Page 32 of Kate and Clara's Curious Cornish Craft Shop
The woman looks warily at the man, but Maggie eagerly pipes up, ‘Ooh, yes, please!’
The man smiles at her and passes her a page from his sketch-book.
‘Look, Mum, it’s us!’ Maggie cries excitedly.
The woman looks over Maggie’s shoulder at the drawing. ‘So it is.’ She turns to the man. ‘I can’t afford to buy it off you, if that’s what you’re hoping for,’ she tells him firmly.
‘Not at all,’ the man answers, smiling at her. ‘It’s a gift. I heard what you and your daughter were talking about – terrible disease.’ He says this softly so Maggie, who is still happily examining the drawing, can’t quite hear. ‘I have friends who’ve been affected too. Hopefully the epidemic will be long gone now they’ve found a vaccine.’
‘Yes, I hope so too,’ the woman agrees. ‘That’s very kind of you to offer us your drawing. Thank you very much.’
‘My pleasure,’ the man says. ‘You’re new to St Felix?’
‘We’ve been here a few weeks, but fairly new, yes.’
‘Arthur,’ the man says, holding out his hand, ‘but my friends call me Arty.’
‘Clara,’ the woman says, taking it. ‘Very nice to meet you, Arthur.’
Arty grins. ‘So formal. St Felix will soon rub off some of that.’
Clara looks uncomfortable. ‘I do hope not. Well, thank you again for the drawing. My daughter seems to like it very much.’
‘See you around, Maggie!’ Arty says, saluting as Clara begins to push her away.
‘I hope so, Arty!’ Maggie calls back, but Clara remains silent, her head down as she hurriedly pushes her daughter’s wheelchair back along the harbour cobbles.
‘Well,’ Jack says as the moving pictures in front of us begin to swirl together and gradually fade away. ‘That was … unexpected.’
‘You could say that,’ I reply, still staring at the pictures in front of me. Everything has gone completely back to normal now, and in front of us resting on the easel are simply an oil painting and a piece of embroidered felt. ‘Did we imagine what just happened?’
‘How could we have? We both saw exactly the same thing, didn’t we? A woman and a child in a wheelchair, talking to a man who’d drawn a picture of them.’
‘Clara, Maggie and Arthur,’ I say quietly as though clarifying it for myself.
‘Arty,’ Jack adds, smiling, ‘He preferred to be called Arty.’
‘So he did …’ I look at Jack; his mystified expression mirrors my own inner thoughts. ‘When do you think that was supposed to be?’ I ask. ‘They were wearing old clothes – the fifties maybe?’
‘Yes, I thought that too,’ Jack agrees. ‘Also, I think polio was around in the fifties. Didn’t we have a huge epidemic in the UK back then?’
I nod. ‘Yes, I think you’re right, it was about then.’
‘I felt sorry for the kid in the wheelchair. It’s bad enough being in one when you’re my age – at least in mine I can push myself around. Looks like she had to rely on her mother to push her everywhere.’
‘Hopefully it wasn’t for long though. It sounds like she was on her way to recovery from what they were saying. They sent people to the seaside to recuperate back then, didn’t they? They thought the sea air was healing.’
‘I think it still is,’ Jack says. ‘I’ve definitely felt better since I’ve been here … but we’re getting slightly off track. Back to these … these pictures,’ he says, for want of a better description of what we’ve just seen.
‘Just whyarewe seeing a scene from the fifties played in front of us?’ I ask. ‘It’s obviously something to do with our two works of art.’ I look at them again. ‘But what?’
Jack and I both stare at the easel.
Then we both turn to one another at exactly same time and say: ‘The rock painting! The waves embroidery!’
I hurriedly take the harbour picture off the easel and replace it with the one of the rock and waves. Exactly as we’d done before, Jack holds my embroidery over the right spot on the painting so that the two of them match precisely and immediately, in the same magical way, the images begin to move and swirl together in front of us.
‘Are you ready?’ Jack asks, looking keenly at me.
