Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Café

by Milly Johnson

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t come in.’

  Helena gave a small dry laugh of disbelief. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  But Connie wasn’t fazed by her. Over the years she’d had to battle belligerent cleaning staff, doctors, councils and hospitals for her mother and Jimmy’s aged parents, and a jumped up swishy-haired snob was no match for her.

  ‘I told you, Brandon isn’t here,’ she said firmly. ‘So no, you can’t come in.’

  Helena tried to look around Connie as if expecting to see Brandon hiding there but she had more chance of getting past Cerberus into the underworld than she did getting past Connie into Brandon’s house.

  ‘Brandon, is it now?’ she said pointedly, as if referring to his first name was proof that Connie was sleeping with him.

  ‘I’ll tell him you called,’ said Connie, shutting the door in her face. She had curtains to hang and no time to fight on any more fronts with anyone else at the moment, thank you.

  *

  ‘You’re joking, right?’ Cheryl laughed with a snort of disbelief.

  ‘I’m not joking at all. They shared much in common, walking, talking, nature, reading. Interestingly, though Van Gogh liked to sketch, he had not yet decided that he wanted to become an artist, unlike young Percy who knew he was not fit for anything else. You see, Vincent was fascinated by Percy’s great natural talent. Painting came effortlessly to him but Vincent had to study and work at it. Now,’ said Mr Fairbanks with relish, ‘this is where things get very exciting. Or at least they would do if I had proof of it. Art historians place a huge value on Van Gogh’s seeing John Constable’s Cornfield in the National Gallery and being highly influenced by it, but before he had laid eyes on that, Percy Lake had brought Vincent Van Gogh to Yorkshire. Vincent had rather an obsessive love for a young lady, unrequited, I hasten to add, which made him quite depressed. So Percy thought he would whisk his new young friend up to the cheerful north with all its dramatic scenery, including a certain Farmer Barraclough’s wheat field near Woolley. According to what Edith’s grandfather told her, young Vincent was reduced to tears by the beauty of it. They sat there sketching with charcoals until there was no light and Vincent was so desperate for his drawing to be coloured that he scribbled over his work a guide to the various shades of what he could see so he could recreate it later in paint. This, remember, was before he was supposed to have been influenced by Constable.’

  Mr Fairbanks rubbed his forehead. ‘Is it a true story or an elaborate lie woven by Percy Lake to add interest to himself? But if it is a lie, it’s an extremely well-researched one. What we do know for definite is that Van Gogh drew a lot of fields after his supposed trip up north; he finally made up his mind to become an artist; he was influenced by someone or something to stop sketching, stop using monochrome and start using colour, pastels, oils as Percy Lake did. And, what we also do know for a fact is that Farmer Barraclough kept a field in which he grew only sunflowers in remembrance of his late wife. Incidentally, Percy Lake was to return to Barnsley and marry Barraclough’s daughter Lily ten years later and have a daughter with her – Anna Cornelia – Edith’s mother. Also incidentally, Anna Cornelia was the name of Van Gogh’s sister, of whom Percy was very fond.’

  ‘This just can’t be true,’ said Cheryl, shaking her head. Van Gogh hanging around fields in Barnsley wasn’t at all credible. ‘Did Van Gogh really live in England then?’

  ‘Yes, for about two years.’

  ‘It . . . it just . . .’ Cheryl laughed in disbelief again. ‘It can’t be true, can it?’

  Mr Fairbanks threw up his hands. ‘Will we ever know? Van Gogh was a prolific letter-writer yet there is no mention of Percy Lake in the surviving correspondences. Or maybe he was mentioned in a letter which was lost or destroyed? We have no proof that Percy Lake ever met Van Gogh in London. But then he did name his daughter after his so-called friend’s sister who lived in London at the same time. Percy may have made the whole thing up. He was a shady man. But then he would have to be in his chosen profession.’

  ‘Burglar?’

  ‘Art forger. Percy and Vincent returned to London but it seemed that Vincent was becoming more unstable. The following year Percy stepped in to protect their landlady’s daughter from Vincent’s unwanted amorous advances and Vincent was thrown out of their lodgings. And, sadly, Vincent, so Edith’s story goes, tossed Percy aside as he so often did with people who were close to him. He went his way and Percy went his, but their crossed paths served to ignite the genius in both of them. The rest is history as far as Van Gogh goes, but as for Percy, well he was a master of his craft but his concepts for original work were poor. He was commissioned to make a copy of a painting which was damaged, and that’s how he found his true vocation. His talents lay in copying the works of others, mixing the paints as the great artists did, using aged canvases . . . oh yes, there are works of art all over the world which have passed the critical eye of experts and are accepted as originals. Slippery as an eel he was, fox-wily. As skilled in being a ghost as he was in being an artist. If Edith still had any paintings of his, I expect they are underneath the rubble now.’ And he gave a long, pained sigh. ‘What a tragedy.’

  ‘Well, I have all Edith’s paintings at home,’ said Cheryl. ‘Bloody Lance Nettleton was about to throw them in the skip.’

  ‘All?’ asked Mr Fairbanks, snapping to attention. ‘How many did she have? And you say that you have them?’

  ‘Yes, there are quite a few of them. And I found a couple of sketches behind the Sunflowers when I reframed it.’

  ‘God be praised.’ Mr Fairbanks stood up so fast the blood rushed to his head and he had to sit down again. ‘Cheryl, can you take me to your house immediately, please. I have to see them.’

  Chapter 70

  Brandon’s bedroom looked transformed when Connie hung his curtains up. Duck-egg blue, heavy drapes, a perfect complement to the pale grey walls. The two large picture windows afforded views of the garden, which badly needed some attention, but she imagined it would be stunning when it was knocked into shape. According to the position of the sun, it must have been east-facing, so it channelled all the morning sunshine, the perfect place to build a terrace for having breakfast outside in the summer. Hot strong fresh coffee and croissants with salt-crusted butter and apricot jam, and conversation, both parties still in dressing gowns . . . She imagined it would be bliss to share a breakfast like that with a man like Brandon Locke.

  The front door opening pulled her out of her daydream. Brandon was back. She didn’t like the way her insides appeared to cheer at the news.

  ‘Hi,’ he called. ‘How are you getting on?’

  ‘Just finished and admiring my handiwork,’ Connie shouted back.

  She heard him take the stairs quickly, more than one at a time, she guessed. He appeared at the bedroom door smiling, unshaven and all the more handsome for being a little rough around the edges.

  ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘They look pretty good. I can’t say that I’m the type to get excited about curtains, but I’m impressed.’

  ‘They must have been expensive,’ said Connie, folding up the ladder.

  ‘Here, let me do that. I don’t know the going rate for custom-made curtains but my hand was shaking when I typed my pin number into the machine,’ he laughed. It was a great sound, she thought. Genuine and deep as if it came from a happy place within him.

  ‘Your ex-wife called round,’ said Connie.

  ‘I gathered,’ said Brandon, wincing as he trapped his finger shutting the ladder. ‘I had a text from her.’ He started to walk down the stairs.

  ‘Ah.’ I bet there were a few expletives in that, added Connie inwardly, as she followed him.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to deal with her. She can be very . . .’ He struggled with saying the word and she could tell he was trying to be a gentleman, which was why he had found himself in this position.

  ‘I can be very . . . too,’ replied Connie, with a smile, which made him chuckle.

&n
bsp; ‘I had a text message from her earlier asking if she could come around and talk and I said I wasn’t at home. Evidently she didn’t believe me.’

  ‘Well, it’s not my house. It’s not up to me who comes in so I couldn’t really do anything else,’ said Connie.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Brandon. ‘Now I’m going to make you a coffee and won’t take no for an answer.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to say no,’ laughed Connie. She was parched after all that climbing up and down and stretching. Be careful said that annoying voice inside her. Sod off voice she answered it back.

  ‘I’ve got another favour to ask,’ said Brandon, resting the ladder, on the wall at the bottom of the stairs. ‘A week on Tuesday, I’m having what a pretentious git might call a soirée. Sort of cheese and wine party but instead of wine we’re having chocolate.’

  Connie looked confused. ‘A cheese and chocolate party?’

  ‘Sorry, it’s been a long drive.’ He scratched his head, mussing up his mad, variegated black, grey and white hair. ‘I mean chocolate and wine. No cheese. Could I hire you for the evening to help out, circulate with chocolates? Do you do that sort of thing? I was going to ask my sisters but then I remembered the last time I did that, they both got paralytic and ate half my stock.’

  Connie grinned. ‘Yes, I can do that.’ A week on Tuesday was two days before Lent, two days before the end of her marriage because, even if Jimmy was considering changing his mind about throwing her out on the scrap heap, she hadn’t changed hers about throwing him on it.

  *

  Mr Fairbanks stood squarely in front of the painting of a man wearing a hat and carrying art canvases and he sighed with true, unadulterated pleasure.

  ‘Do you know what this is, Cheryl?’

  ‘Nope,’ she said. Nor did she, other than being a nice predominantly yellow picture that sat well in her sunshiney kitchen.

  ‘This is Painter on the Road to Tarascon. During the war the Nazis declared Van Gogh a degenerate and burned his original. This, I guarantee you, is a copy by Percy Lake and as near as dammit to the original as you will ever find.’ He moved to the next. ‘And this is Chagall.’

  ‘I didn’t think it was that clever myself,’ said Cheryl. ‘But I wouldn’t throw—’

  ‘You misunderstand me, I mean Marc Chagall,’ Mr Fairbanks interrupted. ‘My God, I need to sit down, Cheryl.’

  She quickly brought him a chair before he fell. He was breathless but laughing. ‘This is the most exciting morning I’ve ever had.’

  ‘They’re just fakes though, surely they’re worth nothing.’

  ‘They aren’t fakes, Cheryl. They are genuine forgeries. There is a difference. Hans van Meegeren, Tom Keating, Eric Hebborn fooled experts all over the world but the skills of Percy Lake outshine even them. Genuine forgeries of this standard fetch tens of thousands of pounds.’

  Cheryl pulled another chair over before she fell down.

  ‘The Sunflowers isn’t a genuine fake though, is it?’

  ‘Sadly not,’ smiled Mr Fairbanks. ‘If only. I think Edith must have picked that up at a car boot sale. Oh, that reminds me, did you say you found some sketches when you reframed it?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I forgot about those. Nearly chucked them away,’ said Cheryl, fetching them from a cupboard in the kitchen. ‘The frame on the Sunflowers fell off and that’s when I found them tucked between the painting and the backing board. I thought they were just padding until I turned them over.’

  Mr Fairbanks’ hands were shaking as he reached inside the manila envelope in which Cheryl had stored them. Cheryl had never seen him so agitated and as he pulled out the three sketches, he made a strange gurgling noise in his throat. The first was of a man sitting in a field, heads of wheat high behind him, and he was drawing – and scrawled across the top left corner was the name Percy. The second was drawn by a different hand, again a young man drawing, sitting in a field, ‘Vincent’ written in the identical place across the top left; the third sketch a field of sunflower heads, covered in scribbles.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Mr Fairbanks, which made Cheryl’s eyes pop open. She didn’t think Mr Fairbanks was capable of such a blasphemy.

  ‘Unless I am very much mistaken, my dear lady, this is Barraclough’s farm and this is Vincent Van Gogh as drawn by his friend Percy Lake. So this is Percy Lake as drawn by . . .’ He couldn’t say it, his words collapsed into a breathy whisper. ‘My goodness, I could be holding his genuine work. And this is Van Gogh’s first step into the world of colour, the five shades of paint he intended to use for the flower field. Now, is it the real article? If only we knew. Any criteria for establishing originality was known by the master forgers, of course.’

  ‘Surely he wouldn’t have just signed it Vincent though?’ Cheryl wasn’t convinced by the cursive single name.

  ‘Yes, Cheryl, that’s exactly what he did. He deplored how his surname was so mispronounced so he used his first name. Many of his works aren’t signed, he saved his signature for the pieces of which he was particularly proud.’ Mr Fairbanks was gasping with joy.

  ‘But . . . surely . . . not?’ Cheryl couldn’t believe that someone as learned as Mr Fairbanks could take this all so seriously. It couldn’t be, could it?

  Mr Fairbanks rested his hand on Cheryl’s arm.

  ‘I think you’d better go and find me the number of Christie’s in London, my dear Cheryl. We need to get the experts to look at this haul.’

  *

  Della coughed until her throat became hoarse in reality.

  ‘Don’t you dare be ill,’ said Jimmy. ‘The place will fall to bits without you.’ He knew without even glancing at Ivanka that he would get grief for that later. ‘Why did you say that about Della?’ she would pout. ‘The place will be better without her because I will be running it.’

  He was beginning to really dislike the sight of her lips puckering up into that pinch of annoyance.

  Della watched the clock nudge towards home time. She felt evil and disloyal and crazed and didn’t give a flying fart. The chances were that what she had planned to happen next week wouldn’t. Her perfidy would be exposed and Jimmy would sack her on the spot but she didn’t care any more. She would rather have walked out than be thrown out, but if her scheme failed, well, at least she had given it her best shot. Jimmy rode on the tide of the ‘here and now’ and maybe she should take a leaf out of his book and employ those tactics for once.

  ‘Della, you don’t look very well,’ said Ivanka, with a concern that sounded too excessive to be genuine. ‘You should take some time off.’

  ‘If I feel as bad on Monday as I do now, I can assure you I will be. But you know what to do, don’t you? Jimmy prides himself on making visitors feel welcome so sit them down with a tea or coff—’

  ‘I know,’ cut in Ivanka, with a smile that barely covered her irritation.

  ‘I’m going to get off early tonight,’ said Della, groaning as she got to her feet as if every muscle ached. ‘You have a good weekend. Are you doing anything nice?’

  ‘I am going for a meal with my cousin,’ said Ivanka.

  ‘Well, you enjoy yourself. In fact, the chances are that I won’t be in on Monday, I’ll warn you now. I really need to recharge my batteries.’

  ‘Aw, well you take good care, Della. The office will be in good hands.’

  No it won’t, thought Della. Good.

  Chapter 71

  Della and Connie met at Lady Muck headquarters in Wheatfield Lane at ten-thirty the following Monday.

  ‘So how are you?’ asked Connie from the kitchen as she stood waiting for the kettle to boil.

  ‘Terrible. I am so ill,’ replied Della dryly. ‘I’ve always been very good at mimicking voices so when I rang Ivanka this morning and told her that I had flu, she was more than convinced.’

  ‘You mimic voices?’ asked Connie.

  ‘Ivanka, I am so sorry, but I won’t be able to make it in for a few days,’ said Della, in her best flu accent.

 
; Connie was impressed.

  ‘You’ll like this one too. Hello, I ’d like to make an appointment to see a Mr James Diamond. My name is Diana and I’m the assistant for Mr Kersov, head of cleaning services at Manchester airport.’ Della’s voice was pure smoke and sex.

  ‘That is amazing,’ laughed Connie. ‘You didn’t really ring up and make a false appointment though, did you?’

  ‘Oh you have no idea how many hand grenades I’ve pulled the pins out of which are set to go off this week, Connie,’ said Della, noticing Connie’s sunflower picture on the wall out of the corner of her eye. Be like the Sunflower . . . She could give those giant plants lessons in bravery and boldness with what she’d implemented since Friday.

  *

  Ivanka sat at Della’s desk trying it for size and finding that it fitted her very well. She was alone in the office and imagining what life would be like in just over two weeks’ time, when she could finally call this her kingdom, when she was free to announce to the world that Diamond Shine was a company run by herself and her fiancé. They didn’t need two women in the office anyway, as she would prove beyond all doubt this week. She introduced a reception area to the office by placing two chairs and a small occasional table by the door and nudged the desks into a slightly different formation to mark her stamp on the space. Then she pulled a Women by Women magazine out of her bag along with a bottle of spring water and a sugar and cinnamon pretzel. There was no point in looking industrious when there was no one else in the office to impress, so she busied herself reading about reality star Kasey Queen and her fourth renewal of her wedding vows in two years of marriage. Ivanka couldn’t decide whether she and Jimmy should get married in Las Vegas, the Bahamas or Venice, but she could have a new wedding gown and a different destination every year if Jimmy agreed to an annual renewal of their nuptials.

  There was a knock on the door at eleven precisely. Ivanka grudgingly put the magazine away and opened the door to a small man with thinning hair wearing a trenchcoat and carrying an old battered briefcase with a noticeably wide gusset. If there was a room full of people and one had to guess which man was Roy Frog, he would have been picked out immediately. Roy Frog had large bulging eyes and a thin straight line of mouth which looked long enough to post a letter through.