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‘You knew then?’ I asked David.
‘Some of it. Lora and I have been friends for many years. I was her student. I studied in Naples where she worked as a professor for many years. She told me about Catherine, her mother. I didn’t know about a half-sister.’ David weaved his knuckles together, tempering something that nearly betrayed his emotions.
‘Loretta wanted to find me? Or did she think her sister was still alive? Her name, by the way, is Isabel. Izzy.’
David offered an apologetic frown. ‘She never mentioned Isabel. Lora was particular about finding a female photographer living near Coalville.’
Like her mother Catherine, but Loretta already knew she had died a long time ago. ‘Izzy didn’t know a thing about photography.’ I glanced at Joseph, who maintained a neutral posture. He had his own questions, but he doubted David could help him explain Camilla’s role.
‘Then, we won’t ever know,’ David said, pointedly, his frustration mirroring my own. ‘I’m sorry. She really could be a stubborn woman. She wanted photographs of these castles for a book she was writing—’
‘I guessed that—’
‘She wrote it as part of a series on the fortresses of Europe, and their historical significance. Academic and detailed, it won’t be a best seller, I’m afraid. She finished the text, in Italian and English, and commissioned me to help her with the photographs. The book will go to the publishers. Your photographs will not be wasted, and you will receive credit for them. They are very good, by the way. I saw them before sending off the manuscript. I’ve been editing it; Lora was too ill by then, which was why I sent the message to you, but she saw the last batch you sent, I promise you, and she was happy. The memory sticks were forwarded to here. Only the last lot arrived too late.’
A glow of pleasure of warmed my heart. It was a silver lining to know some of the photographs reached Italy in time, and that my patron, for she had kept true to that part of the bargain, was pleased with them. As for the book, I didn’t care about its prospects now that I had a job, but it would do my new career no harm. The gaps in the story were gradually filling. My mind raced, checking for holes.
‘Why you?’ I asked David. ‘Castles aren’t your speciality.’
‘No. Obviously not. But I owed her my gratitude.’ David retrieved something from his breast pocket. He held it out.
I took the faded photograph. It was of a couple, David and a startlingly attractive woman, seated next to a crooked woman propping herself up with walking sticks. I stared at my great-aunt, at her vast eyes and slanted jowls, as if she was permanently tilted to one side. Even in the static photo, she seemed to twitch. There was a definite grin on her parted lips, a sparkle of optimism in her vibrancy. She wasn’t ashamed of her disability, and why should she have been? She had borne a child, no doubt proving many wrong that it was possible for one with her affliction. She was older than her companions, but not by much. The hair on David’s head was thick, his face youthful and his jeans flared in a style I had seen in pictures of my teenage parents.
‘Your wife?’
He smiled. ‘Maggie. Magdalene. She was born in this valley. I came to Naples as an exchange student and Maggie was Lora’s research assistant. She introduced us, and when Maggie’s father resisted because I was not Catholic and considered a radical – I know, hard to believe, but this was the seventies and I got caught up with the communists and did some foolish things. Lora spoke up on our behalf. She helped us elope to England. It caused a scandal. Being a disabled woman was always a disadvantage. She lost her position at the university, which is how she came to be in Potenza, writing books, offering patronage to artists. And dealing in art.’
‘She left you the art gallery?’
David nodded. ‘I’ve retired, a little earlier than I anticipated. Maggie is excited to be returning to Italy. She’s house hunting as we speak.’
Loretta’s motives remained clouded though. She had used David to find me when she didn’t even know I existed.
There was more. I spoke, breaking the temporary silence. ‘Joseph was commissioned by a woman called Camilla Brooke.’
‘Camilla!’ Tony gaped. ‘She is a cousin. Went to England years ago, married a horrible man. She left him.’ He said something in a scathing tone. David didn’t translate.
‘She would have known Loretta.’ I patted Joseph’s knee. ‘It’s all fitting together.’
‘Yes,’ Joseph said, curtly. ‘But I don’t like being used. I painted those pictures in good faith, and now I don’t know what has happened to them. If I could, I’d buy them back.’
David rose to his feet. ‘I’m sorry, the paintings are not for sale. Lora insisted they were a gift. But I know where they are and what to do with them. Your arrival here is precipitous yet advantageous since it has saved me writing you a long email.’ He nodded to Tony. ‘They’re in the atelier.’
The shadow under Joseph’s brow deepened. The way his back stiffened told me what he was thinking.
He stood over David. ‘What do you mean – you know what to do with them?’
David held up a placating hand. ‘Please, come with me. It’s not what you think. When Lora realised she was fading fast, she left me a message, a codicil to her will. She didn’t trust Camilla with all the details; Tony says Camilla doesn’t care much about anything that isn’t money.’
Joseph guffawed. ‘That I do know.’ However, he followed David out of the house, and we all crossed the cobbled courtyard to the converted barn.
Inside, I gasped. It was like an undercroft with its vaulted ceiling and archways, but light and airy. The far end was the living quarters with a bed and kitchenette; most of the open space was given over to the atelier and there was plenty of room for whatever was needed, from sculpting to large canvas work. There was even a potter’s wheel.
However, it was the back stone wall that snared both Joseph and my attention. Between the niches of the narrow windows hung paintings: watercolours. I recognised some, but not all. The earlier and later ones I hadn’t seen him paint. The collection was framed, the styling identical, the layout from left to right a mirror of our conjoined journey: Bamburgh’s windmill to Conisbrough’s limestone keep.
David waited. He might have an idea of the flood of emotions that ripped through me as I embraced the joy of revisiting that eventful summer without fear of losing my mind or regretting my decision to leave Joseph. Each one told a different story, some of love, others of war and loss. I was familiar with their intricate histories and the details of their construction. Those ruined castles were free of the past, just like Joseph, and now I was no longer trapped and afraid to move on, I could love each place without regret.
‘They’re staying here?’ I asked.
