I had coffee and muesli, though the only milk I could find in the fridge was soya, which tasted … different. I expect it’s an acquired taste, like the spelt bread. Further exploration revealed a lump of vegan cheese and there was a thin layer of vegetarian ready meals in the freezer on top of the home-made wholemeal bread and perfectly healthy dinners prepared and put in there by Molly.
There were boxes of things called ‘paleo bars’ in the cupboard, too. I expect palaeolithic people spent hours beating their nuts and seeds into neat little rectangles before they ate them.
I lifted a wholemeal loaf out to defrost and then went back upstairs to shower and dress in my workaday jeans and a warm, fleecy green sweatshirt. After that I unpacked, cramming my dumped belongings away in the wardrobe and chest of drawers in the boxroom.
I was just loading the washing machine with incongruously bright, summery holiday clothing when Molly rang to see if I was OK.
I assured her I was. ‘Actually, I haven’t seen Nat and Willow since we got back last night and now they seem to have gone out for the day.’
‘I can’t believe how callous and unfeeling they’re being,’ she said indignantly. ‘I mean, even if they’re right about Nat inheriting everything, which I doubt they are, that wasn’t the time or place to discuss it. And the way they spoke to you was disgraceful.’
‘It did totally take me aback that they were so relishing being vindictive,’ I agreed. ‘But I’m seeing Mr Barley first thing tomorrow morning so I’ll see what he says.’
‘I suspect they’re jumping the gun, because they must have to wait till probate is granted before they can do anything. But Mr Barley will tell you your rights – I’m sure you’re entitled to some provision from the estate – and then make sure they behave themselves,’ she said confidently.
‘I hope so,’ I said, and told her about the inventory. ‘I think she’s listed the entire contents of the cottage down to the last teaspoon! And though they’re just inanimate objects, some of them have memories attached.’
‘Of course they have. And what do you do about the things you bought together, or that Julian bought for you?’
Julian and I used to enjoy going to car-boot sales on sunny summer Sunday afternoons; it was one of the things we did together. Julian loved to rummage among the books and also had a thing about carriage clocks, while I adored buying pretty pieces of old china for my dresser and unusual plates that I displayed on one kitchen wall. Who paid for what hadn’t been something we’d given any thought to.
I also collected old samplers, though you didn’t often spot those in car-boot sales. My most valuable ones were those that Julian had bought me as Christmas and birthday presents and they’d literally have to kill me to get their hands on those.
‘I’d ignore the list till you’ve seen Mr Barley,’ she advised. ‘Cheeky cow!’
‘That was my first thought, but since I expect I’ll have to move out at some point, I might as well do it now,’ I said. ‘It’ll keep my mind occupied for a bit, because I don’t know quite what to do with myself.’
‘There is that,’ she conceded. ‘And if you start by crossing off everything that was already in the cottage when you moved in, that’ll speed the job up.’
‘Good thinking – and that’s most of the furniture, for a start, though there are a few good pieces that belong to me, like the Welsh dresser, the rocking chair, that funny dark wood corner cabinet with the twirly barley-sugar columns … oh, and the black wood triangular chair with the rush seat. Those were all Gran’s.’
‘I wish I could come and help, but we’re going over to Grant’s mum’s for Sunday lunch today.’
‘It’s kind of you to offer, but I don’t mind doing it alone,’ I told her and, since it was better than sinking into a black hole of misery over Julian and wondering what the future held, I got right down to it as soon as she’d rung off.
I went through the small cottage methodically, room by room, starting upstairs. There wasn’t anything in the boxroom of mine, except for the luggage and clothing recently dumped there, but I circled the Lloyd Loom chair and laundry basket in the bathroom. I’d bought them from a junk shop, resprayed them white and made a new padded lid and cushion from a small remnant of fifties fabric printed with jolly poodles and the Eiffel Tower.
There was a matching cushion on the chair in what had been our bedroom and a few pieces of bric-a-brac. In pride of place on one wall hung a framed seventeenth-century sampler that had been my thirtieth birthday gift from Julian, though the rest of my collection was in the sitting room.
Julian’s personal effects, like his watch and cufflinks, were still in his top drawer and though I cried over them, I left them where they were. They seemed to have pushed his belongings aside, rather than cleared them out like mine.
Downstairs, the oak settle, the mahogany hallstand and the splendid carpet runner up the polished floor of the hall had already been crossed off, but I’d bought the yellow Chinese pottery umbrella stand recently, because I’d been drawn to sunny, cheerful things during the dark days after Julian’s first stroke.
The cloakroom held nothing of mine except coats and boots, and the tiny room next to it had been solely Julian’s studio and den. But the sitting room, cosy and cluttered, was the one I was putting off.
Time slipped by as memories were evoked by the things we’d acquired together, even though I firmly crossed them off the list, one by one, denying Willow any opportunity to do a Judgement of Solomon and divide them into two useless halves.
The soft ticking of Julian’s row of carriage clocks on the mantelpiece kept me company, once I’d wound and reset them.
The bureau held my personal paperwork in one of the drawers. I hoped they hadn’t been through that, but I wouldn’t put it past them.
There were boxes of photographs in there, too, mainly of windows, occasionally with either me or Julian in the foreground, as well as the annual workshop Christmas pictures: me, Julian, Grant and old Ivan. Ivan’s grandson, Louis, had taken the last one. He’d hoped Julian would take him on as an apprentice when he left sixth-form college next summer, but now his future, like mine, was obscured by uncertainty.
Willow had listed every single sampler in my collection, all the antique plates hanging in the kitchen and even the bits of pottery on my dresser. It must have taken her hours, and was entirely pointless because I ringed each and every one.
How I’d loved my kitchen, with the big old wooden table and the rocking chair near the inglenook fireplace, which was big enough to take whole logs. A jewel-bright rag rug lay in front of it, made by Molly. I’d added to the crockery and utensils over the years, but who cared so much about those that they would carefully list and describe each potato peeler and mixing bowl?
Willow, apparently.
I was flagging, but on to the last page, and Willow must have felt the same by this point, because the larder seemed largely to have defeated her. The jams, pickles and chutneys lined up on the shelves were clearly labelled with mine or Molly’s names and the dates we’d put them up and I wasn’t about to come to blows over who owned the vegetable rack or the large cake stand with a glass dome over it.
‘I think Willow’s head would look nice under that,’ said Julian’s clear, cool and amused voice, and I turned quickly as if I expected to find him there. But of course he wasn’t, even though I’d felt his occasional presence ever since last night’s visit to the studio, and been comforted by it.
At the bottom of the final page Willow must have had a sudden last burst of enthusiasm, for she had even listed the gardening tools in the shed, not to mention the pots and bags of bark chippings in the old outhouse. Was there no part of my home she hadn’t inquisitively sifted through? It was as if she was trying to pull out long threads from the tapestry of my life, so that it fell into holes before my eyes.
By now, hours had slipped by and the short day was fading, as I suppose the sense of Julian’s presence and his voice in my head woul
d slowly vanish over the coming days, for they were no more than an echo of the past.
It occurred to me that my life was falling into a kind of pattern: the idyllic near-decade of golden childhood with Carey, the lonely wasteland of boarding school, the joyful reunion at uni, and then the happy years with Julian. Now it was time for another lonely wasteland bit, though this time I still had Carey.
I was suddenly desperate to ring him and hear his familiar, dear, deep warm voice. I thought he must be out of rehab and staying with Nick by now, but he had had so much to endure that I didn’t feel it would be fair to burden him with my woes just before Christmas.
Anyway, he’d be totally frustrated that he couldn’t rush up here to support me through all this, and that was the last thing I wanted.
But still, it was comforting to know he was there. In the New Year, when things were more sorted in my mind and I knew where I stood, I’d talk to him. I might even go down and stay with him and Nick for a couple of days – but not while Willow was poised like an albino vulture over my precious possessions.
I went back into the kitchen and highlighted all my stuff in bright pink, then propped Willow’s copy against the teapot, before forcing down a meal I didn’t want and setting off for the workshop. I felt I could work again, now. I must work.
The comfortingly familiar and beloved environment folded round me like downy wings as I settled to cutting out a roundel of clear glass and grinding black enamel paint on a slab. Then I placed Julian’s drawing of the angel with my face on the light-box and traced it on to the roundel, using a long, fine brush. When that had dried I added a little stippling detail with a fatter and stiffer badger-hair one, to give depth.
When it was completed, I put it in a tray in the rack ready to be fired and then carried on and painted some of the pieces of the rose window that were laid out ready, too. You can’t think about other things while painting glass: you have to concentrate.
I had coffee at some point and a couple of the fig roll biscuits from the tin, which were Julian’s favourite, then later dozed off in my office chair for a while.
When I woke, I felt reluctant to go back to the cottage, so it was very late when finally I locked up and set off under a cold, silvery-sequin-starred sky.
Nat’s car was in the drive and as soon as I entered the kitchen, I spotted that Willow’s copy of the inventory had vanished.
It would have been too much to hope that Nat and Willow would have done the same.
When Mr Revell arrived, I was engaged in painting the face of the Virgin Mary on to a piece of clear glass over a cartoon of my own design. I had been determined that she should not wear the self-satisfied and even smug simper so common in ecclesiastical windows.
I looked up as Father ushered our visitor through the room where I was working and my brush momentarily stilled, for he was the embodiment of how I imagined an angel would look – tall, slender and with burnished red-gold hair, pale skin and eyes of an unusual blue with a hint of purple, like harebells or violets …
He also appeared much younger than I expected, though that might have been his air of boyish enthusiasm. I learned later that he was in fact thirty-four, more than ten years my senior.
7
Clear as Glass
I got up just after five, as I used to before Julian’s illness, though then my mind was always buzzing with ideas and I was eager to start each new day. That seemed a very long time ago.
But there was still work to be done. The painting and silver-staining of Julian’s final window commission must be completed in the way he would have wanted.
Luckily Nat and Willow didn’t seem to be early risers, so I ate my toast and drank my coffee in peace, before going down to the workshop. The theme of the window was Noah and the Flood, and I put on Julian’s CD of Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde to play in the background, just as he would if he’d been there. And actually, it felt as if he still was …
By the time Grant arrived at half past eight, I’d painted the rest of the glass for one of the few remaining panels, ready to be fired in the kiln along with the angel’s head.
I made us both coffee and, after he’d said how sorry he was about Julian, we turned to discussing the work in hand, before I glanced at my watch and told him I’d better get off to see the solicitor.
‘I need to know how I stand, because Nat seemed so certain he was entitled to take over the workshop and everything straight away.’
‘Perhaps he is, though it doesn’t seem right to me,’ Grant said, shaking his head. ‘Molly told me how they treated you when you got home on Saturday, too. They should be ashamed of themselves and I’d like to give that Nat a thick ear!’
‘They were very unpleasant, but please don’t say anything to Nat,’ I begged him. ‘He’s spiteful enough to sack you if you do, even though he’d be cutting his nose off to spite his face. He couldn’t run the workshop without you.’
‘Well, he’s a good enough craftsman in the field himself – he’s got on well at that big leaded light firm in London – so he might think he could. Still, let’s see what the solicitor says first, then we’ll know where we all stand,’ he said sensibly. ‘I’ve been here since I left school and didn’t think I’d ever work anywhere else, but if it comes to it, then there are other firms who’d take me on in a flash.’
‘I’m certain they would,’ I said, because he was an excellent craftsman with years of experience. ‘But let’s see what I find out.’
I left him loading the trays of painted glass into the big kiln, which lived next to a smaller version in the back room.
Outside, the winter sunshine was low and dazzling and I almost collided with Nat, who glowered at me in his usual appealing fashion.
‘I’m just off to see Mr Barley,’ I said. ‘Grant’s loading the kiln.’ I didn’t mention the angel’s head roundel, my own personal small project, which Grant would slip in with the rest.
‘I suppose you’re taking the whole day off?’ he said disagreeably.
‘No, of course I’m not,’ I snapped. ‘There’s work to be done and I’ve been at it since six. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I expect you’ll be starting the inventory of the workshop while I’m out,’ I added. ‘Grant knows what’s what, but I’ll discuss it with you later.’
Nat muttered something about Willow wanting to talk to me first, probably about her inventory. I was starting to feel as if a pair of vultures was circling over me, so I brushed past him and walked briskly off. I’d intended changing the old fleece and jeans I was wearing for something cleaner and smarter, but instead bypassed the cottage and headed straight for my car.
It was an ancient dark green Citroën hatchback (paid for, owned and insured by myself, so Nat and Willow could keep their talons off it), and was reluctant to start after standing in the cold for over a week. But eventually it roared into life and I took a roundabout route to the solicitor’s office, in the next village, in order to charge the battery up a bit.
Mr Barley had visited the cottage a few times and we’d also frequently met at local social events, so I knew him quite well.
He was a large, plump, hearty man, with lint-fair hair, a ruddy face and slightly protuberant grey eyes. After some obligatory but sincerely meant expressions of condolence, his secretary brought in coffee and biscuits and we settled down to business.
‘This is a sad homecoming for you, Angelique, and I’m afraid there are also some difficulties to face regarding the disposal of Julian’s estate,’ he began. ‘I’ve already talked to Julian’s son, Nat, of course. In fact, he rang me last Monday morning, the day after the … unfortunate occurrence. Then he called to see me that very afternoon.’
‘He didn’t let the grass grow beneath his feet, did he?’
‘No,’ Mr Barley agreed, and then asked, ‘I suppose he and his wife are still staying with you?’
‘They are, though oddly it feels the other way round and that I’m the visitor, there under sufferance,’ I
said wryly. ‘They’re returning to London right after the funeral, but say they’ll be back for good in the New Year.’
It was only as I said the word ‘funeral’ that I fully realized that it was actually taking place tomorrow and the thought hit me like a blow. I hadn’t even had any input in the order of service, or the music to be played … nothing. I’d been written out of Julian’s life.
I blinked back a sudden rush of tears and said, ‘Mr Barley, I need your advice, because Nat told me he would inherit Julian’s entire estate and he doesn’t even have to wait for probate before taking over the cottage and business.’
Mr Barley steepled his fingers and looked seriously at me over the top of them. ‘That must have given you a considerable shock, but I’m afraid things have fallen out rather unfortunately. You knew that Julian was making a will?’
I nodded. ‘He told me just before I went to Antigua. He said he wanted to make sure I was provided for if he … went first and so was leaving me the business and the cottage. I didn’t think that was fair to Nat and argued about it.’ I smiled wryly. ‘That seems a bit ironic now, me fighting Nat’s corner!’
‘I drafted the will along those lines, but since Julian was leaving all his quite considerable investments to Nat, in my opinion it would have been a most equable distribution.’
‘I tried to persuade him to leave me a much smaller legacy, perhaps enough to buy my own house, though actually I never thought it would come to that: I always imagined Julian and I growing old together and working as long as we could.’
‘One never knows what fate will bring,’ he said. ‘But it’s a great pity Julian didn’t have time to sign the will, because unfortunately it means that Nat was correct and you are quite left out of any inheritance.’
The House of Hopes and Dreams Page 6
