Page 24 of The Edge of Always

Chapter Seven

NOW

The Weight of Light: Oil on canvas. Bold, raw and charged, this is Spencer’s most Expressionist piece and demonstrates the influence of the post-war movement on his work. Spencer focuses on distorting the waves of the Seine using frenetic, swirling brushstrokes to create an atmospheric piece which is as intense and passionate as it is beautiful. c. 2005.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I say, my voice less sharp than I’d like it to be.

The colours of Earl’s painting go blurry behind my watery eyes. So much time has passed, how can it be that Emmett is here, in the gallery? And he is. He’s really here. What is he doing? I look at him, and already the anger that I felt moments ago is disappearing. Replaced by what, I don’t know. I have no words, none at all.

He looks better, that’s what I think. He’s wearing a light grey shirt and trousers, proper trousers. I don’t think I ever saw teenage Emmett in anything other than scratty jeans. Now, he looks polished as if time has taken teenage Emmett and scrubbed the past and all its problems from him.

I’ve now been frowning and weeping for some time. ‘What are you doing here?’ I ask him again, and I’d love to say that my voice isn’t shaky, but that would be a lie.

‘I came to see the painting,’ he answers.

‘Well, it’s there.’ I gesture to the wall.

Someone shushes us.

I go back to looking at the painting and reading the information on the little card at the side of it.

The Edge of Always… date unknown.

I’m aware of Emmett out of the corner of my eye. He’s twisting his hands together where they’re resting on his knee.

‘Luna, we need to talk.’

‘Do we?’

The desire to be cool and calm in this situation is overwhelming. I’ve played this out so many times in my head already, what it would be like if I ever saw Emmett again, how I would act. There were versions where I ran into his arms, jumped up, and kissed him passionately, versions where I just walked away because it hurt too much, and versions where I told him everything about what’s happened since we broke up, about how no love has ever compared to him, how I’m sure that loving him back then broke me in a way that I’ve never been able to recover from. In no version was I silently weeping.

‘You’re in the painting, Luna.’

Another shush.

‘Yes, I know.’

I have nothing else. I’m in the painting. I’m in the painting and I don’t understand why. I don’t understand why I’m there, and here. I don’t understand how it can be that past me and present me, two people that are so wholly different that I thought they could never be reconciled, are here, in the same space. I’m not the person from The Time Before, I’m not the person in the painting. And yet she’s me, and I am her. And how can that be?

The gallery fills up around us, blocking our view of the painting. Someone claps their hands, and when I look up, there’s a woman in a suit with many gold buttons talking in rapid French. I’ve little hope of understanding her until she says, ‘And welcome to this, the opening of our new exhibit showcasing the works of Earl Josef Spencer. I’m Mari Marigold, curator of this space.’

This is the woman who was quoted in the Rise Art article, the one who said that Earl is her favourite artist.

Mari’s off in French again. I listen intently, trying to follow along, to do anything which might quiet the unease that’s rolling off me, making my limbs stiff and straight.

‘Meet me tonight,’ Emmett mutters.

I don’t reply.

‘Luna, meet me later.’

Nothing.

Emmett belongs in the past.

I think I glean from Mari’s speech that they believe this must have been Earl’s last painting, since the composition is new. It sparks some long-forgotten memory… one that’s been crowded out by everything else that happened that summer…

‘Luna.’