February #2
‘Shall we?’ Instead of opening one of the double doors, he gripped both handles and pushed them wide.
As he did so, his mouth broke into a grin.
There was something boyish about his features, which were all a tad too big for his face, as if he were still growing into them in his fifties.
When he told me that one of the reasons he liked the decidedly secular subjects of the Dutch was because he’d been force-fed Catholicism as a child, his eyes had flashed left and right – the way they do whenever he lets me in on a secret.
I followed him down another set of stairs to the lower conservation studios, the sound of museumgoers muffled, the temperature a degree or two lower, or at least that’s always how it feels.
It might have something to do with the dusky-blue walls, and the chunky white lights hanging in front of them, vaguely resembling floating icebergs.
‘Here are our findings,’ said Frank, passing me a plastic folder of printed notes, the results of various investigations, including analysis under ultraviolet light.
He was in the scientific department but often helped out with structural work, as dextrous with canvas and wood as he was with rolling papers. ‘Also on the server, of course.’
‘Of course,’ I said, smiling first at his professionalism and then at the way he was eagerly rocking back and forth on his heels. I held the folder snugly to my chest as I approached the painting, which was resting on an easel in the corner.
The beach stretched out beneath a clouded sky ; together with the heavy coats and boots of the men, women and children gathered on the shore, it told the viewer it was a gusty winter’s day.
On the left, a couple of old fishing boats rested against the grassy dunes, and further along a few more had been pulled up onto the sand, fresh from the waves.
‘So, there’s the split in the lower wood panel – that’s one issue – and then there’s the discoloured varnish.’
‘Right.’ The entire scene had a sallow tinge to it from where the natural resin varnish, applied to protect the paint, had darkened over time.
‘Obviously there’s only so much we can tell at the moment,’ he added, following my gaze. ‘We’ll do some more investigations after your initial clean.’
‘Mm-hm.’ Like a camera lens on autofocus, my eyes zoomed in and started scanning the surface for losses. The sky was muddy with overpaint, probably from an earlier restoration. So was the sea.
‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ he said, talking to me but looking at the painting. ‘Will I see you at Mara’s leaving drinks?’
I wondered aloud why the waves ran perpendicular to the beach in places, instead of parallel with it.
‘Catherine?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Mara?’
‘Oh, sure.’
As his footsteps receded along the corridor, I heard him chuckling. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe in the salty sea air.
I had no intention of attending Mara’s leaving drinks, and Frank knew it.
I was just too distracted to make a legitimate excuse.
I spent the afternoon reading about my Dutch marine painter, Hendrick van Anthonissen, and if it hadn’t been for Noah, I’d have continued sifting through books and journals late into the evening.
Hendrick and I would be spending the next few months together, and before I started on his painting, I wanted to know all about him – his career as an artist, his life in Amsterdam, everything in between.
But I also wanted to meet my husband, who had booked us a table at my favourite restaurant.
My husband, or my man friend – Noah had jokingly suggested I call him the latter when I’d told him I kept stumbling over his new marital label, and, to his dismay, it had stuck.
I collected my things and headed for the exit, tapping out a message telling him I was on my way.
I listened to a voicemail from Anna, my best friend since school, wishing me a ‘happy fucking birthday!’ and demanding we get together at the weekend.
As I emerged from the staff entrance, the cold air nipped at my bare ankles – Noah had given up on telling me, his face creasing with faux-concern, that I seemed to have forgotten my socks.
After a December that had felt more like autumn than winter, January had been bitterly cold, and now so was February.
The Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square was long gone, leaving the stone lions guarding nothing but Nelson.
Still, the concrete patch stretching out in front of the National Gallery was teeming.
Tourists were pointing their cameras at buskers strumming guitars beneath lamp-posts, their low-rent version of a spotlit stage.
A grey-haired man was humming to himself as he made art on the ground with coloured chalk.
Unlike the framed pieces in the museum, this would be washed away by morning.
Giving it a cursory glance as she passed by was a woman of about my age with a small baby strapped to her chest. I looked away and wrapped my scarf around my neck.
As I walked to the restaurant with my bag slung over my shoulder, I could feel the box of tampons gently but persistently poking my side.
Noah was sitting at our table when I arrived.
I saw him through the misty window, in conversation with one of the waiters, talking – as usual – with his hands as much as his mouth.
He clapped and the waiter laughed. I couldn’t help smiling as I opened the door and felt a warm flush of air.
I shed my coat, and with it any thought of my cycle.
‘Happy birthday, my love,’ he said, standing to greet me with a kiss surrounded by his winter beard, an annual addition to our household.
‘Here.’ He held out his hands, well versed at reviving my fingers, with their poor circulation.
‘I’m sorry I had to slip out early this morning,’ he said, rubbing them warm.
He’d planned to bring me breakfast in bed – ‘proper coffee and almond croissants’, he’d said, fresh from the sweet-smelling bakery around the corner from the flat – but a departmental meeting had intervened.
‘Don’t worry, Tom kept me company.’
‘Oh good, I’m glad – I had a word with him before I left, you see.’
I shook my head, even as I felt my cheeks rise. He liked to think that he and our black-and-white rescue cat had a mutual understanding.
He carried on the joke for another minute or two, as he always did. ‘I asked him to go and get some more milk, and he obliged, but then he was starving hungry …’
‘As usual.’
‘… as usual, and he couldn’t wait until he got back to the flat. He tried his best to be careful, but the bottle was just so heavy, and when he tipped it up …’ He bit his lip with disappointment. ‘There were milky paw prints all along the pavement.’
I laughed.
‘So, how was your day?’
I was halfway through telling him about the seascape when two glasses of champagne arrived, golden yellow in glasses shaped like tears. I cocked my head.
‘What?’ he asked, reaching out to receive them and handing me one.
‘Come on, it’s not exactly an important birthday.’
‘Every birthday is important, especially your thirty-fifth,’ said Noah, raising his glass to clink mine, looking me in the eye. ‘I would know.’
‘Oh, that’s right, for a moment I forgot how old you are.’
He reached his spare hand under the table and gave my thigh a half-squeeze, half-pinch. ‘Age is beauty, babe.’
‘Well, that I believe.’
His darker than dark hair was threaded with grey, but it was still full and thick.
When he smiled, the kind of lines that add character to a face sprung up around the corners of his mouth and eyes.
He wore them well, the extra eleven years he had on me.
With him, I was happy to accept the deeply unfair disparity between men and women when it comes to ageing.
‘So,’ he said, ‘what are we having?’
We turned our attention to our menus, and shortly after the waiter reappeared. He and Noah picked up where they left off, half laughing, half despairing about the US president’s latest outrage, while I weighed up the pros and cons of ravioli versus spaghetti.
After we’d ordered, Noah asked about lunch with my mother. ‘Did you and Janey have fun?’
I swallowed my final sip of champagne and felt the tiny bubbles fizz against the sides of my throat. ‘She didn’t make it, actually.’
‘Oh?’
‘She forgot.’
He paused. ‘Lunch or your birthday?’
I tried a little too hard to put on a smile. ‘Both.’
‘Wow.’
‘Yes, well, there’s a lot going on at home.
Which is good, obviously.’ Ever since my father’s heart had unexpectedly given out, she’d been keeping herself busy, helping to manage the local nature reserve, volunteering at beach cleans.
I didn’t blame her, living in the same house, with the same things – an inhabited reliquary.
Still, there were times when I couldn’t help but take it personally.
My mother, who used to be the one to call, who if anything should have been more available, had become absorbed in other things.
The one thing that had kept me going after Dad was the thought that she needed me.
‘Anyway, we’ve rearranged,’ I said, waving away his sympathy and steering the conversation back around to his meeting. ‘How did it go?’
‘Oh, fine, there’s some reshuffling going on – a couple of promotions coming up over the next few months, apparently, but we’ll see.’