by Ali McNamara
‘Drink?’ Jack asks brightly when I don’t reply. ‘I have various juices, some fizzy water … or maybe you’d prefer some wine?’
‘An orange juice will be fine, thank you,’ I say, still irked by his slight, unintentional or not, on my shop.
Jack puts his hands on his wheels.
‘Would you like me to get—’ I begin, about to stand up. ‘No, of course you wouldn’t. Go ahead.’ I say, holding out my hand as I settle back on the sofa.
‘At least you didn’t say sorry this time,’ Jack answers, grinning at me as he expertly wheels himself through the small doorway.
He returns a few moments later with two glasses of juice balanced on a small tray on his lap.
‘Can I take that from you?’ I ask, trying not to sound sarcastic. I was still getting used to Jack and his ways, and it was difficult to find the right balance between being too helpful and ill-mannered.
‘You can indeed,’ Jack says.
I lift the tray on to a little coffee table, take a glass of juice for myself and pass the other to him.
‘So, these pictures …’ Jack begins, resting his glass down on the table. ‘You’ve brought yours, I assume?’
‘I have indeed.’ I reach into my bag and retrieve the embroidery, then I pass it to Jack.
‘Wow, they’re exactly like parts of my paintings,’ he says, examining the two pieces. ‘I mean really alike.’
‘I know they are. I wish I knew why though. I thought about it so much this afternoon in between customers, and I still can’t come up with any sort of sensible explanation.’
‘Me either,’ Jack says, passing the embroidery back to me.
‘Are your pictures still downstairs? Shall I fetch them so we can take a look at them together?’
‘They’re still in the store cupboard at the back of the shop. The key is hanging on a hook at the top of the stairs. Oh, and you’ll need to reset the alarm when you go in – it’s just inside the interior door downstairs. The code is five, five, two, four.’
‘Five, five, two, four. Got it! I’ll be back in a bit.’
I head down the stairs again to the door that leads from the hallway into the side entrance of Jack’s shop. I turn the key, open the door and then quickly silence the alarm by inputting the digits. I make two trips, carrying the pictures back up the stairs first and then the easel.
‘Right,’ I finally say as I stand the easel up in Jack’s sitting room. ‘First, the harbour pictures.’
I place the oil painting of the harbour up on the easel and hold my matching embroidery picture up next to it.
‘Way too similar to be a coincidence,’ Jack says, studying the two pieces of artwork.
‘I know,’ I reply, looking at them. ‘But what does it mean? Who would do this and why? It makes no sense.’
‘Do you think it’s something to do with the fact that both of the items that seem to be – and I hesitate to use this term – creating these pictures come from the same house?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know really?’ Jack says, shrugging. ‘I’m grasping at straws, but the easel and the sewing machine came from the same house clearance, didn’t they? Do you think they were owned by the same person?’
‘They might have been, I guess. Perhaps it might help us if we found out more about the elderly lady who used to live there. It’s that big old Victorian house with the blue door up on the coast road. Noah told me.’
‘Has anyone new moved in there since the house clearance, do you know?’
‘I don’t. But we could probably find out easily enough. There’s always someone who knows what’s going on around here – you only have to speak to a few people before you find out the information you want.’
‘Great, that’s where we should start then.’ Jack wheels himself closer to the easel to look at the two pictures. ‘Let me have your embroidery again,’ he says, holding his hand out.
I pass him the fabric.
‘The scale is almost exactly the same,’ he says, holding the fabric up next to the painting. ‘Look – when I hold the embroidery up it’s like a section that has been cut out of the painting.’
‘Oh yes,’ I say, standing behind him. ‘It almost makes it three dimensional you holding it over the painting like that. The lighthouse comes to life. We could have created a whole new artistic genre here!’
I’m joking, but Jack doesn’t laugh. Instead he simply stares at the fabric.
‘What? What is it?’ I ask, but Jack doesn’t respond.
‘You’ve gone a little pale, Jack,’ I say, staring at him. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Er …’ Jack rests the embroidery on his lap and rubs his eyes. ‘I’m not really sure. Perhaps you should take a look, in case I’m seeing things.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask, taking the fabric from him as he wheels himself backwards so I can stand in front of the easel. Was he playing a joke on me?
‘Hold the fabric over the canvas,’ he instructs, ‘in exactly the right place so the two pictures match up.’
‘Okay …’ I say hesitantly, wondering what I’m supposed to be seeing.
‘Look at it,’ Jack says. ‘I mean really look into it, and tell me what you see.’
I do as he says, first matching up the two pictures, then staring hard at them. ‘I can’t see anything unusual,’ I say.
‘Crouch down,’ Jack says, ‘so you’re at eye level with them like I was.’
‘Okay …’ I say again, bending down a little so my eye line is level with the little lighthouse on the harbour depicted in the embroidery.
‘What do you see now?’ Jack asks. ‘Kate?’ he asks again when I don’t respond. ‘Are you seeing what I did?’
‘That depends,’ I reply quietly, ‘on whether you saw a moving picture?’
‘I did,’ Jack says equally as quietly. ‘That’s why I was rubbing my eyes. How are we both seeing a moving image in something as static as a painting?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, still observing what’s going on, ‘but I’m not going to stop watching now, are you?’
I make room for Jack to come in close beside me, and we peer intently at the pictures. Both of us let all our rational thoughts dissipate while we allow ourselves to become absorbed in the moving images in front of us.
St Felix ~ May 1957
‘Please, Mummy, can we go a bit closer!’ a young girl in a simple yet functional wheelchair pleads.
‘All right, just for a little while,’ her mother relents, and she pushes the wheelchair a little bit closer to the end of the harbour wall.
‘Can I get out?’ the girl asks. ‘Just for a bit?’
‘No, Maggie, you’re not strong enough yet. Remember what Doctor Jenkins said – you need to rest and recuperate.’
‘I’m fed up with recuperating,’ Maggie says huffily, ‘it’s so dull.’
‘I know, darling, but your convalescence is so important, otherwise you might never fully recover.’
Maggie sighs. ‘Why did I ever have to catch silly polio anyway. None of my friends got it. Why me?’
Her mother sighs; ‘Yes, you were very unlucky in that way, but so very lucky in others when you see how some of the other children who caught it have suffered. At least you will be able to walk and talk properly again. I’ve read some terrible stories in the newspaper about children being paralysed and only being able to breathe using one of those horrible iron-lung machines. At least you didn’t have to use one of those when you were in hospital.’
‘I saw those in another ward,’ Maggie says, looking sad. ‘They looked horrible.’
‘Anyway,’ her mother says brightly, ‘let’s not dwell on the past. We have a lovely new future to look forward to now we’re here in St Felix. If you breathe in as much of the healing sea air as you can, you’ll be back to your old self in no time.’
Maggie doesn’t look so sure.
‘Excuse me,’ a man says, approaching them both. In contrast to
the woman’s neat, smart clothing of a pale pink cardigan, tweed skirt, pearls and a cream blouse, the man is wearing much more casual attire: a striped smock top, loose trousers and a red scarf tied jauntily at his neck, while on his feet he wears brown leather sandals. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I did a quick sketch of the two of you while you were at the end of the harbour just now, and I wondered if you might like it?’
The woman looks warily at the man, but Maggie eagerly pipes up, ‘Ooh, yes, please!’
The man smiles at her and passes her a page from his sketch-book.
‘Look, Mum, it’s us!’ Maggie cries excitedly.
The woman looks over Maggie’s shoulder at the drawing. ‘So it is.’ She turns to the man. ‘I can’t afford to buy it off you, if that’s what you’re hoping for,’ she tells him firmly.
‘Not at all,’ the man answers, smiling at her. ‘It’s a gift. I heard what you and your daughter were talking about – terrible disease.’ He says this softly so Maggie, who is still happily examining the drawing, can’t quite hear. ‘I have friends who’ve been affected too. Hopefully the epidemic will be long gone now they’ve found a vaccine.’
‘Yes, I hope so too,’ the woman agrees. ‘That’s very kind of you to offer us your drawing. Thank you very much.’
‘My pleasure,’ the man says. ‘You’re new to St Felix?’
‘We’ve been here a few weeks, but fairly new, yes.’
‘Arthur,’ the man says, holding out his hand, ‘but my friends call me Arty.’
‘Clara,’ the woman says, taking it. ‘Very nice to meet you, Arthur.’
Arty grins. ‘So formal. St Felix will soon rub off some of that.’
Clara looks uncomfortable. ‘I do hope not. Well, thank you again for the drawing. My daughter seems to like it very much.’
‘See you around, Maggie!’ Arty says, saluting as Clara begins to push her away.
‘I hope so, Arty!’ Maggie calls back, but Clara remains silent, her head down as she hurriedly pushes her daughter’s wheelchair back along the harbour cobbles.
‘Well,’ Jack says as the moving pictures in front of us begin to swirl together and gradually fade away. ‘That was … unexpected.’
‘You could say that,’ I reply, still staring at the pictures in front of me. Everything has gone completely back to normal now, and in front of us resting on the easel are simply an oil painting and a piece of embroidered felt. ‘Did we imagine what just happened?’
‘How could we have? We both saw exactly the same thing, didn’t we? A woman and a child in a wheelchair, talking to a man who’d drawn a picture of them.’
‘Clara, Maggie and Arthur,’ I say quietly as though clarifying it for myself.
‘Arty,’ Jack adds, smiling, ‘He preferred to be called Arty.’
‘So he did …’ I look at Jack; his mystified expression mirrors my own inner thoughts. ‘When do you think that was supposed to be?’ I ask. ‘They were wearing old clothes – the fifties maybe?’
‘Yes, I thought that too,’ Jack agrees. ‘Also, I think polio was around in the fifties. Didn’t we have a huge epidemic in the UK back then?’
I nod. ‘Yes, I think you’re right, it was about then.’
‘I felt sorry for the kid in the wheelchair. It’s bad enough being in one when you’re my age – at least in mine I can push myself around. Looks like she had to rely on her mother to push her everywhere.’
‘Hopefully it wasn’t for long though. It sounds like she was on her way to recovery from what they were saying. They sent people to the seaside to recuperate back then, didn’t they? They thought the sea air was healing.’
‘I think it still is,’ Jack says. ‘I’ve definitely felt better since I’ve been here … but we’re getting slightly off track. Back to these … these pictures,’ he says, for want of a better description of what we’ve just seen.
‘Just why are we seeing a scene from the fifties played in front of us?’ I ask. ‘It’s obviously something to do with our two works of art.’ I look at them again. ‘But what?’
Jack and I both stare at the easel.
Then we both turn to one another at exactly same time and say: ‘The rock painting! The waves embroidery!’
I hurriedly take the harbour picture off the easel and replace it with the one of the rock and waves. Exactly as we’d done before, Jack holds my embroidery over the right spot on the painting so that the two of them match precisely and immediately, in the same magical way, the images begin to move and swirl together in front of us.
‘Are you ready?’ Jack asks, looking keenly at me.
‘I am. Let’s do this!’
Suddenly, there’s a ringing sound that makes both of us jump.
‘It’s the shop alarm,’ Jack says looking at me. ‘Did you reset it properly?’
‘Yes,’ I reply, looking puzzled. ‘I’m sure I did. Wait there. I’ll go and check on it.’
I grab the key and hurry down the stairs. I unlock the door and immediately try to silence the alarm by putting in the same digits 5524, but it doesn’t stop so I have to try again.
‘It’s not working!’ I call up the stairs. ‘I’m putting in the code but it’s still ringing.’
‘Try again!’ Jack shouts back down. ‘Five, five, two, four, yes?’
‘Yes, that’s what I’m doing.’
I hurry back to the shop and keep trying the code, but the painfully shrill noise just keeps going.
I dash back out to the hallway about to call up to Jack again, but to my surprise he’s already heading down the stairs.
I watch in admiration and awe as he expertly propels himself down the stairs, his strong muscular arms swinging his body from step to step.
When he reaches the bottom I realise he’s stretching for his wheelchair, so I hurriedly push it towards him.
‘I can do it!’ he snaps as he pulls himself up and on to the chair.
I stand aside as he now wheels himself towards the shop and through the door. Within a few seconds the alarm has stopped.
‘You did it!’ I say happily as I stand in the doorway watching him.
‘Yes,’ he says sourly. ‘I did.’
‘What did you do?’ I ask, wondering why he is being a bit off with me.
‘What I asked you to do – merely press four numbers.’
‘I did. I put in the numbers. Five, five, two, four, right?’
‘Simple enough, one would have thought, but apparently not in your case.’
My eyes narrow as my hackles bristle. ‘What’s your problem, Jack? Why are you having a go at me, what have I done?’
Jack shakes his head and turns away. ‘It doesn’t matter. Perhaps you’d better go. I think I’ve had enough of your … weirdness for one night.’
‘My weirdness? I’m not the one who has an easel that brings pictures to life, am I? Or an alarm that only resets when it wants to.’
Jack looks at the alarm, but not at me.
‘Please leave, Kate.’
‘Fine! You won’t mind if I collect my things first?’
Jack looks at me and shakes his head, so I stomp up the stairs, grab my bag and fabrics and then stomp back down again.
I don’t say goodbye. I simply walk past him, let myself out of the door and slam it behind me.
That man! I think, as I march back down the street. His mood changes more often than the tides in the harbour. What the hell is wrong with him? And more to the point: Why do I care so much?
Twelve
The next morning, I awake early and I lie in my bed still ruminating over what had happened in Jack’s flat last night.
I’m annoyed, exasperated and saddened all at the same time, but the sound of the waves outside my bedroom window helps soothe my thoughts, and I begin trying to piece together the events in a calmer, more considered way.
Why had Jack suddenly flipped like that? If he was going to stress out, surely it should have been when we saw the moving images from the pictures, not whe
n I couldn’t silence his shop alarm?
I go over each moment in my mind in case I’d said or done something that might have upset him.
There was nothing. Everything had been going fine until the damn alarm had gone off and Jack had had to come down the stairs and sort it out.
I think about him descending the stairs, his strong arms lifting himself from step to step – it puts me in mind of an Olympic gymnast expertly swinging themself around on one of those things we used to have to vault over in P.E. at school. What were they called? Ah, yes – a pommel horse.
Jack had carried himself with as much grace and muscle power as any of those athletes did. It had quite taken me aback, but why had he got the hump with me shortly after?
I sigh. I simply don’t understand.
I decide the best thing, once it’s time to get up, is to carry on as usual. Even though I’m dying to know what might happen if we match our second two pictures together there is no way I’m going to go back there after the way he behaved last night. I’ll just have to wait and wonder.
Over the next few days everything goes back to normal. The amount of customers coming through the door of my shop as always starts to rise as we approach the end of the week and holiday-makers arrive for long weekends and for Friday bookings.
I don’t see or hear from Jack at all. Although I deliberately avoid passing by his shop, I wonder why he hasn’t popped by mine – if only to apologise for his strange outburst.
I’ve just finished serving a lady who is buying some new crochet needles when a large expensive-looking bunch of flowers appears through the door, hiding a familiar face behind it.
‘Delivery for a Kate that owns the craft shop!’ Poppy calls, peeking around the large bouquet.
‘What?’ I ask, staring at the flowers. ‘You must be mistaken, Poppy.’
‘Nope, no mistake. Says it on the card right here.’ She lays them on the desk in front of me and points to a small white envelope on the front that simply reads Kate.
‘But who would be sending me flowers? It’s not my birthday.’
‘Why don’t you open it and see?’
I pull the small white envelope from the bouquet of flowers and tear it open. In typed black ink, it says:
