The Peacock Summer

by Hannah Richell

  He moves across to the furthest window and opens a bolted shutter. The glass here is still boarded up from the outside, but a little more light filters through the gaps in the wood.

  Maggie turns and surveys the room, her eyes beginning to trace the outline of something quite extraordinary.

  ‘What is it?’ asks Will.

  ‘It’s incredible,’ murmurs Maggie, spinning around in a slow circle, unable to tear her eyes from the scene laid out before her.

  After a long pause, she hears Will’s footsteps moving to the far side of the room. ‘Come and look at this,’ he says.

  She joins him by the fireplace and they stand looking over a pile of familiar items: vases, paintings and ornaments, all taken from the main house. ‘More treasure.’ Maggie shakes her head.

  ‘What’s it all doing here?’

  ‘Lillian,’ she says. ‘She must have hidden it here.’

  ‘To keep them safe?’

  Maggie thinks of Albie’s ad hoc removals from the house. She thinks of Lillian’s night-time wanderings. Her soot-stained feet. ‘Perhaps.’

  The hoard holds their attention for a short time, but it is the room itself that really captivates. Maggie and Will spend a long time studying the walls around them, trying to identify elements of the extraordinary painting hidden behind the layers of soot and dust. ‘Look, there are trees . . . and feathers everywhere.’

  ‘Yes. And a bird up there, see it?’

  ‘Something happened in here,’ says Maggie, staring around at the devastated scene.

  ‘Here’s something else.’ Will is pointing to a cleaner section of paintwork, low to the skirting board to the right of the door.

  ‘It looks like a name,’ says Maggie, bending to peer more closely. ‘John . . . Jack . . . Jack . . . Fincher.’ She turns to Will and smiles. ‘The artist has signed his work.’

  Maggie spends all of the next day researching Jack Fincher, though it proves to be a frustrating trail. She uncovers images of some of his earliest work, completed as a war artist during the Second World War, and a couple of newspaper clippings reviewing exhibitions in the late 1940s and early 1950s. There is a black-and-white photograph of the artist as a young man, seated on an army vehicle, smiling and holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun. And another, more interestingly, from an online archive of a 1955 edition of the Cloud Green parish magazine, showing a man standing in front of wooden stocks being kissed on the cheek by a fair-haired girl. The photo is a little grainy, but she can see enough to know the man is very handsome.

  With a little more digging she finds an old dissertation lodged online by a former Slade student, whose thesis had attempted to chart the rise and fall of Jack Fincher and the mystery of his disappearance. The student had gone so far as to trace the artist to a small town in the West Country, but when he had arrived at the given address hoping for an interview, the student had been sent packing by the wild-eyed drunk who had opened the door. The student had concluded that Jack Fincher was a man crushed by his early success and the weight of expectation. He was a man in ruins, but for the legacy of two paintings still housed at the Tate Britain gallery.

  Maggie opens the home page for the Tate galleries website. She types the name ‘Jack Fincher’ into their search engine and is immediately redirected to a page showing two oil paintings. She stares at the images on her screen for a long while before reaching for her phone.

  ‘Hello. Is this the National Trust? Could I please speak to someone in your acquisitions department? I’ve found something that I think you might be interested to look at.’

  After a long but promising conversation, Maggie hangs up and returns to her laptop. She focuses on the second clue in the student’s dissertation: a small town in the West Country. She types in various search threads and suddenly finds herself staring at the home page of a small gallery in Frome, Somerset: Fincher Fine Art. The website describes the gallery as a small, family-run business, founded in the late 1960s.

  Maggie clicks through to the ‘contact us’ page. A young woman answers the phone on the third ring. ‘Hello, Fincher Fine Art; can I help you?’

  Part Four

  In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

  —Albert Camus

  For all my vigilance, it turned out that I was looking the wrong way. I was focused on the wrong threat. Diversions and distractions are the watchman’s enemy and I had my eye turned. I waited too long. I waited to step from the shadows; and in my delay I risked it all: the house and all its dazzling treasures. But most distressing of all . . . I risked her.

  It pains me now, to look back on those days, to know that the damage could have been avoided, that those flames might never have been lit and that the scars she now bears – both the visible ones marking her skin and those that remain only as a glimmer in the darkness of her eyes – will be there for all time. Regret weighs heavy on my shoulders.

  But I am changed too and while she will never know of my devotion, I will not let her down again. I will remain here, for as long as she needs me. She may be strong – stronger than she knows – but while I am here, I shall see to it that neither flames nor fists will ever hurt her again. For I am the eyes of the house . . . and I am always watching.

  Chapter 31

  It’s madness, really. There is far too much work to be done to justify a day trip to London, and lying in bed thinking through the excuses she will have to make to Will and Jane, she can almost hear their sighs and grumbles: Leaving us to slave over the to-do lists while you get a head start on your Christmas shopping? Well, that’s just lovely, that is. But it’s not a trip to the shops that Maggie has planned. She’s hoping that the day ahead might help her piece together the final puzzling segments of her grandmother’s life, or at least bring a new understanding to the legacy she has been left to caretake.

  The hills are all winter browns and greys as she drives to the local station, catching a train to London before switching onto the Underground and eventually stepping out onto a smart Pimlico street. It’s raining in the city and she jumps the puddles and turns her coat collar up against the late-November breeze.

  The Tate Britain stands like a solid white monument facing the slow-moving waters of the Thames. She checks the time as she climbs the entrance steps – she’s early – and then spreads the gallery map out on the nearest bench. She’s been here many times before, but somehow, today’s prize has always passed her by. Orienting herself, she sets off with determination, a nervous excitement growing in the pit of her stomach.

  She makes her way through the rooms dedicated to the 1930s and 1940s, admiring a Graham Sutherland painting and a bronze of a Madonna and Child by Henry Moore, but unwilling to stop until she finds the room dedicated to the artists of the 1950s. The room is pleasingly quiet, just two grey-haired women in matching brown raincoats standing in front of a Lowry and a young man in a battered leather jacket listening to the gallery tour on headphones. In the far corner a young woman dressed head-to-toe in black hovers discreetly, watching over proceedings. She acknowledges Maggie with a slight nod of the head then averts her gaze to the empty space in the centre of the room.

  Maggie scans the walls. Francis Bacon. John Bratby. Patrick Heron. She has already seen images of what she is seeking on the internet, but it is still a thrill to recognise them: two small oil paintings in simple gilt frames hung side by side in the far corner of the room. She moves closer, hungry to view them up close.

  The first is a still life. A wooden box spilling paints and brushes. A simple painting but for the extraordinary trompe l’oeil effect the artist has created, using skilful perspective and depth to create the illusion that the viewer might simply stretch out a hand and reach right inside the box to grasp any of the twisted tubes of paint or one of the well-used brushes. In the corner she notes the artist’s signature, her eyes tracing the now-familiar looped ‘J’ and the flourish on the tail of the ‘F’.

&nb
sp; The second painting is more reminiscent of the work in the painted room at Cloudesley. It shows a rural landscape of a field at harvest time, hay bales dotting a distant vale of fields, the scene glowing golden in an orange-fire sunset. Once more, it is a simple painting, a rural idyll, but for the quirky perspective added by the farm labourer lying in the foreground, a discarded jar of cider in the grass beside him.

  The small white card beside the second painting reveals it to be titled Somerset Glory and tells her that it was painted in 1953, as part of a collection of rural studies by the artist. The card gives a short précis of the artist’s training, details Maggie already knows from her internet research, and mentions that while the artist would go on to enjoy success with several more celebrated collections, being regarded by The Times in 1954 as one of Britain’s most promising young artists, he had all but dropped out of the art scene by the late 1950s, in what was widely reported as a crisis of confidence. The final point notes that despite his sudden decline, Jack Fincher is widely recognised as an important counter to the rise of abstract expressionism, and as having an influence on the superrealism movement of later decades.

  She turns back to the painting of the Somerset landscape and scrutinises it so closely she begins to lose all sense of the image as a whole, distilling it down to individual brushstrokes. While executed on a fraction of the scale, there’s no denying it shares a similar style to the painted room at Cloudesley. She is moving between the two paintings, hoping to glean further secrets, when she glimpses the small print at the bottom of the information card she missed in her first hurried reading: Generously donated to Tate galleries from the private collection of Charles Oberon, 1956.

  Seeing her grandfather’s name printed there in black and white next to the landscape is startling. Charles once owned this painting? She looks again at the date: 1956. From what she’s pieced together, that would have been just a year after the completion of the room. It doesn’t make sense. Why would Charles go to the trouble of commissioning an elaborate painted room by someone she assumes was a favoured artist, only to lock it up, forbid anyone to go inside and then give away a valuable original work by the same man? It’s baffling.

  She hears the subtle clearing of a throat. Maggie glances round and finds the gallery assistant has moved a little closer, perhaps agitated at Maggie’s proximity to the painting. Reluctantly, she steps back. She checks her watch. She still has twenty minutes to wait, so she continues with a cursory tour around the rest of the gallery, then rifles fruitlessly in the gift shop, hoping to find a print or postcard of one of the Fincher paintings to take back with her, for posterity. At five to three she makes her way back to the room.

  The original guard has left and been replaced with a slim man, again dressed in black, who stands on the other side of the room discussing one of the paintings with a shrill Italian lady. The only other visitors are an elderly man seated on a bench in the centre of the room, a walking stick resting beside him, and a young woman with blonde curly hair seated to his right. They talk in low voices. Maggie, feeling her butterflies take flight, inhales deeply and approaches them. ‘Mister Fincher?’ she asks, addressing the seated man.

  The man looks up at her. His face is an extraordinary map of lines and crags but his eyes are dark and clear. ‘Miss Oberon. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ She smiles, unsure whether to offer her hand to the seated man, not wanting him to have to stand on her account, but he is already indicating the woman at his side with a tilt of his head. ‘This is Lucy,’ he says, introducing her. ‘She very kindly drove me here today.’

  ‘Thank you,’ says Maggie quickly, taking the woman’s outstretched hand in her own, noting her dark eyes, her fair, curly hair and the straight aquiline nose. The family resemblance is striking. His granddaughter, she presumes. ‘This really does mean so much to me. Will you join us for afternoon tea?’

  Lucy shakes her head. ‘I’m sure you two would like some time to talk. How about I meet you out in the entrance hall, when you’re done? There’s no rush; I’ll be perfectly happy amusing myself round here.’ Lucy leans down and kisses the old man’s cheek tenderly, then leaves them with a small wave.

  Maggie notices that the old man’s eyes have tracked back to the two paintings hung on the opposite wall. ‘Is it strange seeing them again?’ she asks, taking a seat beside him.

  ‘Yes.’ Jack Fincher smiles. ‘They certainly stir my emotions.’

  She nods. ‘I love them.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes. I love the light you’ve captured in both of them. They’re so playful. It feels as though you’re testing us. As if you’re asking us to think about what’s real, and what’s not real.’

  He looks at her with interest. ‘Are you an artist?’

  ‘Do you know,’ she says with a sigh, ‘I’ve been asking myself that very question for some time now.’

  The man nods, as if in understanding.

  ‘I’ve certainly enjoyed researching your career.’ She smiles as she turns to him. ‘Though I have to say, it’s been a frustrating trail. I couldn’t find any information about your other works. They’re all held in private collections. Do you still paint?’

  Jack Fincher shakes his head. ‘Oh no. I haven’t lifted a paintbrush in years.’

  ‘That’s a shame. What made you stop?’

  He hesitates, just for a fraction, then pulls his hands from deep within his coat pockets and lays them in his lap. ‘An accident.’

  Maggie has been preparing encouraging platitudes about how it’s never too late to try again, about how all he has to do is pick up the brush and give it a go, about how age is irrelevant, but when she sees his hands, all words fail her.

  She knows it’s rude to stare but she can’t help it because they’re not really hands at all, but twisted claws, rivers of deep scar tissue and pink gristle spreading up into his shirtsleeves.

  ‘The nerve damage made it virtually impossible for me to hold or control anything that required fine motor skills or a certain level of dexterity.’

  ‘Like a paintbrush,’ says Maggie softly.

  ‘Yes. Like a paintbrush.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ She looks at him, then back to the painting.

  Something is fluttering at the edges of her mind, like a moth seen from the corner of an eye. She looks at the man’s hands. She thinks of the locked room, its soot-streaked walls and the lingering scent of smoke and ash. Gradually, all the pieces of a story swirling wildly in her head drop into place. She stares from the man’s hands to the paintings on the wall, and then back to Jack Fincher.

  ‘You were there, weren’t you? At Cloudesley. On the day of the fire.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, his voice so soft she has to crane to hear him. ‘I was there.’

  Maggie lets out a long breath. This man is more valuable than the key she’d been given to open the door. Questions leap into her head, but she forces herself to wait. ‘Shall we go and get a cup of tea? I have so many questions . . . and, while I don’t want to upset you or bring up any painful memories,’ she glances away from his hands and concentrates on his dark, grey eyes, ‘it would mean so much for me to be able to ask you about your work, and the room . . . and about my grandparents.’

  The man nods.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I think there’s a cafe, right this way.’

  In her excitement, she takes a wrong turn and instead of leading him to the gallery cafe, they find themselves heading down an art deco staircase and arriving at the entrance to the Rex Whistler Restaurant. ‘Two for afternoon tea?’ asks a small man with an imperious French accent. Maggie looks behind him to the genteel scene of well-heeled ladies drinking tea and selecting cakes and sandwiches from elegant silver cake stands. It’s far more formal than she had intended, but she is afraid she has already dragged the elderly man further than perhaps he wanted to go. ‘Yes please,’ she says quickly. She will think of it as research for the tea room they plan to open at Cloudesley next year; a
nd then, just in case her companion should be worried about the expense, she adds, ‘My treat.’

  The waiter seats them at a table near the back of the low-ceilinged room. All around them stretches a colourful, fantastical painted mural. Maggie gazes at it for a moment, her eye caught by a white unicorn kicking up its heels, before she turns back to Jack with a smile. ‘It’s rather appropriate, don’t you think, Mr Fincher?’ says Maggie with a smile. ‘A painted room.’

  ‘Yes.’ He nods. ‘Rex Whistler was a master. It was a tragedy he died in the war.’

  She waits until the waiter has taken their order before launching into her questions. ‘My grandfather commissioned you to paint the room in the west wing at Cloudesley?’

  Jack Fincher nods his head. ‘He did. I have no idea why he chose me. I think he liked my work. He held an earlier painting of mine in his collection.’

  ‘The one hanging in the gallery upstairs?’

  Jack nods.

  ‘The card said Charles donated it to the gallery the year after you finished work at the house.’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘That was very generous,’ she says carefully.

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  Maggie sits back in her chair. She senses an undercurrent hovering below the surface of their conversation, something she can’t quite pin down. Had the two men fallen out over the room? Was that why Charles offloaded a once-cherished piece of art to the gallery?

  Before she can dwell further on the matter, their tea arrives. The waiter makes a great performance of placing china cups and saucers, silver teapots, milk jugs and sugar on the table in front of them. They pour the tea and Maggie watches silently as Jack wrestles with a small pair of silver tongs and the sugar bowl, holding them awkwardly in his damaged hands. She has to fight the urge to reach across and help. Eventually he drops a lump into his cup of milky tea. ‘The effort it takes, you’d think I’d have given it up by now,’ he says with a wry smile.