Times Like These Read online

  ‘Stunning. You look stunning.’

  The tightness in Bianca’s chest eased. ‘I couldn’t put makeup on.’ She touched her face. ‘God, I must look a fright. It’s been ages since I’ve been able to pluck my eyebrows.’

  ‘You look gorgeous, honestly. Let’s go for a drive in this sunshine, shall we?’ Merren’s voice came closer and a gentle hand touched Bianca on the upper arm. ‘It’s supposed to rain tomorrow.’

  Bianca edged down the last step, her sandals dangling from one hand. She wasn’t good with shoes around the house, she’d discovered. It felt safer to have bare feet, or at most thick socks now she was reduced to shuffling about.

  ‘How do you know it’s going to rain?’ she asked, moving towards the brighter rectangle of the front door. ‘Is the sky clouding over?’

  Merren chuckled. ‘The sky is a clear blue,’ she said. ‘I checked the weather app.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘You have a mobile phone?’

  Bianca had her shoulder bag with her, but she shook her head. ‘No. Well, actually yes, but I don’t know where it is.’ She stepped out through the front door and shuffled around, waiting for Merren to pass beside her.

  The woman was a drift of warm air as she stepped past her.

  ‘We’ll have to find it for you.’

  Bianca nodded, distracted, then shook her head. ‘The battery will be flat by now. It could be anywhere. I keep putting it down and not being able to find it again.’ She juggled shoes and bag and tried to pick the keys out of her bag.

  ‘Well, we’ll find it for you anyway. I can set it up if you like, so you can check the weather, and even find it when you lose it.’

  The key slid into the lock and Bianca turned it, then dropped it back into her bag, making sure they were secure. ‘I can’t even see to make a phone call on it,’ she said. ‘How am I supposed to open up the apps?’

  ‘What sort is it?’

  She shook her head and stepped off the doorstep. ‘I don’t know. Not an Apple, or anything. Just some generic thing. I didn’t pay much for it – which is just as well, since it’s probably been through a dozen cycles in the dishwasher or something by now.’ She laughed, surprising herself by not feeling quite the usual tight frustration with a tail-end of despair.

  ‘So,’ she said, stepping down the path onto the driveway, feeling Merren moving easily at her side. ‘Have you decided where we’re going?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me?’

  ‘I might.’

  She threw out a hand and groped around to find Merren, and fingers caught her own. ‘I don’t want to go out in any crowds,’ she said.

  ‘Nope,’ Merren said blessedly. We’ll just go for a walk along the beach. But not a crowded one.’

  They’d arrived at Merren’s car, and she’d opened the door so that Bianca could fold herself into the passenger’s seat. She arranged herself as neatly as possible in there.

  The driver’s door opened. ‘A beach would be lovely,’ Bianca said, then gave a shaky laugh. ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this. It’s like being almost human again.’

  ‘I always go for a walk along the beach when I’m having a hard time,’ Merren said, and a moment later they were rolling down her driveway and pulling out onto the road.

  Bianca blinked. ‘Don’t you have to turn the car on?’

  Merren laughed, that sound of tumbling water. ‘It is on.’

  ‘No way.’ Bianca reached out and held on to the arm rest on the door with one hand and clutched at thin air with the other. Merren caught it and squeezed her fingers.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Electric cars are awesomely quiet.’

  ‘It’s disorienting. It feels wrong.’

  Merren tucked her hand onto her warm thigh and patted it. ‘Hold on to me,’ she said. ‘I’ll put some music on, so you don’t feel like you’re just floating through the air so much. How would that be?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Bianca said, pressing her hand against Merren’s leg, glad to have it there, and disconcerted by the casual intimacy of it at the same time. She swallowed. ‘Yeah, music would be good.’

  Merren moved, and there was a soft click, and Bianca found herself laughing.

  ‘The Rolling Stones?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh shit. It’s a bit retro, I know,’ Merren said, and the music stopped suddenly. ‘I’ll put the radio on instead.’

  ‘No, please don’t turn it off,’ Bianca said. ‘I love that song.’ She breathed out, relaxing a little, sinking back into the seat.

  ‘Are you sure? None of my friends like the Stones.’

  ‘How old are your friends?’ Bianca asked wryly.

  There was a pause that felt a little embarrassed on Merren’s part. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I guess you’re right.’

  Bianca shrugged. ‘They were before my time too, but not by so much. Anyway. Turn it back on.’

  A moment later and Mick Jagger was crooning again. Wild horses, he told them, wouldn’t drag him away.

  Bianca felt around for the window controls, lowered the window beside her until she could feel the sun and wind on her face. She felt like she was flying and kept her other hand exactly where Merren had put it, anchoring herself to the other woman. It felt surprisingly good. Safe.

  ‘You know I won’t let you,’ she sang softly along to the music, ‘slide through my hands.’

  Chapter Ten

  Merren joined in, singing, smiling. ‘Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.’

  The chorus ended, and they both wound down to silence. Merren cleared her throat, reached out, and turned the volume down.

  ‘You have a lovely singing voice,’ she said.

  Bianca shook her head, curls bouncing. ‘You’re just being kind,’ she answered, but she had a proper smile on her face. ‘You, on the other hand – do you do a lot of singing?’

  ‘Hell no!’ Merren shook her head emphatically. ‘Only in the shower, you know. Or when I’m doing housework.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I like playing music pretty loud when I’m cleaning the house.’

  Bianca looked like she was gazing out the front windscreen, but Merren had already deduced that her best vision was peripheral, and so could be looking at her right now. She felt a slow blush climb up from her neck, despite the fact that the woman next to her wasn’t able to see much in the way of detail. Her hand too, was still on her thigh where Merren had laid it without thinking about it. Now she was thinking about it.

  ‘Where do you live?’ Bianca was asking. ‘I mean, do you still live at home? I know you’re a university student, right?’

  ‘I have my own place. Moved into it around the beginning of the year. I’d get too fat living at home – Mum does a lot of baking.’

  ‘A flat? You have flatmates?’

  It was a reasonable question, Merren knew. Most students flatted, especially with the cost of housing. But still, in this case, she wasn’t most.

  ‘Nope,’ she replied. ‘I live on my own. Have a great little place. The Burrow, I call it.’

  ‘The Burrow?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s down below road-level, you see. Tucked quite far down, real snug.’ She shrugged. ‘So, I named it The Burrow.’

  Bianca appeared to think about that. ‘That’s sweet,’ she said. ‘The Burrow. I like it.’ Her head tipped to the side in the way that Merren discovered she was already very fond of. ‘It sounds cosy.’

  She thought of her little house. ‘It is cosy. Only two bedrooms, and the living area is tiny, but I like it. I don’t need much space. I just need to like where I am.’

  Bianca turned her head to the window, which she had down, the breeze pushing her hair back from her face. Merren steered the car towards the Peninsula, looking forward to the moment Bianca could smell the water.

  ‘My house is far too big for me now.’ Bianca said with a pained wince and her hand dug into Merren’s thigh before moving away finally. Merren wanted to reach out and bring it back. �
�But I guess it always was. It’s not like it’s suddenly grown. Although not being able to see as well makes it feel rather like it has.’

  ‘Your house is gorgeous,’ Merren said. ‘I love it. And the gardens are beautiful – I had a little wander around them while you were getting changed.’ She hadn’t looked through the house though, as much as she’d wanted to. But the gardens had been too hard to resist.

  ‘They must be so overgrown.’ Bianca’s answer came with a sigh. ‘I still have someone mow the lawn, but I’ve been neglecting the garden.’

  ‘With good reason,’ Merren reminded her.

  Bianca shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve been ignoring it for longer than that. Since Bess died.’

  ‘Bess?’ Merren asked anyway, knowing who Bess was, thanks to meeting Beverley the day before. Then decided that was disingenuous. ‘She was your wife, right?’

  Bianca’s face turned towards her. ‘How do you know?’

  They stopped at an intersection. Merren kept her hands loosely on the steering wheel. ‘I don’t really. But you’re pretty famous around these parts, Bianca. It’s hard not to know the basic facts of your biography.’

  Her face turned away, silent.

  ‘Beverley told me. She and I modelled together at the Art School.’ Merren shook her head and waited for the light to turn green. ‘I don’t remember Beverley’s last name, but she sat for one of the paintings you did that the Public Art Gallery bought.’

  ‘I am at a disadvantage,’ Bianca said at last. ‘Of course, I should be used to people knowing things about me.’ She raised a hand and lightly touched her face. ‘It just seems harder to take now that I can’t see very well.’ She blinked. ‘I wonder why that is?’

  The car behind them sounded their horn, and Merren hastily looked away from Bianca and touched the accelerator.

  ‘I guess everything makes you a little more vulnerable at the moment,’ she said. ‘Understandably.’

  A barely perceptible nod. Then Bianca turned back towards Merren and reached out a hand, touched her shoulder. ‘I don’t want to be at a disadvantage sitting here next to you.’

  ‘Okay,’ Merren said uncertainly. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Something intimate,’ Bianca replied.

  Merren’s heart missed its next beat, scuttled about in her chest.

  ‘What?’ she squeaked.

  ‘Oh no. I don’t mean anything sexual.’

  ‘What do you mean, then?’ Her hands were damp against the steering wheel.

  ‘I don’t know. Where are we going?’

  The change of subject made Merren’s head swim. ‘Um, out around the Peninsula.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why the Peninsula?’

  ‘Oh.’ Merren flicked on her indicator and got into the right lane. The water was beside them now, the tide full, lapping up against the rocks beside the road. ‘Because I grew up around here and I love it.’

  A smile curved the corners of Bianca’s lips upwards, as though she’d come alive a little. Merren noticed it and thought getting her out of the house had been a good decision. ‘Take me to the house you grew up in. I want to see it.’

  What? ‘You want to see the house I grew up in?’

  An impatient wave of the hand. ‘I can’t cut the verb to see from my vocabulary, not after all these years. So, let’s just realise that when I say I want to see something, I mean in my own very special way.’ She gave a short, almost brittle, laugh.

  ‘All right,’ Merren answered. ‘But my mother still lives in the house I grew up in.’

  She saw Bianca nod, her face turned back towards the window.

  ‘And my Dad’s mother.’

  Bianca twisted towards her. ‘Your mother and her mother-in-law share a house? What about your father?’

  ‘Mum and Dad split up when I was a kid. But yeah, his mum moved in a few years ago.’

  Bianca’s grey eyes stared straight at her. It was disconcerting. Merren couldn’t quite get used to the fact that she wasn’t being clearly seen.

  But then, she decided, being clearly seen didn’t always require being looked at.

  That thought was no less unsettling, and she stared back out the windscreen, concentrating on her driving. The road around here was narrow and winding, although she’d been driving it since she was sixteen and knew it as well as she knew the branching veins on the back of her hand.

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Bianca said.

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Well, a little unusual, you have to admit. Your mother – she’s divorced, I take it?’

  Merren nodded. Then realised she needed to reply. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Years ago.’

  ‘To live with her mother-in-law, yes, that’s interesting.’ Bianca blinked, seemed to draw in a deep breath. ‘I want to meet them. Will they be home?’

  A bus stop was right ahead, and shocked, Merren pulled off the road into the little layby. She put the vehicle into park and turned to look at her passenger.

  ‘You want to meet my mother and grandmother?’

  Bianca gave her a suddenly serene smile. ‘I do, yes.’

  ‘But…’ Merren gazed out over the harbour. ‘But that’s a big leap – to go from not going out and about for a long time, to meeting my mum and gran. They are not unsocial people, if you get my meaning.’

  ‘I want to.’ Bianca settled herself deeper into her seat, placed her hands primly on her lap. ‘You were right. Getting out of the house like this makes me feel almost normal. And besides, you’re my new model. If we’re going to be working together over the summer, oughtn’t I know you better? Especially if I’m going to sit helplessly in your car. What better way is there to get to know something about you than to meet your family? Do you have brothers and sisters?’

  ‘Yes, but are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure. How many?’

  ‘How many what?’

  ‘Brothers and sisters.’

  A bus was coming up behind, its blinker on. Merren swivelled back towards the front and got the car moving. The traffic was light, but still she waited until she’d rounded the next corner.

  ‘One of each,’ she said at last. ‘An older brother and a younger sister.’

  Bianca smiled. ‘You’re the middle child, then.’

  ‘I guess so. I mean, yeah, I am.’ They passed the white building that had once been a carriage house for the castle far above them. They’d be at Merren’s childhood home in fifteen minutes. Her mother would be thrilled to see them.

  ‘The water smells wonderful,’ Bianca said, leaning her head against the door and closing her eyes. ‘This was such a good idea.’

  The muscles in Merren’s back and neck relaxed. ‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘I hoped it would be.’ She glanced out at the water, loving the view the same as she always did. ‘We could still go for a walk along my favourite beach. That’s something, isn’t it?’

  Bianca shook her head lazily, eyes still closed. ‘No. I want to meet your family. I want to know things about you – from secondary sources.’ Her lips parted in a smile that showed her teeth.

  ‘But why?’

  A shrug. ‘Because it feels so good to be out. Because you know more about me than I do about you. From secondary sources. Because this is what I used to do and it’s such a relief to be able to do it once more.’

  Merren digested all of that before answering. All three reasons seemed unrelated. ‘What you used to do?’ she asked, picking the one that she guessed was the most relevant.

  ‘Meet people. In their houses.’ The grey eyes opened. ‘You’ve seen my work?’

  The question made Merren wince. ‘Only what’s in the Art Gallery,’ she admitted.

  ‘Hmm.’ Bianca found a dark curl and wound it around a finger. ‘Well, that’s fairly representative, I suppose. Of the last ten years, at least. Before that, I was experimenting a great deal. As you tend to in the beginning. Of anything.’ She pursed her
lips. ‘Even then though, you could see the themes pretty clearly.’

  ‘You mean the way you show women in a variety of interiors?’

  A nod. ‘I’ve always been intrigued by the way women make their homes their little nests. Or don’t, as the case may be.’ She straightened in her seat and found the button for the window on the armrest. Pushed it. The window slid upwards. ‘You know how people say that dog owners come to look like their dogs, if they have them for long enough?’

  Merren laughed. ‘That’s a thing?’

  Bianca laughed too. ‘You bet. And I’ve seen photographic proof. There was an artist who painted people and their pets, doubling down on the similarities.’ She snapped her fingers, then shook her head. ‘No, I can’t remember his name at the moment. You’ll just have to take my word for it.’

  ‘No worries.’ They were almost there.

  ‘Well, anyway. I’ve always had this theory that it’s much the same with people and their homes.’ She leaned her head back against the headrest. ‘Except that it’s not an outward likeness, you know?’ Their interiors reflect their minds. What it looks like inside their heads. Or even – and I think almost more often – what it looks like in someone else’s head. Whether a husband’s, or even the general consciousness of society. So to speak.’ There was a look of fascination on her face. ‘It’s what makes it so interesting. And why people can look lost even when they’re at home.’

  ‘My mother is completely comfortable in her home.’

  Bianca nodded. ‘I guessed she might be.’

  Merren glanced at her. ‘How so?’

  A one-shoulder shrug, then a mischievous grin. ‘Because of you.’

  ‘Me?’ Merren didn’t know what to make of that. She wiped a palm on her jeans and put it back on the steering wheel. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ Bianca said. ‘I would just guess you had a pretty decent mother.’

  Her head spinning, Merren didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I, of course, had a terrible mother.’

  ‘You did?’

  Bianca’s hand was twirling strands of hair again. ‘Yes. She and my father did not approve of certain fundamental aspects of my character, temperament, and proclivities.’