‘I’m not aiming to do an installation,’ said Ella, a little shortly. ‘This is perfect for my work.’
Britta pulled a conciliatory face which Ella knew from experience heralded anything but.
‘Exactly. Perfect. That’s shorthand for settling. You don’t want perfect. You want to be challenging. Settling is . . . settling for what? You’re limiting your horizons.’ She pursed her mouth before bursting out. ‘Seriously, Ella, what are you playing at. You shouldn’t be messing around with this stuff.’ She tossed a contemptuous arm towards the draughtboard and the makeshift washing line to which Ella had pegged pictures of Cuthbert and Englebert.
Ella bit back her words. Her fingers stiffened into angry fists.
‘Excuse me . . . ’ Her heart beat a little faster; she didn’t like confrontation. ‘That’s my work you’re talking about. It might not be to your taste but . . . ’
‘Ella, babes. Taste doesn’t come into it. You’re talented. That stuff’s,’ she lifted a shoulder in stylish dismissal, ‘beneath you. You can do so much better than these silly little illustrations.’
If Britta thought that a backhanded compliment was going to take the sting out of her words, she had another think coming.
Ella straightened.
‘Actually, I find that quite offensive. Plenty of people like my books. Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s no good.’
Britta pursed her lips and gazed away out of the window.
Ella was suddenly glad she’d tucked her new painting behind the stack of blank canvasses and the red monstrosity was under her bed. She didn’t want to know what Britta would have made of the misty blues and greens of her fairytale glade at the edge of the water ringed by her fanciful tree dancers.
‘Now this is more like it.’ Britta advanced to the corner of the room, a tiny almost forgotten alcove under the dormer window. ‘This I like.’
Ella frowned. What the hell was she on about? She watched Britta stalk into the corner with stately grace, like a tiger circling its prey. With a whirl she rounded on Ella.
‘You beauty! This is brilliant, babes.’
Ella followed her to look down at the coil of discarded barbed wire and dead tulip petals, some of which hung from the bared points of the wire.
‘This is so interesting.’ Brita put a hand on her right breast, reminding Ella of a Roman emperor making some important declaration, and said, ‘This speaks to me.’ Her eyes flashed with enthusiasm and fervour. ‘Absolutely fan-fucking-tastic. Patrick will bite your hand off. I can see this as the centrepiece in the gallery.’
Ella stared at her. Solemnly she tugged at her lips with her teeth. She didn’t dare say a word or even open her mouth. She swallowed hard.
‘Blood on a wire.’ Britta declared as she circled the coil of barbed wire in a long loping mince which teamed with the whiteknee socks and flared culottes suddenly struck Ella as utterly ridiculous. She stared at the ribbed socks, which were more than ridiculous. Britta was a grown woman. Ella pinched her lips together even harder, doing her best to maintain an impassive expression. It was very hard.
‘Babes, I thought you were mad coming out here but this . . . this is genius. I knew you could do it.’ Her ice blue eyes softened as their gaze shifted from the mess on the floor to Ella’s face with a slightly patronising smile.
Ella still couldn’t say anything.
‘I need the loo.’ With that she bolted and fled down the stairs to lock herself in her bathroom where she sat on the edge of the bath trying to decide whether to be angry with Britta’s rudeness or amused by her pretentiousness. She let out a snort worthy of a pig in truffle heaven. Laughter bubbled up. She sniggered and then the giggles burbled out, she couldn’t stop them. Tears streaked down her face, but she could barely lift her hand to wipe them away as she clutched her stomach which ached from laughing so much.
Her shoulders shook. She needed to get a grip. The wire and flowers had been dumped in the corner after she’d come back from the church after dancing with Devon. Putting her hands over her mouth she tried to contain herself but every time she thought she’d calmed down, another gale of laughter would surprise her. What would Devon make of it? She pressed her lips together, screwing up her eyes. It was too ridiculous for words.
After splashing cold water on her face and taking lots of deep breaths as well as pulling admonishing faces at herself in the mirror, she finally pulled herself together. Britta was nuts. Once again she felt a million miles away from her old life but this time it didn’t feel quite as bad. She no longer felt exiled.
How could anyone think that was art? But with a sudden forlorn insight, she thought of all the galleries and exhibitionsshe’d been to over the years. What was art? Maybe you could palm ‘Blood on a Wire’ off to an audience but if it didn’t mean anything to her, then it was cheating. It wasn’t real. Not in the way her new painting was. The secret world she’d tried to capture felt real, a glimpse of an alternate nature. Painting it felt right. As pretentious as it sounded, it satisfied something inside her soul, even though it would never garner artistic acclaim.
Straightening her shoulders, she left the bathroom and guiltily started as she heard Tess whine downstairs.
‘Britta, fancy a drink?’ she called up the stairs, unable to go back into the studio.
When everyone’s head in the pub turned at the exotic vision of Britta in flowing white palazzo pants, a long white shirt and yards of white chiffon wrapped around her neck and trailing down the length of her body, Ella tried hard to ignore their avid gazes. Britta looked exotic anywhere.
‘You sit down and I’ll go get some drinks.’
Leaving Britta at the table in the corner slightly tucked out of the line of sight of the row of regulars lined up at the bar, she went up to order.
‘Hi, can I have a white wine and a gin and lime, please?’
