“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“I don’t actually have a painting here,” she hastened to explain. “I mean, I don’t lug them around or anything. But I set up a catalog online, in case anyone . . .” She trailed off, biting her lip. “Well, you know, to be professional.”
“So show me,” Juliet said, even as she wondered why she was asking. Did she really care about Lucy’s paintings, insipid or not? Then, to her surprise, she realized she did.
“Okay,” Lucy said. “Let me get my laptop.”
Juliet finished making their tea as Lucy went upstairs. At least Lucy’s paintings would provide a distraction from her own gloomy thoughts.
“Here we go.” Lucy set up her laptop on the kitchen table and Juliet handed her a mug of tea before sitting down. “They’re not statements,” Lucy warned her. “I mean, my art isn’t political or anything. . . .”
“Thank God for that. And stop making excuses. Let them speak for themselves.”
“All right,” Lucy answered, and pushed the laptop towards Juliet so she could see the screen.
Juliet hadn’t really considered what to expect when it came to Lucy’s paintings. She hadn’t thought about them all that much, but if she was honest with herself, she would have expected them to be a little simplistic, a bit amateurish, and yet heartfelt. Kind of like Lucy herself.
What she hadn’t anticipated was that they’d actually be quite good. They weren’t going to set the art world on fire, by any means, but there was something warm and welcoming about each painting: bluebells in a shadowy wood, daisies blowing in a breeze. She captured a scene and made you want to enter it. And yet there was a surprising sorrow about the paintings too, as if the artist knew that flowers were fleeting, that the scene was nothing more than a moment in time.
“I like them,” Juliet said at last.
“You have to say that.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Do you really think,” she told Lucy, “I wouldn’t tell you if I thought they were rubbish?”
“Well . . .” Lucy considered this and then let out a laugh. “Of course you would. So that gives you an admirable amount of credibility.”
“They’re not mind-blowing or anything,” Juliet continued, determined to be both honest and fair. “But not everything has to be. They’re comforting; they make you want to walk in that field or that wood. I like them,” she said again, stating it firmly, and Lucy smiled.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice soft, and Juliet knew it meant something to her, that she did actually like them. And it felt surprisingly good to realize Lucy cared about her opinion.
“So come on, really. What’s going on with you and Peter?” Lucy asked, and Juliet lurched upright, nearly spilling her tea in the abrupt change of subject.
“I told you, nothing—”
“Come on, Juliet. I’m not an idiot. Something happened between you two. You’re avoiding each other—”
“How would you know? You’re at school all day—”
“I live with you, and this is a small village. People notice things, like you not going to the pub quiz, for starters.”
“I only went three times.”
“And so did Peter. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Other people don’t, either.”
Juliet stilled at that, a horrible thought creeping up on her like a cold Cumbrian mist. “What do you mean?” she asked, hardly wanting to ask the question. “Has someone said something to you?”
“Maggie Bains told Diana Rigby that she saw the two of you in the pub last week,” Lucy answered, “and she said Peter walked out in a hurry.”
Juliet rose from the table on the pretense of fetching a dish towel, but more as an excuse to hide her face from Lucy, and the appalled expression she could feel contorting her features.
“What a load of nonsense,” she managed as she swiped at the nonexistent spills on the table. Lucy had, for once, not scattered sugar everywhere.
“Is it?” she asked. “Were the two of you at the pub?”
“Well, obviously. I don’t think Maggie is a pathological liar.”
