A minute later Adam came into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. ’Sorry I woke you,’ he said, coming over and planting a kiss on her lips.
‘It’s OK, I need to be up. I want to make the most of my last two weeks.’
Mandy climbed out of bed and slipped into her kimono. Adam met her in the centre of the room. Sliding his arms around her waist he drew her to him and kissed her again firmly on the lips. ‘Are you sure you want to accept that job?’ he asked. ‘You know you don’t have to. We can last longer on my income.’
She smiled. ‘I know, thanks. But it’s an opportunity too good to miss. Working in an art gallery and being able to show one of my own paintings! It’s beyond my wildest dreams.’
‘Well, if you’re sure.’ With a final lingering kiss, he let her go and began to dress.
She went through to the kitchen, which still appeared huge and luxurious after the kitchenette of her bedsit, and filled the kettle. At least she now knew where everything was. In the first couple of weeks she’d kept stowing things in cupboards and forgetting where she’d put them. Now, switching on the radio, she reached easily for the bread to make toast, and the butter and honey they both liked for breakfast.
The kettle boiled and she poured the water into the cafetière as Adam appeared in the kitchen dressed in his suit. She passed him his toast and he sat at the breakfast bar and began eating, while she waited for the coffee to brew. ‘So what are you going to paint in your last two weeks of freedom?’ he asked.
‘You!’ she returned with a grin.
‘You’ll be lucky,’ he laughed. ‘I wouldn’t be able to sit still long enough.’
‘Then I’ll use a photograph, like I did for Grandpa’s portrait. I’ve decided I’ve got a flair for portrait painting.’
‘Absolutely!’ he agreed, nodding as he ate. ‘The likeness is incredible. I don’t know how you did it. It’s so realistic; you’ve made him come to life.’
She smiled, pleased, and pouring the coffee into two mugs joined him at the breakfast bar. ‘I’m going to have it framed today, then we’ll give it to Gran on our next visit.’
‘She’ll be in tears,’Adam warned. ‘It’s bound to stir up a lot of memories.’
‘Good ones, I hope.’
He nodded and, draining the last of his coffee, stood, and kissed her a long and reluctant goodbye. ‘See you tonight then,’ he said. ‘Have a good day. Friday, thank goodness. Lie-in tomorrow!’
She went with him to the front door and saw him off as she always did, waving until he’d turned the corner and was out of sight. Closing the door, she returned inside, but instead of showering and dressing as usual, she continued to the second bedroom: her studio. As she entered she felt a rush of excitement. The novelty of having her own studio was still fresh and exhilarating. A real artist’s studio! She took it all in, savouring the moment again, as she did every morning. Her paints, brushes, palette, canvases, cleaning fluids, sketch pads and so on littered all the available work surfaces in bohemian disarray. It was fantastic; she loved the organized chaos. On the easel positioned for the best light in the centre of the room was the finished portrait of Grandpa, ready to be taken to the framers.
Mandy crossed the room and stood in front of the portrait: Grandpa as he’d asked her to paint him when she’d sat by his bed and held his hand. Aware he was dying, he’d smiled sadly and said: ‘Paint a picture of me, will you, Mandy, and give it to your Gran. Something to remember me by when I’m gone. But not like this. Paint one of me young and handsome – when she fancied me.’ Mandy had begun the painting, as promised, the day after the funeral, and had just finished it, six weeks later.
She looked from the portrait to the photograph clipped to the side of the easel. It was a wedding photograph, lent to her by Gran, which she’d used for the likeness. Grandpa, in his mid twenties, dashingly handsome in a dark suit, standing tall and proud beside his Lizzie on the steps of the church where they’d just married. Mandy was pleased with the result – as apparently was the subject, for despite Grandpa’s serious expression in his wedding photo, she’d painted him smiling, and he seemed to be signalling his approval. Not only because she’d done a good job, she thought, but also because the portrait had started her painting again. Painting like a professional – focused and dedicated. She was sure he would be proud of her.
Turning from the portrait Mandy moved slowly across the studio and past the sketches – ideas for future paintings – which were pinned to the cork-board mounted on the wall. She’d had lots of ideas which she would paint up in the evenings and at weekends after she’d returned to work full time. Adam had been right about the light in the room – the natural light coming from the window fell at exactly the right angle and was ideal for painting. It had allowed her to work on Grandpa’s portrait from first thing in the morning after Adam had left for work until 6 p.m. when he returned home and she made dinner.
Mandy came to a halt in front of another large canvas, propped on a wooden chair and hidden by a dust sheet. As soon as she’d taken Grandpa’s portrait to the framers Mandy knew she must return and complete this painting before she began any more. It had remained unfinished for too long – utterly forgotten until she’d found it at her parents’ in the move to this flat. A chill gripped her as her thoughts returned to the day she’d started the painting, as a second-year student at university. It had been a Sunday evening and she’d suddenly been overcome by the need to paint: an overwhelming desire, as though her very life depended on it. It was after 7 p.m. and she’d gone alone to the art studio where she’d set up a canvas and mixed paints. She’d painted furiously, frenziedly, for five hours, until midnight, interrupted only once by the caretaker. Only when she’d finally stopped, exhausted, her arm aching and her fingers cramped around the brush, did she actually see what she’d painted, and was horrified. At the time she’d quickly wrapped the unfinished portrait in a dust sheet and put it away, not understanding what she’d painted and too afraid to confront it – until now. Now she understood.
Mandy stood in front of the covered portrait and tentatively reaching out, took hold of the edge of the dust sheet and slid it from the canvas. For an instant she felt the same revulsion she had done four years previously when she’d finally stopped painting and had seen what she’d created. She was shocked not only because the girl in the portrait looked grotesque with part of her face missing, but because of the message Mandy now realized her deformity contained: the message sent through the medium of her paintbrush that she hadn’t understood until she’d remembered what had happened.
Mandy looked into the sad blue eyes of the girl she’d seen in the mirror at Evelyn’s house. The portrait was of her, and was complete apart from the mouth, which was a gaping hole, the edges ragged and bleeding, where the mouth should be. The girl with no mouth, silenced for all these years, unable to speak until Mandy had remembered. Now she remembered, and as soon as she returned from the framers she would paint in the mouth and finally release the girl from silence.
With a small sigh of satisfaction, Mandy moved away from the painting and picked up the dust sheet. Carrying it to the table she cleared a space and then spread it open, the edges hanging loosely over the side. Going to the easel she carefully lifted down the portrait of Grandpa and, setting it in the middle of the dust sheet, wrapped it securely, ready to take to the framers. She thought she’d have the frame made of walnut, something ornate, with decorative inlaid wooden leaves. Grandpa would like that; he had other pictures with similar frames. But she’d have to ask for two frames to be made, identical, for Gran wanted her portrait painted too. ‘Can’t have Will sitting up there on the wall alone,’ she’d said. ‘Paint my picture, love, to put beside him, and I’ll pay you for your trouble.’
Mandy said she would – her first commission, although of course she wouldn’t be charging Gran. ‘A labour of love,’ she said to Gran, and somewhere close by Grandpa quietly agreed.
Also by Cathy Glass
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Damaged
Hidden
Cut
The Saddest Girl in the World
Happy Kids
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010
This paperback edition 2010
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© Cathy Glass 2010
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Cathy Glass, The Girl in the Mirror
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