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‘Well, I’d probably paint them on a canvas twenty-five inches by twenty with a simple mount and frame. Gary would normally sell something that size for five hundred pounds and give me three hundred after his commission, but these will be simpler than my usual stuff, so let’s say a ticket price of three hundred with twenty per cent commission to the café. How does that sound?’
‘I don’t know anything about art, but that sounds expensive for our clientele. What if they don’t sell?’
‘If they don’t sell, then we can either leave them up for longer, or I’ll take them back and sell them elsewhere. They won’t be the sort of paintings that Gary would be interested in, but I probably wouldn’t have any trouble selling them online.’
‘Okay. Let’s give it a try. Even if they don’t sell, they’ll certainly brighten the walls. How long do you think you’ll need before you have something to put up?’
‘I don’t think they will take very long. The trick is to keep them simple. A few weeks, maybe? I’ll definitely aim to have something up in the next couple of months, how does that sound?’
‘Perfect. Thanks, Bronwyn.’ Now that I’ve seen her work, I’m actually quite excited about having it in the café. I think her prices are way beyond our clientele’s budget but, if she ends up taking them away to sell elsewhere, I can always revert to framed posters. We agree that she can put her sketch book on top of the fridge, where it will be out of the way, and I get back to sorting out today’s lunchtime special and the cakes for this afternoon.
As I work, I keep glancing at Bronwyn’s sketch book on top of the fridge. I’d love to look at some of her other work, but I don’t know what the protocols are. Is it private, like a diary, or is it okay to look inside? In the end, I stick my head out of the kitchen door and ask her if she’d mind me looking at some of her other sketches.
‘Help yourself,’ she replies. ‘Just make sure your hands are clean, please. You just have to look at that paper with dirty hands and it stains.’
* * *
It’s a typical busy Saturday, so I have to wait until the lunchtime orders are finished before I get a moment to wash my hands thoroughly and take Bronwyn’s sketch pad down from its perch on top of the fridge. It’s a crisp late autumn day, so I open the back door and sit myself down in the doorway with it. I don’t know anything at all about art, but even I can see that Bronwyn’s work is exquisite. Frankly, I’d be happy to see some of the sketches in frames on the wall, so the actual paintings must be extraordinary. There’s a wide variety here, too. There are landscapes, gritty urban scenes, animals, and still lifes. There’s even a sketch of a naked man, and I wonder for a moment if this is her boyfriend but, on closer examination, it looks like he’s probably much older than her, so I guess he’s a life model. The final sketch before the two she did for me takes my breath away.
It’s a head and shoulders sketch of Katie. She’s not wearing her glasses and her hair is all tousled, as if she’s just woken up. It’s clear that her shoulders are bare, which adds to the illusion of just waking from sleep. She looks curiously vulnerable without her glasses on, but that allows the sketch to emphasise her eyes. There’s a ferocious intensity in her gaze that I can’t quite fathom, but which makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I feel like I shouldn’t be here, as if I’ve stumbled into something private. I close the sketch book and hurry back inside, placing it carefully back on top of the fridge.
28
‘How can I help you two today?’ the travel agent asks, a little wearily. It’s obviously been a busy day for her too, and we had to wait for half an hour while she dealt with the couple in front of us. I did feel for her as I watched; they evidently had no idea where they wanted to go, and she kept having to get up and fetch different brochures for them to browse. It looked like they were going to actually book something a couple of times but, in the end, they left with an armful of brochures, promising to return as soon as they’d had a good look through.
I smile at her. ‘We’ll try to be a little more decisive than your previous clients. We’d like to look at cruises, please.’
She snorts derisively. ‘We won’t see them again, I can guarantee you that. We get their kind a lot. They come in here to enquire because they know we’ve got the brochures and can give them good advice, and then they go home and book something on the internet. Anyway, sorry. Cruises, you say?’
I’m slightly taken aback by her indiscretion, but I also find myself admiring her honesty.
‘It’s not for us,’ I explain. ‘We’re thinking of a present for our grandparents.’
‘Ah, that makes sense. You don’t really fit the cruise demographic, if you don’t mind me saying. Lucky grandparents! What did you have in mind?’
‘We’re open to ideas. Our nan’s always wanted to go on a cruise, so we want it to be special. We’ve talked about either the Mediterranean or the Caribbean, but if you have other suggestions then we’d be happy to hear them.’
‘Okay. A lot depends on the time of year,’ she tells us. ‘The Mediterranean is lovely in the summer months, but there’s not much going on in winter. The Caribbean, on the other hand, is lovely in December and January particularly, but you want to avoid the summer months as that’s hurricane season. Caribbean cruises also tend to be quite expensive, especially between December and April, so you’ll need to take that into account if you’ve got a limited budget. There are other cruises that go to places like the Norwegian Fjords or St Petersburg if you think your grandparents might enjoy that. Shall I get some brochures and you can have a look?’
I never realised how many different types of cruise holiday there are. There are huge ships that look like floating luxury hotels, with every conceivable amenity, ships that cater more to the family market with water slides and kids’ clubs, and small ships that specialise in getting you into little ports off the main tourist trail. Our adviser, Sheila, is friendly and helpful, but I’m conscious that she’s steering us very much towards the cheaper end of the market.
‘I like the look of the Caribbean cruises, what do you think?’ I ask Katie. ‘Nan and Grandad have never been to the Caribbean, and it looks lovely.’
‘I agree,’ says Katie. ‘Are there any with vacancies in early December?’ she asks Sheila.
Sheila spends some time tapping on her computer, investigating the options.
‘There are a few,’ she says eventually, ‘but all the standard cabins are fully booked. You’d be looking at a premium cabin, which is obviously more expensive.’
‘That’s not a problem,’ I tell her with a smile. She conceals her surprise well, but I still spot it flash across her face. ‘What are our options?’
By the time we walk out, I’m not sure Sheila can believe her luck. We’ve booked Nan and Grandad into a suite on a two-week Caribbean cruise at the beginning of December, and we also upgraded their flights to business class. The final bill was fairly eye-watering, but my debit card took the hit without any problems, and Katie has promised that she’ll pay half of it back as soon as she turns eighteen and gets her hands on her share of the inheritance. I do the maths in my head and, with what I’ve spent on the café so far and the flats, plus the deposit for the van and this holiday for Nan and Grandad, I’m down to my final £5,000 from the original £50,000 that the financial adviser and I agreed would be my budget to spend on the café and flats. However, I haven’t touched my redundancy payout yet, so my finances are still reasonably healthy. I know I can help myself to more from the main pot if I need to but, now that the café is making a healthy profit, I hope that won’t be necessary.
Matt is not as good at concealing his surprise as Sheila was when I tell him what we’ve done.
‘Bloody hell, that must have cost a fortune!’ he exclaims, and I decide that I probably need to come clean with him.
‘Fred left us quite a bit of money as well as the café,’ I explain, ‘so we can afford it. It appears he was quite the investor.’
