Page 142 of Guilty Pleasures

‘Dad! What the hell are you doing?’ cried Stella, lunging for the sculpture, picking it up, the knees of her jeans covered with dust.

‘Get out of here! OUT!’ roared Christopher, striding through the open door out into the night. Her head whirling, Stella dropped the small sculpture and ran to follow him. It was raining hard outside. She caught up with her father and pulled at his arm, turning him so she could see the rain splashing on his face, hard and cold.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she shouted above the wind.

‘Tell you what?’ he snapped, pulling his arm away. ‘The work in there is nothing to boast about.’

‘Dad, they are! They’re wonderful!’ said Stella fiercely.

She could see rivulets of water running down her father’s face and wasn’t sure if it was rain or tears.

‘You don’t know what it’s like to have a talent that the whole world looks up to you for, a talent that people will befriend you for, even marry you for. A talent that gives you fame and money and self-worth. And then to lose it all!’

He met his daughter’s gaze directly.

‘What nature gives you, it can take away,’ he said, holding up his twisted hands. ‘I still have a head full

of ideas but I can barely hold a chisel. I don’t want anyone to see my work now. I can hardly look at it. I don’t want people to pity me and think “Oh what a shame! He used to be so good, but now this is all the old man can do.” I want people to remember my work as it was.’

‘Art isn’t for museums, Dad!’ shouted Stella. ‘You told me that yourself once. It’s a living thing, it keeps moving forward. So maybe it’s not your best work, but even your worst stuff is still touched by genius. People still want to see it, touch it, pay good money for it. Don’t be a victim, Dad! Find a dealer, put on a show!’

‘Don’t be stupid, girl!’ he yelled back. ‘That’s all in the past, let it go.’

Stella suddenly felt a surge of anger and she grabbed his arm again.

‘I’ll tell you what stupid is: sitting in your farmhouse wallowing in self-pity with the bailiffs knocking on the door. Because that in there,’ she said pointing into the barn, ‘is your way of keeping Trencarrow.’

He looked at her, his eyes dead.

‘You’d better go back to your friend,’ he said, his voice noticeably hoarse. ‘Is he your new boyfriend?’

Stella shook her head absently as she took her coat off and put it over his sodden dressing-gown shoulder.

‘Get inside, Dad.’

He looked out in the distance where the black melted into the sea and sky.

‘I’ve missed you.’

‘I’ve missed you too, Dad.’

She stood in the dark watching him go inside. She heard Tom approach behind her. He’d found an old golf umbrella in the barn and held it over both of them.

Stella started sobbing uncontrollably.

‘I can’t help him, Tom,’ she said thickly, as Tom pulled her close with his free arm. She buried her head in his jumper which smelt of smoke and cologne. Tom gently led her back towards the house.

‘We can help him,’ he said in a firm voice. ‘Let me speak to my mother; she knows every top gallery owner and collector in London. There’s more than enough for a small show here. He’d sell out.’

‘But what if he’s right?’ asked Stella. ‘What if it’s not as good as his old stuff?’

‘It doesn’t matter. A Picasso is still a Picasso. And your father is still one of the most famous British sculptors of the last century. With the right PR, at the right gallery, the art world will still see his genius.’

She looked up at him.

‘Do you really think so?’

‘I’m no expert, but my mother is. And I bet she can’t wait to get her hands on him.’