Tom placed his free hand under Cara’s chin and lifted it so she was facing him. Then he kissed her lips – a gentle pressure, warm and dry.
‘The thanks are all mine,’ Tom said, ‘for letting me into your life a little more.’
And then he was gone, and Cara stood for a few minutes feeling bereft but not without hope. She set to, preparing supper.
‘Not hungry, darling?’ Cara asked.
Mae had only picked at her supper, spearing a few olive oil-soaked pieces of bread and cutting the already small tomatoes into even smaller portions, popping just a forkful in her mouth and taking an age to eat them.
‘You had three plates out, Mum,’ Mae said. She pointed to the plate Cara had hoped Tom would use that she’d taken from the table and put on the counter top. ‘Is there something you haven’t told me? About you and … and Tom,’ she finished in a quiet voice.
‘Yes and no,’ Cara said. ‘But can I ask you what would have been so awful if he’d joined us? It must be lonely eating on your own all the time, which he often does when he brings back takeaways and eats in his room, or in one of the pubs.’
‘His choice,’ Mae said. ‘I would have got that other painting as well, you know. Bailey said it was in the Beachcomber. He … Tom didn’t have to do it.’
‘I know, but he did.’
Cara had rather hoped that Tom would have told Mae over supper that the paintings they’d managed to recover were now valuable, and not just the family duty heirlooms Cara had always thought they were.
‘We know nothing about him,’ Mae said.
‘No, not a lot,’ Cara agreed. ‘Divorced. No children. Very knowledgeable about art and artists. He really rates Seth’s paintings.’
‘Really?’ Mae said. ‘I thought you said Seth was only an amateur artist. You sure Tom’s not making it up? You know, just to get you on his side or something.’
Cara took a deep breath. There was no need for Mae to know she and Tom had shared a kiss, but she wasn’t going to pretend they didn’t like one another.
‘We’ll look him up, shall we? Now? We can google him.’
‘Who? Seth Jago or … Tom?’
Oh dear, poor Mae – she was struggling to even say his name.
‘Both. Come on.’
Cara leapt from her chair, almost knocking it over in her haste. Mae got up more slowly with much huffing and puffing and deep sighs.
‘Here we go,’ Cara said, clicking search. ‘Seth Jago coming up.’
Although she was doing it to prove Tom had told the truth, she was also curious to know just who her step great-grandfather had been.
‘Blimey, there’s loads of stuff,’ Mae said. ‘Do “images”.’
Cara scanned the brief information panels. Fishing smack owner, Brixham. Emigrated to Canada 1912, died from complications after saving a would-be suicide from Vancouver Harbour. Posthumous bravery award. Married Emma Le Goff aboard the RMS Royal Edward during its crossing from Bristol to Halifax. Gosh, so much she didn’t know. She could read more of that another time and it was the paintings that were the important thing here at the moment. She clicked on ‘images’ and the screen filled with painting after painting. None were of her own paintings, but the style was more than recognisable. She came to the conclusion Tom had been right about her paintings being of the Rockies because most of the ones here were and the styles were similar.
‘Now galleries or something,’ Mae said. ‘To see what they’re worth.’
Cara clicked. It seemed there were galleries in London, Vancouver and New York with paintings for sale.
Mae leaned towards the screen checking the prices.
‘How much? That’s five figures, Mum,’ she said. She pulled her chair closer to Cara’s and leaned her head on Cara’s shoulder.
I want to stay in this moment,Cara thought, just Mae and me, how we were before Mark died.
Mae was trembling now. Shock and surprise probably. And to her own shock and surprise, Cara was a bit shaky too.
‘See,’ she said. ‘Tom was telling the truth. And the two woodland scenes are now technically yours, seeing as you will have paid for them by the time your washing-up job has earned the wherewithal.’
‘Really? You don’t want to sell them? You know, use the money for us to live on so we don’t have to have any more B&B guests?’
‘I don’t want to sell them, no,’ Cara said. ‘Even that sort of money would soon go. We could only spend it once. We need more regular income.’
‘Yeah, I suppose,’ Mae said, and Cara dared to hope that Mae was taking a more mature attitude to it all now.
‘Anyway,’ Cara said, ‘the seascape one is now technically Tom’s, but I know he wouldn’t dream of selling it over my head.’
‘Yeah,’ Mae said. ‘I mean no … he could have done that already after he bought it, and he didn’t, did he?’
‘No,’ Cara said. ‘Tom next? Shall we google him?’
Cara had googled Tom before but only to check he was a bona fide artist after the fiasco she’d experienced with the Hines.
Mae typed Tom Gasson-Smith into the search box.
‘This feels like spying,’ Cara said. ‘I mean, Tom’s just upstairs. I could go and knock on his door and ask him anything … oh!’ Some of Tom’s paintings were fetching more than Seth Jago’s were. All were nude studies. Louise? Was that Louise’s body in all of them? Most were studies of the model’s back, or sideways on, her head bowed, hair hanging down covering her face.
‘Muffin ‘ell,’ Mae said, making Cara laugh. Knowing the ‘f’ word was banned, Mae had taken to saying ‘muffin ‘ell’ as a form of expletive sometimes.
‘Muffin ‘ell indeed, sweetheart,’ she laughed.
‘I don’t mean the naked ladies, Mum,’ Mae said. ‘I mean the prices. He could be stopping over in Torquay at the Imperial or something with that sort of money behind him and he’s, like, here in a B&B. But they’re not smutty, are they? We did figurative in art at school and it was, like, well we all know what women look like, right? And then some old bloke came and was a model for a couple of lessons and after a while all the giggling stopped.’ Mae was sounding more excited, more animated, and happier than she’d sounded in a long time. She clapped her hands together. ‘Oh look! It says there he’s not painted anything for a couple of years. I wonder why not? I mean, what’s got him started again?’
‘Maybe it’s being here,’ Cara said. ‘Less pressure than being in his studio, perhaps?’
‘We could ask him in the morning,’ Mae said.
‘You can if you want,’ Cara said. ‘But then you’d have to admit we’ve been doing a bit of spying.’
‘Not spying, Mum,’ Mae said. ‘Safeguarding our well-being, I’d say. What if he’d been like some sophisticated form of the Hines who cleaned us out before? Anyway, that’s what Google’s for – so we can know stuff, the good and the bad.’
And the good is bringing us closer again, Cara thought.
‘Group sigh of relief that he’s safe, then,’ Cara said. She put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and hugged her to her.
‘My first shift in the Boathouse today,’ Mae said. ‘My first payment to be earned on my heirloom paintings.’ She yawned. ‘God, what a day! What an eye-opener! All this about my, what, step great-great grandfather, and Tom whatsit up there being famous. Crikey. Okay if I go to bed now, Mum?’
‘Of course,’ Cara said.
And in the morning she would dig out the painting of her great-grandmother, Emma, that Seth had done and show it to Tom when she had a moment, and if he was around. What, she wondered, would he make of it?
Chapter Twenty-Four
A week in and much to her surprise Mae was loving her washing-up job at the Boathouse, not that you could call it washing-up because there were three huge dishwashers. All she had to do was scrape the leftover food into the food waste bin for recycling and stack the dirty dishes. Easy peasy. And then there was the fact the landlord, Scott Matthews,
gave her a doggy bag to take home sometimes, saying he’d overbudgeted, taken fish or meat or whatever out of the freezer and couldn’t refreeze it. Mae thought he was just being kind because he must know she and her mum didn’t have as much money these days as they’d had when her dad was alive, but she said thank you and meant it. It meant her mum wouldn’t have to spend so much money on food now she’d been given some. Her mum shared the food with Michelangelo – no, Tom, she must remember to call him Tom because it got her mum fired up when she didn’t. He was in his room a lot now, putting the finishing touches to his paintings, so he said. Mae had heard him singing in his room sometimes. He was no Alfie Boe, but he wasn’t bad.
‘Nearly done, Mae?’ Scott Matthews asked, coming into the kitchen.
‘Just wiping down,’ Mae said.
‘You’re a good girl, Mae. Reliable. Not like some people.’ Scott flung open cupboard doors and grabbed two big bags of flour. ‘You couldn’t pass me two blocks of lard from the fridge, could you?’
‘Sure,’ Mae said. She was a lot nearer the fridge than he was. Scott was looking flustered. ‘What’s up?’ she asked.
‘That waste of space, Taylor, has phoned in sick again. Hung-over more like. So now I’ve got to get some profiteroles done seeing as they’re on tonight’s menu. Choux pastry can be a bit of a bugger. Forgive the language.’
Mae laughed. She heard much stronger language than that when she was clearing tables, and coming in or going out through the bar for her shift.
‘What’s choux pastry when it’s at home?’ Mae asked.
Scott was reaching for a large saucepan from the high shelves above the worktop and the gas stove that had seven hobs on it.
‘Fancy puffy stuff that punters love, in this instance filled with a creamy mixture with chocolate on top.’
Mae watched, mesmerised as Scott half-filled the saucepan with water from the boiling tap, then put the blocks of lard into it.
‘Your mum’s B&B is doing well, I hear,’ Scott said, stirring the saucepan vigorously. ‘What with the art festival coming up.’
‘Yeah,’ Mae said.
She didn’t know if she wanted to talk about personal stuff or even if she should, but it would be rude not to respond. She was getting more used to having strangers in the house now. Some of them she hardly noticed at all. They came in – sometimes quite late at night, after she’d gone up to her room to read – and got shown to their rooms, and then they’d often be gone again in the morning, up and out, breakfast eaten, before Mae had even got up. Like dragonflies, Mae thought, hovering for a short while, landing briefly, and then taking off again.
‘I’m hoping the art festival will boost trade here a bit as well. If I can get the bleeding staff! Present company excepted, Mae. I don’t suppose you could stir that for a minute, could you? If you’re not in a rush?’
‘Not particularly, no,’ Mae said, taking the wooden spoon from him. The lard and water mixture didn’t smell great, but she guessed once it had flour in it, then got cooked and loaded with cream and chocolate, it would be okay.
Scott was sieving flour into a large bowl, perhaps a bit too quickly because he was rushing, and a puffy cloud of flour drifted towards Mae.
‘Right,’ Scott said. ‘Flour in next. You can go now. Thanks.’
‘No. Can I watch? This looks like … like alchemy.’
The flour was binding the water and lard together rapidly and it seemed just seconds before Scott had a ball of shiny yellow mixture in the saucepan.
‘Sure,’ Scott said. ‘Can you get me a couple of the largest baking trays out of that bottom cupboard? Then oil them. Oil’s over there,’ he said, pointing to a jug with a long spout on it.
Mae did as she was told, by which time Scott had got a cloth bag of some sort and was spooning some of the shiny yellow gunge into it.
‘And now the clever part,’ Scott said. ‘Piping this lot into balls the same size, so punters don’t complain their mates have got bigger profiteroles than they have. They take seconds to cook – if we’ve done the beating properly.’
Within minutes Scott had filled the two large trays with balls of dough and was putting them in the oven.
‘Whipped cream next,’ he said, pulling out a large glass bowl and tipping three tubs of double cream into it. He reached for a handheld whisk. ‘They’ll have to cool a bit once the filling is in before I can put the chocolate on. Want to watch or buzz off? Got that boyfriend of yours to see or something?’
‘Bailey?’ Mae said.
They were friends, good friends, but not really boyfriend and girlfriend. She was too busy working most of the time.
‘If that’s his name.’
‘Not now, I’m not, no,’ Mae said. ‘I could do that cream for you.’
‘Sure you could,’ Scott said, handing her the whisk. ‘Hey, Mae, could you do another couple of shifts for me? You’re a good little worker. Interested?’
‘Yeah, why not? I could do the bar or something for a bit of a change.’
‘Sorry, not that. You’re underage. I was thinking this sort of stuff: food prep, not just the clearing up of people’s leftovers. Right,’ Scott said as a timer pinged, ‘that’s the pastry done.’
He grabbed an oven cloth, opened the oven door and brought out a huge tray in each hand.
‘Blimey,’ Mae said. ‘That’s magic. Yeah, I could do that.’
‘Good. Great. Thanks for your help. But you’d better go now just in case someone from the works department is snooping around, checking I’m not making you work more hours than you’re allowed.’
‘Okay. What time tomorrow?’
‘Half past ten if you can make it. It’s all pizzas and fish and chips at lunchtime, but I’ve made a rod for my own back by insisting it’s all homemade so …’ Scott opened the fridge and took out a plate with four pieces of salmon on it and began sliding them into a polystyrene doggy-bag box.
‘Here you go, Mae, supper for you and your mum and whoever else might be around in lieu of wages for helping out. That artist still there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Oh dear,’ Scott laughed. ‘You don’t sound too thrilled about it! Got his feet under the table, has he?’
‘Sort of,’ Mae said.
‘Won’t be for much longer though once this art festival thing is over, I shouldn’t think. Hang on in there!’
Mae shrugged. There wasn’t a lot she could add to that.
‘Thanks for the fish,’ she said.
‘Hang on.’
Scott reached for a dish of tomatoes on the central island and gave two or three a bit of a squeeze.
‘And some tomatoes that have gone a bit soft for salads but’ll be okay for a fried breakfast for your guests,’ Scott said, tipping a dish of tomatoes into a plastic bag. ‘I expect you miss your dad.’
‘Course I do,’ Mae said, wondering where this conversation was going. The landlord was just snooping probably. Trying to find out if her mum and Tom were an item, sleeping together or something. Yuk, perish the thought! ‘Anyway, thanks for all this stuff. Mum’ll say thanks as well. I’m off now.’
Carrying her bounty in her arms like a baby, Mae walked out of the kitchen into the bar, and came face to face with Josh, standing leaning on the bar with a girl clinging onto his arm, a glass of something fizzy in her hand. Mae had hardly seen him since the night of the sailing incident, only once or twice in the distance, and the once when he’d bought lollies with Alice Morrell, but he was with a different girl now. Well, she was welcome to him as far as Mae was concerned. Josh never had got around to saying thank you for saving his life – not even a bunch of garage flowers or anything. Mae thought he might at least have done that, it was only manners, but no. Nothing.
‘Hi,’ Josh said.
‘Bye!’ Mae said and carried on towards the door.
That was the problem with small village living – you couldn’t get away from people if you tried.
But she was moving on in other
ways, what with just being offered extra hours so she’d earn more and everything. Seeing Josh hadn’t caused her one little blip of longing or regret or anything. And her mother was more cheerful about the house now as well. Hmm, Mae had a feeling Tom had something to do with that, and was surprised that just thinking that wasn’t making her feel sad and angry any more. Well, who’d have thought it!
Chapter Twenty-Five
Since that kiss with Tom the night she’d hung the paintings, Cara had hardly seen him on his own at all. She was beginning to wonder if she’d imagined it all. She had the painting of her great-grandmother, Emma, which she’d unearthed from its hiding place at the back of her wardrobe but not yet found a moment to show him. She’d relived that kiss in daydreaming moments and once or twice in dreams that didn’t stop with a kiss … but was she putting too much hope into what had, perhaps, been a spur-of-the-moment gesture for Tom? He was in his room more, putting finishing touches to his new works, was what he’d told Cara. She’d heard him singing or humming to himself while he worked. His clean bed-linen was left on the landing as arranged and he’d changed his bed, bringing his dirty linen downstairs and putting it through the washer-dryer. He’d also borrowed the vacuum cleaner more than a few times so Cara knew she was unlikely to find his room had turned into some sort of squalid squat when he left. When? Ought she to mention that the next time they had a few minutes alone? There were always other B&B guests – none as troublesome as Miss Horsham had been, thank goodness – around or Mae. And what a surprise that was turning out to be … Mae not rushing out of the room the second Tom entered it any more. Since she’d come back from her shift at the Boathouse a few nights ago with salmon and tomatoes the landlord had given her, Cara had seen a change in her. Little steps, Cara told herself. Perhaps Tom was giving not just Mae the space to accept him, but she was as well.
Now there was less than a week to opening day, Larracombe had taken on a feeling of en fête. The various venues where artists would be showing their work had signs outside with opening times. Tom would be showing in the village hall – just him and not sharing as some artists would be. Owners of some of the larger houses had been approached and asked if they could showcase an artist and Cara had been one of them. She’d declined out of respect to Tom – she didn’t want him to think that she preferred others’ work over his, not that she’d seen a single thing he’d painted yet, apart from on his website.
The Little B & B at Cove End Page 20