Sophie Hannah - The Other Half Lives aka The Dead Lie Down

No Aidan Seed.

I shivered in spite of the heat, jumpy and nauseous, every nerve in my body on alert. Why was nothing happening? Where was he? Aching to run away, I told myself I had the perfect excuse. If I knocked and no one came, what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t walk in uninvited. My fingers closed around my car keys, tightening their grip. I flexed my toes, ready to move at speed once I gave myself permission. Go, then. I never wanted to set foot in another picture framer’s studio as long as I lived. I could leave and no one would know; Aidan Seed, whoever and wherever he was, wouldn’t know I’d been here.

Saul Hansard would know.

I stayed where I was and knocked again, louder and more insistently. Saul would never let it lie. I didn’t want any more messages from him, any more fatherly concern. Even thinking about him made me feel ashamed. I had to convince him I was all right, and there was only one way to do that.

That’s a negative reason. Think of a more positive one.

If I go through with this, I told myself, if I’m brave and ask Aidan Seed for a job, I’ll start to earn money again. I’ll be able to afford to stay in Blantyre Lodge, to buy more paintings to put on the walls. I needed to be able to do that. The book on my bedside table at the time was called What if Everything Goes Right? Its blurb promised to train me to make decisions based on hope, not fear.

I knocked again, and this time an impatient voice, deep and male, shouted, ‘Coming,’ as if I’d already been told several times and was being unreasonable. Aidan appeared in the doorway, holding a threadbare blue towel. His rough hands looked red and damp; he’d been scrubbing at them. ‘Yeah?’ he said, looking me up and down.

More vividly than anything else about that day, I remember my utter surprise at the sight of him. It had nothing to do with attractiveness, though I registered that he was unusually attractive. This is the man, I thought. I’d never seen him before, but I recognised him as being the right person. Right for what, exactly, I couldn’t have said. All I knew was that I wanted to keep him there, keep myself there with him for as long as possible.

‘I’m busy,’ Aidan said. ‘Do you want something?’

I’d almost forgotten, in the shock of seeing him, why I’d come. ‘Um… Saul Hansard from the Spilling Gallery told me you’re looking for someone to work for you,’ I mumbled, taking in the shiny shoulder patches on his black jacket, the dark stubble on his chin and above his mouth. His hair was so dark it was almost black. It hadn’t been combed recently, if ever. A scar formed a lopsided cross with the line of his upper lip, cutting his stubble diagonally in half. When he moved nearer, I noticed his eyes were dark blue with flecks of grey around the pupils. I guessed that he was in his early forties.

He was inspecting me closely too. ‘I’m not looking for anyone, ’ he said.

My spirit withered. ‘Oh,’ I said faintly.

‘Doesn’t mean I don’t need someone. Just haven’t got round to looking yet. Been too busy.’

‘So… does that mean you’d be interested in…’

He gestured towards the workshop. ‘I can’t do it all myself,’ he said, as if I’d told him he must. ‘Why, are you looking for a job?’

‘Yes. I can start straight away.’

‘You’re a framer?’

‘I…’ The question had floored me, but I did my best not to show it. I wasn’t a framer-in all my time working for Saul I hadn’t framed a single picture-but I sensed that ‘no’ would be the wrong answer. I was as eager to prolong my conversation with Aidan as I had been to leave a few moments earlier. I couldn’t let him dismiss me. It scared me to feel such a strong, irrational need for a stranger who owed me nothing. ‘At the moment I haven’t got a job,’ I said. ‘I used to work for Saul at the Spilling Gallery, but I didn’t…’

‘How long were you there?’

‘Nearly two years.’

‘Right,’ he said. Was he grinning at me or sneering? ‘What did you think of Hansard’s framing skills?’

‘I… I don’t know. I…’ Surely one picture-framer’s methods would be much like another’s , I thought. Again, I sensed this would be the wrong thing to say, so I kept quiet.

‘Did he train you?’ Aidan asked.

‘No. I never actually did any framing.’ Better to admit it straight away than be caught out trying to wing it, I decided. ‘Saul took care of that side of things. I did some admin for him, answered the phone, took care of sales…’

‘In two years, you never framed a picture?’

I shook my head.

Aidan jerked his in the direction of his workshop. ‘If I put you in there and told you to get started, would you know what to do?’

‘No.’

He pushed his fringe out of his eyes with his paint-spotted right arm. ‘In that case, you’re no use to me. I’m a picture-framer. I need a picture-framer to help me. Frame more pictures, ’ he said slowly, as if I was stupid.

‘I can learn,’ I told him. ‘I’m a quick learner.’

‘You’re a receptionist. I don’t want a receptionist. Hansard doesn’t listen. No surprise there-his head’s all over the place. You must know that if you’ve worked for him.’

Was he testing me? I wasn’t about to be disloyal to Saul, who had always treated me well.

‘You can’t be a picture-framer and run an art gallery at the same time,’ said Aidan. ‘Hansard spreads himself too thin, ends up making a hash of everything. That’s why I asked what you thought of his framing. I’ve seen his work-it’s shoddy. He doesn’t use acid-free tape or backing card.’

I must have looked mystified, because he sighed heavily and said, ‘The essence of conservation framing is that it’s all reversible. You’ve got to be able to undo everything you do, and end up with the picture exactly the same as before it was framed, however long ago that was. That’s the first thing you need to learn.’

‘You mean…?’ It sounded as if he was offering me a job, unless I’d misunderstood completely.

‘You’re Ruth, right?’

I felt my confidence start to drain away, as if there was a hole in the pit of my stomach, and thought back to the last message Saul had left on my voicemail. I gave you a glowing reference-Aidan’ll snap you up if he knows what’s good for him.

‘Why do you want to work here?’

Was this my interview? ‘It sounds corny, but I love art.’ I spoke quickly to hide my nerves. ‘There’s nothing that’s more…’

‘The way I heard it, you’re a liability,’ Aidan talked over me, his voice hard and cold. ‘You upset one of Hansard’s clients, lost him a lucrative source of business.’

I tried to keep calm. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Hansard. Who do you think?’

I didn’t see why he would lie. Fury sprang up out of nowhere, crushed me like a lead weight. Saul had encouraged me to come here, without saying a word about how he’d pre-empted me and sabotaged my chances. I stared down at the dirt path, mortified, trying not to explode with defensive rage. This wasn’t an isolated incident: in my mind it acted as a magnet, attracting, like iron filings, memories of all the terrible moments in my life so far. Same horror, different incarnation. After what I’d been through, no bad feeling ever seemed new to me: I had already felt them all, recognised them like familiar relatives each time they paid a visit.

‘Sorry I bothered you,’ I said, starting to walk away.

‘Can’t take criticism very well, can you?’

His mocking tone made me want to kill him. If I hadn’t been furious with Saul, I wouldn’t have dared to do what I did next. Most of the word ‘courage’ is the word ‘rage’ -which book was that in? I turned and walked back to Aidan, counting my steps. ‘The essence of asking a conservation framer for a job is that it’s reversible,’ I said in a deliberately pompous voice. ‘You’ve got to be able to undo everything you do. I’m undoing asking you for work, and I’m undoing coming here at all. Goodbye.’