6:00 p.m., Charley’s house, New Town, Edinburgh

            

Charley stands in the doorway of the sitting room looking in. In the moment, she can see herself from the hallway behind. The lamp flickers and dies. The air stills.  A silhouette against the bright sitting room, she seems small and fragile despite the extra ten pounds. Her hair disappearing into the dark folds of her clothes. Her hand gripping the doorframe. Her shadow slowly crowding the space behind her.

 

Charley’s eyes adjust to the light as she gazes into the sitting room. The polished surface of the side-table distorts the reflection of deep purple tulips restrained in clear crystal; each petal’s curves perfectly glossed, fibres darkening, shadowing the other, curled-up in sleep like melanistic pups. Life palpable: their soft coats tremulous, breath tender; a yearning; a memory tangles, tightens at the back of her neck, that place just behind her ear. She catches herself as she falls into her body, remembering:

 

He observes as she dresses. She is careful not to spoil the moment. First, oil the skin: long, slow upward movements, slowly now, slowly... Ankle to knee, ankle to knee, knee to thigh, knee to thigh. Linger if it pleases.

Next:   follow the curve, hip to waist, hip to waist – take your time, no rush.

Next:   breasts, one, then the other, one, then the other. Gentle now. Again. And again. Say it.    Whisper it.      Do it.  

Next:   Turn your face. Just a little. That’s it. Take your time. Shoulder forward. No rush now.  Slight lift of the neck. Stopstop.   Perfect. Eyes, yes yes…

 

She shudders as the moment caves into a new lofty elegance.  The soft grey hues of Timorous Beastie’s velvet Bird Branch on the Brodie chair snaps into the frame. The tulips’ isolation suddenly exposed by their carefully collated surroundings. It would be better if there was something else beside the vase, the gold and crystal bee perhaps? Her eyes drift around the room.

 

Long-stemmed glasses, gleaming, waiting on the bespoke console table snug behind the sofa. The tan leather ottoman still stiff. The schtum half-panelled walls. The Jamie Primrose paintings: baby pink and blue hues and light playing with iconic Edinburgh skylines. The Nael Hanna abstract: expansive, emotional, energetic. Proud. The wall of books, a cacophony of colour and life: erratic, animated, bickering, curious, domineering, submissive. The Georgian mirror its voyeur: absorbing, spitting out, refracting the room’s mind monkey. And the white baroque framed wedding picture on the mantlepiece, twenty-nine years there. Still there. A perfect foil. A stabiliser of sorts. But for how long?

 

The other photos of the day in boxes. Along with the life she had before James.

 

She had always loved moving house back then. The idea of leaving one empty house to move into another, better, empty house, exciting. A chance for a new start. A chance to reshape her life. To edit. Seventeen edits completed so far, the last one twenty-nine years ago when she moved here. Perhaps what she was looking for all those years ago was not a new start but herself. Is this it?

 

Her past, no longer a factor in her life, now lurked in the dry-lined cellars underneath the street in front of her house. Sometimes she would go there, open a box, pick something out and bring it in. She loved how they assimilated into her home, mostly unnoticed. She always carefully closed the boxes again forcing one piece of cardboard under the other for a tight fit. And, each time, along with it, her youthful dreams, ambitions. Voice.

 

It wasn’t just what she brought in that she loved, it was how they worked together with the other things in her ever-changing ‘room concepts’ .

 

“You put this here and set off small chords, echoes and repeats and caesuras. You put it there and it is just stuff, gilded and valuable but still stuff.”

 

De Waal’s Letters to Camondo always inspired her; she believed the alchemy of space and subject challenged old perspectives of her evolving story. And she moved furniture, rugs, lamps, candles, to get the desired effect: a foot, an inch, back half an inch. And then again. When it didn’t work, she found it unsettling, making her restless, sitting uncomfortably around her like middle-aged spread. It was all-consuming. Often it was the small things she brought in that brought resolution, sometimes from the cellars. Always in odd numbers: collections of three or five. Only then could she get on with her life. Was she just part of this stuff? How did she fit in? Could she elicit “small chords, echoes and repeats and caesuras” when she walked into a room? Would he even notice?