Gone With The Waves

Something about this painting captured Mia’s innermost desires . . .

ITHOUGHT we were going to have a day together!” Mia slumped against the doorframe. “It’s work, Mia. We could do with the money,” Liam replied. “And it’s not as if it’s a great day to go out anyway.”

He waved a hand at the window.

The sky was intense shades of blue and black, the clouds backlit in places where the sun’s rays peeked round the edges.

Low pressure pulsed in Mia’s temples and the air zinged with static electricity.

As Liam’s red Honda disappeared out of sight along the coast road, Mia turned and stared at the living-room.

What was she going to do now?

She fingered the gold locket she always wore, feeling the dent in the smooth metal that had been there since the piece had come into her family.

Her eyes were drawn to the painting on the wall that was said to have been executed by one of her ancestors.

A boat had run aground on the rocks. Parts of its wooden frame had been torn away and two of the three masts were snapped, leaving jagged edges of wood.

From the remaining mast, shreds of sails fluttered like flags in the wind.

A couple of human figures clung to the gunwales, reaching out helplessly towards land, while ultramarine waves swept against the ship and the rocks.

Standing on the outcrop, at the very edge of the picture, was a shadowy outline of a man with a lantern.

Mia knew, from family stories, that he was a wrecker who had probably lured the ship towards the shore.

He was waiting for his chance to board it and claim anything found as salvage.

In order to do that, there had to be no-one alive on the boat, so anyone who survived the turbulent seas had to be silenced.

It was a cruel, grim time. “Needs must,” her grandmother had always said when they talked about it. “We can’t judge them when we don’t know the circumstances they were living under.”

“But to kill innocent –” Mia had protested.

“You’d not be here if they didn’t,” her grandmother had interrupted. “According to family legend, my great-grandfather and his wife were childless.

“The morning after one wrecking, they were scouring the beach for firewood when they found a young boy badly bruised and covered in seaweed.

“They took him home and raised him as their own.

“The boy was clutching a gold locket. The same one your mother wears, and that will come to you when you’re married.

“You wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for the wreckers.”

****

Mia had heard the story every time she visited her grandmother.

Each time it was embellished and became more dramatic.

“My great-grandfather was an artist as well as a carpenter,” the elderly woman had told Mia. “He painted that picture to show the shipwreck and the boy found on the beach.”

When her grandmother died, Mia had inherited the picture.

Liam didn’t like it much and had insisted it went on the darkest wall in the living-room, where it was hardly noticed.

Mia sighed. The family had been lucky, finding the child on the beach.

It couldn’t happen nowadays, of course, but back then her relatives had probably saved the boy’s life.

She peered closely at the painting.

In the foreground, on the sand, was a bundle, which she presumed represented the child.

She really should take the painting in and get it professionally cleaned.

She felt sure much of the detail in it had disappeared under years of dirt and grime.

Even though the colours were not as vivid as they had once been, the artist had skilfully captured the force of the waves and the helplessness of the boat.

Mia appreciated the talent of the artist as much as the subject matter of the painting.

Not for the first time, she wished she could simply walk down to the beach and find a child.

If only life were that easy. She and Liam had been trying unsuccessfully for a baby for three years.

Mia said nothing out loud, but as each month came round and she knew she wasn’t pregnant, a feeling of numbness and grief overwhelmed her.

All their friends managed to conceive easily, leaving her somewhat isolated and detached from them.

Failure was in the room with her.

It was like a physical presence and she was sure that was what was driving

Liam out every day and off to Rebecca’s.

Mia turned away and faced the window.

The sky was a similar colour to the sky in the painting.

She knew immediately how she was going to spend the day.

She would paint a landscape of the beach and the waves.

It was a long time since she’d painted a picture from life.

Most of the artwork she did consisted of the local villages, with thatched cottages, churches or harbours with fishing boats.

They were the sort of pictures that sold in cafés and gift shops in the summer to tourists.

Today, Mia decided, she would capture the sea in its fury and hopefully ease some of her own anger at Liam bailing out on her again.

She hurried upstairs, her feet tapping on the wooden treads.

Then she climbed the extra narrow staircase to her studio in the attic.

****

Liam had converted the roof space for her when they first bought the house, putting in a gable window so that she had good light.

The room was chilly in winter and she often painted at the kitchen table instead.

But today it was tolerable and if she stood with her easel in the window, she could see the length of the beach.

Mia selected a canvas, bigger than those she used for her commercial work, and set it up.

She seized her palette and oils and opened the bottle of linseed oil to thin the paint.

But then she staggered, as the smell of the linseed turned her stomach.

She screwed the top back on again tightly. She wouldn’t use that today.

Instead, she chose acrylic paints and squirted ultramarine, as well as burnt umber and cadmium yellow for some underpainting.

Using these colours, she laid out the foundation of the painting she wanted, marking in areas of shadow and depth.

On one side, Mia decided she wanted rocks with waves breaking over them; on the other a stretch of sandy beach.

She worked quickly, building up layers of paint, the acrylic drying faster than oils would, and using retarder to help the colours blend.

She watched the clouds storm across the sky, with flashes of light behind them.

They were sometimes the same colour as the sea, and sometimes the smoky grey of a well-developed fire.

At one point the light created a thin aura of lavender on the edge of a cloud, and Mia tried to capture it in the picture.

Where the sea was darkest, she added a splash of dioxazine purple to the blue.

She built up the paint in thick, short strokes with a palette knife.

With quick strokes of white she depicted the seagulls she could see being buffeted around by the wind.

****

Mia worked for hours, not registering the time and not stopping for food.

Her phone was downstairs so no-one bothered her.

She was lost in the storm scene in front of her and the world of colours.

As the canvas filled and the waves became lively with texture, Mia found she had painted out the morning’s anger and disappointment.

She was feeling calmer and a little hollowed out with the effort the picture had taken.

“Hello! Mia? Where are you?” someone shouted.

Mia came out of her painting trance as she heard Liam’s voice from downstairs.

She looked around and saw the light had gone.

She was painting now in the near dark, adding flecks of white to make the boiling water stand out.

“I’m in the studio,” she called down, putting the brush in water and arching her back.

She stepped back from the picture.

It was hard to tell but she thought she’d captured the scene as she wanted.

She’d check again in the daylight.

She heard Liam coming up the stairs, but for some reason she didn’t want him to see the picture yet so she hurried out of the studio.

“Good day?” he asked as she met him on the stairs down.

“Yeah. I’ve been working,” she replied.

Liam was smiling.

“What is it?” Mia asked. “I went to see a new project with Rebecca,” Liam said. “The client is really pleased with the designs so has given us the goahead.”

“That’s good.”

Liam was a skilled carpenter and could turn his hand to other odd jobs, but he usually worked for an interior designer like Rebecca.

She commanded good money from people anxious to do up their holiday homes or rental properties.

“It’s excellent,” Liam said, grabbing her by the waist. “It’s close, too – just down the road in Welsley. I’ll get started tomorrow.”

Mia looked at him.

Had he still forgotten they’d planned a day out together?

“What about our day?” she asked.

Liam shrugged.

“We can do that any time,” he said. “I’d like to get started on this right away. What’s for dinner?”

Mia swallowed down the feeling of being second best, remembering she’d got so involved in painting she’d done nothing about a meal.

“I don’t know. Cheese on toast? An omelette?”

“Nothing planned?” Liam looked at her.

Mia shook her head. “OK. How about I make something with pasta?” he offered.

She gave a small smile. “That would be good.” As Mia sat on the sofa with a magazine, she could hear Liam crashing about in the kitchen.

She also heard his phone ping with incoming messages, no doubt from Rebecca demanding this, that or the other.

Her body was tense and there was heaviness in her stomach as she waited to be called to the table.

“Ready!” he shouted some minutes later.

Liam had warmed two plates and put them and a large, flat dish of pasta on the serving mats.

“Don’t touch,” Liam said. “It’s hot. Shall I dish up?”

“Please,” Mia said. “And thank you for cooking.”

****

When they’d finished and washed up, Liam stretched and yawned.

“Early night for me,” he announced.

Mia followed him up to bed, carrying the magazine.

For a while she browsed the pages as Liam’s breathing became deeper and he slipped into sleep.

Mia’s stomach churned meanwhile.

The pasta had tasted fine, but was proving indigestible. Before long, her stomach was roiling.

She hurried to the bathroom and was sick.

“What was that all about?” she muttered as she brushed her teeth.

Instead of going back to bed, she grabbed her dressing gown and went downstairs for some water.

The wind had abated and moonlight streamed in the living-room window.

She stared out at the sea, calm now, a line of light marking the horizon.

Something tugged at her thoughts.

The painting she’d been working on pulled her to the attic.

She climbed the stairs, tiptoeing past the bedroom so as not to wake Liam.

Moonlight came through the window and made the painting glow.

Mia was pleased with the waves and the sky, deep and threatening with froth and whirlpools of foam.

But the stretch of sand looked bare.

Mia thought she might add some flotsam washed up on the beach. Wood, maybe, or seaweed?

She gathered her palette and working in the semi dark, using a small brush, she added paint.

She worked by sense, not quite knowing what she was doing, but certain that it would be right.

Satisfied, she put the palette down, and heard footsteps on the stairs. “Mia? Are you up here?” Liam appeared in the doorway.

“What are you doing in the dark?” he asked.

He flicked the light on and Mia blinked.

“Is this what you were working on today?” he asked.

Liam came into the studio and stood in front of the picture, his arms folded over his chest.

Mia saw him take in the sky and the waves, then his gaze settled on the beach where the paint was wet.

Two rough figures crouched, blond-haired, white-skinned, with buckets and spades digging in the sand.

Mia looked at them, too, and sucked in her breath.

She hadn’t known what she was painting. Her hands had worked independently of her conscious thought.

She looked up at Liam. “I don’t know why,” she said. “I just had to.”

Her thoughts began to jump and wheel in her head.

The linseed oil, the pasta . . .

“Liam, I wonder. I think, perhaps . . .” she whispered.

Liam’s eyes grew wider. “Really? Oh, Mia.” He stepped forward and put an arm around her.

“I’ll message Rebecca and tell her I can’t start tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll get an appointment at the surgery or do a test first.”

Mia could see his mind going into overdrive.

“I’ll see if I can get an advance from Rebecca,” he added breathlessly. “We’ll do up the spare room.

“There will be lots to buy, won’t there? Maybe I can build a cot!”

Mia placed his hand across her stomach.

“We’ll find out soon, Liam,” she said. “And you never know – it might even be two cots.” ■