Page 85 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
‘That’s not what’s brought me back in – and you shouldn’t go right to the top of these old ladders unless I’m here to hold the bottom of them,’ he told me severely. ‘Anyways up, you’ll have to come down now because I’ve just seen Nat’s car stopped by the Lodge, and that Ella was talking to him through the window, so he’ll probably come straight here.’
‘Itcan’tbe him!’ I exclaimed, dismayed. ‘There are loads of big four-wheel-drive cars around. Even Ella’s got an old Range Rover.’
‘Not as big as a truck and as black and shiny as a hearse, there aren’t. It’s him, right enough.’
‘Oh damn.’ I put the roller back in the paint tray and carried it down. ‘What can he want now, a pound of flesh?’
‘It’ll be nothing good, knowing him.’ Ivan pulled off his woolly cap, so that his thick silver hair sprung up in a crest like a cockatoo. He went to hang his coat up in the studio, leaving the door ajar, and I could briefly hear the voices of the plumber, Garry, and the electrician, who seemed to converse in shouts even when they were only feet away from each other. Then Ivan came back, closing the door, and took up a position just behind me, like a bodyguard. He obviously felt I needed back-up.
An engine roared up, a door slammed heavily – then in burst Nat in full Mad Bull mode. He came to a sudden stop a couple of feet away, glowering at me belligerently from under his thick, dark eyebrows.
‘There you are!’ he said accusingly, as if I’d been hiding. ‘The woman at the Lodge said you’d be here.’
‘Yes, here I am – and thereyouare,’ I said lightly.
‘She told me you’re turning this place into a stained-glass workshop.’ He glanced round the room and, as his eyes took in the big central glazing tables, the racking for glass and lead and the wooden easels over the windows, ready to hold sheets of plate glass, he looked taken aback.
‘Luckily for me, it already was one, so I’m just renovating it.’
‘You’vefallen on your feet!’ he sneered, recovering from his first surprise. ‘I suppose you think you can set yourself up in competition with me.’
‘There’s no question of competition. I’m going to be doing my own work, while you’re presumably carrying on Julian Seddon Architectural Glass along the same lines.’
I thought I’d put that with supreme tact, because what I’d really wanted to say was ‘ripping off and recycling Julian’s ideas and creativity for the rest of your working life’.
‘Not that it’s any business of yours what I’m doing anyway,’ I added, ‘so I don’t know what you’re doing here, unless it’s just sheer nosiness? In which case, perhaps you’d like to push off again.’
‘I do have business here, because my workshop will be carrying outany projects designed by you that were commissioned while you were still on the Julian Seddon payroll,’ he said, and I stared at him blankly.
‘But there wasn’t anything outstanding, only enquiries. We finished the last commission to my design before I went to Antigua and Grant told me Julian’s window for Gladchester had been packed off.’
‘When you left, you took cartoons, cutlines and design work from a cupboard I’d locked up, including two recent designs submitted for competitions.’
‘Oh, you’re not at that again, are you, Nat?’ I sighed wearily. ‘We’ve already had this out and you’ve been told repeatedly that Julian was happy for me to take private commissions or submit designs for windows and installations that weren’t to be made in his studio.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Ivan from behind me, and Nat gave him a dirty look.
‘I might have knownyou’dbe here.’
‘Why shouldn’t I be? You fired me, didn’t you?’ Ivan demanded.
‘You can’t fire someone who isn’t employed by the business – you’d retired … and I bet HMRC would like to know Julian was still paying you while you were drawing a pension,’ he added nastily.
‘I didn’t do it for money, just for love of the craft – and you try proving different,’ Ivan said. ‘And don’t think to stir up trouble for Angel, either, because she’s paying me a bottle of beer a day and the tax man won’t thank you for reporting that.’
‘A bottle of beer? I think you’re barmy!’ Nat said, thwarted, then turned his attention back to me.
‘I’ve spoken to my solicitor about the items belonging to the business that you’ve taken—’
‘If by solicitor you mean Mr Barley,’ I interrupted, ‘then he told me he wasn’t going to act for you in any capacity once Julian’s estate had been wound up.’
‘That old fool should have retired long ago! No, I’ve got a different solicitor now. So you’d better return what you’ve stolen, or you’ll be hearing from him.’
He looked around, eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘I expect you’ve got them stored here somewhere? If so, I’ll take them back now, and therewere portfolios in the loft that are missing, too, not to mention all those sketchbooks from the studio cupboard.’
‘My sketchbooks? Are you mad? They date all the way back to my early teens and my whole life’s in there. They’reprivate,’ I declared so fiercely he took an involuntary step back.
‘I’dburnthem before I let anyone else have them! And those and the artwork in my portfolios would be useless to you, because you can’t design windows in my style. It’s distinctive enough to be recognized if you tried to make something similar.’
