Page 25

Penzance

I ignored my hangover as Tash and I worked through Harbour House.

Drinking had not been a good idea. I was grateful Mum wasn’t being released until this evening so we could continue here.

But the portrait in the hallway would have to wait until I had the right type of ladder to reach it safely.

So with a slightly sore head, I looked through the desk for details of paintings purchased or received from friends. Provenance was everything in this game.

In the bottom drawer I found letters and what looked like a manuscript.

It was poetry, beautiful love poems. They sounded like the work of Simon Forster.

Even with a quick read I knew it was important.

The manuscript had no title page or author, so I typed a few lines into the search engine to see if the work was already published.

There were no matches, but it suggested other Simon Forster poems.

Leaning back in the chair, I tapped the desk, trying to think.

An expert in poetry was needed. The first person to come to mind was Rory Crown, who featured in a series about poetry and literature.

I’d never met him, but he was on the faculty of the university with Paul.

Paul had been disparaging about him, saying that Crown spent most of his time making the programmes and not doing any proper scholarship.

I picked up the manuscript and went to find Tash, who was in the sitting room, cataloguing the books there.

She glanced up from the floor, where she sat cross-legged. ‘You’ve made tea?’

‘No, I bring you love poems.’ I handed the manuscript to her. ‘I’ll go and make the tea now. It might help my head.’

‘Don’t forget the biscuits, too. Need something to sop up that second bottle of wine we drank last night.’

‘Don’t remind me.’

‘I’ll never let you forget.’ Her laughter followed me down the hall.

Unlike yesterday’s sunshine, today was dull and cold, as if winter had returned. The sea was the colour of mercury. On the horizon, sunlight pierced the cloud, creating a bright white line near the horizon. Below the house, the harbour was quiet.

Tea made, I grabbed the packet of digestives and returned to the sitting room, where I found Tash in tears. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘This.’ She held the script open and tapped the page. ‘So damn beautiful.’

I shook my head. Poetry had never moved me that way.

‘Just read it. It’s all about saying goodbye because there is no other choice and how love can’t win, not this time.’

She blew her nose and bit into a ginger nut.

Left the unsafe harbour

Sailed the uncharted sea

Have tasted paradise

Have lived hell

Ignorance would have saved me

But experience arrived

Damning me

You do not know

I cannot tell

A choice so bitter

I swallowed a lump in my throat. It was pretty emotive stuff even by my reckoning.

‘I thought Simon Forster hadn’t written any more after his wife and daughter were killed in the Blitz.’ Tash brushed crumbs off her lap.

‘He didn’t, according to the internet, but what if . . .’ I put the script down and picked up my mug. ‘I ran a few of the lines through Google, and it appears that these poems have never been published.’

‘Well they should be.’ Tash grabbed another biscuit.

‘Agree, but we need an expert.’

‘Have someone in mind?’ she asked, getting to her feet.

I perched on the sofa. ‘Rory Crown.’

‘He’s divine, and I could listen to him read poetry to me all day long.’

I laughed. ‘Does Gareth read poetry to you?’

She stood up straight. ‘Actually, yes.’

‘Oh.’ That was unexpected.

‘Don’t sound so surprised.’ She pulled out her phone. ‘I saw something in the local paper about Rory Crown.’

I frowned. I didn’t associate him with Cornwall. He was Scottish and lived in London.

‘Here it is.’ She held out the phone. ‘He’s here at the moment launching a prize for historical fiction in the name of his former lover, Hebe Courtenay.’

‘Former lover?’

‘It’s such a sad thing. She died at the age of fifty-four of early-onset Alzheimer’s.’

‘Fifty-four?’ I knew he couldn’t be more than thirty-five.

‘She bought Helwyn House over near the Helford River, and her niece, Lucy, is running it as an arts centre along with her husband, that hot actor Kit Williams.’

I whistled. Kit Williams was fit, but I’d had no idea he lived in Cornwall. ‘How do you know all this stuff?’

‘I pay attention to the world I live in.’ She sipped her tea.

‘Ouch.’ I held my hands up, but she was right. My world was very small, and that made it easier and safer.

‘According to this article, the launch is tomorrow. Shall we go?’ Her face lit up.

‘No, I don’t have the time.’ I sighed. A day out with Tash would be bliss. ‘I’ll email him.’

‘Damn, I’d love to see the place.’ She took another biscuit.

‘Isn’t it open to the public?’

‘Sort of, but every time they’ve done an exhibition or something, I’ve been busy, and as you know, this week I’m all yours.’ She grinned.

Closing my eyes for a moment, I travelled to the Helford.

It was a favourite place of my parents’, and I’d sailed there when I was small.

I opened my list of things to do and checked I’d put ‘sell boat’ on it.

There were so many things going on that I was losing track. ‘Let’s see what he says when I email.’

‘Well, do it now and then get back to work. I’ve finished all the books in here.’ Tash sipped her tea. ‘What’s next?’

‘There’s a lot of correspondence and all in a mess.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Will hunting.’

‘No doubt. I think we should put it all out on the dining room table and begin to organise it by date.’

She saluted and headed to the study, while I quickly drafted an email to Rory Crown.

* * *

Mum beamed at me when I collected her from the hospital, but as soon as we reached the house, she shrivelled.

There was no other word for it. It wasn’t my idea of home either, but I could see how it would make things easier than our old house.

That had been filled with draughts, character and more staircases with differing levels than seemed possible.

God, I missed it, and it was clear she did too.

She and Dad had had so little time together in this one to make it theirs, and now it was just hers.

Once I had settled her in a chair in the sitting room, I went into the kitchen and popped another one of the many dishes from the freezer into the oven.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I called to her, though despite this morning’s hangover, I felt something stronger was required. Money was not something my mother and I ever talked about. Now it was clear we should have. There was no putting this discussion off.

‘I’d love a whisky,’ she said.

I popped my head through the door. ‘Really?’

She nodded. Who was I to argue?

Once I’d poured two large measures, I joined her in the sitting room.

She took the glass. ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’

I sank into the chair opposite and waited. If she had said these words to me two days ago, I would have been surprised. Her life had been an open book of community service, first by teaching, followed by volunteering. Now I wasn’t so sure I knew my parents at all.

‘I’m listening.’

‘Something is wrong.’ She drew a breath. ‘Two days ago, I called the bank to check why Meg’s payment hadn’t gone through and discovered we had exceeded our overdraft.’

My phone vibrated repeatedly and I cursed Paul, who was bombarding me with messages right when I needed to focus on Mum. He had to stop. A few texts were supportive, but this was too much. It was becoming a burden, and I had enough going on at the moment.

‘I don’t understand fully.’ My mother took a sip of the whisky and smiled and winced at the same time. ‘But the bank . . . explained that your father had been transferring . . . huge chunks of money into some account.’

I nodded.

‘You don’t think he was having an affair?’ She drew a breath. ‘Has a love child and was being blackmailed?’

I wanted to laugh, but my mother was ghostly pale and still. It was then that I could see the effects of the stroke on her beautiful face.

‘I saw the bank statements,’ I told her, ‘so I knew something was happening, but the thought of Dad having an affair or a love child never crossed my mind.’

‘He was human.’

‘True, but never was a person so devoted to another as he was to you. I’ve been with him when women threw themselves at him, and he just wasn’t interested.’

She visibly relaxed into the chair.

‘But the money is a huge worry.’ Behind my mother’s head was her favourite painting.

It was a Laura Knight of the cliffs near Lamorna, with a lone woman looking at the view.

That painting alone might be worth half a million.

Last September her painting of Sennen Cove had gone for over five hundred thousand pounds, becoming the top-selling lot in the sale.

The estimate had been for between sixty and eighty thousand pounds.

Bonhams had put together a wonderful selection of modern British women artists.

Dad had met me in London for the preview.

But how could I ask my mother to sell her favourite painting?

‘What should I do?’ she asked.

I twisted the glass in my fingers. ‘Do you have an account of your own?’

‘Just an old Premium Bond one.’

‘Can you liquidate it?’

She nodded.

‘May I ask how much?’ I prayed it would be a substantial amount.

‘Five thousand.’

That wouldn’t last long.

‘I’m so sorry you’re being dragged into this, darling. I know you want to be in London with Paul.’

I nodded without giving it too much thought. Both London and Paul were far away from my current concerns. The first one was how to pay for Mum’s carer.

‘We need to talk to Stephen.’ For days I’d done everything to avoid talking to him and at the same time trying to. Tash didn’t like him, which she’d made clear the other day, but neither she nor I could pinpoint when I’d first taken against him.

‘He’s all right, you know.’ My mother smiled. ‘He is an acquired taste, though.’

‘One I’ve never acquired.’ I sipped my whisky and let it burn in my mouth before swallowing.

‘Not true. You actually loved him when you were little.’

‘Funny, I don’t remember that.’

‘Well, after, you know . . .’ She looked down. ‘He became a bit unbearable because his side of the business was doing well and it took your father a long time to rebuild.’

I blew out a massive amount of air. I couldn’t apologise again for something I’d already said a million sorries for.

It was the defining moment of my life. There was the happy Ren before, when she’d had everything going for her, and the reclusive Ren after.

I’d settled well enough into my post-fuck-up life.

And to prove it, my phone vibrated again.

‘Is that your lovely man? Do you need to call him?’ Mum smiled encouragingly.

‘Right now, you’re my focus, Mum.’ Not Paul’s needs and wants.

The phone rang. I was about to kill it when I saw it was Jenny, the producer of my TV show. ‘I need to take this.’

‘Go ahead.’ Mum leaned back in her chair.

‘Hi, Jenny,’ I said, walking into the kitchen.

‘Where are you?’ she asked.

‘In Cornwall.’ I checked on the casserole.

‘You said you were going to be back in London and I wanted you to come into the office first thing. There’s an exciting project afoot.’

‘What?’

‘You emailed,’ she said.

‘I didn’t.’

‘You did. I’m looking at it.’

‘This is crazy. I must have been hacked.’ I put the phone on speaker and went to my emails. ‘Which account did it come from?’

‘Both.’

I hadn’t looked at my personal or work mailboxes in days, even when I sent the email to Rory Crown.

‘Can you get into your accounts?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I managed to say as I saw at least ten emails that I didn’t write. ‘I can see the ones to you and I can tell you I didn’t send them.’

‘You’d better change your passwords immediately.’

‘Yes.’ But even as I said it, I knew who had sent them. I’d been hacked by my partner. He could access my mail from the desktop computer at home and he’d been busy telling people I was back and would be working from Monday. That was wishful thinking on his part.

‘Jenny, I won’t be able to work for you for the foreseeable future. Things here are pretty messy.’

‘To be honest, I was surprised to hear from you so soon. Delighted but surprised.’

‘I’ll give you a call next week, when I may have a better idea of my timing.’

‘OK. Take care of yourself,’ she said.

I thanked her, put my phone down and opened the oven. Did I confront Paul, or did I simply change my password and move on for now? It would be easier to talk to him in person, but I didn’t see that happening any time soon.

I dialled his number right away. It was best to sort this now. Violated was the word in my head.

‘Ren,’ he said. In the background I heard voices and music. He was out. ‘How’s your mother?’

‘She’s home.’

‘That’s great.’ He paused. ‘Look, I’m not at the flat at the moment.’

‘I can hear that, but we need to talk right now about my emails.’

‘Oh, that. I was just giving you a hand, as I know you have so much to do and you always put yourself last.’

‘You should have told me.’ I drummed my fingers on the counter.

‘You’re right, I should have. But when have we had a proper chat? You don’t respond most of the time, and if you’re doing that to me, imagine how Jenny felt with your lack of response.’

‘But—’

‘Look, I’m just helping. You weren’t replying, which isn’t professional.’

‘No, but—’

‘I’ve got to go. Talk tomorrow.’

The phone went silent. I stared at it and the picture of us on the lock screen.

It was a selfie I had taken in the flat.

Did we ever go out anywhere other than with his friends?

I scrolled through the pictures. The only ones taken outside of the flat were from my morning run or pictures of women’s art that I used for Instagram. Was that my world?

I heard my mother in the sitting room. There were more important things to address right now. Fixing things with Paul would wait until I had helped Mum and found out where all their money had gone.