‘Very early on in my stay. I didn’t really know either of you then, but when I looked out of the window, wondering if the view down over the town towards the sea would make a good painting, Mae came rushing out. Her energy was palpable. In my mind’s eye, I saw her rushing to the life she was going to make for herself. I loved the youth and freshness about her and the fact she wasn’t – isn’t – afraid to go against what her peer group does. So …’
‘Stop,’ Mae said. ‘You’re embarrassing me now.’
Cara turned to look at her daughter and yes, there were pink patches on her cheeks.
‘Well, it’s all true,’ Tom said. ‘I’ve always got a camera handy so I took a quick snap and then used artistic licence to make it look as though I’d been standing at the front door and not two floors above you.’
‘Right,’ Mae said. She took a few steps forward and had her nose almost up against the canvas now. She pointed to a sticker on the bottom left-hand corner of the frame. ‘What does NFS mean?’
‘Not for sale,’ Cara and Tom said as one.
There had been more than a few paintings over the years that Cara had admired and would have liked to have bought, which had carried NFS stickers; paintings close to the artists’ hearts no doubt.
‘But it’s for you, Mae,’ Tom said.
‘Oh, but we can’t …’ Cara began.
Tom put up a hand to stop her.
‘For Mae, Cara. That one’s for you.’ He reached out to tap a finger on the top of the canvas still shrouded in Cara’s best three-hundred-thread Egyptian cotton sheet. ‘Want to see?’
‘Yes,’ Cara said, her voice a whisper. Her heart began to hammer terrifyingly fast in her chest now. What was under there? Had he used more artistic licence and being a figurative artist had superimposed her face onto someone else’s naked body? ‘No.’
‘As Jeremy Paxman would say on University Challenge … I’ll take your first answer! Can you help take the sheet off, Mae, please?’
Cara closed her eyes, screwed them up tight.
‘On the count of three,’ Mae said, as though she was now an expert at revealing artworks. ‘One, two, three.’
There was a little pause, a moment of complete silence when all Cara could hear was the loud tick of the clock on the wall behind her and then Mae said, ‘Like, wow!’
Cara, still with her eyes screwed shut so tightly she was beginning to get a pain across her forehead, tried to read the meaning behind those two, small words. Not shock. Not horror. Something like admiration. Awe.
Tom placed a hand, very gently, in the centre of Cara’s back and said, ‘You can open your eyes now. Mae hasn’t gone screaming and running from the room with shock now has she?’
‘No.’ Cara opened her eyes. ‘Argh!’ Cara placed both hands across her mouth. She couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. It was, undoubtedly, a head and shoulders portrait of her. Her hair was a tumble of uncombed curls, she had no make-up on, and the collar of her old raincoat was up on one side where she’d not done up the top button properly. Tom had captured her in the moment of relief that Mae was safe after the sailing incident. She ought, she thought, to not like being reminded of that one little bit, but Tom hadn’t known then what the situation was that night, the night he’d arrived and alarmed her in the semi-darkness by taking a flash photograph of her. There was an NFS sticker on this painting too.
‘Blimey, Mum,’ Mae said. ‘He’s made you look beautiful.’ She ducked sideways out of reach anticipating, perhaps, that Cara might give her a playful smack for her cheek. ‘Only joking!’
‘She is beautiful, Mae,’ Tom said.
‘Right, if this is going to get all soppy,’ Mae said with a theatrical yawn, ‘I’m out of here. I need to see Bailey. I want to tell him about the painting of me before everyone else sees it.’
‘So you’re okay about it being on display to the public?’ Tom said.
‘Yeah. Why not?’
‘And you, Cara?’ Tom said. ‘It doesn’t have to be. I can put it up on the stage behind the curtain. No problem.’
‘If Mae’s fine with it, then so am I,’ Cara said.
‘I didn’t mean my painting of Mae. I meant the one of you.’
‘I’ll leave you two to fight it out,’ Mae said, then ran for the door.
‘Five minutes,’ Tom said. ‘I …’
Cara put a finger up to his lips.
‘Don’t say anything. I’m still in shock. I look just like the painting that Seth Jago did of my great-grandmother, don’t I? I’d never thought of that before, not that I’ve ever looked at that painting very much. And I can’t believe you’ve reproduced the subject almost exactly, when you only saw Emma’s portrait a day or so ago.’
‘Ah yes, I was going to come to that. This is going to have to be quick because, as Mae said, we’ve only got five minutes to opening time and the local TV crew will be here and my agent and then I might not get a chance to speak to you ‘til we’re back at Cove End. But … that story you told me about Seth falling in love with Emma the second he saw her in that raggedy blouse and looking so thin after she’d been so ill, and how the fire in her gave her a sort of glow, do you remember?’
‘I remember.’
‘Well, it feels almost impossible for me to believe it myself now, but that was the first painting I did up there in my garret. That was my “Seth” moment. I didn’t know what had happened to you that night, only that something had. You looked frightened and yet determined at the same time. You had that battered old raincoat on and you hadn’t done up the buttons properly so one collar was higher than the other and I loved that. I guessed you’d put it on a hurry and possibly because it was giving you comfort in a way you weren’t getting from anywhere else. My heart missed a beat or five, I can tell you …’
‘Five?’ Cara said.
‘Maybe I underexaggerate,’ Tom laughed. ‘Seven. I counted. And I knew beyond doubt when it kicked back in again that I had fallen in love with you at first sight. An old sceptic like me who’s never watched a romantic comedy, or read a romantic novel, and who would have given his life savings – not a lot, I have to say, despite the price tags on my paintings – to argue that falling in love at first sight was impossible. I had no idea how things were for you – married, single, divorced, straight, gay … although I never considered widowed – but I knew in that moment, however you felt about me, I’d never change those feelings for you. They’d forever be in my heart.’
‘That’s quite the loveliest thing anyone has ever said to me.’ Cara reached out to run a finger along the NFS sign – ‘Forever in my Heart – NFS’ it read.
‘All true,’ Tom said.
‘It was a slower burn for me,’ Cara said. ‘A bit like rubbing two sticks together to make a flame and having to hold a piece of cotton wool over it to get it to ignite. But slowly it came. Warming. Burning sometimes. I can’t imagine not having you in my life now.’
She turned and folded herself into Tom’s arms.
‘And that’s the loveliest thing anyone has ever said to me,’ Tom said. ‘I love you, Cara.’
‘I love …’
But Cara didn’t get to finish the sentence because there was a bang on the door and she heard Rosie shout, ‘Make yourselves decent in there! We’re coming in!’
Oh well, it didn’t matter. Tom would have got the gist of what she was going to say, and they’d have plenty of time in the future to say it. And there were still two full days of the art festival to go yet. A frisson of pure delight shimmied up Cara’s back and across her shoulders that she was now very much part of it.
‘Mum,’ Mae said when they were back at Cove End. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve invited one of the artists to supper.’
‘Sure,’ Cara said. At that moment she would have said yes to anything, she was so happy. Cara had been introduced to Tom’s agent and her husband – Claire and Martin – and she’d stood watching mesmerised as Tom had done a TV interview as though he d
id it every day. At least half a dozen patrons had come up to say hello and be introduced too, and within an hour every painting had been sold. It was then that Tom had suggested she might like to go and look at some of the other venues where artwork was on display. Not just paintings and drawings, but ceramics too. Even some woodwork. In the lifeboat station, wall space had been shared by three artists and Cara particularly liked the work of one of them – Janey Cooper – which was largely studies of stones and shells, and birds with wisps of seaweed, sort of semi-abstracted, but the canvases almost came alive. Cara had bought one. She had it now, wrapped in brown paper, under her arm. She and Mae were first back at the house and it was going to be a rush to get everything laid out on time.
‘Great,’ Mae said. ‘Bailey and Xia will be here in a minute with Ben. They said they’d do all the washing up. Great, eh?’
‘Great,’ Cara agreed. The guest list was expanding rapidly because Rosie had been chatted up by one of Tom’s patrons – Luke something or other – and she’d asked if she could bring him along as her Plus One. Cara didn’t think anyone would mind if they were running a bit late, but it would be best if they ate tonight and not at breakfast time tomorrow. ‘We’d better get on, though.’
‘Yeah. What’ve you bought?’
‘Janey Cooper. From the lifeboat station.’
‘No!’ Mae said. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Wow! Meant to be! That’s who I’ve invited! She runs art classes over in Hollacombe. A place called Strand House. Bailey’s booked himself in.’
Cara unwrapped the painting. It was small but exquisite. Her first purchase of what she hoped would turn into a new collection.
‘Bailey will be well taught, I think,’ Cara said.
‘Won’t he just,’ Mae said. ‘All he’s got to do now is save up the readies to pay for it. Xia said she could get him something in the pub.’
‘Good. Things are always sweeter, I think, if you have to work for them a bit, not just get things handed to you on a plate.’
Cara walked across the kitchen and propped her new painting on the windowsill, well out of harm’s way from any cooking or drinks that might get spilled.
‘Like you with your B&B,’ Mae said.
‘Just like our B&B, darling,’ Cara told her. ‘Anyway, can you get on toasting the bruschetta and I’ll un-cling the fillings? Thank goodness there are pizzas in the freezer because I think we’re going to need them.’
There’d be time to defrost some chipolatas and get them in the oven with some oil and honey, and maybe a few sesame seeds if she had some – back-up if everyone was starving. Some venues had offered nibbles and wine, although Tom’s hadn’t. Perhaps he hadn’t liked to ask Cara if she’d take on that job. Well, next time she’d ask. Next time. What a delicious thought that was! ‘A glass of wine?’
‘Mother!’ Mae said, mock-shocked. ‘I’m underage!’
‘Not in your own home, you’re not,’ Cara said, ‘but you can always say no.’
‘Yeah, like I did with Josh. I was good at that, wasn’t I?’
‘You were. So is that yes or no to my offer? I’m having one anyway, bad influence that I am!’
How good it felt to be having this banter with Mae. How good it felt that Mae was bringing up her uncomfortable recent past but yet moving on with it. Just like she was.
‘Just a little one,’ Mae said. ‘While we work.’
Cara poured them both a small glass of Viognier – a visiting present from Rosie – and they set to work for fifteen minutes or so, mostly in silence, although Mae was humming something under her breath Cara didn’t recognise. And how good that felt, to see and hear Mae being happy again. A sort of peace had descended on them, on the house.
And then that peace was shattered as Rosie came flying into the kitchen, rosy with too much gratis wine at all the events she’d been to at a guess, dragging Luke something-or-other with her.
‘This is Luke,’ Rosie said. ‘Luke, this is the bestest most beautiful friend in the world, Cara. And Mae – that’s M A E, not M A Y, for when you’re writing birthday and Christmas cards – who’s the bestest most beautiful goddaughter a woman could ever have, even though she doesn’t always listen to my pearls of wisdom.’
Cara burst out laughing. Talk about moving fast if she was already seeing Luke as someone permanent in her life who’d be putting his name to birthday and Christmas cards! Perhaps Rosie had fallen in love at last, not just in lust? But that was Rosie, who was looking totally beautiful and glamorous and high-end, with Luke a very good match for her, in Cara’s opinion, in what could only be designer jeans and shirt and loafers.
‘Very wise at times, I’d say, Mae,’ Luke said, his eyes still on Rosie and there was something in those chocolate Minstrel eyes of his that told Cara he was as smitten with Rosie at first sight as Tom had told her he’d been with her. Perhaps it was something in the air around here? Perhaps it was art itself that was enhancing all their lives? She’d try and remember to ask Tom later what he thought.
And then, as though just thinking about him had conjured him up, there he was with his agent, Claire, and her husband whose name Cara had forgotten for a moment because seeing Tom seemed to have robbed her of rational thought. Cara’s turn for her heart to stop for a few seconds … one, two, three … before it kicked in again seeing Tom. Tom had been telling porkies saying his had stopped for seven seconds, but it made a good story. She’d try to remember to tell Rosie in the morning.
‘I’ll do the drinks, shall I?’ Tom said. ‘I know where just about everything is around here now.’ He plonked a kiss on Cara’s forehead.
‘Please,’ she said.
‘How many are we?’
‘No idea. But there are more than enough glasses, and hopefully enough wine.’
‘Ah, I’ve pre-empted you there,’ Claire said, revealing a bottle of wine hanging from each hand. ‘We both have.’
Her husband revealed his haul – two bottles in each hand – and swung them up onto the kitchen island.
The doorbell rang then.
‘I’ll get it. Then I’ll do the drinks,’ Tom said and ran to answer it.
‘Got his feet under the table, then?’ Rosie quipped with a nod at Tom’s retreating back. ‘And his legs?’
‘I hope so,’ Cara quipped back. ‘Rather lovely legs, don’t you think?’
‘I wouldn’t know!’ Rosie said. ‘Anyway, I’m not looking any more.’ She plonked a very noisy kiss on Luke’s cheek.
Tom was back in seconds to stand in the kitchen doorway and say, ‘Nine more. Patrons and partners. Shall I show them in the sitting room? Followed by the drinks, of course.’
But he went off to do it anyway without waiting for an answer.
Mae shouted across the chitchat in the room that the bruschettas were done, the pizzas were in the oven, the sausages were just about to take their place and could everyone get out of her hair and follow Tom so she could ‘get on’.
Cara had a sudden vision of Mae’s future, running her own busy restaurant as chef patron of her own kitchen shouting ‘Pass’ and loving every second of it.
They all disappeared, only to be replaced by Bailey, Xia and Ben, with Janey Cooper in tow. Oh, and someone else. A man, Janey’s man?
‘I hope you don’t mind, Cara,’ Janey said, ‘but I quite forgot to tell Mae and Bailey that James would be coming later to meet me.’
‘Of course not,’ Cara said.
‘We’ve brought our own welcome with us,’ Janey said. She had something in a plastic bag swinging from one hand.
Oh God, not more wine.
‘Lovely,’ Cara said. ‘Thank you.’
‘They’ll need defrosting, but my guess is by the time we’ve eaten our way through that lot they will be.’
‘Not wine then?’ Cara laughed.
‘Nope. Profiteroles. Two dozen. We just caught the corner shop before it closed.’
‘That was going to be my call,’ Mae
said. ‘Profiteroles. But I didn’t have time.’
‘If you’re ever strapped for some readies,’ Tom said to Cara when everyone had either left or gone upstairs to bed, ‘you could always be an events manager. That was superb!’
He and Cara were sitting on the sofa, Tom’s arm around her shoulder, his hand dangling over her upper arm. When he spoke, turning his head to look at her, she could feel his warm breath on the side of her neck, ruffling the hair behind her ear a little. Tickling. Cara couldn’t ever remember feeling more cosy or comfortable. She was in no hurry to move. Not yet.
‘Thanks,’ Cara said, ‘but I think it was the people who made it. I kept stopping to look around the room and couldn’t quite believe that most of them had been total strangers to one another before tonight.’
‘There was that, but when artists and art lovers get together, there’s always more than a bit of common ground and it makes things easier. I’ll stick my head above the parapet again and say it was still you being the king pin, as it were, that brought it all together.’
Cara snuggled up to Tom a bit more – how safe he made her feel. At the beginning of the summer she hadn’t been looking for ‘safe’, or a new man in her life for that matter, because she’d been intent on making a new life for herself. And Mae, of course. She knew now she was more than capable of that but, oh, how much sweeter it was to share, as she was sharing now with Tom, as they did a ‘debrief’.
‘And Mae,’ Cara said. ‘Mae helped. More than. Did she tell you Bailey’s booked to do a painting course with Janey Cooper over at Hollacombe?’
‘No. Bailey did. And Janey. I’ve not seen her work before, but she’s good. I introduced her to Claire because I know how useful it can be to have an agent and they were getting on like the proverbial house on fire the last time I looked. Janey said they’ve exchanged numbers.’
‘Networking,’ Cara said. ‘Sharing info and the like. I’ve not seen it in action before.’ She wondered if there might be some sort of networking site for B&B landladies that she could join – if only to put out warnings about people like the Hines who had almost ended Cara’s business venture before it had begun.
The Little B & B at Cove End Page 25
