28September
The suitcase was already propped against the front door, and on the stove the beef stew with dumplings was still bubblingthe way he always liked it.
I was drying my hands on a towel, almost automatically, watching the familiar curve of his jaw, the tiny mole behind his left ear that Id kissed a thousand times. I barely recognised him.
Are you off on a work trip? I asked.
No, Emma. He said, his voice flat. Im leaving.
The words hung in the kitchen like the faint scent of smoke after a fire.
Where to?
Somewhere else.
The towel slipped from my grasp.
David?
Emma, lets not make a scene. We both know it ended a long time ago. I finally worked up the courage; you never did.
It ended? I laughed, a nervous, frightened sound. Tomorrow is our anniversary. Eighteen years.
Exactly. Eighteen years of the same stew.
His remark struck me squarely in the chest; I felt my breath catch.
I gave up my doctorate for you. I could have been
You could have been nothing, he smiled, that kind of smile people wear when theyre sorry. A restorer. Who needs that nowicons, dust I gave you a life, by the way. A flat, a car, a seaside every summer.
Gave?
Its yours, technically. The flats mine, but Im not a beast. Live here a month or two, then well sort it out.
I clutched the back of a chair, my fingers whitening.
Who is she?
What does it matter?
Who?
He glanced at his watch.
Claire. Thirtytwo. Shes alive, Emma. She goes to the theatre, skis, laughs. And youve become a housekeeper without even noticing.
I sat mute, a lump forming in my throat.
David lifted the suitcase, turned to the door, and in his eyes flickered somethingnot regret, but annoyance, like a landlord abandoning an old dog at the pound.
Dont fret. Thirtyeight isnt a sentence. Enjoy your freedom, Emma. Youve earned it.
The door shut.
The stew continued to cool on the hob.
The first week I didnt cry. I wandered through the flat as if it were a museum of someone elses lifehis shirts, his toothbrush, a halfdrunk mug on the kitchen table.
On the eighth day Lucy called.
Emma, you still breathing?
The words broke me. I sobbed into the receiver so loudly the neighbour downstairs knocked, asking if everything was alright.
Lucy Im thirtyeight now. I feel like an empty space. Eighteen years of cooking that stew, I cant even recall the last time I held a brush
What do you remember?
Anything?
Why did you become a restorer?
The memory rushed back: the Tate Britain, me at nineteen, standing before the Annunciation and weeping because people could create such beauty and keep it alive.
I remember.
Then go fetch your paints from the storage. I know theyre there. I saw them five years ago.
The paints were hidden in an old shoe box beneath dusty curtainsdry, half ruined, but the brushes were intact, the ones Id bought on a scholarship, giving up lunches to afford them.
I sat on the floor of the storage room and wept, but it was a different kind of cryingquiet, steady.
The next morning I enrolled in a paid course at St. Martins. The money Id set aside for a holiday I no longer needed.
I went to the hairdresser and had the long braid hed forbidden me to touch for twenty years cut off. In the mirror stared a stranger: sharp cheekbones, fierce eyes.
Well, hello there. Long time no see.
Three months of study followed: museums, notes, latenight sketchesfirst timid, then confident. My hands remembered; they never forgot.
In February Lucy phoned again.
Emma, remember Arthur Levett, the guy who works with Mike? His mother died and the house in Surrey fell to him. Its old, full of icons on a shelf. He wants to throw them away
Dont! Let him keep them!
I thought, maybe youd take a look? Hell pay.
Fine. Tomorrow.
The icons were in terrible shapeeight pieces, blackened, flaking, cracked. I leaned over them, my heart thudding in my ears.
Mr. Levett, I croaked, this one I need to examine it under a lamp, but Im pretty sure its seventeenthcentury Northernvery valuable.
He raised an eyebrow.
How much?
I cant say for restoration, but resale would fetch a lot.
Can you restore it?
I stared at the barely visible faces emerging from soot and understood: this was my chance, the only one.
Yes.
The job took half a year. I rented a cramped workshop on the edge of Notting Hillthe fumes of solvents were unbearable. I survived on buttered toast, lost twelve kilos, broke down twice when I almost ruined the work, once called my former tutor at foura.m.; she arrived an hour later with a thermos of tea.
Finally the first icon emerged, freed, radiant.
Arthur Levett stared, speechless.
This is a miracle.
Its not a miracle. Its work.
He paid double. A week later a friend of his called, then a friend of that friend, then a dealer from Chelsea. Word of mouth spread faster than any broadcast.
A year passed, then another.
Now I live in a small rented flatstill mine, with high ceilings. My workshop sits on the corner of Clean Pond Street, orders booked six months ahead, commissions for two monasteries and a private collection of a wellknown entrepreneur, whose name always appears with a reverent sigh in trade papers: Daniel Whitaker.
He comes to the studio himself, never sending couriers. He sits by the window, watches me work, occasionally brings coffee, sometimes nothing.
Youre a peculiar client, Mr. Whitaker.
Im a peculiar man. May I stay for a while?
No problem.
Fortyfive, widower, intelligent eyes, pianists handsthough he never plays piano, he trades in mergers.
Theres nothing between usyet. Still, I find myself waiting for his visits.
That evening I didnt feel like going anywhere, but Lucy insisted I attend the gallery anniversary on Mayfair, the whole London art scene in attendance. You have clients there, you cant hide in your studio forever.
I slipped into a simple black dressmy first real dress from a decent designer, bought a month agopearl earrings, heels Id almost forgotten how to walk in.
Whitaker arrived alone, no driver.
You look radiant today.
I laughed, genuinely, for the first time in ages.
The hall buzzed with conversation, champagne flowing. I hovered near a Kettlewell landscape, pretending to study it, just catching my breath.
Emma?
I turned.
David stood there, older, greytinged, bags under his eyes, a glass trembling in his hand. Beside him a slim young woman, dissatisfied, hanging on his arm like a coat rack.
Igor she started, but he cut her off. Claire, wait.
He stared at me, bewildered.
Is that you?
Hello, David.
You look different.
Time does that.
Claire tugged his sleeve.
Whos she?
This my exwife.
She glanced me over, from shoes to earrings, face slightly stretched.
Pleasure. Ill be at the bar.
She left, clicking her heels.
We were left alone, in the middle of the crowd, yet alone.
What brings you here?
Im a restorer. Clients.
A restorer? he blinked. Seriously?
Yes.
He shuffled closer, the scent of whisky around him. Emma I need to tell you something. I was an idiot.
Silence.
This Claire is a nightmarecant even fry an egg. All clubs, resorts, restaurants. Im tired, Emma.
I can imagine.
Im filing for divorce. Already done. Take my hand.
He gripped mine, his fingers foreign now, once the most familiar. I eased my hand away gently.
David, do you remember what you told me when you left?
He furrowed his brow.
You saidenjoy your freedom.
I didnt mean it like that.
Wait. I want to thank you, honestly. You gave me freedom. I couldnt unwrap it for yearslike a gift youre afraid to open. When I finally did, inside was me, the woman I buried eighteen years ago.
Emma
So thank you. Andno. I wont come back.
Why not? I have a flat, money, I can support you
I support myself now.
At that moment Whitaker appeared, calm, two glasses in hand.
Emma, are you ready? The collector from Manchester is waiting.
Yes, of course.
He extended his hand; I took it.
David watched us, his gaze fixed on my back as Whitaker bowed respectfully.
Claire, at the bar, muttered something I couldnt hear.
I turned at the doorway, gave a small wavenot triumphant, just a polite farewell to a former lover.
The collector turned out to be a portly man with childlike blue eyes, Boris Naumovich. He kissed my hand oldfashioned, using madam without irony.
Whitaker swore hed seen miracles in your work. I didnt believe him, but now I see he wasnt lying.
You saw my painting of the Virgin, eighteenth century?
I nodded. It had taken six months.
Yes, you bought it?
I did. I want more. I have something delicate we could discuss.
We stepped to the window. Whitaker lingered near a column, unobtrusive but close. I felt his presence behind me, oddly comforting.
Boris continued, The icon is from Norwich, sixteenth century. Its provenance is murky.
Stolen?
No. Exported in the 1920s, then to Paris, New York. I bought it at auction legally two years ago, but I want it back home, restored to its nineteenthcentury form. Under the later layers lies a masterpiece.
What do you want with it?
He was silent.
My grandmother was from Norwich. Her father, a priest, was executed in 1937. Ive been searching for this icon for forty years.
A chill ran through my eyes.
Ill take it.
The work on the Norwich icon was to start in a month, after paperwork. Until then life trudged on.
Monday morning I found an envelope slipped under my studio door, no stamp, scrawled in a hurried hand:
Emma, we need to talk. Not on the phone. Wednesday at seven, Café on the corner near the studio. If you dont come, Ill understand. Please.
I stared at the paper, crumpled it, smoothed it, crumpled again.
Wednesday arrived. I had no idea why I was theremaybe to close a chapter, perhaps a real one, the domestic kind.
David was already at the corner table, a untouched cup of tea before him. He stood awkwardly when I approached.
Thanks for coming.
I have twenty minutes.
Ill be quick. He clutched the cup. Emma, without Claire, without the crowd I said the wrong thing at the gallery. I should have said?
What should I have said?
He lifted his eyes; genuine fear flickered therethe kind that hits when you realise youve caused irreversible harm.
I screwed up so badly I cant even fix it.
Okay. I said, not angry, just stating a fact. Why call?
He pulled a velvet box, worn at the edges.
My grandmothers ring, I whispered.
You remember?
It was the tiny emeraldset ring hed given me at our engagement eighteen years ago, then reclaimed for safekeeping when we thought of children that never came.
I want to give it back. Its yours.
Just take it. Thats not a proposal. I saw you with Whitaker you love him?
I was silent, listening to my own heart.
Im not sure yet. Maybe someday, if time allows.
He nodded heavily.
Im glad, he said, voice cracking. Im a sorry man. I was an idiot.
I looked at his handsonce my most familiar, now strangers.
I remember what you said when you leftenjoy your freedom.
He winced.
Emma, I didnt mean to hurt you. I gave you freedom, even if it felt like a curse. If I hadnt left, Id have been cooking stew until I was sixty, hating you in secret, hating myself.
I dont hate you, or me, I whispered, a tear sliding down my cheek, unwiped.
Take care of yourself.
I rose, slipped on my coat, turned at the door. He sat, head bowed, shoulders trembling.
Outside, wind slammed my facecold, smelling of wet leaves and a hint of coal smoke. I walked the boulevard, tears flowing silently, not from grief or triumph, but because a long, painful chapter had finally closed cleanly, without splinters.
Deep inside, a small, stubborn doubt lingered. Had I made the right choice? Could those eighteen years have been worth another chance?
I reached the underground, paused for a breath, then decided firmly: no, I hadnt wasted them.
The Norwich icon turned out to be far more complex than Id imagined: three layers of paintsixteenthcentury base, eighteenthcentury additions, and a nineteenthcentury overcoat. I removed each millimetre by millimetre.
I spent almost a year on it.
During that time Whitaker proposed in Aprilnot over dinner, not with a ring, he was too sensible for that. We sat in my tiny kitchen, sipping tea.
Emma, would you marry me?
Just like that?
Why complicate things? Were not twentysomething any more. We know what we want.
What do you want, Mr. Whitaker?
You. For the rest of our lives. If youre not ready, Ill wait. Im patient.
Give me until autumn.
Until autumn, then.
He didnt mind.
In May Lucy told me David had moved to the countryside, sold his London flat, bought a house in a village. He and Claire divorced quickly, no drama. He now lives with a widowed neighbor who makes soup for himquiet.
I smiled at the thought, grateful that at least he was at peace.
August brought the climax. I stripped the final layer from the Norwich icon, revealing the face beneath.
Alone in the studio at twoam, I stared at the solemn, stern visage of the Savior, painted five hundred years ago by an unknown handwar, revolution, exile, auctions, and finally a return home to the grandson of the priest shot in 1937.
I called Boris, woke him.
Boris, Im sorry Its opened.
Silence on the line, then a distant sob from his cottage on Krestov Island.
Madam, he finally whispered, voice trembling, Im heading there now. Cant wait till morning.
He arrived at seven, unshaven, crumpled suit, a box of chocolates that looked like theyd been meant for a nursery. He knelt before the icon. I turned away, giving him space with my grandmother, my greatgrandfather, the whole weight of a history that converged in my Notting Hill studio.
September found me walking down the aisle. The ceremony was intimate: Lucy with her husband, my former tutor from St. Martins, Boris flown in from Norwich, a few monks from the monastery Id worked for, sipping berryflAs we toasted with quiet smiles under the soft lantern light, I felt at last that every broken fragment of my past had settled into a whole, and the future stretched ahead, bright and uncharted.
