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

Peter Fletcher smiled. ‘It is the most wonderful find. Gabrielle, would you be willing to take her on?’

Gabby looked up, was about to answer, Yes, oh yes, when Rowe said, ‘However proficient Mrs Ellis is, a figurehead is quite a different matter to a sculpture or painting. This has been immersed in salt water for many years and has been half-ruined with modern paints. I believe we decided to discuss the restoration carefully before we offered it to anyone …’

‘That is exactly what we are doing, discussing it,’ the vicar said crossly, cutting him off. ‘That is why we have two experts in front of us who know what they are talking about …’

‘There is a question of cost,’ Rowe said, interrupting in his turn.

Gabby looked at the vicar. ‘I can’t estimate the time it will take off the top of my head. But of course I would come and do a proper detailed inspection before I sent you a quote.’

Peter was also getting annoyed with Rowe. ‘I can tell you now, the cost of the figurehead being restored and insured outside the county is going to be far more than any quote from Gabrielle. You are quite wrong; it is not a different skill. A figurehead is like a panel and Gabrielle is expert at wood treatments and polychrome. Which in lay terms, Rowe, are painted surfaces. She also has knowledge of pigments from medieval to contemporary paints. We have an expert on site, so I am unsure what your reservations are.’

Gabby felt like whispering, I’ll do it for nothing, just let me have the chance, but she knew it wasn’t professional and Nell and Charlie would explode.

Rowe opened his mouth to argue and the Canadian said evenly, ‘I suggest that having got the figurehead safely home to Cornwall, not without some difficulty, it would be foolish to move her again. She is damaged and had I thought she would not be restored locally, I would have left her in London.’

There was an uncomfortable silence. Rowe was an unpopular councillor but he was good at obtaining money from various sources. The Canadian winked at Gabrielle then watched the councillor with veiled amusement.

‘I think,’ the vicar said, ‘we should all repair to the pub and discuss this over lunch.’

‘Good idea,’ Peter Fletcher said.

‘Indeed,’ Rowe said. ‘I can then go on to talk to the Heritage people. Well, Mrs Ellis, thank you for coming, we will inform you of our decision.’

‘I meant,’ the vicar said coldly, ‘for Gabrielle to accompany us and be part of the discussion.’

Peter took Gabrielle’s arm as they walked out of the church. He was a polite bachelor and he deplored Rowe’s crassness. ‘Let’s go and see if we can find a table.’

Gabrielle smiled at him. ‘Peter, really, it’s fine. I should be getting back anyway.’

They all emerged into the harsh sunlight. Gabby put on her sunglasses with relief.

Peter said, ‘I think it’s important that you stay, Gabby. We are keen that you do this restoration, that’s why we rang you, and I’d like to talk this through with you.’

‘I agree,’ the Canadian said, falling into step the other side of her. ‘It would be good to talk with you, if you have the time. That figurehead has been my baby for quite a while.’

‘Settled,’ the vicar said. ‘Come on, Gabrielle, off we go.’

Peter moved away to talk to him and Gabby was left with the Canadian. She felt suddenly, infuriatingly tongue-tied. From the moment she entered the church she had been aware of his eyes constantly on her face.

He was a tall and lean man, and in the sunlight she saw he was older than she had first thought. His eyes crinkled with amusement as he bent to her.

‘Now what the hell could you have possibly done to upset that asshole?’

Startled, Gabby snorted with laughter. ‘Not me! Nell, my mother-in-law. She upset his brother, an untrained restorer, who ruined a valuable painting belonging to an old friend of hers and then charged her the earth. Nell wrote an article in the local paper. She didn’t name him but everyone knew exactly who she was talking about. It was the end of his career. Councillor Rowe has never forgiven her.’

They sat inside in the cool and Rowe pointedly ordered himself a pasty and orange juice and left. As the door closed behind him everyone relaxed. The young reporter started to quiz Mark on the details of shipping the Lady Isabella back to England while John Bradbury ordered sandwiches.

‘How’s Nell?’ Peter asked Gabby. ‘Still working, I hope.’

‘Oh yes. Nell will never really give up. She’s working on a huge painting at the moment.’

‘I met a guy in London who knew your mother-in-law,’ Mark said suddenly. ‘She’s still very highly thought of. I understand she worked for the National Portrait Gallery and then gave it all up to become a farmer’s wife.’

‘I don’t think she’s ever really stopped restoring. She just took on work locally instead of from London, when Charlie was old enough to help around the farm.’

‘Your husband?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you Cornish?’

‘No. Charlie is.’

Now, why did she not want to talk about Charlie, as if it might make her less interesting to the Canadian?

‘They have the most beautiful farm,’ Peter said, ‘miles from anywhere and hell to find.’

The Canadian – Mark, for heaven’s sake, he has a name – was still firmly concentrating on her rather than the reporter. Gabby, who hated the focus of attention being on her, turned the conversation back to the figurehead to the relief of the earnest young man.

Back in the church car park they said their goodbyes. The two men thanked her for coming. The young reporter got on his motorbike and roared off. John Bradbury walked home to his vicarage. Peter sent his love to Nell and went to unlock his car and open all the windows.

The Canadian took Gabby’s hand and looked down on her in the amused way he had, as if laughter was never far away. She wondered if he found them all very quaint and British and tried to draw her hand away, feeling suddenly cross with him for staring, for making her tongue-tied, when she would think later of all the questions she wanted to ask him. He hung on to her hand, still smiling down at her.

‘Please could I have my hand back?’ she asked.

‘Of course you can,’ he said. ‘I’m only borrowing it – for now. It’s a very nice hand indeed.’

He let it go. ‘It’s been great meeting you, Gabriella. I’m so happy Lady Isabella is going to be in your hands. She will be, you know.’

‘I would really love to restore her,’ Gabby said, hot all over. ‘Goodbye.’

She climbed into her car and banged the door shut, deeply grateful to her sunglasses that she hoped were hiding her face.

‘Goodbye, Gabriella, take care,’ Mark said through the window and turned and walked back to Peter, who waved at her as she drove quickly past, eager to get round the corner and back onto the road home.

The sun was beginning to fade and the shadows over the fields lengthen. Cows were making their way down a field to be milked. She wondered how long Charlie could keep his herd and how diminished the farm would be without the sight of them in the yard every morning and evening. Wistfulness for everything to stay exactly as it was overtook her so suddenly that tears sprang to her eyes. She made the little car go faster, as if the farm might have disappeared altogether in the time it took her to drive home.

Chapter 4 (#ulink_494c4749-04a7-539c-8ae0-97a84c4541c2)

Nell watched as the girl and the small boy crossed the edge of the daffodil field down towards the coastal path. The morning was still, the wind from the south-west soft and teasing. The sky and sea merged in the distance, blue on blue.

The day was held, breathless and hovering, like the kestrel poised, wings fluttering, over the hedge of the field where the girl walked.

It was one of those days that was too still, the lack of wind unnerving, making the morning seem as if it had drawn in on itself, gathering and collecting in a silence that should be listened to.

Nell stood, shading her eyes, holding the bowl full of corn, staring out towards the small figure of the girl in the distance. There was no hint of cloud, just the endless shimmering ocean meeting the lush green of the fields dotted with buds of emerging daffodils.

She could hear the tractor now, moving along the farm track. As it came into sight above the hedge the girl stopped and lifted the child, and he called out, waved vigorously with his small, fat hands. The driver stopped and jumped out and walked to the field gate that lay between them. The child let go of his mother and ran along the stony edge of yellow daffodils so fast he fell, and the man leapt over the gate and scooped him up, threw him up over his head. Nell could hear the child’s laughter blowing over to her like dandelion fluff on the fragile stillness of the day.