Page 24 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
They all looked up at the sound of my Doc Martens clumping across the floorboards and I raised my eyebrows questioningly. They grimaced like unpractised gargoyles, nodded at the studio door and made thumbs down gestures.
Through the heavily ridged greenish glass top of the door, distorted shapes moved like large fish in an uncleaned aquarium.
‘Ructions,’ said Ivan in a conspiratorial hiss, made more sibilant by his badly fitting top teeth. ‘Nat and that Skinny Minnie of his are in there and he’s just fired me – only he couldn’t really, because I’ve already retired. But he told me not to come round here again after today.’
‘The way he’s heading, I think he’s going to cut his nose off to spite his face andyou’refor the chop next, lass,’ Grant said quietly. ‘He’s seen me and put my wages up,’ he added with a twisted smile. ‘Though if he gets rid of youandIvan, then I’ll be doing most of the hard graft and it should be double.’
While Julian and I carried out all the designing and artwork, we’d also worked alongside the others in every aspect of the process, and when there was a commission to be completed to a deadline, it was often all hands on deck. To be part of a team, working together to produce something wonderfully beautiful – there was no feeling quite like it.
‘So you really think he’s going to hand me my notice today?’ I asked, surprised. ‘I thought he’d want to find someone with design skills to replace me first. And I wasreallylooking forward to pipping him to the post by resigning, even if it did mean I wouldn’t get my redundancy money.’
‘I don’t suppose he realizes how much you’d be entitled to. But I told him if he had any sense he’d persuade you to stay and make you a partner, because your name’s been pulling in the commissions almost as much as Julian’s lately,’ Grant said.
‘Well, we all knowthatisn’t going to happen!’
‘Yes, but he must know he’s got no original ideas of his own,’ Grant said. ‘And that’s what the studio’s got a name for.’
‘That’s right. And what does that Willow know about making a window, I ask you?’ demanded Ivan. ‘Nowt!’
‘Willow!’ I exclaimed.
‘Yes, he told Grant that he and Willow were going to design the windows from now on.’
‘I know she’s a freelance graphic artist, but I didn’t know she’s worked in this field.’
‘She hasn’t,’ Grant said.
‘Well, actually, I suppose quite a lot of artists have designed successfully for stained glass – think of Matisse and Chagall,’ I offered.
‘Matisse and Chagall she ain’t,’ said Grant.
‘How do you know?’ I asked.
‘Because she was talking to me at lunchtime,’ Louis chipped in, looking up from the workbench. ‘I was reading a manga book and she said she did a lot of illustrations for them. Graphic novels, too.’
‘Manga are sort of strip cartoons,’ Ivan explained to me seriously, so I must still have been looking blank. ‘LikeBatmancomics.’
‘They’re nothing likeBatmancomics, Granddad,’ Louis said long-sufferingly.
‘I do know what you mean,’ I told them. ‘And maybe there’s a market for manga-style windows? Or she might do other kinds of illustration, too.’
‘Perhaps she might, but you’ve worked hard to get to where you are now,’ Grant said. ‘You’re on the website and everything. When it comes to creating something modern and outstanding, Nat wouldn’t know where to start and Willow’s just going to have to make a name for herself like you did. She can’t use yours.’
‘No, though I suppose they might cannibalize the cartoons and cutlines I’ve had to leave behind in the loft, because they belong to the business. But not under my name. And my style is distinctive enough to be recognized.’
‘Nat was rooting about to see what you’d taken when I got here this morning,’ Grant told me. ‘He seemed to think those sketchbooks of yours belonged to him, but I told him you only stored them there; he’d no entitlement to them.’
‘Cheeky bugger!’ Ivan said. ‘I told him you’d only taken what belonged to you and he should be ashamed of himself.’
‘They’d certainly only get my sketchbooks over my dead body,’ I said grimly. ‘Oh, well, I suppose I’d better go and get fired – unless I can get my resignation in first!’
When I opened the studio door, the first thing I saw was Willow, sitting at my desk, sifting through the drawers, though she wouldn’t find much left in there unless she was interested in my collection of odd bits of Conté crayon, dried-out putty rubbers and shrivelled elastic bands.
The big blue plastic toolbox containing my art materials was open on the desk, the tiers of compartments pulled out to each side like wings.
‘Did you want to borrow something, Willow?’ I asked politely. ‘Only, I’m a bit fussy about my personal pencils, paints and brushes, so it would be better if you used Julian’s. You’ll find them in the cupboard by the window.’
‘I assumed these were just common to the workshop for anyone to use,’ she said.
