Isabel Wolff - The Very Picture of You

Clare cocked her head to one side. ‘She has… poise.’

‘She was a ballet dancer.’

‘Ah.’ She nodded thoughtfully. ‘I remember now, it said so in that article about you.’ She looked at me. ‘And was she successful?’

‘Yes – she was with the English National Ballet, then with the Northern Ballet Theatre in Manchester – this was in the seventies. That’s her, actually, on the wall, over there…’

Clare followed my gaze to a framed poster of a ballerina in a full-length white tutu and bridal veil. ‘Giselle,’ Clare murmured. ‘How lovely… It’s such a touching story, isn’t it – innocence betrayed…’

‘It was my mother’s favourite role – that was in ’79. Sadly, she had to retire just a few months later.’

‘Why?’ Clare asked. ‘Because of having children?’

‘No – I was nearly five by then. It was because she was injured.’

‘In rehearsal?’

I shook my head. ‘At home. She fell, breaking her ankle.’

Clare’s brow pleated in sympathy. ‘How terrible.’ She looked at the portrait again, as if seeking signs of that disappointment in my mother’s face.

‘It was hard…’ I had a sudden memory of my mother sitting at the kitchen table in our old flat, her head in her hands. She used to stay like that for a long time.

‘What did she do then?’ I heard Clare ask.

‘She decided that we’d move to London; once she’d recovered enough she began a new career as a ballet mistress.’ Clare looked at me enquiringly. ‘It’s something that older or injured dancers often do. They work with a company, refreshing the choreography or rehearsing particular roles: my mother did this with the Festival Ballet for some years, then with Ballet Rambert.’

‘Does she still do that?’

‘No – she’s more or less retired. She teaches one day a week at the English National Ballet school, otherwise she mostly does charity work; in fact she’s organised a big gala auction tonight for Save the Children, which is why I’m pushed for time as I have to be there but in here—’ I went over to the table and opened the folder – ‘are the photos of all my portraits. There are about fifty.’

‘So it’s your Facebook,’ Clare said with a smile. She sat on the sofa again and began to browse the images. ‘Fisherman…’ she murmured. ‘That one’s on your website, isn’t it? Ursula Sleeping… Emma, Polly’s Face…’ Clare gave me a puzzled look. ‘Why did you call this one Polly’s Face – given that it’s a portrait?’

‘Oh, because Polly’s my best friend – we’ve known each other since we were six; she’s a hand and foot model and was jokingly complaining that no one ever showed any interest in her face, so I said I’d paint it.’

‘Ah…’

I pointed to the next image. ‘That’s Baroness Hale – the first woman Law Lord; this is Sir Philip Watts, a former Chairman of Shell.’

Clare turned the page again. ‘And there’s the Duchess of Cornwall. She looks rather humorous.’

‘She is, and that’s the quality I most wanted people to see.’

‘And did the Prince like it?’

I gave a shrug. ‘He seemed to. He said nice things about it when he came to the unveiling at the National Portrait Gallery last month.’

Clare turned to the next photo. ‘And who’s this girl with the cropped hair?’

‘That’s my sister, Chloë. She works for an ethical PR agency called PRoud, so they handle anything to do with fair trade, green technology, organic food and farming – that kind of thing.’

Clare nodded thoughtfully. ‘She’s very like your mother.’

‘She is – she has her fair complexion and ballerina physique.’ Whereas I am dark and sturdy, I reflected balefully – more Paula Rego than Degas.

Clare peered at the painting. ‘But she looks so… sad – distressed, almost.’

I hesitated. ‘She was breaking up with someone – it was a difficult time; but she’s fine now,’ I went on firmly. Even if her new boyfriend’s vile, I didn’t add.

My phone was ringing. I answered it.

‘Where are you?’ Mum demanded softly. ‘It’s ten to seven – nearly everyone’s here.’

‘Oh, sorry, but I’m not quite finished.’ I glanced at Clare, who was still flicking through the portfolio.

‘You said you’d come early.’

‘I know – I’ll be there in twenty minutes, promise.’ I hung up. I looked at Clare. ‘I’m afraid I have to go now…’ I went to my work table and dipped some dirty brushes in the jar of turps.

‘Of course…’ she said, without looking up. ‘That’s the singer Cecilia Bartoli.’ She turned to the final image. ‘And who’s this friendly looking man with the bow tie?’

I pulled the brushes through a sheet of newspaper to squeeze out the paint. ‘That’s my father.’

‘Your father?’

‘Yes.’ I did my best to ignore the surprise in her voice. ‘Roy Graham. He’s an orthopaedic surgeon – semi-retired.’ I went to the sink, aware of Clare’s curious gaze on my back.

‘But in The Times—’

‘He plays a lot of golf…’ I rubbed washing-up liquid into the bristles. ‘At the Royal Mid-Surrey – it’s not far from where they live, in Richmond.’

‘In The Times it said that—’

‘He also plays bridge.’ I turned on the tap. ‘I’ve never played, but people say it’s fun once you get into it.’ I rinsed and dried the brushes, then laid them on my work table, ready for the next day. ‘Right…’ I looked at Clare, willing her to leave.

She put the tape recorder and notes into her bag then stood up. ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking you this,’ she said. ‘But as it was in the newspaper, I assume you talk about it.’

My fingers trembled as I screwed the top back on a tube of titanium white. ‘Talk about what?’

‘Well… the article said that you were adopted when you were eight…’ Heat spilled into my face. ‘And that your name was changed—’

‘I don’t know where they got that.’ I untied my apron. ‘Now I really must—’

‘It said that your real father left when you were five.’

By now my heart was battering against my ribcage. ‘My real father is Roy Graham,’ I said quietly. ‘And that’s all there is to it.’ I hung my apron on its hook. ‘But thank you for coming.’ I opened the studio door. ‘If you could let yourself out…’

Clare gave me a puzzled smile. ‘Of course.’

As soon as she’d gone, I furiously rubbed at my paint-stained fingers with a turps-soaked rag then quickly washed my face and tidied my hair. I put on some black trousers and my green velvet coat and was about to go and unlock my bike when I remembered that the front light was broken. I groaned. I’d have to get the bus, or a cab – whichever turned up first. At least Chelsea Old Town Hall wasn’t far.

I ran up to the King’s Road and got to the stop just as a number 11 was pulling up, its windows blocks of yellow in the gathering dusk.

As we trundled over the bridge I reflected bitterly on Clare’s intrusiveness, yet she’d only repeated what she’d read in The Times. I felt a burst of renewed fury that something so intensely private was now online…

‘Would you please take that paragraph out,’ I’d asked the reporter, Hamish Watt, when I’d tracked him down an hour or so after I’d first seen the article. As I’d gripped the phone my knuckles were white. ‘I was horrified when I saw it – please remove it.’

‘No,’ he’d replied. ‘It’s part of the story.’

‘But you didn’t ask me about it,’ I’d protested. ‘When you interviewed me at the National Portrait Gallery last week you talked only about my work.’

‘Yes – but I already had some background about you – that your mother had been a dancer, for example. I also happened to know a bit about your family circumstances.’