When You Are Mine(35)

‘Are you OK?’

‘Fine.’

‘Did something happen?’

‘No.’

We talk in the sitting room, which my mother refers to as ‘the parlour’, making the place sound grander than a two-bedroom flat overlooking the railway lines that lead north from Euston station. On the coffee table I notice an open sketchbook with a half-finished drawing done in charcoal. A portrait.

‘That looks like me,’ I say, moving closer.

Tempe quickly closes the sketchbook.

‘Can I see it?’

‘No.’

‘Is it me?’

‘Sort of.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I was doing it from memory.’

‘Please let me see.’

She is holding the sketchbook against her chest, but lets me prise it free. I open the page. The portrait is stunning. The eyes and ears and mouth are done, but the hair isn’t finished. I’m amazed at how few lines or smudges she has needed to capture me.

I turn another page and find another partially finished drawing. My eyes seem to stare back at me in monochrome.

‘Don’t look at those,’ she says. ‘I had a few false starts.’

These aren’t portraits, but fragments. My eyes. My ears. My nose. It’s as though Tempe has broken down my face into separate parts and practised each one before putting them together.

‘I wanted to give you something … for the wedding … if it’s good enough,’ she says anxiously.

‘These are beautiful,’ I whisper.

‘I was going to ask you to sit for me, but I thought you might say no, and people never sit still enough. They fidget and talk.’

‘How many hours does it take?’

‘Depends on how quickly I draw.’ She laughs nervously and takes the book from me. ‘It’s a hobby.’

‘It should be more. You’re very good.’

‘Did you want to talk about the wedding?’ she asks.

‘No. Something else.’

For a moment, all is still, and Tempe looks at me so expectantly that I contemplate not telling her.

‘I saw Darren Goodall today.’

I expect to see fear in her eyes, but instead I see acceptance or inevitability.

‘Was he angry?’

‘He says you took something from him.’

‘Nothing I wasn’t owed.’

‘What does that mean?’

She shakes her head.

‘If you took something—’

‘I took what belonged to me,’ she says again, more adamantly. Her eyebrows lift. ‘You didn’t tell him where I am?’

‘No, of course not. And he’d be stupid to approach you.’ I’m trying to sound confident. ‘But we have to be careful.’

‘I am,’ she says confidently. ‘And you’ll teach me how to protect myself.’

If only that were enough.

We talk about the flat in Wandsworth. Uncle Clifton is arranging to put the gas and electricity under a company name so the bills can’t be traced back to Tempe.

‘You should avoid registering for anything. Don’t take out a phone plan, or change the address on your driver’s licence. Do you have a car?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Be careful of Uber accounts and delivery services. Pay cash where possible, and avoid withdrawing money from the same ATM.’

‘Why?’

‘It creates patterns that can be traced.’

We’re in the kitchen drinking tea from mugs and sitting on high stools, our knees almost touching. With her hair pinned up and her head tilted at an arrogant angle, she looks almost like a boy, but the roundness of her bosom and long dark eyelashes are unmistakably womanly.

‘Why won’t he let you go?’ I ask. ‘Is he in love with you?’

‘He thinks he owns me.’

Tempe is toying with the tag of a teabag, which is solidifying on a saucer between us.

‘Were you in love with him?’ I ask.

She crinkles her nose. ‘How can you tell?’

I laugh. ‘Oh, you know.’

‘How?’ she asks, and I realise she’s being serious.

‘Surely you’ve been in love?’

‘Me? No. I’m a sucker for romantic movies. I’m a Richard Curtis junkie. Love Actually. Notting Hill. Four Weddings and a Funeral. But stuff like that doesn’t happen in real life – not to me.’

‘One day it will,’ I say, but it sounds too easy and neat. ‘He abuses her too,’ I say. ‘His wife, I mean. She’s been treated in hospital.’

Tempe shrugs. ‘Pain gets him off.’

‘And you accepted that?’

‘Not really, but he seemed to enjoy it.’

She must see the look of horror on my face.

‘I could have stopped him,’ she says defensively. ‘But he seemed to like those things and I wanted to make him happy.’

‘Women shouldn’t have to be subjugated or brutalised to make men happy.’

‘We all make sacrifices.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Really?’ Her eyebrow is raised. ‘Who makes the most important decisions, you or Henry?’