Page 6 of The Edge of Always

Chapter Two

‘What about your vibrator? Which one are you taking? Should you take two? Sex toys are obligatory in Paris. The French carry them around like lip balm.’

Mae, a woman who has never been to Paris, or France for that matter, is in my bedroom, ‘helping’ me to pack. By which I mean she’s rifling through the drawers of my bedside table and throwing things onto the enormous pile of stuff already taking up the bed.

I’m in a state of suspended animation, frozen with something that feels like shock, or fear, or possibly good old-fashioned overwhelm at the speed at which Mae had booked me a trip to Paris.

But she was right in one respect. Once I realised that I am in the painting, I can’t not go and see it.

As a general rule, I don’t do things like this. I don’t go on last-minute trips to Paris to see a mystery painting of myself that’s about to be on display in one of the most famous art museums in the whole entire world.

I think I’m hyperventilating. What is happening? I don’t even go into cafés where they play the radio too loud.

My shock has rendered me incapacitated, which is why Mae has taken control of the packing situation. From what I can see, a turquoise bra has wound its way around a hairbrush. She’s trying to ram my entire wardrobe into a little wheelie case.

‘So do you think two will be enough?’

Shock aside, at the news that I’m about to take a plethora of vibrators on a three-day trip to Paris, I decide to become more actively involved in the packing process.

I, too, start to rifle. It’s chaos. And usually I’m fine with chaos. The whole cottage is chaotic – like this room. Possibly, I’m just a cliched artist till I die, but I’d painted every corner of it, I even put a mural on the ceiling before it became a thing that home renovators did online. I’d once had a quick fling with a man who described the room as like waking up in a fever dream. He’d messaged me weeks later to tell me that the taxidermied squirrel I have on my bookshelf was his new sleep paralysis demon.

Mae let me paint her room, too. She’s in the one we used to share. She says that it’s karma for Mum that I turned out like this. Earl used to say that we could be anything we wanted in life, as long as we weren’t dull. ‘Live a life of colour, Luna.’ I’d told Mum what he’d said, and she’d called it a load of leftie nonsense. But I’d taken his words to heart. I was different then.

I wonder what Earl would think if he could see me now.

‘I don’t need any vibrators,’ I tell Mae, hobbling over to where she’s still in my bedside table. She throws half a packet of tissues on top of the mountain of stuff.

‘But French people are so horny. And you’re going to see art. Art always makes you horny.’

‘Not a painting of myself.’

She pauses for a second.

‘I turn myself on all the time.’

‘No vibrators.’

‘Urgh, fine. If you’re determined to make this trip as unfun as possible.’

‘You’re basically making me go.’ This isn’t exactly true, but it was Mae’s idea.

‘Yes, yes, how awful, being sent on a compulsory mini-break to Paris. My heart bleeds. And I used my credit card to pay for the hotel, I paid extra for a view of the Eiffel Tower and everything. Even you can’t be depressed in Paris.’

‘I’m not depressed,’ I huff and keep packing. ‘I just have a complete lack of hope. Which is realistic and sensible.’

‘Oh yeah, that’s lovely, that is. A complete lack of hope. Great way to live.’

We pack in silence after that.

‘I think that’s everything,’ I tell Mae, adding the little mic I use to record videos to my rucksack and then, when there’s nothing else to do with my hands, nothing else I can do to distract myself from my complete lack of hope, I sit on the edge of the bed and stress. ‘Where could the painting have come from? Earl would have told us if he’d sold one.’

Mae pauses and leans on the windowsill. Both of the bedrooms are at the back of the cottage, looking out over the long lawn.

‘Maybe Gregor had it but only sold it recently?’

Gregor was Earl’s art dealer. He was about a hundred and two, talked about the Russian Revolution as if he lived through it, and consumed an entirely vodka-based diet. I’ve no idea how he’s still alive after all this time.

‘Yeah, maybe. It’s still weird that we knew nothing about it.’