Page 89 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
‘They’ll come,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, you could make some free-hanging roundels on that theme, couldn’t you?’
‘I could. They always sell well …’ I agreed, then broke off as an email pinged into the mailbox: it was the Brisbane organization, thanking me for contacting them.
Apparently, they’d both posted and emailed me the notification several days before and had been surprised not to hear back from me before now. But of course, they said, they now understood the situation and Julian Seddon was a huge loss to the profession.
‘Julian would have been so proud of me,’ I said, tears coming to my eyes.
‘I’mproud of you, too, Angel,’ Carey said, and enveloped me in one of his warm and loving hugs.
By then the morning was getting on, but before I finally went down to the workshop, I rang Nat’s mobile and told him I knew he’d been opening my post and reading my emails, and had kept the news of the competition win back.
‘I’m perfectly entitled to open anything addressed to the workshop,’ he said defensively.
‘Not when it has my name on it. But it’s clear now why you wanted those designs back. Well, you haven’t a hope in hell. My solicitor will be in touch with your solicitor,’ I added grandly. ‘And don’t bother contacting the competition organizers, because I’ve already explained the situation to them, so it isn’t going to get you anywhere.’
I ended the call while he was still gibbering with fury.
‘I hope that’s the end of him and I’ll never hear from him again,’ I said to Carey.
‘No, I don’t think even he will try and pursue it further,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll book a table in the restaurant at the pub tonight, because this calls for a celebration!’
‘It certainly does – I’ve just remembered how much money I’ll get for winning!’ Visions of endless packing cases full of expensive Antique glass filled my head with joy.
‘Will you ever award me that look of stunned wonderment?’ he asked, amused. ‘You’re seeing the world through gold-pink glass spectacles, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I admitted but I didn’t tell him he always looked as glowingly wonderful as any Pre-Raphaelite stained-glass angel: perhaps that was part of why I loved him so much?
I wasn’t expecting Ivan that day, but the first deliveries from my huge shop were due to arrive that very afternoon – exciting packets of tallow sticks and thin rods of solder, plastic sacks of plaster of Paris and whitening, and tubs of ready-made glutinous glazing cement.
It was only a fraction of what was to come, but I ticked them off and filed the delivery notices in the office bit of the back room.
After that, I unpacked a bit more sheet glass before returning to the house, intending to have a good stare at the Brisbane cartoon, but instead I got hijacked by Carey into helping him finish sanding banisters.
We had a lovely meal at the Screaming Skull and afterwards, in the lounge, we found Lulu, Cam, Rufus and Izzy. When we told them what we were celebrating, Lulu produced a bottle of champagne on the house, which, since we’d already had one bottle with dinner, went rather to my head …
I seem to remember describing my winning design with great arm gestures and knocking a rack of local tourist leaflets off the wall, but not a lot about subsequent conversations.
Rufus, who was not a great champagne drinker, drove us home: I’d have to walk back tomorrow and pick my car up, but it had been worth it.
And, as a bonus, while we were out we’d missed the third Seamus BanyanCottage Catastropheprogramme, so Carey remained cheerful and his blood pressure quite normal.
I hoped he didn’t sneak off to watch the repeat …
The win not only ignited a whole seething mass of creative ideas in my mind, but also spurred me on to get the workshop finished as quickly as possible.
It seemed to inspire Carey with the desire to demolish something – in this case a door-sized hole in the wall dividing the small room that backed on to the stable block behind the workshop, where he’d established a sort of man cave, with all his benches and tools and various bits of equipment. He’d thought it would be nice if we could come and go between the two without walking all the way round.
With Carey, thought quickly becomes action, so in no time at all I was talking to him from my side of a large hole, as he loaded debris into a wheelbarrow.
‘I think it’ll take a couple more weeks before the workshop’s finally fully functional,’ I told him, batting away a cloud of cementdust. ‘I’ll have to test the new kiln too as soon as it’s in. They all fire differently.’
‘Maybe we should have a party in the glazing room to celebrate, when it’s all finished?’ he suggested.
‘A party? Well, I suppose we could,’ I agreed. ‘In fact, it would be the only time it’s feasible, because a working glass studio isn’t really a good venue for food, drink and revelry – all that sharp glass and toxic substances like acid and lead about.’
‘Let’s pick a date now, and work to it?’ he suggested. ‘How about Saturday the fourteenth – Valentine’s Day?’
‘Sounds good to me.’
