Chapter 27
KATE
Once he kissed me.
Kate has agreed to meet Hana mainly out of curiosity.
Still, she takes care over dressing, even more than she does when she is meeting Pia.
As she stands in front of her mirror, she laughs.
She seems to be channeling her inner Scandinavian.
All creams and grays. Simple layers. She is definitely not going in on her bike today.
She arrives early, so she walks through the gallery before heading to the coffee shop.
She spots a poster, Save Our Gallery, at the same time as she spots Nathan, a friend of Bella’s from school.
She reflects that Bella always did have a soft spot for a bad boy.
But look how Nate has turned out, managing this gallery.
Not so very bad. But then he never really was.
“Nate, how are you?”
“Hi, Mrs. O. Good to see you. Okay, I guess.” He nods toward the sign, “This is keeping me busy.”
“What’s the problem? Are you really in danger of closing?”
He nods, his face grim. “We’ve lost a lot of our central funding.” He shrugs, “Everyone’s under pressure, and some people feel supporting health and care projects should take priority.”
“But you do a lot of educational stuff—I’m always seeing your posters around.”
“You’d think it might make a difference, wouldn’t you?” He tugs at one side of his hair. A habit she knows started around the time his dad had left. Bella had scooped him up and brought him home for suppers, barbecues, and just hanging out by and in the creek.
He brightens a little, “I’ve been in talks, though, with other galleries, and I think we’re going to put on a small display of Constables. Paintings of the area. It won’t be a full exhibition, but it might get the press along, and we can talk about what we need.”
“And what is it you need?”
“Some of it is funding, but the main thing is this building. We might lose it.”
“But this is part of the town. I’d always thought it was owned by the council or something.”
“No, we had it on a long lease from a local woman. Bit of a local do-gooder. But she died, and her son wants to sell it off for flats.”
“No! Surely he can’t do that?”
“He won’t care. Just wants the money.” Nathan looks thoughtful. “The only thing I did think when I met him was that he didn’t like the idea of bad publicity. He’s got a company he’s trying to float. Or something like that. That’s why I thought getting the Constables in might bring the press.”
“I think it’s a great idea. I’ll spread the word.”
“Thanks, Mrs. O. How’s Bella?”
“Having a great time. She’s traveling all over the US with a soccer team. She was in Florida last week.”
“That’s the life. Say hi when you next speak to her.”
As a result of this conversation, Kate is a few minutes late meeting Hana.
Hana is already sitting at a table with a coffee.
She is wearing a denim jumpsuit, hair loosely tied back with a black-and-white scarf.
Kate approaches the table, wondering if Hana will be surprised that she already knows what she looks like.
As it turns out, it is Hana who’s surprised: “But you’re Jess’s mom! ”
They shake hands, and Kate sits down. “How do you know Jess?”
“Ned, our youngest, had a thing for her for ages. He thought that because he was a couple of years older, he had a chance. And I know I’m his mom, but he was pretty cool.
But she wouldn’t go out with him. She came over quite a few times with a crowd of others.
But she was always with this guy . . . oh, I can’t remember his name. Big, rugby player type.”
“Matt. They’re married now, living in Edinburgh.” And may be having a baby. Or maybe not. No news on their last phone call. “What’s Ned up to now?” She never met him, but thinks Jess may have mentioned a “Ned.”
“He and Tom, that’s his older brother, are both settled in New Zealand.”
Oh, poor Bardy.
“That’s where you’re from?”
The slight lilt still a giveaway.
“Yes, and I’m heading back there soon.”
“To live?”
“Yeah, I think so. But I think I’ve also got a lot more traveling I want to do.” Hana sips her coffee. “So tell me about your painting.”
Kate explains about her early attempts and shows how her work is progressing through photos on her phone.
Hana laughs when she sees the mackerel. Kate can’t help liking this woman.
How could she not when she reminds her of Alice?
Another free spirit. Also, she has a way of appearing intensely interested in what Kate is saying.
She corrects herself. She believes that Hana is genuinely interested.
They talk for some time about color palettes and then Hana asks, “Do you mix your own colors?”
“Not always. I do always mix my greens from scratch. I’ve found the tubes of green never capture the colors you see in nature.”
Hana nods. “Look, what I suggest you do is just start with primary colors—blue, yellow, and red. Oh, and white. Mix everything from those on your palette, create like a caterpillar of color. Different shades. And mix plenty of paint so you have them ready. Then everything on your painting should pull together.”
“That’s the biggest problem I’ve had,” Kate confesses, showing Hana one of her landscapes. “The sky feels like a different painting from the land and water.”
“This will definitely help. You will be using colors that come from the same roots in both. The sky will speak to the land.” Hana pulls up some images on her own phone. “These are from a recent trip I took to Costa Rica.”
Kate thinks the images are stunning. There is no doubt that Hana is an accomplished artist.
“If your colors come from the same roots, it will become a whole.” Hana smiles. “In a landscape, everything reflects everything.”
Kate can see what she means from Hana’s own paintings—the luminous skies talking to the sparkling water in the foreground.
“What particular colors do you start with?” Kate asks.
“I’ll be using different ones than you, I suspect.
I will choose the base colors based on the light where I’m painting.
So, thinking of blue, an ultramarine is a great blue as a starting point for mixing a British sky.
In Costa Rica, I started with a cobalt blue or even cerulean blue.
You can experiment and play games—perhaps bring a bit of Costa Rica color to Norfolk.
It isn’t always about painting what you see, but what you feel, and what you want to say. ”
Kate thinks of Alice saying, “Show people how you see the world.”
“And don’t ever use a shop-bought black, mix your own . . .”
Kate shakes her head. She doesn’t. She knows how ready-mixed blacks can often kill a painting.
“. . . and if you need to tone down part of your painting, use a color from the opposite side of the color wheel.”
“This is really helpful, thank you.” Something prompts her to continue, “My sister said I needed to think about what it is I wanted to express in my paintings.”
“Your sister is right.”
Kate doesn’t correct the tense. Something about Hana’s intense interest in her makes her continue. “Years ago, we went to the cinema to see Life of Pi. Afterward, Alice said, ‘The thing with you, Katie, is you want to see the story of the tiger and a boy. You won’t look at the pain.’”
“And Alice?”
“Oh, she searched out the pain and did what she could to help. She was fearless,” Kate says proudly.
Hana doesn’t seem to notice the change of tense.
Kate wonders what it is she wants to say through her painting.
Is it just a story? Is it really possible to ignore the pain?
She thinks of when she was diagnosed, and of the cave-black days.
She doesn’t want to express that. But the cancer has changed her.
More than just a scar running under her breast. She will never lose the memory of all she has been through.
She is coming to terms with the randomness of her luck, to believe in her new life.
But there is a lurking fear that walks beside her. She suspects it always will.
Kate changes tack. “Are you still teaching art?”
“A little bit now and again. Adult education, mainly.”
“Is it very different teaching adults rather than kids?”
“Well, it’s less about crowd control, which is good, and it’s great to see people getting so much pleasure out of something they had forgotten about or had never allowed themselves to have a go at.”
“But?” Kate feels there is more.
“Kids may be rowdy, but at least they have boundless imagination and are less likely to get into a flat spin about what other people think. And they do assume you know what you’re talking about. Some adults just think they know better, so they will argue when you offer advice.”
“Who are the worst?”
Hana laughs. “I call them all-the-gear-but-no-idea.”
“Men?”
“Mainly, but not always.” Hana grins.
Kate is interrupted from what she is about to say by a hand on her shoulder. She looks up.
“Simon!”
He stands beside her, well over six feet tall. Blond with more gray now, face crinkly, but he is still a good-looking man. It must be more than fifteen years since she has seen him. Her hand goes to touch her bristle-brush hair, but she manages to stop herself. She starts to rise.
“Don’t. I’m disturbing you,” he says, smiling at Hana.
She has a flashback of Simon at a work barbecue, showing her the rose garden of the house they had been invited to.
He had kissed her. And she can’t deny it, she had kissed him back.
But that was all. A laugh and an apologetic where-did-that-come-from dance, and they had returned to the others.
But she has thought about that never-repeated kiss over the years.
She wonders if this is in his mind too, as he continues, “I just wanted to say hi, since I’d spotted you.
I’ll text you. Maybe we could catch up over supper sometime?
” He gives Hana a final smiling nod and moves on.
“Looks like you’ve got yourself a date,” Hana says, grinning.
Kate registers this with a kind of shock. She blinks. “Yes, looks that way.”
Then why is she thinking of Bardy?