Page 88 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
‘Come on, let’s check them out again,’ he said, leading the way into the studio and standing behind my chair while I opened my laptop and turned it on.
‘Which one first?’ he asked.
‘The children’s library transom window, because if I haven’t won that one, the design will be really easy to adapt for something else, so I won’t mind not winning so much. They wanted the subject to be Noah’s Ark, so Julian and I were both working on Noah-themed ideas at the same time.’
It was just as well that I didn’t really mind not winning that one, because the prize-winner’s namewasup – and it wasn’t mine.
‘But I know his work and he’s very good. He deserves it,’ I said. ‘Perhaps your theory was wrong, Carey, and Nat’s just being bloody-minded?’
‘Well, get up the website for the other, and then we can be sure.’
‘I hardly dare to look – it’s for that installation in a Brisbane shopping mall and Ireallywant it.’
I reached the site and scrolled down …
‘Well, that’s lucky, because you’ve won it!’ Carey said, leaning over my shoulder.
I opened my eyes and my name danced in front of me – and whenyou’re called Angelique Arrowsmith, there’s never any mistake: it had to be me!
‘Congratulations, Angel!’ he said, scooping me bodily off the chair and whirling me round.
‘Be careful – your leg!’ I exclaimed, and laughing he put me down again and hugged me. ‘You’re as light as a feather – and aren’t you the clever one, winning the prize!’
‘I can hardly believe it.’ I went back and stared at the screen, where my winning design was displayed in miniature under my name.
‘It looks interesting,’ Carey said, ‘but it’s too small to really see any detail. I assume you’ve got a copy of the design?’
‘Of course, much larger and in full colour. I’ll have to turn it into a cartoon and send it to them, then someone else will interpret that into a cutline,’ I said, my mind straying ahead to the practicalities of turning my idea into a reality. ‘The cartoon will be rectangular, but the freestanding frame it’s to be set into will have a gentle wave in it, which sort of goes with my design.’
‘So, it’s a free-standing sculpture, really?’
‘Yes, or a screen. It’s at the centre point where four arms of the mall come together and light will come from the glazed doors at the end of each of them, as well as from above, so it’ll change from whichever angle you view it.’
I clicked on the webpage email address and said, ‘I’d better contact them right now and explain that I’ve moved to my own workshop since I entered.’
I also added that I’d entered the competition in my personal capacity, with the full agreement of my former late employer, Julian Seddon, just to make things clear.
And that, I hoped, would take care of any contact they might have from Nat.
‘So you were right about Nat: he must have known I’d won,’ I said, finding the right roll of cartridge paper from the unsorted heap in the corner. I spread it out on the big table, weighting down the corners with an empty coffee cup, my piece of lucky amethyst rock and two bottles of drawing ink.
Carey stared at it and gave a long whistle. ‘That’s absolutely brilliant – no wonder you won!’
‘I was quite pleased with it myself,’ I said immodestly. ‘I put so much into it.’
My design, at first glance, looked as if a Hokusai-type wave was pulling the sea away from a beach, exposing all kinds of crabs, shells and seaweed, while underwater it dragged fish, octopus and long tendrils of seaweed in its wake.
But once you looked closer, the body of the wave was a blue whale, twisting upwards, the spout forming the snowy crest as it curled back towards the beach. The foamy edge broke away, turning into the fluttering, swooping shapes of white birds against a blue sky.
‘The eye really follows it right round in a great twisting sort of loop,’ Carey said.
‘Well, that’s the Golden Mean for you,’ I told him. ‘I wish I could make the window, not just send the cartoon and notes, and the temptation is always to do the cutline, too. But then that hampers the person making it, so it’s usually better not to.’
‘You get a trip to see it when it’s made, don’t you?’
‘Yes – you’ll have to come with me!’
I sighed happily. ‘I feel as if it’s set off a sudden creative explosion in my head, a whole host of ideas, and now I want to work on lots of sea-themed windows. I just need some suitable commissions!’
