The Phantom Tree. Nicola Cornick
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followed each time she had failed had been almost too much to bear.
‘... unidentified.’ She realised that the man had been speaking all the time that she had been lost in the turbulence of her thoughts.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Did you say that the artist has not been identified or the sitter has not been identified?’
Now he was looking at her with concern. She caught a glance of herself in the mirrored wall behind the sales desk, all wet rat’s tails hair and pallid complexion. No wonder he was fidgeting with the display in front of him, fussily moving an ugly ceramic vase two inches to the left whilst he waited for her to take herself off. She could hardly fit the profile of a potential customer.
‘The artist is unknown,’ he repeated patiently. ‘The sitter is Anne Boleyn.’
‘No,’ Alison said. She cleared her throat. ‘Sorry, but that isn’t Anne Boleyn. It’s Mary Seymour.’
‘It is Anne Boleyn.’ The man was still smiling in a rather determined fashion. He was charming. She didn’t deserve such tolerance. ‘Tudor portraits aren’t my forte,’ he said, ‘but I do know that this is a newly discovered portrait of Anne, authenticated only recently.’ He pointed to the background of the painting. It was dark and the shapes drawn there were difficult to decipher. ‘Can you see the box?’ he asked. ‘It has her initials on it.’ Then, as Alison frowned, leaning forward to peer into the depths of the picture: ‘AB. For Anne Boleyn.’
The box. Her box.
Alison could see it, now that he had pointed it out. It sat on a ledge to the right of Mary’s head, only the very faintest sheen on its patina showing in the dark background. It would have been easy to miss, this clue, this promise.
‘See, Alison, I did not forget you. I have your workbox here, safe for you.’
She looked back at Mary’s painted face, at the slight sideways glance that led the viewer’s gaze to the wooden box and the bold initials. It had been made of walnut, she remembered, worn smooth over the years by the touch of her fingers. She had loved that box, storing any number of inconsequential items in it: her thimble, a length of ribbon, and a scrap of lace. She might have kept Edward’s love notes in it had he written her any, but he had not.
‘My godson could tell you more about it,’ the man said. ‘He was the one who discovered the portrait. He’s written a book about it. He’s speaking at the festival tomorrow night.’
‘Festival?’ Alison said. She tried to get a grip. She felt strange, jittery. Although the shop was almost aggressively modern she felt closer to the past than she had done in years, disorientated and confused.
‘There’s a literary festival running all week,’ the man said. ‘Adam—my godson—is talking about the painting and about the Tudor court.’ He nodded towards Mary, serene under the dazzling lights. ‘It’s all very exciting. Apparently, there aren’t many portraits of Anne Boleyn.’
‘And this isn’t one of them, I’m afraid,’ Alison said. Rain was seeping down her neck, making her shiver. Or perhaps the shivers were coming from elsewhere, somewhere far deeper inside.
There was a pile of flyers for the talk spread in an artful fan on the white shelf beside the portrait. She bent to pick one up.
‘Adam Hewer,’ she read. ‘“Historian author and presenter, unveils the face of Anne Boleyn. Don’t miss this exciting event, exclusive to the Marlborough Festival.”’ There was a picture of a book cover for Discovering Anne Boleyn and a photograph of the author:
Adam.
Alison sat down abruptly in a flimsy-looking white plastic chair that she thought was probably part of an art installation. It creaked.
‘You look quite done up,’ the gallery owner said kindly. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea? It helps, you know.’
‘I’m fine,’ Alison said automatically. ‘Just a bit tired.’
Odd that it should be Adam, of all people, who should be the one to lead her to Mary. Or perhaps it was not odd at all. That sense of time shifting, the lure of the brightly lit window, the portrait… It had not happened by chance. When it came to fate and time she did not believe in coincidence.
She needed to think. She had to get away from the bright lights that were making her head ache with the buzz of too many discoveries, made too quickly. She dropped the flyer back down on the shelf where the edges curled up slightly in the heat of the lights.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’ve been very kind but I’d better go now.’
‘Alison?’
Adam’s voice stopped her when she was two steps away from the door. She turned slowly. It had not occurred to her that he might be there, listening, and now she felt a prickle of annoyance that he had not made his presence known sooner.
He looked older than she remembered, but not by much. It was a good ten years since they had met but annoyingly Adam seemed to have aged better than she felt she had. He was tall, well built, with brown eyes that were a startling contrast to his fair hair, and had an air of restless energy that was familiar to her. With a sudden tug of the heart she realised he had become the man she had glimpsed in the boy she had known.
After they had split up, she had shied away from following Adam’s career, although she did know that he was one of the new generation of TV historians, celebrity academics who travelled to exotic places to present the past in new and vibrant ways. As a breed they were young, good-looking, photogenic and formidably bright. Apparently, they made history accessible. That had always felt a painful irony to her. History was not accessible at all; at least she did not find it to be.
Adam came out of the office at the back and into the bright lights of the gallery, casual, hands thrust into the pockets of his trousers. ‘I thought it was you,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
He was smiling. Alison remembered the public-school charm, so like that of his godfather, which could smooth over the most awkward of encounters. It had bowled her over when first they had met reminding her painfully of the life she had left behind. She had clung to something that felt familiar in an alien world only to find that there was no similarity between Adam and the men she had known in her past.
Now she felt a disconcerting echo of that teenage confusion and she was cross with herself because there was a flutter in the pit of her stomach and a whisper of what might have been. Stupid, because what might have been had already happened: a youthful affair that had burned itself out.
‘I’m good, thanks,’ she said, matching his effortless courtesy with what felt like abject gaucheness. ‘Just down here for a few days. I work in London now. But you—’ She gestured awkwardly towards the flyers. ‘You’re doing well. TV shows, writing…’
She knew she sounded inane but he merely inclined his head. ‘Thanks.’
‘It’s what you always wanted.’
She saw a flicker of expression in his eyes then, gone too quick to read. He said nothing. Alison was starting to feel hot and anxious. It had been a stupid thing to say. She knew nothing of what Adam wanted these days. She had barely known him ten years before and if she had realised she was going to meet him again today she would have been better prepared.
Butterflies fluttered again, trapped, beneath her breastbone. She needed to give herself some time and space to think. Adam’s godfather—in an unusual breach of courtesy, Adam had not introduced him—had moved away, pretending to rearrange the paperwork on the sales desk, but she knew he was listening, wondering.
‘Well…’ She waved a vague hand towards the door. ‘I really must go. Good luck for the talk tomorrow. Not that you’ll need it, of course.’
‘I heard what you were saying,’ Adam said, ignoring her words. ‘You don’t think this is a portrait of Anne Boleyn.’
Alison felt