Encounters. Barbara Erskine
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seems very fair.’ She smiled as graciously as she could.
She sat for a long time after they had gone, gazing at the two fivers on the table. Could it be true that at last she was earning her living by painting?
Two hours later she was chopping vegetables in the kitchen when there was a knock at the door. She opened it to find Mr Chambers standing on the doorstep. Her heart sank with embarrassment but he held out his hand blandly with absolutely no sign of recognition on his face.
‘You must be Miss Millrow. How do you do.’
Had her make up been so good then? She stammered a greeting in return and showed him at his request into the studio.
Reaching into his pocket he produced an envelope. ‘I’m glad to say I’ve managed to sell one of your paintings, Miss Millrow.’
‘Already?’ her voice came out in a squeak.
‘Already.’ He grinned at her amicably. ‘It was lying on my table after you, that is your agent,’ he corrected himself quickly, ‘had left it with me and I had a buyer almost at once. It seems my initial judgement may have been a little harsh.’
‘I’ll say it was,’ she muttered under her breath, and then out loud she asked. ‘How much did you get?’ She took the envelope with shaking fingers.
‘There’s thirty-five pounds there. I’ve already taken my commission.’ He grinned again. ‘I imagined that under the circumstances you would rather pay your agent her commission yourself.’
Kate felt herself blushing crimson. ‘You must think I’m an awful fool.’
‘Not at all. You’d be surprised how many people come in with pictures they say a “friend” has painted. Mind you,’ he looked her up and down pointedly. ‘Not many of them go to the lengths you did for a disguise.’
She blushed again. ‘I’m afraid I’m rather a mess at the moment. I was cooking.’
He nodded. ‘Cabbage. I had guessed.’
She smiled ruefully. ‘I’m afraid I live on it.’
‘Why don’t you go and continue while I poke around here for a bit and investigate your,’ he paused and winked, ‘your potential.’
She fled.
It took only a few minutes to throw the vegetables into a pan and scrub her hands and then she ran upstairs to comb her hair and change her skirt. When she came down he had piled several canvases on the table.
‘I’ll take these next,’ he said without preamble. ‘Sale or return of course, and I’ll buy this one myself …’
Again it was flowers, she noticed amazed.
‘… if it’s not exorbitantly priced. Now,’ he looked at her again. ‘Could that concoction you were making wait do you think? If you were to transform yourself, not into that hard hitting woman Miss Rowmill, but perhaps into a slightly tidier version of yourself I could take you out to dinner to celebrate your sales.’
She looked at him amazed. She had got the firm impression he despised her and her kind, and she certainly disliked him. So why ask her out? And anyway he was insufferably rude. A slightly tidier version of herself indeed. She curbed the desire to stick out her tongue at him. Instead she lowered her eyes meekly to the floor. ‘That would be nice,’ she said. ‘Much better than cabbage.’
She had a Laura Ashley dress upstairs and pretty Venetian sandals. Her hair beneath its gay scarf was at least clean. Oh yes, Mr Chambers. She could be tidier when she tried.
She debated over lipstick for several minutes in her bedroom and then decided against it. Miss Rowmill might wear lipstick, but she did not. She clipped on the silver bangle her parents had given her for her eighteenth birthday and gazed at herself in the stained old mirror. The image, she had to admit, was rather attractive.
Mr Chambers evidently thought so too, for he stopped being rude, told her his name was Derek and ushered her out to his car with exaggerated care. He even helped her with the seat belt.
‘I have a ten per cent interest in you, my dear Miss Millrow,’ was his only comment when she protested.
They drove back into town and he took her to the most delightful French restaurant she had ever been to. He almost talked her into having something called Dolmas Maigre, but the suppressed glee in his expression led her to guess it might have something to do with cabbage and to his chagrin she checked with the waiter before she ordered. Once that hurdle was over the evening continued fairly well. She found herself telling him about art school and John’s offer of the cottage and her parents’ anger when she had ‘dropped out’, as they of course put it. To her surprise he threw his head back and laughed.
‘Dropped out, a prim little miss like you? Nonsense. Besides, they ought to be proud of you. You have a great deal of talent. And not only for painting. If you ever get bored with that, you could go on the stage.’
She looked at him to see if he was taking the micky, but his expression was all innocence. He quickly topped up her wine glass. ‘Yes, Miss Millrow, you have a great deal of talent.’
To her annoyance she found herself blushing although she was quite sure he was teasing. His fingers had strayed towards her own on the blue table-cloth and as they so very casually, almost by accident, made contact, she snatched her hand away. She was not going to be that easy to placate. She took a gulp of wine.
When they parted that evening, however, it was on the understanding that they would meet again the following Saturday and that, if she could face the bus ride into town, she would go to see him at the gallery even before then.
‘Now,’ he said, looking up at her mischievously from the driving seat as he started up the engine. ‘About what you wear when you come. Shoes, yes. Lipstick, no. Jeans, yes if decent. Right?’
She grinned. ‘And next weekend?’
‘Next weekend, if you’re cooking for me, a large plastic apron, which I will personally provide.’
‘Nothing else?’ Her eyes widened.
He laughed. ‘That, my sweet Kate, is up to you. But I’ll live in hope.’
She stood waving as he drove off down the lane and then slowly she made her way back into the shadowy cottage where he had lit the oil lamp for her and left it, flickering slightly on the table. She was unbelievably happy.
‘Damn cheek,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Who does he think he is?’
She couldn’t remember how she came to be on the train. She knew the station had been huge and echoing and she had walked through it as through the rib cage of a dinosaur, to find the tiny womb of the compartment where she was to sleep. It was safe there; warm and dark and alone. When the man knocked and called out the different sittings of meals she hid her head beneath the blanket and he went away and then she still lay listening, as the wheels beat the rhythm of a foetal heart.
She who had been afraid to walk the streets of London, afraid of unknown lurking terrors, afraid of men and dogs and children and women like herself, somehow she had managed to change trains and between them she had bought herself a tea from an anonymous uncaring man who slopped the liquid across ranks of cups and watched it gurgle, stewed and wasteful through a grating. She dared not ask for a spoon, but she was well pleased with herself for the tea. It was hot and good to drink. The station had been alive with people and pigeons. Brisk sunshine streamed through dirt-encrusted glass. She realized that she was already no longer so afraid as she climbed aboard the second train and waited for it to travel north.
There was a taxi to find at the other end. She stood on the esplanade looking across at the fishing boats and sniffed the glorious