‘Perhaps you could go and look through it and pick out any that you like. My own choices don’t seem to have struck much of a chord in London.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ said Mam.
‘Yes, the comments book for Grotesque Old Woman was so strongly worded, it had to be shredded.’
Tom said, ‘What about the pizza painting, though? How could anyone not like that?’
‘Pizza painting?’
‘The one with the pizza boxes and the nuts.’
‘Ah. The Meléndez. No, I’m afraid not. Really the whole exercise is a most dreadful waste of time. People in general would far rather look at pictures of footballers or celebrities or some such. The paintings should simply be left here in peace.’
‘With you.’
‘Exactly.’
‘They must’ve liked the umbrella painting, though,’ said Mam.
‘The Renoir met with deafening indifference – perhaps it was over-familiar,’ said Lester.
‘Well, we loved it here,’ said Mam. ‘Come and see.’
And she made Lester come and stand on the forecourt. ‘Just step up there,’ she said, pointing to the little wall by the ‘OPEN’ sign. He did as she told him. It was about ten to nine. ‘Any minute now,’ said Mam. And then out it came out on to the street: the psychedelic boa constrictor. I have to say, it does look hectic. You should come and look at it. It’s easy to find, now we’ve got the sign.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Lester.
‘This is me,’ said Mam. ‘I did this. I bought the umbrellas after seeing your painting. This didn’t happen before. This is my work of art, inspired by your work of art.’
‘How extraordinary,’ said Lester. Then he got into his car and drove off.
‘I think that means he was impressed,’ said Mam.
We would have gone straight off to school then if we hadn’t heard a massive blast on the impressive horn of the BMW from somewhere up the mountain. So we knew he’d met the Misses Sellwood on their way down and we thought we’d better wait.
As I opened the gate to let them through, I said, ‘Did you miss him?’
‘Have we missed him?’ said Miss Elsa. ‘Oh dear. We saw him go by and we hurried after. We did so want to speak to him. What a pity. We’ve missed him, Edna.’
‘We wanted to show him one of Father’s paintings, see,’ said Miss Edna. ‘Here, help me out with it.’
There was no sign of a bump on the car, so Lester must have managed to avoid them. That’s the beauty of power-assisted four-wheel drive. The painting was in the boot, wrapped in a tea towel with ‘Souvenir of Caernarfon’ written on it. We carried it into the shop. Marie was just getting ready to go to school herself. She said, ‘Hello, girls,’ to the Sellwoods, and they went all giggly. They love it when she calls them girls because they’re not girls, they are old, old women. I mean really old. It’s quite funny when Miss Elsa giggles because she doesn’t make much of a sound, but she does shake. She’s quite wobbly most of the time anyway, but when she giggles, she’s just a blur. The bright blue hair makes her look like some kind of dancing lollipop.
Miss Edna said, ‘This is one of our da’s paintings.’
‘Oh, lovely,’ said Marie. ‘Is it the one of the mountain? The one you were telling us about?’
Miss Elsa said, ‘This is one of our da’s paintings.’
‘They know that,’ said Miss Edna. ‘I just told them that. They’re asking if it’s the one of the mountain. I told you they’d be more interested in the one of the mountain.’
‘He painted one of the mountain,’ said Miss Elsa.
‘They know that.’ Miss Edna was trying to get the tea towel off the painting. Her hands looked like big chunks of tangled-up string.
‘Here. Let me,’ said Marie, and she took the tea towel off.
We were probably thinking it would be a big grey painting, like the paintings we did in art. It wasn’t. It wasn’t a bit like that. It was a painting of a little girl, the prettiest girl any of us had ever seen, prettier than our Marie even, if you ask me.
‘Look at that complexion,’ said Marie. ‘That’s real skin tone for you. And her hair. That hair has got body. And lustre. And not a split end in sight. That outfit’s lovely, too, isn’t it?’ The girl was dressed up like a gypsy or something. ‘Who is it then? His old girlfriend?’
The Misses Sellwood giggled again. Edna said, ‘They want to know who it is, Elsa.’
Elsa said, ‘Tell them who it is.’
‘Don’t you recognize her?’ said Miss Edna. ‘That’s our Elsa, look.’ And she nudged Miss Elsa so that her old, wrinkly face was next to the round, glowy face of the girl, like a walnut next to a peach.
‘It’s me,’ said Elsa. ‘It’s a picture of me when I was a little bit younger.’ And she laughed so hard a sound came – a dry sound, like someone scrunching paper.
We all looked from the pretty little girl to the old blind lady who stood at the counter, staring up into nowhere.
Time is obviously the strongest mutagen of them all.
Marie didn’t say anything. She was staring at the picture. She looked at Elsa, then she looked back at the picture again, really quickly.
‘She was lovely though, wasn’t she?’ said Miss Edna. ‘That’s why Da painted her and not me. She was lovely. Wouldn’t you say, Marie?’
Minnie said what we were all thinking. ‘You’ve changed a bit then, Miss Elsa.’
‘Minnie!’ hissed Mam and frowned.
‘We all do, you know,’ said Elsa. ‘You’ll change yourselves some day.’ Her knobbly hands were gripping the counter for support. ‘Pretty as you are.’
Marie said, ‘Excuse me,’ and, instead of going to school, she went up to her room and closed the door.
Lester’s book wasn’t that bad after all, by the way. Even though nearly all the pictures were of women with no clothes on. Great gangs of them, running round in the woods, or sleeping in fields, or being chased by men in armour. In one the woman was having a picnic with some men in bowler hats. Me and Mam and Minnie and Max sat down to look through it that night (Marie was still in her room). I was telling them how every time anyone saw a painting, the painting seemed to change them.
‘They’d better not see some of these,’ said Minnie. ‘That’d be hectic. Everyone in Manod running round the woods in the nuddy.’
There was also a surprising number of pictures of people getting their heads cut off. As Mam said, ‘Don’t even think about that.’
There was one of a man and a woman and a little dog, all standing next to each other, with a little mirror on the wall behind them. The mirror was so real you could almost see yourself in it. It was called The Arnolfini Portrait.
‘Look at the way he’s holding her hand,’ said Minnie. ‘They’re both in their best hats. It’s a wedding photograph. Except it’s not a photograph, of course. It must have taken ages to paint. Look, there’s mud on her shoes.’
It’s true. When you looked closely you could see it.
Anyway, we decided on that one.
There was trouble at bedtime. Marie was still barricaded in her room, and she wasn’t letting Minnie in.
‘I want to go to sleep.’
‘Go and sleep in Mam’s room.’
‘I’ve got no duvet.’
Marie opened the door and poked a wodge of duvet through. Minnie tugged it out and the door banged shut again.
We went to complain to Mam. She said, ‘Don’t worry about it. We all have our off days. Marie’s having one today.’
The moment she said it we heard a drill start up. Marie had taken the padlock off Dad’s big toolbox and was fixing it to her bedroom door. It took her about five minutes. She really is handy with power tools.
Mam said, ‘Never mind. Come and look at this.’ There was this big fancy book on the bed, which she’d been reading and Max had been chewing. ‘It’s my wedding photos,’ she said. I’d seen the book before, but I’d never bothered looking at the pictures until now.
There was Dad with loads of curly black hair and Mam with a skinny little waist. And practically everyone in Manod, all looking magically younger.
‘Hang on,’ said Minnie. ‘Isn’t that Mr Davis there, with Uncle Ivor?’
‘Yes. He’s a lot thinner there.’
‘But he’s sort of . . . well, you know . . . he’s smiling.’
‘It was a wedding.’
‘But Mr Davis doesn’t smile. Not ever.’
‘He did then, though.’
‘So what happened?’
‘What d’you mean?’ asked Mam.
‘Once he used to smile and now he doesn’t,’ said Minnie. ‘What happened in between?’
‘Well, you know,’ said Mam. ‘Stuff. Life. Things that happen.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ said Mam. And she did. And it was something really bad. It turns out that Mr Davis used to have a little boy. The boy and his mam went to the swimming baths in Harlech. Mr Davis went to collect them. He was backing into his parking space when his wife let go of the little boy’s hand. The boy got behind the car, where Mr Davis couldn’t see him, and he was crushed between the car and the wall. Imagine that.
‘I didn’t even know Mr Davis was married.’
‘It was very bad. They blamed each other. He was driving the car, so you could say it was his fault. She was in charge of little Ben – that was his name – so maybe it was her fault. It was all very bad. No one wants to remember it. When it first happened, Mr Davis was angry. He used to stand outside his shop and yell at people if they tried to cross the road. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous? You could be killed at any time.” All that. And outside the school he’d shout at the kids if they were running too fast in the playground, in case they got hurt. It was him who called the insurance about the boating lake. He said there weren’t enough lifebelts. The insurance people came down and they agreed with him. The council said that lifebelts weren’t a spending priority, and that’s when they boarded up the lake. Just after that is when he saw Elvis. That made him a bit happier. Seeing someone everyone thought was dead. He thinks King Arthur’s still alive too.’
‘And liver,’ said Minnie.
‘Actually liver is alive.’
‘It isn’t,’ I said. ‘Is it?’
‘No, of course it isn’t.’ She gave me a shove. Then she looked at the wedding photographs again. ‘Go and get your book of paintings. Cheer me up.’
We flicked through The National Gallery Companion together. A massive horse rearing up. A woman with a huge bottom. Men with goats’ legs. People playing cards. And, near the end, quite a splodgy one of some people in a rowing boat on a river on a sunny day.
‘There,’ said Mam. ‘See that? That’s what Manod used to look like. Just like that.’
It was called Bathers at La Grenouillère. No one getting beheaded. No one running round in the nuddy. Just some rowing boats tied to a wooden jetty and people standing around, talking to each other. Oh, and the sun shining, like on top of the mountain. I said, ‘OK. We’ll send them that one instead of the wedding one.’
‘No, send the wedding one. That’s the one you liked.’
‘No. If we send this one to London, maybe Dad will see it and maybe it will cheer him up.’
Then Mam hugged me so tight, I thought she was going to behead me.
17 June
Cars today:
RED FORD KA – Ms Stannard (petrol and Snickers)
WHITE MONTEGO – Mr Evans (returning box of fudge)
RED TOYOTA PRIUS T4 AUTOMATIC –
Dr Ramanan and family (a social call – all had coffee)
TWO WHITE COMBI VANS – men from the quarry (box of Crispy Choc Constables and a Tintoretto Turnover)
VAUXHALL ASTRA ESTATE 1.9 CDTi –
Mr Davis (Petrol! Cigarettes! Eggs! Shoe polish! Video – ‘Shrek’)
PLUS VW BEETLE, AUDI QUATTRO, SUBARU
FORESTER – all visitors
Weather – sunshine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Note: THE FIRST BOY ON THE BOATING LAKE SINCE MR DAVIS SAW ELVIS
This is the utterly hectic day when I became the first boy on the boating lake since Mr Davis saw Elvis. And it was all down to good customer relations, namely mine.
I remembered that Lester liked to open the box with the painting in on a Thursday evening, so Friday morning I asked Mam if she’d like to come and see the painting she picked, the one with the rowing boats.
‘I’ve got a lot on my mind,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’ll bother.’
I think she was worried about our Marie. It was over a week now since the Sellwoods had dropped off the painting, and in all that time no one had really seen Marie. Every morning she left early for school, padlocking the bedroom door behind her. As soon as she came home in the evening, she locked herself in again. The only time anyone saw her was when Mam called through the door and asked her to hold Max while she had a shower. Then Marie would take Max into her room for ten minutes and we’d hear laughing noises and sometimes see this weird flash of light. But mostly she was too cross to talk to. On the Tuesday, for instance, I saw her on the landing – which was where we’d put the picture – and she said, ‘Put that where I can’t see it. Or I’ll burn it.’ We put it in the utility room.
Anyway, when me and Minnie were walking up after school that Friday, we passed the butcher’s and I looked in the window and saw Mr Davis there, with his cleaver, and I thought about all the stress he must be having – a butcher who’s scared of liver. So I went in. I said, ‘Mr Davis . . .’
He said, ‘Are you here to have a conversation or are you here to buy meat? If it’s meat, just point. If it’s a conversation, I don’t do them.’
‘I think,’ I said, ‘I can get you in. Up there.’ And I nodded my head towards the mountain.
He put down his cleaver. ‘What? Up there?’ And he nodded at the mountain too.
‘They let me in. They think because I’m a kid I’m harmless. I won’t care about, you know, King Arthur, the Grail, who really rules the world and . . .’
He shushed me. ‘That’s dangerous talk. Their agents are everywhere.’ Then he came round to my side of the counter and closed the door.
‘Can you really get me in up there?’
‘No problem. We can go now if you like.’
‘I’ve got to make up a big barbecue pack for the Nirvana Retirement Home in Llechwedd. After that, I’ll come with you and we’ll Strike a Blow for Truth, eh?’
Mr Davis came and got me in the Astra Estate 1.9 (top speed a surprising 129 mph). In case you don’t know, it’s a diesel, but don’t let that fool you. It’s got very cool headlamps, a tinted rear window and alloys. It’s also got ESP, ABS and CDC. And IDS, HSA, UCL and DDS. HSA, by the way, is Hill Start Assist, which means you get extra time to find the accelerator after you take your foot off the brake, which is handy if you have to drive up Manod Mountain. DDS is even beastier. It’s a Deflation Detection System, and it tells you if your tyres are going down. That meant we could drive up feeling relaxed about the car. Mr Davis wasn’t relaxed though. He kept leaning forward, like a sheep that’s got wind of a packet of Quavers.
When we got to the top, I could see that Lester wasn’t happy. I thought it must be something to do with Mr Davis. He said, ‘The painting’s ready but I’m afraid I’m not convinced.’
He led us through to the room with the easel. Mr Davis whispered. ‘Nervous. Knows I’m on to him, see.’
Lester opened the door and stood back to let us in.
‘Going to show us a pretty picture then?’ said Mr Davis. ‘One of the ones you don’t mind us seeing.’
Lester looked a bit bewildered. ‘It’s the one the boy requested. As I mentioned, I’m far from certain myself.’
‘We’re not going to see the ones you don’t want us to see though, are we?’ said Mr Davis. ‘Just some pretty picture that anyone can see. Well, I’m on to you. Don’t think I’
m not. We all are. We’re not easily fooled in Manod.’
He was right about the picture being pretty. It was also very bright. The ripples on the river looked like they were really moving.
Mr Davis said, ‘Oh.’ I thought for a minute he must have found the answer to his secret code or whatever, he seemed that surprised.
‘You see my problem,’ said Lester. ‘London has, as you know, suffered from a series of floods. I’m anxious that, in the circumstances, sending a picture of people messing about in boats might be considered insensitive. Or even insulting.’
‘Where is that?’ said Mr Davis. ‘Where’s it supposed to be of?’ He sounded like he was on to something. Maybe the picture was a clue to where the Holy Grail was hidden. I remember Minnie saying something about a lake with a lady in it.
‘It’s a little island in the Seine in the summer of 1869. It’s called the Camembert, because it’s shaped like a cheese. Monet used to go there with Renoir. They were supposed to be working on sketches to make a large tableau painting for the Academy, but I think the summer and the wine distracted Monet somewhat, and he only completed these small, slightly hurried pochades. It’s not without charm or interest.’
‘Very nice,’ said Mr Davis. ‘Reminds me of Manod back in the day.’ Which is exactly what Mam said, so it must be right.
‘A painting like this would simply not have been possible before then. It was around this time that oil paint first became available in metal tubes, so the artist could paint easily in oils outdoors – almost impossible before then. The tubes made them portable and kept the paints soft and ready to use. In planning to do a great painting back at the studio later, Monet was thinking like a nineteenth-century artist. But his instincts and his hands were already those of a twentieth-century artist – not necessarily a good thing, of course. But looking at this does make you reflect. How wonderful it would be to have something so spontaneous and immediate by Michelangelo, of the marketplace in Florence, say, or a picnic in the Umbrian hills.’
Mr Davis said, ‘The boats. Were they private property? Or were they for hire?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve no idea.’
‘They look like they’re for hire. How much would they charge, d’you reckon?’
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