The Tied Man

‘I’m duly warned.’

‘Good.  Then we’re sorted.  So, what do I do now?’ Finn asked.

‘Just… be.  Do the stuff you would usually do. Forget I’m here.’

‘Right, so I’ll just ignore the wee midget on the flying carpet then, huh?  No problem.’  Finn’s smile returned with a brightness to rival the sun, and I knew that this morning’s work would be the best I had done at Albermarle.  Without even looking at the page, I began to capture my latest sitter in his element.

Finn

It was weird at first.  Lilith’s exhortation that I should ‘forget she was there’ felt impossible, especially as she was cross-legged in the centre of one of the ugliest rugs I had ever seen,  but the longer she sat in silence with her pencil making mad flurries across the page, the easier it got.  Soon she became part of the landscape, and I got on with the task at hand, relishing the sun’s warmth on my shoulders as I worked.

*****

‘That’s me just about done.’ Lilith put her pencil down on the rug in a definitive gesture.  She glanced at her watch.  ‘Four hours.  Not a bad shift.’

‘Jesus, really?  That long?  I’d reckoned maybe two.’

‘Yup.  The sign of a good sitting – time flashing by without either of us noticing,’ she smiled.  ‘Well, it was good for me, anyway.  Want to see?’ She turned the pad towards me.

‘No.  Not that I don’t think it’ll be any good, it’s just…’  I tailed off, wondering how the hell I might explain that I had no wish to look at myself, just to be reminded of who I had become.

‘I understand.’

Anyone else, I would accuse them of bullshitting.  But Lilith knew, I was certain of that.

‘This is you, though,’ she continued.  ‘Your image.  I’d hate her to have it without you seeing it first.’  She held out the sketch once more, gently insistent.  ‘It’s not the same as looking in a mirror.’

I sighed and reluctantly took the pad from her hands and forced myself to look.  ‘Wow,’ I managed.  I wanted to say that it wasn’t me, that she had missed the bruise that still throbbed sullenly against my cheekbone, the dark circles that framed my eyes, and skin that felt as though it was nothing more than hide stretched over a frame.  The version of Finn Strachan that I held in my hands had none of these, had not let himself be buggered until he bled onto the sheets, or be slapped around by some smug little twat who was just asking to be buried.

But it was breathtaking all the same.  And despite the omissions it was undeniably me.

‘I see what I want to see,’ Lilith said by way of explanation.  ‘It just happens that I’m bloody good at it.’

‘Wow.’ I was still caught up in my own eyes that laughed up at me from the page.

‘Praise indeed.’

‘Yeah, I’m an international art critic on the quiet.’  I handed the pad back to Lilith.  ‘Sorry – feel like I should have managed something a little more profound.’

‘It’s all in the first reaction. And yours was a good one.’

‘Did you expect anything less?’

‘I hoped you’d like it.  It mattered, you know?’  She held my gaze until I had to look away and pull at the strands of grass beneath my knees.  Right then I wanted to make the afternoon stretch on forever, but even as I nodded in reply, the sight of the launch returning to the island snatched everything away.

Lilith

We watched as a hard-faced woman in her early forties, head-to-toe in Chanel, stepped from the little boat.

‘Tonight’s guest,’ Finn explained.  ‘Laura Fenworth.  Some investment banker or other.  Two and a half million a year before the bonuses, houses in London and Provence, and as miserable as sin.  The cat’s-arse mouth of a reluctant divorcee if ever I saw one, and just desperate to take it out on someone.’

‘What, are you going all psychic on me now?’

‘Nah.  It says so in her letter.’

‘Her what?’

Finn gave a rueful smile.  ‘Ah shit, you won’t know about that, will you?  If a guest’s booked in for the full works, they get asked to write a letter.  A few intimate details so Blaine can set things up exactly to their liking.  It also lets her set her trap just right, the devious old cow.  If she’s in a good mood, I get to have a look.’

‘Bloody hell.  I never got to write a letter,’ I complained, mock-indignant.