One image in particular caught her attention; it was of an elderly man with deep crevices across his furrowedbrow, mottled skin and blue irises that retained their hue despite a long-departed youth. She became lost in him, imagining the stories such a weathered face must contain. But the painting suddenly stopped halfway across the left-hand side of his face.
‘That’s Jacob,’ a voice came from behind, and goosebumps immediately dappled her arms.
Flick turned to face Elijah. Even just a glimpse of his smile stirred the sleeping butterflies inside her stomach. She took in his smart black shirt with three buttons loosened and a hint of chest hair poking from the top. She resisted the urge to rip it open. ‘Who’s Jacob?’ she asked casually.
‘A local who lived here all his life.’
‘Where is he now?’
Elijah looked up to the ceiling, down to the ground and shrugged. ‘He was a funny old bugger so he could have gone either way, who knows? But he was either the nicest man you could ever meet or your worst nightmare, it depends on which way the wind was blowing. He made for an interesting subject, though.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He died on his trawler. He was a lobster fisherman but one evening his boat didn’t return. The coastguard found him slumped in his cabin, as dead as the water. Heart attack.’
‘But what a wonderful way to go,’ Flick said. ‘Doing what he enjoyed the most.’ She brushed away an image of a burning Christopher. He had also died doing something he loved: killing. ‘Why isn’t it complete?’
‘I could’ve completed it from memory or from the photos I took at earlier sittings, but I think its incompleteness makes more of an impact. Not knowing everything makes something more interesting.’
‘Are you telling her about your Uncle Jacob?’ Mick, the landlord of the Fox & Hounds, interrupted. ‘Funny bugger, that one.’
Flick looked to Elijah, curious as to why he’d failed to mention the relationship between artist and subject. ‘Case in point,’ he said without giving her the chance to speak first. ‘It’s always what we don’t know about someone that piques our curiosity. Would you like to join me outside for some air?’
‘But it’s your exhibition,’ said Flick.
‘Which means I get to make the rules. Please excuse us, Mick.’
Grace reappeared from another room in time to wink at Flick as she followed Elijah along a corridor and into a back room, then into a courtyard garden framed by railway sleepers and flowerbeds. He held his hand out towards a nest of tables and chairs, inviting her to sit.
‘Your paintings don’t have price tags,’ Flick began, unsure why she had chosen money as her opening gambit.
‘Why, is there one that you’d like to purchase?’
‘I think they probably have more zeros on them than my wage slip.’
‘There aren’t any prices attached because they’re not for sale.’
‘Then why organise an exhibition?’
‘It’s what I’ve always done and I’m a stickler for tradition. I hold an exhibition in my home town first, see which paintings people are drawn to and which ones they’re not, and then make a judgement on whether they’ll make my official exhibition in Birmingham in a few weeks. You should sit for me some time.’
‘I already have. At the bar. Only you didn’t tell me.’
‘I mean properly. That was only a doodle.’
‘It’ll do.’
‘It’s a no then?’
Flick laughed. ‘I’m flattered but it’s a no, thank you.’ Bringing undue attention to herself, even in the form of a painting, was not advisable.
‘That’s twice you’ve rejected me within a week,’ Elijah pursued.
‘There’s a difference between saying “No, thank you” and rejection.’
‘So, when you turned down my offer of dinner, it wasn’t a rejection?’
Flick nodded. ‘It was a no, thank you.’
