable woman with stiff, great hair was saying, peering through her varifocals to examine Katie’s pieces. ‘The colour depth is quite something. And self-taught, you say? Impressive, impressive.’ The woman pursed her lips and carried on her scrutiny. ‘I may have to treat myself.’
Katie felt butterflies, not for the first time that night. ‘I hope you will,’ she managed.
The novelty of strangers admiring and buying her work was new, and she didn’t think there was a high that could beat it. She’d previously only sold to family and friends and had always worried there was a charitable element to that—people buying something as a way to be nice, to encourage her in her little hobby. Meeting someone who just wanted to tell you that they loved what you had made, so much, in fact, that they were prepared to give you money for it was novel and thrilling.
Sipping at her second glass of prosecco, she gave a silent reminder to pace herself. She was nervous, excited, giddy, and tired from a severe lack of sleep from setting up this exhibition at the last minute. One whole corner of one of the main exhibition rooms was allotted to her, and with barely ten days’ notice, selecting pieces for a coherent exhibition had been a scramble. She had had to make time to finish some pieces that were only half done, and she borrowed another piece from her mother to include. Susan had insisted Katie mark the dish as ‘sold.’ ‘Darling, that’s one of my favourites,’ Susan had grumbled. ‘I want you to succeed, but please, not this one…’
Katie had smiled and given in. Her mother was, after all, her biggest fan.
Just then she saw the top of a red head and heard her mother’s rolling tones. ‘Katie Matheson, she’s my daughter. Where do I find her?’ Susan was asking another patron. The woman was standing near the door holding some leaflets, and Susan had presumed she was an event staffer. As the woman appeared to try to explain that she didn’t work there, Susan spotted Katie and started to push her way through the crowd.
‘Darling!’ she called as she neared Katie, ‘this is marvellous!’
Clad in gold lame trousers and an orange top that was cinched in with a gold link belt, Susan was brighter than many of the exhibitions in the room, and certainly more colourful than the other guests. The tweed, beige and taupe-clad country set who made up most of the crowd glanced surreptitiously at Susan, who stood out like a beacon.
‘Mum.’ Katie embraced her mother, Susan’s large gold hoops banging against her face as she clasped her daughter to her.
‘My goodness.’ Susan looked around, bracelet-laden arms jangling as she moved. ‘What a turnout you’ve got!’
Katie shrugged and wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, it’s not really just for me, Mum. It’s for the whole show. Most people are here for some of the other artists who are better known.’
‘Tsk.’ Susan tapped her on her hand. ‘Doesn’t matter what brought them here. They’ve got a chance to see your amazing work now, darling. And darling, this dress,’ her mother tugged at the strappy green sequin cocktail dress with a deep v-neckline, ‘makes you look like a siren!’
A white-haired, tweed-coated gentleman approached with a query for Katie. ‘My dear, are you the artist?’ the man asked in deep, melodious tones, tipping his head back towards her tables.
‘I am,’ Katie said, still feeling apprehensive when someone asked her that, as if she might be in trouble.
‘Well, congratulations. This really is splendid stuff. My wife is over there buying several of these pieces,’ he swept his hand in the direction of Katie’s exhibition, ‘because she’s rather fallen in love with them. Stunning colours, really.’
Katie felt a wave of emotions—pride, gratitude, relief, joy—swell up inside her, and she resisted the urge to fling her arms around him and sob her thanks. Her cheeks warm, she smiled and felt around for her words.
‘Gets her talent from her mother,’ Susan interjected herself into the conversation. ‘I’ve always been good with my hands,’ she added, pursing her lips into a smile.
The man looked a little startled and took in Susan’s gold trousers and jewellery-laden wrists and ears. He gave a faint smile, nodded at Katie, and stepped away.
Torn between her affection for her mother and concern that she might scare off customers Katie hoped to build a long-term relationship with, Katie put her hands on her hips and turned.
But Susan was now talking to a hesitant-looking woman who had been back and forth looking at Katie’s pieces all evening. Picking up a glazed jug, Susan passed it to the woman, who turned it over carefully in her hands. Katie watched as the woman gently handed the jug back to Susan, nodded, then took the item ticket and headed obediently to the sales desk.
Susan turned and grinned. ‘Another happy customer,’ she said and rubbed her hands together.
‘Mum.’ Katie shook her head.
‘Ooh, there’s Gerald Price. He should be good to buy a piece or two.’ Her mother sashayed away across the gallery, one hand waving in the air, with more swagger than most twenty-year-olds.
Katie smiled and looked at the growing number of little red dots on her display, indicating items that were now sold. She took a shaky breath. This had been such a whirlwind she could still hardly believe she was there, that the fruits of her ‘expensive little hobby’ hidden in the confines of her garage were now on display, and people were willingly giving her fairly large sums for it all.
And then her thoughts drifted to Tom, as they so often did. None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for him, she knew that to be true. No one before him had seen her passion as anything more than a messy and costly pastime that made for novel gifts for friends. Ryan had hated the mess and the cost and the hippiness of it all, as he called it. It didn’t scream success and modernity to him.
Tom had just seen her, and how she felt about it. He had seen that she was more fulfilled and more at peace doing this than at any other time. And he had shown her that making money from it—even a career—was possible. Just having someone see that and encourage her had felt like a long-mislaid puzzle piece had been found and slotted into place.
And he wasn’t there to see any of it. Wasn’t there to see what his words of encouragement and his little business plan—oh, that business plan, the weirdest and best present ever—had done for her.
Katie felt her eyes fill with tears again at the thought of him. He was on his own adventure, she told herself. His accounting firm would be opening soon. He would be busy, focused on that. Deep in her heart, she knew that if he wanted to be there, if he wanted to be in touch, he would be.
She thought of the kintsugi dish she had sent him. She knew it had been delivered and signed for, yet she had heard nothing for the past week. She knew she should take that radio silence as all she needed to know. The answer was no, Katie—no to trying to repair things. It’s time to move on.
Katie had three other pieces of kintsugi in her exhibition, but the big dish she had gifted to Tom was the most beautiful. It was her favourite ever piece of work, the piece that had meant the most to her because of the journey she had been on with it—from realising the original vision in her head to her anguish when she had broken it, to finding a way, years later, to create something beautiful from the shards. She hoped, no matter what he thought of her now, that it was being loved and appreciated somewhere.
One of the women staffing the sales desk puffed her way past Katie. ‘Excuse me, love, you’re proving very popular tonight!’
The woman was clutching a pad with little red dots on it to mark items as sold. She peeled off a little red sticker and stuck it on the label for a kintsugi mug. She peeled off a second label and affixed it to the kintsugi plate, then a third label and stuck it on the kintsugi jug.
The woman stepped back. ‘Beautiful,’ she said. Katie assumed she was talking about the pottery and not admiring her own labelling handiwork.
‘You’ll be sold out before we officially open at this rate!’ And she hurried back to the desk where the little queue of determined art buyers refused to go down.
Katie had to get used to the idea of her pieces disappearing into unknown homes. She had only really sold or gifted to family and friends before—until today, she knew where every single piece of her pottery was homed. It was an odd feeling to think that these pieces, which she had made with her own hands, were off to homes and places she would never know, to be enjoyed and admired by people she might never meet.
‘This is my daughter,’ Susan’s voice cut in. ‘Katie, this is Matilda, the Chair of the art show. She wanted to meet you.’
Matilda looked every inch the country set, with jodhpur-clad legs, a light blue cotton shirt with the collar turned up, and a Hermes scarf tucked into the collar. She and Susan appeared to be from entirely different worlds.
‘Katie, darling, your wonderful mother and I,’ she clutched Susan’s arm, ‘have been having an absolute gas! She’s such a hoot! She tells me this is your very first show! I am so pleased for you. You’ve done so well. I think you’re almost outselling even our more well-known artists.’ She glanced around and then lowered her voice. ‘Honestly, I am only on the committee because one has to be seen to do some good for the community, or they resent you. This was, I thought, the least boring thing I could get involved in. But that was before I realised I’d be looking at watercolours of the Gloucestershire countryside for the rest of my days.’
Susan hooted, and Matilda honked in response. ‘Your work is so refreshing. You must be so proud. Your mother tells me you’ve been doing this for years! What finally gave you the courage to exhibit?’
Matilda took a long drag on her prosecco and waited for Katie to reply.
Katie, exhausted from days of frantic prep, overwhelmed by the stress, and now, the surge of complex feelings of having people praise her work and buy it made her lower lip start to tremble.
‘Tom,’ she wanted to say. ‘Dear, kind, funny, thoughtful, sexy Tom showed me what I could do. And then it all got fucked up, and now he won’t speak to me. And I’m scared things might be ruined with the most thoroughly decent man I’ve ever met.’
As she tried to find some alternative words, a tall, thin man with the scantest of comb-overs and a pencil tucked behind each ear appeared at Matilda’s elbow.
‘Madam Chairwoman, it’s nearly time for your speech. Can we please go over the remarks and make sure everyone is included?’
Matilda sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose as if greatly pained. ‘Oh, Geoff. Geoff, Geoff, Geoff. Yes, if we must. Susan,’ she wiggled her fingers at Katie’s mum, ‘come with me. Most of these people are such bores.’
She made no attempt to lower her voice as she said this last, and Susan happily went with her. A friendship made in heaven, Katie thought.
In the doorway, a familiar head bobbed, trying to look over the crowd. Katie felt a surge of relief course through her,
‘Jess!’ She waved. ‘Over here.’
Jess stuck an arm up in response before disappearing back into the crowd to head towards Katie. Katie stood on tiptoes, craning her neck to watch her progress and direct Jess towards her.
As she strained to follow Jess’s progress through the crowd, she thought she saw a glimpse of a familiar outline near the doorway, with dark hair on top of a handsome face and smoky charcoal eyes. Her heart skipped a beat. Craning to see, she twisted her head every which way, but the crowd swayed and moved, and whatever she thought she saw was gone.
Jess appeared before her, huffing out air. ‘Phew, it is crowded in here! This is fab.’
She took in all the red dots on Katie’s pieces and let out a slow whistle. ‘Glad to see our mad packing session was worth it. Doesn’t look like you’ll be bringing much home!’
Katie nodded, looking past Jess to the entrance once more. She had probably imagined it, she told herself.