by Clare Empson
‘Yes.’
‘Good. In that case, only two rules for the rest of the weekend,’ he says. ‘No clothes to be worn at any time. And no more questions.’
I was in love, you see. And I wanted more than anything to believe him.
Now
Luke
When Alice arrives each morning, Samuel and I are waiting for her. She always knocks, never uses her key, and I throw open the door with a flourish; it’s part of our stand-up routine. Alice pulls one of her funny faces, mouth and eyes remoulded into a surprised ‘O’, and is rewarded with an instant chuckle. Samuel stretches out his arms and leans his whole torso towards her. This day after day after day.
‘Traitor,’ I say, handing him over with a goodbye kiss, and Alice says what she always says: ‘Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine.’
It’s hard to know how we managed without her. As well as looking after Samuel all day, she washes and irons his clothes, cleans the house and cooks for us. Hannah and I come back to these beautifully prepared dishes – shepherd’s pie, tagine, lasagne – classic fare but always with an undercut of sharpness, chilli or ginger or preserved lemon. I find myself looking forward to her food from mid-afternoon onwards.
She buys us things too, even though we ask her not to: fresh flowers every week, clothes and toys for Samuel, little gifts of chocolate from the delicatessen.
Today Hannah is interviewing Rick, a lead feature for the Sunday Times Culture section. Returning to work with a Richard Fields profile in the bag, she jumped straight to the top of the class. Her editor said, ‘Thank God you’re back, we’ve really missed you,’ and she came home that first day jubilant.
I’m back just a few minutes after six, the official end to Alice’s day. In the kitchen, I find her stirring a chicken casserole at the hob, Samuel bathed and dressed in a clean sleepsuit, flopped up against a beanbag.
There is something consoling about the care she takes in creating beautiful food for me, her son, reunited after twenty-seven years apart. I like to think that Alice – who I find more reserved and conversationally restrained than I expected – pours her love into cooking for us instead.
We’d like to see more of her at the end of the day, but she always rushes off, refusing our offer of a glass of wine.
‘You need your time with Samuel,’ she says.
I did persuade her to have a drink with us once, and I came to regret it. She sat at the table with her glass of wine and told us about the things she had done with Samuel – a visit to the library to look at picture books, a walk around the park – and it felt, this drink I had forced upon her, exactly like the sum of its parts. Two parents catching up with their nanny. Nothing more. Nothing less. I’ve decided that our relationship, Alice’s and mine, needs to be conducted outside the restraints of the parent–nanny dynamic.
When Hannah arrives home, moments later, she is euphoric from a whole day spent in Rick’s studio.
‘Oh Alice,’ she says, slinging her bag down on the floor and holding out her hands for Samuel, ‘he was so generous. We talked for hours and hours. About everything. His time at the Slade. His relationships with significant others, or rather the lack of them. He says there’s only ever really been you.’
‘Did he talk about the early days with Luke? When it was just the three of us?’ Alice asks.
‘Not really.’
Hannah shoots a look over at me. She knows how I long to find out about the first weeks of my life.
‘It’s hard for both of us to go back to those days. Such painful memories.’
‘I understand,’ I say, although I don’t really.
I think these parents of mine have a duty to share everything they can remember about newborn me. Missing me. The me I can never access. It’s not that I want them to feel pain, far from it; more that this surging quest for identity runs right through me. Sometimes I feel it’s all there is.
‘How was your day?’ Hannah asks, so I tell her about Reborn, the new band I’m obsessing over.
‘I went to meet them at lunchtime, H, and they are even better than I thought. They’re so political, like The Clash reinvented for the noughties, but with a disco edge. I feel like I’ve been looking for them my whole life.’
Hannah leans forward to kiss me and deposits Samuel in my arms.
‘You say that every time.’
Alice says, ‘The casserole is on low, ready to eat whenever you want it.’
‘Sit down for five minutes before you go?’ Hannah asks as she does every night.
‘I can’t, I’m afraid, I have to be somewhere. I’m already late.’
Alice is off, coat on, striped canvas bag over her arm, and I watch her leave the kitchen with a strange mixture of gratitude and regret. Wanting something, but not quite knowing what.
Then
Alice
This, exactly this, is what I spent my teenage years dreaming of, holed up in my bedroom, surrounded by sketchpads and pencils, as if I could somehow draw myself away from my father’s scorn into a world of decadence and liberation.
From my first incendiary meeting with Jake a few weeks ago, I have morphed into the band’s ‘artist in residence’, a title he jokingly bestowed upon me when I sketched them picnicking in St James’s Park.
The idea has grown from me creating an image for the album cover to documenting the fledgling stages of a band already being talked about as the new Rolling Stones. I’ve drawn them on stage, drinking halves of beer in the French House, playing football in the park. My favourite is one of Jake dressed in a black polo neck and his flared black jeans, cross-legged on the floor, a mug of coffee beside him. I like the everydayness of it, the reminder that I see him in a way no else does; he is mine, that’s what I think when I look at this drawing.
Sometimes, especially when he’s stoned, Jake talks about the times we’re living in, this age of reinvention and aspiration, where anything might happen and you can be whoever you want.
‘We’re young at exactly the right time, when people are prepared to take a chance on us. When we can make our own success.’
The first time he said this, I thought: it’s all right for you, you’re already halfway there, the front cover of Sounds magazine, two Top 20 singles under your belt. Me? I’m a nobody. Just an undergraduate art student racked with ambition and the need to impress her father. But his self-belief is infectious, and with the band’s flattering and constant acclaim, I’m beginning to hope that perhaps I might be halfway there too.
And then the most extraordinary thing happens. A casual Tuesday at the Slade, no classes, and I’m in the studio working on a painting of the boys, Eddie, Jake and Tom all in black, lounging on a violet sofa, that wonderful juxtaposition of masculine and feminine. I’m interested in the pale purple slashes of this fabric, the mottling of silver grey where the material has rubbed, and I’m trying out a tight stippling technique to achieve it. Next to me, Rick has almost finished a portrait of David Bowie, borrowed from a Sunday supplement photograph but colour-washed in red. The effect is like a red-based sepia; it looks amazing.
Neither of us has spoken for hours, there have been no tea breaks; our absorption is absolute.
When Lawrence Croft, the principal, walks through the door, without warning or ceremony, accompanied by Robin Armstrong, the famous gallery owner and patron of Disciples, it takes us a few seconds to register their presence.
‘Hard at work, I see,’ Lawrence says. ‘These two always are. I don’t think workaholic is too strong a word.’
‘Mind if I take a look?’ Robin asks, and inwardly we both recoil – I know this without looking – but Rick says, ‘Of course,’ and stands up to allow him a clearer view.
‘I always see Bowie in red too,’ Robin says, after a good minute or two of looking. ‘It must be the Ziggy Stardust lightning flash. I liked your self-portrait in San Lorenzo,
by the way. I’ve been keeping an eye on you.’
It’s hard to keep a straight face, knowing how this remark will have Rick doing inner cartwheels of joy, but we both remain nonchalant, casual.
‘Do you plan on staying with portraiture? Unfashionable right now, of course.’
‘I don’t really care about that,’ Rick says. ‘I’m interested in people. I want to catch that moment of honesty when you get a glimpse of who they really are. I’m quite ruthless. If there’s no chemistry between me and the sitter, I’ll just abandon it halfway through.’
Robin nods at this, and a glance passes between him and Lawrence before he turns to examine my painting.
‘I’ve come to know these boys rather well and your likenesses are exceptional. Jake tells me you’re documenting this phase of their career with informal sketches?’
‘To begin with I was working on artwork for the new album. But the project has sort of grown.’
‘I think there might be something more interesting to be done with this, given that Disciples have a record to promote, one I’m keen to support however I can. Why don’t you and Jake pop into the gallery tomorrow evening? Bring any finished sketches with you and we’ll have a proper chat.’
The Robin Armstrong Gallery is in Duke Street, next door to the Bernard Jacobson Gallery, which has a Lucian Freud charcoal in the window, a nude woman with unevenly sized breasts and cartoonish kohl-rimmed eyes. Freud gave a lecture in our first term, one hundred per cent attendance from students and tutors and a relatively forgettable seminar about colour. The thing I remember most clearly is the coffee afterwards, where he was to be seen locked in earnest conversation with a gaggle of pretty female students.
To see Freud displayed in the next-door window, to know that I am about to have an informal chat with one of the most revered gallerists in London, is to tremor with nerves. But I have Jake by my side, the top half of his body almost hidden behind my one finished canvas, the boys picnicking in Hyde Park. He pauses just before we reach the door.
‘Alice,’ he says, lowering the canvas so that I can look into his eyes. ‘There is absolutely nothing to worry about.’
The gallery is closed, but an assistant unlocks the door for us and shows us into Robin’s office, bypassing walls hung with his most famous clients: Gillian Ayres, Peter Sedgley. In contrast to the sparse white-walled gallery, the office has the feel of an old gentleman’s club, or at least how I’d imagine one: deep-red and chocolate-brown colours, a magnificent leather-topped desk where Robin is sitting, an ancient-looking chesterfield sofa for his visitors. The room is crammed with artefacts: carved ebony heads, an exquisite marble nude, a framed series of painted gradient circles, each one more intensely coloured and mesmerising than the last; you realise on entering that here is a man who has dedicated his life to beauty. He is dressed in a navy velvet suit with a pale yellow silk shirt, and he stands up as we walk in, arms around Jake in an enveloping hug, for me a European kiss on both cheeks.
He gestures to the sofa, and the three of us sit like podded peas, me in the middle, flipping through my sketchbooks.
At first Robin says nothing, and I fill the silence with background noise about each sketch. It’s easier when I’m talking about Jake, my specialist subject; I’m able to tell him why I think something works and what I was trying to achieve.
Together we examine a drawing of Jake sitting up in bed bare-chested, notepad balanced on his knees. He is songwriting and completely absorbed, one of the best times to draw him. I’ve caught the abstraction in the way he concentrates, an almost dreamlike quality, yet his focus is so absolute it’s as if he is surrounded by an impenetrable wall.
‘For me this works because Jake is unguarded, lost in thought. It’s obvious to the viewer that he’s thinking about a song, and I think it shows the effort and intensity that goes into the creation of the music.’
‘Do you know, Alice, I rather think you’re on to something.’
Robin stands up and walks back to his desk.
‘You’ll be with the band in Italy, I assume?’
Jake says, ‘We haven’t got around to that, but of course you should come. If you’d like to.’ He looks at me quickly and squeezes my leg.
‘It’s an important stage in the band’s career,’ Robin says. ‘I’ll cover all your expenses, no need to worry about that.’
‘I’ve longed to go to Florence,’ I say, and he smiles for the first time.
‘Every art student should spend time in Florence, in my opinion; it really ought to be a prerequisite for a fine arts degree.’
He leans forward on his desk.
‘Your style is still developing, I can see. But what I like is the way you capture the casual immediacy of a snap. And I wonder if this should be your definition, those off-camera moments, a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the life of an up-and-coming band. All the normal stuff – cooking, washing, eating – alongside the making of music.’
‘That’s sort of what I’m trying to do already, but I also want the paintings, in particular, to be stylised and instantly recognisable rather than an almost photographic likeness.’
‘Yes, I’d agree with that. Shall we have a glass of champagne? I’ve had rather a good idea.’
While Robin is out of the room fetching the champagne, I ask Jake, ‘What do you think he means?’
He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. But I can tell he likes you. He’s rarely so complimentary, trust me. If he thinks something is shit, our songs included, then he says so.’
Robin opens the bottle expertly, a gentle sliding out of the cork, no pop, no fizz, and pours it into three pale turquoise glasses, so thin and fragile I am almost afraid to touch them.
‘Venetian,’ he says, when I ask. ‘Eighteenth century.’
He raises his glass and the three of us clink.
‘You know, it seems to me that the two of you are having a moment. Your careers are heading in the same direction and at exactly the same time. You’re connected not just as lovers but as artists, and I think we should capitalise on that.’
He pauses, but his eyes never leave my face.
‘Alice, how would you like to have your own show here at the gallery? Focusing on your drawings and paintings of the band, documenting six months in the life of Disciples. We could tie the show and the album launch together – maybe do both here at the gallery next year. What do you think?’
I put my glass down on the table with precision, even though my hands are beginning to shake and my heart is racing.
‘What do I think?’ I say, trying to sound considered and sensible, though it’s hard with this gigantic grin that is spreading across my face. ‘I think that sounds incredible!’
‘Excellent,’ Robin says, and he raises his glass again. ‘A toast, then. To Jacob Earl and Alice Garland, whose moment has well and truly arrived.’
Now
Luke
Opposite-sex reunions may become fraught. Quite often the birth parent will still be young and attractive and the child may mistake its craving for connection as a kind of infatuation.
Who Am I? The Adoptee’s Hidden Trauma by Joel Harris
I’m on a date with my mother, or at least that’s how it feels when I arrive home and find Alice applying lipstick in front of the mirror. She’s coming to the Reborn gig with me, a pressurising prospect to be sure.
I’m in a state of high anxiety; my default setting, Hannah would say. Partly I’m nervous about all the other A&R sharks circling around Reborn, because I want to sign them so intensely, so savagely, it’s beginning to hurt. I haven’t signed a successful act yet and I am desperate to prove myself.
And then there’s the fact of hanging out with my birth mother, whom I scarcely know despite her almost constant presence in our lives. I’ve been craving time alone with her, but now that it is here, I feel almost afraid.
; As usual, Alice puts me at ease.
‘Luke, don’t worry about me tonight. I know you’ll have lots of people you need to talk to, and I’m good at blending into the background. You won’t even know I’m there.’
This I doubt very much. Alice is the kind of woman people look at wherever she goes; she stands out, I think that’s it. She looks pretty incredible for her age, tall and slim, her shoulder-length dark hair without one strand of grey. She dresses well, too, tonight in dark jeans and a checked blue and white shirt, a pair of navy Converse on her feet. She won’t look out of place at the gig – not that at forty-seven there’s any reason why she should. Meeting Alice has recalibrated my views. I used to think late forties seemed far off and incalculable; now it feels scarcely any different to my own age.
A moment of awkwardness when Hannah arrives home from work to babysit and Samuel refuses to go into her arms. He clings to Alice and starts to cry, and Hannah’s face – embarrassed, devastated – destroys me.
‘Don’t be so silly.’ Alice uncurls his hands from around her neck and passes him over, walking quickly from the room. But the moment sears, it really does.
‘Just ’cos he’s tired,’ I say, kissing Hannah goodbye, then a quick kiss to my baby’s head. ‘You’ve got him all to yourself now.’
But I see the slight shame in her downcast smile, that her baby, whom she carried on her hip for the first six months of his life, should prefer anyone other than her.
On the tube to Camden, Alice and I discuss Samuel’s minor betrayal, a meaningless moment of tiredness that will have preyed on Hannah’s insecurities, I know.
Alice says, ‘It’s only because he’s teething and I’ve been carrying him around all day. But still. I know exactly how Hannah feels.’
‘She’s struggling so much with the whole working-mother thing anyway. Loving her job but feeling she’s missing out on him. She was in tears about it the other night. She feels like she’s letting him down.’
