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Penzance

The northerly wind was brisk as it rushed past me on its way to the harbour.

March sunshine made no difference to the bitter temperature, and I pulled my coat tighter.

The bare trees lining the car park seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for a moment of warmth to bring forth their leaves still clenched in tight bud.

Once I had known every inch of the place, but now I was a stranger.

I pulled my shoulders back, took a deep breath and walked towards the entrance.

The sooner I went in, the sooner I could resolve my father’s estate and return to my life in London.

My phone rang. Paul. We’d spoken ten minutes ago as I’d left the house.

He was worried about me, but I couldn’t postpone this any longer, so I didn’t answer.

With each step I took towards the main door, I reminded myself that I had every right to be here, even if I didn’t want to be.

‘Hello, love.’ Marcia Williams stood and embraced me in a big hug that defied her petite size. When I pulled back, there were tears in my eyes as well as hers. She was the glue that held the auction house together.

She blew her nose, then asked, ‘Still take your coffee black, no sugar?’

‘Yes, thank you. Well remembered.’ Her office was lined with past catalogues filed neatly in glass-fronted bookcases that had first been used in some solicitor’s office in the 1930s. It added an air of authority to the place.

She put the kettle on. ‘Not used to this.’ She waved her hand around. ‘He was always here when I arrived, unless he and your mother were on holiday in the Scillies.’

Dad’s boat would have to be sold. One more item on the list of loss.

‘I’ll bring the coffee; you go to the office. I haven’t touched anything since . . .’ Her voiced trailed away.

I swallowed a lump in my throat.

This place felt timeless. The corridor was lined with paintings for the next fine art sale in two weeks’ time. I clenched my hands and counted to ten. Breathe. Function. Move forward. This was only temporary.

The door to Dad’s office was slightly ajar.

Inside, nothing had changed. I wanted it to be different somehow – not as it always had been, with files stacked on the bookcase behind the desk, the tall clock that had never kept time occupying the corner.

My father had loved the chimes. As if on cue, it struck eleven, but it was not yet nine.

When the sound stopped, I closed my eyes and listened – Marcia’s voice on the telephone next door, the rumble of traffic on the road, and loudest of all, the pounding of my heart.

I circled the desk, not ready to sit in my father’s chair.

My phone beeped with a message from Paul. He loved me. I held that to me, for I would need his love, especially today. I touched the locket I wore. He’d given it to me on the first anniversary of our being together, eight years ago.

‘Kerensa.’ Marcia set the coffee on the desk and sent me a look. I stood by the window. ‘I know this is hard, but he always believed in you.’

I closed my eyes for a moment. Eight years ago I had made a huge mistake by being extremely cautious listing a painting as Impressionist school after Cézanne rather than the real thing. Even just thinking about it made part of me shrivel.

‘I believe in you too.’

‘Thank you.’ I turned to her. ‘That means the world.’

‘There’s no time like the present to sit down and get your feet under the desk.’ She took my hand and led me like a child to the chair. I sat obediently.

‘His password was love1992.’

I looked down at my hands.

‘No caps, all one word.’ She pulled the door closed as she left.

My name, Kerensa, meant ‘love’ in Cornish, and 1992 was the year I was born. I didn’t know where to look, let alone what to do.

‘Pull yourself together,’ I said aloud, putting my hands on the top of the desk. If I treated this as a research project, it would be simple. It was a job, nothing more than another task to accomplish, even though it meant being here.

The phone rang. I stared at it. Who used landlines these days? ‘Hello. Barton’s.’

‘Ren.’

‘Paul?’

‘You didn’t answer my call or my text. I’m worried about you.’

‘Thank you.’ This was so much harder than anything I could have imagined, had I ever pictured this day.

‘Darling, I just wanted to tell you I love you and you can do this quickly. Then you can come home and I can look after you.’

‘Once probate is done.’

‘But you won’t have to stay there until probate is done, especially with all the delays now since the pandemic. Just find out the lie of the land, then hand it to the solicitors.’ He spoke slowly, as if I needed clear instructions. Maybe I did. Losing Dad so suddenly had shaken me.

I hoped that the task of selling my mother’s and my share of the business would be that simple. My father had been somewhat organised, so my role should be nothing more than box-ticking.

‘I’ve lost you.’

‘Sorry, I’m distracted and I haven’t seen Uncle Stephen since the funeral. He won’t want me here.’

‘Don’t be silly. You own twenty-four per cent of the business now that your father is gone. Your uncle can’t kick you out.’

‘I’m not being silly.’ Not at all. Stephen had done just that eight years ago. Paul had been my rock since then, when my world fell apart and I broke down.

‘OK, not silly.’ He paused. ‘Be quick, though.’

‘I miss you too.’ I thought of the ease of our life in London. Everything was arranged to help me manage my anxiety.

‘Love you.’

‘Love you too,’ I said, and put the phone down. When I looked up, Stephen was standing in the doorway.

‘I won’t say welcome, but I hope you can at least be useful while you’re here. We’re a man down,’ he said bluntly, as if I didn’t know why I was here. Like me, he was dressed in black, but maybe that was what he always wore. Today it was black trousers with a black polo neck.

He dropped a folder on the desk. ‘Your father was working on this, and you can be useful by finishing it.’

‘I’m not here to do this.’ I tapped the file.

‘If I could give it to anyone else, I would. But it’s an easy enough task, even for you.’

Before I could reply, he was gone.

The beige folder sat in the centre of the desk.

It was a challenge.

My uncle had placed it there as if he was handing out an exam paper. Perhaps that was exactly what it was, a test. My bodily responses were identical to the many exams I’d sat. My heart sped up and drummed louder, blocking out all rational thought.

I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t good enough.

The walls closed in on me. I shouldn’t be here, but this was exactly where I was supposed to be. It was where my father wanted me to be, where my mother needed me to be. But the last place I wanted to be. My uncle didn’t want me here either. We could agree on that at least.

Outside the office window, seagulls cried.

The fields were filled with unpicked daffodils oddly shouting joy when I was still dressed in black.

It had been three days since my father’s funeral, and despite my mourning clothes, I still couldn’t process it.

He couldn’t be gone. But he was, and I was sitting at his desk.

A pile of papers, an old inkwell, a family photo and a totally out-of-place Mac computer covered the surface.

Even he had been pulled out of the early 1900s into computer use for the ease of research and communication with clients both buying and selling.

I touched the keyboard to bring the screen to life, and wished I could do the same for him.

The smell of mould rose from the slightly damp file in front of me. The whole building was filled with the scent of beeswax, varnish and decay. The latter was everywhere, from foxing to woodworm to crumbling paper. The dust of the ages hung in the air and covered every surface.

The first sheet of paper in the file was in my uncle’s handwriting.

It declared it was the estate of two distinguished ladies, Bathsheba Kernow and Vivian Sykes.

The names rang a bell: artists possibly.

They had died four years ago, in 2018. The house and all its contents were to be sold by order of the court.

What was the story behind this? Four years?

Even allowing for the pandemic, that seemed a long time.

It wasn’t my problem. My father’s estate was. I wasn’t here to work, for I was a liability. That had been agreed eight years ago.

Yet I couldn’t help it, I was intrigued.

The file would have to wait, though. First, I needed to find the company accounts and then locate my father’s private ones.

Mum had no idea of their whereabouts. Tonight I would have a closer look at the women’s estate.

Before I shut the file, I turned one more page to find Dad’s handwritten notes.

He had the worst writing, but I could read it, or I had always been able to in the past. The blur of words in front of me now were like a foreign language.

Had it been that long since I’d read anything he’d written, or had his handwriting deteriorated since I’d left?

Preliminary visit to Harbour House scheduled for 8/8/2019 Bathsheba Kernow – painter

Vivian Sykes – sculptor

Artwork – WB

General contents – SB

Postponed on 7/8/2019 and client to advise on new date

I closed the file and put it in my bag. First things first, my father’s estate. That’s why I was here.

* * *

The long clock in the corner chimed eight; it was 6.15. I couldn’t linger here any longer. Mum would be waiting for me. I put the large set of keys for the artists’ house into my bag. Tomorrow morning I would go there and assess the time required to make an inventory.

In the corridor, I paused to listen to my uncle on the phone, then glanced at my phone. Another message from Paul.

I need you here. Nothing is right without you.

As if I wanted to be here. London was home and here was not.

No one, especially not my beloved father, had planned for him dying in a bicycle accident while he was out for an evening ride.

At fifty-eight, he was fit and loved to indulge in his passion for cycling and sailing.

My poor mother was a different story. A little over a year ago she had suffered a stroke, and her recovery had been slow. My father’s death wasn’t helping.

Outside Marcia’s office hung a black and white photo of the premises in 1920.

S. W. Barton Auctioneers had been founded by my great-great-grandfather in 1902.

Ever since, there had been a family member driving the gentlemanly business through both good times and bad.

The company had made a name for itself with the many artists who had flourished here in Cornwall.

My father had been an expert on the works of the Newlyn and St Ives schools.

My uncle was more concerned with furniture, porcelain and the bottom line.

When I’d asked to see the accounts, he’d said he didn’t have time today and would get them to me tomorrow afternoon.

‘When are you heading to Harbour House?’ he called from the end of the hallway, where he was leaning on the door frame of his office. Tall, handsome and bitter, he was five years younger than Dad, and in this moment looked five years older.

‘Most likely tomorrow morning if all is well with Mum.’

He nodded, with a sour expression on his face. ‘None of the furniture has any value; it can go straight to a general sale. You’ll need to inventory it immediately.’ He turned and closed his office door.

I’d tried all day to have a proper conversation with him, but he’d done nothing except issue orders as if I was the junior in the office.

Back when I had been just that, he’d been more fun, or at least I’d thought so at the time.

Maybe my memory was failing a bit, like Mum’s.

I could put hers down to her stroke and the stress of losing Dad, but I wasn’t impacted in quite the same way.

I had lost my champion, but not the love of my life and the centre of my existence.

I waved goodbye to Marcia.

‘See you in the morning,’ she said.

‘I’ll head to Harbour House first thing.’ I tapped the folder in my bag.

‘Good luck with that one,’ she said.

I stopped. ‘Why?’

She shrugged. ‘Nothing’s been done for years because of missing wills and a dispute over who inherits.’

‘Oh. How many heirs?’

She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Two great-nephews, I think. And all rather complicated because of their living situation.’

‘As two distinguished ladies?’ I raised an eyebrow.

Marcia nodded. ‘Quite.’

Such antiquated language, but that suited my uncle, who never said anything directly if possible. Down the corridor, his voice droned on.