‘Course I will.’ Her eyes were unfocused as she thought.
‘And take those frames to the charity shop, if you don’t mind. I’d ask my youngest grandson, but he’s so busy at the moment. He does what he can. He’s such a good boy, and I don’t like to bother him.’
Against the wall leaned a bundle of picture frames, so many that Kelsey knew she’d struggle to carry them along with the books.
Kelsey didn’t want to enquire about this invisible grandson who didn’t seem to do much for her at all. He must be the ‘young man’ she had mentioned on previous visits, surely? The one that brought the roses? Blythe seemed so fond of the idea that she had him as a helper and friend but Kelsey had never laid eyes on him. ‘Been having a clear out?’ she asked instead.
‘I have, as it happens. Talking with you about the old days and seeing the article in the paper got me thinking about how stagnant I’ve been lately. Some memories you can afford to let go of, and itwasgetting a little cluttered in here.’
As Kelsey had struggled out the door, her arms full, Blythe had called out in a commanding voice, ‘Wow us all, Kelsey dear!’
The idea had come to her that evening as she was washing the dust from Blythe’s empty frames at the little sink in her bedsit before taking them to the charity shop.Show everyone what you can do, make use of the spaces you have, push yourself. Wow the crowds.
The crowds?
The glass in one of the frames glinted as she held it to the light to check for fingerprints and she caught her reflection in it, gilt-edged like a portrait. Her eyes were wild and shining.
‘An exhibition… on the barge! I’ll create my own photography exhibition!’
The rain was beating even harder at the barge windows and Kelsey was no longer sitting nursing her coffee cup. She was setting out rows of frames in every size on dust sheets, all ready to paint with the studio’s leftover white emulsion. Some were Blythe’s, some were finds of her own; she’d raided every charity shop in town.
She had already set the date for the grand opening: Valentine’s Day, when Jonathan would be briefly back in town to see it. That would give her a little over three months to select and print all the photos she needed, frame and hang them, and advertise the launch of the Kelsey Anderson Photography Barge Gallery and retrospective exhibition of her best work. Her paintbrush worked as the November rain fell and she was smiling all the while.
Chapter Nineteen
‘My pride fell with my fortunes’
(As you Like It)
The lagers were easier than the cask ales, Mirren was learning.
‘The glass must be spotlessly clean,’ Kenneth the landlord of the Yorick had insisted multiple times. They’d worked on getting the exact angle on the tilt of the glass right, combined with the right speed on the pour and knowing when to leave off to let the head settle mid-way.
Mirren had likened pouring the perfect pint to finding the biting point between the clutch and the accelerator but Kenneth wasn’t the type to appreciate analogies and had looked blankly at her. Any badly pulled pints refused by customers would be deducted from her wages, he’d told her, giving her an hour to perfect her technique.
Fortunately, the white-bearded old barfly was there to polish off any failed attempts and he had a long line of froth-filled glasses in front of him as he supped away happily.
‘Practice makes perfect,’ he said, eyes aglow and cheeks pink, as Mirren slid yet another disaster towards him. ‘Must be my lucky day. The lass who worked here before you got the knack instantly, didn’t get so much as a snifter onherfirst shift.’ His voice was jolly even though it was boomingly loud and Mirren wished he wasn’t so meticulous about broadcasting each failure to the entire bar which was surprisingly busy for a wintry Wednesday afternoon.
She smiled back when he threw her a compassionate wink and she quickly looked back at her grip on the glass and the beer tap, exhaling through pursed lips, her brow furrowed with concentration as though she were about to pilot an Apollo rocket instead of pulling a dribbling pint of Bottom’s Bobbin.
‘After that you can try the Fair Youth,’ Kenneth was instructing. ‘Needs a slower pull than the Dark Lady.’
So it had come to this. Her degree at journalism school and all those years of training, covering charity bazaars and stories about the village fair’s prize-winning fruit pies, and her long apprenticeship under Jamesey on the court stories at theBroadsheet, all that grafting and climbing. Just when she’d been on the cusp of a breakthrough it had all fallen apart. She refused to believe all her hard work had been for nothing.
She’d picked up resilience beyond measure for a start, and she’d held on to some of her professional pride even if she couldn’t practise her literary art at the moment. Her command of words, her investigative talents, her coolness under pressure in a bustling environment, all of these she could store up for when her big break came, and that wouldn’t be long, surely? She was on the edge of the next stage in her journalism career, she could almost feel it.
‘Packet of pork scratchings please, love,’ a tourist was asking, bringing her round from her reverie.
‘Kenneth, can you show me how to work the till please?’ Mirren asked in a small voice as the pre-theatre crowds began to pour in and she lost herself in the sudden rush and clamour, all thoughts of her old career banished.
‘It’s you!’ the voice exclaimed from the end of the bar. Mirren barely registered it. It was ten minutes until last orders and she was looking forward to ringing the brass bell for the first time. The hours had flown by in a noisy blur of orders shouted out across the hubbub, mixer bottle tops clanking into the pail below the bar, bubbling optics and overflowing froth – and she’d actually enjoyed it. Her feet ached even in her flat boots, but there were tips in the jar, happy punters talking loudly and huddling together, full bellies, and empty plates being cleared away by the kitchen staff.
She glanced over to find Adrian smiling, learning with his arms crossed on the bar.
‘I’ve been keeping an eye open for you all over town,’ he said. ‘Should have known the Yorick would snap you up. You doing OK?’
‘I’m good actually.’ She was surprised to find she meant it too. ‘Why were you looking for me?’ She took the opportunity of a lull in orders to wipe her cloth along the bar towards him. ‘Drink?’
