Free Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale Page A

might have been done and what style she was working in then. He stared impatiently at the small, complacent smiles with which people were looking at it, then it arrived in Lizzy’s hands and she placed it in his so they could look at it together.
    It was small, perhaps eight inches by five, oil on board, and was almost entirely canary yellow except for a thin, uneven orange line that seemed to burn a horizon across its middle. The uninitiated might think it a painting she could have done in minutes with three or four large strokes of a paint-laden brush but he knew that it was made of layer upon layer of tiny strokes like the scales of a butterfly’s iridescence and that the positioning and precise shade of the orange would have caused her agonies of indecision.
    He had half-expected a daub of a kitten or a sunflower – a madhouse offering not even by her – but though unsigned, this was as recognizably hers as her own scarred wrists or thin, vulnerable neck, and it brought such a burning to his throat and eyes and a sense of loss to his heart that he could hardly bear to give it up; Lizzy had gently to prise it from his hands and pass it on for him.
    He saw Oliver, who worked for her old Cork Street gallery, turning pale with desire as it approached him and made himself look up at the ceiling because he did not want to think about Hedley and Oliver or of money just now but of his mother.
    And then, before the picture had quite completed its circle, Lizzy stood up, in that neat way she had, with her knees together, that made her seem to uncurl. Garfield didn’t know where to look. Not at his father and brothercertainly, but not at strangers either, for fear of watching their reactions. He was at once proud – ‘This is my beautiful wife speaking!’ – and aghast – ‘This is my beautiful wife speaking!’ much as parents must often feel when obliged to watch their children perform in public.
    Lizzy was a Birthright Quaker like him and yet she claimed never to have spoken in Meeting. It was one of the things they first found they had in common. ‘I think of it,’ she said, ‘but then the moment passes and it no longer seems right.’ One of the jokes she had cracked a little too often for it to be funny any more was that there should be a neat phrase for the Quaker equivalent of esprit de l’escalier , for the ministry one thought of making but never quite made.
    He decided to look, very hard, at his hands.
    ‘Garfield and I have been trying to have a child for some time now,’ she said and he clenched his fingers together in his lap. ‘And I’ve been wondering whether one of the reasons it’s taking us so long is fear that a child of ours might have the same mental health challenges as its grandmother. But – this sounds awful probably – but if a child of ours did have those challenges but could produce a painting like that, we’d have nothing to fear. We’d be blessed.’
    She sat, less elegantly than she had stood because the chair had moved and she had to fumble for it. She laid a cool hand on Garfield’s and smiled across at the woman who was now returning her precious painting to its carrier bag. ‘Thank you for bringing us that,’ she murmured.
    The silent minutes that followed passed slowly. Garfield continued to stare at his hands, aware of the clicking ofthe stove and the ticking of the clock and of every sigh and breath around him. At last the woman who had started the Meeting glanced at the clock then shook her neighbour’s hand and the ripple of greeting that ran round the room signalled the Meeting’s end.
    Everyone watched in silence as the undertakers carried the coffin out; then Antony followed them and Hedley and Garfield fell in behind as a pair, each spontaneously dropping their partner to walk together. Garfield felt he should apologize for Lizzy but found himself so clogged with unshed tears that he couldn’t speak.
    ‘I know,’ Hedley said softly, his eyes as pink and