Chapter 1.5

 

"Um...sure?" The number had left her temporarily stunned. She returned to reality with a jolt. "Are you certain? It was only a sketch. I didn't even expect to sell it, let alone for that much."

He smiled, his head shaking a little, though whether from mirth or irony she couldn't tell. "Don't put yourself down so much. It might just be a sketch to you, but you have a rare talent for line. I'm utterly certain this will be worth ten... fifty times as much in ten years." He smiled again, proffering the sketch to her. "Assuming you sign it first."

"Oh. Of course." She reached for her bag on the seat nearest the window and pulled it towards herself, opening the flap and retrieving a pencil from the stack of supplies within. Taking back the sketch, she placed it on top of the portfolio where the pencil wouldn't indent anything beneath the paper, and added her practised signature.

"Splendid." He whisked it back, as if afraid she'd change her mind about parting with it, rolling it into a thin tube and putting it in an inside pocket.

"Won't it get crushed in there?" She asked.

"Oh, not at all. " He rapped on the outside of his jacket with his left knuckles, and the material didn't even dent. "Safe as houses in there. Safer than houses, actually. You never know when an earthquake might hit."

"This is England. We almost never get earthquakes here,"

"There's always a first time," He extended a forefinger. "More and more likely, if fact, not that your government has reopened fracking to oil miners."

"My government?" Her forehead creased with surprise. "You're not English then?"

"No. I took my first steps in the fair city of Verona."

"And why not death, for to die is to be banished from myself." She smiled.

"I would take the living torment any day, Ms--" he studied her signature. "Roisin Giuffre?" He looked up I wouldn't have taken you for French."

"I'm not." She tucked the pencil back into her bag. "It's a chosen name."

"An unusual choice." He extracted a phone from his other pocket and typed a password onto the screen faster than she could see his fingers move. "May I have your digits?"

"Oh, I'm afraid I don't give out my number." She felt as if she were being ungrateful. "Unless you need it to give someone?"

"I meant your bank digits. For the payment?" He grinned suddenly, his whole face softening with the spontaneous expression. "I wasn't trying to imply anything untoward."

"Oh. Sorry." She pulled out her own phone and looked down at it to cover her flush of embarrassment. "Of course. Sorry."

"No need for an apology. Plenty of time for that when you've done something wrong." He looked at his screen. "Account number and sort code?"

She pulled her bank card from the RFID-shielded pocket and read out the numbers.

"And the account name?" His stare didn't budge from his screen, but she had the distinct feeling he was staring at her anyway.

"Actually, it's still in my old name." She blushed. "Sorry."

"Again with the apologies?" He shook his head and smiled as he looked up. "There's really no need. "What's in a name, after all? That explains the 'Roisin' but why 'Giuffre?"

"Because I wanted to honour a woman who was abused and ridiculed so much that she she committed suicide before she could see any justice served."

He nodded, tucking his phone away. She had a momentary glimpse of the front of it, and spotted the keys were in a different alphabet to any she was used to seeing. Cyrillic, perhaps, or Arabic. "Do you have a scrap of paper?"

"Um, sure." She fished in her bag again and pulled out several old receipts. "Will that do?"

"Yes, that'll be fine." From what must have been the same inside pocket as his phone, (for honestly, how many pockets would a jacket have?) he drew out a gold pen and, holding the receipt with his thumb against the palm of his hand, wrote something on the back of it. He waved the receipt in the air a few times to dry the ink and passed it over. "Give this woman a call next time you're in London. She runs a gallery on Optic Street, near the museum."

"Brilliant, Thanks." She glanced at the name. It was written in beautiful copperplate handwriting. She'd never seen that in real-life; only as an obscure font in word processing programs. "Adara Hewitt?"

"Don't worry about her manner. She can be a little brusque but if she thinks she can make a decent commission on sales of your work, she'll represent you."