Silence between them for a long beat, the ghosts of all the dead swirling around Jenny’s head.

‘So you’re an artist as well as a funeral director?’ Liam said.

‘I suppose so.’

‘What sort of stuff do you do?’

Jenny looked at Liam’s painting on the easel. ‘It’s hard to describe.’

Liam nodded. ‘I know what you mean. It’s hard to talk about this. That’s why we create stuff, isn’t it, so we don’t have to talk.’

Jenny tried to think if she’d created anything in her life except a mess. She thought of Hannah, her creation, the one thing she and Craig got right.

‘Exactly,’ she said.

She walked round the room trailing a finger along the top of some stacked canvases.

‘Do you think you’ll take it?’ Liam said.

‘What?’

‘The studio, you said you spoke to Mo about it. Which one is it?’

Jenny tried to remember. ‘He said Derek’s was free? Something about hospital.’

‘Yeah, shame.’

‘I think I’ll take it. It’s good to have your own space, a place to lose yourself.’

She touched one of the canvases then raised her eyebrows at Liam for permission. He nodded and she flicked through the stack, more animal-plant hybrids, some vaguely human forms, the colours and contours mesmerising, simultaneously familiar and otherworldly.

‘Don’t you want people to see these?’ she said.

‘Maybe one day. I’m still finding my feet.’

‘They’re so good.’

‘That’s not the point.’

Jenny turned. ‘Then what is the point?’229

Liam thought about the question.

‘It’s about finding out who you are,’ he said eventually. He pointed out of the window. ‘Without any distractions. Without anyone else getting in the way. Finding out what kind of person you want to be. It’s about the process of doing the painting, the act of creating, not the end result of the painting itself. Life is about processes, not results.’

So this was his secret, he wanted to find out who he was by painting and spending time alone. Jenny thought about what kind of person she was, what she’d become and what she wanted to be, but her mind was blank. She was just someone whose father was dead, someone who followed people around and spied on them, who helped wives entrap their husbands so they could get a divorce, who snogged her ex-husband even though he was married with a new family, who grabbed a young man by the balls because he was cocky and she didn’t like him, who hoped to hell her daughter turned out better than she did. She felt tears coming to her eyes and hurried past Liam to the door then out into a world where she didn’t know who she was anymore, if she ever had.

230

44

DOROTHY

‘Hello, Home Angels Cleaning Services.’