Chapter 86

He shot me a quick but proud look. “Maybe a hundred.”

I could feel him warming up to me and it electrified my soul. I went up to his new painting, the Marseilles cathedral, and stared at the magnificent thing in awe. This was definitely his best work. He’d painted a celestial blue sky full of leaden clouds which seemed to be threatening to burst at any time. In the harbor, tiny ships were racing against the storm to the shore, and dominating this troubled landscape of gold and gray, stood the cathedral, with its statue of the Virgin Mary and Child. The whole scene was a disconcerting mixture of religious salvation and human vulnerability. “I don’t remember a storm that day,” I said, my eyes fixed to the painting. It had been a bright sunny day. Or was I mistaken?

Derek stood behind me, very close and silent. Everything he wanted to tell me was in that painting.