‘You should go.’ He smiled at her.
‘I don’t like to leave London.’ Her admission came easily, without consideration.
‘Oh my God! Really? You don’t leave London?’ He stared at her wide-eyed in disbelief.
‘I said I don’tliketo, not that I don’t.’ She shrugged.
‘So you do?’
‘Not very often, no.’ She smiled at him.
‘But there’s a whole wide world outside of this city, lovely as it is, a whole wide world!’
‘So I believe. I once saw one of those round things with countries and oceans on it. Like a map but a ball!’ she mocked.
‘Sorry, you’re right, it’s absolutely nothing to do with me!’ He held his palms up in defence.
‘Truth is, I don’t like to leave my dad. It’s just me and him.’ She was grateful he didn’t ask for further details of their set-up. ‘Plus, I have this crazy compulsion to paint every day. To sit right here, in fact, and paint this same stretch of river. And if I don’t, I get kind of ... agitated, as if I might be missing something.’ It was as close as she could come to describing what was almost a compulsion.
‘Every day?’ He screwed his face up as if doubting her.
‘Well, nearly every day. I mean, not if I’m working or studying or the weather is really bad. No point trying to paint in thick fog and rain if you can’t see the water and the damp makes your colours run.’
‘I guess not.’ Wilkie hopped off the wall and dusted his palms on his jeans. ‘So this means you’ll be here tomorrow, about the same time?’
‘Probably.’ They shared a lingering look, as if both aware that this was no casual enquiry but was in fact an arrangement. Her heart jumped in her chest at the prospect. She sucked in her stomach and pushed out her chest, trying to look coy, sexy, demure, alluring and all the things she had never seen herself as. Trying to look like anyone other than the girl who had never quite fitted in, like someone else entirely.
‘See you tomorrow then, probably.’ He gave her a slow smile, as if very aware of the effect he was having on her.
‘Yep, see you tomorrow,’ she managed, almost breathless at the prospect of seeing him again.Wilkie ... Wilkie ... Wilkie ...
Present day
‘What are you painting?’ The man was a Londoner like her, his interruption an irritation. She did her best to find a positive tone, aware that he was only being curious, friendly, and had not deliberately set out to spoil her day. At least she hoped not.
‘The water, the ... the river.’ Using her paintbrush, she pointed in the general direction.
‘It’s a nice spot.’
‘Yes, that’s why I’m here again!’ She clicked her tongue against her teeth.
‘Again?’
‘Yes. I paint here often, more than often, and have painted this scene more times than I care to admit.’
‘Really, how extraordinary! How many times have you—’
‘Hundreds and hundreds. And hundreds.’ She cut him short.
‘The same picture, same stretch of the river, every time?’ he asked with a rise of disbelief.
‘Every time.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’she asked with her face screwed up, nose wrinkled, an expression that said more than her words ever could, as if he were an idiot for asking, not her the idiot for repeating her composition over and over.
‘Yes, why? I mean, there’s so much to see along here.’ He pointed to the right, where the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Bridge sat beyond Lambeth Bridge.
