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When I make it back to Hampton, I open the shop for a few hours, if only to try to occupy my mind with something other than my relentless sadness. I check my online shop, seeing that people are starting to view my work. It lifts my spirits, but just a fraction. There’s only one thing that will help.
When you feel low, get your palette and let your imagination run riot. Painting was Mum’s answer for everything. Sad? Then paint. Annoyed? Then paint. Bored? Then paint. When things feel dark, lose yourself in colour, she always told me. Lose yourself in what you love. She taught me everything I know.
I grab a blank canvas, an easel, my paints and brushes, and I head outside. I need to lose myself in that one thing that always settled me. For so long, I was without this sense of peace. For so long, I was kept from my passion. It’s funny that during those dark years, I needed my escape the most. But he wouldn’t let me have it.
I close the shop at five and go upstairs to shower, washing the paint from my hands, my face, my . . . everywhere. I rough-dry my hair, skip brushing it, and add a peach head scarf that clashes terribly with my orange shift dress. I don’t care. There’s no one to tell me what I can and cannot wear. I head for my living room to get my phone, frowning when I find it’s not where I left it. Or where I thought I’d left it. The next ten minutes are spent pulling all the cushions off the couch and searching my apartment. No phone. I glance at the clock. ‘Shit.’ I’ll find it later. It’s not like I need it. Because who’s going to call me?
At seven fifteen, I make my entrance into the town pub. Father Fitzroy is propped up at the end of the bar, a pint in one hand, a newspaper in the other, and he tips his head as I pass him. I smile a hello and spot Molly at the table in the window.
I hurry over and perch on the hard wooden bench next to her, accepting the glass of wine she holds up. ‘Hey, sorry I’m late. I couldn’t find my phone.’
‘You mean you lost the brick?’
I roll my eyes on a smile. ‘Good day?’
‘Yes, and the school committee loves your idea of having a painting competition for the kids.’ Molly toasts the air and sips. ‘Do you need anything from us?’
‘Maybe stools for the kids to sit on?’ Taking my first sip of wine, I smile around my swallow and get comfortable.
‘I’ll bring stools. What are they going to paint?’
I look behind me, out the window and across the road to where I sat this afternoon outside my shop and painted a lovely street scene. ‘Seems only right they paint Hampton when we’re celebrating Hampton. How about the high street? It’s so pretty.’
‘That’s perfect! And there’ll be bunting zigzagging the lampposts, food carts, and stalls. The perfect view.’ Taking the bottle from the middle of the table, she tops up both of our glasses. ‘Now, enough about business. Tell me about yourself, Hannah.’
Her friendly smile makes it all the more difficult for me to lie. I lose myself in my wine as I try to remind myself of the story I’ve rehearsed a hundred times. ‘I had a crappy breakup with my boyfriend and was done with the rat race of the city.’ Simple as that. ‘So I got out while I could.’ I smile brightly, albeit forced. ‘I moved abroad for a few years, but it didn’t suit me. You can’t beat the English countryside, so I came back.’ Molly seems to buy my pack of lies easily, and it’s a relief.
‘Then cheers to fresh starts.’
We clink glasses and drink to just that.
An hour later, we’ve nearly worked our way through the whole bottle of wine and we’ve not shut up. We’ve laughed so much, and it’s taken me back to times gone by when I used to giggle constantly with my sister.
Molly is a little like Pippa – jumping from one topic to the next in one big jumble. It’s easy to love her. And it’s been a pleasure to talk because I just want to . . . talk. Not because I feel I have to. Speaking from the heart about my passion for painting instead of hiding it has lifted me. Molly’s listening because she’s interested in what I have to say. It’s a novelty. The past four years I’ve spent being rather lonely, keeping everyone at a distance. Not letting them get too close. I’m feeling more like my old self, the young, carefree, giggly young woman I used to be before my life turned ugly. Before I became a completely different woman.
