The Hardie Inheritance

by Anne Melville

  Marking in charcoal the next area to be cut away, she then poured a few drops of oil on to her oilstone and selected the right chisel. Automatically – for this was part of every day’s routine – she began to sharpen the chisel, moving its cutting edge over the stone in a figure of eight pattern; pressing it down, turning it over, checking with her fingers rather than her eyes that no burr remained. When satisfied of its sharpness she transferred it to her left hand and leaned forward to pick up a leather-bound mallet in her right.

  She never completed the action. Checking herself in mid-movement, she stared at the chisel. It was an old one, its handle darkened by years of use. Only the edge was silver-bright, razor-sharp: she could not take her eyes off it.

  Setting it carefully down, she turned her head to look at the rows of tools which hung neatly in their wooden racks along the wall. In the rest of the house Grace was untidy, and at first sight the studio often seemed the greatest mess of all; but she had always been meticulous in caring for the instruments of her trade. Stone-cutting tools, wood-carving tools, and the oddly-curved pieces of wire and bone with which she worked on the clay originals of her bronzes – all were in good order.

  It was the knives which she studied now. A surgeon would pick up a knife like this and slice through her flesh as easily as she sliced through clay. The clarity of her vision made her shiver, although not with any imagining of pain. After all, she would be unconscious. Why then had she postponed for so long the visit which for three years or more she had known must be urgent? Was it sheer cowardice or had she subconsciously wanted to be told that she had come too late?

  Abruptly she turned and hurried out of the studio, up the stairs, into the bathroom. Locking the door, she pulled off her clothes and stood naked in front of a looking glass. She could see herself only from the waist up, but that was enough.

  Rarely even as a young girl and never in the past thirty years had she concerned herself with the look of her body. Was it beautiful or ugly, glamorous or ordinary? She didn’t care. She had always accepted what she was born with, and hard physical work had kept it in good shape.

  Until now. Already the lump was visible, beginning to distort the shape of her breast, and soon, presumably, it would be larger still. But to lose the breast altogether would be a distortion of a different order. A mutilation. An amputation. What would Andy think? She shrugged the question away as soon as it entered her mind. She did not care what Andy thought. Only her own feelings mattered.

  As she tried to imagine herself with one side of her chest flat and scarred, she was surprised to realize how consistently she had valued symmetry in her work. The holes she carved were usually circular or oval and even when, as often happened, they twisted round between one side of the sculpture and the other, the effect was always one of balance. Symmetry satisfied her eye because it was natural; and the prime example of natural design was the human body.

  Anyone with an ounce of common sense would laugh her out of the proposition that since her body was, in a way, a work of art it was better dead than mutilated; but it must have been an underlying feeling of that kind which had kept her away from the doctor for so long, and had sent her to him at last not because she was alarmed but because she was already sure that the time for surgery had passed.

  It was a certainty which Dr Murray had said nothing to dispel, and no one could turn the clock back four years. Calmly, not frightened yet, Grace dressed herself again.

  Chapter Two

  Dr Murray called at Greystones later on the day of Grace’s visit to his surgery. Although she had half expected him to come, she made no apology for the fact that she was wearing her working clothes as she offered him a cup of tea.

  ‘It’s a problem now, with the health service,’ he said. ‘The pressure of so many people queueing in the waiting room. You probably felt it as much as I did. Our conversation was one which ought not to have been hurried. I didn’t feel that we’d brought it to a satisfactory conclusion.’

  ‘Sugar?’ asked Grace.

  ‘No thank you. I feel a responsibility, you see, for making certain that you see a consultant as soon as possible.’

  ‘The responsibility is mine, surely.’

  ‘Well, not entirely. I can’t be expected to know that a problem exists until you tell me; but once I do know, it’s a failure of duty on my part if I don’t see that you have the best possible treatment.’

  Because her earlier uncertainty had disappeared, she was able to smile. ‘I hadn’t realized that a patient could be accused of damaging her doctor’s reputation as well as of self-neglect.’

  ‘I don’t think you understand –’

  ‘Of course I understand. I’ve decided, though. I’m not prepared to undergo surgery which may come too late to do any good.’

  ‘But you can’t know whether that’s the case until you’ve had the tests. And just think, Mrs Faraday – I’ve been to your open days here. I know your work. Not many people have the talent to create beauty. You’re only, what, fifty-three? There should be many years ahead of you to make more of these wonderful carvings. You owe it –’

  She smiled for a second time. ‘You’re not suggesting that I have a duty to art to stay alive?’

  ‘Well, yes I am, if you put it like that.’

  ‘I can’t agree with you. I work because I like to work – because I have to work. It’s as necessary to me as breathing, and I did it long before it even occurred to me that anyone else might want to see what I produced. That necessity will die with me. I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I’m told that the value of my work will rise as soon as I’m dead, so in the interests of my heirs –’

  ‘It’s not a joking matter, Mrs Faraday. This can be a distressing illness. If there’s any chance of preventing it, that chance must be taken. You mention your heirs. All those young people –’

  ‘Are grown up now, leading their own lives. I have no dependants. I don’t have to consider anyone but myself.’ But the anxious expression on the doctor’s face made her, ridiculously, feel sorrier for him than for herself. ‘Well, all right then. I’ll go down to the Infirmary and have the blood tests and X-rays that you suggested. If – to use your own metaphor – they show that the tide has already broken through, that will be that, won’t it? If it hasn’t, if there’s still something to be gained by surgery, then I’ll think about it again. But I don’t want the biopsy, not at this stage. I’ve read stories of women who go into the operating theatre just for a test and come out without a breast.’

  ‘That couldn’t happen without your consent. May I use your telephone, then, to make an appointment at once? And I’ll write a letter for you to take with you.’ He was happy to accept a half victory.

  They both thought they had won, she realized as the doctor left: he because he had pressed her into the approved channel, she because her body told her that it was already too late. But what sort of a triumph was that?

  For once she felt no wish to return to the studio. The whole day had been wasted. She had been unable to force herself to continue with the woodcarving and instead had played aimlessly with clay, breaking off small lumps and pressing them into a shape in the hope that some kind of inspiration would arrive to tell her what she was trying to make. It was not the way she usually worked, and the result brought no satisfaction.

  The ringing of the telephone came as a welcome distraction. Max was calling from Manchester, where his company was performing.

  ‘Aunt Grace, you know we’re coming to Oxford in three weeks’ time.’

  ‘Certainly I do. I’ve bought my ticket already.’

  ‘Well, I wanted to ask you about digs.’

  ‘You’ll stay here with me, surely. I’m expecting you.’

  ‘Thanks a lot, yes, that’ll be lovely. The thing is, though, digs are awful places, you know. People write sentimental twaddle about landladies with hearts of gold welcoming the same actors back each year, but really they have scruffy houses and stupid rules and ex
pect you to eat at times which are impossible for a dancer. I wondered if I could bring some of my friends to Greystones as well. We’d look after ourselves, buying food and cooking it and everything. It would be marvellous just to have the freedom and the space and no one to nag.’

  ‘How many of your friends?’ asked Grace cautiously.

  ‘Well, of course, everyone would want to come. It would be difficult to choose. What’s the most you could bear?’

  Grace had a ludicrous vision of the complete cast of Swan Lake, in costume, queueing for the bathroom every morning. ‘Six,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Couldn’t we manage just a few more? We really would do everything – make the beds and all that. And the house needs a bit of life going all through it. All those rooms on the top floor where the servants used to sleep! Nobody ever goes in them nowadays.’

  ‘For good reason,’ she told him. ‘The beds up there are damp and probably rotten and we haven’t enough bed linen anyway. Six, including yourself, is my final offer.’ It was necessary to be stern with Max sometimes. He was not a scrounger: just too generous. ‘But you can invite the rest up for a party one day if you want to,’ she offered as a consolation.

  ‘Thanks a lot, Aunt Grace. You’re a brick.’ From his tone she suspected that he had got just about what he anticipated. The pips hurried him into ringing off.

  Max off-stage was such an ordinary boy – or rather, by now, young man. The transformation in him when he danced was unbelievable. Grace had attended the final performance given by his class at the ballet school – the performance which had brought him the offer of a place in the touring company. She did not know enough about ballet to judge his technique, but she could recognize artistic concentration when she saw it, because it was something she had developed in herself. It had taken her many years, but Max seemed to have been born with it. From the moment of his first entrance as Romeo he had dominated the stage, and not merely because of the importance of the role. Even when he stepped back into the crowd and stood motionless to watch Juliet pass, Grace had found it impossible to take her eyes off him. Whereas his uncle Jay had always known himself to be an actor but never imagined that he could become a star, Max was a star from the start and knew it.

  When she first became aware of his talent, Trish had decided that David could not possibly be his true father and, since Sheila was too Christian and conventional to have a liaison outside marriage, declared that he must be a changeling. But Trish had never known Max’s grandfather, Grace’s father, who was as tall and strong as Max had grown to be. Gordon Hardie had startled his parents by running away to sea while still a schoolboy, and even after returning had disappeared again to hunt for rare plants on the other side of the world. David had claimed The House of Hardie as his inheritance, but it was Grace and Jay and Max who had inherited the single-minded resolve to pursue their vocations in spite of all family or social disapproval.

  Max’s cheery voice on the telephone put the doctor’s visit out of her mind, but there was that second piece of bad news to think about. Picking up the map sent by the council, she let herself out of the house and stood looking down the hill.

  The light of the short winter day was already beginning to fade, and in the dimness the estate looked well-kept. Or perhaps it was the season rather than the light which allowed an impression of neatness. When the grass and the weeds stopped growing each year, it was possible to tidy the land and pretend that it would remain tidy. Not until May would the vegetation surge exuberantly out of control once again.

  Andy, at the end of his day’s work, saw her standing there and came to join her. Without speaking, she handed him the letter and the map and waited while he strained to study them in the dusk.

  ‘Can they do this sort of thing?’ she asked. ‘Take the land, I mean, even if I refuse to sell.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be surprised. This lot reckon they can do anything they like with other people’s property.’

  ‘This is from the council, not the government.’

  ‘It’s the government that gives the powers to the councils. I saw you walk past this morning looking upset. Wondered whether you were ill. But it was this, was it?’

  Grace nodded. She had not yet decided whether to tell Andy about the lump. ‘I was certainly upset at first when I read the letter. I felt that I’m the guardian of the estate and ought to fight for it. But now I’m wondering: would it really matter? This wouldn’t affect your bit of the land. And Greystones isn’t like Castlemere, depending on the estate for its revenue. The wood down there keeps my fires going, but that’s all. If the timber which they’d have to fell were stacked up it would probably do me the rest of my life. The bottom meadows are hardly visible from the house and they’ve had other people’s sheep on them for thirty years. And you could argue that since I can’t keep all the land I own under control, it might actually be a good thing to have less of it.’

  ‘Trying to look on the bright side, are you?’

  ‘Mm. All that those acres of land really represent is space: a barrier between me and the rest of the world.’

  ‘That’s not something to be sneezed at, if you’re going to lose peace as well as land. There’s going to be noise from cars and lorries. Before long, people will want to build houses along the side of the road, or factories even.’

  Andy paused, struck by a new idea, and studied the map closely for a second time. ‘Seems to me you ought to see a lawyer, Grace. Get some professional advice. The road will probably come whether you like it or not, but you might be able to do yourself a bit of good by bargaining. This parcel of land at the bottom is more than twenty acres. It wouldn’t be any use to you once it was cut off from the rest. So it wouldn’t do any harm to have houses built on it. Better for you to get them built. Bring you in a nice bit of money, that would.’

  ‘We don’t need money.’ She could easily live just on the income which came from the land: Andy’s rent for the vineyard, the grazing fee for the sheep and the sale of fruit and vegetables. But in addition to this her sculpture fetched what she considered to be absurd prices, and she had invested her small inheritance from her mother. Since she was no longer responsible for Trish’s expenses, and spent very little on herself, her savings accumulated. The fact that she had become wealthy did not tempt her to alter her frugal way of life, but it was something to bear in mind during a discussion of this kind. She thought about it for a few minutes.

  ‘I suppose you’re right. It would be best to keep any development in my own hands.’

  ‘That’s where the bargaining comes in. You have to get all sorts of permissions before you can build. But if you were to save the council time and trouble by agreeing to sell the strip for the road voluntarily, like they’re hoping, they might agree to let you do what you want with the land on the other side. I really don’t know whether or how you could get away with that sort of deal, but a good lawyer ought to be able to fix it for you.’

  Grace sighed at the thought of letting the wood go without a struggle. ‘You’re right, I suppose. One can’t afford to be sentimental about a place just because we played there as children. And there would be plenty of land left. When you think how most people have to live …’ She turned her back on the wood and looked at Greystones. ‘It’s only a house, after all.’

  ‘But your house. Your home.’

  Grace was not ready to share the secret that it might not be hers for much longer. But the thought, bringing together the two main events of the day, reminded her of something else. She had made a will many years earlier because David insisted. When circumstances changed, she altered it without seriously considering that its provisions would ever come into effect. She must have believed then that she would live for ever, but she knew better now. Decisions must be made which would change other people’s lives.

  ‘Yes,’ she told Andy as though still talking about the road. ‘Yes, I must see a lawyer.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘Good morning, Michelangel
o!’

  Startled by the sound of Rupert’s voice and the unheralded appearance of someone she had not seen in the four years since her coming-of-age party, Trish turned her head away from the wall she was painting.

  ‘Rupert! Bring a chair over here so that I can see you while I go on working. I can’t stop, because the plaster will dry out, but I’ve almost finished.’ She continued to paint as she spoke. Her subject was a garden seen through a pair of wide French windows, also painted. Not an imaginary scene, but a view of Philip’s serpentine garden at Greystones, winding into the distance.

  ‘Don’t I recognize that?’ Rupert had found a chair, but before sitting down he stepped right and left to study her work from different angles. ‘Not quite your usual style, is it?’

  ‘Oh, it’s not for myself. Not for long, anyway.’

  ‘Oh? When I phoned The Shed, Terry told me that you were at home, here. Are you going to sell the wall or the whole house?’

  ‘The house. All my homes are temporary.’ She stepped back to consider whether a slim juniper tree was satisfactorily finished before picking up a new set of brushes. With a few broad strokes she blocked in the shape of one of Grace’s sculptures and then began to apply the shadows and highlights which would make it appear three-dimensional.

  ‘We have this system, you see,’ she explained. ‘We buy some crummy old house and move in and do it up and then sell it and buy another one. You’d be surprised how many people simply can’t see the potential in a house if it’s less than perfect. But set it in front of them all ready to be lived in and they’ll pay a small fortune for it. Especially if it’s got one of my walls inside. They’ve become a cult thing. I take commissions to do them on their own, extra to the house sales, so people who buy the houses seem to feel that they’re getting one free.’

  ‘What a restless life you must lead!’