Picture Imperfect - By Nicola Yeager Page 0,21

couple of days a week. She said they were very hard to come by, but she had an idea…

Instead of firing us both, she sits down at the side of my desk and lights a cigarette. I had no idea she smoked. I look around for an ashtray, but there isn’t one. I guess as she’s the boss she can flick ash on the floor.

‘It’s an aggressive, insulting gesture to you.’

‘Sorry?’

‘He resents the fact that you’re not pulling your weight financially. Money is very important to an insecure man like the one you’ve been describing. So is status. He probably thought it was very exciting going out with a beautiful girl who was also a working artist at first. It made him look good, but he wasn’t aware of the realities of such an occupation, or if he was, he chose to ignore them at the time. I’m sorry, Chloe, I was listening to everything you said. I couldn’t help it.’

‘That’s alright. So you think it was only a matter of time before something like this happened?’

‘Kristin said something a few minutes ago that hit the nail on the head. She said that your boyfriend could have said ‘no’ to the offer that his friend made him. But he didn’t. He would have known immediately that going away on a holiday to Greece would hurt your feelings. The fact that there were two girls involved, hot or not, would just have rubbed salt into the wound. He was given the opportunity to do something rather nasty and petty to you and he took it.’

Kristin is nodding her head enthusiastically. ‘And the little grub knew that you had plans for this week, as well. All the stuff you told me you were going to do – those things were just casually discarded like they were nothing. Like they didn’t matter a toss.’

Mrs Goddard expertly flicks the remains of her cigarette right across the room and out of the window. ‘Kristin’s right. What you wanted to do and what your feelings might be were of no importance. Right from the start he put a spin on what had happened. He didn’t really want to go on this holiday particularly – he was just playing the Good Samaritan to his friend. Yet you told Kristin that he hadn’t even seen this friend for years. And this Donny…’

‘Danny.’

‘Whatever. He wanted some male company. Maybe it was as simple as wanting someone to get drunk with all day and night. But once he discovered that Mark was living with someone, he should have retreated, not persisted. Mark was living a different life now and he should have respected that.’

She stands up and strolls back to her office. ‘Anyway, I could be wrong. Mine is just one opinion. There could be things going on that I don’t know about. Take it or leave it.’

She closes the door behind her and returns, I would guess, to staring out of the window of her office. A second later she comes back out again.

‘My ex-husband was an unsuccessful writer. I was so stupid and materialistic that I used to work myself up into a terrible anger that he wasn’t like my friend’s husbands, who all had conventional jobs and could afford to pay for holidays abroad, nice cars and all the rest of it. I left him and then we were divorced. I’m still in love with him. I’ve regretted it ever since and I haven’t been seriously involved with anyone else since. I don’t think I ever will be. I used to have lots of affairs to punish him when we were together. I was stupid and immature and I’m still paying the price for it. If I could go back in time, I’d have behaved more reasonably, more sensibly. I certainly wouldn’t have screwed around. When I was talking about your Mark, it started to sound as if I was talking about myself as I was back then. I don’t know if this is useful to you in any way. You’ve got to have a really good think about your life, Chloe. You can’t waste it on the wrong person.’

She pauses, as if she’s going to say something else, but doesn’t, and returns to her office.

Kristin has a big smirk on her face.

‘Well that’s told you!’

When I get home that evening, I start work on Canvas Two. I’m so pissed off, I want to do something that will take my mind off all the awful, worrying thoughts