Page 13 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
‘I can’t believe you two!’ Molly said, finally finding her voice. ‘You make it sounds as if Angel’s been an occasional visitor for the last decade and more, not Julian’s partner –andyou owe her a debt of gratitude for running herself ragged the last eighteen months, nursing him while keeping the business going!’
‘I don’t know who askedyouropinion about anything,’ Nat told her. ‘In fact, nobody even invited you in, so I think you ought to go – and maybe think about how secure your husband’s job in the workshop will be if you keep sounding off about things that are none of your business.’
‘Iinvited Molly in,’ I said. ‘She’s my friend and there’s no call to threaten her – and if you fired Grant you’d be an even bigger fool than I think you are, Nat.’
‘You’ll soon find I’m no kind of fool, and there’ll certainly be some changes when I take over in the New Year,’ Nat said darkly.
But I was now beyond thinking that one through and I got up unsteadily. ‘I-I’ve changed my mind about going upstairs. I need to go down to the studio on my own first for a bit.’
I went across to the rack by the door and reached for my set of workshop keys, which always hung there next to Julian’s, but neither bunch was there.
‘I’ve got all the keys to the workshop now, except Grant’s, seeing he’s the one who opens the place first thing and locks up in the afternoon most days,’ Nat said. ‘I’ve applied for permission to administer the business, so you can all carry on with the current commissions for the present, while the estate is sorted out. The workshop’s always closed from Christmas Eve till after New Year anyway.’
‘But Julian and I work in the studio even when it’s shut, because it’s a good quiet time … and we were going to paint and fire the rest of the glass for the Gladchester Chapel rose window over Christmas …’
My voice broke and I turned away so they couldn’t see the tears in my eyes and went upstairs, dumping my case and bag in the small back bedroom. I didn’t even want to open the door to the one that had been ours.
Then I splashed my face with cold water until I was more or less in my right mind, before going back down, determined to get those keys even if I had to threaten Nat with the bread knife to do it. Bereavement seemed to be bringing out a violent streak in me.
But there turned out to be no need, for evidently there had been a brief skirmish in my absence and Molly handed me the keys as soon as I appeared, along with a lidded Thermos mug of coffee.
‘Better take this with you, because you still look frozen,’ she said. ‘Shall I walk down to the studio with you?’
‘No, it’s OK, I know the way blindfold,’ I assured her. ‘You get back to Grant – and thank you so much for picking me up at the airport, Molly!’
‘It was the least I could do,’ she said, with an unloving look at Willow and Nat, who glowered back. ‘Ring me any time if you need me.’
‘Willow and I are off out for dinner shortly, so I expect we’ll seeyoutomorrow,’ Nat told me, making it sound like a threat.
‘I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to that,’ I snapped, the old sarky version of myself suddenly resurfacing. I was glad to see she hadn’t left the building permanently.
Outside in the cold, starless darkness, Molly hugged me, said I was always welcome to go and stay with her and Grant, and then went off round the cottage towards her home in the village, while I made my way down the familiar path, edged with lavender and rosemary bushes I’d planted myself. In summer the heady fragrance as you brushed against them on your way to the workshop was heavenly.
Once I was through the wicket gate the security lights on the large, brick-built Victorian workshop came on and I let myself in through the small side door and flicked the switches on the board inside, illuminating the interior.
The familiar, warm smell immediately and comfortingly enfolded me: the mingled scents of wooden flooring, the treacly cement used to seal the finished window panels … perhaps a hint of vinegar from the acid used in etching glass and the earthy sacking wrapped round the smaller bundles of lead calmes. It was a combination of all of them, instantly recognizable to anyone who’d ever worked in the trade.
The original purpose of the Victorian building had been the same as its current one, but Julian had altered and extended it, so that there was now also a small office, a room with an air filtration system, for cementing the leaded panels, and a separate studio, as well as the main workshop area.
The latter was furnished with long, scarred wooden tables with half-leaded panels of the rose window still pinned by horseshoe nails over their white paper cutlines. The cut pieces of glass for another panel had been stuck with blobs of plasticine on to a sheet of heavy plate glass on a rack over the window.
There were troughs full of lead calme strips in various widths and a wall of wooden shelves holding sheets of Antique glass, but none of the mechanically produced Cathedral Rolled, which Julian and I, both purists, abhorred.
I passed the stairs that led up to the loft storage area and through into the roomy studio that Julian and I had shared. We had a desk each and a pair of long tables, unscarred this time, used for drawing up cartoons – the full-sized designs for windows – and the simpler black-and-white working drawings, the cutlines …
I shivered, feeling chilled to the heart, then remembered the coffee I was still holding and unscrewed the lid, releasing the hot fragrance in a puff of steam that unfurled like ectoplasm.
I sat in Julian’s wooden swivel chair: this had been where they’d found him, after he’d slid down on to the floor.
‘Are you there, Julian?’ I asked, for the first time feeling his presence close by. ‘You might have waited for me to get back.’
On the desk in front of me was a drawing of an angel’s head that hemust have been working on in his last moments. My own face looked back at me – pointed chin, obliquely slanting eyebrows over slightly almond-shaped eyes, and the away-with-the-fairies expression I wore when working on a new design.
I set the coffee cup carefully to one side, then laid my head on my arms and wept.
March 1894
Ralph Revell paid a visit to Father’s glass manufactory today, in order to see for himself the progress of the leaded windows destined for the porch of Mossby, his house in Lancashire, which were the last of the exterior glazing to be completed. I had been absent during his previous visits, but of course I had heard all about the commission and indeed cut some of the glass for it.
