He was starting to wonder where everyone might have gone to, when the door opened suddenly of its own volition. There was no one in sight, but a little titter of a sound from the other side of the heavy door gave him an idea of who might be behind it. He walked casually inside, then put the flowers and a small cardboard box he had been carrying, down on the nearest table, as if unaware of anyone else’s presence. “Helloooo, anyone home?” he carolled, ...then once clear of the door, he suddenly pulled it away from the wall and pounced on the small figure of Jamie, Steve and Linda’s three year old son, who had been crouching in the dark space behind the door. “Gottcha.” Hamish said, catching the little boy up in one smooth movement and swinging him over his shoulder. Jamie squealed and giggled even more, then said, “Hamish, we got a big surprise for you ...Daddy’s lit all the...,”
Another child’s voice spoke forcefully out of the darkened room, “...Don’t you tell him, Jamie Patrick Taylor. You’ll ruin our secret surprise if you do.” Hamish knew it belonged to Jamie’s big sister, Alice, who at seven, thought she was far more mature than her younger brother. By now, Hamish’s eyes had adjusted to the dark and he could see her head peering from behind one of the tables close to the door. As he moved further into the room he could also make out, reflected in the mirror at the rear of the counter, their parents, hiding behind its bulk ...Steve, shielding the dim light of a candle with one hand, while the other was over Linda’s mouth, trying unsuccessfully to stifle her giggles.
Hamish leant over the counter top with Jamie dangling from one shoulder and looked down at the pair. “Might I enquire as to just what you two miscreants think you are doing down there?”
The two adults clambered up off the floor. “Well, if one small boy could have kept quiet, it was supposed to be a big surprise.” said Steve, looking meaningfully at Jamie. “The plan was that we were going to wait until you’d got to the archway before we popped out of our hiding places.” He placed the candle on the counter top to provide a little light, before handing Hamish a large pair of scissors. “Here, you’ll need these.” Steve waved his arm towards the archway, across which was tied a broad red ribbon. “If you’ll do the honours, mate? We thought the new extension could do with an official opening, and who better to do it than the designer himself?”
“But I didn’t design all of it. I just helped out with some early ideas.”
“Detail, mate. And besides, we’ve already paid the architect enough not to want to give him dinner as well.” Steve handed Hamish a large pair of scissors.
Taking the scissors, Hamish walked over to the ribbon. Before he had a chance to cut it, his eye was caught by the twinkle of hundreds of tiny lights outside in the courtyard. He was flabbergasted. Without thinking, he ducked under the ribbon and leaped down the steps to the lower restaurant, dropping the scissors on the long banqueting table to wrest open the doors to the courtyard. The entire rear wall was alight with a myriad of pulsating colours that ran in slow waves across the surface. He’d seen it in his head but the reality was even better than what he’d conjured in his imagination. The surface of the wall had been covered in thousands of tiny coloured translucent glass tiles which looked pretty during the daytime but were transformed into something magical at night. One minute he was reminded of a golden wheat field blown by gusts of wind and the next of iridescent blue-green waves crashing against the shore. He stood for several moments, just absorbing the spectacle, before Steve, who had followed him down broke the silence “Looks awesome, doesn’t it mate? Worth putting that fancy lighting system behind the glass tiles, aye? This is the first time we’ve powered it up.”
Hamish recovered to answer “It’s great Steve. And, those hand-made tiles give it a whole different character than if they’d been machined. The lights look incredible.”
“Yeah, well, like I said, your idea, mate. Um, your civic duties await you sire.” He handed the scissors back to Hamish.
Returning to the top of the steps and the others, Hamish grasped the scissors in two hands and ceremoniously cut the ribbon, intoning in a deep regal voice, “By the power vested in me by … my friends, I hereby open this extension. May God Bless this restaurant, and all who eat in it.” then, as an afterthought, “And may they never suffer from gout or indigestion.”
“Or anything worse!” added Steve with fervour.
Linda spoke. “I hope you don’t mind, Hamish, but the children insisted that we eat down here. After all, it would be a shame to go back to the flat when the boys have put so much time into those blessed lights ...the electricians were here all afternoon and it’s taken Steve and Jamie half the evening to get them working properly, so we’d better stay and appreciate their work of art.”
“I’m all for appreciating someone else’s work of art, Linda.” Hamish said. “Tonight, as long as it’s not my own it’ll be just fine by me.”
“Do I detect a subtle hint that you may not have totally enjoyed the attentions of your adoring public at this evening’s arty-farty exhibition?” jibed Steve, as Hamish helped Jamie slide along the banquette seat to places set at one end of the long oak table. Linda and Alice had disappeared into the kitchen to retrieve the food.
“I don’t know what gives you that idea.” Hamish replied, sitting back and kneading a spot at the back of his neck where the muscles felt knotted and strained with stress. “Fact is,” he leaned forward, as if offering a confidence to Steve, on the opposite side of the table, “If I never have to do that again it might still be too soon.”
Linda returned, bearing a large casserole and a bowl full of piping hot chips on a wooden tray. “I hope you like kiddie-food, Hamish. Jamie and Ali chose this evening’s menu so it’s chicken casserole, chips and salad. Just as well there are no food critics in the house tonight,” she quipped, “...or we might be in danger of losing our Michelin stars.”
“It sounds wonderful, Linda.” Hamish said. Then he turned to Alice, who had been following her mother, carrying a large bowl of green salad. “Ali my sweetheart, would you be kind enough to do a wee job for me? I left your Mummy’s flowers up there on the table, and a little box that you might be allowed to open after dinner. Could you run up and get them for me please.” Alice retrieved the gifts, dwarfed by the large bouquet of flowers. It was an artfully tied bunch that included Australian Bird of Paradise, Banksia and Eucalyptus stems for Linda, and the box contained Godiva truffles, for both of which Hamish, knowing they were family favourites, had made the trip to Harrods that morning.
“Hamish, you gorgeous Gaelic charmer you.” Linda was enthralled with the flowers. “They’re like a little piece of home.”
“London, you gotta love it. You can buy anything here,” Steve grunted. “Must play merry hell on your air miles though mate. Your environmental footprint will be the size of Godzilla!” He laughed. “Well, the girls have done the food, and you’ve provided the after-dinner treats, so I guess I’d better go and find something suitable to drink as my humble contribution.” He got up and went to look in the wine rack behind the counter. “Here we are,” he said, brandishing a bottle of red wine as he came back down the steps. He had also removed a bottle of champagne from the restaurant chiller. “Here’s something to help us mellow-out a bit later, and something cold and bubbly for swigging right now.” saying this he deftly uncorked the bottles, leaving the red sitting on a table near the warm fireplace while he filled slim glasses with the cool champagne. He passed these to his wife and Hamish before filling smaller sherry glasses with ginger beer, which he gave to the two children. That done, he said, “O.K., on yer feet everyone. It’s time for a toast.” They all stood, Jamie balanced on the seat next to Hamish, who placed an arm around him to ensure he didn’t fall off.
Steve turned to Hamish. “To Hamish, my best mate, whose creativity and vision made it possible for us to contemplate starting this extension.” he raised his glass.
“To Hamish,” repeated Linda and the giggling children, who were having trouble remaining
serious. “And,” Steve continued, turning towards Linda, “here’s to my magnificent wife, who has been utterly marvellous putting up with all the chaos and rubble that the aforementioned vision created! Now, let’s eat.”
It wasn’t until they had finished dinner and retreated upstairs to the flat for coffee and chocolate truffles that Hamish had a chance to tell his friends of the extraordinary events of the past weekend. Sitting comfortably, with a sleepy Jamie snuggled on his lap, his chocolate-smeared face smiling angelically, Hamish recounted his discovery of the house and the strange conversation that he’d had with Miss Kendal.
Alice’s reaction was immediate. “Ooh, it sounds brilliant. Can we come and visit for holidays and stuff? There might be a ghost or something. It would be so cool.” The mention of possible ghosts brought Jamie semi-awake and back into the conversation for a brief moment.
“I don’t like scary ghostas, I only like nice ghostas …like Casper.” he mumbled sleepily. Hamish smiled, and hugged him, and he drifting off to sleep again.
Steve’ response to the tale was less positive.
“I’ll admit, it sounds pretty amazing to have a house sort of dropped in your lap like that.” Steve said in tones of disbelief, mixed with a hefty dose of cynicism “But you met the old lady, Hamish ...do you think she’s on the level? She wasn’t a few sandwiches sort of a picnic or anything, was she?” he questioned, gesturing with his hands to indicate that Miss Kendal might have been a bit loopy.
It was Linda, normally the practical member of the family, whose preference was for thinking long and hard before making any major decisions, who was uncharacteristically enthusiastic. “I think it sounds like just what you were looking for.” she said, “I say ‘Go for it’, ‘Grab it with both hands’, ‘Don’t look a gift-horse in the mouth’, ‘Carpe diem’, ...whatever, just do it.” She looked searchingly at Hamish. “You know you don’t want to live here anymore, so what better chance do you think you need to get away? Of course, we’ll miss you like crazy, but it’s not like you’re moving to Canada or somewhere we can’t visit ...and I really think you need this...”
They talked for a while longer, Steve still unconvinced that it wasn’t some kind of dodgy set-up, and Linda equally convinced that it was a heaven-sent opportunity, until Hamish said “Goodnight”, handed Jamie back to his parents, and took his leave.
Back home, Hamish thought about Linda’s words. As his footsteps resounded around the empty studio, he acknowledged that she was right. What, of any real value, did he have to lose that he hadn’t lost already? He had got to the point where he dreaded coming home. He hardly slept, working far into the night to avoid awful repetitive dreams that saw him as a helpless bystander, watching as his wife and small daughter died horribly in a fiery pile of twisted metal, victims of a multi-car pile-up on a foggy motorway. Elaine had been heading to Bristol, just after the New Year, on a weekend jaunt to her parents, while Hamish had elected to stay home to finish work for what he had thought at the time was an important exhibition. Now, he couldn’t forgive himself for not being behind the wheel of their car, even though the crash investigators had told him that it seemed as if Elaine had in fact managed to stop, narrowly avoiding a collision with the cars in front of her, only to be slammed into by a truck unit travelling at excessive speed too closely behind.
Nowadays, the studio, which had seemed to grow smaller by the day as Lucy had first learnt to crawl and then ‘cruise’ around the furniture, clinging to one piece while reaching for the next with her tiny hands outstretched, was just another reminder of what he no longer had. In the week before the crash he and Elaine had talked about looking for a larger house for their small family, which, with her second pregnancy confirmed had been set to increase. Hamish shied away from any thoughts of the loss of their second unborn child; a scan had confirmed they were to have a son later in the year, but Elaine and Lucy’s deaths were already more than he could deal with. Hamish had been spared identifying their charred bodies, there being little point to that exercise and after the closed-casket funeral he had kept only a few precious items to remember them by; photos, Lucy’s favourite toy, left behind in the rush to depart London, and Elaine’s ruby and emerald engagement ring recovered from the crash.
Tired, but not wanting to go to bed, Hamish trudged up the spiral stair that led to his work space, hoping to lose himself for a while in his painting. It was one of the ironies of the past year that he had done some of his best work to date since the crash. His paintings required a level of concentration that effectively blotted out any thoughts of anything else for hours at a time, so much so, that he had come to rely on it as some might use drugs or alcohol to dull pain. To help him work through the night he had installed special daylight bulbs in the studio. They compensated for the lack of natural light, and the results in his paintings seemed to be worth it.
These days, he thought, it was the only area of his life that seemed worth the struggle.
We looked o’er London, where men wither and choke,
Roofed in, poor souls, renouncing stars and skies.
Theodore Watts-Dunton
Chapter Four
Hamish
If Hamish was unsure about whether to accept Miss Kendal’s offer, the rest of the week seemed to go out of its way to help make up his mind. After less than three hours sleep he was woken at the dot of seven a.m. on Tuesday morning by the contractor’s hammering. He had stopped to have a quick chat with the workmen the day before and there was, according to the foreman, nothing that could be done about the noise, which would be continuing intermittently for at least another week or two. As Hamish had wandered back to the studio the night before he had noticed the usual trite, blandly-apologetic council signs on the street verge that meant nothing to those having to put up with the constant additional noise and disruption to their daily lives, and groaned inwardly at the thought of having to put up with the din for hours on end, every working day including Saturday mornings, until the work was completed.
This knowledge provided sufficient incentive for Hamish to phone Miss Kendal’s lawyer, Charles Fletcher, who, even at this early hour, was in his office. He had been alerted to expect a call from Hamish. “And I happen to have a cancellation this morning.” he said, “I don’t suppose you could get here by nine o’clock?”
Hamish looked at his watch ...eight fifteen. “Hmmm. Where, exactly, are you?” he asked.
The lawyer gave directions to a building close to Victoria station. Hamish thought for a moment, calculating ...If he took the Circle Line from Notting Hill Gate he could probably be at Victoria in time, providing there were no delays. “I’m on my way.” he said, putting the phone down and grabbing his coat and wallet.
He was delayed at the tube station, first trying the ticket machine only to find that it was out of order, then queuing to buy a ticket from the window. As he stood waiting his turn, he couldn’t help overhearing an argument in front of him between the person behind the counter and a frazzled commuter, who was complaining bitterly about the lack of service. Listening to the exchange, he marvelled at how London Underground still seemed to go out of their way to employ staff whose primary job skill appeared to be that they could carefully calculate just how rude and unhelpful they could be that it would take the shine off someone else’s morning without resulting in a formal complaint to management.
Once in the tube, standing squashed against fellow travellers in the doorway of the overfull tube carriage and unable to move further down the carriage, Hamish was forced to stare through the glass partition alongside the doors at the row of commuters who had been fortunate enough to find seats. He could see that most were reading one of several morning newspapers, catching up on whatever gossip and tragedies that were on offer from the tabloids for the day. He wondered what it was that made people gain enjoyment from reading about other’s misfortunes, and was reminded of how the same papers had reported the crash that had taken his wife and daughter, as well as another seve
n other drivers and passengers. Hyped up headlines and grisly photographs had accompanied stories that revelled in the loss of life, and the grief of everyone who had lost loved ones in the accident was just fuel to the fire of the media’s coverage. He remembered exiting the studio, unwittingly, the morning after the crash, to be greeted by a barrage of cameras with flashlights and reporters wielding microphones, wanting to capture, first-hand, his reaction to the tragedy. He’d stayed inside as much as possible after that, until the event had become yesterday’s news, but the memory still rankled. At the next station, few passengers alighted and even more managed somehow to board, making what had been an uncomfortable position even worse. For the next ten minutes Hamish was assailed with the malodorous smell of someone who hadn’t showered or bothered to use deodorant. Too tall to stand straight, his neck bent in an awkward position, he was thankful that he didn’t have to use London Underground’s transport system, particularly at rush-hour, on a daily basis.
At last the train rattled into Victoria. Thankful to be standing upright again, Hamish moved with the slow tide of people towards the ticket barriers. Through at last and out on the crowded street, he tried to walk faster to make up lost time and narrowly avoided stepping on the legs of a homeless man sleeping rough in a doorway. At times it seemed that the city attracted these people like a rotting carcass attracted flies. He was reminded of Conan Doyle’s lines in ‘A Study in Scarlet’, where he’d described London as ‘That great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.’ It seemed that little had changed, in that respect, since Sherlock Holmes had fictitiously roamed the city. It wasn’t that Hamish minded giving money to organisations that genuinely helped people, but he drew the line at giving to people begging on the streets. There were too many organised scams going on in the city, targeting the constant flow of tourists who thought it fine to give a pound or two and then leave the city, making it more difficult for people like himself, who had to live and work here, to walk down the street or sit at a sidewalk cafe and drink a coffee without being accosted, ...and withdrawing money from automatic teller machines was becoming dangerous. More and more reasons to leave, he thought.
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