Page 4 of Someone in the Water
A couple of years later, I was interviewed – anonymously, I made sure of that – by an obscure online art magazine, and soon after, an art dealer got in touch via the website. Nick Daniels. He told me that he specialises in Corsican art and had come across Imitating Art via the article. He said that he loved my paintings, and that he could sell them for a lot more than I was charging.
My relationship with these pictures is complex – fear, yes, but intimacy too, and veiled pride – and I couldn’t help feeling flattered by his compliments. I gave him the following summer’s stock as a trial, and over the next few months, a steady stream of transfers began arriving in my business bank account. It was proper money too – enough for Lola and me to go on our first overseas holiday – and Nick Daniels has been selling my mazzeri paintings ever since.
I don’t know much about him – in fact, Nick might even be short for Nicola, although I’ve always sensed that it’s a man – but we’ve built up a weird kind of friendship over the years. Nick is the only person I’m in regular contact with while I’m away on these sabbaticals from normal life, so I have to really concentrate on not appearing crazy when I’m dog-tired from lack of sleep, or wired from too many pills. I know I’ve let my mask slip on a couple of occasions, confided secrets even my mum doesn’t know, but I tell myself it doesn’t matter, because he’s got no idea who I am.
I open a new Imitating Art email and add his address. The first one is always the most nerve-racking – the chance he’s lost interest in my paintings over the year – and I can feel my heart rate tick up as I type.
Hey, hope you’re well.
It’s that time again. I have another picture for you and there’ll be more over the next couple of weeks. Are you still interested?
Even though it’s six in the morning, an email comes back almost instantly.
Ah, my favourite mystery client returns!
And I hope you’re joking? Your paintings are amongst my most popular sellers – people particularly love the anonymity element (thank you, Banksy!) They’re going for over a grand each now, so you can expect a boost to your bank balance too. If you can confirm that you’ll send them to the same storage facility, I’ll arrange collection.
Good to have you back online.
Relief and shame penetrate my tired body. It’s good to hear from Nick again, and to know my pictures are selling well. But the growing price makes me feel uncomfortable. Like it’s blood money, even though that makes no sense. Maybe I’ll donate it to charity this year. Share it between the RNLI and the Samaritans.
I send a quick acknowledgement – there’ll be time for longer emails over the next few days – then close my laptop. I lay my head on the table and stare at the view. It’s going to be another sunny day here. But not as hot as it will be in Ayia Napa. I guess Lola will still be in bed now, sleeping off the excesses of her first night out.
I hope it’s not giving her nightmares.
Lola
25th July
Lola wipes the sweat off her forehead and drains the last of her water. The sun is pounding down, there’s no shade, and she’s got a killer headache. But she’s got no choice except to wait. She thinks about her girls, whether they’ve made it to the beach yet, if they’re missing her.
And can’t help wondering if she should have gone to Ayia Napa with them after all.
She remembers their expressions when she first revealed her plans, three months ago when they were booking the trip. At first, they were disappointed – the four of them have been mates since primary school and were all looking forward to their first holiday together as adults, with no parents or teachers setting the rules. But when Lola explained her reasons, her need to find out what’s behind her mum’s insomnia, why it gets so bad in the summer that she disappears over Lola’s birthday every year, that disappointment had morphed into understanding, even admiration.
Lola adjusts the straps on her backpack and checks the time on her phone – again. When she looked at the bus timetable on the airport website, straight after she booked her flight to Corsica, it said that there was a bus to Porto Vecchio every hour, and that it takes forty minutes to get to the town centre. No advance booking was required, and it accepted Apple Pay. It was supposed to be a simple journey. But she’s been waiting for over two hours now and nothing has appeared. How can public transport from an international airport be so non-existent?
‘You want cab, miss?’
Lola eyes the man with crooked teeth smiling at her from the dusty silver people carrier. ‘No thanks. I’m getting the bus.’ Porto Vecchio is over twenty kilometres away, and while she’s noticed that Grams has put three hundred pounds in her account – which was a nice surprise – she’s not squandering her limited supply of cash on private transport. After all, she doesn’t know how the next nine days are going to play out.
‘No more buses today,’ the driver says. ‘Where you going? I take you.’
Lola bites her cheek and considers her options. He could be lying about the buses to get her fare, but it is five o’clock now – she can’t believe she’s spent most of the afternoon pointlessly standing here – and if he’s right, she’s screwed. Even the airport shuts at night. ‘How much to Porto Vecchio?’
‘Twenty euros.’
Lola sighs. ‘Fine.’ She opens the back door, climbs inside, and immediately decides it was a good call. The air conditioning is blasting cold air, and even the sticky plastic seating is a relief after standing for hours.
The driver swings onto the road and looks at her through the rear-view mirror. ‘What hotel, miss?’
‘Umm,’ Lola murmurs, scrolling through her phone for the booking reference. ‘It’s an Airbnb, not a hotel. Hang on, I’ve got the address.’ As she says the street name in badly accented French, she watches the cab driver’s expression change and her belly tightens.
When she first planned this trip, she envisaged staying at Hotel Paoli, the hotel where her mum worked when she was eighteen – literally retracing her mum’s steps to try to get to the bottom of what happened to her there. But that plan imploded when she checked the prices. Even with the money she’s been saving from helping out at Grams’ windsurf repair workshop every Sunday, the swanky hotel with beach frontage was way out of her budget.
And, it turned out, so were all the other hotels to a lesser or greater degree. So she changed tack and booked a room in someone’s home via Airbnb instead – and has been wondering ever since whether she’s about to step into a serial killer’s lair. So the cab driver’s reaction isn’t a good sign.
At least she gambled and only booked for three nights, even though her flight back to the UK isn’t until next Sunday – the same day the girls fly back from Cyprus. She figured that if she liked it, she’d offer cash for the final week, and if not, she’d have three days to find something better. Okay, so there’s also the thing that she’s been daydreaming about – the owner of Hotel Paoli giving her a massive discount as soon as he hears who her mum is. But that wasn’t the driving force behind her decision. She’s not that naïve.
