I pick up my binoculars and look at his house.
It's a standard semi. Small and fairly characterless. I wonder what he's up to. Whether he's struggling with stuff inside him, too, or just getting on with his evening. I wonder at how he could write such incredibly beautiful love letters and did he have someone in mind as he penned them? I wonder if there's anything of me in them, or were they really just for a woman somewhere in 1940s England.
And I hate that he's done this to me. Made me into a jumbled-up person when I knew my mind and my heart so well until a few days ago.
I want him to be similarly scrambled and all at sea and...
Thinking about me.
Not anybody else.
Then I do something I've never done before. I break the one, big important rule with my Port Derrum voyeuring and raise the binoculars to see into his back yard in case he's playing mini golf, or petting hedgehogs, or something equally wholesome.
I don't see him in the garden, but I do spot a shed against his back fence. Its entire front wall is constructed of glass bi-folding doors.
It's what I see on the other side of that glass that makes me gasp.
Hanging on the back wall is a corner of a painting. I don't have to see much of it to know what it is.
The painting I did of the single pink poppy Jeanette gave me when my parents moved away.
I've never been into Ed's backyard. He's never invited an opportunity to. And I've never thought that might be a little strange until now.
He's wanted to keep it from me. For whatever reason, he hasn't wanted me to know that he was the anonymous buyer of my flower painting. The first painting I'd ever sold to someone who wasn't my mum.
I throw the binoculars onto Ed's lounger and hurry towards the door to the stairs.
Chapter forty-four
Bess
IraponEd'sdooras hard as I can without breaking a knuckle.
After waiting three seconds, I then knock continuously until he opens the door.
When he does, I don't give him pause for words. "Why have you got my painting hanging in your shed?" It's not really the question I want to ask, but it's the right place to start. It comes out angry. Probably because Iamangry. Angry and confused.
And I'm really bloody sick of being angry and confused.
Ed takes half a step backwards with an "Ahhh".
"Well?"
His eyes have a wild, panicked look to them, like he's about to run. But after several moments, he says, "Shit. Can you come in so I can make us some tea and gather myself before answering?"
"No. Tell me right now, Ed. Why did you never tell me you bought it?"
Giving me an apologetic look, he turns his back on me and disappears into the house.
"Ed?" All I can do is close the door and follow him.
He heads to the kitchen and fills up the kettle from the tap.
I slap the table and he jumps. "God damn it, Ed. Talk to me for fuck's sake. Why is my painting in your shed, why didn't you tell me you bought it and why were you too scared to tell me you wrote the letters?" I think, maybe, that last question is the biggest one. I think, maybe, it carries the most weight.
Ed grips the kettle with white knuckles. His chest rises and falls like a bird's that's been stunned after striking a window.
Then he puts the kettle down and leaves the room.
