Her father’s own attitude was odd but she thought she understood it – he felt uncomfortable hanging round by his own work, so he just came past every few minutes, to check she was all right, and sometimes to introduce her to people, who could be surprised to find he had a daughter at all. Off he went again, not quite such a tramp as usual, he’d done what he thought of as dressing up for the occasion, though it was hardly what you’d call smart. ‘You may have to wear a uniform,’ he said, ‘but I don’t.’ He decided the day he left school he would always wear just what he wanted to wear; and anyway he was an artist. Now a rather drunk couple, the man in a pinstripe suit and bow tie, with gleaming black hair, the woman in a short red and black frock, were looking at Mary Harms’s portrait.
‘Sparsholt!’ said the man, jutting his jaw as he peered at the signature. ‘Hmmm, I don’t think I’d advertise that.’
The woman said, ‘Don’t be silly, Henry, he can’t help what he’s called.’
‘Well . . .’ The man paused, as if trying to be fair. ‘I mean you wouldn’t want . . . I don’t know . . . “Crippen” scrawled all over your portrait, would you?’
‘There’s no comparison, hardly. And anyway he’s rather a good artist, don’t you think? That could almost be Mary.’
‘Mm, almost.’
‘Oh, you’re impossible,’ said the woman and laughed at him happily.
The next couple were much nicer.
‘It’s quite contemporary, isn’t it,’ said the man.
‘Oh, I like it,’ said the woman.
The man smiled and stood back a little. ‘I like it too, my love, in a gallery, but not to live with.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of buying it,’ said the woman, taking his arm. ‘Gosh, I thought that was Germaine Greer for a moment . . .’
‘It is Germaine Greer,’ said the man with a giggle as they moved on to the bright picture two along.
‘Daddy, who’s Crippen?’ said Lucy, when her father came to get her at the end.
‘Crippen?’ he said, with a cautious laugh at the things she picked up. ‘He was a man who murdered his wife.’
‘He escaped on a ship with his girlfriend,’ said Evert, ‘but he was caught by a telegram.’
‘Oh . . .’ said Lucy. It was more mysterious now, and something told her not to go on with it.
‘I don’t know what you’ve been reading,’ her father said.
She zipped up her bag. ‘Oh, nothing.’
‘Right, shall we get out of here. Pat will have supper ready – are you hungry, young lady?’
‘Quite,’ said Lucy, not sure she would like what Pat had cooked.
‘You’re probably rather tired,’ said Evert. ‘I am.’ His face grew round as he hid a yawn; then he smiled goodbye at the portrait of Mrs Harms. ‘You must be pleased, darling,’ he said – but this was to her father. ‘It’s jolly good.’
‘Oh, thanks, Evert,’ said her father, placing his hand on the old man’s shoulders as they steered out of the gallery.
‘Daddy,’ said Lucy, ‘why does Evert call you darling?’
‘I’m getting rather forgetful,’ said Evert, turning and smiling at her, ‘so I just call everyone darling – it’s much easier.’
She thought about it. ‘You remember my name,’ she said.
Evert seemed almost shocked. ‘Of course I remember your name, darling,’ he said.
‘Now, let’s get our coats,’ said her father.
In the taxi she sat squashed between Evert and Clover, and her father went on the seat facing backwards and hanging on to the handle; now and then he glanced over his shoulder. These journeys through the dusk, turning off at the lights beside road signs to unusual places, excited her, but were still slightly coloured by regret that she wasn’t going to her real home, where most of her things were. Evert and her father were talking about art, with names she didn’t know, and she peered out blankly on one side then the other, till Clover said, ‘So how are you getting on at school, Lucy?’, which was the most boring question one had to deal with.
‘It’s OK, thank you.’
‘What do you like best?’
Lucy pretended to think. ‘I’m top in English and art, but third in maths.’
‘Well, third’s not too bad,’ said Clover.
Lucy looked out of the window with a strict little smile. They travelled on, her father now answering questions about money, which always made him uncomfortable – how much a picture had fetched, or would fetch.
‘And how are Mummy and Una?’ said Clover next.
‘Una’s got a cold, but Mummy’s all right.’
Clover gazed for a moment at the passing shops. ‘And how’s your grandfather?’
‘Which one?’ said Lucy.
‘Oh . . . !’ said Clover – she hadn’t thought. It was a funny thing about their family but Lucy had three grandfathers, Sir George, of course, Roy Davey, Una’s father, and David Sparsholt who was her father’s father, whom she seldom saw. In a way there were four, because her big brother Thomas had a different father from hers, who, like her father, lived with another man, and had a father of his own, who was a hopeless drunk and lived in Majorca. Lucy had a curious nature, but her questions about why things had worked out like this were never really answered. ‘I meant Grandpa George,’ Clover said.
‘Oh, he’s very well, thank you,’ said Lucy. What all the grandfathers had was a kind of fierceness, not expressed directly to her but making things a bit tense when they were around.
‘What’s the latest on Freddie, Clo?’ said her father suddenly, so that she felt ensconced in the middle of the adult talk. He used a tone of voice she knew, earnest and direct to cover up his guilt at not having asked about Freddie before.
‘Mm . . .’ – she wrinkled her nose as she said in her usual lethargic way, ‘He should be out on Monday. They’ve taken out the thing, you know, but there’ll be masses of chemo to come.’ She put a heavy hand on Lucy’s arm, so as not to frighten her.
‘Is he in good spirits, though?’ said Evert, as if that would see him through.
‘Oh, you know Freddie,’ said Clover. ‘He’s propped up in bed, reviewing Anita Brookner for the New York Times, and of course getting hundreds more visitors than anyone else in the ward.’
Her father’s house was in Fulham, an area that lay in Lucy’s mind under a thin grey fog: Fullum they said, a dead footfall, flour shaken in a Tupperware box (unlike sugar, with its quick shoosh, which to her mind was the sound of Chelsea, where Sir George lived, close by but a world away). In the Fulham Road the numbers went up and up, what did they get to? – 600 – 700 – she kept a look out as they passed – and for miles it seemed there was nothing but lamp-shops, window after window hung from ceiling to floor with chandeliers. Then they turned off into streets with no shops, which seemed twice as dark. When they stopped outside the house she felt relief and a faint tension, it was home of a kind, but something would have changed since her last stay with her father. The house was semi-detached, square, with a white porch, and frankly a bit decrepit. In the hall there was always the chemical mystery of paint in the nostrils, and turpentine. Just visible through the sitting-room door on the left was her own portrait, painted four years ago, and life-size then, though not so now. She was always very curious to see it, tacitly proud of it, but embarrassed by it too as she grew older and the wide-eyed child in a blue smock remained just the same. Two tall doors opened from the sitting room into what should have been the dining room, but was now her father’s studio, facing north-east, and avoiding direct sunlight. This meant they had to have meals in the kitchen – sometimes whole evenings were spent in the kitchen. It was like watching TV, you followed Pat making ratatouille or a ‘roast’ of some kind from scratch, and if you were an adult you got drunk. This could take an hour or more. Then, when you were just about to die of hunger, he slammed the oven shut and said, ‘Right! That should be done in forty-five minutes.’ Often she shyly declined the strange food that was served while they waited, the horrible hummus Pat made in the blender, and tapenade, bitter and oily (it was meant to have anchovies in it, but no ‘creatures’ of course were allowed in the house).