by Lucy Dillon
‘Yeaaaah, I suppose we expected, with your art-in-the-community background, that you’d have a more … I’ve got to be honest, I thought you’d come up with something stronger than this.’
Tiffany’s ‘ooh’ face morphed into an outraged ‘sod off!’ one. Lorna didn’t even want to look at Joyce. She could feel her cheeks flaming as humiliation turned her hot and cold inside.
‘What do you mean?’ she managed.
‘Well, for a start, how many people do you have in your shop now? Be honest.’
‘Two,’ said Lorna evasively.
‘That aren’t staff.’
‘Um, one.’
‘Right. And how do you think that one person would feel if there was an artist in there too? Drawing her as she walked around?’
Joyce raised her eyebrows sardonically.
‘I think she’d be fine with that,’ said Lorna.
‘Well, I ran it past a few folks here and they were very not fine with it. It lays us open to all sorts of problems, as a council. Minorities and so on …’
‘Dogs?’ she blurted out, frantically trying to think of something else. Her eye fell on Rudy, asleep by a canvas. ‘Dogs painting with their … paws.’
Oh God. Where had that come from? Joyce and Tiffany stared at her in horror.
‘Was that a joke? Look, I appreciate you’re trying to be flexible, Lorna, but you were already late for the deadline, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to sit this Art Week out. If you wanted to help, you could always volunteer with the—’
‘Wait!’ said Lorna, pushing through her embarrassment. ‘I’ve got other ideas.’
‘Was that your best one?’ He sounded very doubtful.
‘I’ve got notebooks full.’ She hadn’t, he knew she hadn’t, but Lorna couldn’t let Calum Hardy write her off like that in front of Joyce. ‘Please, Calum. I’ll email something over first thing.’
There was a long pause.
‘Please? This is so important to me.’
He sighed. ‘I’ve got a meeting to finalise the budget tomorrow afternoon. I’d need it in front of me by lunch. And this is just because it’s you. And I like you.’
‘Fine. I won’t let you down, Calum.’ She swallowed, and wished she could take him off speakerphone and have this conversation without an audience, but it was too late now. And anyway, she felt as if she was speaking to Joyce as much as to Calum Hardy. ‘I’m passionate about this – I want to show people art’s not something to be scared of, it’s something that’s all around us, something that brings us together as human beings. And I want to bring local people right into the creative process, defining our town. That’s what Art Week is about, for me.’
She knew it sounded cheesy but it was true.
Joyce was watching her, though she’d started knitting again. Click, click, click, her eyes never dropping to the needles, the fingers moving on their own as the pattern formed in her head. She’s doing it now, Lorna thought, she’s making art right here in the gallery. She thinks she’s given up art but she hasn’t really. She can’t. She’s a true artist; that’s what they do.
The bell jangled as a couple came into the shop, and Lorna grabbed it as an excuse to wind up the call.
‘I’ll email you something by tomorrow lunchtime,’ she said, quickly. ‘Thanks for giving me another chance, Calum, I really appreciate it! Speak tomorrow!’
And she hung up before he could change his mind. Adrenalin was surging around her, as if she’d just presented in front of a hall full of people, not two.
The couple meandered round to the ceramics cabinet, and Tiffany let out a long whistle. ‘What a knob. What does he think he’s doing? Running the National Gallery?’
‘I’m sorry you had to hear that, Joyce,’ said Lorna.
‘At least your idea was fresh.’ Joyce looped the wool round a finger. ‘From what I read in the paper, Art Week’s normally an excuse for the fat cats in the council to drink warm white wine in front of the Mayor’s wife’s amateurish watercolours of their holiday cottage. As for Calum Hardy …’ She sniffed, and started a new line. ‘As Tiffany says: what a knob.’
The word dropped precisely from her lips, without a flicker of reaction.
Tiffany looked horrified, but Lorna smiled. Joyce’s timing was perfect.
Having promised Calum a brilliant new idea, Lorna’s brain promptly went into white noise mode. She spent the rest of the day alternating between scribbling down terrible ideas, and staring at the phone, which still didn’t ring. Whatever Jess or Hattie were talking about, they weren’t including her.
At four o’clock, there was a commotion at the door as Keir Brownlow arrived in his usual whirlwind of papers, direct from the council offices two streets down.
‘We’ll have to rush,’ he announced, juggling his file, his phone and a large takeaway coffee as he elbowed his way in. ‘I’ve got Shirley parked outside on a double yellow – she’s dropping us then going back to the hospital to do the day-care run.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Joyce.’ He stared at Lorna. ‘You didn’t get my email?’
‘No!’
‘What?’ Keir dumped his bag on the desk and checked his phone. ‘I rang you at … No, wait. I rang Shirley . Nuts. Sorry. I’ve managed to get the occupational therapist out to Rooks Hall this afternoon – she needs to check the safety fittings with the landlords, and myself, and Joyce, ideally, so we can sign off on Joyce going back and getting out of your hair by tonight.’
‘Hello?’ Joyce waved a hand from her chair. ‘I’m here. I’m not just in the third person.’
‘Of course you’re not! Hello, Joyce!’ He bustled over to her, sorting out forms as he went. ‘I was just saying to Lorna, we can take you home this afternoon. Your landlords have everything sorted out. You’ll be glad to get back, won’t you?’
He was speaking in the exact tone Joyce found most annoying; Lorna could tell that from the formality that had returned to the old lady’s posture. The shoulders were back; the sharp chin was up.
She’d relaxed. It was only now the guard had gone back up that Lorna realised it had inched, carefully, down.
‘Well, what kind of answer can I give to that?’ Joyce asked, drily. ‘Without offending Lorna here?’
Keir looked momentarily horrified. ‘I’m sure you’ve had a lovely time surrounded by all these lovely cows,’ he said, then winced. ‘The paintings, I mean! Not … not, um … Can I trouble you to check over these documents before we go? Or would you prefer me to read them to you?’ He offered her some forms from his folder.
Joyce gave him a withering look, and then glanced over his head, a ‘for heaven’s sake!’ glint of despair in her eyes, and Lorna felt included in Joyce’s tiny gang of one. She smiled. It felt nice.
‘Joyce, we don’t mind. Of course you want to get home to Rooks Hall. Tiffany can help us pack … Tiff? Tiff, are you busy?’
Tiffany breezed in from the back room, and Keir dropped the pile of papers he was trying to sort while holding a pen in the other hand.
‘Hello, hello!’ she said. ‘What was that about packing? Aw, Joyce! Are you leaving so soon?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Joyce. ‘Shirley is on a double yellow.’
Keir coughed. ‘Ah, Tiffany, before you go – I’ve something for you!’
‘Really?’ Tiffany turned back.
‘Yes, two more dogs need walking in the town area,’ he said, handing her one sheet of paper, ‘and here’s the details about the charity job.’ He passed her another, and blushed. ‘They need someone with parent–child experience, as well as office skills. I spoke to Sally, said you’d be perfect.’
‘Thanks, Keir.’ She beamed at him. ‘Can’t believe you remembered.’
He seemed flustered. ‘No problem. I might have made out you’ve had a bit more office experience but …’
Tiffany patted his arm. ‘Don’t worry, I can type. I owe you one!’ Outside, a car honked its horn. ‘Oops
, better get a move on.’
As they’d been speaking, Joyce had got to her feet – painfully, Lorna realised – and was preparing herself to go. She seemed more fragile than she’d looked upstairs in the kitchen, calmly teaching Hattie to knit while Lorna and Tiff bustled around.
‘Would you like me to come with you?’ Lorna didn’t even know why she said it; it was instinct more than anything else.
Keir looked at them both. ‘You can have an advocate for the meeting with the OT and the landlords, if you want, Joyce. It’s a lot to take in on your own.’
Joyce waved her hand. ‘No, no. Ridiculous. I’ve taken up quite enough of Lorna’s time – I expect she’s got things to do tonight. Family matters to attend to, and such like.’ She raised an eyebrow as she said it, and it wasn’t unsympathetic. Joyce saw everything, emotions in colours, the shadows of secrets passing across faces.
But she said, ‘I’m happy to come if you’d like?’ Sam would be there, in his odd new role as reluctant landlord. Maybe Ryan had called him about the weekend’s events. Maybe he knew something. A shiver ran through her and she held herself carefully to stop Joyce catching it.
A skittering of claws on the stairs announced Bernard’s arrival in the gallery.
Keir slapped his forehead as the terrier bounced with joy around his mistress’s legs. ‘Oh God!’ he said. ‘I didn’t tell Shirley about Bernard. I don’t know if she’s legally allowed to take him. Let me go and talk to her.’
He rushed out, and Lorna moved towards the stairs, wondering how quickly they could pack Joyce’s belongings. Shirley would have to do a lap of the block, at least. There was a cough behind her, and she turned.
‘Thank you for having me,’ said Joyce, but before Lorna could reply, went on, ‘We need to discuss payment.’
Lorna flushed. ‘What? No, no. Honestly, it’s fine …’
Joyce fixed her with a clear gaze. ‘No, we made a deal. I promised you something in return for your keeping me out of that godforsaken old folks’ home this last week. And you did. What would you like?’
She’s asking me to put a price on a kindness, thought Lorna. I can’t do that. Her paintings are worth thousands. What I gave her – tea and a bed and more family drama than she bargained for – should have been given freely.
‘An idea,’ she heard herself say. ‘An idea, for Art Week. Something Calum Hardy will love.’
Shirley honked her horn again, and Joyce’s thin lips curved into a smile. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘We’ll speak in the morning.’
There was no phone call from Jess that night. Nothing from Hattie, no Instagram snaps to interpret, nothing on Facebook. No texts, no emails.
Rudy curled himself up in his basket, missing his boisterous terrier friend. He didn’t even bark when two pigeons landed right in front of his nose on the window ledge.
‘It’s quiet on our own, isn’t it?’ said Lorna to herself.
At the kitchen table, Tiffany looked up from her job application. ‘Yeah, I know. Weird, when you think about it – Joyce didn’t say much, and Hattie wasn’t here long, but it still feels strange without them. Bernard, mind you – he was noisy. Do you think Joyce liked being here?’
‘I don’t know.’ Lorna’s mind was picturing Joyce back at silent Rooks Hall, sitting on her own by her fireplace, alone with the memories of her son, and her husband. And the flowers in the beds outside, reminding her of buds blooming, dying, blooming again – life going on long after the gardener had been scattered to the winds.
Should she have gone back with her? Did she have a duty of care as a friend now? Or was that pushing Joyce’s limits? She’d been keen to make it a deal, not a favour. Lorna got up from the sofa, where she’d been pretending to go through an artist’s website, and picked up the sketch of Hattie from the table.
It was rough, but the lines were bold and confident; Joyce had caught Hattie’s whole soul in a few instinctive strokes. Her smooth forehead seemed bowed under the burden of her thoughts, and Lorna’s heart twisted with its perceptive beauty.
She could see her sister in Hattie’s face. They’d promised never to have secrets, she and Jess. Not after their childhood spent feeling lost in their parents’ world of tender secrets, safe in their family love but feeling oddly apart. So why wasn’t Jess calling her? What wasn’t she telling her?
Does she think I’ll gloat? Lorna wondered. That I was right, about not letting someone in, in case they broke your heart?
Tiffany coughed at the table. ‘Can I make you a cup of tea? Or run you a bath, or something? You look shattered.’
Lorna realised she was glad to see Tiff there at the kitchen table.
She’d wanted an empty flat, yes, but the thought of dealing with her thoughts now, in a silent room – it would be awful. She’d found her space and claimed it as her own but she was happy to share it with these women: the friend, the artist, the sister, the child turning into a woman … They made her life feel richer, little figures populating the background of her story like the fairies and elves in her mum’s illustrations, the signature butterfly that always rose up into Cathy’s sky.
‘Thanks,’ said Lorna. ‘I really mean that.’
Tiff tilted her head. ‘Why don’t you phone Joyce, check everything’s all right? She’ll pretend she’s not bothered but I think she’d like it.’
‘I think I will,’ said Lorna. ‘But in the morning.’
Chapter Sixteen
In the event, Joyce phoned Lorna before she could make the call to see how the move home had gone. Before she’d even had her breakfast, in fact.
The phone rang at half past seven, when Lorna was just finishing her allotted fifteen minutes in the bathroom before Tiff colonised it for the next hour. She dashed out in her towel to answer it; she was jumpy, in case Jess called with the Reasonable Explanation that Lorna still couldn’t devise, despite bending her imagination in many improbable directions.
‘Good morning!’ Joyce sounded as if she’d been up for hours. ‘Did I wake you?’
‘No, no,’ Lorna chirruped. Joyce had strong views about early rising. ‘Been up for ages .’
She made a hmph noise. ‘Anyway, as promised I have a solution for your Art Week issue,’ Joyce went on. ‘But you’d better come now if you’re going to get it to that rude man for the morning. Oh, and the dog’s being a tinker. A walk may be in order.’
Lorna recognised an instruction when she heard one. ‘I’m on my way.’
Someone had been busy in the garden of Rooks Hall while Joyce had been in Longhampton with Lorna. The long grass had been mown, the borders trimmed back to moderate wildness, and the moss swept off the doorstep. Lorna noticed the remains of hollyhocks and clematis climbing the walls as she picked her way up the uneven path – now she knew about Joyce and Bernard’s joint plan to create their year of flowers, the garden felt different. More like an old photograph, with ghosts lingering just out of shot.
Joyce was waiting for her at the door, a small figure in red against the darkness of the hall. She was leaning casually against the frame, but Lorna could tell she was steadying herself; behind her, lurking, was the metal shape of a walker, and a white grab bar drilled into the wall by the stairs. The impertinent changes to Rooks Hall had begun, and there was no sign of Bernard.
Lorna tried not to let her reaction show in her face but Joyce was sharp when it came to body language and saw her flinch.
‘You’ve noticed my so-called improvements?’ Joyce rolled her eyes dismissively and then shuffled down the hall into the sitting room. ‘I don’t need a walking frame, by the way. Or a commode,’ she threw over her shoulder. ‘I’m fine .’
‘Well, if it helps you stay here …’ Lorna followed, keeping Rudy on a short lead, taking everything in with quick glances: slippy rugs, gone; speckled mirrors, cleaned; dead pot plants, removed. There was a chemical smell in the house: new glue, freshly drilled screwholes, Dettol – lots of it. ‘Who came to do the work? The landlords?’
&n
bsp; ‘No idea. There’s a number by the phone.’ Joyce didn’t alter her slow course, but waved a hand behind her.
Lorna checked, there was a card: Osborne Property Services , and a number. Gabriel , it said. Not Sam. If Gabe was in charge, why had Sam been round that day, doing the DIY? Gabe’s injury, presumably. Or maybe he was just impatient to get it done; or didn’t trust anyone else to do it properly.
Joyce had disappeared into the sitting room. Lorna let Rudy off to go and find Bernard, and went in after her.
The change was even more obvious here. The higgledy-piggledy piles of art books had been removed, and an NHS walking frame was bossily positioned next to the armchair, although the plastic hadn’t been removed. The paintings were still there – the dramatic landscapes, the textured abstracts, the story of Joyce’s life in oils and watercolours – but something undefinable was now present: a sadness? A sense of supervision? There was a kettle and cups on a small table, to save unnecessary trips to the kitchen; boxes of tissues, and photos that had been brought down from upstairs. It felt like the rooms Lorna had visited in the hospice. Full of a long life, but compressed into a much smaller space, as if everything precious had to be kept very close. Closer and closer.
The familiarity caught in her chest.
But Joyce was talking, and she didn’t seem sad. Her eyes sparkled as she nodded towards something propped up against the bookshelf, thickly covered in bubble wrap. A painting, obviously, but of what, Lorna couldn’t see.
‘There you go, for you.’ Joyce waved her hand in her lordly gesture. ‘Probably not what you’re expecting, but you may find it helpful.’
Lorna touched the thick wrapping – it was a painting. A big one.
‘Joyce, this is far too much,’ she said. A quick search of auction prices one night, while doing the very dispiriting monthly accounts, had revealed what Lorna had guessed: Joyce’s originals were fetching thousands, if they ever came up for sale. Suddenly the deal felt wrong. As if she was taking advantage.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve started valuing paintings by weight , Lorna. Goodness me.’
Joyce seemed more like her old self, defiant in her red cashmere jumper, as if she could dress her way back to full health. Her head tilted, testing Lorna’s reaction, and Lorna suddenly, desperately, didn’t want to be caught thinking the wrong thing.