by Lucy Dillon
‘It would be rude not to accept it,’ Joyce informed her, loftily. ‘I needed somewhere to recuperate in peace with my dog; you provided that. We had a deal. Don’t treat me like an old dodderer, Lorna. Do me the courtesy of letting me honour my end of it.’
‘But we didn’t exactly give you a peaceful place to stay, did we? And you left me that lovely sketch of Hattie. That’s enough, really.’
‘This is for your Art Week project, then. I’ve been associated with the Maiden Gallery for most of my career. I wish it to be the centre of positive attention for once. Aren’t you going to open it? Aren’t you interested ? Oh, do come on!’
Lorna couldn’t help catching Joyce’s excitement. ‘OK,’ she said, and began unpicking the bubble wrap.
‘It’s been in storage for several years,’ Joyce said as Lorna struggled with the tape. ‘I had to sweet-talk Keir into carrying it in from the shed for me. He started talking about risk assessments … Honestly. What a wet lettuce that lad is.’
Lorna laughed at the thought of Joyce’s ‘sweet-talking’, then stopped, suddenly, as the final layer came away to reveal the artwork underneath.
It was the bandstand in the park. But instead of the brooding canvases she’d come to associate with Joyce, this was simple, almost childlike in its joyfulness. The bandstand sat at the centre of the painting, its distinctive gold columns outlined against a cloudless blue sky, and from its domed shape swirled a rainbow of colours and textures – the music, in other words, blended into the flowers and lawn and benches of the park like an invisible sound wave. Lorna could feel the bold flourish of brass in the golden curls, and the percussive rhythms in the bouncy splashes of rat-a-tat red dots. The bandstand was empty but the park felt full of life.
It was happy, thought Lorna. There was happiness in this work, in every tiny brushstroke, in every shining butterfly wing, every uplifted flower head. The colours were singing.
‘I painted it for Ronan,’ said Joyce quietly. ‘We used to go to listen to the bands on a Sunday, when he was a tot. He’d ask us what colour the trumpets were, and we’d say, “They’re golden, darling, they’re brass.” And he used to shake his head and say, “No, no, no, they’re red! Red like tomatoes!”’
‘Red? You mean they … sounded red?’ Weirdly, Lorna could see it.
‘Not to me – they were always golden, like the sun. But yes, to him they were bright red. And flutes were pale blue,’ Joyce went on, ‘and cymbals were glittery purple like a magpie wing … You get the idea. Ronan loved colours. He would sit in my studio with my crayons, listening to music, and sorting out the rainbow into instruments. Kandinsky, of course, had the idea first but we let Ronan think he’d discovered it. We played a game all the time – what colour is happiness? What colour is sleep? What colour is love …?’
Her words fell away, too flimsy for the emotions they had to carry, and Lorna felt a lump in her own throat.
They stood gazing at the painting, and Lorna suddenly spotted the little boy in the corner, the only figure in the whole composition, peeking out from behind a tree. Dark tufty hair, mischievous smile, waving a small hand. Ronan. Joyce had drawn him in, the way her mum had always put her and Jess somewhere in the background too.
She was about to tell Joyce that, then stopped and observed Joyce instead, the sad and loving way she knew that painting like the inside of her heart. Why? Why would you put your child in the background?
Because they were always hiding in your mind, even when you were locked in your studio, painting. Even when they thought you were shutting them out, you were making them immortal.
Oh.
‘Anyway, that’s by the by …’ Joyce fidgeted with her gold rings. ‘I thought perhaps this could be a starting point for a community art happening, or whatever it’s called these days. A public painting, sharing the colour of music, perhaps?’
A volley of ideas struck Lorna in a glorious burst, one after the other. ‘What if we could set up easels by the bandstand and have paints, and sponges or brushes or something, and maybe get a band to play? And have people interpret what they hear?’
Joyce shrugged. ‘It’s up to you, you’re the curator.’ But there was a ghost of a smile on her thin lips.
‘Oh, not easels … maybe a big mural?’ Lorna’s mind was spinning. ‘Maybe … different contributions running into one another? Like sections of an orchestra playing together?’
‘I think there’s something there,’ said Joyce. ‘Now, would you take Bernard out? He’s getting under my damn feet.’
There was no sign of the Border terrier, but there was a mist across Joyce’s face, and Lorna touched her arm. The old lady didn’t flinch.
‘Thank you, Joyce,’ she said. ‘I won’t let you down.’
Calum Hardy was hugely enthusiastic about the proposal Lorna emailed to him with five minutes to spare, for reasons she hadn’t expected.
‘How did you know ?’ he asked, all charm now she’d delivered something he liked.
‘Know what?’
‘About the school band project? Cock-up with planning meant it clashed, and we were wondering how on earth we could combine it with Art Week without – how can I put it? – being upstaged by tots with trumpets. But this is genius. Kids playing, lots of parents there watching, plenty of interaction, fantastic visual for the local paper. Well done, Lorna. I knew you’d come up with a winner.’
‘Thanks …’
Calum was still talking. ‘And somehow – somehow! – you’ve managed to get a contribution out of Joyce Rothery! To be honest, we were starting to wonder if she’d died – this is major news. Can you get her along too?’ He sounded buoyant. ‘Get her to splat the first splodge?’
‘I don’t know about that.’ Joyce had insisted that wouldn’t be happening.
‘We should definitely have lunch to discuss. What’s your diary looking like for the rest of the week?’
‘Not too bad.’ Was he being flirty? There was definitely a flirtier note in his voice. Lorna twirled the pen around her fingers. Lunch with Calum might be quite fun. Compared with Sam’s hot-and-cold personality, at least she knew where she was with someone like Calum. If the conversation dried up you could always talk about obscure artists or how Instagram was destroying/reinventing photography.
‘How about next Monday? We want to make this the central weekend project, so I’d love to get started on some planning with you asap.’
‘Great!’
‘Can’t wait,’ said Calum, and when he hung up, Lorna felt as if she’d just stepped off a holiday flight.
‘Who was that, dear?’ Mary leaned into the back office from the gallery, where she was dusting the ceramics.
‘Calum from the council. He loves my revised idea.’ Lorna was trying to keep an eye on Mary – she was only working a few days a week, but Lorna kept finding stuff, hidden away in boxes in the cellar, most of which Mary was very evasive about. She sometimes wondered whether she was bringing in her secret unsold stash from home, box by box, before Keith discovered it. It would certainly explain the accounts, which were increasingly hard to reconcile.
‘Oh, hurray!’ Mary frowned. ‘What is it, exactly?’
‘I’ll explain when I get back.’ Lorna pulled on her jacket. ‘Do you mind holding the fort for an hour or two? I need to take some things over to Archibald’s to be framed. I think these ladies in the gallery need some help?’
Two women were cooing over Joyce’s knitted dog jackets, displayed on toy Westies Tiff had found in a charity shop. The tiger-striped ones in particular were drawing a lot of attention, and Mary had noted a couple of requests from customers for specific models – as yet, Lorna hadn’t decided whether to pass those requests on to Joyce. ‘These two again! They said they were thinking of buying more. You should tell Joyce that,’ she added. ‘Tell her that she’s got a new lease of life in the gallery!’
Lorna opened her mouth to say, ‘I don’t know how she’d take that!’ and then thought: Why not? Wheth
er Joyce considered her knitting art or not, her coats were creative and beautiful and brought people pleasure. That was art.
The idea surprised her with its certainty. It hadn’t come from the part of her brain she expected it to.
‘See you later, Mary,’ she said, and picked up the bag of treasures, rings, curls of hair and cards, someone’s private cloud of memories to be framed in time for Mother’s Day.
Spring sunshine had brought out the café’s pavement tables for the first time that year as well as yellow primroses in the hanging baskets, and Lorna felt optimistic about the day as she loaded Rudy into the back of the car. Archibald liked dogs and Lorna was trying to introduce Rudy slowly to new experiences – in this case, men with white beards like Santa. Rudy was looking jaunty in his Breton jumper, specially customised to fit his long back.
‘Betty would have loved you in a stripe,’ she told him, and he whipped his tail.
‘Lorna!’
She looked over to see Sam waving at her on the other side of the street. He was wearing a suit, very similar to the one she’d seen him wear that night in London. The same one, in fact. ‘Stay there!’ He dodged around the slow line of cars crawling towards the traffic lights at the end of the high street.
Lorna closed the boot and waited for him to cross. Joyce hadn’t mentioned her meeting with the landlords and the occupational therapist – did Sam want brownie points for fixing Joyce’s handrails? No, wait. Ryan. Had he called Sam and given him his side of Hattie’s story – if there was one?
Then suddenly he was there, in front of her. He smiled, and she smiled back, automatically, then wondered if she should. ‘You off somewhere?’ he asked.
‘Just to the framers. Are you going somewhere, dressed up?’
‘What?’ Sam looked down and did a double take. ‘Oh, no, meeting at the bank. Nothing exciting. Funny to think I used to wear this every day and now it’s dressing up.’
‘Nice suit,’ said Lorna. It was. It made him look less farmer, more landowner. Apart from the beard. That still took some getting used to.
‘You’re too kind – it’s getting a bit tight round the waist, thanks to Mum and her baking.’ Sam tugged at his belt ruefully. ‘No time for the gym either … Anyway, I was hoping to catch you,’ he went on. ‘Two things – any news from Jess?’
She shook her head. So Ryan hadn’t called him in a guilty panic. Good. ‘No, nothing.’
‘Nothing?’ He raised an eyebrow.
‘No, she was very calm about the whole thing. She’s convinced Hattie made a mistake. And she would know – I mean, Ryan, cheating? Come on.’ Lorna shrugged. ‘Jess is sure it’s nothing, so if she thinks that … What? Why are you looking like that?’
Sam hiked his eyebrows even higher, and Lorna felt a sudden doubt – her instinct was to believe her sister, even though she too had a feeling there was a lot more to it than Jess wanted there to be. Jess had an understandable phobia of being talked about; ‘rise above it’ was one of her favourite sayings.
‘Because Hattie was so upset,’ he said simply.
‘Teenagers can be dramatic. Even Jess said Hattie probably wanted a bit of attention. The little ones do take up most of their time and …’
She stopped. That was unfair. Hattie wasn’t a drama queen, not like that.
Sam didn’t look convinced either. He was holding her gaze, reading her face with that kindly concern she knew so well, and she tried hard not to encourage the tingling running down her neck, along her arms. It felt like fine rain, invisible but still there. Did he know something she didn’t?
‘Should I call Ryan?’ he offered. ‘I didn’t suggest it before, in case … well, in case you thought I was interfering, but if you think there’s something he might tell me …’
‘No, don’t. Don’t. Jess will know we’ve been discussing it. Best leave it.’
‘You won’t let me try to talk to him?’ He gave her a keen look. ‘I love those guys. I want to help, if I can.’
‘I know.’ And Lorna knew he did; Sam’s loyalty to Ryan, when the whole town was talking about him and Jess, and the way he’d taken care of them both at their mum’s funeral, stepping in to help Ryan when their dad was dazed with grief – he was a gentle man at heart. But Lorna knew her sister; when Jess said she didn’t want to discuss something, that was it.
She smiled, brokenly. ‘What was the second thing? You said there were two things?’
Sam gave up. ‘The second thing was, what are you doing on Friday night?’
Two offers in the space of an hour. What was the world coming to? ‘Are you asking me out?’
‘No, don’t get your hopes up, I’m asking you in .’ He looked apologetic in advance. ‘Mum wants to know if you’d like to come round for dinner. Just us – me, Dad, Gabriel, Gabe’s wife Emma. Maybe their kids too, if they’re not out at some party or other.’
Lorna had never been invited round to the Osbornes’ before. ‘That would be nice. Would you like me to bring anything?’
‘Ear plugs?’ He seemed relieved to move on to safer ground. ‘An open mind? Dad’s got very entrenched since he retired. Promise me you’ll ignore at least half of what’s said.’
They stepped to one side to allow a lady with a Yorkie to pass, and inside the car Rudy started barking like a crazed thing, his wet nose bumping against the glass. He still wasn’t relaxed around most other dogs, despite their best bribes, and his fear set Lorna on edge too.
‘I’d better go,’ she said. ‘Before he bursts.’
‘Great! See you Friday night, about six? Farmers are early to bed, unlike you arty types.’ Sam hovered for a second, as if unsure about what came next. Was he leaning forward to kiss her cheek?
‘Friday night,’ said Lorna, and got into the car, flustered at the thought of being early to bed with a farmer.
Chapter Seventeen
Pat Osborne’s farmhouse kitchen had been a favourite hang-out for the local Young Farmers when Ryan and Sam were leading players on the local scene: there was always cake in the tin, dogs by the Aga and the occasional bottle of cider from Mr Osborne’s unlocked beer fridge. None of these items were available at the Protheros’ house, Jess reported; when their family business took off, Ryan’s parents had upgraded to an executive home on the outskirts, where you had to remove your shoes at the door and remember to put coasters under everything.
Lorna couldn’t decide whether she should make an effort for a kitchen dinner at the home of someone she’d known for twenty years, or whether not making an effort would offend Sam’s parents. Her teenage thinking tangled up with her adult thinking, and in the end she put on some clean jeans and her studded boots that made her feel like Stevie Nicks. You couldn’t go wrong with boots, she thought, then spent half an hour searching in the wine merchant’s four doors down from the gallery until she found a bottle that cost enough to look polite but not so much that it looked flash.
The early evening drive through the country lanes felt like moving through a postcard – the road took Lorna past orchards and pasture fields where cattle grazed in the fading light, and the clean air smelled of wood and smoke. As she got nearer the farm, her attention was caught by some smaller cows in the field nearest the house: the sturdy little black cows with a thick band of white around their middles like humbugs. They were so pretty, she thought, and wondered if she should have revised some cow breeds to make conversation with Sam’s dad.
The satnav had brought her a funny way, not past Rooks Hall, and the turning into the farm came as a surprise: there was an arch, leading into a wide yard, surrounded by Dutch barns stacked high with bags of feed. She parked next to a tractor, carefully avoiding the chickens strutting across the cleanly swept cobbles, and got out. The barns were showing signs of age, but the farmhouse itself was attractive, with arched curves of paler bricks surrounding the windows and a weathervane perched jauntily on the roof like a fascinator.
‘Hello!’ Sam appeared from an outbuilding, in jeans and a ju
mper. A farm cat ran out after him, looked both ways for Labradors, then crossed the cobbles in a streak of darkness. ‘Right on time. How are you?’
He leaned forward to kiss her cheek; it was an automatic gesture that they both realised they had to commit to, once started. The air that brushed against Lorna’s face smelled of aftershave and Persil and something else, something that hadn’t changed in twenty years. It was half a polite kiss, half a hug, and Sam’s shoulder pressed against hers. He got a little closer every time, a little more relaxed.
‘Fine, thanks. I brought this.’ Lorna offered him the bottle of wine. ‘Good to see there’s a decent wine merchant here now.’
‘Apparently , it’s been there over a hundred years.’ Sam pretended to look embarrassed. ‘Who knew?’
‘Well, I guess if it didn’t sell Diamond White then how would we have known it was there, eh?’
They stood for a second, smiling, feeling the past wash around their ankles like the edge of a wave. Sometimes, Lorna thought, it was as if there were two Lorna and Sams – the smart, capable adults who’d connected as near-strangers, briefly, and disconnected just as quickly; and the teens who had grown up together but never connected at all. Two versions of themselves, running simultaneously. Her heart shifted, softening again. She’d seen the old Sam in his concern for Hattie and her sister. Maybe they could go back, after all.
‘We should …’ He gestured towards the house, and Lorna nodded, and followed him. At the door, he touched the small of her back, briefly, like a secret.
The Osbornes’ kitchen was exactly as Lorna had imagined it would be. There was an ancient cream Aga on a tiled hearth, fiddleback chairs around a heavy pine table that looked as though it had been there since the Armada, and a couple of plastic dog beds by the door, one containing an elderly black Labrador with a snow-white muzzle and eyebrows. When Lorna and Sam walked in, it lifted its head, saw Sam and thumped its tail twice, then settled its nose back on its paws.