November #2
‘Thank you all for giving up your Thursday evening to be here to celebrate this truly remarkable story,’ he said, smiling, his voice sounding through a small black microphone clipped onto the white collar of his shirt.
‘It’s not often that a painting comes into the conservation department and goes out completely transformed. ’
As he gave a brief overview of Hendrick’s life and career and touched on the history of seventeenth-century Dutch maritime scenes, I found myself wondering what I would be working on next.
There had been talk of an oil painting from the same period, except this one was on canvas and created in Italy ; a landscape, I think.
The next six months or so would be taken care of, predictable and full.
I was considering whether that was a good thing – it would be a nice balance, perhaps, to the unpredictability of my personal life – when I felt Frank’s finger in my side.
‘What?’ I asked, rubbing the spot where he’d got me, just below my ribs.
‘Where are you, Catherine?’
I balked. The director was talking to me.
When I didn’t respond, Frank did. ‘She’s here,’ he called, stretching up onto his tiptoes and raising a hand like a schoolboy in case anyone failed to follow the sound of his rusty voice.
Without warning, an uncompromising sea of faces turned towards me.
‘Well, come on up here, Catherine.’
Frank gave me a nudge, and the sea parted.
‘I want to thank you personally,’ said the director, when I was standing beside him, holding my free hand over my glass in a last-ditch attempt to conceal it. ‘For your hard work and your patience.’
I was blushing, I could feel it.
‘For restoring this marvellous painting to its original appearance, as the artist intended it.’
I felt something else. Proud?
‘Would you like to say something?’
The faces smiled encouragingly.
‘Oh, yes,’ I said. I smiled back and took a moment before opening my mouth.
‘I would just like to say that spending the past few months with this painting has been a pleasure.’ I paused, surprised to feel the sting of tears.
I blinked them back and looked at the stretch of wall to the director’s right where the seascape was hanging.
There it was, waves rippling against the shore, clouds roiling in the thinly scumbled sky, the old church like a lighthouse in the background, and in the foreground the crowd.
At the centre of it all, the whole point of the painting, the character giving it its plot : the beached whale.
A portent from God, maybe, but also the thing that had brought these people together, the thing that would nourish them.
‘Catherine?’
I dragged my eyes away from the painting and back towards the expectant faces before me. I felt nourished, too. ‘I hope you all grow to care for Hendrick and his whale as much as I do.’
On top of the two glasses of wine he’d snuck into the unveiling, Frank, who was clearly in the mood for celebrating, had suggested a drink around the corner. So, after I’d spoken to a few colleagues, and thanked the director somewhat awkwardly for thanking me, we reconvened by the exit.
Although it was the start of winter, the air was dry and warm enough when you were wearing a coat.
Frank had been rolling a cigarette when I found him, and he wasn’t done smoking it when we reached the pub, which was just off Leicester Square and predictably crowded.
I left him to finish it outside and squeezed through to the bar, where I finally caught the eye of the red-faced barman.
I ordered Frank a pint and myself another glass of wine.
‘Cheers,’ said Frank, after I’d made it back out to the front.
He bowed his head in thanks and clinked his glass against mine.
‘How does it feel,’ he asked, taking a sip, a hint of foam lining his upper lip, ‘to have worked on a painting that next month is going to feature in every newspaper and magazine up and down the country?’
I smiled and told him to keep his voice down.
He tossed his head back in amusement, and I could see why – the mostly suited men around us didn’t look like the sort to be keeping their ears pricked for embargoed museum announcements.
‘Also, I think every magazine and newspaper might be a bit of an exaggeration.’
‘So?’ he probed.
‘So, it feels good,’ I said, surprising myself as I realised that it really did. Life remained full of uncertainty. Yet here I was, ringing in the end of one of my most exciting conservation projects to date, and it felt good, I felt good. More than good, I felt happy.
It was perhaps for that reason that one drink led to another, and then another, until, suddenly, we were on our fourth round.
I’d switched to gin and tonic. Frank was still on beer.
I watched as he took a swig and wiped his foamy lip with the back of his hand, which he then wiped on his trouser leg.
I laughed, covering my mouth when I caught sight of his lifted brow.
‘Sorry, Frank, it’s just I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this relaxed! ’
‘And you?’
‘Hm?’ I asked, taking a sip of my own drink.
‘Are you feeling more relaxed?’
I wasn’t sure whether he was referencing Noah or my frozen eggs or my mother or all of the above. Either way, I tilted my head to one side, then said, ‘I think I am.’
‘You think?’
‘Well, it’s hard to tell …’ I waved my glass in front of his face. Too much. Clear liquid overflowed and splatted on the pavement.
He laughed.
‘Can I ask you a question, Frank?’
‘Depends on the question.’
‘Do you and Douglas ever regret not having children?’
He blew out his cheeks. ‘If I’d known that was coming, I’d have got myself another refill.’
‘How have you already finished yours?!’ I peered into my own glass, still half full despite the spillage, and drank some more.
He smiled, with a furrowed brow. ‘Is that what you’re afraid of – regret?’ Before I had time to reply, he added : ‘Because you don’t need me to tell you that you can’t live your life like that.’
I didn’t need him to tell me that, but at the same time, I did. The gin was hitting me now. And the wine. ‘You’re a wise man, Frank.’
He nodded, gravely. ‘I have heard that before.’
I watched him for a moment, noticing the way his face changed as he continued with what he was saying.
‘We asked ourselves how much we wanted it.’
‘Parenthood?’ I asked.
‘Parenthood.’
‘And?’
‘And we realised that we’d somehow managed to escape it – not parenthood, I mean, but that need that overwhelms some people. Maybe it’s emotional or biological, I don’t know. Either way, in the end, we decided not to force ourselves into it.’
‘And it doesn’t make you sad?’ I asked, leaning my elbow on the windowsill, and my chin in the palm of my hand. ‘Not wanting this thing that gives so many other people’s lives meaning?’
Again, he smiled, but not in the same way. ‘When I was a teenager, I never imagined I would ever get married, let alone have children.’
‘And?’
‘There’s no one definition of family, Cathy, remember that.’
I nodded. I would.
He peered into his glass then nodded his head towards mine to ask if I wanted another.
‘Yes.’
He eyed me suspiciously. ‘And maybe some chips.’
‘Chips, yes. Brilliant. And ketchup.’
He laughed again and turned to go inside. Before he did, though, he turned back around and said, ‘You know, meaning comes from all sorts of things – take getting drunk with a friend.’
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been out two nights in a row, but the next day Anna suggested we meet for cocktails – real for me, pretend for her.
I’d been seeing what I could of her between work, my research rabbit holes, and regular visits to Norfolk.
Though my mother’s confidence in my ability to spend time alone was unerring, my best friend clearly worried about me being in the flat by myself.
The couple of times when she came out and said just that, I reminded her that I wasn’t by myself : I had Tom. She said that was her point exactly.
I tried to ignore the pounding headache that I’d woken up with, and washed and blow-dried my hair.
I put on a silky black dress with long sleeves and a scooped back, and even took time to run a mascara wand through my eyelashes and draw some liquid eyeliner across my upper lids.
I spritzed the insides of my wrists with a bottle of perfume Noah had given me, and as I did so, I wondered if he was going out much in New York.
He hadn’t mentioned it, but then again, would he?
I shook my head and put a mental stop to my speculation. With Noah, there was no need for it.
Anna had suggested a bar between my place and hers, tucked away on a side street on the fringes of Islington. It was small and dimly lit, with just a handful of tables and chairs.
‘Can we sit there?’ Anna asked a bartender with overly tended-to stubble as she pointed to a piano in the corner.
I laughed, then raised my eyebrows when he said yes.
‘This is great,’ I said, peeling off my coat and hooking it onto one arm of a wooden stand by the door.
Anna wolf-whistled and, in a phoney accent, told me I scrubbed up good.
I told her to shush. ‘Well, I’m hungover, and I thought I should at least try to hide it.’
We sat side by side on two stools where a piano stool should have been, our knees touching.
Anna was dressed up, too, a less unusual sight, in a blue velvet shirt and a matching pair of trousers.
Whenever she moved, the velvet caught the light and the shade of blue brightened.
Watching it felt like being at sea. I brushed my fingers against the material, which was soft to touch.
‘Here are your menus, ladies.’
I looked again at the bartender’s stubble and tried to picture what kind of state Noah’s would be in by now.
‘See, I knew this place had more than a couple of mocktails.’
I smiled and quickly skimmed the menu, recognising only a few names. ‘An almond Bellini for me, I think.’