Page 95 of Kate and Clara's Curious Cornish Craft Shop
‘You and that camera of yours,’ Clara says, smiling at him. ‘It was bad enough when you wanted to paint everything, including me, but now you have a need to photograph everything too.’
‘You know how much I love documenting our lives together, Clara. These photos will be our memories in the future.’
‘No, our memories will always be up here,’ Clara says, tapping her head, ‘and in here,’ she adds, touching her heart.
‘You’re right, of course,’ Arty says, looking adoringly at her. ‘You usually are.’ He winks.
Clara beams back. ‘I’m so happy, Arty,’ she says. ‘This past year has been one of the happiest of my life.’
‘Mine too. I’m so pleased I bumped into you and Maggie that day at the harbour … although I don’t think you thought all that much of me back then, did you?’
Clara smiles. ‘I was different a year ago. Much warier of people. Life up until that point had let me down, but St Felix, my shop and you have changed all that, Arty. You’ve been so good for me, and for Maggie.’
‘She’s doing so well now, isn’t she?’ Arty says. ‘You wouldn’t know a year ago she was in a wheelchair – she’s so strong, both in body and in character. I do love her as if she were my own.’
‘Oh, Arty,’ Clara says. ‘I know you do. You’re a better father to her than anyone could ever be. She thinks the world of you.’
They gaze at each other, and then Arty looks down at Clara’s hand. He lifts it up and clears his throat.
‘Clara, I love you more than anyone I’ve ever met. I love everything about you, from your kind and generous personality to the way you never put up with my nonsense. I never thought I’d find a soulmate on this earth, but I have, and it’s you. For some strange reason I know not, you seem to feel a similar way about me too, so now, my darling, I would like to ask one more thing of you?’
Clara nods, utterly spellbound by Arty’s words.
‘Clara, would you do me the greatest honour of becoming my wife?’
The colours begin to swirl and mix together, and frustratingly the images in front of us disappear.
‘No!’ I cry out. ‘Not now. I want to hear what she says!’
‘She’ll say “yes”. Of course she will,’ Jack says in a quiet voice next to me.
‘How do you know though?’ I say, still staring at the silhouettes of Clara and Arty on the canvas in front of me.
‘You can see they’re totally in love with each other, that’s why.’
‘But they hated each other to start with – well, Clara didn’t like Arty. When did it all change?’ I turn to Jack and to my surprise notice his eyes are a little misty. ‘Are you all right?’ I ask.
‘Yes, of course I am,’ Jack says gruffly, rubbing at his eyes. ‘Hay-fever, that’s all. Things change, don’t they?’ he says, hurriedly changing the subject. ‘You could see in the previous couple of paintings they were getting on better, and Clara was softening towards him at last, poor guy.’
‘So why the sudden leap forwards in time?’ I ask, choosing not to mention Jack’s sudden ‘hay-fever’ any further. ‘They said they’d known each other a year, so we must be in nineteen fifty-eight now.’
Jack shrugs. ‘You’re asking me to explain why the magical pictures we’ve been watching for the last few weeks have suddenly missed a few chapters? It’s hardly the strangest thing going on here, is it?’
‘That’s true, I suppose. It’s lovely though, isn’t it?’ I say, clasping my hands together delightedly, ‘that they’re going to have a happy ending.’
‘If this is the ending?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Come on, Kate! You can’t think we’ve watched all this only to see Arty propose to Clara? There has to be something more to it.’
‘You’re probably right,’ I say, my hands dropping back down into my lap. ‘It would seem odd for it just to be this. In my experience life is never that straightforward.’
‘Ain’t that the truth. I’m glad we know Maggie didn’t end up in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Believe me, no one would want that, especially not back then. It would have been a lot harder to be in a wheelchair in the fifties and sixties than it is now. Things aren’t great these days, but they’re a hell of a lot easier than they would have been sixty years ago.’
‘Yes, it’s good to hear she recovered. I wonder what she went on to do. She’d be what, mid-to late seventies now – I wonder if she’s still alive?’
‘She might be. It could have been her who had been living in the house we went to visit, not Clara.’
