‘Goodness, yes. Nothing a nap and a cuppa won’t sort.’
‘See you tonight for baking?’
‘Hmm.’ She hesitates. ‘I might give it a miss, if you don’t mind, just this once? Bit tired.’
She leaves me and Lucy on the pavement, making her way slowly to her gate, looking further from the smiling, silver-lining-seeking Izz than I’ve ever seen her. Hopefully, she’ll forget all about Fern’s prying by the morning.
I tell Lucy to take the umbrella and walk ahead to get the heating on and the cottage pie in the oven. I have an errand to run.
I watch her walk away before crossing the street to the gallery, another beautiful old Wheaton building in a high street handsome enough to rival any Jane Austen BBC adaptation. The gallery is all honey-coloured stone with two big, curving windows jutting out over the pavement. I have to ring the bell before I’m allowed in.
The woman in front of the shiny oak console looks at me expectantly while I drip onto the doormat. There’s only me and her in the silence of the white showroom. She’s probably not that much younger than me and is in head-to-toe loose black drapery with huge black specs. They don’t get many locals calling in, I suppose. It’s more ‘by appointment only’ connoisseurs and collectors, I imagine, but today I want something in particular.
‘You’re interested in the Wenham-Ford catalogue?’ the woman asks, doubtfully, before gesturing to a wall of gilt-framed images of hunched grey abstract figures.
I shake my head, feeling sorry for anyone who gets one of those for Christmas. She scans my body, stopping at my Doc Martens.
‘Or the Ivo Brisks?’ she tries, and we both turn to look at the ceramic sculptures on white plinths. These are definitely more interesting in their glossy colourfulness, but no.
‘I’m only after a little present,’ I say, making for the shelves by the furthest window.
It’s slim pickings but what they do have is luxurious-looking. There are no prices on anything which means they’re going to be eye-wateringly expensive. Lucy deserves something special, though, so it won’t matter.
I scan the coloured inks in squat bottles, slim brushes, rainbow tubes of oils, mysterious sticks of wax, and various other bits and pieces I’m not quite sure the use of. I pick out a long, narrow spiral-bound pad of handmade paper and a tin with a palette of heavily pigmented shimmery metallic paint blocks inside.
‘Pretty sure I had eyeshadows that looked like this in the Eighties,’ I tell the woman who’s been conspicuously trying not to watch over me like I might be a rural art supplies shoplifter.
She only smiles tightly.
I notice there’s no brush included with the tin, so lift a thin, pointy one from a jar. Years ago, I’d have bristled at the obvious stand-offishness of places like this and the feeling of being an outsider. I might have noisily rummaged in the brushes and bought two more I didn’t need to spite someone like her, to show that you should never make assumptions about people. I could be arty, and loaded. There’s no saying how many Ivo Brisks, or whatever his name is, I’ve got stashed in my attic. But I behave myself. One pretty brush is all I need.
There’s no till, only a flat pad sort of thing on the console table where I’m invited to tap my card. I refuse the gift wrap but let her tie everything with a grey bow, and I carry Lucy’s gifts back to the cottage.
Seeing her absorbed in a creative project would be the best Christmas present I could get. It would mean the old Lucy was still in there somewhere, waiting to come back out to play.
Chapter Six
Monday 4 December, 3.30 p.m.: The Handyman
‘You want the strings suspended from that rafter there?’ Patrick asks me as he sets up his camping floodlight. He is absolutely the kind of man who’d keep a floodlight in his workshop just in case a crazed lady friend wanted help hanging a gingerbread reindeer-led sleigh from the ceiling in a village hall without all its amenities connected.
‘Thereabouts,’ I tell him, and he sets up his stepladders right in the middle of the village hall. ‘And you invited the superhead over to see the place?’ I ask.
‘Mr Bold? I did. He said he’d try to call in after the school governors’ meeting but, I have to tell you, if you’re hoping to appeal to his community spirit, you’re barking up the wrong tree.’
Patrick climbs his ladders until he’s in touching distance of the main beam that runs across the hall ceiling. I watch as he pulls the ball of catgut and the penknife from his pockets and sets to work measuring four floor-length strands to tie up there.
‘It’s just icing a few biscuits,’ I protest. ‘The little ones help us do it every year. He won’t object.’
‘He’s not even having a nativity for the Early Years kids this year,’ says Patrick dryly, his eyes fixed on the task above his head.
‘No!’ I’ve heard it all now.
‘Says it interferes with their learning.’
‘What about learning what it feels like to stand on a stage, or to speak in public? Or learn all the Christmas songs and make fairy wings from coat hangers and a halo from tinsel? That’s learning.’
Patrick’s deftly tied the four strings and is making his way back down the ladders. I admit, I’ve stood around watching him and achieved precisely nothing so far. I hurriedly pour the bleach into the water bucket and pull on my Marigolds.
