by Daisy Tate
‘What’s it called?’
Her father looked up and to the left then cleared his throat. ‘Choices.’
‘Choices?’
He pointed to the hand that wasn’t his and started untying a bit of twine that was hanging from a rafter. ‘Aye. Choices.’
‘What does that mean? Choices.’
‘Well,’ her father’s voice changed as the memories flooded in. ‘When we said yes to posing for the young man who painted it, we hadn’t quite realized what we had got ourselves into. He wanted a house cow, see? He was struggling. Trying to make ends meet by living off his paintings.’
Freya could relate. She’d lasted a sum total of one month trying to sell her more stylized designs at a pop-up café. They’d eaten a lot of beans on toast that month.
Lachlan looked round, found a chair and sat down heavily. ‘Anyway, your mother said, why don’t you do us in one of your paintings? She’d just found out she was pregnant with you, you see.’
Freya fought the sting at the back of her throat as she looked back at the painting. That was her mum pregnant with her?
‘She wanted a family portrait. There was no chance we’d ever be able to afford one on what the farm was bringing in, especially with you on the way, so Mariella thought she’d barter.’
‘Wait. You traded a cow for this painting?’ Technically, this made her parents patrons of art.
‘Aye.’ Her father stared blindly ahead of him. ‘Petunia, I think that one was called. A bit on the mature side, but we didn’t think he’d manage with one of the younger girls. By all accounts he took good care of her. Jack.’ He didn’t look as if he knew how he felt about it all.
Freya frowned at the photo. ‘I don’t get why he put in the other man’s hand. Why it’s called Choices. I mean, obviously as an artist I get it – but if this is a family portrait, why does Mum have another man’s hand reaching out to her?’
Her father’s eyes clashed with hers so abruptly she almost lost her balance.
‘I suppose it’s a commentary on marriage. Your mother was young and beautiful. I wasn’t the only man who had wanted to marry her. She chose me, but it didn’t mean her other suitors gave up hoping. When she fell pregnant with you we were dead broke. I wasn’t sure we could afford another child, and it hadn’t been too long before that she’d had an offer from another gent, so … she had choices.’
Freya dropped from her squatted position in front of the painting onto the floor.
Charlotte looked as shell-shocked as Freya felt. Whether it was the fact that there was an unknown Jack Vettriano lying about in their attic, or the fact that Freya’s mum had had choices, she didn’t know.
Was Freya even her father’s child? She stared hard into his face and saw elements of her own. The same nose. The same stubbornness. The same drive to make his business work, no matter what.
Yes. She was her father’s daughter. And her mother’s.
If they sold it, she and Monty could be debt free. Rocco could update the milking parlour or, even better, afford an extra pair of hands to help on the farm and her dad could have nursing care if he needed it in future …
It was her mother.
Her brain fizzed and popped. Too much.
The only thing that fell into place were more questions.
Her mother had had choices?
She tried the head-clearing thing the grief counsellor had suggested all those months ago – swooshing the conflicting thoughts away.
Freya had had choices, too.
When she’d been putting together her soft-furnishings collection and scraping a living from her upcycled charity shop skirts, she’d crossed paths with Monty at an anti-war demonstration. She hadn’t seen him since the last house party they’d thrown at uni when he’d tried, unsuccessfully, to have a ‘snog for old times’ sake’ with Izzy. He’d exchanged numbers with her and said he’d ring for a drink. He hadn’t, so she’d rung him. Chased him up until he’d finally met up with her on an art gallery crawl around various galleries who offered free drinks and nibbles to art enthusiasts and, after an abundance of mojitos, they had finished with a drunken shag at her sparsely furnished studio. A few more Freya-inspired evenings out and they’d become a couple. Two years later, when she announced she was pregnant, he’d freaked. Disappeared for a few days. When he came back she’d tearfully promised him that having children didn’t mean pursuing the path towards commercial property law his mother had pinned on him. Before their wedding he’d looked so ashen she’d promised him she would never pressure him to do anything he didn’t want to. That their lives together would be about the higher things in life, not the tedious logistics of survival.
What a numpty.
It was increasingly likely that everything was falling apart around her because she’d spent the past twenty years of her life trying to bash square pegs into round holes. Whether she was the peg or the hole in this scenario eluded her, but she could see now that if she hadn’t actively pursued Monty, both of their lives would have been very different. He would probably be saving the disappearing tribes of Ulan Bator about now. She might be debt free and selling the type of quirky couture she’d always dreamed of making. Donating dresses to the Victoria and Albert. Championing charities that celebrated peace and nature and an end to microbeads in the world’s waterways.
She could be also be single, childless, and living in a garret somewhere, convincing herself that her ‘masterpieces’ weren’t bad, just misunderstood.
‘Freya?’ Charlotte touched her arm. ‘Are you all right?’
No. She was having a meltdown.
Freya forced herself to focus on what was in front of her. A painting by a famous artist stuffed in her parents’ attic that could change their futures.
‘Dad? Why is the painting up here?’
Her father scratched his head. ‘Oh, she didn’t take to it in the end, your mother. Said it wasn’t the sort of portrait she’d been after, but thought it’d be rude not to keep it after all the effort the young man had put in. You’re more than welcome to it if you’d like it.’ He glanced out towards the barn. ‘Rocco didn’t express an interest when we were up here a while back looking for something for your mother, and from what I’ve seen in the shopfronts up in St Andrews, the lad’s doing a fair trade now. Perhaps you can get a few bob for it.’
Uhh … Jack Vettriano’s career was insanely fabulous. He was an OBE, had his own publishing company, not to mention regularly selling more prints than every other British painter, even if he was sneered at by the Establishment.
He’d stayed true to his vision and ultimately been rewarded for it.
Oh, bums. All of this was striking a bit too close to the bone.
Her father abruptly pushed himself up and out of his chair and ruffled Freya’s hair as he had when she was a child. ‘It’s nothing to worry about now. Your mother chose me and we never once looked back.’ He popped on a happy, contented smile. ‘Now, then. When are you girls coming down out of this attic for some hot chocolate? Izzy here looks as though she’s on the brink of a cold.’
‘Soon, Dad.’ Freya watched him go, feeling aftershocks of the discovery rippling through her. The world looked the same, but it felt completely different.
When he’d gone, Izzy joined her in staring at the painting. ‘Should we hang it out in the shop?’
Freya and Charlotte turned to her as one and said, ‘No.’
‘Would you like to try the gin infused with salted caramel or the pink peppercorn vodka?’
Emily stared at Tansy, the sylphlike micro-distiller, and nodded heavily.
‘Yes.’
Tansy – because beautiful micro-distillers of distinctive spirits wouldn’t be called Ethel or Madge – smiled at Emily. Emily hoped she was smiling back. Chances were high that if she ever got off her stool, she wouldn’t be able to walk in a straight line. Rocco, on the other hand, was completely sober. Fair enough, as he was driving, and Scotland was very, very strict about obeying r
ules and sticking to the Letter of the Law.
Why were all her thoughts happening in slow motion?
‘Can I get you anything else?’
Tansy again.
She was insanely beautiful. A sheet of luminescent red hair rippled down to her bum. Dark brown eyes. They actually looked like chocolate. From Ecuador. Or … Zanzibar.
Rocco waved his hand above their empty glasses. ‘I think that’ll do us. Anything take your fancy, Emily or are we sticking with the malted milk?’
‘You sell malted milk?’ Tansy perched a hand on her hip and grinned.
‘Why, yes we do!’ Emily enthused, ignoring Rocco’s bemused look. ‘We sell boozy malted milk. It’s milk … with malt. Whisky, vodka, rum, all sorts. There will be cake. There will be …’ She swung her eyes to Rocco for help. She’d run out of things to dazzle Tansy with.
Rocco quickly explained what they were doing; that there’d be a party at the farm on Hogmanay with milk-based cocktails, cake, sausages, burgers and all sorts. Donations gratefully accepted to make up for a missed milk collection. Tansy, he added, was most welcome.
Tansy’s brown eyes lit up. ‘Why don’t you take a couple of bottles on the house? We’ve got an Amaretto vodka and a coffee gin that’d be absolutely brilliant. If they do well it’s good for us too, yeah?’
‘Us?’ slurred Emily.
‘Me and my partner.’
Partner?
She slumped at the irritating word. It was so … vague. Business, romantic, dance … which was it?
Tansy waved down the hippest hipster of them all. Above the requisite ensemble of charcoal skinny trousers, black turtleneck jumper and a leather strapped apron, he was wearing a pair of Fair Isle knitted antlers. Bah! Freya could make much cooler antlers. She’d call her immediately. Say the party simply couldn’t go on without kick-ass hipster antlers.
‘Brodie! C’mere, listen to this.’
Emily fuzzed her lips. Was no one in the trendy booze world called Bob? Derek?
‘Ooops! Easy there, girlie.’ Rocco caught Emily as she slid off the stool towards the stone floor. ‘Looks as if we’d better make our way back to the dairy and get some tea into you. See you on Hogmanay?’ That part was for Tansy and Brodie. The partner.
‘Absolutely. It sounds a cracking good time. What’s the name of the farm?’
‘Burns’ Folly.’
When Rocco got her back into the car and buckled her up, Emily swivelled her head round to him. It took some effort.
‘Did I disgrace myself?’
‘Nah,’ Rocco grinned that sweet grin of his that actually made her believe him. ‘While you were in the loo, she double-checked the address with me. I think you’re in with a chance.’
Emily instantly felt very, very sober.
Charlotte dried a serving dish and handed it to Freya to put away.
‘I think – ummm …’ Ooof. Freya was actually feeling pretty emotional. ‘I think for the first time ever, I’m properly scared.’
Charlotte nodded. She understood the complexities of marriage more than most.
‘What scares you the most?’
‘Today? Being tempted to sell a painting of my newly pregnant mother.’
‘Do you have to?’
‘It would solve a lot of problems.’
On the flipside, clearing their debts wouldn’t change Monty. Already, Freya could feel a growing rage that his idiocy was forcing her to consider selling a family treasure to avoid declaring bankruptcy. That’s how broke they were. She didn’t even know how she was going to get the children back down the road and yet … selling the painting would be like selling her mother’s ashes.
Impossible.
The truth hit hard and fast. They were going to have to find a way to do this on their own. It was time for both of them to grow up. Face facts. They were in debt, limiting their children’s futures, and needed to make some fundamental decisions about how they wanted to proceed because, at the end of the day …? No amount of money was going to change the fact that their marriage was failing and neither one of them was doing anything to fix it.
She and Charlotte walked upstairs together, each lost in their thoughts, barely remembering to say goodnight when they reached their bedroom doors.
When Freya crawled into bed with her hot-water bottle, she picked up her phone and pressed the icon for favourites.
‘Hi,’ Freya whispered. Which was stupid, seeing as she was alone in bed with thick stone walls between her and everyone else in the house.
‘Hi,’ Monty whispered back.
‘It’s me.’
‘Hello, you.’
Freya’s heart did an unexpected flip. Monty hadn’t said plain old ‘hello, you’ in just about for ever.
‘I miss you.’
‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘I miss you, too.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
The attic had once been Freya’s favourite place. Her escape zone in which to read, sew, paint and dream. It had been her magic place. Now it felt like a creepy Narnia.
Just knowing it was here. The solution to all of her financial problems, or the most beautiful reminder that her mother had chosen her.
Not just Freya. Mariella had chosen family. This family. The people who had cocooned Freya through a thousand different knockbacks. Scraped knees. Torn dresses. Failed exams. A bloody nose. Her first school disco. Her first rejection. A skin rash so embarrassing her mother had let her stay home from school for a week.
Had Monty left her because of the mistakes he’d made? Or had it been her mistake to give him the job of household accountant? She’d genuinely thought he’d liked the job. Her stomach churned as another wave of guilt swept in. Perhaps doing the accounts had been like becoming the house-husband. It was something he’d had to do because she hadn’t been around to do it.
Freya ached for her mother’s advice. She wouldn’t dare ask her father. Or her brother. They worked so hard on the farm, the last thing she wanted to do was to admit everything she’d worked for – with their blessing – had gone horribly, terrifically wrong.
She checked that Charlotte was busy at the far end of the long room, then uncovered the painting, her eyes arrowing in on that mysterious male hand reaching out to her mother’s.
People had choices.
Of course your father drives me mad, child, but he’s part of my fabric now. If I pulled that thread out, it would affect, you, Rocco, the wee bairns you’re expecting … Ach, child. It’s not worth thinking about. C’mon. Show us how your new quilt’s coming along, then. Let’s focus on what can change.
Her mother’s words were, as ever, wise and practical. Life wasn’t always sunshine and lollipops. Besides. It wasn’t as if she and Monty were getting divorced or anything. This was a blip. A painful blip, but a surmountable one. They were not Oliver and Charlotte.
That’s what she’d keep telling herself anyway.
‘Oh! Look at these!’ Charlotte – who had stoically endured a FaceTime call from Oli during which he promised the children a ‘monumentally epic’ sailing holiday over Easter, which virtually no one believed he would honour – held up a cushion cover she’d found in a black bag marked Don’t Let Freya Bin. Her mother’s handwriting, of course. ‘Frey, I think rather than decorate with these, we should sell them.’
Freya snorted. She’d been down this road before. No matter how much her mother had loved them, her quirky sofa cushions did not sell. ‘They’d sell as well as T-shirts with Wookiees and leprechauns, I expect.’
Charlotte looked confused. ‘You’ve done leprechaun T-shirts?’
Freya was about to tell Charlotte to use them as fodder for the bonfire when she stopped herself. Her shy, quiet, unassuming friend had, in the midst of an awful divorce, single-handedly turned a shack with a few jars of questionable honey into a Waitrose Weekend-featured success story. Surely to god she could give her cushion covers another shot.
Rocco stuck his head through the door. ‘You ladies coming
down? I expect we might be getting our first guests soon.’
Charlotte’s cheeks pinked up.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, would the two of them get on with it and bonk? The energy between the pair of them was humming with pent-up lust. It was ruddy annoying.
‘I think Freya’s cushions would sell in the shop.’ Charlotte held up another. It featured a Highland cow knitting an Islay scarf. ‘You could get forty quid for this. Easy.’
Rocco’s guffaw was as disbelieving as his sister’s.
Charlotte pursed her lips. ‘When I go into a farm shop, and I go into quite a few, customers don’t just want fresh tomatoes or a fennel bulb with a bit of earth still clinging to it.’ Her eyes took on a dreamlike quality. ‘They want the upper-middle-class lifestyle that goes with it—’
‘A fictional lifestyle,’ Freya cut in.
‘An aspirational lifestyle …’ Charlotte countered. Firmly.
‘It’s up to you, but …’ Charlotte looked as though she was about to give up the fight then, after a nod from Rocco (!), carried on. ‘The thing is, Freya, the type of people you want buying – or in this case making donations for – your brother’s milk are not your everyday punters. You want people willing to spend two pounds on a pint of the beautiful, organic milk, mostly because there’s a picture of a buttercup on the bottle. A bottle which, by the by, should warrant a fifty pence charge and ten p credit if it’s returned.’
Freya and Rocco gawped at her.
She thought for a moment then said, ‘If you won’t sell the cushions here, with your permission I’ll bring them down to Sittingstone. I guarantee you they’ll be gone by the end of the week.’
‘If we get two pounds for each pint of milk, we don’t need to sell the cushions,’ Rocco laughed in disbelief.
‘Of course you do!’ Charlotte chided, already stacking the covers in a tidy pile. ‘You’ll have to factor in the bottles, the cleaning, the staff you’ll need to hire. The profit will obviously be larger than if you sell to the bigger retailers, but you’ll definitely need second-tier customers buying higher-end items like the cushions to boost your profit levels. Those mismatched china teacups you found would sell for a small fortune.’ She laughed as an idea hit. ‘If you filled them with artisanal butter, you could double the price and call them butter cups!’