Second Chances (41 page)

Now
she
was
different.
In
quick
succession,
the
recession
had
slowly,
like
a
creeping
malevolent
ivy,
silently
began
to
strangle
the
life
out
of
her
gallery
and
in
an
odd
way,
Alice
too.
So
much
gone.
Her
father,
a
move
to
Paris
and
if
she
wasn't
careful,
the
gallery
too.
He
didn't
have
to
tell
her.
He
turned
as
she
clicked
off
her
phone
and
let
her
head
fall
on
her
chest.

'Bad
moment?'
he
asked.

'Every
moment
is
bad,'
Alice
sighed.
She
rose
almost
painfully
and
stretched.

'Elevenses?'
Simon
offered.
"Nice
Rioja's
just
arrived.'

She
shook
her
head.
'I
want
a
clear
head
when
I
explain
to
that
useless
estate
agent
why
I'm
thinking
of
replacing
him
with
my
five
year
old
niece.'

'Stay,'
Simon
ordered.
'I'll
be
right
back.'

She
watched
as
he
sped
back
across
Jacobs
Yard
-
not
so
much
a
road
as
a
very
wide
cobbled
alleyway
lined
on
either
side
by
a
mismatch
of
shops
that
led
to
two
more
useful
thoroughfares
at
either
end
-
and
disappeared
through
the
doorway
of
La
Vigne,
that
he'd
owned
for
seven
years.

While
she
waited,
she
glanced
almost
wearily
around
the
empty
gallery
at
the
walls
lined
with
what
one
arts
editor
had
once
admiringly
described
as
an
exciting
innovative
and
eclectic
range
of
antique
and
modern
oil
and
watercolours.
All
of
it
lovingly
found,
hung
and
sold
by
Alice
with
a
kind
of
wild
enthusiasm
as
though
there
weren't
enough
hours
in
the
day,
or
days
in
the
year
to
justify
such
amazing
luck,
to
have
gotten
her
own
small
kingdom.

Of
course
she
hadn't
set
out
to
be
an
art
dealer.
She
had
been
going
to
paint.
Watercolours
of
urban
streets
in
the
rain,
far
flung
beaches
in
the
early
morning,
boats
at
sunset,
and
lovers
in
parks.
At
home
in
her
old
room
at
her
parent's
house,
there
was
a
stack
of
her
efforts
from
when
she
was
about
ten,
her
hands
and
t-shirts
awash
with
more
paint
than
her
paper.
Her
mother
had
thought
her
efforts
were
brilliant.
Her
father
had
told
her
she
had
a
brain,
she
could
be
a
lawyer,
but
she
got
her
way.

Straight
from
school
at
eighteen,
she
had
spent
a
summer
on
a
painting
course
in
Paris
which
had
only
served
to
draw
her
to
the
sobering
but
realistic
conclusion
that
good
though
she
was,
competent
rather
than
greatness
was
going
to
define
her
as
an
artist.
Her
practical
nature
would
not
allow
her
to
deceive
herself.
She
was
shrewd,
romance
was
for
fairy
tales,
and
she
had
nothing
in
her
make
up
to
feel
she
wanted
to
sacrifice
everything,
to
capture
something
just
out
of
her
reach
to
continue
so
pointlessly.

Painting
would,
therefore,
be
her
solace,
but
she
could
do
something
about
nurturing
talent
that
lay
undiscovered
for
want
of
a
guiding
hand.
Hers,
in
fact.
Once
the
decision
had
been
made,
on
a
warm
Spring
day,
sitting
alone
on
a
bench
in
her
favourite
place
in
Paris,
the
gently
romantic
Park
Monceau,
eating
a
crepe
she
had
bought
from
a
stall
and
after
a
conversation
with
her
tutor
that
had
not
been
discouraging
but
not
what
she
wanted
to
hear,
she
told
herself
there
would
be
no
going
back.

She
would
go
out
and
find
talent,
promote
it
instead
of
pointlessly
continuing
to
believe
that
her
own
was
going
to
shake
the
world.
A
two
year
course
in
Art
History
at
the
Sorbonne
had
followed
including
another
furious
inquisition
from
her
father
during
which
'sensible'
and
'lawyer'
had
featured
quite
heavily
and
a
mere
rolling
of
the
eyes
from
her
mother.

When
it
was
over,
she
had
considered
staying
in
Paris
to
achieve
her
ambition
but
she
had
wanted
to
go
home.
She
missed
it.
She
would
learn
there.
Maybe,
she
had
thought
glancing
round
at
the
families
picnicking
in
the
park
on
that
long
ago
day,
people
sunbathing
by
the
lake
-
the
very
Englishness
of
it
was
what
had
made
this
place
where
she
did
her
best
thinking
–
maybe
one
day
she
would
come
back.

'Exciting?'
she
muttered
now
glowering
at
the
paragraph
in
that
early
brochure,
now
unnervingly
dated.
'I
can
hardly
contain
myself,'
she
announced
to
the
author
of
the
description.
No
chance
of
that
happening
again
anytime
soon.
The
accounts
for
the
week
were
so
gloomy
she
had
to
force
herself
to
look
at
them.
Two
paintings
sold,
one
commission
for
another
and
four
paintings
loaned
to
clients
to
try
at
home.
What
troubled
her
was
that
it
wasn't
just
the
brochure
that
needed
updating,
or
her
website
-
what
with
after
all?
-
but
this
once
wasteland
of
a
grimy
derelict
shop
that
on
a
shoestring
she
had
made
presentable
enough
to
open,
was,
after
five
years,
looking
decidedly
worn
round
the
edges.
The
money
to
do
more
had
gone.