The Girl in the Painting Read online

  She knew there was a pencil sketch of the vole under the mounting on the top left and sighed. Oh, how wonderful to be able to take the frame apart and see it, along with the bold strips of colour Millais had painted there as well. The vole, however, had been erased as nobody apparently knew what it was. Guesses from his peers, she understood, had ranged from hares to rabbits to dogs and cats. So the vole had been painted over.

  Millais seemed quite a character – she liked what she had read about him. He certainly didn’t appear to have the magnetism that Rossetti had, which, she reasoned was perhaps why Rossetti’s paintings were so much bolder and wilder. Millais was, she suspected, very much a safe, commercial artist; but it had served him well.

  Cori had a special liking for Dante Gabriel Rossetti, due in part to that old family legend that the relative she’d been named after, redheaded great-great-great-aunt Corisande – Cori wasn’t quite sure how many Greats there were, to be fair it was a few Greats ago, anyway – had enjoyed a heady, albeit brief love affair with the artist. There had been rumours Rossetti had painted her portrait, but nobody had ever proved that it was the original Corisande and Cori reserved judgement on that one.

  The modern-day Cori tore herself away from Ophelia and moved towards Mariana, that vision in blue who looked like she, Cori, felt today – fed up with the mess in her house and desperate to escape.

  That thought made Cori smile. She’d never likened herself to Mariana before – because Mariana wasn’t posed by Lizzie Siddal.

  Simon headed into the coffee shop and spotted Hugo, the curator, sitting next to a girl with long dark, glossy hair, held back by a black and white spotted scarf. The girl was sitting with her back to Simon, deep in conversation with Hugo – mid-thirties, light brown hair, rapt expression – who was nodding occasionally and looking very interested in what the dark-haired girl was saying.

  For a minute, Simon’s heart somersaulted. Sylvie had hair like that – she’d spend hours with the ceramic hair straighteners and wasn’t happy until her hair fell perfectly down from her centre parting, the layers cutting in by her chin and framing her face. Her sloe black eyes would always be smoky-dark; mascara and eyeliner carefully applied to contrast with the pouting pale pink lipstick. She was as sultry and curvaceous as Angelina Jolie – and knew it.

  ‘Please, no,’ he muttered. One foot in front of the other, he made his way over to the table, his heart pounding. That would just be typical. She’d reappeared to taunt him some more.

  ‘Ah, Simon!’ said Hugo, catching sight of him. ‘This is Isobel McCullogh. She’s come to give us some advice on the new exhibition – and she comes highly recommended by Lissy de Luca, so I’m sure she will be most helpful to us.’

  The woman turned and smiled at Simon. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said in a lilting, Scottish accent. And it was only then that Simon exhaled. He hadn’t realised he had been holding his breath: taking on an assumed identity wasn’t something he was aware that Sylvie had actually done, but until he’d seen Isobel McCullogh’s face, he hadn’t been able to relax.

  It was definitely a different woman though. Isobel McCullogh had a heart-shaped face with a ready dimple in her cheek when she smiled and wide brown eyes the colour of horse chestnuts.

  And even while Simon was smiling and shaking her hand and reciprocating her greeting, all he could think about was the girl with red hair who was somewhere in the crowds upstairs; and the fact that when he got his hands on Lissy he would willingly wring her neck.

  Chapter Three

  Lissy thought that her plan might be successful this time. She knew Isobel from her work in other galleries, and was absolutely sure that she was exactly what Simon needed in his life.

  All Lissy had to do was throw Isobel and Simon together in a project which combined their joint passion and step back. Light the blue touch paper and watch the sparks fly, so to speak. Isobel was pretty, intelligent and loved art. She was friendly and, most importantly, single. A match made in Heaven, as far as Lissy was concerned.

  Lissy had made Simon into a pet project of sorts. She had known him for a while now, working as she did as a volunteer at the Tate. She had been there to pick up the pieces when he and Sylvie had broken up. She had helped him move his stuff out of the home he shared with Sylvie, donated a small tabby kitten to him named Bryony and seen him installed in a rented flat.

  ‘It’s just to live in for now,’ he’d told her, his face drawn and his eyes shadowed. It had hit him hard, no matter what he had secretly suspected, to actually find his girlfriend with another man – in his own bed.

  ‘You’re well rid of Slutty,’ Lissy had told him, helping him lug an easel into the small second bedroom of his new flat. ‘It’ll soon feel like a bad dream and you’ll move on.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he’d said.

  ‘Shall we put this here?’ Lissy had asked, all five feet nothing of her trying to tug against the strength of a fairly muscular, six foot tall man, in order to put the easel in the perfect spot for the daylight to shine on it.

  ‘No,’ Simon had said, easily pulling it back. ‘I’ll just leave it here for the minute.’ He’d propped it in the corner and piled boxes up around it while Lissy watched him, pursing her mouth disapprovingly, and the kitten pawed at a pile of rags inquisitively before climbing onto them and curling up for a nap.

  ‘You need to start painting again,’ she’d scolded.

  ‘I will,’ he said. ‘Soon.’

  The easel had stayed there, abandoned, for a few weeks. But painting and creating was like a drug to Simon; he couldn’t stay away for long, so gradually he had started painting again.

  Lissy had been delighted; until she had seen some of his work on a stall in Portobello market.

  ‘Simon. Your work is very touristy. It’s very nice but very soulless,’ she told him.

  ‘At least I’m painting,’ he had answered, defensively.

  ‘Yes, but that’s not proper painting,’ she’d replied. ‘That’s not what you do. You’re playing it safe.’

  ‘I’ll get there,’ he said.

  Lissy knew what he was capable of – she’d seen the work he’d produced when he’d been with Sylvie, and this souvenir-style art was just not Simon.

  Somewhere, deep down, was a man with a passion who had lost it along the way. Lissy wanted the old Simon back, and to her the answer was simple. He needed a channel to unleash that passion; so she had spent a good few months trying to fix him up with an appropriate channel.

  Isobel was the latest attempt and she hoped it would work. It would have been, she thought, so much simpler if she, Lissy, actually felt a spark for Simon herself. But she didn’t and she never would and she knew that feeling was mutual.

  ‘Isobel?’ Lissy appeared around the corner, just as Isobel was packing up her laptop and pulling the papers together after the meeting in the cafe.

  Isobel looked up and smiled. ‘Hey, Lissy,’ she said. ‘Good to see you. I hoped I would.’

  ‘I’m on a flying visit,’ said Lissy, clutching a takeaway cup of coffee. She took the lid off and blew on it, sending waves of rich espresso aromas towards Isobel. ‘I’m heading off to Staithes tomorrow, in North Yorkshire, to help them archive some bits and pieces and I’ve got a million things to do first. So I just nipped in, hoping I’d catch you or Simon. How did it go, then? Did you get plenty of feedback from Simon?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ said Isobel. ‘I’m not surprised you wanted him involved. He’s quite the expert on the Pre-Raphaelites, isn’t he?’

  ‘He is indeed,’ said Lissy. ‘And did you arrange to meet again?’

  ‘Of course,’ replied Isobel, enthusiastically. ‘We’ll get together when we have a better idea of when the portrait will be delivered and plan a strategy. It should be a really exciting exhibition. I can’t wait to see the new painting. I’ve seen the photograph, but it’ll be so different in real life!’

  Lissy smiled, a little tightly. ‘Good. But I meant did you arrange to meet again?�
�

  Isobel looked at her a little blankly. ‘Yes. I just explained that.’

  ‘No! Are you going to see him again? Romantically!’ said Lissy, exasperated.

  Isobel’s eyes widened and she stared at Lissy; then began to laugh. ‘No. No, I’m not going to see him romantically, Lissy! Don’t be silly. Honestly! Is that what you intended? Were you trying to set us up?’

  Lissy blushed and looked down at her coffee. ‘It would have been an added bonus,’ she said. ‘That’s all. I thought you’d get on well and one thing might lead to another.’ She looked up at Isobel. ‘Tell me that I wasn’t wrong!’

  Isobel laughed and shook her head. ‘You’re wrong, Lissy,’ she said. She tucked the papers into her briefcase and packed her laptop away behind them. ‘Simon seems a nice guy, but really, we were very professional with one another. I didn’t think of him like that for one moment. And I didn’t get the feeling he felt like that about me, so sorry about that, sweetheart.’ Then she grinned, the little dimple in her cheek deepening. ‘But I am going for dinner with Hugo tonight, so that part of it went very well indeed!’

  After the meeting, Simon had hurried back upstairs to the Pre-Raphaelite collection, hoping to catch sight of the red-haired girl again.

  He was to be disappointed, though. He scanned the crowds in the corridors and looked for the girl amongst them. He thought he saw her, walking into a room where a wall was dedicated to Rossetti’s sketches of Lizzie Siddal; but when he hurried over and looked inside, there was no sign of her.

  ‘Damn,’ he muttered. He’d already popped his head through most of the doors to the rooms on that floor, all to no avail. He’d have one more look in the Millais Gallery, he told himself – and if she wasn’t there, he’d—

  ‘Simon.’ The sound was imperative and he knew the voice well.

  ‘Lissy,’ he responded, turning to face her.

  ‘Isobel,’ she said.

  ‘And?’ he responded.

  Lissy stared at him for a moment. ‘I can’t answer that in one word,’ she said, ‘so instead I shall ask you outright – what the hell were you doing not asking her out? Now Hugo is having dinner with her. And that’s not how it should have been.’

  ‘Ah, yes. That Isobel,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘No, Lissy. Stop it. I knew exactly what you had been planning when I saw her sitting there, and it wasn’t going to happen. She seems like a nice girl, but that’s as far as it goes. No reason for either of us to want to see the other out of school.’

  ‘But she’s perfect for you!’ said Lissy. There was a definite hint of a whine in her voice.

  ‘No, she’s not,’ said Simon. He nodded towards Lissy’s cup. ‘And be careful with your coffee, please. I’m not having you spill it on Ophelia.’

  Lissy sniffed and glared up at him. ‘I’m in the corridor,’ she said, acidly. ‘Not in the Millais Gallery. And I’m trying to help,’ she said, forcing the plastic lid back on the cup. ‘You can’t go on painting those awful London scenes any more. Before we know it, you’ll have painted a Pearly King enjoying a knees-up and then I shall have to stop speaking to you. I’m sorry, Simon. I would.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with Pearly Royalty,’ said Simon. He began whistling ‘The Lambeth Walk’ very quietly and Lissy’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Just stop it,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  Simon shrugged and looked around him. The red-haired girl was definitely not in the corridor – he had a feeling about the Millais Gallery though.

  ‘Look, Lissy. I’m busy. I’ve got things to do, so much as I’d love to stand here and have a conversation about my love life – or lack of it – I need to do some work.’

  Lissy sighed. ‘All right, I get the hint,’ she said. ‘I’m off to Staithes in the morning, so we’ll catch up when I’m back, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Simon.

  Lissy stood on tiptoe and kissed him swiftly on both cheeks. ‘Ciao for now,’ she said and raised her cup to him. ‘I’ll bin it when I go downstairs, don’t worry.’

  ‘I won’t,’ he said.

  Lissy nodded and turned on her heel. Simon watched her striding along the corridor, her stilettos tapping out a rhythm on the wooden floorboards.

  Her heart was in the right place, he thought. But until he actually found someone he could connect with, the scenic London pictures would be all that appeared on his canvasses. And for all of Lissy’s good intentions, even he didn’t know what he wanted, so how could Lissy even attempt to find him someone?

  But that girl with the red hair might be a good place to start.

  His eyes drifted down the corridor, all the way along towards the Millais Gallery and his heart quickened.

  Cori had explored the other rooms, glorying in the Pre-Raphaelites and their muses and finally decided to move back to Ophelia before she returned home.

  It was as if the portrait was a magnet, drawing her towards it. If she stared at it long enough, she could almost see the tendrils of Lizzie’s hair rippling in the water; almost smell the freshness of the earth and the grass and recognise the perfume of the flowers she clutched to her; the pungent scent of rosemary; the sweet fragrance of violets.

  How would Lizzie have felt when she saw this painting for the first time? How would she have dealt with being catapulted to fame as one of the PRB’s ‘stunners’ – as they were known at the time – as Rossetti’s muse, as the face of a generation? As a celebrity, Cori supposed. She allowed her imagination to run riot a little, just to see if she could sense some of it.

  Yes; she was lost in it. But there were, she reasoned, worse places to be lost.

  She was in there. In front of Ophelia. Simon blinked. It was almost as if he was looking at Lizzie Siddall, looking at herself in a mirror.

  There was never a shortage of red-haired ladies inspecting these pictures. He had seen Pre-Raphaelite sisters of all shapes and sizes, and ladies with hair a thousand different shades of red.

  But nobody had ever come close to what he saw now.

  ‘Can I just ask you your opinion about Mariana?’ asked an earnest looking man who suddenly appeared at Simon’s elbow. ‘It’s just, I was wondering whether you felt Millais had …’

  The words washed over Simon, even as he nodded and agreed and mechanically answered the man’s questions.

  And the next time he looked, the red-haired girl had gone.

  Chapter Four

  KENSINGTON

  Cori dreamed she was Ophelia that night. She slept on the mattress in the lounge with her sleeping bag pulled up to her chin. It would be so nice, she had thought drowsily, when she could sleep in a bed again.

  It must have been the thought of a warm bed and the excitement of going to the Tate that did it. She dreamed she was in the tin bath Lizzie had lain in while she was posing for Millais, and then the bath opened out and she floated away down a river, singing songs to herself.

  She reached out and grasped a reed from the riverbank, then it turned into a rose which scratched her palm and she had to let it go. As she did so, the current swept her away, swirling and whirling downstream and she wondered if she really wanted to die after all?

  Then strong arms pulled her out of the water and she lay in those arms and felt safe – and then she opened her eyes and she was in a bedroom with a flickering fire and candles everywhere and there was a sprig of rosemary on the pillow next to her.

  There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Don’t forget me …

  It was at that point Cori woke up, her heart pounding and wondered, for a moment, where she actually was. And then the second thought that came to her was the fact that Ophelia’s lines had been misquoted somewhat in that dream.

  ‘Ridiculous,’ muttered Cori. ‘It should be “Pray you, love, remember.”’ She lay in the sleeping bag blinking in the pre-dawn milkiness that was coming through her thinly curtained windows. That was something else she needed to sort out – some decent curtains.

  It was at moments like this, when she
woke up in those eerie hours, that she missed the familiarity of her family home the most. During the day, everything was different. It was bright and busy and all sorts of things were going on to distract her; usually in the shape of workmen, ladders and paint pots.

  She sat up in the sleeping bag and drew her knees up to her chin. Hugging her legs, she stared into the pigsty of a lounge, her hair tangling around her shoulders and down her back.

  The place would look like home soon enough, she thought. And if the workmen were quite happy to supervise themselves, there was no need for her to sit in here with them, was there? She didn’t have that much worth stealing and it would be pretty easy to find the culprits if anything did end up going missing. And she was insured, anyway.

  She needed some cushions and a rug and some new curtains – most definitely. Along with some new bedding, she thought, and some more cushions to scatter around the bedroom. Because why not? You could never have too many cushions.

  And because she knew sleep would evade her and it was a long time until she could get up and do much more than find a 24-7 coffee bar or grocery shop in the vicinity, she decided to make some notes. Notes were good. She could plan what she needed to buy.

  And the Tate opened at ten. So she really only had to fill in time until then.

  Maybe that tall, fair-haired guide would be there again? She smiled into the lounge. It was nice to dream.

  Chapter Five

  LONDON, MAY

  It was inevitable, really, that the Tate would become part of Cori’s regular routine.

  The house was coming together gradually, and she found it less distressing going out and coming back to improvements, rather than sitting in the place watching men slapping paint around and constantly asking for tea.

  A couple more weeks down the line and she had polished floorboards in the room she had designated as her office, which meant she could organise her workspace and get back to some semblance of normality. She had used some of her time wandering around London to make contacts and had a few things she wanted to follow up – which was much easier to do linked up to a computer than using a smartphone all the time. And considering she was a web designer, a working computer was kind of essential.