Agnes shook the earth from a large cos lettuce and walked over to the car. ‘I like it,’ she said. ‘Leave the luggage for the moment. We can deal with all that when we’ve eaten.’
But Francesca couldn’t wait to show her the mermaid. ‘I’ll just bring this,’ she said and picked up the box.
‘You paint?’ Agnes said, looking at the legs of the easel. It was only just a question.
Francesca gave her a rueful grin. ‘I used to.’
‘And now you’ve started again,’ Agnes understood, leading her round the side of the house.
‘I’ve been trying to paint the mermaid.’
‘Naturally,’ Agnes said, passing a dozen planters full of herbs and walking through the open kitchen door. She set the trug on the kitchen table and held out her hand. ‘Well show me then,’ she said.
They sat on Agnes’s well worn kitchen chairs facing one another across the table and Francesca handed her folder over, wondering what her friend would say about it. Then, because she was feeling anxious, she diverted herself by looking round the room. It was terrible untidy. There was a heap of crumpled washing mounded on top of the washing machine, piles of old newspapers stacked on the floor, a battered horse-shoe nailed to the wall. The sink was crammed full of unwashed mugs and plates, and the whole place was heavy with the scent of flowers. They were filling every available receptacle – cut glass vases, china pots, empty milk bottles and jam jars – and they stood on every available surface – the dresser, the draining board, the top of the fridge, even on two old chairs. After a while, as Agnes went on quietly examining the sketches, the scent of so many blossoms began to make Francesca’s head reel. Please say something, she thought, watching her host, even if it’s only ‘they’re not very good.’
What she said was completely unexpected. ‘He squashed you right down, didn’t he.’
‘Well, yes he did,’ Francesca admitted. ‘But how do you. . . ?
‘The sketches,’ Agnes said, answering the question before it was completed. ‘This is the first one, right?’ And when Francesca nodded. ‘And this is the second? And this the third. They get steadily more confident as you work. The brushwork in the first one is tentative, the next one is better, the third better still. Once you’re back in your stride you’re going to paint something superb. You’re half way there already.’
To be praised so fulsomely was so pleasurable and unexpected that it brought tears to Francesca’s eyes. ‘I haven’t captured her yet,’ she said.
‘You will,’ Agnes told her. ‘Tomorrow morning, when we’ve had our breakfast, and if the weather holds, we’ll find a nice warm spot in the garden where the light’s just right and you can get to work. Now we must prepare the supper. There’s a cold roast chicken in the fridge and it won’t take a minute to toss this salad.’
They had supper, they talked until midnight, when they finally remembered that they’d left Francesca’s luggage in the car and decided that most of it could stay where it was until morning. ‘Nobody nicks anything round here. It’s too quiet.’
In the morning, after Francesca had insisted on washing all the dirty dishes and had scrubbed the draining board until it shone while Agnes removed the dead and dying flowers to the compost heap and replaced them with fresh ones, instead of dealing with the luggage, they went out into the sunshine and chose ‘the best spot’ for Francesca’s easel. And Agnes wandered off towards the orchard to see how the apples were coming along and left her to it.
It was soothing to be in that vast, rambling garden with birds singing and chirruping all around her and the sun warm on the nape of her neck, and being soothed made it possible for her to see what had to be done to her portrait of the mermaid. It was the shape of that tail that was wrong. It was too stiff. It didn’t flow. It should be more watery, more like a wave, more fluid. She took a sketch-pad and a pencil and began to draw, using long sweeping strokes, first for the lazily threshing tail and then for the long tangled fronds of the hair. She was so absorbed in what she was trying to do that she didn’t hear the stranger’s approach until he was standing beside her. Then she turned her head and looked straight at him. He was staring at her sketch-pad.
‘Interesting design,’ he said, still looking at it.
‘It’s a mermaid,’ she told him and picked up the best of her first painted sketches to show him.
He took it from her and considered it for a long time. ‘And now you are adding the movement you need,’ he said. ‘I like your palette. Tawny eyes are a lovely touch. Just right.’
For a second she almost told him that was the colour they were. Then she checked herself. He looked far too solid and sensible to believe that anyone had actually seen a mermaid. Too solid, too sensible, too middle class and middle aged and ordinary, in his buff chinos and his old fashioned check shirt, brown hair greying at the temples, large long-fingered hands holding her sketch. A bank manager, I’ll bet. Or a teacher. Something dependable anyway. And dull.
‘Blue-greens and tawny gold,’ he said, ‘with touches of bronze to set off the gold. Have you thought of giving her bronze hair?’
She hadn’t but, now that he’d said it, she could see how possible it was. Dark bronze hair with gold highlights. Maybe he taught art.
‘Henry, me dear!’ Agnes was striding towards them through the long grass, calling as she came. ‘How nice to see you. You never told me you were coming this morning. You could have had breakfast with us if you’d let me know.’
He handed the sketch back to Francesca and walked off at once to great his old friend, taking her hands in his and stooping to kiss her, first on one cheek and then on the other. ‘Good cruise?’ he asked. ‘You look well.’
‘Have lunch with us and we’ll tell you all about it,’ she said. ‘Won’t we Francesca?’
‘Can’t be done,’ he said. ‘Sorry about that. I’ve got a meeting in half an hour. I just popped by to invite you to supper on Friday. You and your friend here, of course. I’ve got a few people coming in. 7.30?’
‘We’ll bring some wine,’ Agnes told him. And watched as he walked across her shaggy lawn towards his car.
A Merc, Francesca thought, as it made a quiet turning in the drive. And very nice too. So he’s not a teacher.
‘I never introduced you,’ Agnes said, as the car drove away. ‘Never mind. I’ll do it on Friday. What do you fancy for lunch?’
‘Whatever you like,’ Francesca said and then hesitated, saying finally, ‘Do you want me to help you with it? Only I’d like to stay here for a bit longer, if that’s all right. Your friend Henry’s given me an idea.’
‘In that case you must work on it,’ Agnes said. ‘I’ll blow a whistle when it’s ready.’
But Francesca had stopped listening to her. The mermaid was growing in her mind, as if she was ripening in the sun, bronze hair flowing and scaly tail curving and threshing. She couldn’t wait to paint what she saw. When the whistle blew, the mermaid’s lissom body was complete – golden eyes, slim arms, pearly skin and all – and her tail was very nearly right, and she was still hard at work, painting the long twisting curves of her bronze hair. ‘Coming!’ she called and went on painting.
‘It’s a pasta,’ Agnes called back, ‘and it won’t wait. I’m bringing it out into the garden.’
They ate the pasta in the shade of the cherry tree and drank rather a lot of Chianti to wash it down.
‘I don’t know about you, but I needed that,’ Agnes said, when their plates were clean.
‘Me too,’ Francesca told her. ‘It was delicious.’
‘Now what shall we do?’ Agnes said. ‘I suppose you want to get back to your mermaid.’
‘Well, actually,’ Francesca said, making a grimace, ‘I think I ought to unpack my luggage first, if that’s all right. I can’t leave it in the boot for ever.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Agnes said. ‘There’s nobody here to mind what you do.’
‘Some of it might spoil.’
Agnes put her
head on one side and grinned at her. ‘What sort of things have you got? It sounds like the crown jewels.’
‘Bedding,’ Francesca told her seriously, ‘crockery, glasses, a telly, CDs, books, towels, clothes and shoes, of course.’
‘Most of that can go in the garage,’ Agnes said. ‘It’ll be safe there. Come on.’ And she strode off across the garden.
The garage was as dilapidated as the rest of the house and it was packed with junk, spades and forks with broken handles, cracked flowerpots stacked one inside the other, a water butt with a hole in it, piles of earth-brown newspaper and ancient seed catalogues, several old raincoats and a selection of broken-down boots, bundles of raspberry canes, old stained paint-pots, jam jars full of stubby paint brushes, a lawn mower, a rusty scythe and what looked like the tattered remains of a garden tent.
‘Heavens!’ Francesca said, staring at it. ‘Will there be room? I mean I’ve got rather a lot of stuff.’
‘Room?’ Agnes said in her trenchant way. ‘Course there’ll be room. Plenty of room. We’ll just shift a few things around. You’ll see.’ And she picked up the tent and threw it across the water butt. Within two seconds the musty air was full of fluttering paper, tossed boots, tumbling brushes. It was so ridiculous and so uninhibited it made Francesca giggle. But it was also effective. Within twenty seconds there was a clearance big enough to take the first of Francesca’s packing cases, within twenty minutes the car had been unpacked and all her belongings except her clothes were heaped in a neat pile in the middle of the muddle. She and Agnes were grey with dust and sticky with cobwebs but the job was done.
‘Right,’ Agnes said, cleaning her hands on her skirt. ‘That’s that. Now we can go back to the garden.’
Which they did, she drifting off to sleep on the hammock and Francesca, after washing her face and hands and carrying her suitcases up to her bedroom, returning to her mermaid. There was only the last of that long weed bronze hair to paint now and she was itching to finish it.
She worked steadily for the rest of the afternoon, pleased with what she was doing, feeling rewarded. It was well and away the happiest day she’d spent for years. And there was still a party to come.
Jeffrey Walmesly drove home from Plymouth that evening feeling tired and irritable. The conference hadn’t gone at all well. In fact, if he’d been a man who let things get him down – which of course he wasn’t, not by any manner of means – he’d have said it was a complete waste of time. The trouble was that the chairman of the firm he’d set his sights on had been a doddering old fool with no imagination, one of the old school, who thought he knew better than anybody else, because he was the boss, dyed-in-the-wool stubborn and as thick as his stupid concrete. It didn’t matter what arguments he’d used to try and persuade him – and he tried every single one in his repertoire – he just hadn’t seemed to understand how valuable it would have been to his ridiculous firm to be able to produce concrete in a variety of colours. Kept saying, ‘No, no, we’re fine as we are.’ Damned stupid man. Sheer lack of intelligence, that’s what it was. And now he’d wasted all that time and far too much of his diminishing cash and all to no purpose. It was enough to make him spit.
Never mind, he tried to comfort himself, I’ll soon be home and then I’ll have a good stiff brandy and tell old Fran how awful it was and she’ll cook up something tasty for me and massage my neck and make me feel better. She might be a bit empty headed but if there was one thing she was really good at, it was wifely comfort. Niggling away in the back of his mind was the memory of that last stinging exchange of theirs and her voice saying ‘I’m leaving you’, but he knew she hadn’t meant it. She wouldn’t really leave him. Not after all this time and all the good things he bought for her. That kitchen cost an arm and a leg. Anyway she couldn’t do it because she’d never be able to manage without him. They both knew that. She’d been upset, that’s all it was. Time of the month probably. Women did all sorts of peculiar things then. They couldn’t help it poor darlings. All those hormones rattling around in their systems. It was enough to drive anyone doolally. Oh no, she’d be there waiting for him, right enough.
It was a nasty surprise to open the door of the flat and call her name and get no answer. Oh for heavens sake! he thought, as he walked into his empty living room, what’s she playing at? Where’s she gone? She couldn’t be out shopping. Not at this time of night. Could she? There was an easy way to find the answer. All he had to do was to go and see if she’d taken her shopping bags. But to his growing apprehension, the kitchen was even emptier than the living room and it wasn’t just shopping bags that were missing. There was no sign of the saucepans or the cups and saucers. In fact there was no china or glass in the cupboards at all. He walked into the bedroom feeling distinctly uneasy and opened the wardrobe gingerly. Her rails and shelves were mockingly empty. All her clothes were gone, shoes, skirts, jumpers, coats, the lot. There wasn’t a trace of her left. Now thoroughly alarmed, he made a full check all over the flat, looking in the bathroom – no towels, no bathmat; in the airing cupboard – no sheets or pillow cases; in the kitchen to check the fridge – not so much as a crumb; and finally back to the living room, where there were no cushions on the sofa and, horror of horrors, no telly. He didn’t understand it. Wouldn’t understand it. She must have gone mad. And just when he was looking forward to a good meal too.
The take-away was insipid and he had to drink his beer from the can, because she’d taken all the glasses, and he hated doing that. It was so vulgar. He sat among the debris of his meal in the silence of his denuded living room with no telly to look at, swilling beer and brooding. She can’t have gone far, he thought. I mean to say, where could she go? She hasn’t got any friends – except for me. And she’d never have gone to her mother’s because she’s such an old bat. And what’s she going to live on? She hasn’t got any savings. She can’t just drift about with no money.
But at that point the answer to his problem switched on like a floodlight. If he wanted to find her, the place to look was Randall and Tongs. I’ll go there first thing tomorrow morning and tell her she can come home. I won’t read the riot act or tell her off or anything like that. I’ll just be my magnanimous self, promise her a meal out or a night on the town or something. She’ll be eating out of my hand in no time. She’s probably been really miserable without me, living in some pokey room somewhere with nothing in her life except filing letters and answering the phone. Poor girl. It serves her right but you have to feel sorry for her. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll soon have her back.
CHAPTER 3
Although Francesca had pictured him in a bank manager’s respectable house in the leafy suburbs of Lewes, Henry Prendergast actually lived in a converted oast house and as far out in the isolation of the countryside as Agnes Potts. It was sumptuously appointed, worth about three quarters of a million pounds – as he was well aware because he kept a close eye on the value of his assets – and it stood in a garden almost as big as Agnes’s although considerably better groomed. It was the perfect setting for a party.
When Francesca drove her elderly Fiat into the drive that Friday evening, and parked it among the brand new Mercs and Volvos and Jaguars, she was impressed and surprised. If he was a bank manager, he was a very well-heeled one.
And extremely hospitable, welcoming them on the doorstep and smiling them into an elegant hall. ‘We’re all in the kitchen,’ he said, taking Francesca by the elbow and leading the way. ‘Come and be introduced.’
The room was full of people, all taking at once and most of them holding glasses. ‘You all know Aggie don’t you and this is her friend Francesca, who is an artist.’ Glasses were raised in greeting. ‘Hi there Aggie! Hi there Francesca!’
He walked her into the crowd, introducing people as he went, ‘This is Liam, my accountant, and this is Yvette, my PA, and this is Molly, who does virtually everything’.
Molly was short and bubbly and everything about her was beautifully rounded. Her hair was a rich
ness of auburn curls and her arms and shoulders could have been painted by Rubens. ‘So he says,’ she observed, laughing at Henry as she shook Francesca’s hand. ‘Little does he know!’
Henry grinned at her and went on with his introductions. ‘This is John. This is Connie. And Babs and Reggie who are my nearest neighbours. Have some champagne. Nothing like champagne to start a party.’
‘Half a mile up the lane,’ Babs explained, as Francesca took a champagne flute from the proffered tray and Henry drifted away to talk to Agnes, ‘which counts for “near” out here. So you’re an artist.’
‘Well . . .’ Francesca said in her self deprecatory way. ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. I paint a bit.’
‘If Henry says you’re an artist, then that’s what you are,’ Reggie said. ‘He knows one when he sees one. You can take my word for it. Stout feller our Henry.’
‘Well . . .’ Francesca said again and sipped the champagne to cover her confusion. Was she really an artist? Had the mermaid given her status as well as freedom? What would Agnes say about that? And she looked around to see where her friend had got to. There were so many people milling about it took a few seconds.
She was on the other side of the room, talking to Henry and laughing at something he’d just said. She waved her glass at Francesca and mouthed ‘OK?’ And as she smiled back and waved her own glass, Francesca thought how very OK it was and how different her life had become since she’d left Jeffrey.
Francesca and the Mermaid Page 3