Joss nodded. ‘I am sorry to come without warning.’
‘That does not matter! What matters is that you come at last! Come in, come in. I will put on the coffee. No, we need something better than that. Something special to celebrate. Sit down. Sit down.’ He had ushered them into a huge studio room. The walls of the ground floor area were lined with paintings. There were two easels both with canvases standing near the vast window; behind them a small area served as the sitting room; three comfortable chairs, covered in woollen throws, a coffee table, a television with all round it piles of books and papers. To one side of the studio an open plan staircase – almost a ladder – ran up to a gallery where presumably he had his bedroom. The old man had disappeared into the kitchen area. As Joss and Luke stood in front of one of the canvases, looking in delight at the riot of colour in the painting, he reappeared with a tray carrying three glasses and a bottle of wine. ‘Voilà! To drink a toast!’ He put the tray down on a low table in front of the chairs. ‘Look, have you seen? The portraits of your mama? Here? And here?’
There were several of them. Huge, reflecting his style of large solid blocks of colour, pure emotion, warmth and vibrancy and yet at the same time all managing to capture something of the delicacy of the woman they portrayed. Her hair – in two dark, streaked with white, in the last grey and white and wild, a gypsy’s hair. She was swathed in bright shawls, yet her skin had the fine luminous texture of the English aristocrat; her eyes remained wistful behind their teasing. Joss stood a long time in front of the last.
‘I painted that after we knew she was ill.’ Paul came to stand beside her. ‘She was twenty years younger than me. It was very cruel that she should be taken so soon after we had found each other.’
‘Will you tell me about her?’ Joss found there were tears in her eyes.
‘Of course.’ He led her back to the chairs. ‘Come, sit down. I will give you some wine then I will tell you everything you want to know.’ He began to pour. ‘You have of course found Belheddon.’ He did not look up from the glasses.
She nodded. ‘That is how I knew how to find you.’ She took one from him. ‘Did you ever go there?’ She had gone back to look at the picture again.
He nodded, passing Luke his wine, and then sitting down himself, his long legs, encased in old denims, stretched out in front of him. ‘And are you pleased with your inheritance?’ The question was posed cautiously as he took a sip of his wine.
Joss shrugged. ‘There are problems.’
Paul nodded slowly. ‘There are always problems with old houses.’
‘Why?’ Joss turned away from the picture and looked at him hard. ‘Why did she leave it to me when she was so afraid of it herself? Why, if she knew there was danger there? I don’t understand.’
Paul met her gaze for several seconds then he put down his glass. With a shrug he climbed awkwardly to his feet and went over to the huge window. The greyness of the afternoon had lightened a little and a few streaks of brightness illuminated the sky above the houses opposite. His back to her he put his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his shoulders hunched. ‘She was in torment, Jocelyn. Torn this way and that. I had known her, I suppose, ten years. I met her a long time after your father died. She told me, of course, about your brothers and about you. She talked about you a lot.’ He was staring up, over the house roofs opposite into the sky, as though his gaze could recall the past.
‘I asked her to marry me then,’ he went on, ‘but she refused. She was a prisoner of that house.’ His voice took on a bitter tone. ‘She hated it. But also she loved it.’ There was another long silence. ‘You have asked yourself, of course, why she had you adopted?’ Still he did not turn round.
Joss nodded. She found she couldn’t answer.
He took her silence for assent. ‘I did not know her then, of course. I can a little imagine her pain after your father died. She adored him all her life.’ He gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘I was only ever a poor second best for her. But even then I could not imagine how she could give you, her last link with him, away to a stranger. Once or twice only, in all the time I knew her she tried to explain a little to me, but that part of her life she guarded. I think –’ he paused, choosing his words carefully, ‘I think she felt that if you stayed at Belheddon, you too would be harmed, as her sons had been harmed. The only reason that would make her give away the little bébé she loved, was to save your life.’ He turned round at last with an expressive gesture of the hands. ‘Do not be angry with her, Jocelyn. She did it to save you. The act brought her only unhappiness.’
‘Then why,’ Joss cleared her throat. It was hard to speak. ‘Why then did she leave the house to me?’
‘I think it was the only way she could escape herself.’ He went back to his chair and sat down, running his hands through his thick white hair. ‘She found you, you know. I don’t know how, but she found who had adopted you and somehow she kept an eye on you. I remember her saying,’ he gave a wry smile, ‘“The girl is being brought up very solidly. They are good people and they have no imagination.” I was very cross with her. I said, “You mean you don’t want your daughter to have imagination, the most precious thing in the world?” and she said, “No, I don’t want her to have imagination. I want her to be down to earth. Solid. Happy. That way she will never look for her roots.”’