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York was a disaster.
The day started well with washing clothes at a laundrette, followed by topping up on supplies, and posting the two paintings I’d finished. I added a note for Camilla –was she aware of somebody else working on a similar project to me?
She never answered her damn phone, and when I checked my email in an internet cafe, I discovered my inbox was full of junk mail and bureaucratic updates from the school, but nothing from her. Robyn was right about the lack of communication with our contacts. I regretted not taking her concerns more seriously. But it didn’t end there. I regretted everything I’d said outside the bed and breakfast. A good “fucking” time, was what she had obviously heard. Why had I acted like a schoolboy? I wasn’t afraid of falling in love, but clearly expressing my true feelings was now beyond me. I had learnt that lesson too well.
By referring to her “condition”, what had I done to her confidence? I’d spoken to her as though I was some expert on maladaptive daydreaming. She hadn’t a clue what I had been referring to, and why would she if she believed there was nothing wrong with her? I had only come across the disorder after researching it during my teacher training – the excessive need to fantasise was an excuse for not paying attention in lessons.
Waking up that morning in the tent, seeing her forlorn face, I had blithely demonstrated my selfish nature. She had been thinking about her family, and I had rushed her to make a decision about us, and now, sitting in the car park next to the Clifford Tower, I was regretting plenty.
She had a phone and I had brushed the hint aside. Why hadn’t I asked her for her number or her home address? Even her surname would help me reach out to her. Well, I knew why I hadn’t. She would have asked for mine, then once she had thrown that name at the internet, added some extra choice words, she would have found out the extent of the vilification, the persecution of my dad and me as we moved from one council house to another, and why I had hidden in the garage pretending it was my safe zone.
She had accused me of lacking commitment. I resented the accusation; I always did. However, it was exactly why I was alone. All Robyn had really found out about me was that a childhood prank, briefly referenced, was the reason why I was afraid of heights. I’d built such a successful barricade around myself, she would have to arm herself with a pickaxe to smash it. I wondered if she knew how close she had come to reaching me.
My bitterness had followed me to the city centre.
Painting Clifford Tower, the last remaining medieval edifice of York Castle, was challenging. The tower-topped mound was next to a museum and situated in the middle of a city car park. I tried to work from a park across the road, which at least added a church spire to the backdrop, but due to excessive prying by onlookers and my woeful lack of concentration, all I had managed was a sketch, then I’d given up. Robyn would have dashed here and there, energetically carefree, whereas my foul mood left me with one option. I bought a disposal camera, took photographs, and decided to paint the tower at a later date, probably in the comfort of my flat.
I had nothing else to do but sit in my car and wait for her.
Thirty-Three
Coalville
The next day I grew multiple arms and heads as I juggled tasks on behalf of my parents and myself. The funeral was likely to be in ten days. I calculated that still gave me time to finish off the last bits of photographs and be back for the service. While Mum wrote an obituary for the local newspaper and Dad tried to find a will in the hope of stemming arguments, I caught up on emails, laundered clothes, and reminisced with Mum.
Another disgruntled email to David bounced back with an out-of-office reply. I couldn’t describe the hurt to my mother as she was dealing with something far more painful. The email I had sent to Medici wasn’t even granted an automated reply. I worried he was either so ill that he wasn’t capable of reviewing my photographs or had decided they were so bad they weren’t worth the effort of a reply.
The negativity extended to my separation from Joseph. I tried to push him to the back of my mind, which left me fretting over who else I could trust. Yvette had no insights into why someone like David, an eminent professor, would associate himself with a trickster and pass him off as genuine.
A bad seed planted itself in my head, and grew – why should I finish off the project? I had enough money from the expenses to cover my credit card bill, and the new camera, and when the lease finished, the car could go back too. But my pride, my dignity, would suffer. I felt duty bound to deliver on my end of the bargain. And there was the castles, just fifteen, hardly my original of dozens. However, they were representative of my ambition, and if I couldn’t manage fifteen, then what did that say about my resilience? If Joseph hung around at York, even for just a couple of days, I might see him again. The idea fuelled itself; all I needed to do was stoke it with practicalities. Hope replaced disappointment.
The main problem was Mum had glued herself to me emotionally, and I shouldered the grief by her side, present-minded, and glum-faced. I kept her topped up with tea and biscuits while she rang this person and that, arranged flowers and donations to the hospice, debated over which wood to choose for the coffin and the hymns for the funeral.
‘Mum,’ I said, ‘you’ve got plenty of time. Nobody is hassling you, and the crematorium isn’t available until next week.’
She wiped her nose and inspected a well-thumbed address book.
‘I had no idea she was this popular. Look at all these Drake cousins – I thought they hated Beryl.’
Beryl’s past was something of a mystery to me, especially the relatives dotted around the country with loose connections to her. The likelihood of hawkers had motivated Dad to hunt for a will.
‘She could be a difficult person,’ I said.
Mum sighed. ‘True. And stubborn. Do you remember…’
And so we continued chatting through that day and into the next, a stagnant Saturday. Rain was desperately needed. The garden was a mortuary of wilted rose bushes and honeysuckle.
The letters, tied up with frayed ribbon, which Mum had left on the dining room table in amongst other documents and photo albums, finally reached the surface the following morning at breakfast, two days after I had said an awkward goodbye to Joseph.
The blue paper was as thin as tissue, the writing in the faded ink of a fountain pen, not biro. I selected a random envelope and inspected the date stamp on the postmark.
‘Mum, look at this. They’re old.’ I re-examined each one. None of them were addressed to Beryl.
She read over my shoulder. ‘Isabel Drake.’
‘Granny Izzy. That’s her maiden name, isn’t it?’
The writing was somewhat spidery and childish. The address, I didn’t recognise, although I knew the village was close to Coalville. ‘Do you know the house?’
