The National Gallery is actually an awesome place to visit when you’re on crutches. Flat floors, lifts between levels, and benches in every room that are designed for art contemplation but equally useful for ankle-related self-pity.
I’m so efficient on my crutches now that I can easily keep pace with Elizabeth and Leo as we move through the galleries of masterpieces.
“I’m thinking if there was a crutches race at the Olympics, I would be a podium finisher at least,” I say.
“At the very least,” Leo agrees with a small smile.
“I’d need a costume though. I’m not competing in regular clothes. Something with sequins.”
Leo’s smile grows larger. “Obviously.”
“And you’d have to hold up one of those signs in the crowd. With my name on it. And glitter.”
“I’m not holding a glitter sign.”
“You are. You’re my boyfriend. I’ll add a glitter clause to the contract.”
“I’m not signing anything you’ve drafted. I’ve seen what happens when you’re left unsupervised with a clipboard,” he replies, and I laugh.
We round the corner into the next gallery, and the painting of the Execution of Lady Jane Grey stops me in my tracks.
I mean, I know it’s here. I’ve seen it before. But every time I do, it hits slightly differently.
The painting is enormous—nearly three meters wide—and it glows. That’s the only word for it. Lady Jane kneels center stage in a white satin dress so luminous it looks like Delaroche plugged her into a light socket. She’s blindfolded, reaching for the execution block, her fingers stretching into empty air.
She can’t find it.
That’s the detail that gets me every time. Lady Jane is about to die, and she can’t find the thing she’s supposed to die on.
Elizabeth has paused beside me. Leo stands slightly behind, his hand resting on the small of my back.
“Ah,” Elizabeth says quietly. “This one.”
“I actually read a book about this painting,” I say.
I feel rather than see Leo’s attention shift to me.
A month ago, I would have immediately followed that sentence with something self-deprecating. “I was bored in a waiting room,”or“It had pictures in it.”
But now I don’t reach for the deflection. I just keep talking.
“It’s of Lady Jane Grey, who was Queen of England for nine days. She was only a teenager, and she was shoved onto the throne by relatives who wanted power, and then executed when the plan went sideways. She’s basically the patron saint of being punished for other people’s ambitions.
“When they told her she was going to be executed, she asked if she could practice laying her head on the block first because she wanted to get it right.”
Something flickers across Leo’s face. “She wanted to get her own execution right?”
“She was seventeen and terrified, yet she still wanted to do it properly. It’s a tragedy.”
“Yeah,” Leo says, staring at the painting.
“The painting was lost for decades. It was in storage at the Tate, and everyone thought the Thames flood of 1928 destroyed it.” I tilt my head, studying the impossible brightness of Jane’s dress against the gloom. “Then, in 1973, a curator was searching through damaged canvases looking for a completely different painting. He found the missing one rolled up inside this one.”
“So he found it by accident while he was looking for something else,” Leo says. His voice has some kind of weird undertone, and when I glance at him, his eyes aren’t on the painting.
They’re on me.
“The painter’s girlfriend was the model for Lady Jane, apparently,” I add. “She was a famous actress at the Comédie-Française.”
