Page 87 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
Then I turned to googling glass suppliers. A whole host of firms making, importing or selling sheet glass had sprung up when the famous Hartley Wood glassmaking firm had ceased business years before and we’d had to find other suppliers. Some of the best flashed glass still came from Germany, though.
Like Julian, I wasn’t keen on mechanically produced glass: it seemed soulless, even though it could look quite clever in modern installations. But on the other hand, I was quite intrigued by the more frequent use recently of fused glass, where either pieces of different coloured glass were melted together at high temperature in the kiln, or as blobs fused on to the piece of glass already cut to shape for leading-up. It had always seemed to me to be fraught with possible future problems like weakness and fracture, especially if the glass wasn’t annealed properly, but maybe I’d experiment with it in the future.
I’d already had an email giving the shipping date for my kiln and it would soon be on its way … and suddenly I wondered if it would fit into the back room of the workshop without widening the door!
Louis came over with Ivan on Saturday and he seemed gutted to have missed all the excitement of Nat’s visit.
I told them what Mr Barley had said and then we went and measured the doorways into the room designated for the kiln, to see if it would go through. It would be a very tight squeeze indeed. The frame of the inner door might even have to come out.
They left at lunchtime to go and watch some game – rugby, I think, though I hadn’t really been listening. I had lunch with Carey, once I’d winkled him away temporarily from his endless banister sanding. I had to admire it, first, though there’s not a lot you can say about sanding, except: ‘Oh – smooth!’
Then I returned to the workshop to start unpacking my little hoardof Antique glass, which I’d been looking forward to. I held each sheet up to the light to see the colours and then wiped it, first with a damp cloth and then a dry one, before placing it in one of the large pigeon holes in the special wooden shelving unit. I made little labels for each one: Streaky Grey, Pot Metal Emerald Green, Flashed Ruby Red on Clear … an interesting Medium Blue Over Very Pale Green.
It all took time, since every treasure had to be gloated over. I hadn’t even looked in some of the tea chests of glass I’d bought as job lots from firms closing down. In fact, I’d only just emptied the first box, when Carey rang me to ask if I was staying in the workshop all night, or intended going back for dinner.
Ivan helped me unpack the rest of the glass next day, but Louis vanished after a while with Carey – a couple of his tree surgeon friends had arrived early that morning and they intended cutting up some of the fallen trees in the woods round the lake and trucking the logs up to the courtyard, where they could be stacked in an empty hay barn to season. Louis obviously thought this would be much more fun than washing glass, painting walls and window frames, or scrubbing shelves, and after a while I realized Ivan had taken his coat and vanished, too.
I went out of the workshop and followed the sound of powerful saws down to the woodland, where I found all the men, including Clem, had formed a merry lumberjack party.
There’s nothing like the sound of a chainsaw to attract the other sex: it’s like a bright light to moths.
And since Carey’s fan mail arrived, anyone turning up to help outdoors was issued with one of his splendid collection of hand-knitted jumpers or tank tops to keep them warm, so the whole scene looked a bit like a page out of a book of knitting patterns for men,circa1973.
I did not enjoy the constrictions pregnancy increasingly imposed upon me and would be glad to have it over with, though I was starting to feel a certain curiosity about what my child would be like. Ralph only spoke of it as if it was a boy, but I would be just as happy with a girl.
Honoria took a huge interest in the forthcoming child and was sewing a layette with the most exquisite skill. I wished Lily could see it, but since we were both in the same interesting condition, neither of us was able to travel.
I found time to put the finishing touches to my coloured cartoon of the Lady Anne window. I still had no idea what the significance of the figures in the quarries around the central depiction of the old house could be, though I hoped it was more cheerful than the man in the flames at the bottom suggested …
I might, perhaps, be wrong about that and it was a hayfield after all – and about the window having some kind of message. Yet surely those repeated sequences of motifs – like hanging drapery and flat roses in circles – must mean something? They did dimly make me think of something I’d seen in the old wing of the house …
30
TheBig Wave
Nat must have contacted his solicitor the moment he left me on Friday morning, possibly even from the car before he drove home, because I got a very scarily official letter on the following Monday, threatening legal proceedings if I didn’t return all the material belonging to Julian Seddon Architectural Glass that I’d removed.
It was just as well I’d talked to Mr Barley, or it might have thrown me into quite a panic. As it was, it still slightly put me off my breakfast.
I read it aloud to Carey and he said Nat was a fool to have wasted his money paying his solicitor to send such a letter.
‘I’ll post it on to Mr Barley, but I think I’ll just ring him first to let him know it’s on its way,’ I said, which I did as soon as his office opened. I felt rather guilty that he’d previously declined my offer to pay him for his help, but he’d assured me that he saw it all as part of the settling up of Julian’s estate.
He told me that there was nothing to worry about. ‘Once I’ve explained the situation to Nat’s solicitor, and that I have written proof of Julian’s attitude in the matter, you are unlikely to be troubled in this way again.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ I said, but I still worried that I might be on slightly shakier ground when it came to some of the more recent sketchbooks and portfolios. I even contemplated hiding the lot in the attic, but I do like to have them handy, and anyway, Carey pointed out bluntly that I was making much ado about nothing.
‘Nobody’s going to turn up with a warrant to search Mossby andtake them away,’ he said. ‘Even if Nat was stupid enough to tell the police you stole them, they have more important things to do than arrest you for taking your own sketchbooks.’
‘It does sound silly when you put it like that,’ I agreed.
‘From what you said, Nat seemed to be keenest to get hold of the artwork for the two competitions you’re waiting to hear about, Shrimp,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Have you wondered why?’
I stared at him. ‘You mean … he might know something about one or both of them that I don’t? But I checked their websites the day we got broadband and neither of them had put the winners up.’
‘I expect they’d write to you, or email you the results too, wouldn’t they?’
‘Yes, I suppose they would … and I’d have used Julian’s workshop address. So, if they have, then Nat hasn’t passed the letters or emails on.’
