Rachael's Gift (16 page)

My own anger simmered. I wanted to scream at him – how dare he not support her! I was about to explode when he cut me off.

‘I don’t give a shit. It’s happened. But you need to know this: Avery Spencer paid me a little visit last night – apparently there was some big meeting at the school, Sheehan’s calling for students to come forward. The parents are panicking; they think there’s a cover-up and Avery Spencer’s running some activist group. It’s not just about us anymore. The lawyers want to speak to Rachael – they want a video conference.’

‘Not a chance in hell. There’s no way. I’m not putting her through that and you shouldn’t want to either.’ I stopped and lowered my voice. ‘It’s just a storm in a teacup. Avery’s a bloody gossip . . .’

‘You should never have left. You need to come home. Now.’

I felt my fury rising again, and I struggled to keep it in check. ‘I have to go. I’m late. I’ll call you later. We’ll talk later.’ I hung up before he could get a word in. Damn it. Not this morning.

My laptop was open and beeped to announce a new email. Wolfe had sent a link to Avery’s website: www.parentsforsafekids.com.

That woman stuck her nose in everywhere; she had too much time on her hands. I clicked on the link and the homepage opened.
What every parent needs to know to keep their kids safe: we are the eyes and ears of our community. Don’t be afraid to speak up.

I followed another link to the Facebook page and scanned some of the status updates:
Listen to your child: don’t accept anything but the truth from our schools!
Mostly they sounded like Avery having a big rant.
Don’t act surprised when your child sees porn on a smart phone that you gave them. Give them a basic mobile. It’s worth it for your peace of mind. You can’t control what your child downloads on a smartphone!
I felt weary and was about to shut down my laptop when a second email pinged through. It was from Monica at the Courtauld.

Second stamp has been very difficult. No proof but I have an educated guess: Galerie Frey-Duval, Paris. The
F
and the
y
match their branding. See attached for comparison. Gallery still operational today. They keep their own archives, although apparently they’re not available for consultation. Check Red Flag List. xx

In 1946, the Allies produced a report of people and organisations that were active in the art trade during the war; it was called the Red Flag List. Appearing on the list didn’t necessarily mean that a person or institution was guilty of art theft, but it was part of the checking process. I wondered if Francine knew of the gallery.

I’d have to follow up later. Now, we were running late.

*

Francine, Rachael and I squeezed together in the back of a taxi, Rachael’s portfolio across our laps. She caught my eye and smiled, nervous but excited, the dull light seeming to make the green of her eyes even more brilliant. She reached over and took my hand in hers, clasping it tight. I felt a flutter inside, already on edge from Wolfe’s phone call this morning. Yes, this was right. This was our next move and Wolfe would see I had made the best decision. Then she reached over to Francine and took her hand too.

The traffic was awful, my stomach flipping with each swerve. Keen to get my mind off Lucien and Wolfe, I asked Francine whether she had heard of the Frey-Duval Gallery.

‘Of course,’ she said instantly, ‘It’s a quaint little firm on the Rue de la Boétie – it’s been around for years and is now run by the son. He’s an expert in Utrillo, like his father before him – Papa could have told you more, of course. He knew them well. Why?’

‘Oh, just a lead I received this morning for my research.’ I decided to visit the gallery after Lucien’s.

She glanced out the window. ‘I heard they were going under. Times are tough.’

*

Lucien’s studio was on the seventh floor of a building by the Seine on Le Quai des Grands-Augustins in the sixth arrondissement.

The entrance was an inconspicuous green door, between a cafe and an antiquarian bookstore. Francine pressed the bell and we waited. My palms felt clammy.

Rachael dug her fingers playfully into my ribs. ‘You nervous?’

Nervous? Don’t be ridiculous, I thought. I was not that silly girl with melodramatic fantasies anymore. ‘Very funny. Just give me a sec. I need to grab something.’ The phone call had thrown me and now I was feeling a little lightheaded; I ducked into a grocer’s for some paracetamol, and as I went to pay, the man behind the counter presented me with an artichoke. It was heavy and huge with a large stick-like handle. I was not sure why he gave it to me, and began to make excuses, trying to hand it back, but he winked at me and refused to take it. ‘
C’est cadeau
,’ he said. ‘
C’est bon pour le coeur
.’

I rejoined the others and we climbed the stairs to Lucien’s studio.

He was standing in the open doorway, waiting for us. There was his profile, his black curly hair, the aquiline nose. He smiled – not with his mouth, just with his eyes. He was exactly the same. Older than me by more than ten years, age and success had only given him more presence. I gripped the banister, swallowing hard to catch my breath. No matter how many times this scene had played out in my head, I could never have prepared myself for it. Twenty-one years was a long time; I was no longer that person.

He held a cigarette between his fingers, dropping ash on the floor. ‘Camille.’ His voice, the baseline of a bassoon; he kissed my cheeks. ‘What a pleasure to see you again.’

My nose grazed his chin; I inhaled: smoky pepper, old leather and methylated spirits.

He kissed Francine and they chatted in French for a few minutes while I waited to introduce Rachael, feeling a mix of pride and apprehension. Finally they paused, looking towards us.

‘And this is Rachael,’ I said, as if unveiling a prize.

Rachael stepped forward with her hand out. Lucien took it and instead of shaking it lowered his cheek to hers.

‘It’s lovely to meet you,’ she said. ‘I mean, thank you for meeting me.’

‘It’s nothing,’ he replied.

I watched him to see if he was impressed. There were different measures of success, I thought. Rachael had worn her hair pulled back and I almost leant forward to pull the elastic out.

His gaze switched between the two of us. It was hard to tell what he was thinking; he looked detached, thoughtful. Give him a chance, I chided myself. We’ve only just got here.

‘Ah, yes, only a little resemblance, eh?’ he said, stepping aside to let us through the door. ‘Come in. Come in.’

He rested his hand on my hip. ‘Is that for me?’ he said. I looked down at the artichoke. I’d forgotten I was still holding it. Why hadn’t I just dumped it?

He took it from me. ‘No one has ever given me an artichoke before.’ He kicked the door shut with his bare foot. ‘You know what they say about artichokes?’ He held the cigarette between his lips, closing one eye against the rising smoke.

I shook my head.

‘Good for lovers,’ he smirked, pulling the cigarette from his lips and blowing out the smoke.

A bright light streamed from enormous glass windows that spanned the floor to the ceiling, overlooking the gothic peaks of Notre-Dame and the twisting arm of the Seine.

The studio was in disarray – its normal state, I supposed. An easel stood in the centre, bearing a cloth-covered canvas; beside that was a small stool on which his paint-smeared palette was balanced, and then a large farmhouse table covered with paints, tools, pots and rags. There were no drop sheets; every surface was splattered with paint – even the ceiling. The easel faced a single kitchen chair. The frame. His stage. I imagined a subject seated on the chair. How did they pose for him? What did he ask for? I wanted to pick up the edge of the sheet and peep underneath and was struck that once he had shared his work with me, that once we had shared a bed. I looked at him again. We had been different people back then and I wondered if those people still existed somewhere in a parallel universe.

Rachael and Francine had seated themselves on an ailing sofa.

‘Coffee?’

There was a small kitchenette where a coffee percolator on a gas hob began to steam. He picked out four mismatching espresso cups and filled them with hot dark liquid.

He handed me a cup. Up close there were some small changes; his shoulders were more rounded, his chest had the slight caving of age, the lines on his face had grown deeper. But his gaze was the same. Always observing.

‘You look different.’ Eyes like sealskin. ‘Not how I remember you.’

‘I’m surprised you remember me at all,’ I said, my voice an octave higher than usual. My mind was blank. I wanted to flee. The coffee would only make things worse. A shot of something would have been better. Was that wrong at ten a.m?

He shrugged as if what I had said was a given. ‘It’s good? To be back?’

‘Yes. No. It’s been a long time, I guess. It’s for Rachael, really. She’s beside herself with excitement. This is her dream. Anyway, we are very well. I’m very well. Amazing where life takes you. You know, marriage. Kids. All that.’ I winced.

He smiled vaguely, balancing the other cups between his fingers, and carried them over to Francine and Rachael.

I followed and lowered myself down on a broken spring.

Rachael said something about how much she was beginning to love coffee. ‘I could get used to the way the French do things,’ she said. ‘But then, it is in my blood.’

‘So it is, my dear,’ Francine said, patting her arm. ‘So it is.’

Lucien perched on a high stool. Francine asked whether his show was sold out and Lucien grimaced. ‘Normally by the end of the first night, but this year I don’t know.’ By that he meant that two or three remained. They talked of people I could only assume were buyers – people Francine had perhaps sent his way.

Rachael eyed a large cabinet that held racks of canvases; she got up and wandered over, touching the tops and flipping through them. ‘So what does your work go for?’ she asked Lucien.

I shrank inwardly. Francine and Lucien exchanged glances.

Rachael saw our faces and said, ‘What I mean is, am I touching works that might be worth thousands of dollars?’

‘Hundreds of thousands,’ Francine said.

Rachael’s hand froze and she placed the canvas delicately against its neighbour. ‘Oops.’ She smiled. ‘That must feel awesome. To have someone buy your stuff for a small fortune.’

‘Honey, why don’t you lay out your work on the table for Lucien?’

She stalked across the room, but paused beside the easel. ‘Is this where the magic happens?’ She fingered the edge of the sheet. ‘May I?’

Lucien swivelled around. ‘I’ll show you later,’ he said. ‘I want to see you first.’ The
you
rolled languidly and persuasively off his tongue, as if he had unclothed it.

Rachael locked eyes with him. She was unafraid of this older, more experienced man.

‘It’s very kind of you to have a look at Rachael’s work,’ I said.

He shrugged, cupping his hand to relight his cigarette. ‘You get to this point and for me, I want to give something back.’ He inhaled. ‘And anyway, I owe Francine.’

Rachael spread the enlarged photographs of her oil paintings across the tabletop. ‘They’re ready,’ she said. I liked that she didn’t show her nerves and didn’t crave his approval or play the sycophant. She led Francine and Lucien through her work. ‘I love the face,’ she began. ‘To me, everything has a face, a personality, a set of emotions – even inanimate objects – and I try to find the meaning behind. Sometimes it’s a struggle – this emotional truth. It’s a kind of puzzle and it’s like I am the one who fits the puzzle together.’

‘And here, this one, have you found it here?’ Lucien pointed to the
Love
self-portrait.

She looked up at him. ‘No.’ She touched the corner of the photograph. ‘This one took me a long time. There are many layers underneath – you can’t quite tell in the photograph.’ Lucien bent closer and removed it from its plastic sleeve.

‘No, I can see.’ He ran his finger across Rachael’s jawline in the picture. ‘I can see the struggle,’ he said. ‘It is something like this for all of us. It’s the challenge a good artist has – how to portray the emotional truth. Tell me, do you feel it in here?’ He pushed his finger into her chest, in between the line of her breasts to the cage of her heart, and I started.

‘Yes,’ she stammered. ‘I think so.’

Lucien put the picture down. ‘We shall see.’ He lit another cigarette. ‘It is not something I can teach, but I can help you find it if you are capable – that much we can discover.’

Rachael and Lucien continued to discuss her work until they fell quiet and Lucien appeared to contemplate it in silence. After a moment I spoke up. ‘Rach, can you get us a refill please?’ I pointed to the coffee cups and she obliged, giving us the opportunity to talk.

‘So, what do you really think?’ Francine asked.

Lucien’s head fell to the side. ‘It’s hard to say. She may have something – this work is interesting in one so young. When’s the interview?’

‘Friday.’

‘I’m not sure if I’ll know before then but start her with me tomorrow. I will tell you then whether you can mention me.’

‘But what’s the issue?’ I asked, hearing a high-pitched reed in my voice. ‘Surely you can see – I mean, it’s obvious.’

‘Camille . . .’ Francine gripped my arm. ‘It’s hard for you to be objective.’

Rachael returned with the percolator and refilled each cup. I felt my cheeks burning.

I drifted over to the window and the magnificent view. Birds circled and plunged above the river. It was Turner’s sky, all silver and moody greys with a burst of yellow-white light above the cathedral. Lucien came up beside me.

‘Sorry, I’m tired that’s all,’ I said. ‘I just know she has something. Surely you can see it?’

He gazed along the river. ‘Don’t be anxious,’ he said. ‘She can obviously paint and she has ideas and drive. She’s confident. She has a spark.’

‘Yes, she does,’ I said, feeling tears prick my eyes. I blinked them back.

‘She seems unafraid to explore.’ He took the cigarette from his mouth, grinning. ‘I like that.’