“You didn’t need to make it especially for me, I’m happy with whatever.”
He accepts the plate from her, but five minutes later, he also helps himself to a couple of sausages, and a little later asks for a bigger helping and pours gravy over the lot.
I watch him to see if he’s upset his girlfriend is clearly coming on to Osian. He doesn’t seem to look at them. In fact, he absolutely doesn’t look at that end of the table, not once. He’s better than me because my eyes keep going there.
Nora toys with her food, then asks loud enough for many of us to hear: “Any chance of something different?”
Haneen’s smile drops, but quickly she says, “Sure, what would you like?”
“Anything that’s healthy and won’t give us high cholesterol.”
And just like that, Nora goes to the top of my shit list.
“Ungrateful cow,” hisses Shirley, the lady with red hair beside me. “Why doesn’t she eat in her room?”
Leonie, too, looks upset. “I know how hard it is to prepare a meal for so many people and Haneen is the nicest, most generous woman in the world.”
To distract them, I lean forward and ask, “Can you help me? There’s someone I want to talk to. Alexander, the mosaics expert. Evan did introduce us but that was a couple of weeks ago and at the time there’d been a lot of new faces and names.”
“Oh, Alex. Yes.” Leonie brightens and scans up and down the table. “He’s there, sitting next to Gethin.” Then she sees my baffled expression. “Gethin is the guy in the wheelchair with the risqué jokes.”
When I look where she’s pointing, no baseball cap. “Which one is Alex?”
“In the forest-green waistcoat.”
Alex is a tall man in a grandad shirt and waistcoat. He wears a string necklace with a painted cross just visible through his collar. His hair is tied back with a dark elastic band.
“He cleans up well, doesn’t he?” Leonie winks.
“Cleans up? He’s unrecognisable!” I say.
Unfortunately, he’s at the far end so when we’ve finished our meal, I get up and go to find him. People break into smaller groups, chatting, coffee cups in hand. It takes me a minute tocross the room because a couple of people stop me for a more personal welcome. So it’s Alex who comes looking for me.
“Hi, Evie.” He shakes my hand. “I’ve been studying that wall you uncovered on the terrace.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
He pulls a couple of chairs aside and we sit. A minute later, Evan himself joins us.
“What can you tell me about the mosaics in this house?” I ask him once the small talk is out of the way. “I can’t help the feeling that mosaic writing on the blue wall was something more than decorative.”
“I’m glad someone agrees with me.” Alex beams. “I think a mosaic artist who must have lived here used this art to hide important messages.”
“Hide?” Evan asks. “You didn’t say hide when we talked about this last week. That poem seems straightforward enough.” He points towards the front door where a long line of text is just visible in the mosaic border above.
Alex glances over his shoulder. “I broke my heart in five pieces? Yeah, that’s just a quote.” He turns back to us. “But don’t forget, that was done much later. Idris Davis wasn’t even born when some of the other mosaics were done. And the technique is much more modern.” Alex absentmindedly plays with the painted cross at his throat. “I’d say it was done to carry on the practice of celebrating Welsh poetry. But the older stuff, like that one on Evie’s blue wall”—he fixes me with a speculative look—“that wasn’t even Welsh, it was just Keats. And the end isn’t even him. What are the five colours of hope?”
“I’ve been asking the same question.”
“You make it sound mysterious, maybe even ominous,” Evan says. “I don’t agree. Kendric House was very much at the heart of the Romantic and then Arts and Crafts movements. It played host to many artists of the time and gave them a free hand in building or designing things here. It’s why none of the wings in the house look alike, and why none of the gardens look the same. Some of them might have been friends with Keats and who’s to say that last line about the five colours wasn’t just an early draft of the poem before John Keats edited it and cut those words?”
Alex shakes his head. “There are a number of mysteries here. Take the Blue Lady. She pops up in the least likely places.”
The Blue Lady?“There is a stained-glass panel above my front door with a lady in blue,” I start.
“Exactly. But she only seems to appear in rooms facing North Park. Everything tells me—” Alex pauses and beckons someone over “—the professor thinks the same. They used the decorative features like mosaics, stained glass and murals to express things about the house, and perhaps the families who lived here. Some of them are quite cryptic. I haven’t seen them all yet and most need a lot of cleaning before they can be made out.”
“Cryptic? Why?”
