The House of Hopes and Dreams

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘I don’t need to sit down,’ I said finally, the whirling in my head ceasing, so that I stood firmly again, shell-shocked but myself. ‘I’ll … just take my things upstairs and wash my hands.’

  Suddenly I was desperate to be alone for a few minutes, to gather myself together.

  ‘Good idea – and I’ll put the kettle on,’ Molly said pointedly as I turned for the door.

  Willow’s voice arrested me as I was reaching for the handle. ‘We’ve put you in the back bedroom.’

  I spun round and stared at her, wondering if I’d heard aright. ‘What?’

  ‘Well, it was stupid the two of us squeezing into that boxroom when you didn’t need the big one, so we’ve changed over,’ Nat said, with something in his eyes that told me he was relishing the situation.

  I felt as sick as if I’d turned over a stone and found something repulsive under it. I hadn’t realized quite how much he hated me.

  Molly gave them both a look of searing disgust. ‘This is Angel’s home, so who gave you the right to take over as if you owned the place?’

  ‘Because I do – or I soon will,’ he stated. ‘Julian was married to my mother and since I’m their only child, I inherit everything. Angel might as well get used to that from the start.’

  ‘You’re jumping the gun, Nat,’ Molly said. ‘They’d lived together so long that Angel was Julian’s common-law wife.’

  ‘Oh, but that has no status under the law of inheritance,’ Willow said brightly.

  ‘Well, status or not, Julian told Angel he’d had his solicitor draw up a will that divided things fairly between you,’ Molly said.

  I staggered to a nearby chair and sat down before my knees gave way. I’d hoped Mr Barley, Julian’s solicitor, might already have told Nat how things had been left, but perhaps he’d been waiting for me to return first.

  Nat’s next words disabused me of this notion. ‘So Mr Barley said when I asked if there was a will. Unfortunately for dear Angel, it appears that Dad died the day before it was due to be signed.’

  ‘Oh – of course,’ I said. ‘He spoke about signing it the day before he …’ My throat closed up.

  Molly was frowning. ‘But if Julian had had it drawn up, then it’s a statement of his wishes and must be taken into account.’

  ‘I’d hoped he would have changed a few things before he signed it,’ I said. ‘I wanted him to leave the lion’s share to you, Nat.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ he sneered.

  ‘You can believe it or not as you like, but anyway,’ I added wearily, ‘we can discuss it with the solicitor on Monday, can’t we?’

  ‘You can, if you want to, but it’s all cut and dried, so there’s no point in us going, too,’ Nat said shortly.

  ‘That’s right, because if there’s no signed will and you weren’t married to Julian, then Nat inherits everything under the laws of intestacy and you’re not entitled to a thing,’ Willow agreed. ‘I mean, you were living in his house without contributing to any of the expenses and you were just a paid employee in the workshop, weren’t you? Just like Grant and that awful old man.’

  ‘Ivan’s retired, he just likes coming in and helping – and he’s not awful,’ I said automatically.

  Molly was looking gobsmacked. ‘What you’ve said about Angel not being entitled to anything at all can’t be right. They’ve been more like partners in the business since Angel began making a name for her designs – and what’s more, she ran it alone for months after Julian had the first stroke, besides looking after him.’

  ‘But there was no official partnership, and though it was clever of Angel to talk Dad into writing the will, I’d have challenged it on the grounds of undue influence while he was mentally incapable, even if he had signed it,’ Nat said, and I looked at him astounded.

  ‘There was never anything wrong with Julian’s mind and I didn’t talk him into anything. In fact, I tried to talk him out of leaving me so much, because I didn’t think it was fair.’

  I was wasting my breath. Nat was bloated with gloating, while Willow had assumed a spurious expression of sympathy that I would have liked to have smacked off her face.

  ‘Don’t worry about the cottage, because we won’t want you to move out of it straight away,’ she assured me. ‘So long as you’re gone by the time the workshop reopens on the fifth of January it’ll be fine. Nat’s handed his notice in and he’s got unused holidays to take into account, so we’ll move up the weekend before. I work freelance, so there’s nothing to hold us.’

  ‘Move out …?’ I repeated blankly.

  Willow looked scathingly round the room. ‘I’ve got some lovely things in the flat, so a lot of this tat can go to make room for it. I hate clutter – like all that junk on the dresser. I expect there are odds and ends of yours scattered round the house that you’ll want to take, though?’

  ‘I can’t believe you two!’ Molly said, finally finding her voice. ‘You make it sounds as if Angel’s been an occasional visitor for the last decade and more, not Julian’s partner – and you owe her a debt of gratitude for running herself ragged the last eighteen months, nursing him while keeping the business going!’

  ‘I don’t know who asked your opinion about anything,’ Nat told her. ‘In fact, nobody even invited you in, so I think you ought to go – and maybe think about how secure your husband’s job in the workshop will be if you keep sounding off about things that are none of your business.’

  ‘I invited Molly in,’ I said. ‘She’s my friend and there’s no call to threaten her – and if you fired Grant you’d be an even bigger fool than I think you are, Nat.’

  ‘You’ll soon find I’m no kind of fool, and there’ll certainly be some changes when I take over in the New Year,’ Nat said darkly.

  But I was now beyond thinking that one through and I got up unsteadily. ‘I-I’ve changed my mind about going upstairs. I need to go down to the studio on my own first for a bit.’

  I went across to the rack by the door and reached for my set of workshop keys, which always hung there next to Julian’s, but neither bunch was there.

  ‘I’ve got all the keys to the workshop now, except Grant’s, seeing he’s the one who opens the place first thing and locks up in the afternoon most days,’ Nat said. ‘I’ve applied for permission to administer the business, so you can all carry on with the current commissions for the present, while the estate is sorted out. The workshop’s always closed from Christmas Eve till after New Year anyway.’

  ‘But Julian and I work in the studio even when it’s shut, because it’s a good quiet time … and we were going to paint and fire the rest of the glass for the Gladchester Chapel rose window over Christmas …’

  My voice broke and I turned away so they couldn’t see the tears in my eyes and went upstairs, dumping my case and bag in the small back bedroom. I didn’t even want to open the door to the one that had been ours.

  Then I splashed my face with cold water until I was more or less in my right mind, before going back down, determined to get those keys even if I had to threaten Nat with the bread knife to do it. Bereavement seemed to be bringing out a violent streak in me.

  But there turned out to be no need, for evidently there had been a brief skirmish in my absence and Molly handed me the keys as soon as I appeared, along with a lidded Thermos mug of coffee.

  ‘Better take this with you, because you still look frozen,’ she said. ‘Shall I walk down to the studio with you?’

  ‘No, it’s OK, I know the way blindfold,’ I assured her. ‘You get back to Grant – and thank you so much for picking me up at the airport, Molly!’

  ‘It was the least I could do,’ she said, with an unloving look at Willow and Nat, who glowered back. ‘Ring me any time if you need me.’

  ‘Willow and I are off out for dinner shortly, so I expect we’ll see you tomorrow,’ Nat told me, making it sound like a threat.

  ‘I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to that,’ I snapped, the old sarky version
of myself suddenly resurfacing. I was glad to see she hadn’t left the building permanently.

  Outside in the cold, starless darkness, Molly hugged me, said I was always welcome to go and stay with her and Grant, and then went off round the cottage towards her home in the village, while I made my way down the familiar path, edged with lavender and rosemary bushes I’d planted myself. In summer the heady fragrance as you brushed against them on your way to the workshop was heavenly.

  Once I was through the wicket gate the security lights on the large, brick-built Victorian workshop came on and I let myself in through the small side door and flicked the switches on the board inside, illuminating the interior.

  The familiar, warm smell immediately and comfortingly enfolded me: the mingled scents of wooden flooring, the treacly cement used to seal the finished window panels … perhaps a hint of vinegar from the acid used in etching glass and the earthy sacking wrapped round the smaller bundles of lead calmes. It was a combination of all of them, instantly recognizable to anyone who’d ever worked in the trade.

  The original purpose of the Victorian building had been the same as its current one, but Julian had altered and extended it, so that there was now also a small office, a room with an air filtration system, for cementing the leaded panels, and a separate studio, as well as the main workshop area.

  The latter was furnished with long, scarred wooden tables with half-leaded panels of the rose window still pinned by horseshoe nails over their white paper cutlines. The cut pieces of glass for another panel had been stuck with blobs of plasticine on to a sheet of heavy plate glass on a rack over the window.

  There were troughs full of lead calme strips in various widths and a wall of wooden shelves holding sheets of Antique glass, but none of the mechanically produced Cathedral Rolled, which Julian and I, both purists, abhorred.

  I passed the stairs that led up to the loft storage area and through into the roomy studio that Julian and I had shared. We had a desk each and a pair of long tables, unscarred this time, used for drawing up cartoons – the full-sized designs for windows – and the simpler black-and-white working drawings, the cutlines …

  I shivered, feeling chilled to the heart, then remembered the coffee I was still holding and unscrewed the lid, releasing the hot fragrance in a puff of steam that unfurled like ectoplasm.

  I sat in Julian’s wooden swivel chair: this had been where they’d found him, after he’d slid down on to the floor.

  ‘Are you there, Julian?’ I asked, for the first time feeling his presence close by. ‘You might have waited for me to get back.’

  On the desk in front of me was a drawing of an angel’s head that he must have been working on in his last moments. My own face looked back at me – pointed chin, obliquely slanting eyebrows over slightly almond-shaped eyes, and the away-with-the-fairies expression I wore when working on a new design.

  I set the coffee cup carefully to one side, then laid my head on my arms and wept.

  March 1894

  Ralph Revell paid a visit to Father’s glass manufactory today, in order to see for himself the progress of the leaded windows destined for the porch of Mossby, his house in Lancashire, which were the last of the exterior glazing to be completed. I had been absent during his previous visits, but of course I had heard all about the commission and indeed cut some of the glass for it.

  Mr Revell had inherited the property some few years previously and had since pulled down half of it, before embarking on an extensive programme of remodelling and extending in the new style. Everything, including the interior furnishings and fittings, had been designed especially for it, down to the smallest detail.

  Father, upon first accepting the work, had travelled up to Lancashire to view the house for himself, then again to oversee the installation of the main windows and described to me how Mr Revell’s architect and good friend, Mr Rosslyn Browne, had incorporated what remained of an existing Elizabethan wing and an ancient tower into the new house, which stood on a terraced bluff above a small lake and woodlands. He’d been surprised to find both the new building and the ancient tower rendered in white stucco, such as he’d seen favoured in the Lake District, rather than leaving revealed the honest workmanship of the grey local stone.

  However, the house was very light, airy and modern and the effect pleasing.

  6

  Spelt Out

  It was late when I finally went back to the dark and silent cottage and let myself into the kitchen, switching on all the lights. I didn’t hang up the workshop keys, because I’d put them on the ring with my house ones, and if Nat wanted them back he’d have to fight me for them.

  There was no sign of the Terrible Two and the house felt empty, so I assumed they had not yet returned. I sort of hoped one of those sudden and hungry sink holes had opened up underneath their Chelsea Tractor and swallowed them whole. Not that you’d get much meat off Willow: she looked all hair and gristle.

  The kitchen was still littered with dirty mugs and crockery, evidently from Nat and Willow’s breakfast and lunch, which I ignored, though I did thoroughly scrub out mine and Julian’s mugs before hanging them in their right place on the dresser.

  By now I was so spaced out with weariness that my head seemed to float above me attached only by a string. I felt hollow, too, but then I couldn’t remember when I’d last eaten anything. I can’t say I felt hungry, but I heated some soup from a tin and had that with a hunk of strange, dark bread from the end of a loaf that was in the fridge. I washed it down with cocoa, laced with a slug of dark rum. It didn’t exactly shiver my timbers, but I didn’t feel quite so shaky after that.

  When I went upstairs I automatically walked into the bedroom I’d shared for so many years with Julian – then immediately recoiled, feeling as if I’d been both burgled and invaded simultaneously, for there were belongings scattered everywhere, and none of them mine. The makeup littering the dressing table, the stiletto shoes kicked off by the bed, the jacket hooked over the back of a chair – they were all alien.

  I went out again, closing the door behind me, and along the landing to the boxroom, where I’d dumped my luggage earlier. I’d been too overwrought to notice anything then, but now I saw that the clothes from my wardrobe had been heaped on a padded ottoman under the window, while the contents of my chest of drawers and my personal effects were in a cardboard box on the bed.

  Not only did I now feel burgled, but as if someone had also struck me a very low blow, one that just then I had no resources left to deal with.

  I found clean pyjamas overlooked in the airing cupboard on the landing, then pushed the box on to the floor and tumbled into bed, where, despite the turmoil in my mind, I fell deeply and instantly into an abyss of sleep.

  Something woke me from the depths of a comforting dream of my early, happy childhood. Carey and I had been sitting at the newspaper-covered dining table in our tiny cottage, each absorbed in our different interests. I was drawing a dead mole I’d found in the garden, the small black velvety corpse laid out to show the pink palms of the shovel-shaped front feet, while Carey was carefully taking a clock to pieces and making notes as he did so.

  He had a passion for knowing how all kinds of things worked, so if he wasn’t avidly watching someone lay bricks, repair a car, or shoe a horse, he was taking things apart – and even sometimes managing to put them back again, in working order.

  One advantage of having a carelessly bohemian mother had been that she’d had no objection to our doing this kind of thing in the house, despite the possibility of germs and mess. Carey’s mother, Lila, would have banished the mole to the garden and the clock dismembering to the workbench in the shed.

  Reluctantly surfacing from this golden dream, I opened my eyes to find myself in the back bedroom of the cottage – and only then did the full recollection of yesterday’s nightmare homecoming rush in upon me like a dark and unsavoury tide.

  I’d slept much later than usual, for already daylight filtered through the sunf
lower-yellow curtains, but something had woken me up and I wondered what it was.

  Maybe it was the back door slamming, for now two car doors did the same thing, like synchronized pistol shots. Then came the roar of an engine and the heavy scrunch of gravel under the tyres of Nat’s four-by-four. Julian and I could never imagine why they would need a monster off-road vehicle when they lived in London.

  The house was now silent again, as if holding its breath. I padded down to the kitchen in my pyjamas and bare feet and found the debris of breakfast had been added to the remains of the previous day’s dirty crockery. Did they think we had a servant popping in and out to clear things away? Or were they expecting me to take up that role, banished like Cinderella to kitchen duties?

  As I put the kettle on I spotted an envelope propped up against the teapot on the table, with my name on it. Inside was a brief note from Willow and several folded sheets of thin paper.

  She’d written:

  We’ve gone out, but here’s the inventory I made of the contents of the house. Perhaps you could circle whatever is your own personal property on both copies so we can go through it together later. Nat will be doing the same in the workshop tomorrow. He’s been too busy with all the arrangements to do it sooner.

  Laters,

  Willow

  PS Please do not eat the rest of my special spelt bread – it appears to be impossible to buy it around here.

  So that was what the weird loaf was.

  I hoped they got back very much laters. In fact, the laters the better.

  I read the note again with a sense of disbelief, before glancing at the inventory: she certainly hadn’t let the grass grow under her feet. But then, last night they’d seemed totally certain that Nat would inherit everything and I nothing at all, not even, it appeared, the common courtesy of giving me time to come to terms with my loss and make arrangements for my future.

  I found it hard to believe that Julian’s intentions and our long relationship, not to mention all the years of hard work and happiness we’d invested in the business and our home, counted for nothing. For a start, was it right that I could be turfed out with so little warning? Maybe it was something I could ask the solicitor about tomorrow.