Trish smiled tightly and walked off, returning with a bottle dripping with condensation. Penelope raised her recharged glass, her ice-blue eyes sparking. ‘Here’s to you and your new house – I am going to help you decorate it. We’re going to have such fun together!’
Eight
The shed which served as Christina’s workshop was barely ten square feet, squeezed into the corner of the garden she tended with as much devotion as her craft. After dropping Elspeth at school that morning, she’d spent an hour bringing order to the cottage garden – clearing beds, straightening borders, and imagining the buried bulbs readying themselves to pierce their warm blanket of mulch with spring colour.
Now, back in her shed, the harsh beam of her headlamp cut across the workbench, setting the silver ablaze as she worked. The gentle tapping of her tools mingled with the distant bleat of sheep drifting over the Devon hills.
Rain pattered steadily against the shed roof, filling Christina’s workshop with a soft, droning hush that made the space feel like a world apart. Her breath clouded faintly in the chill, but she didn’t mind the cold. She was bent over, a loupe balanced at her eye, a tiny lion passant on a bowl the focus of her attention. This was the final commission she’d agreed to do for Ernest in exchange for him getting Flora to sell Chase Lodge. The bowl was a lovely thing – Georgian, with delicate repoussé work depicting trailing vines around its body. The rim had that soft, undulating edge that came from centuries of polishing, and the handles, cast as acanthus leaves, showed the kind of crisp detail that modern reproductions never quite captured.
Outside, birds grumbled about the weather. She shifted slightlyon her stool and picked up her burnisher, tested the patina with gentle pressure, feeling for the telltale resistance of authentic age.
She couldn’t shake Elspeth’s report from her mind. She remembered all too well the moment that she herself had received her first bad school report, a few months after her father had gone to New York on an extended business trip and she and her mother had relocated to Suffolk. She must have been about Elspeth’s age. She and her mum had moved into a council flat, and after their big house in Glasgow, it was taking her a while to get used to. She could almost hear the hiss of the steam press, see the blue light of the TV glowing in the corner, when her mother raised the topic of her report. Dee was working as a school secretary back then – low pay, long hours, and a headteacher who treated her like a human post-it note.
‘Why have you started to answer back to teachers, love?’ Asked her mother, her voice gravelly but soft.
‘I only do it when they’re wrong, Mam!’ she shot back. ‘Or when they mention Dad.’
The iron stopped. ‘What do you say if they talk about him?’
‘What you told me to! That he ran away to New York and left us. Then I stick my tongue out and say it’s none of their business.’
Her mother pressed a pleat like it was a sacred ritual. ‘Oh Tina, sweetheart. I know you miss him. But you must be more careful. Don’t push. Don’t shout. Don’t make waves.’ The iron glided over creases. ‘It’s best not to think about your dad too much, and just concentrate on fitting in. Make everyone believe you’re harmless, and you’ll have a happy life. Smart girls bend, sweetheart. Stupid ones break.’
Christina put down the burnisher and sighed. She had believed her mother’s words for so long. Had bent herself around others all through school. But at university, away from Dee, she started sharing her real thoughts, even if they differedfrom other people’s opinions. And when she first met Hamish at St Andrews, he lapped it up; he seemed to revel in her rebelliousness. Then she met Lady Flora, and Christina smoothed herself to fit the shape she thought her mother-in-law would admire. Now Christina had bent so far, she wasn’t sure where she started anymore.
She picked up her polishing cloth. Then she heard the latch.
Hamish. She didn’t need to look up. No one else opened a door as if they already owned whatever lay beyond it.
‘Cold out there,’ he announced, shaking the rain from his curls.
She glanced up. ‘You’re in cords and a woollen jumper. You’re practically insulated.’
He smiled absently, then dropped a magazine on the table with a soft thud. ‘I found Elspeth’s school report.’
The polishing cloth felt heavier. ‘I meant to show you,’ she said too quickly.
He looked at her, that distant fog lifting just a little. ‘It’s not good.’ He swallowed. ‘Schoolwork seems fine, but ... there are behavioural concerns. That doesn’t sound like her.’
‘Do you think she’s just being a drama queen?’
‘I know she likes drama. But she never used to perform in the classroom.’
‘She’s not violent,’ Christina said, trying to convince herself as much as Hamish. ‘She’s not bullying anyone. She’s just ... eleven. And clever. And theatrical. She’s experimenting, maybe. Answering back. Pushing boundaries?’
He didn’t argue, but he didn’t agree either. He looked toward the rain-glossed window.
‘She’s got too much freedom,’ he said at last. ‘I wonder if she wouldn’t benefit from full-time boarding.’
Christina let out a slow breath, trying not to bristle. ‘What she needs is love.’
‘Shegetslove.’
‘She getsstructure, Hamish. What she needs is affection. Hugs.’
He looked stung, then went quiet, like he was shelving the topic in some dusty mental archive. ‘My parents didn’t do hugs,’ he muttered.
Christina felt a sudden urge to hug him right then and there but didn’t know if he would welcome it. ‘You went to boarding school at seven,’ Christina pointed out. ‘No one hugged back then.’
