Page 72 of Bare
‘I'll survive.’ He grinned at her.
‘Oh, I like him,’ Gemma said to Neil.
‘Everyone likes him,’ Neil said. ‘It's insufferable.’
The party continued. Rory was, as predicted, brilliant with the children. He set up an art station on the trestle table in the garden, paper, poster paint, brushes he'd brought from school. Within twenty minutes, twelve children were painting monsters and trees and one ambitious rendering of a spaceship that required three colours and Rory's personal supervision.
He crouched, adjusted grips, asked questions. ‘What colour is the sky in your picture?’ ‘Any colour I want.’ ‘That's the right answer.’
A boy named Oliver painted a dinosaur eating a car. Rory studied it with real seriousness. ‘The perspective's good. The dinosaur's dominant. The car's in trouble.’
‘The car's already dead. The dinosaur ate the engine.’
‘Then the dinosaur has indigestion. Engines are hard to digest.’
‘Dinosaurs can digest ANYTHING.’
‘Anything but catalytic converters. Trust me.’
Alyssa, the girl who'd declared purple was both warm and cool, was working on a portrait of her cat. The cat had seven legs. Rory asked why. ‘Because she moves so fast it looks like she has more legs than she does. I'm painting what it feels like, not what it looks like.’
Rory stopped. Looked at the painting. Looked at Alyssa. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is exactly how it works.’
Neil watched from the back door. The art station in front of him, Rory at the centre, sleeves pushed back, paint already on his forearms, talking to children with the same focused attention he brought to his own canvases.
Freddie painted beside him. Without looking sideways. The bold, unselfconscious strokes Rory had identified in September. Green. Always green.
Sue Dhillon appeared at Neil's shoulder. Glass of prosecco. Hobnob.
‘He's good with them,’ she said. Casual.
‘He's the art teacher. It's his job.’
‘I've seen art teachers who are their job. That's not his job. That's his vocation.’ She bit the hobnob. ‘You two work well together.’
‘We work on the mural.’
‘I know what you work on.’ She looked at him. The look lasted one second longer than professional. Then: ‘You seem happy, Neil. Whatever's causing it, don't mess it up.’
He already had.
In the garden, Malcolm had found a purpose. He was trimming Neil's hedge, which had not requested trimming, with shears he'd brought from home.
‘Your hedge is disgraceful,’ Malcolm said.
‘I'll get to it, Dad.’
‘I'm getting to it now. A man's hedge is his responsibility.’
‘It's a privet, Dad, not a moral statement.’
‘Everything's a moral statement. Hedges included.’
Malcolm worked the shears. Snip. Snip. Then, not looking up: ‘Your mother’s quieter than usual today. You know what that means.’
‘What does it mean, Dad?’
‘It means she’s thinking. Stay out of the road until she stops.’ The blades opened and closed. The privet fell in neat arcs.
