Page 4 of All I Want for Christmas

‘I wouldn’t be on my own if you ever came home!’

‘All in good time. The sex is too good, babe.’

Darcy groaned again.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll go down in flames soon enough. But in the meantime, you need to be out in the world and this is the way to do it. These guys will match with you if they’ve got eyes in their head and a pulse, and you’ll have three hot new guys to date before Christmas. You never know, they may even surprise you.’

Darcy picked up her mug and plucked out another marshmallow. ‘The only thing that would surprise me, Frey, is if they surprise me. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t bother holding my breath.’

Chapter Two

Darcy was draping her coat over the back of her chair when Ida, Otto’s secretary, peered around the doorway.

‘Ah Darcy, you’re back, good. Otto’s been asking for you. He says it’s urgent.’

‘Oh?’ Nothing was ever urgent in Otto Borup’s world. The head of the fine art department and her thesis advisor, he was a man with a leisured manner who believed that words were often overrated and that as much, if not more, could be conveyed by a well-judged silence. So if Otto said something was urgent, either he was dying or the Royal Academy was on fire.

‘Yes. They’re all waiting for you in Workroom 3.’

‘All?’ Darcy felt a shot of alarm that there was to be an audience to whatever this was.

Workroom 3 was where the conservation team were based. As a PhD student and a theoretical academic, Darcy rarely had reason or opportunity to go in there, but she always felt like a child in a sweet shop when she did venture in.

Had she done something wrong? ‘Do you know what it’s about?’

‘I do,’ Ida nodded, making no attempt to enlighten her.

‘I see...Thanks.’ With a gulp of trepidation, Darcy headed for the stairs, walking through the corridor where the faculty offices were set. Otto’s door was ajar, his desk neatly stackedwith paper piles and reference books tabbed with Post-it notes; but she noticed his chair was pushed back at an angle, as if he had risen in a hurry.

Was it her thesis? The committee had approved her hypothesis months ago. Had they changed their minds?Couldthey change their minds?

She walked quickly, with growing dread. The Charlottenborg building, which was the official home of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, comprised three sides of a square and the workrooms were located on each floor in the central span, the next wing along from here. Long whitewashed spaces, they were usually bright even on the dullest of days thanks to the large graphite-steel windows that ran along either side – but as she pushed on the door into the workroom on the third floor, she saw the black curtains had been drawn so that it was suffused with gloom. Vast tables ran through the centre of the room and workbenches were pushed along each wall. Every surface was piled high with books and papers, a few plaster busts sat on pedestals, canvases were propped on easels and draped with dust sheets. Brushes poked from pots, amber-coloured solutions sat in jars. Stools, chairs, jumpers and bags littered the space, and it smelled of solvents and coffee.

At the far end stood a small group of people clustered around one of the tables. They were standing tightly packed, talking over one another in low voices, but even from here she recognized the redoubtable director of the National Gallery, Margit Kinberg; the Royal Academy’s head conservator, Lauge Bekker; and of course, Otto. Even without the presence of the academy director, currently in New York, it was about as senior a gathering as she could imagine and her pace slowed as she approached. This had been the wrong day to choose to runin. She had been anticipating a quiet afternoon in the stacks. What on earth could they possibly want with her here? Had Ida been pulling a prank on her...?

‘Ah, Darcy,’ Otto said, turning at the sound of her footsteps. He was an elegant man, not tall but very lean, bald, with a close-clipped white beard and watchful blue eyes. He made a point of only ever wearing a sober palette of navy, grey or black; his chunky tortoiseshell-framed glasses were the sole glimpse of personality in his uniform, a snatch of the private man beyond the enigma, for his austere reputation preceded him. He wasn’t inclined towards small talk, undue praise or even smiles – but today appeared to be the exception. She felt herself relax a little. He wouldn’t smile if this was bad news, surely? Unless...pity?

‘Thank you for joining us. You know Lauge, of course.’

‘Lauge,’ Darcy nodded politely.

‘Have you met Margit Kinberg?’

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ Darcy said quickly as they shook hands. Kinberg was pale, with a dark bob and glasses; she had a formidable reputation as a straight talker and there was certainly nothing soft and fluffy about her handshake.

‘Ms Cotterell, Otto’s been bringing me up to speed with your work.’ She spoke in English, even though they’d been talking in Danish on her arrival. Everyone spoke English to a high standard here – although Darcy’s Danish was impressive too thanks to her Danish mother, who had raised her and her sister as bilingual back home.

‘He has?’ Darcy looked at Otto with an apprehensive smile, not at all sure why the director of the National Gallery needed to know anything about her PhD thesis – ‘Homemakers and Revolutionaries: A Re-examination of Women in the Modern Breakthrough’.

‘Have a look at this, Darcy,’ Otto said, stepping aside so that she could see a painting set flat upon the table behind him; it had been removed from its frame and an ultraviolet lamp was positioned above it. Her heart beat a little faster, for she recognized the artwork right away – it wasHer Children, the Johan Trier masterpiece that had been undergoing light restoration ahead of a large retrospective of the artist at the National Gallery in the new year.

Johan Trier was considered the grandfather of the Danish New Masters and Otto had spent the past two years painstakingly negotiating the loans of works from other museums, galleries and private collections to curate this show, the most comprehensive exhibition of Trier’s work since his death, almost exactly fifty years ago. The Ministry of Culture wanted it to do for them what the Vermeer tribute had done for Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum a few years earlier.

‘Go on – tell me what you see.’

Darcy, seeing how everyone watched her closely, leaned over and peered down at the famous oil. She had seen the painting countless times – it showed a woman standing by the shore, watching as her children waded in the shallows. One hand was perched on her hip, the tip of her chin betraying a watchful gaze over the frothy surf. Her skirt and blouse were pushed back against her body by the strong breeze, the ribbon of her apron flying behind her.

‘This is Trier’sHer Children. One of his most iconic paintings.’ It was famous not because of the expert figuring of the children or the tumbling light in the sky, but because in the precise posturing of the woman – her close, watchful stare counterposed with a relaxed patience – he had captured the fierce complexity and intensity of motherhood.

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