‘Anyone in particular?’
He scratched his head. ‘Jackson Pollock? Howard Hodgkin?’
‘Howard Hodgkin – he’s almost my favourite artist in the world,’ I said. ‘Those India pictures – how he gets the mood of a place just with three stripes of paint across a canvas. It’s brilliant.’
As we chatted about art and colour and how they affect our moods, I found myself taking surreptitious glances at his face, side-lit by the firelight, suddenly becoming aware that he was really quite attractive, in a cuddly kind of way. And I could hardly fault his generosity and thoughtfulness over the past twenty-four hours.
We’d been thrown together, the two of us, so we’d had to make the most of it. There was nothing else to be done, no more decisions needed. I found myself more content than I’d felt for a long time.
Waking in my childhood bedroom next morning was disconcerting. Apart from the pyramid of boxes still occupying half the floor space, little had changed since my teenage days: every surface was covered with my juvenile attempts at interior design: zany wallpaper, stencilled woodwork, and a truly dreadful painting of mine, a gritty urban street scene, of which I was once so proud, behind the door. Pony Club rosettes hung around the dressing table mirror and a sagging boy band poster was pinned to the side of the wardrobe, as though I had never left. It felt as though, any moment now, Mum would yell up the stairs about breakfast being on the table, and she was refusing to drive me into school this time if I missed the bus.
Then I remembered the nightmare of pain, the ambulance and the hospital, the cold and the snow, and the quiet peace of sitting by the fire, and Ben’s kindness. I carried out a brief examination of myself: I was still tender, but the bleeding had almost stopped, there was no more pain and otherwise my body felt remarkably strong. I felt none of the aching loss that I’d anticipated, more a sense of blessed relief. I felt curiously carefree, even happy.
The world outside had changed, too; the sun beamed blindingly through the gaps in the curtains and, when I looked outside, the snow was dripping off the roof in small cascades through the leaky old gutters. Ben was already clearing soggy grey slush off the cars.
As I watched his broad back I remembered our awkwardness at the end of the evening. He’d insisted on sleeping downstairs on the sofa and I’d brought down blankets and pillows. He’d seen me at my most vulnerable and we’d spent hours together, chatting comfortably, warmed by wine and firelight. We should have been able to end the day with a companionable hug, but something was still coming between us. We stood facing each other for an uneasy moment, neither ready to make the first move. Eventually, I reached up and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.
‘Goodnight, and thank you for everything,’ I said.
‘It’s been a pleasure,’ he replied stiffly, that boyish flush flooding his cheeks again.
I turned and climbed the creaky stairs to my bedroom.
When I got back to London the snow had almost disappeared and a snowman was melting into a melancholy pile of slush in the little park opposite my flat.
My stomach was sore, my head still fuzzy from the drugs. Worst of all, my earlier sense of being freed from a burden had disappeared, replaced by a deep, aching emptiness and sadness about the loss of the little life, however unwanted, that I had been carrying inside me for nearly six weeks. It took me by surprise, this drab sense of mourning: not so much for the bundle of cells that would have become a child, but more for that part of myself – motherhood – which might now never happen. Perhaps that really was my last chance, I thought, miserably.
When I plugged my phone into its charger, it clattered with incoming messages:
Are you ok? I’m thinking of you, what time is clinic? J xox
Your current account is overdrawn. Please contact 0800 156748 immediately.
Justin’s interested and wants you to contact him. Yay! Ring me. J xox
Where are you? I’m getting really worried now, please call me. Jo xox
Hope roads not too bad and you got home safely? Ben
‘You poor thing. It must have been a nightmare,’ Jo said, when I rang.
‘It was bloody painful,’ I started, then remembered that I should be careful not to scare the life out of her. She’d probably be going through the real thing before long.
‘How are you feeling now?’
‘A bit sorry for myself,’ I said, struggling not to buckle. ‘It’s probably just the hormones but I keep blubbing at a moment’s notice. It just feels as though someone’s got it in for me this year.’
‘I wish I could give you a big hug,’ she said, ‘but we’ve got this exhibition deadline and I promised Annabel I’d work through this evening till it’s done.’
‘Please don’t worry, I’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘In a weird kind of way, it’s a relief. I was trying to decide whether or not to tell Russell and this has taken the decision away from me.’
‘I thought Russell was with you? Who’s this “we” then?’
She’d cornered me. ‘It was Ben, you know, the local hack we contacted about the quilt, remember?’
‘The
journalist
? How did
he
get involved?’
‘It was so random. He rang out of the blue when I was waiting for the ambulance. I tried to put him off but he insisted on coming to the cottage and staying until the paramedics arrived.’
‘What a gent. Is he married?’
‘Separated. He’s got a son.’
‘Tell me more,’ she said. ‘Don’t leave anything out.’
I found myself smiling, in spite of myself. ‘Not much to tell, to be honest. Couldn’t be more different from Russ if he tried.’
‘What does he look like?’
‘Tall, forty-something, lots of hair. Nice eyes. Wears stonewashed jeans. Nothing to get too excited about …’
‘Sounds good to me. You’re being very cagey. Is there something you’re not telling me?’
Was there? Unlikely, but not impossible, I thought, trying to interrogate my response. Back here in London, the events of the past couple of days at the cottage felt unreal, like an interlude from everyday life.
‘He’s a lovely guy but honestly I don’t think anything’s going to happen. It was such a strange set of circumstances,’ I said firmly, as much as to myself as to Jo. ‘I’ve hardly had a moment to think.’
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘Promise. I’ve got lots to get on with, to keep myself busy.’
‘Text me tomorrow when you’ve spoken to Justin? I’d love to know what he says.’
‘Will do.’
I made an appointment with the bank, sent a reassuring text to Ben, emailed the homeless shelters that he’d sent details of and then, feeling more nervous than I’d been for a long time, plucked up the courage to dial Justin’s number. I remembered him only vaguely from my design studio days – a very influential supplier who dealt in bespoke, slightly off-the-wall schemes for high-end clients, just the sort of people who might go for my wacky patchwork.
To my surprise he answered at once and was typically effusive: ‘Caroline, darling, it’s been years. Fab that you’re back on the scene.’ We arranged to meet early the following week, which would give me time over the weekend to work up a broader portfolio of ideas.
Finally, I made my usual call to the police – it had been several days since I last checked. Perhaps, just perhaps, there might be news. The man on reception was distracted and dismissive; I could hear in his voice that he wished I would just give up on my stupid quilt.
Then I got to work on my portfolio, making several detailed sketches of individual items of furniture upholstered in patchwork, and two A3-sized sheets with worked-up full-scale living room designs showing how these pieces worked together, set against plain walls and carpets in dark blue or light ecru. I raided the bag of sixties design furnishing fabric remnants I’d brought back from Rowan Cottage and traipsed to charity shops to gather further materials for swatches. My presentation was simple, with no fancy mounts or bindings, and the designs had a slightly thrown-together effect; I hoped the air of casual spontaneity might strike a special chord with Justin.
On Saturday I was back on the A12 to see Mum, worrying about how she might react when I arrived. What if she cried and begged me to bring her home? Happily, my worst fears were unconfirmed. I found her in the sitting room overlooking the golf course and the lake. Her cheeks had filled out, she had a good colour. In the distance, brown fields and bare trees were beautifully illuminated by a low wintry sun and I began to feel optimistic that she was settling in.
We drank tea and I encouraged her to talk about Granny in hopes that she might have remembered something more about the quilt, but she ended up reminiscing about Dad with stories I’d heard before: how overawed she had been by his intellect and how astonished she was when he had asked her out to ‘the flicks’, what a gentleman he had been when she’d lost her purse. Her memory of events long ago seemed undimmed, but when it came to the present she was even more confused than ever.
‘How are you enjoying things here at Holmfield?’ I asked.
‘Things?’ she repeated, looking at me vaguely. ‘What things do you mean?’
‘Are you settling in okay? Remember, we said you could come for a holiday and decide whether you wanted to stay longer.’
‘It’s a lovely hotel,’ she said. ‘But I do miss home. Need to get back for Richard,’ she said. It felt like a little stab to my heart.
‘Let’s see what happens when the cottage has been repaired,’ I said, trying to be positive.
‘“Repaired”?’ she repeated, vaguely. ‘Have I ordered any repairs?’
On my way out I went to see the matron.
‘Your mother’s getting on rather well, don’t you think?’ she said. ‘She’s got friendly with some of the other ladies and they’re talking about setting up a whist drive. How did you find her?’
‘She certainly looks fine,’ I admitted, ‘but she seems more confused, and she’s still talking about going home to see Dad, how she misses him. He died thirty-something years ago, it makes me sad that she’s so confused and disorientated.’
‘It’s not uncommon,’ she replied. ‘When ladies who have been widowed first come to live here, the presence of men reminds them of their lost loved ones. She’ll soon get used to it. And the confusion is not surprising, either. A move often does that, but she’ll recover soon enough, the longer she stays.’ Her calm, no-nonsense explanation was a relief, but it raised the stakes. Should Mum decide she really didn’t want to stay, moving her again could cause yet another setback.
‘On the upside, she keeps saying it’s a lovely hotel,’ I said.
‘That’s a good sign,’ the matron said, laughing. ‘But, just like a hotel, I regret that there are bills to pay.’ She handed me an envelope. ‘There’s an invoice in there, payable weekly by card or cheque, please. If you decide to make it a permanent arrangement, we encourage people to set up a direct debit, but of course we can keep her on a respite footing for another week or so to give you time. Also in there is a whole bunch of other information you probably won’t need, about financial assistance and so on.’
The envelope felt like a lead weight in my hands. What it meant was that Rowan Cottage would have to go on the market, sooner rather than later.
Justin was as I had remembered him: the tightest jeans imaginable in emerald green clashed crazily with psychedelic patterns on his tee-shirt and the crimson in his hair. His ear lobes were punctuated with wide holes like tarpaulin grommets, and carefully manicured slivers of facial hair traced his chin. It was the look of someone Mum would probably have called a ‘waster’, but when he started talking you could tell at once that beneath the peacock and slightly camp exterior was a sharp-nosed businessman who really knew his market.
We met at an uber-trendy wine bar occupying the ground floor of a former industrial building in Shoreditch that appeared to have changed little since its days as a sweatshop: it still had the flaking plaster, rough wooden floors, chunks of metal machinery hanging off the walls, and staff who looked deadly bored.
I ordered cocktails which cost the probable equivalent of a week’s wage for the poor souls who had once worked in this place and, after the usual ‘how’s things’ chat, spread my paintings and sketches out across the table. Knowing how too much talk can so easily destroy a pitch I said little, leaving my work to speak for itself.
‘Love the look,’ he said, after examining my worksheets for a few moments. ‘Cottage chic comes to the city. Your colour combinations are joyous. And this’ – he fingered one of the fabric swatches – ‘is surely a Marianne Straub? Original?’
I nodded.
‘Very now, darling,’ he said. ‘Impressive. Where do you get your ideas?’
It was a courtesy question; when I began to explain about the quilt he lost interest after a few moments, his mind already racing forwards.
‘Have you got anything made up yet, or are these just ideas on paper?’
I’d anticipated this. ‘I’m planning to commission the work on a few pieces shortly, and then set up my own studio in the next couple of months,’ I lied. Paying an upholstery company to produce such work-intensive items would be pricey, I knew, but it would be worth it. Renting a workshop in London would be expensive, and I’d need to have a few orders already in the bag to support my business plan before a bank would consider any kind of loan.
Justin finished his cocktail, chewing his olive stick thoughtfully.
‘They’re very original,’ he said. ‘Possibly a bit too homespun to cut it with my clients, but you can never really predict what they’ll go for. I’ll certainly bear you in mind. Can I keep these?’
‘Of course,’ I said, holding tight to my cheerful smile, even though I feared this might be the brush-off. I’d tried to stay realistic, but a small part of me had nursed a flicker of hope that he might fall instantly love with my sketches and give a kick-start to my fledgling company. But that would have been too easy, and it was not to be, not today, anyway.
‘Keep in touch,’ he said, air-kissing both cheeks. ‘And let me know when you’ve got a few pieces made up.’