Rye, originally an important port on the southern English coast but now, because of silting and shifting to the coast, sited a short distance from the sea, had, like scores of English towns, expanded over time around a much older central core. Ordinarily, Hamish would have enjoyed wandering along the narrow cobbled streets that twisted through the oldest part of the town, taking his time to admire the old half-timbered houses and idle away the evening fossicking in some of the antique shops that lined the quaint lanes, but on this day he was focused on one thing only. Miss Kendal had advised him that it would be easiest to leave his car in the nearest public car park and walk the short distance to her home, as the street was unsuitable for anything much larger than foot traffic. Following her precisely-given directions, he found the place without too much difficulty ...she resided in a splendid rambling two-storied and dormered house on Mermaid Street not far from the Inn of the same name. There was an estate agent’s ‘For Sale’ sign that had been hammered into a tiny patch of green in front of the lower bay windows, now prominently displaying a ‘SOLD’ sticker slashed across the sign. Hamish was somewhat surprised to see that the sign belonged to Andrew’s firm. Trust him, he thought, uncharitably, to have a finger in every pie and ironic that the estate agent would still be making a profit out of this, even if he couldn’t sell another house to Hamish.
He climbed up several steps to knock on the front door. The old lady must have been stationed at one of the downstairs windows watching for him as Hamish had barely rapped on the heavy brass door knocker before the portal was opened, though when he saw her he wondered how she’d moved so quickly. The grey-haired woman who answered the door was thin to the point of emaciation, her spine curved in a dowager’s hump and walking with the aid of two canes.
“Mr McAllister I presume?” she pre-empted brusquely before he had a chance to open his mouth to introduce himself. “It’s too cold to stand here talking. Follow me, and close that door behind you.” With that, she turned and started in the opposite direction. He did as she had ordered and walked behind her down the hall as she hobbled, slowly and painfully back into an overly warm sitting room.
What followed was an interesting two hours of semi-polite but probing questioning, over endless cups of tea accompanied by cucumber sandwiches and scones, as to how Hamish came to know about the ‘cottage’, as Miss Kendal called it. Where did he come from?; ...What did he do for a living?; ...and a lot of other information about the happenings of the past two years that he had not planned to share with someone whom he had barely met. At one stage during the conversation Hamish couldn’t help but feel that he was being treated more like a new suitor, under interrogation about his morals and prospects prior to being allowed to embark on a first date, than a prospective house-buyer. He certainly got the distinct impression that he was being evaluated for something by the old lady ...and here he’d thought that he was the one on the quest.
By the end of the second hour Miss Kendal appeared to have run out of questions. She sat back in her high wing-backed chair, and contemplated him for a moment before speaking, gnarled old hands with the enlarged knuckles of an arthritic lying quietly in her lap.
“You’ve been very patient, Mr McAllister, to suffer my inquisition with such forbearance, but I must make it clear to you, before I continue, that the estate agent was telling you the truth, as far as he understood it, when he said that you would be unable to buy the cottage. My younger brother, Jonathan...my only brother ...was living in the cottage before his disappearance in the years after the Second World War, but it hasn’t been inhabited since.” Disappointed to hear this, Hamish was about to try and convince her otherwise when Miss Kendal held up a hand to forestall him, “...It is rather complicated to explain, ...but the cottage has never been ‘sold’, to my knowledge, although the title deeds have eventually been passed on to each occupant, ...they in turn have cared for the house and its surroundings. In fact you might describe it as a kind of ‘trust’, or, more realistically, a caretaker position rather than that of an owner ...if you see what I mean?”
Hamish didn’t, and was about to ask a question when Miss Kendal stopped him once more with, “...However, I do have a proposition for you that may be to both our advantage. As you saw when you took your impromptu tour around the garden...” she waved her hand in dismissal when Hamish tried, yet again, to apologise for his trespass,”...I’d have probably done the same in your place.” She smiled at him for the first time since opening the door but Hamish couldn’t help but feel there was something speculative in her eyes. “As I was saying ...you’ve seen the state of the garden and the house ...the fact is that both need a considerable amount of time, energy and money spent on repairs and the interior of the house hasn’t been updated since before the war. Jonathan left everything he had to me in his Will to look after the place, but when that money ran out some years ago I was not inclined to spend my own savings on the upkeep of the property. Frankly, I have no wish to be worrying about it any longer, ...this house,” she had picked up her canes and thumped the carpet with the end of one to make her point “...is sold. It is too difficult for me to live here and I am moving into a rest home ...and I would like to not have to concern myself about the cottage. I have not ventured there to see it for the past few years, and, from your description, it has gone downhill far more than I’d thought, ...so, my proposition is this,...” her next utterance dropped like a bombshell upon a stunned Hamish, “...If you can provide me with adequate references, you may move in whenever you wish, ...for a sort of ‘trial’ period, so to speak. Now, I’m not able to offer you more than that at present, but as I have said it is rather complicated.” Hamish’s disbelief must have shown all too clearly on his face, ...because, at the sight of him the old lady chuckled outright, saying, “I may be old, but I’m still a pretty good judge of character, and I know what sort of person I’m looking for, ...I just hope it’s not too late.” She appeared to be on the point of saying more, then apparently thought the better of it and didn’t elaborate further. Hamish, momentarily shocked by the offer, assumed that she’d simply meant she hoped he would be able to save the house and its garden from neglect.
She went on, her tone brisk and business-like. “Now, you go home and think about it, then let me know your decision. And, just to keep everything all legal and above-board, I’ll give you the name of my lawyer for the references. I would appreciate it if you could advise me ‘yes’ or ‘no’ by the end of this week. You see, I’m moving very soon ...you couldn’t have come at a better time. Most fortuitous, don’t you think?” the manner in which she spoke suggested that a response was not required, the interview was over, he had got the job and he was being dismissed. With some effort she gathered both canes and arose from the chair, shaking her head at Hamish’s offer of assistance to cross to a dark-stained sideboard where she rummaged through a drawer to find the lawyer’s card. Feeling bemused at the strange turn of events, he took the business card that she handed him, upon which was inscribed ‘Fletcher, Lloyd & Owens’ and a London phone number. Despite Hamish saying that he could see himself out, she insisted upon accompanying him to the front door. As she made her way hesitantly back down the passageway with Hamish by her side, she added, as something of an afterthought, “You said you were an artist ...well, it may help you to know that the cottage has an art studio upstairs. You wouldn’t be the first artist who has lived there. When he wasn’t busy gathering intelligence for the government, my brother was a sculptor ...stone mainly ...he did the work on the little bridge you described so well.” The catch in her voice gave away the depth of feeling that she hadn’t put into words, but obviously still felt keenly, so many years on, at the loss of her beloved sibling.
Hamish said a polite farewell and left the house in a daze to return down the twisting cobbled streets to his car, so dumbfounded by her suggestion that he wasn’t sure what he thought as he drove slowly back to London through a mantle of thick, cold, mist that had descended to obscure
the surrounding countryside.
Where has commerce such a mart,
So rich, so throng’d, so drain’d, and so supplied
As London, opulent, enlarg’d, and still
Increasing, London?
William Cowper
Chapter Three
Hamish
As Hamish neared his destination he was still unsure. On one hand, it seemed an opportunity too good to miss ...a chance to move out of the city into a house that he was sure he would love, and a garden that was far beyond his expectations. But, on the other hand ...he wasn’t so sure that he liked the prospect of becoming some sort of glorified tenant, responsible for fixing the place up, but effectively not owning anything. It would be a huge commitment, and besides, he had the niggling feeling that Miss Kendal had not told him the full story about why she had so suddenly changed her mind about allowing someone to move into the ‘cottage’ after so many years. There was definitely something about the whole set-up that set alarm bells jangling in his head.
He was still pondering this upon his arrival at the gallery. Approaching the door, he made an effort to put any thoughts aside other than those concerning his work, knowing that Rosetta would require his full attention. As he surveyed the gallery frontage, Rosetta’s most recent choice of exterior decorating made him smile and muse at how she invariably managed to charm the council into allowing her ‘artistic licence’ when it came to local bylaws. Her gallery had always been known as ‘A Work in Progress’, but this last overhaul had seen the space gutted and redesigned, so that now everything about it followed that theme, inside and out. In a recent interview with Time Out magazine she’d been quoted as saying that she would have liked to say that the gallery’s appearance paid homage to the myriad of scaffolding-entombed buildings and monuments that, daily, added to the visual pollution of central London, but, since she didn’t like to lie, she would have to admit that, in reality, it just gave her an ideal excuse for staying open while major work was being done on the building. To this end, the gallery’s front wall was encased in scaffolding, in itself so typical in London that it wouldn’t have been worthy of comment, except that here, each metal pipe was painted in a rainbow of garish colours, and the walkway planks had been carved in intricate fretwork and painted so that they had become works of art themselves. Added to this the sheets of heavy plastic that might have normally protected passers-by from the occasional falling projectile had been replaced by wide strips of multi-coloured plastics, embellished with wooden cut-outs of tools and the outlined figure of workman tumbling head-over-heels from the heights. Hamish looked up to see an overall-clad builder balancing on the uppermost heights of the scaffolding, one foot on the boards, the other stretched precariously on a narrow windowsill, ...but there was no cause for concern, ...it was an old shop dummy, who had been captured in the act of laboriously painting the window sashes with an artist’s paint brush.
As Hamish walked through the door he narrowly avoided another figure, this one a female mannequin, dressed in heavy work boots and paint-splattered overalls and frozen in mid-stride on her way out of the gallery. She was clutching a plastic sack full of rubble in one hand and carried an empty gilt frame slung over her opposite shoulder. As Hamish passed by, her eyelids flicked open and her head turned to follow him for a moment before swivelling back to its original position. What prospective customers didn’t realise was that they were being filmed by a small video camera hidden inside the head as part of the gallery’s security system, ensuring that there was always a close-up of anyone who entered the front door.
Inside, the wooden floorboards had been stripped back and painted in broad black and white stripes rather like a zebra crossing. This, however, was also incomplete ...another mannequin, again using a small artist’s brush, was crouched with its back to the far corner. Head down, and apparently concentrating on applying paint to the final taped-off section it seemed unaware that it was painting itself into a predicament. Though, as Rosetta had said in the interview, this wasn’t really a problem, as the rest of the floor had been dry for several weeks. A section of wall behind the counter, an old door partly stripped of layers of paint, balanced on two builder’s saw-horses and supporting an ancient paint-splashed cash register that had seen better days, had been painted in trompe l’oeil to look as if it had partially collapsed, ...loose bricks were piled around the base of the gap, and another mannequin, this one armed with a miniscule artist’s trowel, appeared to be attempting to, albeit unsuccessfully, remortar the bricks.
The long walls of the gallery were a constant ‘work in progress’, changing colour at a moment’s notice, depending on whatever Rosetta was currently exhibiting, ...today they were a deep, rich burgundy red that looked good enough to be bottled and drunk, Hamish noted approvingly, as he walked the length of the room. The colour was, as always, perfect, creating a lavishly smooth backdrop for the larger than life, flower-strewn canvases that hung all along the walls. Hamish studiously ignored the paintings, knowing that they were his creations and soon for sale and not wanting to repeat the pangs of letting them go. Instead he stared towards the far end of the gallery, where another overall-clad figure was balanced near the top of a ladder, seemingly frozen in the act of straightening a painting on the wall. Casually observed from the street, it might have been mistaken for another of the mannequins, but at the sound of Hamish’s footsteps the figure turned then spoke, shattering the peaceful scene with strident New York tones that sliced through Hamish’s consciousness like a dousing of ice-water on a hot summer’s afternoon.
“Hamish-bloody-McAllister! It’s about time you turned up. I distinctly remember saying, get here first thing Monday morning! That would have been at least an hour ago, if not more.” Rosetta glared down at him over half-glasses perched on the end of her nose. She’d picked up a builder’s level, which had been sitting on the top step of the ladder, and now waved it menacingly at Hamish before using it to check that the painting was hanging straight and true. She made a slight adjustment to the huge frame before checking it again with the level, then, satisfied, removed her glasses to leave them hanging around her neck on a short chain and climbed down the ladder. She slipped her feet into ice-pick blood red heels that had been left at the base at the ladder and advanced on Hamish, hands on hips and full of ire. At five feet five with the heels, which were something of a trademark, Rosetta was petite but it was an unwise person who made the mistake of assuming that her small stature put Rosetta at any kind of disadvantage. “That had better be what I think it is, McAllister, or you’re in big trouble.” she pronounced, gesturing towards the parcel under his arm. Then added, as an afterthought, “And where the hell is my ‘Good morning’ kiss, you big Scottish loon?”
“Goodness, Rosetta, I’m not sure if I dare come close enough to give you one.” parried Hamish, his Scots accent becoming more pronounced as he responded to her intimidating manner. He bent his tall frame sufficiently to kiss her on both cheeks and hugged her with his one free arm, before holding out the parcel towards her like an offering. “Yes, it is the final painting for the exhibition and you have my sincere apologies for the delay but it really did need the weekend to finish drying.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever ...spare me the details, dearie ...right now I just need to get this thing on the wall. We do have an opening, tonight, if you remember.” Rosetta interrupted brusquely. She was all business as she took the wrapped painting from him and walked over to place it on the counter, removing it from its protective cocoon of heavy brown paper. She handled the package deftly, but with utmost care, ...Hamish always knew that his work was in the best of hands when he delivered it to Rosetta for exhibiting, ...from the moment a work came through her front door it was accorded the status of becoming one of her ‘babies’, and as she’d successfully raised four strapping boys of her own, she obviously knew a thing or two about that. Contrary to her statement that the gallery owed its appearance to her inability to finish decorating, Rosetta was, in f
act, so well organised that even her beloved husband of twenty-five years described her as being downright frightening where organisation was involved. She had relocated to London from her native New York after marrying an Englishman, and had managed, with a succession of nannies and home helps, to somehow juggle both motherhood and the running of one of London’s most prestigious galleries for many years now. When it came to mounting an exhibition, nothing escaped her attention ...it would all be perfect down to the last tiny detail ...from the background wall colour and lighting, to the music, advertising and catering ...or there would be hell to pay for some poor soul. Rosetta was not at all forgiving when it came to what she termed ‘lack of a professional attitude’ in others.
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