Francesca and the Mermaid Read online

  ‘What do you think?’ Paul said.

  Henry signalled approval with his eyes but said nothing. It was Francesca who answered him. ‘I think she looks good,’ she said, trying not to be too grudging. ‘Providing you don’t alter her.’

  ‘I think it might be an idea to trim the sea back a tad,’ Henry said, looking at the screen. ‘I think there’s too much of it. But of course, it’s your painting and if you don’t approve we wouldn’t do it. But in my opinion, for what it’s worth, I really think your mermaid would have more impact if we trimmed it back. We wouldn’t reduce it by much because the colours are such a perfect foil for those scales. Just sufficient to give her more prominence. Shall we show you?’

  She said yes even though she couldn’t see that anything in her picture needed any alteration at all and watched with misgiving while the greeny-blue waves retreated towards the centre of the plate and were then extended in several different directions and pulled back again into slightly different positions. It looked like a tide that had been filmed over twenty-four hours and was being played at ten times its normal speed. At first she was fascinated and appalled but after they’d shifted the position of the mermaid and changed the waves around her more than six or seven times, she began to get used to the idea that what they were trying to do was to set her painting in the best possible position to do justice to the mermaid’s sinuous curves. And then a curious excitement took over and she began to suggest other variations.

  ‘Coffee break,’ Henry said at last. ‘And doughnuts.’

  So they left the mermaid with her long tail echoing the curve of the plate exactly as she’d suggested, and she and Henry went off to his office for refreshment and negotiation.

  ‘I’m not going to rush you,’ he promised when the coffee and doughnuts had been carried in and set carefully on the desk before him. ‘When we first talked about it, I got the feeling you were – shall we say – not too keen on selling this painting to anyone. Right?’

  She nodded as he poured the coffee.

  ‘So my first question,’ he said handing her a full cup and suggesting sugar and cream by looking a query at her, ‘has to be – are you still of the same mind?’

  She helped herself to cream and sugar and drank her coffee while she thought about it. He was quite right, of course. She hadn’t wanted to part with her painting at all. Now, having seen it on the dinner plate, she wasn’t quite so sure.

  ‘Perhaps it would help if I were to tell you what I would like to use it for. . . ?’

  She looked at him steadily over the rim of her cup.

  ‘What I have in mind is to produce a mermaid dinner service,’ he told her. ‘It would be very high quality, naturally, because it would be costly to produce given the number of colours involved, but I think it would be well worth the outlay. We would aim at the higher end of the market which is where the money is – or perhaps I should say where the money still is – and advertise in all the quality magazines, that sort of thing. Like I told you, if we can pull it off, your mermaid will appear in all the best shops in the British Isles.’ She was looking interested but still hesitating so he decided the time had come to talk money. ‘I would offer you £5,000 for the copyright to the design and a position as a permanent member of my staff to do the painting. Naturally. I wouldn’t let an image as splendid as this one be handled by anyone else.’ And as she still seemed to be hesitating, he added, ‘It’s a generous offer.’

  It was so generous it had taken her breath away. £5,000 was a fortune, maybe even enough to put down a deposit on a flat and give her a place of her own. But even so, the mermaid was hers, and precious, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to spend her time painting it over and over again on a succession of dinner plates. Not now she was moving on to portraits. ‘I do appreciate what you’re offering me,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think I don’t, but. . . .’

  ‘But?’

  What could she say without making him think she was disparaging him or belittling his offer? She didn’t want to be rude or ungracious. Before she left Jeffrey she would have given him what he wanted without offering any resistance. Now she couldn’t do it, or at least she couldn’t do it yet, and she had to say so. Freedom may be a wonderful thing, she thought, but it’s difficult to handle. Finally she temporized. ‘I’d like to talk it over with Agnes,’ she said.

  It was a disappointment but he swallowed it. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Talk it over with anyone you like. You must take your time. It’s a big decision. Now is there anything else you’d like me to show you while you’re here?’

  He took her to every workshop and showed her the entire production process from start to finish, to the room where huge sacks of raw clay were stored, to rooms where cups and plates and saucers were being moulded and another where what he called biscuit-ware ‘that’s clay after the first firing’ was being painted by his artists and glazed ready to be fired again, to the dispatch rooms where dinner services and tea services were being encased in bubble wrap for protection and packed into cardboard boxes marked by the company logo, then back to the computer room so that she could collect her painting and finally to the canteen, where Molly and Paul were having lunch with their friends and stopped eating to wave to her. After that the tour was over and he had to face the fact that, although he’d waited patiently for her to change her mind and give him the decision he wanted, she wasn’t going to do it. So he escorted her out to the car and drove her home.

  It was another silent journey because they were entirely caught up in their own thoughts; he determined to keep his impatience and disappointment under control and to remain his usual calm and gentlemanly self, she torn between her long ingrained obligation to please other people and this new undeniable desire to keep her painting and find a job she really wanted to do.

  After she’d got out of the car in Agnes’ overgrown drive and he’d waved and driven away, she felt rather ashamed of herself. He’d made her the most generous offer she’d ever had in her life and he hadn’t pushed for an answer and she ought to have said yes there and then. But the moment was past and besides she did want to talk it over with Agnes and she hadn’t actually made a decision. I’ll tell her all about it, she thought as she drifted towards the kitchen door and if she says yes, I’ll do it.

  She said yes as soon as the story was finished. ‘It’s a wonderful offer. It could be the making of you. You’d be a fool not to take it.’

  Francesca was still doubtful. ‘All of it?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well I can see selling him the painting – that was a good offer, I mean nobody’s ever offered me anything for one of my paintings before, let alone five grand – but I’m not so sure about taking the job.’

  Agnes looked at her in her shrewd way, ‘Why not?’

  ‘It might be boring, painting the same thing day in day out.’

  ‘Or it could be fun. You can’t tell. He might commission other paintings. There are all sorts of possibilities.’

  That could be true, Francesca thought. On the other hand. . . .

  ‘It’s your life,’ Agnes said. ‘You’re free to live it any way you choose. I’d take it if it was me, but it’s entirely up to you when it comes down to it.’

  The decision was made, suddenly, the way she’d decided to leave Jeffrey. ‘I’ll ring him.’ She felt as if she was jumping into a very cold swimming pool and the shock of it was taking her breath away, but it was the right decision. ‘I expect you’ve got his number haven’t you.’

  By the time they went to bed that night, the mermaid was sold, she’d agreed that she would be one of Henry’s artists and that she would start work on Monday, she’d written to Randall & Tongs to ask for her P45 and her life had taken a heart-pounding turn in yet another direction. Tomorrow, she promised herself as she settled her head on the pillow, I’ll have a nice, quiet, ordinary, domestic day and tidy up this bedroom.

  It didn’t turn out in quite the way she’d planned, which
wasn’t for lack of effort on her part but for a reason she hadn’t foreseen.

  CHAPTER 5

  As soon as they’d finished breakfast the next morning, Agnes picked up her gardening hat from the table, rummaged among the cups on the dresser until she found her trowel and ambled off to the vegetable patch. Francesca stayed behind in the kitchen and washed the dishes, feeling virtuous and helpful, and when everything was cleared to her satisfaction, she went upstairs to begin her unpacking, deciding as she climbed that she would start with her clothes, because if she left them in her suitcases any longer they’d be so creased she’d have to iron them all over again.

  It didn’t take much time to empty the cases and hide them under the bed the way she’d done in her cabin. Then it was simply a matter of finding somewhere to store the various things that were now lying all over the duvet. There was a sizeable chest of drawers in one corner of the room and a long fitted wardrobe against the wall opposite the window so there was plenty of space. She opened the top drawer of the chest expecting it to be empty and thinking in a vague sort of way that that was where she would store her underwear. What she revealed gave her a shock. It was full of discarded clothes – felted jerseys, badly creased blouses, crumpled pants, laddered tights, petticoats that looked like museum pieces, frayed scarves, even a pair of battered old slippers – all tangled up together in such a tight mass that it took a considerable effort to shut the drawer again. Heavens! she thought. What a collection! I’ll bet she hasn’t used any of that for years. I’d chuck it all away if it was me. Maybe I ought to offer to sort it out for her. But just for the moment she had to concentrate on the job in hand and get her own clothes stored away. She opened the second drawer, ready to begin.

  It was the second shock of the morning. It was as full of tangled clothes as the first one had been and so were the third drawer and the fourth. She stood looking down at the muddle she’d revealed, feeling baffled by so much rubbish. Then she struggled all three drawers shut and turned her attention to the wardrobe. There were bound to be drawers or shelves in there that she could use. It ran the length of one wall and looked big enough to take everything she possessed. But it was a vain hope, as she discovered as soon as she opened the doors. The wardrobe was piled with old clothes too, not hanging up on the rails but lying in a pungent mound on the floor – coats, jackets, dresses of all kinds, skirts, trousers, more down-at-heel shoes. What an extraordinary thing! Doesn’t she ever throw anything away?

  She pulled a couple of dresses from the pile, thinking she might be able to hang them up and make a bit of room in the wardrobe that way, and then she realized why they’d been kept. They both had expensive designer labels, one Worth, the other Christian Dior. To see such beautiful, classy clothes flung on a pile as if they were rubbish gave her another palpable shock. She remembered that Agnes had warned her that she lived in a bit of a tip but she’d never imagined the tip would turn out to be like this. She was flooded with pity for her friend. Poor Agnes, she thought, this is what comes of having to look after this great house on her own. It’s too much for her. I must pull my weight a bit more. Right then, the first thing I’ll do is to sort out all these lovely clothes for her and hang them up. There are plenty of hangers on the rails.

  She was hard at work when Agnes called up to her that lunch was ready. The pile was considerably diminished by that time and the carpet was covered with gowns and coats and dresses all neatly laid out and waiting for hangers. I’ll just do three more, she thought, and then I’ll go down. Three more was too many. She was smoothing out some of the creases in a blue velvet coat and thinking how gorgeous it was, when she became aware that there was somebody in the room, breathing heavily, and she looked up to see Agnes standing in the doorway with the oddest expression on her face.

  They looked at one another for several seconds, then Agnes said, ‘What are you doing?’ in a voice that was so tight with suppressed emotion that it threw Francesca into a panic. She didn’t stop to think, couldn’t stop to think. She just plunged straight into a garbled explanation, talking too quickly and waving her hands. ‘These were all sort of lying in a heap in the wardrobe,’ she said, ‘sort of just lying there and I thought I’d try and . . . well sort of hang them up. I mean, they’re too beautiful to be left on the floor. That blue velvet’s. . . .’ But she knew she was saying the wrong things because Agnes was growing more and more angry with every word, her throat reddening and her jaw set.

  ‘I’ll thank you to leave my things where they are,’ she said coldly. ‘I like them where they are. Don’t touch them.’

  Francesca was frozen by the ice of her anger. ‘I was only trying to help,’ she began, ‘I thought . . .’

  ‘Well don’t,’ Agnes said. ‘I don’t like my things being moved. I like to know where they are. Just don’t touch them.’ And she turned and walked out, her spine rigid.

  Francesca was so upset she didn’t know what to do or say. She hadn’t meant to make Agnes cross. That was the last thing she’d wanted to do. She’d been trying to help, that was all. She stood in the middle of the room biting her lip, looking at the tangle of clothes, struggling to think of some way to put things right and feeling utterly miserable. It was dreadful to find herself in the middle of a quarrel with Agnes when she’d been such a good friend to her. But how could she have possibly known that wasn’t the thing to do? It had seemed really helpful while she was doing it. Oh dear, oh dear. Eventually she left all the clothes where they were and crept down the stairs making as little noise as she could and feeling like a naughty child.

  There was no one in the kitchen and no sound of movement from anywhere in the house. But, standing among the dust motes that were lazily swirling in that quiet empty hall, it occurred to her that, since she’d arrived in this house, she’d only ever been in the kitchen and there were three other rooms downstairs that she’d never entered. Maybe Agnes was behind one of those closed doors. Maybe she should go and look. Or would that be the wrong thing too? Indecision was paralyzing her but she couldn’t go on standing there, wanting to say sorry and make amends and doing nothing about it. This is cowardly, she told herself. I’m really fond of Agnes. I wouldn’t have deliberately upset her for the world. On the other hand if she was in one of the rooms she might be hiding in there to get over being so upset and if I go barging in I might make her feel worse and that would be awful. But I can’t let this go on. I must do something. Eventually she decided she would open the nearest door and just peep in. If Agnes was there and still cross or upset, she’d back out quietly and hope she hadn’t been noticed. She took a deep breath, gathered up her courage and eased the door open as quietly as she could.

  The shock of what she found there was so profound it took her breath away. The room was full of rubbish. It had obviously been a dining room once for there was a classy looking table and eight elegant chairs in the centre of it and an equally classy dresser against the wall facing the window but every single surface was covered with junk. The table was stacked with tatty old books and piles of newspapers and magazines, all of them faded and dog-eared and browning, and littered among them there was a collection of chipped cups and broken vases, old flower pots and crumpled packets of seeds, a watering can with a hole gaping in its side and more broken pencils and discarded pens than she could count. There were coats and mackintoshes slung over the backs of the chairs and files and folders heaped on every seat. And all over the carpet and leaning against the walls, there were dozens of old cardboard boxes stacked on top of one another. Some of them had fallen to pieces and were spilling old shoes and socks, bits of half-finished knitting and what looked like used polishing rags. There were piles of ancient gramophone records still in their tea-coloured wrappers on the dresser and in one corner of the room an old water butt full of broken umbrellas and walking sticks. It was just like the garage only worse because this should have been a living room not a rubbish dump. Outside the window the honeysuckle was clean and fresh and breathing of summer b
ut inside the room there was nothing but dirt and dust and ancient decay.

  Ye Gods! Francesca thought, gazing at it. I thought all those clothes were bad enough but this is appalling. She’ll get mice. If she hasn’t got them already. Doesn’t she ever throw anything away? Some of this stuff must be years old. Decades even. She picked up the nearest newspaper and checked the date. It was over twelve years old. Twelve years! She ought to hire a skip, she thought, and get rid of it all. I would if it was me. But then she thought of Agnes’s angry face and the way she’d said ‘I like to know where my things are’ and she remembered a programme she’d seen on TV years ago about an old man who never threw anything away and lived in a house so full of junk he could barely get in the door. There was only one room where he could move around and that was full of rubbish too. The commentator had said it was some sort of compulsion, she remembered, but she’d thought he was just a filthy old man and needed sorting out. And now here she was, dithering in a room full of rubbish that belonged to a woman she admired, a woman who’d been kind to her, and all her certainties were being muddied and muddled away and she didn’t know what to do.

  She drifted out of the room, feeling she ought to try and find poor Agnes, even though she didn’t have the faintest idea what she could say to her when she did, and she opened the next door vaguely, her mind in such indecision she hardly knew what she was doing. She was standing in another filthy room, this time a library. The walls were lined with bookshelves, once white, now tea brown and all of them jammed with elderly books, and there was a rather handsome desk set beside the window. But every other space was full of decaying cardboard boxes, filthy soft toys oozing kapok, bulging plastic bags and boxes full of old socks, rags, folders, boots, newspapers, rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, everywhere she looked. This is terrible, she thought, and went to inspect the third room, knowing even before her she’d turned the handle that it would every bit as bad – as it was.