Another Life: Escape to Cornwall with this gripping, emotional, page-turning read

‘She is a star! This is what I love about tracing history, the leads that suddenly appear when you are least expecting them … Gabriella, have you had time to think? Any possibility you could come up to London and go to the gallery with me? It would be so good to have you with me.’

Gabby felt almost angry that his voice could wreak such havoc with her stomach, but she said, ‘I’ll come up on the early train. What time is your appointment with the gallery?’

‘Two-thirty. Can you make it for then?’

‘On the early train I can.’

‘I’ll meet you at Paddington. Let me know the time. Then I’ll take you out to lunch, before we go …’

Gabby wobbled down the speeding train to get a coffee. It was following the sea wall at Teignmouth. In rough weather the waves came up over the sea wall, a great grey tower looming over the trains in a terrifying way before the line was closed.

She could see her reflection in the window and closed her eyes against herself. She could not relax, she felt poised, on the brink of something. She kept visualizing herself getting off the train, walking along the platform to the barrier, looking round for him … then, what? Smiling and waving? Shaking hands? Being businesslike?

How had they parted? What exactly had he said? Gabby tried to remember. People often said things they did not mean. Sometimes they pretended they had not said the things they did not mean.

The countryside raced past and still she could not concentrate on her book. The train followed a canal; rows and rows of bright barges were lined along the banks, bicycles and flowers and pushchairs up on their roofs. A family of ducks were settled on the riverbank, the gander’s bright green feathers glinted in the sun.

She felt rather as she had when she had smoked a joint with Josh, to see what it was like. Everything stood out, bright and separate. Stark and noticeable. Beautiful and highlighted, as if she was marking her trail to a foreign land and must take note in case she could not find her way back. Her limbs felt stiff with anticipation. She made herself breathe deeply, tried to think of nothing outside her direct vision.

Her mind moved to Isabella. What had excited Mark so much about the figurehead that he felt the need to accompany her thousands of miles?

In her imagination Gabby suddenly saw his wrist. The way the long dark fingers lay curled around the smooth face of a female figurehead on Tresco. The way the hairs on his wrist curled into his shirt cuff. She shivered as she remembered how badly she had wanted to touch that place between cuff and wrist, lay a finger there to feel the heat and pulse of him. The heat and pulse of him.

The train swayed and groaned as it gathered speed and she closed her eyes, half-asleep, voices rising and coming to her in small waves.

When they reached Reading, Gabby went to the loo and brushed her hair, put on her pale lipstick which never stayed on. Sprayed herself with something expensive Nell had given her for Christmas. She looked at herself critically. Her dark skin was tanned and devoid of make-up, which, except for lipstick, she never wore. Her eyes, framed by naturally dark lashes, seemed too intense, too blue and nervous. Like a horse about to bolt.

For heaven’s sake. You are just taking him a catalogue. You will have a pleasant lunch, an interesting afternoon, and then … She reached up for her overnight bag and pulled it to her. Then maybe an early drink or supper and he will put you in a taxi for Nell’s club, and you will have enjoyed the day with him and be glad you came.

She got out of her seat as the train slid into Paddington, letting the people in a hurry go in front of her. Then she walked slowly down the platform towards the barrier, holding her ticket. She saw him first because he was tall. He had on cream linen trousers and a crumpled jacket and still looked casually elegant. His eyes were scanning the people pouring towards him, rather anxiously.

Gabby stopped dead in her tracks and watched him. A powerful feeling of familiarity swept through her, so strong and strange was the sensation that she had done all this before. Slowly she moved on towards him and when he caught sight of her his face lit up. Once on the other side of the barrier he hugged her hard.

‘It is so, so good to see you. I guess I couldn’t really believe you would come.’

Gabby laughed. ‘I said I would.’

‘Sure you did. But things can go wrong. Something might have prevented you.’

‘Well, nothing did,’ she said softly.

‘Nothing did,’ he repeated, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips. He hooked her holdall over his shoulder.

‘We’ll take a taxi. I found somewhere to eat near the gallery so we don’t have a panic about getting there.’

It was an Italian restaurant and looked expensive. Gabby was glad she had worn a newish pair of white trousers and a navy denim jacket that Josh loved her in.

Mark openly stared at her. ‘You look wonderful, Gabriella. Just give me a moment, then I will stop gazing at you and order wine.’

A waiter brought them huge menus and Mark ordered two glasses of white wine, remembering this is what she drank.

‘Could I also have some mineral water?’ Gabby asked the waiter.

She bent and got Nell’s catalogue out, and handed it to Mark with the photos that Nell had given her of the dates and times and process of the actual restoration. He was fascinated.

‘I guess I should have, but I never realized the amount of work in restoring paintings. This is a wonderful painting to see, even if it should prove a false lead.’ He stared at the face. ‘Very beautiful, and yes, so very like our figurehead.’

‘What did you find in Devon?’ Gabby asked.

‘Well, I told you about the Welland graves, didn’t I? Well, by chance I was talking to the curator of a gallery in Manchester at a university dinner they had arranged in Exeter for me. He was interested in my research and when I showed him some photos of Lady Isabella he mentioned how Italian she looked. I told him she had been carved in Cornwall by Tom Welland and he suddenly said, before I could tell him any more, “Maybe she is a Vyvyan. They are an old Cornish family who go back to Doomsday.”’

Gabby nodded. ‘It’s a very Cornish name. There are a few in the telephone book, all spelt differently. Some are still landowners.’

‘He told me what we already knew, that one of the Vyvyans married an Italian, but he also mentioned her portrait had been painted by Bernardo Venichy before her marriage. She was quite a beauty. It came to the Manchester Gallery in the late sixties when the exhibition moved there from London. But he has no idea where it is now.’

‘Perhaps we will discover this afternoon.’

‘Hopefully.’

‘But the gallery might only know about the painting, not about the family it belonged to.’

‘That’s very possible. But I have learnt, over the years, that one thing tends to lead to another. You can sometimes gather little scraps of information which don’t connect, then suddenly it all begins to make a whole and you are able to piece a life together. With lots of little gaps, of course.’

‘You must be very patient.’ Gabby smiled at him.

He held her eyes. ‘I am very patient when I want something.’

Mark’s contact at the gallery was a young woman called Lucinda Cage. Gabby liked her immediately. At first she seemed more interested in Nell’s restoration technique than in the painting they were there to discuss.

‘I used Nell Appleby as part of my thesis on medieval colours. She was a brilliant detective, you know. I reckon she knew nearly as much as an analyst. I went to a lecture she gave once. She was brilliant; utterly passionate about her work. My tutor used some of her restoration techniques as an example of how to conserve.’

Gabby glowed with pride. Dear, self-effacing Nell, who never blew her own trumpet.

‘I’ll tell her, she’ll be so surprised.’

Lucinda turned to Mark. ‘I’ve been looking up some files and asking colleagues about this painting of Helena Viscaria. As you know, it was found in the early sixties in a bad state. A great deal of the damage had occurred by storing or hanging on a damp outside wall. It was brought to us by a David Tredinnick in 1961 with a view to selling after renovation.

‘Nell Appleby undertook the restoration and when it was finished I gather there was some family problem with selling to us. Various members wanted to keep it in the family. After the Venichy retrospective it was loaned to us on a permanent basis. It travelled round the regional galleries for about eighteen months then returned here.’

She looked at Mark and Gabby. ‘I’m really sorry to tell you that it was bought by a private Italian art collector and taken back to Italy in 1989. We do not know whether he had any connection with her family or just wanted to acquire the painting.’

‘What was his name?’ Mark asked.

Lucinda glanced down at her file. ‘A Signor Alfredo Manesco.’

‘The opera singer?’ Mark seemed surprised.

Lucinda shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t a clue.’