A Hundred Pieces of Me (20 page)

That was exactly the house Gina had imagined the Rowntrees in. She could see the kitchen now: four shades of white, lots of glass and no handles.

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘So how did you go from there to here?’

‘Well, it’s got serious cellars for the bad home-brewing hobby I fully intend to take up, and I wanted a barn to make into a studio.’

‘No, I mean, why would you choose Longhampton? Do you have family connections? Did you holiday here?’ Gina was genuinely curious. ‘It’s not somewhere people often choose of their own accord.’

Nick looked up from his camera. His eyes were unusual: pale grey, like a wintry sky, and they seemed to look right into her. He wasn’t scared of eye contact, but then, Gina reasoned, he was used to looking at people all day. ‘Why are
you
here?’

‘I grew up in Hartley. Have you been to Hartley yet? It has a garden centre.’

‘You don’t have a local accent, though. So you must have moved out and come back at some point.’

Gina hadn’t realised it was so obvious. She wondered what else Nick Rowntree had noticed about her, and looked down at the eggs again. ‘Sort of,’ she said, as Nick gently moved her hands into a new position. ‘It’s not a bad place to live. But people don’t tend to move
into
Longhampton unless they . . . well, unless they have to. For work. Or . . . family.’

‘That’s kind of the point. We wanted . . .’ He stopped, reconsidered, then started clicking again. ‘
I
wanted to buy a house somewhere secret, where you can just step out of the world for a bit, not one of those Cotswolds villages that fills up on the weekend with all the people you’re getting out of London to avoid. Somewhere with seasons, and proper weather. A house that hasn’t had all the history modernised out of it. I’ve always wanted a house with a few ghosts.’

‘Lorcan was joking the other day, you know. This house isn’t haunted – if anything, I get a very happy feeling from it.’

‘Do you? Is that your professional opinion?’

‘Yes,’ said Gina honestly. ‘Most houses have one room that’s the obvious heart, usually a big kitchen, but this has several – the kitchen’s going to be amazing, the panelled sitting room’s got that fabulous view of the lawns, that dining room is a fantastic entertaining space, the gardens are begging to be enjoyed . . . It’s a house designed for people to live in. It feels lived in. In a good way. Don’t you think?’

Nick looked at her as if she’d put something into words that he’d been thinking himself. ‘I do. I don’t want to lose that in the renovation. The fact that people have lived here before us.’

‘You won’t,’ said Gina, and glanced down at the eggs. ‘Is this what you do?’ she asked, before the conversation got any more personal. ‘Egg photography?’

‘I usually do people.’

‘What? Weddings?’

‘God, no. I’d rather do eggs than weddings. Portraits. I was a news photographer originally.’ The camera started clicking again. ‘Spent ten years in London working for
The
Times
, when they still had lots of staffers, couple of years freelancing in New York when Amanda was working there. I did a bit of food photography, bit of PR fluff . . . You know. You do what comes up. Some days it’s MPs, others it’s eggs.’

‘I’ve never met a photographer before.’

‘Well, we’re just regular people, despite what you might read in the papers.’

She took a side glance at Nick, close-shaven and clean, in his jeans and loose blue shirt. His feet were still bare, tanned and smooth. Beach feet. Pretty brave on a building site.

‘You might want to put some shoes on,’ she said. ‘Speaking as your project manager. Lorcan’ll bill you for the time it takes to drive you to the surgery in town when you stand on one of his handmade renovation nails.’

‘Good point. Let me just finish this.’ Nick pulled a shutter half across the big kitchen window and made a channel of light fall on Gina’s hands. It threw shadows across her fingers; she’d never looked so closely at her hands before or noticed the tiny lines under lines, like the hatching on a banknote, the soft pads of flesh. ‘Sorry it’s so dull. Won’t be long.’

‘It’s fine. It’s quite . . . relaxing,’ she added, because it was. Something about the shape of the eggs, the light, the stillness had completely dissipated the shock of Stuart’s text.

It doesn’t matter, she told herself. Let it go. Let it be just another thing you’re handing over to someone else, like the juicer.

Silence spread between them, knitting together her stillness with his precise, economical movements, all around the eggs. Gina had the unusual sensation of floating in the moment, just enjoying the simple beauty of three fresh eggs. Their colour, their strength. Their satisfying smoothness.

I should say something, she thought. This is too weird. I didn’t come here to have some kind of out-of-body experience.

‘I’m sorry . . . about . . . earlier.’ She stumbled over the words.

‘Don’t be. I hope I didn’t interrupt some bad news.’ Nick carefully raised her cupped hands a few millimetres and turned them towards the light. His touch was soft but firm, and made her feel part of the image, as much as the eggs.

‘Not really. I got a text that wasn’t meant for me.’

‘From someone you know?’

‘Unfortunately, yes,’ said Gina, bitterly. Her brain was so relaxed that the words slipped out. ‘Funny how you only find out how romantic your exes are after you split up, eh?’

As soon as she’d said it, she wished she hadn’t. She didn’t know this man. He was
like
her friend, the way he spoke, the way they seemed to have things in common, but he wasn’t her friend.

‘It’s surprising the number of things you find out about people just after you split up,’ he said evenly, without taking his eye from the viewfinder. ‘Sometimes you think, God, if you’d been like that six months ago . . . But then people change all the time.’

Gina didn’t reply. She felt the mood between them balancing on an edge: one more comment would tip things into overshare. Just as she could smash the eggs with one tiny squeeze, she could completely screw up this very, very important contract with one more comment.

She bit her lip, hard.

Nick took a few more photos even though she couldn’t tell what difference, if any, he was picking up, then finished. ‘There, all done.’

He put the camera down and removed the eggs from Gina’s hands. She rubbed them together to dispel the ghostly sense that lingered on them.

‘Thanks for doing that.’ His tone had gone back to normal. ‘I don’t suppose I can persuade you to put some rings and a bracelet on for me? She’s sent over some really nice engagement-type ones, lovely little diamonds that you—’

Gina opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Nick flinched, and looked cross with himself. ‘Oh, shit, no, I’m sorry. That was really tactless. I have no idea how that even came out of my mouth. I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s fine. Really.’

‘Can I make you a cup of tea?’ Nick gestured towards the kettle, and she nodded. A quick cup of tea wouldn’t hurt. It would reset the mood. Then straight back to business, with the measurements and the windows. Her eye hunted around for distractions.

‘I didn’t know you could still get Polaroids,’ she said, seeing the plastic camera on the table.

‘You can’t. Well, you can get new versions, but that’s an original.’ Nick was over by the counter; she could hear him opening and closing tins. ‘Do you know how much film costs for that thing?’

‘Er . . . a fiver?’

‘Forty quid a pack. If you can find it. They don’t make it any more.’

‘What? Really?’ Gina looked at the camera with new respect. It was an actual antique. ‘So why do you use it?’ she asked, over the sound of the boiling kettle.

‘I like to make sure I’ve got the shot exactly right before I start shooting. And the Polaroid makes me concentrate on what’s actually there, not what I can put in later.’

Nick wandered back and put the mug in front of her. Gina realised he hadn’t asked her what she wanted to drink. She peered into the mug. Peppermint tea.

‘Calming,’ he said, seeing her expression. ‘And also ideal for when your builders have finished off the last of the milk. That’s one of the few things I learned from the London project.’

She sipped it. It was too hot but it was actually
exactly
what she wanted. Green and fresh. She reached for the Polaroid camera, which was bringing back some vivid memories. ‘My friend used to have one of these.’ There’d been a time when every party at Naomi’s house had been a blizzard of Polaroids. Naomi’s dressing-table was covered with browning photos Blu-tacked to the mirror, the white margins covered with biro scribble. ‘You always looked like you were having fun. Very difficult to look good, though.’

‘That’s why I like them. They capture a moment, just as it is. Digital’s like that in some ways, but you can always go back and improve it. Take stuff out, put stuff in. You can’t tamper with a Polaroid. It’s very raw.’

‘Too raw,’ said Gina. ‘My nose always looked
huge
in her photos.’

‘You were probably just too close to the camera,’ he replied. ‘That’s a photographer failure, not yours.’

She laughed and cupped her hands around the plain white mug. ‘It’s probably a good job most of them ended up in the bin.’

Nick sat down on the other side of the table and clicked a few keys on his laptop, which had been whirring gently in the background.

‘So, listen, about the cellars,’ said Gina. ‘I should maybe call your architect direct and ask him if he’s . . .’

‘Do you want to see the actual photos? Of the eggs.’ He gestured towards the laptop. ‘They’ve been downloading.’

‘Oh. No. It’s OK. I hate seeing photos of myself,’ she said quickly. ‘I never look like I do in my head.’

Nick’s mouth twitched. ‘I was only photographing your
hands
. You’re not one of those women who thinks even their hands look fat, are you?’

‘No.’ Gina put the tea down. She didn’t know how to express the jolt she felt inside when she saw a photograph that was supposed to be her, yet featured an older woman, with straighter hair and a sharpness about her face that she didn’t recognise as her own. The woman she expected to see – dark, curly-haired, diffident, angling her stance to hide her thick waist – wasn’t there. An almost-twin stranger was in her place. An actress who looked a bit like the original character, but not quite.

‘Let’s see, then,’ she said, not wanting to have to explain all that to Nick, and he turned the laptop towards her.

It didn’t look immediately like a pair of cupped hands. At first glance, the three perfect eggs seemed to be held in a textured nest, composed of hundreds of greys, the fine etching pushing the smoothness of the eggs into focus. It was simple but striking, the strength of the eggs and their dormant potential glowing in the centre of the screen, like something from a myth.

‘Or . . .’ Nick slid his finger around the track pad and a different image flashed up, this time with her hands as the centre of the photograph, almost religious-looking, lifting the three eggs up to the viewer like an offering. Again, Gina wouldn’t have recognised her hands, but for an entirely different reason. They were pale and long, and the light had bleached out any lines so they resembled a marble effigy’s, folded quietly over a sleeping chest.

They’re beautiful, she thought, surprised, and glanced down at the hands resting on the table by the mug. They weren’t actually in bad condition at the moment, but the ones in the photo didn’t look like hers. They were elegant but powerful, the hands of a more dramatic woman, even without seeing her face. A saint. A young woman. An actress.

How could
hands
look so different?

‘Or . . .’ Nick fiddled with the settings, making her hands paler, playing with the contrast of the eggs, and suddenly Gina didn’t want to see any more. She didn’t know what it was, the ease with which he was changing her, the detachment of his observation. Or maybe that the mood wasn’t quite what it had been half an hour ago. The sadness had returned.

It was as if a spell had worn off, and she wanted to go somewhere and cry. Cry properly, this time.

‘They’re lovely,’ she said, reaching for her bag. ‘Um, I’ve got to get back to the office, actually.’

‘What?’ Nick looked up, confused. ‘I thought we were going to talk about the cellar. Did I say something? Was it when I mentioned home-brew? That was a joke.’

‘No, I just . . . I should call the architect directly and explain the situation.’ It came out wrong, too brusque, and she felt bad. ‘You’re busy, and there’s some other paperwork I can be getting on with. Better than Chinese whispers.’

Nick scrutinised her. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘I’m fine.’ Gina glanced down at her hands. ‘Sorry, I don’t know what it was. Something about my hands obviously freaks me out.’

My wedding ring, she thought. It was seeing that dint in my hand where my rings were, and now aren’t.

She shouldered her bag and gathered up her notebook from the table.

‘Here.’ Nick touched her on the shoulder and she turned. He had something in his hand: the Polaroid. ‘Would you like this?’ he asked. ‘It’s actually rather beautiful, in that little square.’