The Unlikely Life of Maisie Meadows

by Jenni Keer

  ‘You know we were talking about how the pattern sort of doesn’t look finished before?’ Her thoughts were jiggling about but they kept returning to that funny old teapot.

  Meredith nodded, smiling at the talkative child and adjusting the crocheted circular cushion behind her back.

  ‘I was wondering what it was supposed to be. It’s just squiggles and lines.’ Maisie stepped forward and traced a sticky finger across the stark black jaggedy outlines of shapes that made no sense to her.

  ‘Ah, that’s the joy of the thing. It can be whatever you want it to be. Just because an object is designed to be a particular something, doesn’t mean your brain can’t interpret it as something else.’

  The weird things that Meredith said really made you think. Maisie liked the idea of things being what you decided they were. After all, the fluffy green rug between her bed and Zoe’s was actually a magic carpet but she hadn’t told Zoe.

  ‘Have you ever seen an abstract painting?’ Meredith asked the inquisitive girl. Maisie shook her head and Meredith leaned forward and pulled a book from the slatted shelf under the oval coffee table. It was called Finding Joy in Modern Art. She opened the book and flicked through the pictures. They were a miscellany of colours and shapes. Maisie took a few tentative steps towards her and peered over the top of the book. Nothing was actually anything but Maisie thought she glimpsed a face or an animal lurking in the muddle.

  ‘I’m sure the artists had something very definite in mind when they created these images, but when I look at this picture …’ Meredith tilted the book in Maisie’s direction, ‘On White II by a very clever and innovative Russian artist called Kandinsky, I see horses and a bird in the sky, a stopwatch and a chequered racing flag – so to me as a young woman this was a picture about horse-racing, maybe at nearby Newmarket. But when I was older and read more on the subject, I learned it was supposedly about life and death. In the end, does it matter what he intended when he painted it or what I thought I saw? It made me think and looking at it made me happy because it reminded me of a special day I had at the races with a young gentleman I knew at the time.’

  Maisie could tell the memory wasn’t really a happy one by looking at the old lady’s face. It was like when Mummy said to Grandma how delicious her fruit cake was and then put the whole foil-wrapped loaf in the pedal bin as soon as they returned home.

  ‘I admire the skill in a Gainsborough or a Turner, but I do so love the challenge of a Dalí or a Klee.’

  Maisie studied the curious picture – noting the sharp black lines, slicing across the canvas, the jumble of colour and the tiny chequerboard patterns. For a few moments she was reflective, then she looked back at the teapot.

  ‘I think it’s jigsaw puzzle bits,’ she said. ‘All floating around the teapot, needed to be put back in their puzzley holes.’

  ‘I think so, too,’ said Meredith, and Maisie gave a gap-toothed grin. ‘Keep the book, sweetheart. I know you’ll treasure it.’

  Nigel was clinging to the door of his cage as soon as Maisie approached the sideboard. He wasn’t daft and always began to hare around the bottom floor of his cage when he heard her return from work, occasionally optimistically launching himself at the small, square door that opened like a wire drawbridge to the outside world. Maisie pulled back the hook and the door fell forward as he waddled towards her, ever hopeful of a tasty treat. She scooped him up and he nestled happily in her soft, warm hands, munching on sunflower seeds, as she sat recounting the events of the day.

  After he’d finished his seedy snack, she placed Nigel carefully in his clear plastic ball and let him explore as she went into the kitchen to unpack the china, mindful that working at the auction could lead to all sorts of impulse acquisitions. Colour co-ordinated ones only, of course.

  The box had an unpleasant stale cigarette odour and most of the contents were stained yellow but after a good soak the cups came up shiny and clean. There wasn’t much else of interest inside so she lugged it into her petite garden shed with the other boxes – the rosy, bearded faces of the naughty gnomes still laughing at her every time she entered.

  She sat down to a quick spinach omelette and then remembered she hadn’t taken her phone off silent since the auction. She found a missed call and a text from Zoe – both from earlier in the day.

  BIG news but don’t want to put it in a text. Skype tomorrow around ten GMT? Zoe x

  It would be the early hours for Zoe now but she texted back in agreement and wondered what the news could be. Perhaps a baby. That would be exciting. Their mother was desperate for a grandchild and Lisa had made it clear babies weren’t part of her life plan – too selfish and demanding – which everyone decided was rich coming from her. Oliver and Zoe had been together forever and, although Zoe had never mentioned children, perhaps she’d changed her mind now they were in the land of milk, honey and the perennial outdoor barbecue. And at thirty, Zoe’s biological clock would be counting down that final decade in readiness to sound the alarm.

  ‘Maisie!’

  Zoe’s beaming face appeared on Maisie’s laptop, slightly glitchy as the signal sorted itself out, and resplendent in mammoth sunglasses, and a floppy raffia sun hat wider than the screen. While Maisie was still de-icing her car every morning and bemoaning the winter weather, her sister was basking in a gloriously hot Australian summer.

  ‘Look at you – all tanned and sun-bleached. It’s about two degrees outside and a smattering of the white stuff is forecast for this weekend. If ever you want to swap lives, I’m sure I could make the sacrifice – but only because I love you so much. It would be a purely selfless act on my behalf.’

  Zoe adjusted her hat and the smile crept further towards her ears.

  ‘Funny you should say that; I’m coming home.’

  ‘Oh wow.’ So that was the news. A UK vacation, and looking at her sister’s beaming face, perhaps a sizeable one. ‘How long for? Does Mum know? Give me the dates and I’ll book some time off work.’

  ‘No, sweetheart, not for a holiday. For good.’

  Chapter 14

  For a moment Maisie didn’t know what to think. She missed her sister terribly since she’d emigrated two years ago but it had been Zoe’s long-held dream and it hadn’t been an easy one to achieve. Oliver and Zoe had spent several years saving up, applying for visas and jobs, and finding somewhere to live. Her physiotherapy qualifications and Oliver’s accountancy career made them eligible for the skilled migrant visa – but now they were telling Maisie it was all for nothing.

  ‘It’s not working out,’ Zoe continued. ‘We’ve been thinking about it for a while and I guess we both accepted the dream didn’t live up to the reality. Now we’ve made the decision, I know it’s the right thing to do. I’ve really missed you. And Mum. And Dad …’ There were no more Ands.

  ‘I don’t understand. Your jobs? The lifestyle? The sun?’

  The miserable British weather had been the killer for Zoe. Fair, like all her siblings, but able to take a tan, she’d been a sun-worshipper and outdoorsy girl since childhood. Oliver had a sedentary and staid career – his idea of kicking back was settling down in front of the television with a large glass of Merlot. Zoe, on the other hand, had been known to stride up a mountain to unwind. It was a miracle their relationship had endured for nearly fifteen years.

  ‘Everyone thinks Australia is just a hotter version of the UK but it really isn’t. It’s been a complete lifestyle change – even the language is different, if you can believe that?’ Zoe said, shaking her head. ‘It’s all so laid-back and in many ways in a bit of a time warp. You go to a party and the men and women stand in different corners – and the men swear all the time. Oliver found it hard to integrate into their sport and gambling culture. I’m convinced he was ostracised for not drinking lager.’

  ‘Philistines,’ a disembodied voice mumbled.

  ‘Sometimes it was the silliest thing that made me homesick – not being able to buy brands I recognised in the supermarket or pop
in on my sis when I’d had a bad day … We didn’t make many friends, are still seen as interlopers, and we’ve both missed friends and family so much.’

  Maisie contemplated their bickering family but perhaps when your relations are thousands of miles away even the bad things seem appealing. Her heart lifted at Zoe’s words. Family was important and Zoe recognised this too.

  ‘In the end, I can’t even properly define it. If you’ve got the money, you can get hold of all the material things you miss – Marmite, British TV programmes, proper Cadbury’s chocolate and Monster Munch. But you can’t buy the atmosphere – the pubs, the shops, the English sense of humour and, I never thought I’d say this, even the weather – which at least gives you a conversational starter in awkward social situations.’

  ‘Plus, you can’t get Cumberland sausages for love nor money,’ grumbled Oliver, still off camera and out of sight.

  ‘Sorry we’ve kept it to ourselves, but we didn’t want unhelpful opinions either way. It suddenly seemed the right time to tell everyone.’

  It was bittersweet news: the end of Zoe’s dream but also the return of a lost sheep to the fold. Maisie had missed her sister so much after she’d left. The age gap that had mattered when they were smaller had become less significant as the years went by. And the move from Hickory Street, when Maisie, Zoe and their mother shared the bijou two-bedroom Tattlesham flat, had been happy times. As soon as the Sylvanians had been relegated to the top of the wardrobe and Maisie began to understand the appeal of kissing boys, the girls had quickly bonded.

  After the call, Maisie’s mind inevitably returned to Hickory Street and Meredith. She walked over to the three cups and saucers standing in a line on the kitchen windowsill. For the first time in a while she felt upbeat and positive about the future. Putting the odd cup and one of the saucers in the high cupboard over the kettle, she stood the remaining two either side of the teapot on the display shelf and narrowed her eyes as she focused on nothing in particular.

  ‘Split the set; split the family,’ Meredith had said all those years ago. And Maisie knew in that moment, as sure as she knew Johnny would never be seen dead in a pair of pink Crocs and that Theo didn’t own a suit, that she had to find a way to reunite Meredith’s tea set.

  March arrived but winter refused to budge. The pure white duvet of virgin snow that had fallen on the Sunday night was quickly reduced to grubby banks of grey on the verges and diminishing patches of white under the shade of the trees. The nasty weather hadn’t prevented people from turning up to the auction house on the Monday though. Johnny explained the ‘increasingly glacial meteorological climate’ rarely affected sales, as he undertook a supervisory role in the clearing of the car park and gritting of paths – lamenting the fact Theo wasn’t out there with them wielding a spade as he had ‘muscles to die for’.

  ‘We will doubtless be as busy as usual,’ he said, leaning on a shovel that hadn’t done much shovelling in the last twenty minutes. ‘If not busier.’

  ‘Really?’ Maisie was heaving a bag of grit off a sack barrow. ‘The snow won’t stop people coming to the sale on Friday?’

  Unfortunately, snow was forecast on and off for the remainder of the week. Not enough for anyone north of Leeds to fret about, but the bottom half of the country tended to get in a complete flap at the first sign of a snowflake. Long-life milk would be stockpiled in abundance and garage forecourts would be cluttered with de-icer and, rather more optimistically, brightly coloured plastic sledges.

  ‘The reverse is true, my dear. They tend to be of the mind that no one else will undertake the perilous journey, so there will be no competing bidders and they will thus secure themselves a bargain. And because they’ve made Herculean efforts to get here they are bloody-minded enough not to make the return journey empty-handed. Although logistically a nightmare for us, with all the heavy snow-shovelling and icy paths, bad weather days are often surprisingly lucrative.’

  Not that Johnny was doing much snow-shovelling, she noticed.

  Ten minutes later, out of the biting wind if not the arctic temperatures, Maisie was preparing the Saleroom One barn for valuations. A queue had already formed and Johnny was right – it was surprisingly long, even if most of the public were wrapped up like knitted Egyptian mummies. The industrial heaters were on and it wouldn’t be long before the core temperature was up to habitable levels – aided by the myriad of sweaty bodies.

  Working alongside Theo as he valued people’s possessions, she realised Arthur was right; he really did know his stuff. She marvelled how he could tell that a shoddily made three-legged milking stool was circa 1820. Or that in amongst a box of costume jewellery was a delicate mid-Victorian turquoise and seed pearl brooch that would fetch upwards of two hundred pounds.

  ‘Are we having the vicar for tea?’ Theo joked, as Maisie spread out a cloth on a spare trestle table she’d set up in the valuation area. He was sporting a splendid fur-lined trapper hat and the dangly ear flaps hung down each side of his face. Tempted to grab the plaited tassels and tie them in a bow under his chin, she resisted.

  Theo was easy-going and without edge, and reminded her of Oliver. She felt at ease with him. Never having had a gay friend before, she realised that once sex was taken out of the equation, much like with her relationship with her brother-in-law, the friendship was natural and uncomplicated. And then she lamented the possibility she was destined to be one of those women who had lots of male friends but never managed to attract a half-decent romantic prospect. Perhaps she should be more like Lisa and try her hand at something totally off the wall, like speed-dating.

  ‘I’m trying to save time by taking photos as we accept the items,’ she explained. ‘If everything goes to plan, I’m hoping to go online with the catalogue soon. This is a trial run.’

  One of his eyebrows did a little jump. Was she pushing her luck, introducing all these new things when she’d barely been here five minutes? And then she reminded herself Johnny was the big cheese and he had complete faith in her. Theo might have a good-natured grumble about her improvements but even he was ultimately answerable to Johnny.

  ‘I was warned you were anti-internet but the company has to move with the times or we’ll get left behind,’ she persisted.

  Theo leaned back in the chair, the front two feet lifting from the floor, and stroked his clean-shaven chin. He seemed very lackadaisical when it came to personal grooming; shaving about once a fortnight, almost as if it was just something he did when he remembered.

  ‘You have me pegged all wrong. I fully understand the online catalogue will reach a wider customer base – I’m merely wary of over-reaching ourselves. Hats off to you – the new branding is very classy. You’ve understood the family feel of the company – even though none of us are technically family – and embraced our rural and friendly nature. But let’s not alienate our traditional buyers, most of whom are local and support us on a grass-roots level. The atmosphere and vitality of the place is directly linked to the people turning up every week and creating the general buzz.’

  ‘But serious collectors will pay premium prices to get their hands on the things we have to offer, and the internet facilitates this.’ They were bickering like extremely polite siblings and it was apparent neither was prepared to give way.

  Theo wrinkled up his face and tugged at a dangly plait, letting the chair return to four legs with a bump.

  ‘Not everything in life is about money, honey,’ he said, pulling off the statement because he had the air of a vagrant about him.

  Before Maisie had realised Theo was not another sixty-something Johnny clone, she’d assumed his aversion to technology was age-related, but he was her generation. Surely he’d be all over social media like a virulent rash? He hadn’t mentioned the Twitter page to her, which was up and running, although not as successful as she’d anticipated as retweets tended to be by the same small handful of people. But there might be people in the queue who’d seen Gildersleeve’s online and come along for the
very first time. The impact of a Tweet was difficult to gauge.

  ‘Let’s aim high and make Gildersleeve Auctioneers a global phenomenon.’ Maisie indulged in a sudden burst of enthusiasm and then reined herself in. ‘Well, national at least.’

  She knew Theo was smiling inwardly at the bouncy, over-enthusiastic new employee in front of him because an eyebrow bopped up.

  ‘Do we need to be a global phenomenon? I don’t want our loyal customers drifting away because everything is conducted online. You’ll lose the vibrancy of this place,’ he warned, reiterating his earlier point and shaking his head as the tassels swung from side to side.

  How could she take him seriously in that hat? In fact, it was time for a friendly tassel-tie. She ducked down in front of his chair and deftly tied a bow under his chin. Theo jerked his head up sharply and she wondered if she’d overstepped the boss-employee line. He performed a lock-down on her eyes with his – something he kept doing. She couldn’t move them for a moment. Her heart, on the other hand, had bolted out her chest and was galloping across the barn.

  ‘Don’t you think your TV appearance is going to have the same impact?’ she asked, now embarrassed by her childish action and taking a step backwards. Interestingly, Theo didn’t untie the bow. He genuinely didn’t care what people thought and she admired that, especially as she’d been known to return to the house and re-iron a blouse after spotting a crease of a morning. ‘It will be screened in a couple of months. People will see you on the television and overzealous fans will rush to the auction rooms in their thousands to stalk you until the end of your days,’ she said. ‘I don’t see why the TV is an acceptable form of exposure but the internet is not.’

  She looked at his earnest face and how the light caught the flecks of green in his eyes and decided she wouldn’t blame anyone for becoming a fan. He was the Tom Hanks of the auctioneering world. He had time for everybody and was an approachable figure, even if he was digging his desert boot heels in about being online.