She’d come straight up here, knowing the exact shade of colour she needed. It oozed into the china palette, her wide flat brush dipping in with haste to smear the canvas. Without thought or planning she dived in, covering a section with instinct driven strokes, the thick paint glistening with horrible reality. Like a bloody pool, the overladen area began to run, drips slipping down the white in horrible mockery, but she carried on, feeling the pain again. Anger and outrage filled her, like a cup under a running tap, overflowing over and over again, as she remembered the cramping sensation low in her belly and the vicious disembowelling sense of being utterly on her own in this. Her hand translated with slashing rips at the canvas, the helpless anguish at the unfairness of it, that awful sensation of having something wrenched away. She added another colour, oxygen-rich red, deeper and darker, to shadow the oval shape that had emerged. Grabbing another shade, rusty-tinged brown, she added that too and then another and another.
Finally, exhausted and angry, she pulled back to look at the painting. Except it wasn’t a painting – it was nothing more than a childish, fury-fuelled daub that left her feeling shaky andshocked. Pure emotion and nothing else; no finesse, no style. It was a mess. She closed her eyes, her shoulders slumping. Numbness filled her limbs, heavy with the adrenaline hangover.
With shaky hands she laid down her brush and looked critically at the picture. It summed things up rather too well. A cruel parallel with her life. Utterly crap. It had been a terrible mistake coming out here. But she couldn’t go back either.
With a loathing look at the painting, she left the studio.
As soon as she opened the kitchen door, the idiotic animal bounced around her legs with delight, her excitement translated in the feverish wag of her tail.
‘Blimey, Dog, you’d think you’d been locked away for fifty years instead of overnight.’
The dog carried on weaving around her, as if to saywhere’ve you been? I really, really, really missed you. It’s so lovely to see you.
‘OK, OK, calm down.’ Despite her gentle chiding, Ella’s heart lifted, the furious explosive emotion somehow starting to dissipate. She opened the back door and the dog dived out, a blur of speed, careered around the garden like a lunatic, weed several times and then came charging back to nuzzle at Ella’s legs.
‘You’re wet,’ she said, brushing the dew that clung to the dog’s coat. Tess’s tail flapped furiously, beating Ella’s legs as she wove round and round as if she just couldn’t contain her sheer happiness.
Ella bent to stroke her head. ‘You are daft,’ she said with a rueful smile as the dog continued to dance around her.
‘Starving, are you? No wonder I’ve got a rock star’s welcome this morning. And listen to me. I’m talking to a dog.’
With sudden resolution, Ella pushed her shoulders back and gave herself a shake. ‘Come on, then. Let’s feed you. What do you fancy? Lovely smelly biscuits or lovely smelly biscuits?’
This almost felt normal, getting the biscuits out, filling the bowl, putting water in the other one.
‘Honestly, calm down. I can’t see what you’re getting so excited about. I’m glad I’m not a dog.’ She laughed as Tess almost knocked her over, jumping and nosing at the bowl as she tried to lower it, biscuits spilling over the side to rain and bounce all over the floor, which Tess thought was a great game.
Before she’d even made her coffee, the dog had inhaled the biscuits like a turbo-charged hoover and then started nosing around the floor sucking up the stray crumbs until her paw slipped on something on the floor. Ella frowned. That bloody card had a mind of its own.
With a clatter Tess gave the empty bowl another hopeful once-over with her tongue and then tilted her head, looking at Ella with a beseeching expression.
‘That’s your lot, Tess, and you know it.’
The dog gave a mournful sigh, still gazing at her with hopeful longing.
‘Now I know what puppy dog eyes are . . . and it’s still a no from me.’ She gave the dog another stroke on the head, the blue card still in her other hand. A shaft of sunlight slanted in through the French doors, warming her hand where she stroked the soft silky texture of the dog’s short fur. It was rather hypnotic and she felt her breathing calm. After the earlier fierce burst of emotion she felt a little wrung out. Something drew her eyes to the words on the card. With a self-conscious glance around the room, which was completely crazy as there was no one there to see, she stepped outside and headed for the little stone bench in the garden.
Several bluebells had burst into flower overnight and the buds on the tree had unfurled into leaves. She studied the vivid blues. The rich deep colours stirred something in her brain.
Sinking down onto the stone bench, she looked around the gorgeous garden with its profusion of colour, light and shape. The bright morning sunshine touched her skin and something inside blossomed, that earlier pinching tension seeping away like a thief in the night taking its leave. It was rather lovely to be able to sit and daydream for a while. She closed her eyes and tilted her face upwards like a sunflower. An image drifted into her head and she let it settle, her mind’s eye wandering across it, lightly touching here and there.
The sweet notes of a blackbird pierced the air and she opened her eyes, her heart thudding with sudden excitement. With a sudden warning cry the bird on the tree opposite took flight as Ella jumped up.
She raced up both flights of stairs. There it was: Magda’s box. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. Actually, yes she could. She never painted with watercolours – it hadn’t occurred to her to use them, but maybe they were right for this. It certainly couldn’t hurt to try.
Without any of her usual prevarication, she grabbed a sheet of cartridge paper and a selection of paints, oozing them hastily onto a dinner plate. Misty blue first. Her fingers tingled with impatience. She dived in, the colour bleeding into the paper.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur of colour, desire and emotion as the images began to appear. Seamless, the picture came together, layer by layer, the shadows beyond the trees hinting at secrets, the willowy branches redolent with the movement of dancers in the foreground and the dappled light trickling through behind.
At some point she was aware of Tess getting up, yawning and wandering away, her paws pitter-pattering down the wooden stairs. Later, she registered the birds under the eaves of the south side of the house cheeping furiously.
It was the searing pain cramping the muscle in the back of her shoulders that finally brought her back to earth and the hunger pangs that rattled her stomach. Standing and stretching to release the pain, she glanced at her watch. Bloody hell. Two o’clock. She’d been painting non-stop since this morning. The dog had long since abandoned her post and gone downstairs.
Ella forced herself to put the brush down, turn around and walk five paces back. She stopped and steeling herself as if she were in a duel, she took a breath and turned.
Her heart almost stopped. It was perfect. Quite simply perfect. A sense of absolute satisfaction and wonder filled her. The secretive warmth of the trees, the glittering water, the shadowed trunks and the texture of the bark had all been captured to perfection. So much and so little. Her heart almost burst.
Giving into the growl of her stomach, she headed down to the kitchen to make herself a drink. A flash of mustard outside caught her eye as she stood drinking her coffee, feeling drained but happy and she raised a hand to wave to George. He looked a little stooped and stiff when he returned the wave. What had Devon said? George was lonely? Without thinking she opened the window.
