The Keeper

Cornwall Calling

A week later, Carl spent two nights away from her, with the excuse of a client conference. It was another one he had insisted he told her about, but that she couldn't remember. She felt aggrieved, and not for the first time. If only she could switch her life in an instant. She called the number on the card Reuben had given her.

The agent came to the gallery the next day, but confirmed what she already knew. There was no passion in the paintings. He admired her technical ability and said that her work had potential and to keep in touch. She kept his card as a promise to herself to be better. And life went on as it had before.

* * *

As the gallery proved itself, Rosie bloomed into a confident businesswoman, adept at promoting the gallery and its artists by blogging and using the tools of social media that were coming online. She was good at talking to potential customers as well, leaving Martha to talk more to the artists. Carl was proud of them both and celebrated their success by flexing his new platinum credit card at the trendy restaurants that mushroomed around the formerly decayed areas of London's East End. He had moved on to a web marketing company, where the money was flowing in faster than they could recruit people to spend it. Carl had the golden ticket, and he wanted to share his winnings. Marty would've adored him.

When Garth, Camille or Frankie visited London, they revelled in Carl's company. Everybody loved him. Everybody except Martha. She wanted to love him, knew that she should. He was up for doing anything that the city could offer and charmed everyone he met. She found him easy to live with, once he started paying for a cleaner. They never argued about politics, religion, or what to watch on the TV. But he made jokes when she steered the conversation to serious subjects, and they didn't have the depth of connection that she thought might grow, given time. And time moved on relentlessly, leaving her trapped in a gilded cage.

As for Carl – well, Carl loved everybody. That was the problem. As the years passed, his work trips became more frequent, and he spent more evenings out entertaining clients. He often came back the next day, because he said he didn't want to wake her when the company had a flat in the West End he could crash at. But she knew what was happening. She confronted him about it one evening when he had come in late, smelling strongly of perfume.

"Are you having an affair?"

"Don't be silly. It's been a long day and I need to have a shower."

"You have a lot of long days and a lot of showers."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not stupid. I don't understand why you're still with me, that's all."

"Martha. You're the one, Martha. You're the one I want as the mother of my children. How often do I have to tell you that? Marry me."

"I'm not sure I want children. I haven't achieved what I want in my own life yet."

"You'd better work on it now. We're not getting any younger. Now let me have that shower and I'll come to bed and show you how much I love you."

Martha pretended to be asleep when he came to bed, and resolved to reduce the hours she was putting in at the gallery and work harder on her paintings.

The next day, Carl told her to book a week off work. "We're going on holiday. And no more cheap packages to Greece. I've booked us a fancy hotel."

"In Spain? I've always wanted to go to Spain."

"I know, but I went off Spain that time in Pamplona that I nearly died."

"Because you ran with the bulls like all the other crazy Aussie tourists."

"Martha, you don't understand. You were in Australia at the time, remember? You didn't see me until months later, but it was very traumatic."

"We can go to another part of Spain. It's a diverse country. Let's go to Andalusia, or Valencia, or – "

"Maybe another time."

"You always say that."

"Look, I'm trying to do something nice for you. For us. I've booked a lovely hotel."

"Where?"

"Cornwall."

"We aren't even leaving the country?"

"I need to be on call. There's a big contract coming in, and I'll have to drive back if we need to close the deal. But you don't need to. The place is in Truro and if you have to, you can get the train back. Plus we can call in on your parents on the way there and back. Get your mum to make that coffee cake, will you?"

Martha resolved to book herself a week in Spain when she got back. Solo. However, she enjoyed being back in Cornwall more than expected. It was like settling back into a shabby but comfortable chair. Diabolical late spring weather that made Carl shrink into his coat energised Martha as she breathed in big lungfuls of clean air. When Carl needed to go back to the office for a forgotten Friday meeting, she breathed even more deeply. There would be no more nights of driving him back to the hotel drunk from each country pub he had to tick off in his Good Pub Guide.

She rented a bicycle, packed her lunch and a thermos of tea, and cycled out to the north coast each day. In between bracing dips in the sea and dodging rain showers in cafés, she soaked up the landscape, filling sketchbooks with pencil drawings and colour notes, and taking photographs to jog her memory later.

When she let herself into the London flat after a long train trip, she was relieved to find herself alone and started to paint, stopping only when the dawn light came through the east window. She was channelling something, not working, feeling as she hadn't felt since she was a kid, needing to get it down before the inspiration died. But it remained alive, and she kept painting, calling in sick to the gallery and stopping only to grab food from the fridge, or greet Carl on the days he came home. Late nights and early mornings let Martha wring out all her visions for a fortnight, after which she had created four finished paintings. She gave a month's notice at the gallery. Rosie only agreed to accept it if she could hang the new paintings out front, and host a proper opening. Martha said no to the opening, but she let Rosie price her paintings higher than she wanted to. They all sold by the time she had worked out her notice.

Carl was happy for Martha to go to Cornwall every couple of months, and she began a new routine of country life and city painting that would last for years, but take their toll. Every trip to the country made London more oppressive. Carl wouldn't move. He couldn't move. He was an urban man. The city had made him a success and changed him in a way he liked.