I smile in response and scrape the cream off the top of my carrot cake with my spoon and eat it, enjoying the sugar rush. ‘I haven’t seen Lewis around much,’ I say, in an attempt to change the subject.
‘You want to stay away from that young man,’ says Elspeth, harshly, glaring at me over the rim of her bone-china cup. ‘He’s no good.’
I blush. ‘Oh, I’m not interested in him like that,’ I lie. I can’t deny that I find Lewis attractive, and he seemed like a nice guy.
‘Yes, well, he’s left now anyway. It didn’t work out.’
‘Oh.’ I feel a thud of disappointment, even though I suspected as much after overhearing them arguing the other night. I’d looked forward to spotting Lewis’s handsome face every day.
‘I’m fed up with having men about the house. Next time I’m going to ask for a woman gardener,’ says Elspeth, taking a cube of her banana bread and popping it into her mouth. I wonder what happened in her life to make her dislike men so much. Did her late husband abuse her? Belittle her? Aggie told me he sounded like a kind, self-effacing person.
‘He seemed nice,’ I say meekly, not wanting to disagree with my boss but at the same time feeling she’s judged Lewis unfairly. ‘What did he do?’
She shakes her head, the lines around her mouth puckering. The frosted lipstick she applied this morning has almost vanished, leaving behind a rim on her top lip. ‘Nothing that concerns you. He’s lazy and didn’t do as I asked of him.’ I find that hard to believe. Lewis seemed very hardworking. But what do I know? I’ve probably been blinded by his good looks, like I was with Vince.
I take a sip of my cappuccino. It’s too milky and it sloshes uncomfortably in my stomach. We sit in silence for a few more moments. I don’t know what to say. Perhaps it’s best for her to lead the conversation. Every time I try, I seem to put my foot in my mouth.
‘So,’ she says, taking an elegant sip of her tea, little finger crooked, like a comma, ‘what did you think of the shops?’
‘They’re great,’ I say. A slice of sunlight falls onto the table and onto Elspeth’s hand, causing her wedding ring to glint. ‘Do you miss running them?’
‘Of course,’ she says, putting her cup down and playing with a chunk of her banana bread. I’ve noticed she’s eaten hardly anything. ‘But I still like to keep an eye on everything. It keeps me young.’ She grins, showing off a set of unnaturally white and even teeth for her age.
‘I like the way you’ve named them after your daughters,’ I say. When I notice her expression change I realize what I’ve said. I inwardly groan. Nice one, Una.
‘I haven’t named them after my daughters.’
‘Oh … sorry. I thought, with Kat … Kathryn …’
‘It was already called Kat. We just decided to keep it.’
‘And Viola?’
‘I don’t have a daughter called Viola.’ Her eyes lock with mine, daring me to contradict her. And I can’t say anything because if I did it would mean she’d know Aggie has been talking about her. ‘Can we get something straight?’ She doesn’t wait for me to answer. ‘As far as I’m concerned I have one daughter.’
‘I … Okay.’ Why won’t she admit she has another? Did Viola hurt her that badly?
The sun goes in and a shadow falls onto Elspeth’s face making it appear harder and more angular than usual, the foundation settling into the deep grooves of her skin. She picks up her knife and cuts into a cube of banana bread. ‘Jemima asked a lot of questions.’ Her sapphire blue eyes flash. ‘And look what happened to her.’
My pulse races and I stare at her in shock. I don’t know if she’s referring to Jemima leaving, or her death. Either way it sounds like a threat.
13
Kathryn
The gallery is shrouded in darkness when Kathryn arrives on Friday morning. Daisy hasn’t turned up yet, even though it’s nine thirty. Kathryn will have to reprimand her about her time-keeping. She’d asked her to open at nine on the dot, even though they haven’t been very busy lately. Sales have taken a downward turn in the last year, not that Kathryn’s admitted as much to Elspeth. She doesn’t want to worry her unnecessarily.
McKenzie’s is in a small shop in the faded Victorian grandeur that is the Clifton Arcade. Apart from the gallery, her mother also owns two other units in the arcade: a jewellery store and an antiques shop. Kathryn’s job is to oversee them all, even though she spends most of her time in the art gallery, mainly because the other two businesses have competent managers. The shops had been Huw’s passion, really, something for him to do when he retired. By then Elspeth had set up her foundation for impoverished artists, and Huw had wanted a project of his own. It had started with the antiques and then he had decided to branch out into art. He had died prematurely, at the age of sixty-one, when Kathryn was fifteen, from a stroke, leaving the business in the very capable hands of his younger wife. When Elspeth felt too old to continue with it, she handed it over to Kathryn. By then Viola was long out of the picture.
Kathryn switches on the lights – it’s darker down this end of the arcade – and aligns one of the paintings, which seems to be on a slant: a stunning Paris watercolour by local artist Benjamin Percy. She stands in front of the painting, tipping the gold-edged frame until it’s straight. Funny, she was sure it wasn’t like that when she left yesterday. She notices two half-empty wine glasses on Daisy’s desk. The only other person apart from herself and Elspeth who has a key is Daisy. But Daisy had left before her last night.