the bed.
I think about what Alexis said. I’ll take her advice, but not quite in the way she’d planned, I think.
You have to listen to your heart on this, Chloe. It’ll tell you what to do and I know you’ll do the right thing.
I get my mobile out of my bag and check my watch. It’s ten past one. I’ll ring Clementine. She’ll be able to put me in touch with Jake. Rhoda said he was free this afternoon and I’m going to need him and his van.
One Year Later
I’m dreaming about skiing. I don’t know why this should be. I have no interest in skiing whatsoever and it’s something I’ve never tried. I’m in a ski lodge, a drink in hand, looking out over the beginners’ slopes, smiling as I watch first timers falling over. I’m obviously pretty experienced and find the tribulations of newbies rather amusing. A waiter comes over to me and tells me that there’s a phone call for me. I wave him away. I’m on holiday and don’t want to take any phone calls. Besides, no one knows I’m here and how could they possibly know which number to call.
The waiter is insistent. He says that, like all the other guests, I’ve left my mobile behind the bar and I have to answer it as the ringtone is annoying the other customers. I can’t imagine why. It’s not as if it’s some irritating novelty ringtone. It’s just a light, electronic trilling sound. I insist that I’m not going to answer it, but he still goes on about it. Then the manager (the manager?) comes over. She’s a stern looking woman of about forty with a bad limp and says that they’ll have to let my room to someone else if I don’t answer it straight away.
My eyes open and the dream fizzles away. My Blackberry is trilling away somewhere and it’s not going to stop. Maybe if I leave it long enough, the answer thingy will kick in. I look at my alarm clock and it says it’s six fifty-five. This is really annoying. My alarm is set for seven-thirty and I thought that was early enough.
I retrieve the Blackberry from under a pile of clothes and click the answer button.
‘Yes?’
‘Yes? What d’you mean ‘yes?’’
It’s Rhoda. I can’t imagine why she’s calling this early.
‘Oh. Hello. Hi.’
‘Just wanted to make sure you were getting up in time, sweetheart. Busy day today. Didn’t you tell me you had an appointment at the hairdressers this morning?’
‘That’s at ten. Plenty of time.’
Wearing only knickers, I stroll into the kitchen and put some coffee on.
‘Well, I know you’ve been working hard. I just didn’t want you to oversleep, that’s all. Excited?’
This afternoon is my big opening. After a year of making my name as the in-demand artist for big corporate abstracts, I finally have my own show at the Charles Haggett Gallery in Cork Street. It hasn’t been easy. Once Rhoda had decided that the time was right (about six months ago), she’d worked hard at getting some of the companies I’d worked for to allow the work I’d done for them to be displayed at my one woman extravaganza.
This is harder than you might think. With private collectors, it often just means lending out a painting that’s been in their hallway or over the fireplace. It’s usually just for a few weeks or however long the show lasts for. Then they get the painting back and feel good about themselves.
With corporate clients it’s different, however. My paintings are often a vital part of the decoration of their premises. Taking them down is something that many of them don’t like to do. Quite apart from the mark on the wall where the painting had been, it’s a major inconvenience for them and they don’t like leaving big empty spaces everywhere. It’s just the way they are.
To counter this, Rhoda had insisted that I start work on some original, previously unseen canvases to bulk up the show, stuff that she can sell to people after they’ve been to the gallery and have been overawed by the brilliance, freshness and all-round niceness of my work.
So I’ve spent the last six months working on commissions in the day and creating new works for the show in the night. It wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be and, to be honest, I quite enjoyed doing it. Living in the artist’s studio had meant that I could get up and start work whenever