Chapter Two
‘What about your vibrator? Which one are you taking? Should you take two? Sex toys are obligatory in Paris. The French carry them around like lip balm.’
Mae, a woman who has never been to Paris, or France for that matter, is in my bedroom, ‘helping’ me to pack. By which I mean she’s rifling through the drawers of my bedside table and throwing things onto the enormous pile of stuff already taking up the bed.
I’m in a state of suspended animation, frozen with something that feels like shock, or fear, or possibly good old-fashioned overwhelm at the speed at which Mae had booked me a trip to Paris.
But she was right in one respect. Once I realised that I am in the painting, I can’t not go and see it.
As a general rule, I don’t do things like this. I don’t go on last-minute trips to Paris to see a mystery painting of myself that’s about to be on display in one of the most famous art museums in the whole entire world.
I think I’m hyperventilating. What is happening? I don’t even go into cafés where they play the radio too loud.
My shock has rendered me incapacitated, which is why Mae has taken control of the packing situation. From what I can see, a turquoise bra has wound its way around a hairbrush. She’s trying to ram my entire wardrobe into a little wheelie case.
‘So do you think two will be enough?’
Shock aside, at the news that I’m about to take a plethora of vibrators on a three-day trip to Paris, I decide to become more actively involved in the packing process.
I, too, start to rifle. It’s chaos. And usually I’m fine with chaos.
The whole cottage is chaotic – like this room.
Possibly, I’m just a cliched artist till I die, but I’d painted every corner of it, I even put a mural on the ceiling before it became a thing that home renovators did online.
I’d once had a quick fling with a man who described the room as like waking up in a fever dream.
He’d messaged me weeks later to tell me that the taxidermied squirrel I have on my bookshelf was his new sleep paralysis demon.
Mae let me paint her room, too. She’s in the one we used to share.
She says that it’s karma for Mum that I turned out like this.
Earl used to say that we could be anything we wanted in life, as long as we weren’t dull.
‘Live a life of colour, Luna.’ I’d told Mum what he’d said, and she’d called it a load of leftie nonsense.
But I’d taken his words to heart. I was different then.
I wonder what Earl would think if he could see me now.
‘I don’t need any vibrators,’ I tell Mae, hobbling over to where she’s still in my bedside table. She throws half a packet of tissues on top of the mountain of stuff.
‘But French people are so horny. And you’re going to see art. Art always makes you horny.’
‘Not a painting of myself.’
She pauses for a second.
‘I turn myself on all the time.’
‘No vibrators.’
‘Urgh, fine. If you’re determined to make this trip as unfun as possible.’
‘You’re basically making me go.’ This isn’t exactly true, but it was Mae’s idea.
‘Yes, yes, how awful, being sent on a compulsory mini-break to Paris. My heart bleeds. And I used my credit card to pay for the hotel, I paid extra for a view of the Eiffel Tower and everything. Even you can’t be depressed in Paris.’
‘I’m not depressed,’ I huff and keep packing. ‘I just have a complete lack of hope. Which is realistic and sensible.’
‘Oh yeah, that’s lovely, that is. A complete lack of hope. Great way to live.’
We pack in silence after that.
‘I think that’s everything,’ I tell Mae, adding the little mic I use to record videos to my rucksack and then, when there’s nothing else to do with my hands, nothing else I can do to distract myself from my complete lack of hope, I sit on the edge of the bed and stress.
‘Where could the painting have come from? Earl would have told us if he’d sold one. ’
Mae pauses and leans on the windowsill. Both of the bedrooms are at the back of the cottage, looking out over the long lawn.
‘Maybe Gregor had it but only sold it recently?’
Gregor was Earl’s art dealer. He was about a hundred and two, talked about the Russian Revolution as if he lived through it, and consumed an entirely vodka-based diet. I’ve no idea how he’s still alive after all this time.
‘Yeah, maybe. It’s still weird that we knew nothing about it.’
‘Ask that museum curator, the one from the article. It sounds like she loves Earl’s stuff,’ Mae says eventually. ‘She’s bound to tell you more than some randomer since you’re in it. It’s obvious it’s you.’
And it is obvious that it’s me. My hair is shorter now, but Earl has the colour of it in summer exactly right.
Pale red, like the surface of Mars. I’m looking straight ahead in the painting, not smiling; if anything, I’d say that I’m somewhere between sad and resigned in it.
My mouth is set, and my eyebrows are straight. It’s a look I often wear now.
‘She might.’
I don’t want to sound miserable; it annoys Mae, and she’s obviously excited about this, so I just let it go. I try to fold some of my stuff before giving in and just ramming it in the case.
‘I bet being in the painting will get me more followers. Even if it isn’t death art.’
I’m trying to smooth the edges of what feels like a frayed conversation and doing as bad a job of that as I am at folding.
Mae doesn’t say anything, but she rolls her eyes, and I know exactly what she’s thinking.
I’ve listened to her lecture on how I need real human connections too many times not to know what’s going on in that head of hers.
‘You’re the one who wanted me to have a goal,’ I protest.
‘Yeah, but like a real-life one.’
She doesn’t get it. And I’m glad she doesn’t.
My commitment to smoothing edges evaporates, and I snap. ‘Can you please not have a go at me now? You know I can’t handle stress.’
Mae’s shoulders slump but she doesn’t say anything and in return I’m hit with a potent dose of guilt.
It’s fine for her, with all of her relentless positivity.
She’s the one who gets to step up all the time – she has no idea what it’s like being me.
But still, Mae’s the only person who manages to make me feel guilty about my being miserable.
We sort in silence for a few more moments until I give in.
‘Fine, one vibrator,’ I tell her. ‘But I’ll pack it once you’ve left the room.’
She claps her hands together really fast, tension apparently forgotten.
‘You’re going to have the best time.’
We take turns trying to close the small suitcase. Mae has to sit on it to get it to shut.
‘You’re sure that I should go?’ I’m biting my nails again, eyeing my suitcase like it’s harbouring an unexploded bomb.
Mae looks right at me. She’s wearing a baggy jumper with a yellow smiley face on it and leopard print leggings, and I’m 100 per cent certain that every single thing she’s wearing is mine.
‘I’m sure. You’re going to Paris, not Jupiter, and you heard what Dr Dave said. You’ve got everything else that you need.’
I nod. The truth of the matter is, deep (deep) down, I think she’s right.
It might be self-involved, and it probably is, but it’s been so long since I’ve thought of myself as the main character in my own life that I have no idea what self-involved even feels like anymore.
I have self-pity nailed, but, that aside, I think Earl would have wanted me to go.
I let him down once; I can’t do it again.
Mae starts to bundle me out of the door – the bus leaves in half an hour.
‘Now your train back is booked for Wednesday,’ she tells me like I’m literally a child. Mae has assumed the role of eldest sibling with ease. I have assumed the role of younger sibling in need of help with… less ease.
‘I know.’
‘Which means you only have two full days to see the sights of Paris.’
‘I know.’
‘You’re sure you don’t need more time? This might be your only chance.’
She means to see the painting, but we both know there’s more to it than that.
‘I have to come back on Wednesday, I’m running Art Therapy at the hospice, remember?’
‘I know, but it’s hardly life or death.’
Mae hugs me so hard it knocks the wind out of me.
‘It’s three days.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you to the station?’
‘There’s no need.’
I don’t trust myself not to cry saying goodbye to Mae at the bus stop, and I won’t do that, I’ve promised myself. I don’t cry in public anymore.
‘Just be careful,’ she tells me.
‘I will, I promise.’
‘Good, now go and take Paris by storm.’
I was around five when we bought the holiday cottage in Northumberland.
Dad had a particular interest in puffins, and Mum wanted to spend the summers on a beach, which is, I think, how they’d arrived at Bamburgh, on the coast, as the perfect place to buy a holiday cottage.
To me, though, this part of the world has always been so much more than lovely beaches (or puffins for that matter).
It’s the place I’ve always felt hopeful.
Even right back to that first time we visited, it wasn’t the castles that impressed me (though they seemed especially huge back then), or tales from an impossibly distant history.
It wasn’t even the sea, which seemed to me to stretch right out to the end of the world.
It wasn’t any of those things that made me feel hopeful.
It was, I suppose, a sense that here, things could be different.
That here, in this place that was so different from home, things could be okay.
I’ve been disavowed of my hope so many times over the years, stripped of it by a series of disappointments, some micro, some massive.
Each time, when I’ve struggled, battled, to find it again, it’s come back smaller, with less potency than before.
Like a fire that once roared and is now reduced to smouldering embers.
Now, my hope is nothing but ashes. I think that’s why I stopped creating.
You need to feel some hope to create, and I feel so little. I’m nothing. Numb and neutral.
Or that’s how it felt before I saw that painting.
I have my head down as I walk through Bamburgh. These days, I never leave my house without headphones, so music, any music, beats away in my ears.
‘You have a good time in Paris, Luna pet. Take care of yourself.’ Mrs Gimley from the corner shop stands in front of me and waits until I’ve taken my headphones off to talk. It’s the end of tourist season, the final fling of summer.
‘I will, thanks, Mrs Gimley.’
‘Eat a croissant for me, Luna.’ Tony, who sells the Big Issue in the market square, calls so loudly that I don’t need to pause the song.
‘I will, Tony.’
I’ve no idea why it’s easier to talk to strangers online than it is to actual people, but I’m out of breath and looking directly at the ground as I wheel my little case over the cobbles towards the bus stop. The blue and yellow coach that’ll take me to London is already waiting.
It looks so out of place. Everything in Bamburgh is old. Old streets, old houses, old everything. Here, more than anywhere else, there’s a sense that we’re all just tiny dots, part of a much bigger story.
I’m fully panting by the time I make it to my seat. It’s only mildly warm outside, but I’m still sweating, and it takes a while for my breathing to return to normal.
I shrug off my jacket – my navy blue velvet shacket, and fold it on my lap.
I check my phone. Three messages.
Mae: Did you get there okay?
And another mere seconds after.
Mae: I should have come with you.
Me: I’m fine. On the bus now, just waiting for it to leave.
I add three celebrating face emojis because I don’t want Mae to know how absolutely terrified I am.
She replies immediately.
Mae: I’m SO excited for you! Send so many pictures. Love you!!!
I reply with a line of hearts and check the other message.
Mum: Mae seems to be operating under the illusion that you’re going on a mini-break to Paris. Call me, Luna.
I don’t reply. I don’t have the capacity to deal with Mum right now.
Instead, I take out my book, Ahmed’s latest, as the bus pulls away from the station, and I think that for the first time in a very long time, that maybe there’s still time for the feeling to come back.