“Of course that would be your perception.” I shake my head as he forces a wad of notes into the box. “That’s far too much, Misha.”
“Not for someone who’s had to listen to so many of your weekly lectures on how our historical treasures and art should be free for the people. If two hundred quid stops that in its tracks, it’s cheap at half the price.”
“I take back the swallowing a dictionary remark,” I say as we walk up the stairs to the gallery. “You’re a Neanderthal with men and art.”
“I can’t remember the men. I haven’t had any since you’ve been gone,” he mutters.
“What?” I pull back and stop dead on the stairs, making a couple tut at me. “Are you telling me that you haven’t had a bloke for sixweeks?” I whisper.
He shrugs, looking abashed. “Just haven’t felt like it.”
I stare at him. “Has there been a lunar eclipse or some other sign that the world is about to end?”
He shoves me up the stairs. “No more chat, Charlie,” he says grimly. “Let’s doart.”
I snort and pull him into the first room. The National Gallery is likea very elegant rabbit warren where you wander from room to room with the vague sense that you’re missing something. But it’s a gilded rabbit warren with honey-coloured wooden floors and beautiful wallpaper in opulent jewel colours that make the rooms glow like they’re inside a music box.
“You love it here?” he asks, watching me intently.
“I do,” I say with a smile. “I love art. I love that it’s free. I love that today we’re sharing this space with so many different people whose only similarity is that they love it too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look around.” I grab his arm and turn him. “That family over there is showing their children the pictures they love. Their kids will probably do the same one day for their own children. Then there’s the old couple sitting on that bench together looking at a picture that they’ve probably seen many times over the years. And there are the students who sit on the floor and sketch the pictures. This experience will be part of the story they’ll tell when they’re older and settled.” I shrug. “Everyone’s different here, but they share the experience of art. It’s nice.”
He throws his arm over my shoulder. “Okay, show me,” he demands.
I swallow. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me that just the simple act of his arm over my shoulder is making me hot. He’s done it thousands of times since we were little and it never made me feel like my skin is too tight for my body.
“Show you what?” I croak.
“Show me all of it,” he says in a very doom-laden voice.
I move out from under his arm, clasping his hand to soften the gesture. “You really mean it, Misha?”
He sighs, but there’s a smile playing on his lips. “I really mean it.”
“Okay, but don’t say you weren’t warned,” I say, spinning and dragging him after me.
“Wait,” he says from behind me. “Nobody issued awarning. What do you need to warn me about?”
I wink at him. “Hope you’re wearing comfortable shoes.”
“I want a cake after this,” he says darkly. “In fact, I want five cakes and a pint. No, I want ten cakes and at least seven pints.”
“I think you might be what some people call a snowflake.”
He laughs and follows me. Of course he does. We always follow each other. It’s understood and always abided by.
The gallery is busy, but there’s space to move around, and he shadows me like some sort of expensive-looking stray dog, stopping when I stop and moving when I do. I wander through the different rooms looking happily at the artwork and smiling inwardly because Misha is far more interested in the architecture of the building than he is in the pictures. However, he’s as patient as he always is with me, never rushing me and seeming to derive the same happiness in my company as I do with his. It’s an ease that I’ve never found with another person.
“What do you think?” I finally say.
He looks around the room. “I’m astonished at the fact that there are so many bare breasts on display.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Have you become a prude, Misha? Say it isn’t so.”
“No, just a realist. The women in these pictures seem to wander through life, getting their tits out at the slightest opportunity. Going to the market—thwap. Attending an execution—thwap. Dinnertime—out come the girls.” He gestures to a painting behind us. “Even in that one showing Diana at the hunt, she’s got her tits out when she really should invest in a good sports bra or she’ll have back problems in later life.”
