by Kathy Shuker
‘So what do you think?’ said Lindsey.
Hearing the edge in her voice, Terri turned to find the girl’s eyes on her again. They were hazel rather than green and her complexion was less fair, but the resemblance to Angela was certainly there. She had none of her mother’s lambent charm however.
‘I’m sorry, what do I think?’
‘About our home?’
‘It’s beautiful. I’ve never been to Provence before.’
‘What do you do exactly?’
‘Do? I’m a curator.’
‘Yes, I know. But what do you do?’
‘Well, it depends on the job. I research an artist’s work, organise paintings for exhibition, borrow work from other collections, write catalogues and labels, arrange publicity...’ Terri stopped, aware that she probably sounded like something out of a job prospectus. She’d been asked the same question so many times that the answer now came out pat. Not that she’d done any of those things for a while now. She shrugged. ‘...all sorts of things like that.’
‘And you’re going to do all that for my father?’
‘That’s the plan, yes.’
Lindsey studied Terri for a moment, then sneered. ‘He won’t like that then. He doesn’t like anyone else trying to organise him.’
‘But that’s what he’s employed me to do.’ Terri met Lindsey’s gaze steadily, feeling increasingly annoyed. The kettle boiled and she turned away to pour water over the tea bag in a china mug. A few minutes later she carried the tea and toast across to the table.
Lindsey drank a mouthful of coffee, watching Terri over the rim of the mug.
‘Mama tells me you’re here for six months,’ she remarked. ‘It’s going to be kind of weird having you in the house all that time.’
Terri forced a smile. ‘Actually, it’s kind of weird for me too.’
‘Really? I’d have thought it was pretty cushy.’ Lindsey looked at her with frank hostility.
Terri bit back a cutting reply and started on her toast, determinedly staring out of the window again. For some reason the girl was trying to get a rise out of her and she had no desire to get into an argument with her employer’s daughter on her first morning.
There were light footsteps down the stairs and across the hall. A moment later, Angela, still in her dressing gown, appeared in the doorway. In the bright morning light she looked a little older than Terri had thought the night before, maybe mid-fifties.
‘Terri,’ she said. ‘Good, I see Lindsey’s sorted you out. Morning darling. Everything all right?’
‘Ah oui, tout baigne,’ said Lindsey ironically.
‘Don’t speak French darling,’ responded Angela smoothly. ‘You know how I hate it.’ She turned her clear gaze on Terri, said, ‘I’ll show you round later, shall I?’ and embraced them both in a smile before gliding back out of the room.
Terri waited till she’d gone and turned back to Lindsey. ‘Can I ask what it was you said?’
‘Sure. It means: everything’s just peachy. Don’t you speak French?’
‘Some.’
There was a frosty silence.
‘So what do you do?’ asked Terri.
‘I’m a receptionist at Le Vieux Manoir. It’s a big hotel and restaurant a few kilometres from here. We get all sorts of celebrities there: Hollywood stars, sportspeople. It’s rather chic and words gets around...you know?’ Lindsey tossed her hair back in an affected way. She looked to be in her late twenties but appeared young for her age; there was something rebellious and adolescent in her manner. ‘The worst thing about it is that I have to work shifts and they’re a pain.’ She returned to her magazine and they sat in silence while Terri finished her toast.
‘Is your father about?’ she asked. ‘I haven’t spoken to him yet.’
‘He’s down in the studio. Probably waiting for you. There’s a note for you up there.’
Lindsey pointed to the other end of the table where a small piece of folded paper lay almost covered by another glossy magazine. Terri stood up and reached for it. On the top, her name had been written in a familiar sloping hand. Inside it read:
Miss Challoner,
I will expect you in the studio at 9 o’clock prompt.
Peter Stedding
Beneath his signature was a tiny line drawing of the route to the studio.
‘Oh shit,’ she said, and was aware of a smug smile on Lindsey’s face as she quickly left the table, swallowed a mouthful of tea and threw the rest away. A few minutes later she had grabbed her bag and a notebook from her room and was running across the terrace.
*
Peter Stedding’s studio occupied an old barn down the hill at least ten minutes’ walk from the house. Built of the same stone as the mas, it sat in its ground with an air of belonging. Several windows had been let into its walls and four skylights into the northern pitch of the roof. A series of stone steps cut through a grassy bank created the final descent to a sturdy wooden door. Terri lifted her hand and rapped on it three times. After a minute’s silence she knocked again and when still nothing happened, she tried the door handle and let herself in.
She could see no-one but there was music playing somewhere, something strong and lyrical; Beethoven perhaps. The space was immense but still looked cluttered. In the middle stood a huge studio easel with a table beside it covered in tubes of paint, bottles, brushes and rags. Nearby was a long, low platform with an oriental rug thrown across it and supporting a chaise longue. At the far end of the room to her left stood another easel and a series of trestle tables, all covered in equipment. And there were paintings everywhere, both on the walls and propped up on the floor below them, apparently several canvases deep.
She heard a string of expletives. It came from behind a half open door in a run of partition walling over to the right. She walked across but hesitated outside the door. A tall stand of shelves beyond housed a range of artefacts, pieces of fabric, porcelain and pottery, masks, wooden fertility symbols and assorted hats, all jostling for position. Terri wondered how he found anything.
She knocked twice and waited. The room went silent.
‘Come in,’ said a rich, baritone voice.
The room was larger than she had expected and furnished like a study: floor to ceiling bookshelves; a day bed with a throw and cushions; a leather wing-backed chair and side table. In the middle stood Peter Stedding, searching impatiently in the open drawer of a knee-hole desk. He straightened as Terri walked in. Despite a slight stoop at the shoulders, he was imposingly tall with a thick head of white hair and piercing grey-blue eyes. He immediately glanced at the clock on one of the shelves.
‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘I’m...’
‘You’re late,’ he remarked crisply, ‘but I suppose you weren’t sure where to come. I’ll let it pass this time.’
Terri opened her mouth to speak and closed it again. She waited. He had resumed his search of the drawer with his right hand. The whole of his left forearm to his knuckles was encased in plaster of Paris.
‘Blast it all,’ he exclaimed and slammed the drawer closed. ‘This bloody plaster’s making it impossible to do anything.’ He threw himself down in the chair behind the desk. ‘A silly little stumble and I’m left like this.’ He rapped the arm plaster with the back of his fingers. ‘Apparently I’m old, Miss Challoner. I take longer to heal now.’
Terri struggled to think of a suitable response. She thought he looked remarkably, frighteningly, vital for his seventy-seven years.
‘Sit, why don’t you?’ he barked.
She sat.
‘Right...So-o Miss Challoner...Terri isn’t it?...as you know, there’s a gallery in Nice, the De Villaney, who’ve offered me a retrospective. Starts thirtieth September. There’s a lot to organise before then. I did start to do it but then this...’ He raised the plaster and glared vindictively at it. ‘...and of course the gallery wanted to do it themselves but I’ve had trouble with galleries before. They start to think they own you. Now I see f
rom your CV that you’ve had some experience before in this sort of work.’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘But never for a living artist.’
‘Er...no.’
‘Hm.’ He studied Terri thoughtfully as if he was now having doubts about her suitability for the post.
‘I believe I did make that clear in my application,’ she said. ‘But the procedures for organising an exhibition are the same whether the artists are alive or dead.’
‘Except that the dead aren’t in a position to express an opinion or complain.’ He regarded her beadily.
‘I did curate a very successful exhibition of portraiture not long ago.’
‘Yes, I know. I saw it. Three years ago, wasn’t it? Ye-es.i Very...competent.’ He looked back down at her details. ‘Thirty-four. Good qualifications. But you’re young to have done so much. You’ve moved around a lot I see. That’s not necessarily good. Restless. And you’ve not done much of note recently. Ferfylde’s: not the most adventurous gallery in the world to put it mildly.’ Terri said nothing. It was as if the whole job process had been reversed and she was having an interview after the job had been offered. Peter sighed heavily. ‘Well, time will tell no doubt...’
He pulled a piece of paper with a hand-written list towards him on the desk. On a cord round his neck hung a pair of half-glasses and he lifted them to place on the end of his long nose. Terri took out her pen and opened her notebook in readiness.
‘Your working days will be Monday to Friday,’ he began. ‘Eight thirty with a break for lunch, one till two-thirty. Finish five thirty. I like punctuality. I will be here usually during the morning session. In the afternoon I generally start late and work into the evening. It varies. I often work at the weekend and insist on having the studio to myself then.’ He paused to look over his glasses at her. ‘I particularly want to impress on you that you don’t speak to me when I’m painting. If you need to speak to me, you wait until I look at you. Then you speak.’ He returned to his list. ‘I hold life classes here once a week on a Tuesday. You’d better keep out of the way while they’re on. God knows the students’ll find any excuse to let their minds wander so the last thing we need is a pretty face getting in their eye line or any female chatter. They’re morning sessions, nine till one.’ He paused to glance up at her stony expression and returned to his list. ‘When it comes to the retrospective, I shall decide which paintings are going into the exhibition and I will have the last say in how it is done. I don’t want you making any arrangements without checking with me first. Is that clear?’
‘But not when you’re painting,’ she remarked evenly.
He looked at her again over his glasses, eyes narrowing.
‘Don’t get cute with me, Terri. This is the way I run my studio. If you don’t like the rules, you don’t have to take the job.’ He kept his gaze fixed on her and she reluctantly nodded. He returned again to the list.
‘If Luc’s not around – he’s my studio assistant – I’ll expect you to make my coffee. I have a couple during the morning – black, one sugar. In the afternoon I drink tea, again black with one sugar. But the same rules apply: leave the drink on my table if I’m painting – somewhere sensible of course – but don’t speak. In fact Luc won’t be here till Tuesday this week so you can fill in on Monday.’
Terri’s heart was rapidly sinking: she was going to be a highly qualified drinks monitor. She watched him root about under some letters. He produced a typewritten sheet of paper and pushed it towards her with a ball-point pen on top.
‘I need you to sign that before we go any further.’ Terri read it through. It was a statement declaring that she would not disclose any information to the press or publish anything without his agreement. ‘I’ve had trouble with journalists in the past,’ he muttered. ‘Always want to know who you’re painting, whether they’re dressed or not. Bloody nonsense.’
‘But I’m not a journalist,’ she said coldly.
‘No, but everyone seems to sell stories to the press these days. It’s a disease.’
‘But not one that I’ve caught.’
‘Then signing it shouldn’t be an issue for you.’
She met his gaze for a moment then signed the declaration, dropped the pen back on it and pushed it brusquely back across the table.
‘Right,’ he declared, ‘so...about the paintings. I’ve made a list of pictures I definitely want in the exhibition.’ He moved papers around on his desk again, then ferreted underneath a laptop. ‘Ah, here it is.’ He handed it to her. There were eleven paintings on it.
‘Do you know where all of these paintings are?’ she asked.
‘Not all of them, no. That’s what I’m paying you to do: track them down.’
‘But I’ll need something to go on. And what about the rest of the exhibition? Eleven paintings won’t fill it. Has the gallery said how much space is available?’
‘They might have. I can’t remember off the top of my head.’
‘I’ll get in touch with them.’
‘Do. But don’t let them dictate. I haven’t decided what else might be suitable.’
‘Ideally we need a selection of works from the different phases of your career.’ Terri glanced towards the studio. ‘Perhaps there would be something suitable here. Mixing in some lesser known works is always a good idea.’
‘Oh? I didn’t know I’d had phases,’ he said, scornfully. ‘Still...there might be some worthwhile work here. You may look...as long as you don’t get in my way.’
‘Where do you keep the records of your paintings? On the computer?’
‘Good grief, no. Computers are an abomination, designed to distract and confuse. I only use them under sufferance. I have notebooks. Every painting I do, I make a note and do a sketch of it.’
‘The notebooks would be useful then. Do they have any other information in?’
‘Sometimes, though I can’t see how they would help.’ He studied her critically. ‘I suppose I might let you look at them. I’ll think about it. Certainly there are some old exhibition catalogues you could have.’
‘Good.’ She glanced round. ‘So where am I going to work? I’ll need a desk and some storage space.’
‘You can work in here. Nicole – my secretary - only uses this desk in the mornings, ten till one. You can work round her, unless I’m in here of course. Then you’ll have to...’ He waved a peremptory hand towards the door.
‘I’m afraid that won’t work. I need my own desk...and space to spread out.’
He swore vehemently. ‘I will not have you taking over my studio, woman. What the hell do you need space for?’
‘Because I have to chase up a lot of paintings. They’ll need to be recorded and tracked and I need to make sure information doesn’t become lost or mixed up. I’ll also need to plan how the exhibition will look and hang...with your agreement, of course. It’s not something that can be done working round someone else.’
Peter’s pale eyes bored into her; he drummed the fingers of his right hand on the desk. Suddenly he slapped his hand down flat. ‘All right...all right. I’ll ask Sami to sort out the storeroom next door.’
‘I’ll need an internet connection.’
‘Yes, well, we’ve got wi-fi. Right. So now, just go will you? I would like to get some work done today. I’ll expect you here in the morning...eight-thirty prompt.’
He started collecting together the loose sheets of paper.
Terri stood up. ‘Mr Stedding?’
‘Oh, call me Peter, for God’s sake. I can’t stand all this Mister nonsense.’ He thrust the paperwork in one of the drawers.
She stood as straight as she could; she wasn’t tall. ‘You clearly don’t want me here. I’m not sure why you employed me.’
He took his glasses off and fixed his sharp raking gaze on her face again.
‘I was talked into it,’ he said, ‘when I was still feeling groggy after my fall. I hit my head as well, you see. It seemed like a good idea at the time. W
ell, it would with a head injury I suppose. Still, you can be sure I’ll give you the two weeks’ notice if you’re not up to the job.’
‘I believe the contract provides for me to do the same if I don’t think I can work here.’
Peter glared at her, a tic starting in his cheek. He pointed to the door.
Back out in the studio, Terri put her head back and blew out a slow breath. Why did she never know when to stop? When it came to her work, she always moved into another gear: too passionate, too keen to make her point or stand her ground; it had got her into trouble before. Here, of all places, she needed to control that mouth of hers.
Chapter 3
Oliver was an actor, classically trained, and it showed in the way he talked and in the way he moved. Sophie worked as a set designer and had invited Terri to a theatre party where she’d seen him across the room, telling a story to an attentive audience, gesticulating with an eloquent hand and putting on voices to embellish his tale. She had been drawn immediately by his lively, even features, the intensity of his delivery, the flash of his smile. He must have felt her watching him because he’d looked her way and levelly met her gaze, raising one amused eyebrow. In response to Terri’s questioning, Sophie admitted that she hardly knew him though she had heard about him. He was very popular, she said, and probably a rising star; he was handsome; he was single. What are you waiting for? But it was Oliver who’d taken the initiative and had crossed the room to speak to Terri and before long they’d been inseparable. He’d been everything Terri was not: out-going, demonstrative and an easy conversationalist; he’d made friends without apparent effort. In introspective moments, Terri had come to the conclusion that his ‘otherness’ had probably been a big part of his attraction. It had happened before.
Now, sitting at her new desk, Terri checked the mail in her inbox. For someone so keen on his mobile phone and texting, Oliver was surprisingly disinterested in computers and emails. Even so, she was resigned to getting messages from him. Before leaving London she had acquired a new phone with a new number but changing her email address would have caused her far more trouble. She knew Oliver would quickly switch to email however when he realised his favourite avenue had been closed off. There were several new messages and, as she had expected, there were already two from Oliver Dent. The first had been sent on the Friday: