Girl A(13)

The colleges languished behind their gates, sleeping all summer.

Ana saw me coming along the street and waved from an upstairs window. I could see the flurry of her through the misted glass at the front door, just before she opened it.

If Ethan could have ordered a wife, it might have been Ana Islip. Her father had taught History of Art at the university for many years, and her mother was a minor member of a Greek shipping dynasty; distant enough to stay away from the business side of things, but sufficiently related to receive a monthly allowance. Ethan connected with Ana’s father at Art Attack, which was an Oxford City Council initiative to rehabilitate victims of violent crime through art, and – having invited himself to a dinner at the Islip residence, which was out along the river, and made entirely of wood and glass – met Ana ten days later.

‘Art Attack?’ I said, when they narrated the story to me together. They each had assigned parts, and knew them well. ‘Is that really what it’s called?’

‘Yes,’ Ana said. Ethan, smiling, looked elsewhere.

On the day of the lunch, Ana had been swimming in the Isis. She was still drying off in her costume, on the bank, when Ethan arrived. It was a terrible day for him to be early.

‘A fortuitous day,’ Ethan said, and raised his glass.

Ana was an artist. She smelt, softly, of paint, and different colours scuffed her limbs. In each room of the house in Summertown, her canvases hung on the walls, or rested against them. She painted water, and the way that light fell on it: she painted the green-grey surface of the Isis, barely disturbed, and the ocean in the very last sunray before a storm. She painted the tremor of somebody setting down a mug of tea. There was an Ana Islip painting in my loft in New York, of the ocean twinkling under the afternoon sun. ‘Greece,’ she had written, on the accompanying card. ‘My second home. Ethan said that you would like it.’

She flung open the door and embraced me. ‘Your mother,’ she said. ‘God, I’m sorry.’

‘Really. There’s no need to be.’

‘It must be complicated,’ she said, and brightened, glad to have that part over with. ‘Ethan’s in the garden. Go, go. He opened the wine, even after I told him to wait. Oh, Lex. You look like you haven’t slept in a week.’

I walked through the wood-panelled hallway, past Ana’s studio and the living room, and out to the kitchen. Here, the house opened to the garden. The summer evening slanted down the skylights and drifted in through the great double doors. The conversion had been an engagement present from Ana’s parents. Ethan’s dog, Horace, lolloped inside to greet me. Ethan was sitting outside, with his back to the house. ‘Hello, Lex,’ he said. The sun was near-parallel with the earth, and for a moment all I could see was the white shock of his hair. He could have been any one of us.

I had last seen him in London, six months before, when he invited me to a panel discussion at the Royal Academy. The discussion was titled ‘Education and Inspiration: Teaching the Young Artist’, and Ethan was the chair. I arrived late, after drinks with Devlin – too late, conceivably, to enter the auditorium – and waited for him in the bar. Each table had a stack of cardboard flyers advertising the event, with a painting of two small children entering the ocean on the front, and descriptions of the speakers on the back.

Ethan Charles Gracie is Headmaster at Wesley School in Oxford. The school has a distinguished history and track record in the arts, and a number of acclaimed art initiatives at different age groups. At the time of his appointment, Ethan was one of the youngest headteachers in the country. Ethan is a trustee of several charities in Oxfordshire, has advised the government on education reforms, and gives lectures and seminars internationally, which address how education has helped him to overcome personal trauma.

I ordered another drink. The doors opened, and the crowd chattered in from the auditorium. Ethan was one of the last people to emerge, talking to two men in suits, and a woman wearing a lanyard. He caught my eye and a smile crossed his face, just so; none of the others even looked in my direction. He was holding a heavy jacket over one arm, and coming to a punchline. His palms turned up, to catch the laughter. He told a story just as Father did, with the same conviction, the telling of it travelling through his sinews and his muscles, through his whole body, but leaving his mouth and his eyes impassive, as if there was a faulty connection just beneath the face. People were waiting to speak to him, hovering at the periphery of his presence. I sat back. I would have to wait, too.

He found me thirty minutes later, and three drinks down. ‘Hello,’ he said, and kissed me on each cheek. ‘Well. How did you find it?’

‘It was very interesting,’ I said.

‘Did you like the suggestion,’ he said, ‘about the treehouses?’

‘Oh, yes. That was one of my favourite parts.’

‘You didn’t even come in, did you.’

I looked at him and laughed. He laughed, too.

‘I was at work,’ I said. ‘But I’m sure that you were wonderful. How are you? How’s Ana?’

‘She couldn’t make it. Sorry – I was hoping she would be somebody for you to talk to. She’s not well. I think it’s – that nineteenth-century affliction – the artistic one. Very upper-class. What’s the name of it?’

‘Hysteria?’

‘Less serious.’