The day was cold and brilliant with sun. It was the kind of day that lured pensioners outside to tumble and break, and children in mittens and hats to run across treacherous ice. The kind of day when fog or a slippery patch lay in wait on the road. The kind of day most commonly described as beautiful.
But I was safely inside the museum making my way through the opulent exhibition halls and up the dingy back stairs to the ceramics studio with its peeling walls and boiler-room decor.
Beatrice was at her workbench, dismantling the previous restoration on a Minton jardinière. She looked up with a smile and a wave of her free hand. Then she frowned. ‘You look odd. Is everything all right?’
‘Fine, thanks. It’s just, well, you know, winter.’
‘I do know. And it was winter last week but then you didn’t look like you’d just come face to face with the Loch Ness Monster.’
‘What made you think of the Loch Ness Monster? I hardly ever think about it.’
‘Neither do I. Maybe it was your tartan scarf.’
‘Oh,’ I said. I took off my coat and the scarf and went off to hang them on a peg in the small back office. As I returned I said, ‘My godfather seems to want to buy me a house.’
Beatrice looked up. ‘Really. How wonderful.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘As long as one isn’t bothered by considerations like earning one’s own keep and living within one’s means and not profiting from one’s sins, those kinds of details.’
‘If he gives you the money, buying the house is within your means,’ Beatrice said. ‘The rest I wouldn’t know about.’
I was working on a piece of Daisy Makeig-Jones Fairyland Lustre, retouching. The previous day I had applied the first coat over the untinted filler. The paint was not completely dry yet so I brought over the warm air fan, placing it at a safe distance from the bowl. The point was not to blast the fairies and birds from the blue-bowl-sky or the branches of the witchity-wood trees but simply to speed the healing with a warm caress. Lustre used to be the most problematic of finishes to replicate but with the arrival of some new fluid iridescent paints it was less of a challenge. Of course seamless perfection was not what we were looking for these days anyway. For us the emphasis was on conservation. Conserve, according to The Oxford English Dictionary: ‘to keep from harm or damage, to preserve . . .’
Restoration was different. Restore: ‘to bring back or attempt to bring back to the original state by rebuilding, repairing, repainting etc. . . .’ A lot of people muddled up the two. But as I always told students, there were some basic rules to follow with both approaches.
The prime ones were:
Not to inflict further damage by misuse of tools or materials or by careless handling.
To make sure that each stage is reversible.
To carry out honest repairs without the intention to deceive.
Fairyland Lustre did not appeal to everyone. In fact it seemed not to appeal to quite a lot of people, including Beatrice. I could see why, but for myself I adored Daisy (we were on first name terms – my decision, had to be, she was dead), adored her ebullience, her revelling in colour, her fearless championing of fairies and elves and sprites and rainbows all in the face of received good taste. Looking at one of her pieces made me happy.
Beatrice brought me some coffee. ‘How was your weekend?’ I asked her.
‘No one offered me a house but otherwise it was fine. My parents were over. They drove me insane while they were there and then I felt bad and missed them once they’d gone. So the usual.’
‘My stepsister popped round. She drives me insane when she’s there and I don’t miss her when she’s gone.’
I mixed burnt umber and Mars red pigment with some MSA varnish to get the dark bronze finish I wanted for the trunk of the tree, then I sat back, waiting and watching for the exciting coat of paint to dry. Contrary to common belief, it could be quite an interesting pastime. With some paints and pigments it was as if a veil were being slowly drawn across their surface, whereas others darkened and deepened during the process and others still simply got on with it, with no changes of tone or shade.
‘Ruth suspects her husband’s having an affair. I feel terribly sorry for her but he’s always having affairs and I can’t help feeling she should leave him. He’s a jerk.’
‘Maybe she loves him?’
I thought about it. ‘Perhaps. Though I think it’s more that she’s allowed herself to be completely defined by him and by their relationship. She’s so used to the role of bullied betrayed wife that she wouldn’t know how to be if that all came to an end. She’s always talking about all the wonderful things she would have done had it not been for Robert’s work, or him making her move, or him playing around. Maybe in a perverse kind of way that works for her? Having an excuse on tap every time she feels her life isn’t working out as she had hoped.’
‘So true,’ Beatrice said. ‘People do that sometimes, don’t they? Use something in their lives, a tragedy perhaps, as an excuse not to live fully.’
‘That’s so well put. It’s exactly what . . . Hang on a minute. You weren’t just talking about Ruth, were you?’
Beatrice looked back at me with the kind of smile that was halfway between approval and exasperation, the kind of smile a teacher might give a particularly dim pupil who’d finally worked it out. But all she said was, ‘So are you going to accept your godfather’s offer?’
I frowned at my brushes. ‘He says it would make him happy. If that’s true, if that’s how he really feels, well, then I should accept because in comparison my feelings aren’t what’s important here.’
Beatrice’s smiled widened. For the class dunce I was doing well.
‘Then again maybe he actually resents me as much as I think he ought to. Maybe the whole idea is some kind of elaborate punishment.’
Beatrice pursed her lips. ‘You’re quite perverse when you wish to be. I mean no one normal would have even thought of that.’
‘What’s normal?’ I said. Not an original question but it was the only thing I could think of as a reply.
‘Well, that wasn’t,’ Beatrice said. ‘And if being given a house were a punishment then please can I be punished too, me and another few thousand recession-hit individuals.’
‘That’s unfair,’ I said.
‘Is it?’
‘Yes. Because I believe that if you were in my shoes you’d rather stay where you were.’
Beatrice sighed. ‘Perhaps.’
‘And I know I’m about to lose the flat but there are plenty of rentals around. Anyway, I’d say I was doing averagely well in life these days but average isn’t enough, it seems. If my godfather could acquisition Gabriel and arrange a re-merger he would be thrilled. And of course I should have a few children too. And because I was tolerably good at art when I was at school I was supposed to have gone on to become a great artist, so me doing what I’m doing, something I think is immensely worthwhile, he feels is somehow second best. And to be quite honest that pisses me off. And I’m not allowed to be pissed off with him because he’s the good guy here. And why is he? Should I believe Rose told him to? And all that “closure” talk. Really, it makes no sense.’
‘Oh Eliza, have you never heard of forgiveness?’
‘Of course I have.’
‘Well, there you have it. He’s forgiven you. Would you like another cup of coffee?’
‘I’ll go.’
I walked off into the little back office where we hung our coats and made our coffee and where Beatrice did her paperwork. I filled the kettle and while I waited for it to boil I poked my head round the door. ‘You know, no one’s asked me if I want to be forgiven, have they.’
‘It’s not about you, though, Eliza, is it?’
‘No. No, it isn’t.’
I put two teaspoonfuls of instant coffee in each mug and added a spoonful of sugar to mine before pouring the water. As I stirred the coffee I looked around me. I loved these shabby rooms with their peeling paint and engine room pipes running along the ceilings. I loved the fact that within such unprepossessing walls, work was carried out that brought what had been broken or neglected, forgotten and misused, back to life and usefulness by us, the conservators. All the tools needed for the transformation were to be found cleaned and neatly put away, each in its own place, or placed on the tables and desks ready for work in their overalls of paint and putty, pigment and wax. I liked the way the rooms felt safe even when I was working late on my own and the way they were peaceful even when all four of us were working there together. Just as I was thinking all this, as I waited for the paint to dry, my phone went ping, announcing that a text message had arrived. It was from my mother. It read: I hope you have accepted your godfather’s offer. Remember your father saved his life once.
Years ago, when I was staying at the clinic, another thing they had taught me to practise was how to control and interrupt destructive thought patterns. When the repetitive thoughts come into your mind you should fend them off, telling yourself that they would all be dealt with at a set time and for a set amount of time, say ten minutes. That would be their lot. It had sounded too simple, too mechanical but I had come to realise that the human brain responded very well to simple repetitive commands. Of course it didn’t always work, but when it did it was wonderful, like divesting yourself of layers of thick scratchy clothing, putting them all away in a wardrobe and emerging, light as a ballerina, to pirouette off into the light. I was scared that accepting the house would be like taking up residence in the wardrobe with no escape from that dark heavy clothing.
I texted back. I should think that, after what happened to Rose, we’re more than even, wouldn’t you?
My mother replied, Remember Stalin.
Years ago when my mother had first suggested that I see someone, a therapist someone, I had been very much against the idea.
‘Therapists are paid to make people feel good about themselves,’ I said to her. ‘They would tell Stalin he wasn’t to feel bad about himself.’
My mother had put her hand under my chin and raised my face so that our eyes met. ‘Eliza, you’re not Stalin.’
There was no doubt that, through the years, those words had proved strangely comforting.
The conservators in Sculpture had music playing all the time but on the whole here at the ceramics studio we kept it off, although we did have some iPod speakers on a shelf at the back. As it was just the two of us in today I asked Beatrice if she’d mind if I played something. She said she wouldn’t so I put on some Celtic folk music, or as I liked to call it, Easy Throat-slitting.
‘That’s supposed to lift your mood?’ Beatrice asked.
‘I’m trying to bottom out.’
‘Not here you don’t. What else have you got?’
‘Best of Mozart?’
‘You can’t take someone’s money if they’re potty,’ I said after a while.
‘Are you referring to your godfather?’
I nodded. ‘I told you about the visits from,’ I lowered my voice, looking around me, ‘. . . the dead.’
‘You don’t need to whisper. They can’t,’ she did a mock looking around the room, ‘hear you.’
‘Well, according to Uncle Ian it looks as if they can.’ I straightened up and resumed my normal voice. ‘Surely that makes one question his ability to make rational decisions?’
‘Not necessarily. One of my great-aunts claimed to have had regular visits from her guardian angel. That apart she was as practical and down to earth as . . . as you or me, I was going to say, but let’s just leave it at me.’
I raised an eyebrow to show I was not amused. Then I turned back to my pot and applied the bronze pigment to the trunk of the tree. It worked perfectly.
‘Let’s play the millionaire’s game,’ Beatrice said. ‘If you could pick anywhere, where would you live?’
I told her I didn’t want to play. She told me to indulge her. ‘All right. There is this house up the road from my flat, in one of the tiny squares. It’s like a Georgian doll’s house. Small but perfectly formed with a front garden and a mulberry tree standing guard. It’s up for sale for the first time in for ever.’
‘Well, off you go. Make an offer.’
‘No, absolutely not.’
‘And what about your poor old dying godfather who only wants to make you happy?’
‘I said no. It’s not right. It’s not right and it doesn’t make sense. Any of it.’
‘You know what doesn’t make any sense?’ Beatrice asked. ‘That.’ She pointed at Daisy’s bowl. ‘All those bloody fairies and elves and whatever else. Your godfather, on the other hand, makes perfect sense.’
I went past my stop right the way up to Hampstead Village to check out the estate agent’s window. The house on the hill was still there and there was no sticker saying Sold or Under Offer plastered across the picture. The dark sky hung low, pregnant with snow, but I decided to walk home rather than take the bus. As I crossed over to the High Street I heard carols. A Salvation Army band had gathered round the Christmas tree. They were playing ‘Hark the Herald Angels’ and as the sky darkened the lights brightened to a heavenly blue. I stayed where I was, listening to the music, and as the last of the day was sucked into night a Salvation Army officer picked up his collection box and started his round.
I had my ten-pound note ready when I paused, and bringing out my wallet again, pulled out the cash I had drawn a little earlier: one hundred pounds minus the ten.
‘It was easier when you had that cauldron thing,’ I told the officer as I rolled up banknote after banknote and shoved each one through the narrow slit of the collection box.
‘But not as secure,’ the officer said. ‘Thank you and happy Christmas.’
I didn’t show it, of course, but secretly I was disappointed. I had expected a little more. An ‘Hallelujah, thank the Lord,’ or at least a ‘Bless you, my child.’ But ‘Thank you and Happy Christmas’ was exactly what he had said to the kid with the coin. Of course I knew that it was the thought that counted and most likely that coin represented the boy’s entire week’s income whereas I had just been offered a house as a gift. Seen in that light the level of gratitude had been absolutely right. Still, I was pleased when the officer returned and asked if I had a favourite as they wanted to play something just for me as a special thank you. He had not asked the kid.
‘ “Silent Night”, please,’ I said without hesitation. There was simply no limit to how many times I could hear that particular carol.