by Sanjida Kay
I nod. Harris leans forward and stares at me so intensely I want to look away but I’m unable to.
‘You have to. You’re a brilliant artist. Never forget it.’ He sits back and takes some coins from one of his pockets and lays the money by his cup as a tip. ‘I’ll let you get on. I know you’ve work to do.’
Almost before I’ve taken breath, he’s gone. I bundle myself into my coat, fumbling for Bella’s lead. I feel bereft. He left so quickly. I didn’t even take his number or email address. He did leave the flyer though. I slip it into my pocket and start to walk home. I can’t see any sign of Harris. I follow the winding path through Well’s Walk, past where the photographer took our picture, up to the edge of the moor and then alongside the tarn. Three mallard ducks plop into the water when they see Bella and she gives a low bark that’s almost a growl. I’m hardly conscious of where I’m going. I’m thinking about Harris. His intensity. The way he seemed to understand me and my painting. It feels like a heavy cloak has slipped from my shoulders and, for a few minutes, I’m so light, it’s as if I’m floating. I’m once more madly, passionately in love with painting; full of confidence and can-do. I imagine my exhibition open night: my pictures hanging on those pure, white walls, people sipping wine, the heady buzz of conversation.
Can I do it? Could I pull it off? The deadline is so close. The familiar anxiety starts again – how to find the time, how to create the mental clarity for inspiration; even fitting in the simple, practical details of ordering new linseed oil, taking more photographs as background material, seem insurmountable problems. I take a deep breath. I will make it happen. I can do this. I see Harris’s strange hazel eyes gazing at me as I form this resolution; shafts of green woven through his iris. What an odd name he has – Jenny never gave me his surname and his first name sounds like a last name. It only says Harris on the flyer too. Harris. Like Madonna. It makes me giggle – he’s the last person to remind anyone of the pop star.
Normally I come off the tarn path at Cowpasture Road and head to our house along the street, but today I cross the beck and double back onto the moor. There’s a hum, low as ultrasound, of bees hovering over the bilberry bushes. I emerge on Hangingstone Road and follow the bridle path that runs alongside the surreal green of the golf course. There’s almost no point in going home – when I get there I’ll have to turn round and leave again. I’ll drive to pick Ben up, I decide, and at least Bella will have had a good run.
As I walk along the bridle path, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck tingle, and a shiver, the way a horse twitches, crosses my shoulder blades. Bella gives her strange growling bark again. It feels as if someone is watching me. But there is no one here. There isn’t even anyone standing on the Cow and Calf rocks like there normally is. The backs of our neighbours’ gardens are all discreetly hidden behind thick hedges – no one could be spying on me, unless they were looking out of an upstairs window. I reach our garden and stop. One of the things we plan to do is put up a wooden fence and plant a hedge, as well as fitting a gate so we can access this lane directly from our lawn. Now, standing outside our house, I can look right through the wire and into our kitchen; I can see my studio and Ben’s bedroom next to it; Evie’s attic window above them. And so could anyone else standing out here.
‘Your story,’ I say to Evie that night as I sit on her bed, ‘the one you wrote for Miss White? It was really good. I was wondering, do you feel as if you’re like that princess, looking for her real parents?’
She wanted to have the attic bedroom even though it’s the furthest one away from the rest of us and, although it’s large, the eaves slope down sharply so that not even a child can stand beneath them. We store a lot of junk up here and I worry that Evie will go into the loft space. The floor isn’t properly stable over the old beams.
Evie regards me as if I’m stupid. She blows her hair out of her eyes and falls backwards onto her bed.
‘It’s just a story, Mummy. There aren’t any giants or witches. Are you going to read Charlotte’s Web or not?’
I give up questioning her, and after both children are finally asleep, I sit on the sofa waiting for Ollie. I’ve poured myself a large glass of wine and I’m looking through Evie’s fairy tale. I’m not sure that Hannah is right – Evie’s spelling seems as bad as ever.
Ollie kisses me on the cheek. His face is cold. I watch him surreptitiously as he hangs up his trench coat and threads his suit jacket onto a hanger. As he walks to the kitchen, he picks up toys and drops them in the row of wooden wine boxes on wheels that he’s lined up on one side of the dining-room wall.
‘Good day? Anything for tea?’
‘Not yet,’ I say, yawning.
He searches for something to defrost in the freezer.
‘Hannah White wanted to talk to me today. She’s Evie’s teaching assistant.’
‘Oh yeah?’
He turns the oven on. It’s a Smeg in brushed stainless steel and the settings are so complicated I can barely use it for anything more advanced than grilling cheese on toast.
‘She thinks Evie’s worried about being adopted.’
Ollie snorts in response.
‘Have a look at her story.’
He pours himself a glass of red wine and joins me on the sofa, turfing Bella onto the floor.
‘Her spelling is appalling.’
He hands me back her exercise book. The timer pings and he slides something frozen in a silver foil tray into the oven. I can’t help thinking that Harris would not set a timer to make sure the oven is hot enough before putting a ready meal for two in to cook. And then I feel a bit mean. Ollie is home late again and he’s probably starving. I’ve been nibbling the children’s leftovers.
‘Do you think we should be worried?’
‘No, of course I don’t. We’re not wicked step-parents. She’s being creative. Look at her princess wielding a sword. It’s a modern twist on a fairy tale. And she’s obsessed with that giant, what’s his name, the one that lives on the moor. Rombald. God, why do these bloody people have to interfere?’
I look again at her drawing of the stepdad. She’s coloured him in so hard, the paper has flaked away. He’s wearing a grey suit and a navy tie and in his hand is a briefcase. I look at Ollie’s shale-coloured suit jacket hanging by the door. It looks expensive. He never used to dress like that for work. The lining is a pale-oyster silk. All my clothes are smeared with yogurt or ketchup. Maybe Evie doesn’t see Ollie as her real father because he’s never here?
I try to think back to when Ollie first became like this – so busy all the time, home late, working on Saturday, checking emails on his phone when he’s supposed to be playing with the kids. Has he become ambitious? Or is there another explanation? It doesn’t seem that long since he used to come home early while Evie was still awake and swing her over his head and tear round the garden with her. Ollie’s work was never something he took this seriously. It’s crept up on me and I’ve got used to feeling a little like a single mum. It’s been that way since Ben was born. So Evie could associate Ben’s birth with Ollie disappearing out of her life, and she also feels resentful of the attention I give her brother.
‘Maybe she’s becoming more aware of what it means to be adopted?’
‘For Christ’s sake, Zoe, she’s seven,’ he says.
He kisses me on the top of my head and picks up his jacket before going upstairs to get changed.
I’ve been searching for you since you were born. There hasn’t been a single day when I haven’t missed you or thought about you. Seven years. It’s taken me seven years. I would never have given up – I hope you realize that when you’re older and understand what I’ve been through. Sometimes I thought I would never find you, but I always knew that God was on my side, and He would help me put this wrong right.
As the Lord says, ‘My success can only come from Him. In Him I trust, and unto Him I look.’
I never gave up looking for you but, at times, I was sad and felt hopeless.
On one of those occasions, I visited my parents in Yorkshire: where we come from, you and I. They don’t make me happy, my parents, your grandparents, but we are getting on better now. My mother told me some details about your fake mother she’d never mentioned before. I was able to track her down. That was how I found you. It was two years ago. I was walking home along the edge of the river, past the park, feeling the weight of my life pressing down on my shoulders. I knew you lived here by that stage, you see, but I hadn’t managed to find your address yet.
I saw a little girl standing at the top of a slide. I couldn’t see your face – your hair was haloed by light. I felt my breath catch, my heartbeat quicken. You slid down, your dress rising. I remember you were wearing shoes with clear sequins and embroidered strawberries. I felt the old sadness rise in me; you seemed about the same age as my daughter and I was reminded, yet again, of what I had lost.
You turned to look at me. I don’t think you realized our connection; maybe I caught your eye because I was standing so still, watching you. The shock of recognition hit me, like a blow to my chest; a left hook to my stomach. You smiled. Your green eyes glowed. You still had your baby teeth. You were – and are – so beautiful. I was absolutely certain, like I know the feel of the breath in my body, the beat of my heart. You, the little girl on the slide, were my daughter. You were five years old. I had finally found you.
I sat on a park bench and pretended to read a paper. I watched you and watched you, drinking you in, like a thirsty man craves water in a desert. You have the same colour eyes as me. You certainly don’t look like your adopted mother, father or your baby brother. I was relieved to see that you were healthy and happy – although you are painfully small and thin for your age. I’ve been worrying all this time – what if your pretend parents didn’t care for you or didn’t love you? They do. They do love you – I can see that. But then, they’re well off. They can afford to buy you nice things.
I followed you home. I couldn’t bear to lose you again. Over the next year, it took hard work to get close to you, but I was energized, I had a purpose once more. And nothing was going to get between me and my daughter again.
Later, when I was able to speak to you, you told me that you left London when you were little. It’s ironic that you’ve been here all along while I was on the other side of the world. Now that I know you better, I can see you’re not as happy as you looked then, that carefree day in the park. You’re troubled. It’s sad to see it in a child – but how could you not be? For your entire life, you’ve been in mourning for your real parents. You lost something so profound, the day you were born, that you have never been able to recover.
I watch you: in the playground, walking home from school, in your bedroom at night. You are like a beautiful bowl that has been cracked. There’s a fragment missing. I will heal you. I will mend you. I am your flesh and blood. I’m the lost piece in your life. No one can love you as much as I do. No one else knows how you feel like I do; no one else sees your loss.
Every day is a bitter-sweet joy. I watch you as often as I can, but I have to maintain my distance. Your fake parents touch you, hug you, kiss you. I can never get close enough. Even when I’m right next to you, I’m not near enough. The relief I felt on finding you was tarnished, because the old bitterness and rage rose up again.
They stole you from me. They took you away for seven years. Your entire lifetime. A life sentence. The waiting has been endless. The watching. The planning. Now, finally, I’m almost ready. I’ve got a few things to take care of and then we can be reunited.
Make no mistake, my darling. I am coming for you.
I will take you back.
TUESDAY
I leave the buttery crusts of toast and puddles of spilt milk – the detritus from breakfast – and head to my studio. It doubles as the guest bedroom so I keep the sofa bed covered and roll up the carpet to prevent everything getting splattered with paint. It’s at the back of the house, looking over our garden and up to the Cow and Calf rocks. I notice that the slope of bracken encroaching the moor is already starting to turn a crisp burnt umber.
My exhibition is going to feature a series of abstract paintings of the moor, paired with a line from Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. I think I’ve finished the painting that I was working on, the one I showed Jenny. It’s hovering over that fine line of being done and looking overdone. I move it to one side. I wish, for what feels like the thousandth time, as I get out my brushes and my paint, that I had more time and, more importantly, someone to talk to about my work, someone who gets it and gets me, what I’m trying to achieve. A small voice whispers in my head that perhaps Harris is that person.
I take a deep breath and try to focus. I pull out photographs and sketches that I hope will inspire me. I grew up near Burley, the next village along, so the moor has always been part of my life. It’s like a muse: the colours of the heather and the sky; how you can see the savagery of the wind in the way the dwarf pine trees are bent double; the bleak lines of the landscape in winter when everything save the moss and the grass are dead, stones like bones, poking through a thin skin of bilberry bushes, rushes reflected in black bog water.
I lay out all my materials. I use cheap brushes as I go through them so quickly. Most of them are worn down. I throw them in the bin. I’ll need to get more from the art shop on Hawksmoor Street. I top up my jars of Zest-it, Liquin and linseed oil – I buy these in bulk – and check I don’t need any more oil paints. I pace around my studio, glancing at the photographs and the sketches, the new large white canvas solidly in place on the easel. I can’t concentrate at all.
My mobile rings and I jump. I don’t recognize the number.
‘Hello?’ I say.
There’s a pause. ‘It’s Harris.’ His voice is deep.
‘Harris?’ I stutter. And then I can’t help myself. I smile.
‘I got your number from Jenny. I hope you don’t mind me calling. I was thinking – you finished your painting, the one you showed me – so you must be starting another one. When I’ve got a new piece of work to do, I find it hard to get going. I thought maybe a walk would help. It’s beautiful on the moor.’
How did he know? I haven’t had this before, this intuitive understanding of how I work. Ollie gives me a look when I say I’ve been walking, as if I’ve been shirking, instead of realizing it’s all part of the process, how I create new work. I look at my watch. I’ve got just enough time. I know from experience that standing here in front of a blank canvas is a waste of energy.
‘Yes,’ I say and I can hear the warmth in his voice when he replies.
We arrange where to meet. He hangs up without saying goodbye.
It is a beautiful day. It feels like early autumn – the sky is a brilliant blue and cloudless, the rowans fringing the moor are bowed with orange berries already, but the heather is still blooming: the flowers have faded to a vintage rose; clouds of pollen fall from the bells as we brush past. The smell is intoxicating. Bella sneezes and bounds ahead. Harris seems more alive here, not as solemn. He laughs, and his eyes glow green in the sunshine. We talk about our work; he knows so much about mine, I’m flattered.
In his presence, I feel able to stop as often as I want to take photos. I’m inhibited about doing this with Ollie as he sighs or strides ahead impatiently. Harris isn’t patient – I can see he’s a restless man – it’s more that he’s attuned to this landscape; he’s thinking about his own work, absorbing, observing. I can’t let Bella off the lead – there are sheep on the moor – but Harris takes her so I can concentrate on my pictures without her pulling me off-balance.
I tell him I’m worried about completing all the paintings in time for the exhibition. He shakes his thick mane of hair.
‘Don’t be. You’ll do it. But make yourself and your work a priority. Get more childcare. Do whatever it takes, get whatever you need. This is going to be your best exhibition, your greatest work yet.’
I look at him in astonishm
ent. How can he tell? How can he be so sure? As if I’ve spoken, he continues, ‘When you’ve had a break, your work leaps forward. All that time, you think it’s been wasted, but it hasn’t. Your mind has been working. And once you start, you unleash all that creative energy. You’ll see.’
He’s talking about me, the gap I’ve had from midway through my pregnancy, when I was too sick to paint, until recently, when Ben started at nursery. But it sounds as if he’s also talking about himself.
‘Did you take a break from your art?’ I ask.
‘Aye. A long one. I went abroad for a few years.’
We’re following the Millennium Way. Below us is Panorama Drive, which leads to a reservoir and Heber’s Ghyll. The houses here are grand, with gardens that open directly out onto the moor. I imagine how that might be – to step out of your house and within minutes you’d be surrounded by bog myrtle and sundews; curlews and green plovers.
‘Where did you go?’
‘The Hunza Valley in Pakistan.’
I must look blank because he explains. It’s a magical place, he says: a lush, fertile valley sliced through the middle of the Kharakorum Mountains, where the people grow apricots and, legend has it, lead long and healthy lives. It’s the origin of the myth of Shangri-La, Harris adds, a Himalayan utopia hidden from the rest of the world. He worked on an organic farm. He makes it sound so idyllic, I’m jealous. My life here in Ilkley with two children is prosaic.
‘How long were you there?’
‘Seven years. I’ve not been back long.’
It explains his sunburnt, wind-darkened skin; why he seems foreign in spite of his Yorkshire accent.
‘I made sculptures when I was out there, but they were small and I didn’t have the right tools – or enough scrap metal – to create the kind of pieces I wanted to. But now I’m back, the work I’ve done has scale and power. You’ll see,’ he says, turning to me and smiling.
