She’d done a little perfunctory dating when she’d first arrived in London, but none of those encounters had ever developed as far as a full-blown relationship. Nor had she wanted it to happen. And recently there’d been nothing. Which was fine by her too.
She rose, suddenly impatient to be off, picking up her bag, and slinging the jacket of her dull black linen suit over her arm as she made her way across the restaurant to the desk at the front where Luigi the owner held sway.
Only, he was already occupied with a tall young man who’d just walked in off the street, while Harriet had been negotiating her passage between the crowded tables. And the street looked as if it was the place where he belonged, Harriet thought, resenting that she was being forced to wait in line. And by someone like this too.
Because torn jeans, worn-out trainers and a much faded tee shirt were hardly the fashion choices of Luigi’s usual male clientele. And the over-long, untidy dark hair, and thin, unshaven face hardly struck a reassuring note either.
In fact, by now, Harriet would have expected the newcomer to have been ushered politely but firmly to the door.
Only it wasn’t happening. In fact Luigi was all smiles and amiability and—dear God—actually reaching for his chequebook.
Paying him to go away? Harriet wondered with wry bewilderment. Luigi ran an excellent restaurant, but she’d never gained the impression before that he was a soft touch. Unless there was some more sinister implication to the visit, and the stranger was collecting for some kind of protection racket.
Her mouth twisted in swift self-derision. Don’t let your imagination gallop away with you, my dear, she adjured herself.
Besides, people like that probably don’t take cheques anyway.
While this particular payment was being accepted with alacrity, she noticed, and transferred to the shabby wallet taken from the back pocket of those terminally scruffy jeans.
A few quick words, a handshake, and then he was turning to go. For a moment Harriet found herself facing him, confusedly aware that, in spite of his outward dishevelment, which gave the disturbing impression that he’d just fallen out of bed and grabbed the first handful of clothing he saw, his face was cool and contained, the nose high-bridged, the mouth firm above a square chin. That, if not handsome, he was certainly—striking—maybe even downright attractive, his shoulders broad, and his body lean and muscular.
She was conscious too of his eyes, dark as a night sky, encountering her glance in turn, and brushing over her with total indifference as he went, and the restaurant door closed behind him.
For a moment, she felt oddly shaken, her hand going up almost defensively to smooth the collar of her white cotton shirt.
As if, she thought, it mattered what she looked like. As if she didn’t deliberately dress down every day of her life, wearing deliberately dull clothing, and dragging her hair relentlessly back from her face to be confined at the nape of her neck by an elastic band. Because, with her mother’s example never far from her mind, she was the last person in the world to want to attract a man’s attention or interest.
Especially one who looked like that, she thought tartly, pulling herself together and retrieving her credit card from her bag.
But Luigi’s good humour seemed to be universal today, and he waved away the proffered payment.
‘You ate nothing, Miss Flint, and you drank only water. Your friend did little better. I hope, on your next visit, you will have better appetites.’
By my next visit, I may well have lost my entire inheritance, Harriet thought bitterly, as she forced a grateful smile. And the friend in question will not be with me.
As she turned to go, Luigi halted her, his voice sinking confidentially. ‘That man who was just here—you observed him, I think, and must have wondered.’
To her annoyance, she felt herself flush. ‘It’s really none of my business …’
‘No, no, this will interest you, because you were the first to notice the picture and admire it.’ He gestured expansively at the expanse of pale lemon wall behind him. ‘I should have told him so.’
‘Told him?’ Harriet repeated slowly. She looked up at the framed canvas which had been hanging there for the past three weeks, and her brows snapped together in amazement. ‘You mean—he painted that?’
‘Si.’ Luigi nodded, his mouth quirking in amusement. ‘He looks the part, no? The struggling artist in his garret?’ Luigi shrugged. ‘Yet, he has talent. You yourself said so, signorina.’
Harriet looked back at the painting. It was all perfectly true, she acknowledged with silent reluctance. It had captured her attention, and her imagination, from the first moment she’d seen it. Yet it wasn’t the kind of thing that usually appealed to her.
At first glance, it was a relatively simple composition—clearly some Mediterranean scene with a cloudless sky above a crescent of beach, with the blue haze of the sea beyond. In the foreground was a small plateau of bleached and barren rock, flat and featureless, and on it was a table holding a half-empty bottle of wine and two glasses, one of which had overturned, sending a small trickle of liquid, rusty as dried blood, across the white metal surface. Just under the rock, half buried in the sand, was a woman’s discarded sandal, a fragile high-heeled thing. Nothing more.
It was a picture that asked questions—that invited speculation—but that hadn’t been its main appeal for Harriet. Then, as now, the heavy golden light that suffused it, burning and languid, had made her feel as if she was looking into the very essence of heat. That she could feel it searing her eyes, and scorching her skin, even through her layers of clothing.
And that was what had alerted her to the skill of the painter—what lifted the picture to a different dimension.
When she’d questioned Luigi initially, he’d shrugged and said it was an experiment. That he was featuring it to gauge the reaction of his customers.
And she’d looked back at it again, and said slowly, ‘I think—in fact I’m sure that it’s good—and that I like it very much.’ Adding, ‘If that means anything.’
Certainly it was as far removed from the rather conventional watercolour of Positano that had hung there before as it was possible to get.
At the same time, Harriet was aware that she’d always found the picture strangely disturbing. That, as well as the faint mystery of its subject matter, it seemed, in some way, to emanate an anger as tangible as the scrape of a fingernail on flesh.
Nevertheless, her eyes were instinctively drawn to it each time she came to the restaurant, and she invariably lingered for an extra moment at the desk to study it.
Now, on a sudden, inexplicable impulse, she said, ‘Is it for sale?’
He looked remorseful. ‘I regret—it has already gone. But he has other, very different work for which he wishes to find a market, and I have been able to send interested buyers to him. Also he accepts commissions.’
He paused. ‘But what he needs, signorina, is a patron—someone with contacts in the art world—an exhibition in a gallery to make him known.’
He delved under the desk and handed her a cheaply printed business card. It carried the single word ‘Roan’, and a mobile telephone number.
She studied it, wondering whether Roan was a given name or a surname. ‘Pretty basic.’
‘It is not easy when you are at the beginning of your career.’
‘I suppose not.’ She slipped the card into a side pocket of her bag, intending to dispose of it later. Asking about the picture had been a pure whim, coming at her from nowhere, and best forgotten.
Besides, right now she had her own struggles to contend with, she thought as she walked out into the sunlit street. And this state of deadlock with her grandfather was set fair and square centre-stage.