I laid myself as straight as an arrow on Art’s side of the bed, staring up to the ceiling, and relaxing my muscles one by one. I’d been to a guided meditation session years before, where you squeezed and relaxed each set of muscles from the toes up. On that bed I hardly had to do the tensing part – I just focussed on letting myself go limp, piece by piece. The house was still silent, apart from a soft shuffling from the loft above.
I rose again, and opened the cupboard, rooting around behind the shoeboxes and bags for the wide tin of sketching pencils I’d hidden there. Prising open the lid, I saw that the pencils were still as sharp as needles, never having been broken in. I took one of these from the tin and slid the huge art pad out from behind Art’s portfolio folder.
Tucking it under my arm, I headed to the landing and heaved on the ladder pull, stepping out of the way as it swung down in a creaking arc. I crept up the steps, and then crouched with the baby gate at my back and the paper on the floor in front of me, all the while scanning the room for Nut’s face. There she was in the far left corner, peeking from behind the long wooden bench. Her face tipped sideways and an ear twitched, flicking its funnel towards me curiously. I started to make that tut-tut-tutting noise, reaching out towards her with an open right hand, rubbing together my fingers and thumb. Come on, little girl.
Nut crept from her corner stealthily, eyes focused on my fingers. Her soft, cushioned feet padded the floor with a soft and graceful thump, thump, thump. She stopped in front of me, flopping down her backside with a sound somewhere between a grunt and a chirrup. Her tail swished behind her, and she faced me brazenly with her wide, moon-like face.
I picked up the pencil and pad of paper and started to sketch her outline, working from the outside back in towards the heart. For some reason I thought that’d be easier, but Nut ended up shapeless, formless. It occurred to me that if I started from the outside, I wouldn’t get the features inside right – they’d all be the wrong size, and it wouldn’t look like Nut at all. I was sure that I had to get the face right, but no matter what I drew it looked either ugly or alien, and I became angry with myself.
I spread my discarded attempts on the floor to try to assess where I’d gone wrong. As I scanned my eyes across the scribbled leaves, I noticed a few interesting things. One was that Nut looked completely different in all of them. If someone had walked in there was no way they could’ve known that they were doodles of the same creature. This drawing looked a bit like a wildebeest, this one a little like a lion – a plume of tawny crowning around a scowl. Some sketches looked like nothing in particular but I could still pick out features I recognised. I’d drawn Art’s eyes on her face there, and in this one I’d given her the uncommonly rosy budded lips of a cherub in one of those Renaissance paintings.
I piled the papers up carelessly, my mission unsuccessful and results frankly a bit weird, and scratched Nut behind a twitching grey ear. Even though I hadn’t anything to show for it, I felt pacified, as if I’d switched off a little part of me and everything had gone quiet. A nice quiet.
Just then, I heard the phone ring downstairs, so I made my way to the kitchen to answer it, leaving all of my materials upstairs with Nut. I picked up the receiver, stuttering a little on my “hello”. It was Art, checking in after his lecture.
“How did it all go?” I asked. Breezy. Breezy.
“It was incredible – they sold every ticket! I ended up there way longer because everyone wanted me to sign their stuff. But the festival was pleased with that, so they’re taking me out for dinner shortly.”
“Oh right. Who are you with?”
“Just Kelly right now. Paul was here too but he’s had to leave for another lecture. So we’ll just find somewhere close.” Art trailed off, his voice shrill on the line.
“Who’s Kelly?”
“Ah, she’s quite new, first time I’ve met her in the flesh. She’s the publisher’s new Talent Support Coordinator, Officer, whatever, so she’s here for the whole two weeks.”
“Say hi from me.”
“I will. You’d love her. She’s so easy to talk to. And she really buoyed me up before the lecture. I had a wobble, and if she hadn’t physically pushed me on I don’t know how I’d have done it. So weird. I don’t usually wobble. Anyway, what’s going on with you?”
I felt self-conscious then, and told him that I’d been to town to meet Eleanor. I’d come home, tidied a little, and was now going to make a dinner with various tapas bits I’d bought while out. Mature stiltons, sun-dried tomatoes, zucchinis, mushrooms, and homemade bread shot with black olives. He made all the right appreciative noises, and then abruptly changed tone.
“Anyway, I should go now. Kelly’s waiting, and we need to leave soon so we can find a table somewhere. So–”
“OK, Art. Send me a message later maybe, before you go to bed.”
“I will. Love to you.”
I placed my phone on the table top and placed my hands flat on either side. I had this really weird feeling in the pit of my stomach, somehow tight and heavy at the same time. I made my way to the fridge and not surprisingly at all most of the shelves were empty. No answers there. I’d have to restock before Art came home.
I spent half an hour grilling half a tofu fillet left over from the day before with a couple of wilting asparagus stalks,
