by Liz Fenwick
Just listening to his voice and her legs were wobbling. How had she been so foolish? Well, that didn’t matter now. She had to deal with this. She dialled his number and clenched her free hand. She had no idea what she would say. His voicemail was garbled and Gabe cursed the lack of decent signal.
‘It’s Gabe. Go ahead and give the interview. The damage is done.’
The line went dead. There was no need to ring him back because she had nothing else to say and she had many other things that she needed to think about and do. Fin could do what he liked. Jaunty’s reputation was in pieces and Gabe had to sort out probate as well as telling the gallery that she didn’t want a retrospective of Jaunty’s work. They had rung her and insisted that there would be more interest now than ever before, but that was the last thing she wanted, and Jaunty had avoided all that interest during her lifetime. Why would she desire it in death?
Shutting off her phone, she smiled when she saw the flowers on the dining table. That would have been Tamsin. She touched the roses and then knew what she needed to do. Locking the cabin in case there were still people about, she walked to the studio. The mist had gone and the north shore was glowing in the sunlight. The river appeared still through the trees.
Unlocking the studio, Gabe turned to the bed. It was made and there were no signs of Fin’s occupation. Even the lemony scent of his aftershave had gone, replaced with the usual musty, closed-up smell. She left the door open and flipped through her music until she came to Grieg’s Piano Concerto No 1 in A minor. Placing the music on the piano she sat and, taking a deep breath, she played, letting the music speak her feelings.
By the time she’d finished a sea fog had rolled in. She looked out of the window and she couldn’t even see the river, let alone the other side. She closed the piano and locked the studio, then practically felt her way along the path. The mist was so dense she nearly walked into the cabin itself. She went in then locked the door behind her.
She needed to tackle Jaunty’s room. Nothing had been done in there since her grandmother had died. Gabe hesitated at the door. Someone had closed the curtains and the room looked wrong that way. She opened them but that didn’t help the closed-in feeling. She could see nothing but the opaque fog moving past.
Almost at the laundry room, Gabe dropped Jaunty’s sheets when there was a tap on the door behind her. The undertaker stood in a black suit at the door.
She let him in. ‘Hi.’
‘Miss Blythe, I’m so sorry for all the trouble.’
Gabe nodded. No one was more sorry than she was.
‘I’d heard from the crematorium that you hadn’t been in so I thought it was best if I collected your grandmother and brought her to you.’ He held out a shopping bag.
Gabe swallowed. She’d forgotten about Jaunty’s ashes in all the scandal.
‘Thank you so much.’ She took the bag and was surprised at the weight. ‘It was very kind of you.’
‘Happy to help.’ He looked round. ‘A bit lonely here, isn’t it?’
Gabe looked out to the river. It was still shrouded in low cloud and fog. ‘It’s normally not this bad.’ She forced a smile on to her face.
‘That’s good then. Hope there are no strangers lurking about.’
Gabe coughed. ‘Me too.’ But she was missing the stranger – even though he’d betrayed them. She watched the man walk up the steps and then she scurried back into the cabin and locked the door. She hoped the weather would improve soon. She needed some bright, clear days to lift her mood.
Inside the bag was an urn of sorts, but it looked more like an overgrown coffee canister. Gabe placed it on the dining table. What was she going to do with it? Father Tim had said that Jaunty must be buried in consecrated ground, so she could put her with her parents in Manaccan graveyard, but that was far from Jaunty’s beloved river. Gabe touched the urn.
‘Well, Jaunty, I don’t know what to do, so you will have to stay with me a bit longer.’ Gabe looked around. ‘In fact, it will be good to have someone besides myself to talk to.’ She welled up but blinked the tears away. That wasn’t going to get anything done. She picked up the sheets and put the laundry on.
The phone rang and Gabe glared at it. She did not want to speak to anyone. She had been reading a client brief and was struggling to think of anything other than blah blah blah. How could she create music about loo cleaner? It was essential to have work, but that was the only good thing she could think of at the moment. Her mind was everywhere it shouldn’t be: composing her Sonata of the Tides, singing Nancy in The Lovers and, worst of all, longing for Fin.
The phone finally stopped ringing. Gabe stood. Maybe if she worked on her own composition it would expel one of her irritants. Locking the cabin door behind her, she could smell a bonfire drifting over from the north shore. Gabe stopped and listened to the wind in the trees. Today she could feel winter coming. She shivered and hurried to the studio. Despite the air freshener she had put in here the other day the musty scent lingered.
All around her piano were things waiting to be dealt with. Soon she would have to have someone come and evaluate all these works. But right now she was going to do something for herself. Putting her sonata on the piano, she sat down and began to play, stopping and starting as another variation came to mind. Finally she was happy with the first movement. She played it and then stopped, sniffing the air. Pizza. She turned. Max stood in the doorway holding two boxes.
‘You didn’t answer my call so I brought you a margarita.’
Gabe laughed. ‘Ah, sorry, I didn’t know it was you.’
‘So it’s not just my calls that you’re avoiding?’ He came over to the piano.
Gabe stood and blocked the view of her work. ‘No, the world. But a man bringing dinner is most welcome.’
‘Pleased to hear it.’ He smiled. ‘But before we go, what was that piece you were playing. I’ve not heard it before.’
‘Nothing.’
‘That wasn’t nothing. It was glorious. The sea and the tide somehow.’
Gabe turned to him. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, definitely. That’s your work, isn’t it?’
Gabe nodded as she locked the studio behind them. Pine needles dropped on her head as she followed Max, feeling lifted by his comments. But she mustn’t build her hopes, and right now she needed to think of something wonderful about loo cleaner. Loo cleaner paid the bills. Random sonatas pleased the soul but did nothing else.
‘How are you?’ Max asked as he popped the pizzas in the oven to reheat.
‘Fine.’ Gabe left to go and lay the table.
‘I don’t believe you, but I won’t push.’ Max watched her from the kitchen doorway.
‘You’ve dealt with enough divas then, have you?’ Gabe looked up at him.
‘You could say that.’ He handed her a glass of wine.
‘Why do I get the sense that you are trying to soften me up?’
‘Wouldn’t know.’ He looked innocently at the ceiling and Gabe laughed.
‘Hannah sends her love,’ he said.
‘How’s she doing?’ Gabe took a sip of wine.
‘Good.’ Max fixed her with his stare. ‘Enough about everyone else. You?’
‘I told you, I’m fine.’
‘Really? No one has heard from you or seen you in a week.’
Gabe bent to the wood burner and began to light the fire. ‘The post mistress knew I was alive.’
‘Gabe, that’s not good enough. People care.’
She knelt down. ‘OK, I think I was doing fine with Jaunty’s death and revelation, but I’m afraid that the digging up of the past has more than unsettled me.’ She stood and followed Max into the kitchen.
‘That I can understand.’ Max took the pizzas out of the oven and placed them on the table. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
Gabe fixed him with a stare. ‘No.’
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br /> ‘Sure?’ He topped up her wine glass, then said quietly, ‘It was Victor Justin, wasn’t it?’
Gabe’s head swung up, which was a mistake. The room swayed a bit with the blood rush. She reached for the table to steady herself.
‘You know he’s in custody, don’t you?’
‘No!’ Gabe ran her hand around her neck.
‘With all that came out recently about that . . .’ Max paused ‘. . . that generation, for lack of a better word, of men, a few of his victims have come forward.’
Gabe closed her eyes. He was in jail. He was in jail. What did that mean? She swallowed and opened her eyes. ‘Thank you for telling me.’
‘What happened was wrong.’ Max reached across the table and took her hand in his. ‘That’s totally inadequate. It was more than wrong it was criminal and beyond.’
Gabe nodded, thinking of the lost years, the guilt, the self-hate. ‘Thanks.’
Max held out the chair for her to sit, and innocently added, ‘Fin has been asking about you.’
Gabe turned away. She wasn’t going down this route.
‘What happened between you?’
‘Not a subject for discussion.’ She stood and walked past Max to the kitchen. No amount of wine, pizza or kindness was going to make her talk about Fin.
On Jaunty’s desk were the notebooks and the loose sheets of paper that her grandmother had written. Gabe wanted to sit and read them again, but before she did that she needed to reconnect with the rest of the world. She had lost time in the black hole of Jaunty’s death, and although Gabe had seen the papers she’d only read what had related to her grandmother. A nuclear bomb could have been detonated or a cure for cancer found and she would have no idea.
So she poured herself a glass of wine and powered up her computer to read the headlines. Then she debated checking to see what else had been written about Jaunty. She did and she didn’t want to know. However, she sort of needed to know what was likely to happen, so she typed in Jaunty’s name and the first link up was a video clip.
Art expert Alexander Falk talks about the recent upset that has rocked the art world.
Gabe looked at the name and recognised it as the man who’d written the balanced article in the Sunday paper. As the opening credits rolled Gabe realised that it was the programme that Fin had called about. He must have declined to be interviewed.
The voice of the host recapped Jaunty’s story and pictures flashed past of Jaunty’s work and suddenly, shockingly, Fin was on her screen.
‘We have art historian Alexander Falk with us today in the studio to discuss the recently deceased local artist known as Jaunty Blythe.’ The newsreader turned to Fin. ‘So you met the artist just before her death?’
‘Yes, just over a month ago.’ He wore a dark suit with a white shirt open at the neck.
Gabe swallowed. Alexander was Fin?
‘And what can you tell us about her and what many are calling her fraud?’
Fin sat forward and looked directly at the woman. ‘First, that isn’t correct and I’ll come back to that point. Jeanette Penrose did what she needed to do to survive. She’d been trapped in occupied France, having selflessly given her passage to England to Jean Blythe. What Jeanette did was an act of kindness and bravery, which people seem to have forgotten with this whole ruckus about fraud.’ He looked directly at the camera. He’d had his hair cut and it was combed into place. ‘This left her stranded in France.’
Gabe realised what had bothered her about him. Now that he was tidy and in a suit she recognised him. She’d seen him on television a while ago discussing Renaissance art.
‘And what do you know about this period of her life?’
The camera moved to a close-up of Fin’s face and his eyes seemed to be looking directly at Gabe.
‘Jeanette managed to buy French identity papers and find herself a job in Brittany. Because of her background she was fluent in German as well as French and soon realised that some of the things she overheard could be useful and she took the enormous risk of seeking out the resistance.’
Gabe held her breath as she listened. Was he going to reveal Jaunty’s relationship with Dietrich? That would complete the betrayal.
‘So she was a spy?’
‘Yes. For two years she passed on information to the allies.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘She fell pregnant and it was imperative that she return to England. On her return, the boat carrying her was hit just off the coast of Cornwall and everyone but her had drowned. Back in England she discovered that both her parents were dead and she had no one to turn to because she had spent very little time in England and everyone believed she had died on the Lancastria.’
‘But it was Jean Blythe who died?’
‘Yes. Look, Jeanette Penrose had little choice but to take on her friend’s identity and we can’t judge her by today’s morals. She was single mother with a child to support. Society was not as forgiving then.’
Gabe stood up and wanted to walk away from the computer but she couldn’t stop watching.
‘She borrowed enough of Jean’s money from the sale of her work to buy a car and the cabin. What the fuss is about is that she then painted using the letter J to sign her paintings and people bought them believing that they were buying Jean Blythe. And I’m afraid the fault for that lies with the gallery and not the artist.’
‘You don’t agree that she was the one who led them to do that?’
‘Yes and no. She did what she needed to to survive, but her own art is so radically different that the buyers should have known. Caveat emptor.’
The newsreader nodded. ‘Buyer beware.’
‘However, there is no question that Jeanette’s seascapes are worthy of fame in their own right. She developed her style without outside influence.’
‘So you feel it is a fuss about nothing?’
‘Exactly. You have two painters with unique styles. Both worthy of all the accolades they have received.’
‘One last question: what of her granddaughter, Gabriella Blythe? How is she coping with all this information about her grandmother and her own roots?’
Gabe’s mouth went dry.
‘It’s not my place to say. Gabriella has been overwhelmed by her grandmother’s death and by the revelations. I believe very strongly that she should be left in peace to grieve and rebuild her life.’
The camera left his face as the newsreader thanked him for taking the time to speak with them.
Gabe closed the window on her computer and googled Alexander Falk. This explained why she had found nothing for him under Fin Alexander. However, under his real name there was plenty of information, from his impressive academic credentials to his divorce. His ex-wife Patricia was stunning, possibly the sexiest woman Gabe had ever seen, and they’d made a striking couple. At least he hadn’t lied about the divorce – the tabloids had had a field day with it.
Fin was more than qualified to speak about Jaunty’s work, and the man in the hospital was the arts editor for The Times. But why had Fin done this? It was clear from reading everything on the web about him that he didn’t need a big scoop to kick-start his career. Just two years ago he’d done a major television series on the war artists. That was why Jenna must have thought he was familiar. Gabe took one last look at his picture on the screen and closed the laptop. Nothing made sense. Why hadn’t he told them his real name when he arrived? There was no need for secrecy. Gabe didn’t understand anything any more, most of all her feelings for this man.
It was midday and the phone rang, probably for the fifth time. Gabe frowned. She would have to begin answering it again sometime. It might as well be now. ‘Hello.’
‘Gabe.’ Fin’s voice ran through her.
She leant against the counter. ‘Yes.’
‘You haven’t been answering the pho
ne.’
‘No.’
‘Is the press still hounding you?’
‘Don’t know.’
He laughed and she had to force herself to breathe.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Fine.’ She was so far from fine but she couldn’t say that.
‘Liar.’
Gabe swallowed. He was the reason her life was upside down. ‘Thank you for all the fire-fighting on Jaunty’s reputation.’
‘It’s not finished.’
‘The interest should die down now.’ Gabe played with Jaunty’s necklace.
‘True.’ He paused. ‘I’m worried about you.’
‘I’m fine. Thanks for checking on me.’ Gabe could hear French being spoken in the background. At least Fin wasn’t going to spring on her that he was standing at the top of the lane and wanted to see her.
‘Gabe, there are things I need to say.’
‘Don’t worry, Fin. All is forgiven. Take care.’ Gabe hung up before she said any more. She wanted to hate him, but she didn’t. Even after all he’d done she loved him. She would have been so much better off right now if she hadn’t let him in to her life. That cast-iron bubble she had constructed around herself would have been perfect for now and for always, but it was gone.
Twenty-Two
Gabe squelched through the mud on the path. The leaves were mostly gone from the trees. It seemed to have happened overnight and the twisted shapes of the branches filled the space above her. Gabe pulled her coat tighter about herself.
The tide was out and only a small channel of water remained. Gabe climbed down the bank to the decaying iron carcass of the boat near the quay. She walked closer and inspected the rusting hull. It had been here for as long as she could remember but she had never identified with it before. There were huge holes and the top was lost all together. It would never set sail again. Gabe touched the barnacle-covered wreck then walked on past it to the quay.
The mud was soft and she trod carefully. The last time she had made this walk Jaunty was still alive, and later that evening Fin had sailed into their lives. Gabe stopped. Everything had changed. Jaunty was gone, her reputation in tatters. Gabe looked up to the cabin. It was almost invisible, which was what Gabe was trying to achieve. Yet part of her longed to reconnect. She wanted to go to Italy and find her relatives, and to Germany as well, although she didn’t know how to begin to approach the von Hochsbrinks. They, of course, probably didn’t know that Jaunty and Dietrich had found each other during the war, and they certainly didn’t know the awful end. Were her eyes so like his that they would know upon seeing her, or was it only Jaunty’s guilt that made the connection? Was there a way that she could verify the link without betraying Jaunty further? She shook her head. How could she want to be so alone yet desire to become a part of something?