Chapter Twenty-Two

We're standing face to face, five feet from each other. People are passing either side. SAY SOMETHING. Something reassuring. I'm not asking you to tell me you do the same, have done ever since your dad ran away when you were five years old to keep you sane and stop you thinking about the things that scare you. I'm not asking you for a life story, I don't care about your name. Just say something to remind me I'm human. He opens his mouth slowly, his brow furrowed, and pauses. "Maybe you need -"
The fuzz over my eyes dissipates, my head shakes involuntarily until I drag it towards the finger pressing into the arm of my anorak. My gaze slides across the aisle, and Pokey-Man looks puzzled. There is a flicker of fear bouncing in the twitch of his left eye.
The rain is streaking down the windows, pelting harder than my heart in its cavern of a chest, all thanks to the rude awakening by the man across the way. The clip in my hair writhes against my scalp, the scarf around my neck flaps rudely against my chest in a desperate attempt to stop me slipping back into the dream. A bell rings overhead; my body is projected forward and there's a shriek. I ensure its not mine, look around me at the faces reflected in the windows until I spy the shrivelled heap on the linoleum. Not a stir among the crowd, save the small, tissue-paper hand clutching a walking stick. It's a long and painful process, several people tut into their newspapers. I don't think it's the headlines that did it.

The handle slides under my palm, so I lean my shoulder against it and force my way in from the cold. Warm smiles from the women at reception. The last gust of wind of the outside world shoots up my spine. I wander through the room, first around the edge and then through the center stands. The paintings blend into each other, a mixture of colours and patterns and textures spiralling over the walls. I stop in front of one. The picture consists of a deep, royal blue coming onto the canvas from the left, swirling and spiralling with misdirection and randominity and a thinner, more spider-like red, falling into place from the right, with an equal amount of misguided confusion before the two lines meet in the centre. They have their dance and blend together to make different and magnificent shades of purple, some more red, some more blue, but each unique and as crazy as the last, and then with an urgency the whole dance stops and the two colours, almost unaturally, shoot off in opposite directions and dissappear. It twists the tendons in my heart and fills up every corner of my lungs. It looks the way I feel. On a canvas. I stare at the card beside it and my eyes well up. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing to attention and my fingers are clawing at the flesh on my palms. It is the way I feel.

The warm smiles of the women at reception quickly morph into bewildered grimaces. They don't understand. I plead my case, but they just stare at me, then at each other, then at the floor. I kick the counter and force my way into the outside world. Halfway down the high street and someone thrusts past me, almost knocking me onto all fours. My eyes are squinted tight, against the rain and the tears and the goddamn pain, swirling inside of me and hurtling into opposite directions. The tramp outside the flatblock looks up hopefully as I dig my hands into my pockets. I don't see his face as I run in the opposite direction, clutching the gallery business card with blue scrawl on the back.

Chapter Twenty-One

It's been a while.
I must say it has been a while.

I open the curtains in my baron, cold warehouse that conforms to a steel-blue bitterness that sort of consumes it. The sunlight trickles in from outside and ignites the walls and the floor and the ceiling. My bed, messy as ever, is a mere collection of fabrics on a simple matress on the floor. Who really needs structure in a bed? I pull on an old tatty shirt-cum-jumper and a pair of tattier trousers. I walk over to a small table by the corner of the room and flick on the kettle. I look at the rather large white canvas that predominantly fills the room. What shall i do today?

The force with which i attack the space makes the blue flick back into my face. The spoils of war, perhaps. I take another violent stab at the canvas with another brush. Strokes of colour so full of paint drip tear drops down the white canvas before two colours meet and dance in the middle of the void before finally shooting off at their own tangents. The picture consists of a deep, royal blue coming onto the canvas from the left, swirling and spiralling with misdirection and randominity and a thinner, more spider-like red, falling into place from the right, with an equal amount of misguided confusion before the two lines meet in the centre. They have their dance and blend together to make different and magnificent shades of purple, some more red, some more blue, but each unique and as crazy as the last, and then with an urgency the whole dance stops and the two colours, almost unaturally, shoot off in opposite directions and dissappear.

The buzzer wakes me from an almost trance like state. The girl from the paper has come to have a look around. Recently, i have sold three paintings to some bigwig and as i paint, shoot pictures and have an almost derilict appartment on the more leftfield side of London, that of course requires me to have the label of one of the art worlds hot new things. Oh, and i have a small beard - i guess that helps. I let her in and she does the talking. I invite her to sit on a small box, as im not really 'one with furniture' as my friends at Ikea would say. While she tells me about herself and what she's writing, i fiddle with my kitchen corner of the room. It's a modest table, about the size of one of those widescreen TV things, with an electronic kettle and some cups. It's next to a small window, on which a little tree grows. I pick one of my leaves and crush it up. After i have enough i put them in a cup and fill it with water. The water turns a shade of midnight purple and i fill up another cup.
"I'm afraid you'll have to suffer one of my teas - i ran out of PG last week"
"Oh that's fine - so, what do you think of the project?"
"Hmm? Oh, Jane said something about a profile? Short thing?"
"Yes, nothing to binding - do you mind of a photographer comes by later on? a few snaps for the spread?"
"Um, yeh, sure thing."
"Great - so, what made you turn to painting?"

The buzzer rang again and in came Juan. He asked me to sit on my box and look into the distance. I was sure they would wrap me up to look like some kind of pretentious enigma who is all-too-holy for explanation. Juan took one of my with the painting i finished earlier today. The interviewer asked me some more questions.
"That's nice - is it new?"
"Yes. I might add some yellow splats here and there. It's all too barron."
"It looks... interesting. Like there's something happening. What do you call it?"
"Oh i hadn't really thought." I paused.

"It's called Edie"