There, on the neat surface she has yet to unpack onto, is a single photograph: herself, her father, Claudine, and the corpse of her mother, head tilted sideways as though she is asleep. She thinks of the cold hand at her throat.
She has an idea.
She fetches her hat and coat and slinks out of the house.
She will make her move first.
She must see this through, whatever the end.
Whatever the cost.
3
Cecilia
IT IS NOT STRAIGHTFORWARDto find Mr King at the Jermyn Street Gallery. There is no neat sign pointing towards the private offices – of course there isn’t – and Cecilia is not so naive as to think she can simply present herself to an attendant or one of the women selling tickets and expect to solicit an audience with the proprietor.
She hovers on the street opposite, watching the crowds drift in and out of the entrance, the matinee-goers turning off the Haymarket, the boys darting across the road to sweep the manure from the paths of the gentry, a newspaper seller pushingTheIllustrated London Newsinto the hands of anyone who makes the mistake of catching his eye. Her earlobes throb with her pulse. The feeling of the rip through paper, the blow of pain to the side of her head, is still vivid from earlier that day.
She thinks back to her encounter with Mr King in the summer.
He was all human. Flesh and stink and hair and mouth, and every base thoughtTheIllustrated London Newscould possibly cry about.
Perhaps there is a way she can present herself to gain an audience.
Perhaps she simply needs to understand the tableau she wishes to create and the role she will play in it.
She checks her reflection in the window of a restaurant and pinches some colour into her cheeks, then darts between the traffic to the gallery. She pulls a card from her case and presents it to the man at the front of house.
‘To see Mr King,’ she says simply, presumptively.
The man assesses her card. ‘Is he expecting you?’
‘He knows me,’ she says. ‘I am one of Lydia Fairfax-Waugh’s models. Mr King and I met at Herne House.’
The man’s expression changes at the wordmodel, and he moves his roving gaze from the card to Cecilia’s face and body. Whether he recognises her from Lydia’s paintings, she does not know and refuses to let herself consider.
‘I’ll tell him you’ve called for him. Wait.’
She is left standing awkwardly to one side as visitors come in and out, and she tucks her gloved hands into her sleeves against the cold. People are looking at her; she is sure of it. Did they hear her call herself a model? What will Mr King think of her solicitation?
Before she can talk herself out of such boldness, the man returns.
‘He’ll see you. Through the door on the left and up the stairs.’
Cecilia does not look at him again. She hurries inside and through the small door to the left that leads immediately to a narrow set of stairs. They are almost blocked with boxes of flyers, paperwork, stacks of rolled canvases, broken lengths of frame. All the glamour of the gallery disappears at once; it is like stepping into the wings of a theatre and seeing the lengths of rope and waiting props, the illusion of imagination transformed at once into junk and scrap.
There is a tight landing above. At one end, a door is open onto a storeroom, piled with chairs, broken plant pots, heaps of scrap fabric, discarded posters and paintings. At the other end is a closed door, from behind which the sound of a gramophonespills.
Cecilia hesitates before it. She is struck by a sudden longing for Odette. She could be braver if Odette were here. With Odette, she has climbed across rooftops, swam in rivers, drunk herself sick, taught herself the fumble of two bodies together. She has been ignorant and out of her depth, and the fear has turned instead to excitement. Curiosity. The desire to know. Odette makes her bold – perhaps it feels like the only way to keep her attention – but that boldness has fled her now, and she falters at the door, heart racing.
Mr King has heard her footsteps, though, and the door opens whether she wants it to or not.
He is as handsome as she remembers, dark brows over flashing hazel eyes and a wide mouth that curls with an edge of something that could be humour or could be predation.
‘Miss Moore.’
‘Mr King. I hope you will forgive me for this unexpected intrusion.’