‘I don’t paint for a living,’ said Phoebe. ‘I’m a health visitor. Ask anyone who works in my profession and you’ll find that they know all about pressure.’
‘I’ll give you an example of pressure.’ Hilary was on to her fourth grape by now. ‘Pressure is being holed up in some hotel in the middle of Kent with three colleagues and a fax machine, knowing that you’ve got to put together an autumn schedule by Thursday morning.’
‘Possibly,’ said Phoebe. ‘But you might just as well say that pressure is having twenty pounds in your purse and wondering how you’re going to make it last until the end of the week. Or finding that you’re pregnant again two days after your husband has lost his job. That’s the sort of problem I come across most days, and these people don’t even have the consolation of feeling that the decisions they have to make are in any way glamorous, or make any kind of difference to people’s lives other than their own.’
A smile spread itself across Hilary’s face, and she turned to her brother. ‘Oh, darling, she’s priceless. I really must congratulate you. How did you find her? You realize what you’ve got here, don’t you? I do believe you’ve managed to track down a bona fide, old-fashioned, dyed-in-the-wool, head-in-the-cloudssocialist. They’re terribly rare, you know. And now, clever old you, you’ve managed to catch this creature and transport her all the way up here. I mean, whatever next? Are you hoping that she’ll mate in captivity?’
Roddy jumped to his feet.
‘All right, Hilary: that’s enough. Just leave her alone.’
‘It’s a bit late to come over all chivalrous, isn’t it?’
‘You’re being offensive.’
‘She won’t go to bed with you, you know. I would have thought that was pretty obvious.’
Roddy turned to their guests. ‘I must apologize for my sister. She’s clearly had a very hard week. All the same, that doesn’t excuse her manners. I think you’ll agree they’ve been appalling.’
‘I don’t know much about manners,’ said Conrad.
Hilary put her arm around him and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Conrad doesn’t know much about anything,’ she said, ‘except for flying, and fucking.’ She got up, and, taking his hand, pulled him gently with her. ‘I think it’s about time I put his second area of expertise to the test. Good-night to you both.’ And to Phoebe she added: ‘It’s been an education, my dear. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’
Once they had left, Roddy and Phoebe sat in silence for some time.
‘That was nice of you,’ she said finally. ‘Thanks.’
He glanced at her: perhaps on the look-out for irony.
‘Pardon?’
‘Sticking up for me. You didn’t have to do that.’
‘Well, you know … She was way out of line.’
‘She doesn’t seem to have a very high opinion of your motives for bringing me here.’
Roddy gave an apologetic shrug, and said: ‘Perhaps she’s right.’
‘So what’s the deal?’
‘The deal?’
‘I sleep with you, and I get – what? A mixed show? A show of my own? Written about in the newspapers? Introduced to lots of wealthy and influential people?’
‘I think you’re jumping the gun a bit.’
‘And do we do it just the once, or is this going to be a regular thing?’
Roddy walked over to the fireplace, where the two bars of an electric fire were doing their feeble best to make an impact on the room’s deathly chill. He seemed about to embark upon a speech.
‘You’re quite right, of course.’ The words came with some difficulty. ‘Clearly I wanted to sleep with you – I mean, what man in his right mind wouldn’t? – and I knew that the only way I was going to … persuade you, was by offering to help with your career. Which I’m certainly in a position to do. But the thing is’ – he laughed awkwardly, running a hand through his hair – ‘I mean, it galls me to admit that anything my sister might say could have any influence, but – hearing her ranting on like that, it has made me realize that my assumptions, my presumptions, even, have been decidedly … Well, the whole business suddenly seems dreadfully cheap. And I feel that I owe you an apology. I really am very sorry: for bringing you here under … false pretences.’
‘You must think I’m very innocent,’ said Phoebe, joining him at the fireplace, ‘if you expected me to come up here without suspecting anything.’
‘So why did you come?’
‘Well, that’s a good question. Let me tell you two things.’ She leaned back against the mantelpiece, only occasionally turning to meet his eye. ‘First of all, although I do genuinely believe that you know hardly anything about art, that the power you wield is unhealthy, and that your business practices probably stink to high heaven, I don’t find you totally unattractive.’
Roddy snorted. ‘Well, that’s something, I suppose.’
‘Secondly.’ Phoebe hesitated, her eyes closed, and then took a breath. ‘I’ve never really been brave enough to say this to anyone before, but – You see, over the years, I have, with great difficulty, built up a certain … faith in myself. In my painting, I mean. In fact, it’s got to the point where I think it’s probably quite good.’ She smiled. ‘That must sound very arrogant.’
‘Not at all.’
‘It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when I didn’t have any faith in myself at all. It’s quite … painful to talk about, but – well, it happened when I was a student. I’d given up nursing for a while to go to art college, and I was living with some people in this house – we were sharing it – when someone came and stayed with us for a few days. A visitor. And one day I was out shopping, and I came back to find that he was in my room, looking at this painting that was only half-finished. Less than half-finished, really. And it was as if … as if he’d seen me naked, I suppose. And not just that, but he started trying to talk about the painting, and it was obvious that it meant something completely different to him, that I was completely failing to communicate anything through it, in fact, and I … It was very strange. A few days later he left without saying anything. Didn’t say goodbye to any of us. He left us all feeling … empty, somehow, and I couldn’t bear the thought of looking at those paintings again – of anyone looking at them. The upshot was that I asked the landlady if we could have a bonfire in the back yard, and I burnt everything I’d done. Every painting, every drawing. I dropped out of college and went back into nursing full time. And that was that for a while. I didn’t paint at all. Not that I wasn’t thinking about it. I still used to visit galleries, and read all the magazines and everything. There was this sort of – empty space, inside me, where I used to paint, and I was looking for something to fill it: someone, I should say, because I was longing just to find a picture – any picture – which would leap out at me and suddenly … connect. Do you know that feeling? You must do: coming across an artist whose work speaks to you so directly, it’s as if you both understand the same private language – somehow confirming everything you’ve ever thought and at the same time saying something completely new.’ Roddy was mute, incomprehending. ‘You don’t, do you? Well, anyway. It never happened, needless to say. But what did happen was that a couple of years later I got a parcel in the post, from one of my old lecturers at the college. They’d been having some sort of clear-out, and they’d found some sketches of mine, apparently, which they wanted to return. So I unpacked these things and started looking at them again. Funnily enough, there was an early version of the painting which had caused so much trouble in the first place, the one this man had completely misunderstood. And seeing it again – seeing all of them again, really – I realized how wrong he’d been: how wrong I’d been, to over-react like that. Because Iknew, as soon as I saw them after all this time I knew that they were good. I knew that I’d been on to something. I knew that there was no one else around who was – I won’t say better than me, I don’t have that much of an ego – but who was really working in the same field, or attempting anything at all similar … It just gave me my confidence back, somehow, made me feel that I’d actually been doing something at least as worthwhile as all the other painters who were getting bought and sold and commissioned and exhibited. And I’ve never really lost that feeling. I do feel that I … that I deserve. So what you should know, I suppose, is that I’m pretty determined. I don’t think there’s anything, now, anything in the world that matters to me as much as finding some kind of audience for my work.’