‘Cardies are always useful,’ Ellie assured her. ‘How long are you staying?’
The sudden silence only lasted a heartbeat but it sent something like a tiny shiver through the air.
‘I haven’t quite decided,’ Jeannie said. She hesitated, then added, ‘Thereissomething I want to do while I’m here, if I can.’
‘Oh?’ Laura was wiping Lili’s face. ‘What’s that?’
‘I want to find out more about the artist who did that painting over the fireplace.’
It was just a tiny tremor in her voice that gave away the depth of what was hidden under those words. Or maybe it was the feeling that something very fragile and irreplaceable had been picked up, without permission, and was in danger of being dropped.
Whatever it was, it made them all turn slowly to look at the painting.
The silence was longer this time.
It was Ellie who took a deep breath and spoke carefully. ‘I’m not sure that would be possible,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘I saw that painting in one of the summer markets in Vence when I first came here,’ she said. ‘It was… well, it was on my first date with Julien. And then, quite by chance, we saw it again. In a gallery in a little village up in the mountains. We asked about the artist and we got told that nobody knows his real name. He’s called the “hermit” because nobody even sees him during the winter. The woman in the gallery told us that he used to be homeless but he lives in a stable on a farm now and that’s where he does all his painting. He only comes to the markets in summer.’
Fi had no idea why Ellie was sounding so guarded but, if there were sides to be taken here, she would be on Team Jeannie. She wanted to know more about this artist, too. She could even feel the tenuous strings of a bond forming. Because she’d felt safe living in a stable? Because it had been a place to hide away from the world when she’d needed to? Or was it because she’d felt herself drawn into that painting within minutes of entering this little house? When she’d felt as if she was finding something as precious as Jeannie had apparently picked up.
Was it too far-fetched to think it could be the same thing?
The… what was it… the glue, perhaps, that held people together as a family, whether or not they shared a genetic link?
There was something else going on here, however. Ellie was looking more than uncomfortable. And Laura was staring at their mother.
‘You were upset when you first saw that painting, weren’t you? It almost made you cry.’
Ellie bit her lip. ‘You thought you’d seen it before, but you couldn’t have.’
Jeannie got to her feet. She went to where she’d left her old-fashioned handbag that was big enough to accommodate her knitting. She opened the clasp and drew out a thin cylinder of rolled-up papers.
‘Laura’s seen these before,’ she told Ellie. ‘But you and Fi haven’t.’ She removed the rubber band that was securing the roll and flattened the papers.
‘That’s art paper,’ Ellie exclaimed. ‘The kind I use for sketching.’
Fi touched the corner of the textured paper. ‘Are these old ones that Ellie did?’
‘No. They’re a lot older than that. I found them in the attic at home.’
She lifted the first sheet of paper and they all stared at the pencil lines that were smudged as they flowed over a hilly landscape but sharpened into focus to feature the ruins of a stone cottage in the foreground.
Jeannie cleared her throat. ‘These were done by your father.’
In what felt like a suffocating silence they all looked from the cottage in the sketch to the remains of a small, stone building in the painting over the fireplace.
‘Oh…God…’ Ellie breathed. The words were a soft groan.
Fi turned, with everyone else, to stare at her.
‘You know something.’ Jeannie’s tone was shocked.
Laura looked pale. Pinched, almost – as if she was shrinking back into herself. Or the past?
Fi had a sudden flash of memory. Ellie was about four years old and she was crying, resisting being pulled up the stairs by the grip Laura had on her hand.
