Restoring Grace (19 page)

‘
But you're
not on your own,' said Demi. 'You've got us.’

‘
Yes,'
said Grace, 'and that's not going to please her either.'

‘Please let me look at the paintings!' Ellie
was begin
ning to be really frustrated by
Grace's lack of enthusiasm.
We can sort out the other stuff about your
brother and
sister later. After all, they
may not be good. They may be
just daubs.'

‘
Even I can see they're not just daubs,' said
Demi.

‘
So can I,' said Grace. 'But they are extremely
damaged.'

‘
You'd be damaged if you'd been hidden behind a
curtain for three hundred years! Now let's get a cloth and
get rid
of some of this dust! We'll have to go carefully, though, and not scrape the
surface.'

‘
I know you think I'm mad
not to be pleased about these,'
said Grace, when she'd finally located a clean
duster in
a cupboard in
the scullery. 'It's just that they're going to make things so much more
complicated.'

‘
Not if no one knows about them,' said Ellie.

‘But how can you keep something like this
secret?’

Ellie had lost interest
in Grace's desire for secrecy. Very
gently, she stroked the cloth
downwards over Adam's delicately painted pectorals. 'I'm not sure I should be
doing this.'

‘
Then
don't. Let's go and do the washing up,' suggested
Grace.

‘I think you should get an expert in. These
might be really important.'

‘I can't do that,' Grace stated.

‘
It would
cost loads,' agreed Demi, and yawned.
'Where's the telly, Grace?'

‘
There isn't
one. Sorry. The big wide-screen was
Edward's, and I didn't get another
one.’

Ellie frowned. 'Why not? Don't you like telly?’

Grace shrugged. 'It made me
feel lonely. But we can
get one,' she
added, not wanting to expand on the subject
of her
loneliness.

‘Now?'

‘
Well, no.
Now now. It's Sunday, and although I'm sure
there are places where we could rent a telly on Sunday,
I have no
idea where they are.'

‘Rent one?' said Demi, to whom renting was
obviously a novel concept.

‘I'm sure my parents have got a spare one. I
had one in my room at home,' said Ellie, 'but it never got a very good
picture.'

‘
I just
don't understand how you managed without
one,' said Demi.

Grace bit her lip. 'When your father left me, I
had to manage without a lot of things.’

Demi regarded the toe of her trainer. 'Yeah,
sorry. I didn't think.'

‘Oh, I wasn't trying to make you feel bad!
You're not responsible for his actions. I was just trying to explain.'

‘It's OK,' said Demi. 'But if he had asked me
how I felt about it, I would never have let him leave you for that cow.' She
turned to Ellie. 'What about you? You must have had a telly? Could we go over
and get it?'

‘
Babes, I am
not going to take Rick's telly from him.
I've taken the bed, the duvet, most of the saucepans and
a lot
of other useful stuff. I'm not going to take away his means to watch the
footie!’

Feeling that this question
was now settled, Ellie
changed the subject back to her own
most pressing concern. 'So, what shall we do about the paintings?'

‘Nothing,' said Grace firmly. 'Yet,' she added,
seeing
Ellie's expression. 'Let's just think
about what to do, and
go and do the washing up!'

‘They will need to have
something
done to
them,' said
Ellie, 'just to stop them
deteriorating further. I mean, you
may not want them, because of all the
trouble they're
going to cause, but for
art's sake, you have to make sure
they don't crumble away.'

‘
I'll get
some new curtains for them to hide behind,'
said Grace, opening the dining-room door in a way which
^s
uggested
the others went through it. 'And I'll have a
think.
But there's no way I'd let a picture restorer in here. If they need attention
that badly, you'll have to do it, Ellie.’

Ellie squeaked. 'I'm just an ex-art student!
What do I know about picture restoration?'

‘More than I do,' said Grace.

‘
You could
learn,' said Demi. 'There must be something
about it on the Internet.'

‘Oh hell! Then we'll have to buy a computer as
well as a telly. Unless we could get yours from home, Dem?'

‘I'm not going back there!' Demi was outraged.
'She'd never let me out again!'

‘
You're
both in a very negative mood,' said Ellie. 'We've
just been looking at a
great work of art.'

‘Very rude art,' said Demi.

‘And it may not be great,' said Grace.

‘And all you can do is think about material
possessions,' Ellie finished.

‘
Talking of
which, what about a trip to the super
market?' said Grace. 'I know it's
not exactly entertainment, Demi, but we do need to go.’

*

The following morning Grace abandoned Demi and
Ellie
to their own devices and went into
town. She needed a
bit of time on her own and in spite of apparently
buying
everything in sight at the
supermarket the previous day,
there
were several vital items they had managed to forget.
Also, she wanted to
buy the local paper, which should have run her article by now - their very
welcome cheque had arrived that morning.

She was also worrying; Demi's education could
not be ignored for very much longer and while the little market town where her
aunt had shopped for thirty years had previously seemed perfect, the fact that
it lacked a sixth-
form college and a bus
service meant that it had now lost
some of its charm for her. But then
her aunt had never
had a difficult teenager;
Grace and her brother and sister
had been extremely conformist and well
behaved, and only visited briefly. To cheer herself up, she called in at the
local wine shop.

The wine-shop man was pleased to see her.
'Grace! How nice to see you! Very nice little article in the paper, well done!
And I've had very good reports of how your wine tasting went!’

Grace, feeling disadvantaged because she didn't
know
this man's first name, and had been
unaware that he knew
hers, said, 'Oh, so you did send a spy.' She
thought of Flynn, whom Ellie was so keen for her to pair up with.

The man made a gesture which was only nearly
apologetic. 'Well, he's very knowledgeable and I had to check
you out if I was going to tell other wine
merchants about
you, and encourage them to send you stock for tasting.'

‘
Oh, are you
going to do that? In which case, I'll forgive
you for the spy.'

‘Flynn was very impressed by
your
knowledge.’

Grace suppressed a sigh. It
was maddening: even
though women had been
prominent in the wine trade for
decades, men in general still didn't
accept that sensitive taste buds were not gender specific.

‘What are you going to do next time?' asked the
wine
merchant, whose name Grace realised she
must discover
in record time. 'What about English whites? Some very good
English whites about, you know.'

‘I'm not prejudiced against English wine,' said
Grace,
not entirely truthfully, 'but they
do tend to be a bit expensive. I'll do them when my columns are more
established.
Although one of the magazines might want a special feature.
If they show interest, I'll get back to you.'

‘I have contacts with a vineyard,' said the
man.

‘
Why don't
you give me your card?' Grace felt this was
a master stroke. 'Then I can
get in touch by phone if anyone wants an article on English wine.’

When the card was handed
over, and Grace had glanced
at it, she went
on, 'I'm thinking of doing New World
whites. Could you let me have a
discount - Graham?'

‘
Tell you
what, I'll supply the wine for nothing, as long
as you give me a good
plug.’

Grace wandered over to a shelf of New World reds.
'I
could say how helpful you'd been, and what
a marvel
lous range of wine you supply, but I absolutely cannot recommend
your wines above other people's unless they really are better.’

Graham grinned. 'I'd better give you a really
good selection then.'

‘
Don't
forget, most people buy wine by price,' said
Grace. 'And you have to be very good value to be able
to compete
with the supermarkets.’

Graham came out from
behind the counter and picked
up a machine for sticking on prices.
'We're in a wealthy part of the world, Grace. Lots of the weekenders like a
really decent bottle to offer their friends.'

‘Yes, but they don't read the local paper!'

‘
They may
not, but I've got a friend who writes arti
cles on food for one of those
glossies full of pictures of
people's
houses. He said their wine columnist had packed
it in. Want me to put in
a word for you?'

‘
Graham!
That would be great! That's just what I need.
I'm so grateful for your
support.'

‘It's a pleasure, Grace. It's hard for all of
us making a living these days. We should all help each other.’

Grace left the shop feeling distinctly guilty
about the fact that, for the local paper, she was still going to talk
about wines you could buy in the supermarket.
Graham
was being so kind! So to
celebrate the fact that she might
get a column in an up-market magazine,
she decided to go the nearest big town and either buy or hire a television. It
really was time she joined the rest of the world
and she wasn't sure how long Demi could manage
without one.

*

While Grace was out, and
Demi was rearranging her
room, Ellie cleared up the breakfast
things and then, having had permission from Grace to do it, arranged the crockery
she had liberated from Rick and her old house on the dresser. It was extremely
satisfying. Then she
rearranged the
cupboards so everything was to hand, and
cleaned the cooker. Only when
the kitchen was looking as pretty as possible, with a few fronds of forsythia,
the
yellow buds still completely closed, in
a jug on the table,
did she allow
herself to go and look at the paintings again.

They were so beautiful in the morning light
that there was no doubt they were by an extremely accomplished and possibly
famous artist. But their condition was worrying. The varnish had darkened
considerably over the years and had a bloom on it which Ellie suspected might
have been caused by damp. In parts the varnish
had come off and the paint beneath it flaked away. There
was a lot of mould, and there was mouse damage on
both
paintings, although only Eve had a neat hole chewed through the
flowery sward at her feet.

Grace might want them just
to stay out of sight behind
their tattered silk robes but Ellie
felt that was almost a
sin. Even if they
were never on show, they really ought
to be restored.

Of course, having them restored would be
extremely expensive, but surely there must be some sort of grant that Grace
could apply for? The National Trust? English
Heritage?
Would they help? Or would they want the
whole house, plus a huge
endowment, before they cared even remotely?
Grace's
words — 'you'll have to do it' — still lingered in
Ellie's mind. She shook her head and muttered, 'Oh
Grace,
honey, have you any idea how complicated and delicate such work
is?' An amateur picture restorer could ruin something that's been beautiful for
centuries. Her History-of-Art tutor's strictures about the restoration of the
Sistine Chapel still rung in her ears. He had been
^a
poplectic about
what he described as 'almost criminal over-restoration'.