by Jenni Keer
‘To be honest, I can’t imagine ever working anywhere else. The attractions of Gildersleeve’s are increasing all the time …’
And, at that moment, looking at Theo sprawled across the plastic chair, she felt exactly the same.
The schools broke up for Easter and the auction house was throbbing. Despite a broken china figurine and the not so helpful input of an unsupervised toddler who emptied seven boxes of jigsaw puzzles in the middle aisle of Saleroom One, the staff welcomed the richer diversity of customer: the seasonal tourist who made a visit to Gildersleeve’s part of their holiday year on year, the locals who had time off work to coincide with the school holiday and, yes, even the children.
The promised returning snow hadn’t materialised and the fickle British weather managed to jump up about ten degrees in the space of twenty-four hours and then went on to produce more appropriate spring-like weather, at one point reaching a balmy thirteen degrees. Crisp, dry days made life easier for everyone and The Yard sales started to take off, as Maisie was told they often did this time of year. Wrought-iron gates, three-foot-high garden sculptures and outdoor furniture were breeding behind the saleroom barns – although there was a notable absence of garden gnomes.
Johnny bumbled into the front office and announced in a loud voice, ‘Why on the earth of our wondrous God has Theodore rearranged all the desks in here? For the love of all that is human, you can’t even see Ella. She’s stuck up against the wall.’
‘I think that’s the point.’ Maisie tried to be diplomatic, thankful Ella had nipped to the loo.
The penny clattered to the floor. ‘Oh. I see. Because of the …’ He waved his hand in a vague circle around the left side of his own face. ‘Right. So no one points it out or makes her feel uncomfortable.’
Maisie sighed. Theo hadn’t made a big deal of it. He’d simply seen the need to address the situation and dealt with it in his unassuming way. His quiet kindness with outsiders like Ella and Arthur was endearing. She was aware he was growing on her like a woolly-hat-wearing fungus and the more time she spent with him, the more invasive it became.
Later, as she helped out in the front office, she decided to follow Theo’s lead. She noticed the fragile pale pink orchid that always stood on the corner of Ella’s desk, and seizing an opportunity to bond with her, Maisie slid her wheeled chair across the gangway.
‘There are some beautiful botanical prints coming up this week. Are you into gardening? I noticed the orchid.’ She waved the photos on her phone at Ella.
‘Um, yeah.’ Ella barely raised her head and typed faster.
‘Did you want to come and have a look at them with me? Johnny has hung them in Saleroom Two. They’re beautiful.’
‘I’m a bit busy …’ Ella waved a vague hand across her computer screen.
Maisie persevered. ‘I can help? It’s no trouble.’
‘I’ll be fine but, um, thanks.’
It was time to step back but she felt it was a shame. There was a real potential for friendship, and she could certainly do with a bigger circle of female friends.
Later, she spotted Ella and Theo chattering away in a conspiratorial huddle and felt rather put out. They were discussing his upcoming Modern Design Sale and he was showing her some of the vintage fabrics that were part of the auction. Twice a year, he put together a sale showcasing modern design at its finest, tacking it on to the end of the Friday sale. It was his expertise in this field that the Wot a Lot! team valued so highly. He was an expert in post-war art and artefacts; studio pottery, Scandinavian glass and Danish furniture amongst his specialist areas. Thanks to Meredith’s treasured gift, Maisie could hold her own in the art-based conversation, although she’d never divulged her messy hobby to him. Maintaining her professional and organised persona at work was more important than anywhere else.
Ella giggled and put a delicate hand out to Theo’s arm. She didn’t look so shy and uninterested now, Maisie thought, uncharitably. And for a few moments there were two people in the room with vivid green eyes.
Chapter 23
Maisie’s mum had six party poppers clustered in her left hand and the moment Zoe and Oliver stepped through the front door they were greeted by a loud explosion and showered with a hundred multicoloured strips of curly tissue paper.
‘Welcome home, my darlings,’ she sung, before stretching out her arms and bursting into tears.
Lisa had been invited but couldn’t possibly make it down to Suffolk due to manic work commitments. Ben was also a no but thoughtfully sent a bottle of Bollinger in his stead. So Maisie’s maternal grandparents, some old school friends of Zoe’s and a cluster of neighbours came to welcome the adventurers home.
Maisie was in her element having spent a carefree Sunday (either side of the Easter bonnet judging) baking a variety of finger food for the occasion. Because her mother was flat out with care home shifts she’d taken over the food preparation and the subsequent lavish display. She tried hard not to mind when her exhausted mum dumped a pile of pre-packaged food on the end of the table – all jumbled up and still in the packets. Surely her blueberry muffins would win out?
The guests of honour were mobbed by inquisitive hordes and Maisie and her mother stood back, knowing they would get the couple all to themselves later in the day.
She handed her mum an aromatic cheese and fennel scone on a tea plate with a pretty paper napkin tucked underneath. The napkin was ignored, as her mother started nibbling at the scone and dropping crumbs left, right and centre.
‘Dad was talking about you fondly the other day,’ Maisie said. ‘We took a little trip down memory lane.’
‘Hrmph. He should have stayed there then instead of getting on a bus to Affair Street and Lying Bastard Avenue.’
‘He was saying how in love you’d both been in those early days and reflected whether you were the one that got away …’ Maisie persevered.
‘Was he now?’ Her mother’s eyes narrowed. ‘Great scone. Love the fennel.’
‘He’s dumped Donna. I think he realised she was a bit young for him. Perhaps he’s finally growing up?’ It was her last verbal offering in an attempt to find a chink in her mother’s anti-man armour.
‘Hmm …’ Her mum balanced her empty plate on the arm of an easy chair and dusted her fingers off – Maisie biting her lip as microscopic crumbs were sprayed over the carpet. ‘Doesn’t Zoe look well?’ Her eyes looked over to her middle daughter. The subject was changed and Maisie left it at that. Softly, softly, catchee monkey.
Zoe bounced around the room, shaking people’s hands and hugging old ladies who couldn’t believe how healthy and young she looked; all tanned, with her white-blonde hair wild about her shoulders. She looked more stereotypically Australian than most Australians but Britain had forced her into a thick cashmere jumper and knee-high boots.
‘I’ve got two pairs of socks on. I can’t believe how cold and miserable it is here,’ Zoe said, bounding over and giving her baby sister a bosom-flattening hug.
‘I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You missed all the snow. It’s positively balmy compared to a couple of weeks ago,’ Maisie pointed out. ‘Besides, the UK knocks Oz into a cocked hat every time because it has the biggest attraction of all – me.’ She grinned.
‘Aww, I missed you so much,’ Zoe said, giving Maisie a slurpy kiss on the cheek.
‘I’m sorry for your sakes it didn’t work out but for selfish reasons it’s good to have you home,’ their mum said, joining them and brandishing a half-opened packet of Tunnock’s Tea Cakes, still with dabs of poster paint in her hair from the previous day’s Easter egg painting with the residents. ‘And I include both of you in that.’ She turned to Oliver, who was now beside his wife. Much to Maisie’s horror, he accepted the proffered packet. ‘I always said you were like a second son.’
Zoe and Oliver exchanged a look Maisie couldn’t decipher.
‘As for the ghastly weather – I thought that was the whole point of you emigrating,’ cont
inued their mum. ‘Why you’ve come back, I don’t know.’ She glanced out the window as spits and spots of rain dribbled down the glass and she shook her head.
Oliver shook a foil-covered cake out from the upturned box.
‘It’s not all sun, sea and barbies, Bev,’ he said.
‘But you’ve come back to lashing rain, ferocious wind and broken brollies. I know which I’d prefer.’
‘How’s tricks, Maisie?’ Oliver asked, looking over to her and moving the conversation on. ‘Zoe said you had a new job? Bit gutted you’ve left the brewery. I enjoyed the freebies.’
Maisie rolled her eyes. Wickerman’s had made her predictably popular with the men in her life. Pointing out second-hand washing machines and a few pairs of good condition Laura Ashley curtains coming up at auction wasn’t going to cut it with the menfolk in quite the same way.
‘Yes, at an auction house. No more discounted beer but a world of undiscovered treasures,’ she offered.
‘As long as you’re happy.’ Oliver pulled her close with a huge arm. ‘Glad you’ve got rid of the sleazebag. You deserve better. Need me to thump him for you?’
She shook her head and smiled. Oliver might be built like a gorilla but she’d never seen him so much as thump a calculator.
‘At least one of my children managed to find themselves a decent partner.’ Their mother rested her hand on Oliver’s barrel-like biceps.
‘About that …’ Zoe began as she exchanged another anxious look with Oliver. ‘When I said things weren’t working out, I didn’t just mean on the job front. Oliver and I are getting divorced.’
Chapter 24
Her next free weekend, and using the number Irene had passed on, Maisie arranged to visit Essie Mayhew, Meredith’s baby sister – if she could still be considered a baby at nearly seventy. There were only two years between Essie and Irene but it might as well have been twenty. The slightly older Irene looked like a desiccated nonagenarian, not helped by the medical equipment and proliferation of wrinkles, doubtless accelerated by the smoking. Essie, on the other hand, could have passed for a woman a decade younger than her years. With chestnut hair only faintly brushed with grey, and wearing smart black trousers and a floaty blouse, she looked about the same age as Maisie’s mother.
‘I have cake – I hope you like cake?’ Essie’s eyes looked so hopeful that Maisie nodded. She adored cake, being a baker herself, but she’d just eaten the last of her recent batch of flapjacks before leaving the house. There was love and there was gluttony.
‘Oh goody, because I’ve baked two.’ Maisie’s heart sank.
They sat either side of a low coffee table in Essie’s cosy living room. As soon as Maisie entered her bungalow the familiar prickling began. She was a tea set radar – able to verify its presence without even seeing it. Essie placed an open shoebox on the table and the distinctive black and white swirls poked out from scrunched-up sheets of the Tattlesham Echo.
‘Here they are – damn ugly things. I only kept them because they were of great sentimental value to my grandmother and I thought it would be nice to pass down to my … Oh well, never mind. Life doesn’t always pan out the way you hope.’ Essie sighed and blinked rapidly before dragging a reluctant smile across her face. ‘But you said on the phone you’d bought Meredith’s teapot and Irene’s cups from the auction, so I guess you think differently?’
‘I love them. I think they’re quirky and unusual.’
‘So is Trump’s hair – stupid man – doesn’t mean he’s on to a winner. The youngsters aren’t all queuing up at the barber’s asking to look like they’ve got a guinea pig balanced on their heads.’
Essie seemed to perk up after this observation and she unwrapped one of the saucers and placed it on the table.
‘Gamma was incredibly fond of this tea set. Very peculiar about when it was used though. I remember Meredith asking if we girls could have a little tea party with it when we were younger but she said it wasn’t appropriate. And then Mother laughed and said with them old dreary colours the only appropriate occasion would be a funeral.’ She giggled to herself. ‘Forever rabbiting on about it being special, although according to my neighbour’s son, special is a bit of an insult now.’
‘Special in what way?’ Maisie asked. Meredith had hinted there was something about the set but no one could give her any indication what that might be. It wasn’t that Maisie needed conformation the set was an oddity, more that she needed to know why. Was it designed by someone famous? A one-off design? Perhaps a prototype that had never made it into mass production? That would explain why she couldn’t find it anywhere.
‘Blessed if I know but she used to say odd things, like it needed to be supervised – guess she was worried we’d damage it. You’re welcome to them. They never brought me anything but heartache.’
Knowing full well an inanimate object couldn’t influence someone’s happiness, Maisie picked up one of the cups and noticed two had white interiors – one had black. That the six cups were now back together made her inexplicably happy.
‘If you’re sure? But I insist on paying for them.’
‘Nonsense. They aren’t worth the loose change in a tramp’s upturned cap.’ She tutted the offer away, so Maisie decided to buy her a bunch of flowers as a thank you. ‘Besides, I know Gamma is smiling down from the heavens and willing you on.’
Essie cut a gigantic slice of the second cake and Maisie gave a weak smile as the waistband of her jeans strained at the thought of more calories. She told Essie of her plan to reunite the set and asked about Phyllis and Cynthia, hoping against hope they’d left their pieces to one of the remaining sisters.
‘Phyllis lived out towards the coast. Poor thing. I felt right rotten flaunting my happiness in front of her when Frank and I got together, what with that bastard of a husband of hers, and the son not much better. He used to hit her, you know? Her old man.’
Maisie didn’t know, but both Irene and Arthur had hinted the husband was a bully.
‘I reckon she married him because he was the only person to ask. The son never touched her, but he was a verbal bully, and he got that from watching how his old man disrespected her. Poor woman spent her life rushing around after the pair of them, never saying boo to a tea towel, never mind a goose. The grandson was all right though. Can’t say he’s a particular favourite but she was fond of him. At least he visited her, which is more than her own son ever did.’
‘Oh dear. That’s a dead end then,’ Maisie sighed.
‘You might be lucky. She left everything to the grandson, which wasn’t much to be fair, but I do have a number for him because he sorted the funeral.’ She rummaged in a small drawer under her television and wrote a number down, handing a slip of paper to Maisie. ‘Joanie’s number is there as well – another quiet one – but she’s away at the moment. Her son-in-law pays for a Mediterranean cruise every year. Give it a couple of weeks. She’ll be back by the end of the month.’
‘Thanks,’ said Maisie. She would try the grandson first. If he didn’t have any of the tea set her quest would be over anyway.
‘Things turned out okay for Joanie in the end I guess,’ Essie mused. ‘But I don’t think she ever got over the shock of finding herself pregnant by a married man. Poor girl cried oceans. Never talked to me about it though – knowing Frank and I were struggling to have a babe of our own. Course I never fell, but that’s another story …’ Her voice trailed off again and she wiped away a tear from under her eye before taking a fortifying sniff.
‘Do you know anything about the history of the tea set?’ Maisie tried to distract Essie from her unhappy memories. ‘I’ve looked online but drawn a blank. My boss said it was Nineteen-Eighties but if they were your grandmother’s it must be considerably older than that?’
‘Nineteen-Eighties my backside. I was born in ‘forty-nine and I can remember them in Gamma’s glass-fronted cabinet. ’Bout the only thing they have going for them – their age. Funny how life goes: age is the one thing I d
on’t have in my favour any more. Guess it’s different with possessions – even wine. Nobody’s celebrating my vintage any more …’
‘Surely your husband—’
‘Cancer took him. Eighteen months ago.’ Maisie felt her cheeks go hot. She was sure Arthur talked about Frank as though he was still alive. Perhaps he didn’t know Essie had lost her husband, but then she had her suspicions he’d been avoiding his childhood friend in recent years. So Maisie told Essie about her connection to Arthur. After nearly choking on her tea, Essie insisted her number be passed on to him – saying she always had baking on the go and remembered him being partial to a bit of fruit cake.
‘We had a good forty-eight years together, me and Frank.’ Essie circled the conversation back. ‘Nearly made it to the golden. It’s the cooking for one I find hardest – seems a bit odd boiling up three diddy new potatoes in a great big soss-pan. And he used to love my baking. Can’t touch any of it because I’m diabetic. Eat up,’ she chastised. ‘You haven’t taken one bite of that lemon drizzle.’
‘Mmm, my favourite.’ Maisie tried to sound enthusiastic because lemon drizzle was her favourite. After taking a small mouthful, she reached for one of the cups, turning it around in her hand.
‘Irene said it was Verity’s set. Who was Verity?’
‘I’d forgotten that. It was a wedding gift so perhaps Verity was the name of the person who gave it to them? But Gamma got married in the lead-up to the Great War so it’s at least a hundred years old and I’d be too young to know any Veritys from that era.’
So Johnny had got the date wrong but valuing such a wide spectrum of objects was an onerous task. How could you possibly know everything about everything? Armed with an idea of its age now, perhaps she would take a piece in to work and ask Theo’s opinion.
‘To be honest,’ Essie continued, ‘I’ve always felt a bit peculiar having them in the house. They unsettle me slightly – probably all Gamma’s nonsense – so they’ve been shoved away in a back cupboard for over forty years.’