‘Absolutely.’ He flicked his scarf over his shoulder. ‘My mother and I both have a thing for Burt Reynolds.’
Lilly laughed out loud. Bertie was, as ever, just the tonic she needed.
‘I’d better go. I’m meeting Wilkie.’ She beamed and pulled her shoulders up to her chin as excitement rippled through her limbs.
‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.’ He issued the stern warning.
‘Might be a bit late for that,’ Lilly whispered as she reached for the door handle, giving him an insight into this love, this beginning, this heady joy!
‘Good Lord, Bob! That’s what I’m worried about.’
The two shared a lingering, knowing look, before she blew him a kiss and made her way home.
Having set up her easel on the towpath, Lilly arranged her hair over one shoulder and opened the top button of her blouse, before twisting her large silver and topaz ring on her index finger. She wanted to look her most alluring when Wilkie saw her, and she’d do as she always did, make out she hadn’t seen him immediately and give him a moment to privately admire her! Her stomach bunched in anticipation. Already she was thinking of where they might be able to go for sex, somewhere quiet, possibly back to his boarding house on Royal Avenue. The thought of having to sneak in again was thrilling, not that she’d be able to stay all night, still feeling bad about having lied to her dad about Glenda’s mum being ill. But a couple of hours would be wonderful ... Who was she kidding? A couple ofminuteswould be wonderful!
Removing her brush from the old jam jar, she ran the bristles over the canvas, before taking on some blue paint and dipping that back into the murky water, creating a shade with which to coat the surface entirely. It was how she worked, building layers, removing the light, erasing the nothingness, the space, until all that was left was the detail: the water, the riverbank, the outline of the buildings opposite and the reflection on the surface of Old Mother Thames.
‘What are you painting?’ The question was asked over her shoulder, familiar, predictable, and yet still she struggled a little with how to accurately respond. She turned, smiling at the girl, who looked to be about ten, wearing canary-yellow dungarees, roller skates and aPeanutsT-shirt.
‘Just the river, the water.’
The girl wrinkled her nose at the damp canvas.
‘You should put a boat on it.’
‘A boat? That’s a very good idea.’ She laughed to herself as the girl rolled off along the path. She couldn’t wait to tell Wilkie, knowing he’d find the humour in it.
The sun dropped and the sky took on the bruised hue of dusk and with it the warmth of the day was replaced by a breeze that was a little cool. Lilly felt the shiver along her limbs as her skin prickled into goosebumps.
‘Hurry up!’ She spoke aloud to the wind, waiting for her lover to arrive. Her heart jumping, her mood lifting as every new person, dog, bike or tumbling leaf drew her eye, thinking it might be him.
It was as night began to fall that she understood he was not coming. The disappointment sat like a physical thing at the base of her throat. A million reasons why ran through her thoughts, ranging from he’d been kept late at work, there’d been an emergency on the Tube, to the fact that he might have come down with a terrible disease or been hit over the back of the head andleft for dead in an alleyway ... Either way, he was not with her, and her heart flexed with frustration.
‘Can I make you a sandwich, love?’ her dad called from the kitchen after she’d returned to the flat, the strains of Tchaikovsky’sRomeo and Julietcoming from the lounge and filling her room. The melancholic pull of the oboe was enough to reduce her sorrow to a thick syrup that slowed her heart and made her breathing a little laboured.
‘No, thanks. Not hungry,’ she managed, turning her face into the pillow to catch her tears.
‘You’ll waste away!’ he laughed, and she thought she just might, if she didn’t see Wilkie soon.
Wilkie didn’t come the next night.
Wilkie didn’t come the night after that.
Wilkie didn’t come the night after that.
Nor the night after that.
Nor the night after that.
And Lilly carried her heartache like a heavy stone in her arms, unable to sleep, rest, work, eat or think straight, entirely preoccupied with the space next to her where she wanted him to be.
Present day
Lilly took her time choosing what to wear. Her love of colour meant that whatever she selected from her wardrobe wasn’t going to be bland. She settled on a turquoise tunic with an embroidered, beaded yoke, and white linen trousers, with endless strings of multicoloured beads looped around her neck, and two very large, eye-catching gold rings, one on the middle finger of each hand, and her favourite tan Menorcan leather sandals.
Her conversation with Alfie had been on repeat in her thoughts and it was no coincidence that she chose Etta James’s ‘At Last’as the music to listen to as she got ready, curating her own playlist. Understanding it was kitsch, predictable and even tempting the fate she didn’t believe in, but the beauty of it was, no one would ever know!
This might just be a simple date for some, a casual get-together for dinner, but for Lilly it was significant, not only because of the rarity of such a thing but also because she was the owner of a fractured, mistrusting heart and so to take a leap like this was a big deal. There he was again, without invitation, the image of Wilkie in the front of her mind, even after all these years –poof!He continued to pop up and taunt her from afar. But Alfie had kind of got under her skin, why, she wasn’t sure, but she certainly wasn’t getting any younger and figured that if she was going to keep that silent loneliness from her door, maybethe better question was, why not? The fact that her world was shifting on its axis – leaving the flat, losing the daily closeness with Clodagh and Apollo – was encouraging her to broaden her thoughts, to take the risk. There was another thought, however, that whizzed and prodded her from sleep with the excitement of a teenager, not so much why not, butwhat if ...Not that she chose to share this with anyone, knowing how ridiculous it sounded, such daydreaming from a woman who was old enough to know better.
