1973 – aged 17 #2
‘How long have you been an artist?’ His question was most endearing, suggesting she was an actual artist, recognising her as such, in contrast with the feeble, almost apologetic explanation she would offer when asked if she painted: Oh, I kind of dabble, you know, and work in a gallery and other stuff, but yeah, I paint a bit .
. . as if she had no right to such a lofty ambition or an artsy leaning.
Not a girl like her from the banks of the river, who, despite winning a place at art college, had practically grown up motherless and couldn’t afford a ticket to Paris.
His words were empowering and lovely.
‘I guess the corny answer is that I was born an artist!’ She spoke the last three words with faux pomposity, which made him laugh.
Not a raucous giggle but rather a slow, considered body laugh where his shoulders came in, his head shook and his face bore a wide grin.
A handsome face, she now noticed. His eyes were so dark she couldn’t see his pupils.
His beard was thick and his fringe long over his forehead, which gave him the habit of having to shake it out of his eyes.
He was wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt with the triangle and prism of The Dark Side of the Moon on it.
‘Lucky you. I was born a mathematician.’
It was her turn to laugh.
‘I guess, in the career stakes, your skills might rate a little higher, so . . .’
He seemed to study her, as if taking in all the details, which was thrilling and terrifying all at once.
‘I think Picasso died very rich,’ he pointed out, the artist having shuffled off his mortal coil only a few months previously.
‘Yet Van Gogh died poor,’ she countered.
‘Hmmm . . . true. I think a mathematician is more likely to die contentedly, as life, like anything else, is just a mathematical puzzle, and death kind of solves it, doesn’t it? The final piece of the jigsaw, whereas artists, phew’ – he exhaled, arms splayed – ‘do they ever figure it out?’
‘Figure what out?’ She was curious, conscious she had stopped painting and that the light was changing.
‘Life! Love! Loss! The greatest mysteries of them all!’
‘This is a most extraordinary conversation. I have known you for all of five minutes and we are already on the meaning of life. I don’t even know your name,’ she fished, quite obviously taking the risk in the way that Bertie had tried to coach her.
No one remembers the meek, Bob! Be bold! Be open!
‘Do you want to know my name?’ he teased her.
‘Oh God, last time I played this it turned out his name was Rumpelstiltskin and he got so mad that I guessed it, he tore himself in half!’
There it was again, that confident laugh of his that spoke of much more than frivolity, as if they were building a connection. Yes, exactly like that.
‘What’s your name?’ He held her eyeline, inviting her to go first.
‘Lilly.’ She gave the simplified version, wanting this to be simple, uncomplicated and lovely, in the way she had hoped flirting might be. Confident, if this was what was happening here. The feeling sprang from no more than the particular way he looked at her.
‘I’m Wilkie Jones.’
‘That’s an unusual name.’ A fact she was glad of, knowing that even if she never saw him again, his name, like this unusual exchange, would live on in her mind. Unique . . .
‘You think so? Where I come from Wilkies are ten a penny.’
‘Really?’
‘No! Of course not!’
This time they both laughed.
‘It was my grandfather’s name, and I got stuck with it. An honour, so I’m told, within my family, and yet if it’s such an honour, why are my brothers so relieved to have been called David and Arthur?’ He tutted.
‘That’s a very good question.’
‘So, Lilly?’
‘Yep.’
‘Are you named after anyone?’ He twisted on the wall so his body was facing her, his legs slightly splayed, creating a V that she pictured getting up from her stool and nestling between, standing as close as she could to him, putting her hands on the thighs of his flared jeans, pushing her body against his.
‘Umm . . .’ She coughed to clear the embarrassment from her throat, worried he might be able to read her lascivious thoughts. ‘Yes, actually, my full name is Elizabeth-Roberta. My dad is Robert, so . . .’
‘I can see why you go with Lilly, much quicker.’
‘Yep, and with all the seconds I get to save by not having to say Elizabeth-Roberta, I do fun things.’ She smiled at him.
‘Like what?’ He leaned forward, elbows on his legs, his head closer to hers. She felt the breath catch in her throat.
‘Like chatting to random strangers on the towpath.’
‘So you do this a lot?’ He tilted his head to one side.
‘Well, no, I’ve only saved so many seconds, so this is the first time.
’ She lifted her hand and rubbed the back of her neck, wanting to reach out and touch him so badly that it felt necessary to occupy her fingers.
She saw his eyes dart to her breasts, the outline visible beneath the thin fabric of her cheesecloth shirt, then back to her face, this one simple gesture enough to light a flame of desire inside her.
‘So a . . . a mathematician?’
‘Yes. I’m a teacher, actually, visiting the big smoke.’
‘Oh, right.’ Older than her then, which was obvious, and not that it mattered. ‘And you’re visiting alone?’
It was the closest she could get to enquiring as to whether he was married, single or attached, knowing it was nothing to do with her, a nosy stranger, and yet wanting desperately to know!
He looked from his left to his right and all around, as if comically trying to locate someone. ‘It would appear so!’
‘Where do you teach?’
‘St Ethelred’s, a school in York.’
‘You’re from Yorkshire?’ He didn’t sound like he was from Yorkshire.
‘No, from Basingstoke, but that’s where the job took me. And I love it up there. Beautiful countryside.’ He closed his eyes as if recalling it.
‘I’ve never been.’
‘You should go.’ He smiled at her.
‘I don’t like to leave London.’ Her admission came easily, without consideration.
‘Oh my God! Really? You don’t leave London?’ He stared at her wide-eyed in disbelief.
‘I said I don’t like to, not that I don’t.’ She shrugged.
‘So you do?’
‘Not very often, no.’ She smiled at him.
‘But there’s a whole wide world outside of this city, lovely as it is, a whole wide world!’
‘So I believe. I once saw one of those round things with countries and oceans on it. Like a map but a ball!’ she mocked.
‘Sorry, you’re right, it’s absolutely nothing to do with me!’ He held his palms up in defence.
‘Truth is, I don’t like to leave my dad.
It’s just me and him.’ She was grateful he didn’t ask for further details of their set-up.
‘Plus, I have this crazy compulsion to paint every day. To sit right here, in fact, and paint this same stretch of river. And if I don’t, I get kind of .
. . agitated, as if I might be missing something.
’ It was as close as she could come to describing what was almost a compulsion.
‘Every day?’ He screwed his face up as if doubting her.
‘Well, nearly every day. I mean, not if I’m working or studying or the weather is really bad. No point trying to paint in thick fog and rain if you can’t see the water and the damp makes your colours run.’
‘I guess not.’ Wilkie hopped off the wall and dusted his palms on his jeans. ‘So this means you’ll be here tomorrow, about the same time?’
‘Probably.’ They shared a lingering look, as if both aware that this was no casual enquiry but was in fact an arrangement.
Her heart jumped in her chest at the prospect.
She sucked in her stomach and pushed out her chest, trying to look coy, sexy, demure, alluring and all the things she had never seen herself as.
Trying to look like anyone other than the girl who had never quite fitted in, like someone else entirely.
‘See you tomorrow then, probably.’ He gave her a slow smile, as if very aware of the effect he was having on her.
‘Yep, see you tomorrow,’ she managed, almost breathless at the prospect of seeing him again. Wilkie . . . Wilkie . . . Wilkie . . .