Page 74 of The Next Chapter

Art was the only subject I was actively discouraged from pursuing at school. My art teacher said I was A* for effort, which is code for ‘struggles with stick people’.

I think the issue is, there are so few rules with art. And beautiful art is subjective.

Which is why, when Lola calls from behind her own easel that we should ‘paint what we feel’, a little bit of me dies inside.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s no doubt about it, the backdrop is beautiful. There are shimmering lochs and dark craggy mountains for as far as the eye can see.

Plus, the loch, with the mountains reflected in it, it’s just beautiful. No wonder Noah worries he won’t capture it in his writing.

And no doubt about it, I’d rather be painting the loch than actively on it. Or worse, skydiving over it. Lola’s hotel can crumble to the ground, a burning pile of financial ruin, before I throw myself out of a plane.

I remind myself that I’m here to gather intel on the guest experience, and that it doesn’t matter that my trees look like a three-year-old has painted them.

It’s all about the guest experience.

And so far, the guest experience has involved us driving a mile or so away from the hotel in the rickety hotel minibus, standing in a field and being instructed to paint. A little bit of extra guidance wouldn’t go amiss. It was the same with kayaking. Lola maybe needs to realize that most people are trying this stuff for the first time.

‘That’s an interesting perspective, Harper.’ Lola is doing the rounds. There are only five of us here. Harper and her foster family, and me. Lola definitely needs to be doing a bit more marketing. No reason that people from town couldn’t come to this. There are loads of artists on Skye. It’s that sort of place.

Harper is next to me. She’s painted the whole thing in black and red. It’s like a massacre on canvas. On my other side, Blake has painted Spiderman. Or what I think is Spiderman. The watercolours have sort of run together so he looks to be melting. Whatever it is, it isn’t a scenic mountain vista.

I plough on, doggedly determined to produce one noticeable feature of the landscape.

I swish the paintbrush across the bottom of my canvas, flooding it with blue. It’s more turquoise than the deathly dark blue of the loch. It looks like I’m painting a tropical bay.

‘You could concentrate on adding more of the reflection, see there, how the trees are mirrored in the water?’ Lola points to the distance, over my shoulder.

I do see it, the trees reflection on the lake. It’s lovely. Really beautiful. But Lola must be out of her mind if she’s looked at my painting and thought that I’m a person capable of replicating that on a canvas. My sun has actual yellow beams coming off it.

‘I’ll give it my best shot,’ I say, through gritted teeth, thinking that once again, a little more instruction wouldn’t go amiss. Maybe Lola could get an actual artist to run the session.

Lola nods and goes to move on, but before she can I say quickly, ‘Just checking that you’re still okay for another session tomorrow morning?’ I drop my voice in case she doesn’t want anyone to hear.

‘Yes, Lily, that’s fine.’ She looks away.

‘Great,’ I say, jabbing my brush at the canvas in an attempt to create a tree reflection. It looks shit. ‘I’ll come to the office, shall I? Usual time?’

Lola nods and moves on.

It’s only when she goes that I realize how fast my heart is beating.

* * *

I’m waiting for my second session with Lola.

It could be that my limbs are just puddles of goo and I can’t quite summon the energy to be stressed, but a part of me feels less tense than the first time we met. I don’t know what I’d expected, but hearing about Lola’s childhood definitely made her seem less scary.

This morning, Lola is ready, waiting for me in the lobby. That’s good. I don’t need to be hanging around thinking. Thinking is bad. Given thinking time, I might relive last night with Noah, which was strained and a little awkward.

We had at least produced a programme of work for the hotel.

Programmes of work might be my idea of foreplay, but they’re no one else’s. We’ve planned out everything we can fit into five weeks. Noah, who seems to be able to turn his hand to basically anything, is going to do most of it. Then, I’d shaken his hand and practically thrown him out of my cottage. At the time, it had felt like a win. This morning, not so much.

‘Breakfast is done.’ Lola interrupts my thoughts. Today her dungarees are khaki green. She’s wearing a loose purple shirt underneath, her hair in its usual long plait. I catch a glimpse of the pair of us in the mirror that hangs on the wall opposite the reception desk. She’s so tan compared to me. We’re like chalk and cheese, the tanned and pasty version.

I follow Lola into the back office, not even protesting when she sits on the stool again. At least there’s no giant dog this time. I pull out my phone. ‘Same as last session, if that’s okay?’ I ask her.

She gives a little staccato nod. It’s reserved Lola today, then.