I took the tablet and in amazement read the notice. The local council had been given some Lottery money and wanted to spend it on an art project.
‘Presents from the Past,’ I read. ‘Artists from the borough are invited to apply for this grant, intended to cover living expenses for four months.’
I made a “wow” face at Tara who grinned.
‘You could live like a queen,’ she said.
‘I could pay off Max’s credit cards.’
Tara snorted, showing me exactly what she thought of my darling brother who’d taken out not one but two credit cards in my name, and whose debts I’d been paying since he went to jail.
‘What does Presents from the Past mean?’ she said.
I scanned the page. ‘The project has to be based on a story from the local area that is relevant to the past and the present,’ I said. ‘The rules are it has to be in a public space, or somewhere it can be seen by the public without payment.’
‘You could do this,’ Tara said.
‘I don’t know any stories from the local area.’
She shrugged. ‘You’ve literally lived here your whole life. There must be something. Ask your nan.’
‘I suppose …’
‘And think what you could do with that money.’ She looked at me intently. ‘You could cut your hours at Tall Trees and concentrate on your art for a while. Get your mojo back.’
I bit my lip. My creativity had taken a nosedive, what with the trouble with Max, and Nan declining, and Dad moving to Portugal permanently.
I’d done an exhibition, not long before Max was arrested. Not on my own, of course, but with a few other young artists in a great space right in Central London. We’d attracted quite a lot of attention and I’d loved it. It felt like the start of something big. Like all my hard work was paying off.
But then Max had turned up at my tiny flat, begging me to let him stay. And of course I had, even though he was edgy and acting weird. And then one day I’d come home and found my flat trashed and my laptop, my TV, anything of any value, gone. Which wasn’t much, to be fair, but it was everything I had.
And I had a horribly knotty suspicion that Max was behind it. But I’d had to tell the police, because I couldn’t claim on the insurance if I didn’t. And Max had vanished. His phone was unobtainable and I had no idea where he’d gone. I’d actually spent days worrying that he was dead. That he’d finally got on the wrong side of the wrong people and that was it.
But I’d carried on with my exhibition, telling myself Max would show up eventually because he always did. He didn’t though. Not this time.
I’d been standing in the middle of the gallery, looking around with wonder at the walls where my paintings were hanging, and thinking that I’d finally made it, when the police had arrived. And for an awful, horrible, terrifying minute I thought they’d come to tell me Max was dead.
In fact, they’d come to let me know they’d picked Max up in a stolen car, with a fairly hefty amount of cocaine in his bag, and my laptop on the back seat.
He blamed me for it, of course. Told me if I hadn’t reported the burglary to the police then he’d have been home and dry. He could have paid off his debts and started afresh.
‘All you care about is your crappy painting,’ he’d said. ‘You’ve let me down.’
And everything had fallen apart after that. It was like all the years of worrying about Max had finally exploded. I’d always been anxious but now I struggled to get out of bed each day, crippled with fear about the possibility of bad things happening.
I didn’t go back to the exhibition and I’d not had the energy to follow up any of the contacts I’d made. When my canvases – my huge abstract paintings – had come back from the gallery,I’d stacked them in Bernie’s garage and ignored them. That was months ago now, and it didn’t seem like anything was changing any time soon. Ten grand, though …
‘Applications have to be in by the end of the month,’ I said. ‘I can’t do that. That’s not long enough.’
‘It’s June 1,’ Tara said. ‘You’ve got the whole month. Why not just see if you can come up with some ideas? No pressure.’
I felt a bit sick at the thought, but I nodded. To my relief someone approached the bar and I leapt over to serve him.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said to Tara. ‘What can I get you, sir?’
Chapter 5
Elsie
