We both laughed and she reached across to touch my arm in that natural, friendly way I had always envied. ‘Oh, it’s so nice to see you again.’
And suddenly it was possible to forget that I had neglected our friendship along with everything else. Twelve years had separated us but we were now our own individual selves with our own paths in life. Perhaps we were ready to start again.
‘Tell me about these unsuitable men,’ I teased her.
‘Oh, you know,’ she answered with a little laugh that didn’t ring true. ‘It’s just that Mum’s got a bit of a wait for that big white wedding.’ I was surprised to see sadness in her eyes.
‘Perhaps you’ll meet someone at work or choir,’ I said, thinking about the way Dominic had looked at her, and I must have touched some tender spot, because she blushed.
‘It’s all women at the hostel,’ she said, ‘except for Ra, and he’s engaged to a nice girl his family found for him.’
‘I thought Dominic at choir seemed lovely,’ I said encouragingly.
‘Oh, he is. Really nice.’
‘But you don’t go for him?’
‘We’re just friends. I don’t think he likes me that way. Ben’s rather gorgeous though, don’t you reckon?’
‘Gorgeous is certainly the word,’ I said, wondering if she was interested in him. ‘Too gorgeous really, for us mortals.’
‘I know what you mean,’ she said, and sighed. ‘Is there anyone special for you at the moment?’
I rolled my eyes theatrically but it had become too natural for me to be secretive. ‘It’s been a disaster area. You don’t want to know. Anyway,’ I changed the subject, ‘there’s too much else on my mind at the moment.’
She nodded, cupped her chin in her hand and gazed at me sympathetically. ‘How are things with your dad?’
I picked at some blobs of wax on the tablecloth. ‘If, and if is the operative word, there is going to be improvement, it will be slow. He is conscious sometimes, but I…I don’t really know if he understands when I talk to him.’
‘Oh Fran, I’m sorry.’ Her voice rose in a sympathetic squeak. ‘But it can’t hurt to talk to him, can it? They say it helps.’
‘I know. I try. It’s just it’s difficult…well, you probably remember we haven’t always been close.’
Jo nodded. Although I’d never talked much about my relationship with my father or my sadness about my mother, she had often witnessed his bearishness when she came to the flat, and had often comforted me when he had made me upset.
‘I haven’t seen much of him since I left home, Jo.’ I picked furiously at the most stubborn piece of wax.
Jo leaned forward, fixed me with her earnest blue eyes and asked, ‘Why did you go away so suddenly, Fran? Was there a particular reason? You seemed just…to disappear, to cut yourself off from everybody.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I didn’t really mean to lose touch. The music was such incredibly hard work. I had to concentrate on it, immerse myself. There wasn’t much energy left for anything else.’
‘Was that an excuse? Did something else happen–with your father, I mean? It’s just that in my first Christmas holidays at uni, I visited the shop to see if you were home. When I asked if you’d be back he shrugged, said he didn’t know, was quite offhand with me. I thought then that you must have quarrelled.’
I hadn’t confided in anybody about what happened, but suddenly I wanted to very badly. I knew Jo would understand.
‘Did you? Well, you were right,’ I said quietly. ‘I’d found out he’d lied to me, you see. About something important.’
Jo didn’t say anything, but waited, her eyes large with concern. And now, after twelve years of burying the memory, it all came tumbling out.
‘You might not remember,’ I said, taking a large gulp of wine to sustain me, ‘but in our A-level year I applied to go on a two-week music course in Paris over the summer. I was due to start at the Royal College of Music in the autumn and Paris, my horn teacher said, would be a great chance to play with other students from all over the world.’
‘I think I remember,’ said Jo, frowning. We had been studying such different subjects for A-level that sometimes I didn’t see her that much.
As I told Jo the whole story, the pain and confusion of that time came rushing back as though it were yesterday.
It was 1981 and I had turned eighteen, was an adult, but you wouldn’t think it, talking to Dad. In February he said I could go to Paris and paid the deposit, but by May he seemed to regret the whole thing. It was when I asked him about applying for a passport that it all came to a head. He said he had decided that I wasn’t old enough to go abroad by myself. I said that was rubbish and he sulked for a week. Finally, he seemed to accept that I should go, so I asked him for my birth certificate in order to get the passport. I couldn’t believe it when he said he’d lost it–how could he have lost something as important as that when he had safely squirrelled away all the documents about the business?
In the end I had to go to Somerset House, which was where the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages was back then, and request another copy. I almost expected it to reveal some ghastly secret about my birth, but it didn’t. So what was all the fuss about?
It took some time for the penny to drop–years, in fact. To put it simply, he was frightened of losing me. He didn’t want me growing up and going away. I think he’d hoped that I would stay with him working in the shop, take over the business one day, that the music both of us loved would be a kind of sideline, not a career. But he didn’t know how to express any of this. If he had, we might have talked it all over and cleared the air. Instead, he tried to manipulate me, which was the worst thing he could have done. I stopped trusting him and became desperate to leave home.
I finished my A-levels and went to Paris, where I had a fabulous time, and when I got home at the beginning of August was relieved that Dad seemed to have calmed down. But as September passed his anxiety mounted again. One evening I came home to find him in a semi-coma and he was rushed to hospital. It turned out he’d missed a couple of insulin injections, which was very unlike him. At the time I was merely glad that my college was in nearby Kensington and that I’d be living at home, could keep an eye on him. Later, I saw this medical emergency as a deliberate, manipulative ploy. Now, looking back, I don’t know. Perhaps he was genuinely distracted and muddled. Whichever, he quickly recovered.
When we fell out again, it was about money, or rather, money was the starting point. During September I learned I’d been awarded a local authority grant towards living expenses, but I still needed extra, for music and books. It was then that Dad delivered a real bombshell. He produced a building society passbook with my name on it. There was twelve thousand pounds in the account.
Twelve thousand pounds! At first, I was overcome with gratitude, thinking he must have saved it all up for me over the years, but when I looked more closely at the book I saw that apart from the interest, just one payment had been made into the account–back in 1972. So I confronted him about it. And eventually he told me. My mother’s mother had died when I was nine and left me a lump sum. And Dad hadn’t told me, had just dumped it in this account until I was eighteen.
This in itself was bad enough, that I didn’t ever know about an important legacy. But there was something much, much worse. He hadn’t even told me that my gran had died. Or rather he did, but not until some years later in my mid-teens, when I started asking about her, and then he let me think she’d died when I was quite little. I think he was embarrassed at not having told me at the time of her death, so he lied to me. It took that building society book for me to worm the whole thing out of him.
It was difficult to convey to Jo, whose father always said everything he thought straight out, my shock and confusion about this discovery. It really did feel as though my whole world had turned upside down, that our whole relationship, Dad’s and mine, was built on lies.
I should have confronted him then, demanded that he tell me everything about my mother, that he lay out the whole truth. But in too many ways I was like him. I chose what seemed the easy way. A martyred silence. We hardly spoke to one another for the remaining weeks before college. Then I took my passbook, presented it at the building society and withdrew the deposit for a room in a rented flat.
‘In giving me the money,’ I told Jo, ‘Dad had delivered himself a blow. He’d given me the means and the motive to leave him.’
I drifted to a halt now, drained after telling Jo all this, nervous, too, of how she’d judge me. I shouldn’t have worried.
‘Why didn’t you tell me all this at the time? I’d have helped you,’ she whispered. ‘I would.’
‘I’d hardly seen you over the summer, what with Paris and then you going off on holiday with your parents. And I didn’t know…if I could make you understand. You were always so happy with your family, Jo–I envied you, really. You’d all argue, everyone would say their piece, and then it would be over.’
‘Still, I would have listened and tried to understand.’
‘I know that now,’ I said gently. ‘But back then I was unsure of everything, except about music–I was so glad I could throw myself into my studies. It was the saving of me.’
‘What about your dad? Didn’t you see him at all?’
‘Yes, I did. I couldn’t abandon him entirely. I told him we needed time apart, but I left a lot of my things at home and I visited him regularly. But he changed, became more miserable and silent; made me feel I’d betrayed him. And my anger made me cold. For years, we hardly talked about anything that really mattered, and never referred to our quarrel. It was only recently, before this happened, his stroke, that he seemed to soften. Sometimes, when I spoke to him on the phone, he seemed…vulnerable…didn’t want to end the call. Perhaps he sensed something was going to happen. Perhaps if I’d come home to visit, we could have…’ I swallowed hard and stared down at my bitten nails.
‘Don’t feel it’s all your fault, Fran,’ Jo cried. She reached out and closed both her hands over mine. Again, her tenderness touched me deeply. ‘It might not be too late. Try talking to him now. It could help both of you.’
I gave her a watery smile and nodded. Despite the sadness, a feeling of deep relief was coursing through me. Telling Jo, sharing my burden, made me feel better. I wish I had told her all those years ago.
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.
William Blake,
Songs of Innocence
Looking back now, I can identify that conversation with Jo as a turning point. I’d opened up to my friend, and in the warmth of her response, the shard of ice that had pierced my heart, locking me up in perpetual winter, finally began to melt.
I was thinking about her words when I visited Dad the following lunchtime, leaving a reluctant Zac to serve in the shop. I loved my father. I knew that, even as we quarrelled, even after I left home, determined to lead my own life. Despite everything he was still my dad who, when I was a child, cuddled me when I was sad, encouraged me when I was down, who would smile delightedly and growl ‘That’s my girl!’ whenever I succeeded at something, from passing exams to getting a modest role in a school play.
Today, as I sat by his bed and watched him fight his way to consciousness, I tried hard to forget where we were, and to remember the things he and I had shared together. It was difficult.
Maybe there was something in Jo’s idea, about talking to him. It didn’t feel right at the moment to refer to the dark stuff, the bitterness and secrets, but perhaps I could start by reminding Dad about happy times and reassuring him of my love.
‘Do you remember, Dad?’ I said hesitantly. ‘Do you remember when I had measles, and you played board games with me and I always had to win, and you’d tell me stories about when you were little? You had that dog, didn’t you, who lived in the shop–a whippet, wasn’t he, called Silky? You see, I remember.’
I waited and just then–was it a coincidence?–Dad blinked and looked straight at me. I wondered desperately what else to talk to him about. The angel window…now that really would interest him. So I recounted the story of Jeremy Quentin’s find and how Zac and I were going to try to put the window together again.
‘I wish you were able to help, Dad,’ I said. ‘I bet you would know right away where to look for the original drawing.’
Again I halted. It was odd speaking to someone who didn’t respond. I was never someone to chatter on effortlessly.
I was also aware of the abyss between us. So much needed to be said. I so badly wanted to talk to him about my mother, but how could I? I couldn’t frame words that didn’t sound stilted or cheesy. And, if he could hear and understand me, I was nervous of upsetting him. I might unwittingly say something hurtful or untrue and he wouldn’t be able to respond. It wouldn’t be fair. In the end, I merely said, ‘When you’re well again, Dad, we’ll talk properly. I’ll be around more. Really.’ His eyes were locked on mine now, such pools of anguish that I felt alarmed. Was he in pain? But then his expression grew more peaceful. I whispered, my words half-choked, ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I’m truly sorry.’
When I returned to the shop, Zac was deep in conversation with a youngish, expensive-looking couple. Or rather, with the wife. The man paced the shop looking at price tags and frowning whilst the woman, a lively honey-blonde with large tortoiseshell spectacles, chattered to Zac about a series of photographs she’d laid out on the counter. Zac was studying them, nodding, interrupting her flow with dogged questions. I remembered that he didn’t enjoy negotiating commissions. He preferred doing the work.
I smiled vaguely at them, attempting to slip past them into the workshop, but Zac shot me a desperate look.
‘Fran, Mr and Mrs Armitage here are asking if we can do something based on these. What do you think?’
The photographs were of two glass panels, one of a young boy in an alpine hat fishing in a pool, the other of a girl in a too-short skirt reaching up to catch a butterfly in a net. The borders were decorated with teddies, dolls, flowers and fruit. Very cutesy, but then that was what some people liked.
‘We saw them when we were in New Jersey, didn’t we, sweetheart?’ Mrs Armitage said. ‘Our friends only recently moved into the house and didn’t know who’d made them, so we took some pictures and thought if we could get our own designed they’d go well in the twins’ bedrooms, didn’t we, sweetheart?’
‘Sweetheart’ grunted his assent.
‘We could come up with our own versions, couldn’t we, Zac?’ I asked him.
‘I’ve told them we could get into trouble for producing straight copies, of course. But something similar…’
‘That would be lovely,’ said Mrs Armitage, tapping the counter with her talon-like nails. ‘How much do you think they might be? We were hoping they could be ready for the twins’ birthday in late October.’
Zac showed them photographs from our own portfolios and gave them ball-park prices based on panels of similar size and complexity. I watched the husband carefully but, apart from asking a couple of perceptive questions about the cost of different kinds of glass, he seemed to accept the likely damage to his wallet.
Eventually they left and we drifted through into the workshop. While I made tea, Zac wrote down the job in Dad’s Day Book then studied the photographs again, shaking his head.
‘What?’ I asked him.
‘Oh, nothing. Let’s say these are not my idea of high art.’
I laughed and said teasingly, ‘Come on, you’ll do a beautiful job.’
‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I always try to do that.’
‘What do you like doing most, then?’ I asked, realising again how little I knew about him.
‘The arty stuff, my own designs. And the church work, that means something. It isn’t only decorative, is it? It has a purpose.’
‘What do you mean by your own designs?’ I asked. ‘Like that sunrise?’
‘I drew what the lady described. No, I’ve started doing other stuff but they’re experiments really. We haven’t got the equipment here, so I use my mate David’s studio.’
‘I had no idea you did other work.’
‘I don’t do it on company time,’ he said, misreading me. ‘And I pay for my materials. Though your father lets me have odd pieces from time to time.’
‘That’s fine, Zac. Honestly I wasn’t accusing you.’
‘I know. I wanted to be clear, that’s all.’
‘I’d love to see your other work.’
‘Really?’ he said. ‘I’m putting a portfolio together–in case it’s useful here. One day, when it’s ready, I’ll show you.’ His eyes brightened, bringing his whole face to life, and this made me think just how melancholy he often seemed. I wondered if that was his whole life–working with glass. Didn’t he have family in London, or a social life? But I didn’t ask. After all, I was hardly in a position to advise other people about their lives when mine was always such a muddle.
At that moment, the bell on the shop door tinkled again.
‘Oh, and I forgot,’ called Zac, as I went to investigate. ‘Someone rang for you. Jessica Eldridge? Said will you ring her back.’
‘Oh, Jessica–I meant to ring her,’ I said, feeling guilty. ‘She’s my diary service.’ Seeing his blank expression, I explained, ‘She books my work with orchestras.’ I must at some time have given her the
Minster Glass
number. ‘Thanks, Zac, I’ll call her later.’
Whilst I helped a young art student choose some cheap off-cuts of glass for a sculpture she was creating, and carefully wrapped the pieces in newspaper, I noticed Amber hovering outside.
I held the door open for the student, who had her hands full, and when she’d gone, waved to Amber and invited her in.
‘Are you busy?’ she asked anxiously.
She sidled into the shop and hovered, looking at everything. After a while I showed her into the workshop and introduced her to Zac, who was engaged in cutting short strips of mirror glass.
‘Amber’s a friend of my friend Jo,’ I said.
Surprise registered on Zac’s face, then he smiled hello.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Amber, her shyness overcome by curiosity.
‘Making a kaleidoscope,’ he replied, and fetched a finished example off the shelf. ‘Have a peep through here,’ he said, offering her the end of the Toblerone-shaped instrument.
She held it up to the light and gasped. ‘Oh!’
‘Here, turn the marble.’ At the far end of the kaleidoscope was a large glass marble cradled in a metal coil. I knew that when you turned the marble, the colours reflected in the mirrors inside, creating magnificent patterns.
‘How do you make them?’ Amber asked. Just then the shop bell jingled again.
When I returned from serving a short queue of customers, Zac and Amber were absorbed in conversation. Zac was demonstrating how to hold a glass-cutter and Amber was attempting to score a piece of greenhouse glass Zac had given her.
‘Don’t be frightened of it,’ he was saying. ‘It’s not going to jump up and bite you. Just treat it with respect. There, now hold it like this between your thumbs and…break it. Well done!’
‘The glass is like it’s made of sugar.’
‘That’s right, it just shatters down the line you made. Not all glass is that easy. With some types it can break in the wrong place and you have to start again.’
‘How do you make the coloured glass? Do you do it here?’
‘Oh no,’ said Zac. ‘It’s practically all imported from abroad now. But you can get all sorts of amazing colours, patterns and textures.’
‘I love this pink and gold one.’ She pointed to the glass Zac had selected for the case of his kaleidoscope.
‘That’s one of the expensive ones. The hot colours like red always are. You need more valuable chemicals–the red often has real gold in it–and complicated processes. The blues and greens are simpler and cheaper.’
Zac sensed me standing there and looked up. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
I was leaning in the doorway, arms folded, trying to stop a grin spreading across my face.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Carry on. It’s just I’ve never heard you say so much before.’
That rare smile lit up his eyes. He turned back to Amber.
‘Look, when I’ve cut this last piece here I’ll show you how the grinder works. And maybe we’ll see how you go using copper foil.’
I left them to it, pleased that Zac had made time in his busy schedule to help the girl.
‘Zac,’ I said later, when Amber had left, a suncatcher we’d given her stowed carefully in her bag, ‘what would you say if I told Amber she could come and help out here occasionally?’
‘Work here, you mean? What could she do?’ he answered, wary.
‘Look after the shop when we’re out, unpack stuff, answer the telephone, that sort of thing. It would free us up to do more. And we can show her simple creative tasks. Finding patterns, making easy things.’
‘Train her up a bit, you mean? Aye, it’s important to train new people. Let’s think about it.’
‘Yes. And after all, you’re right, Dad won’t…’
‘I know.’ There was sympathy in his eyes, and I had to look away. It felt like a betrayal to admit that Dad was unlikely to be able to work again.
‘Fran, there’s something we need to talk about. Did your father ever draw up one of those Power of Attorney things? It’s just…there are unpaid bills. And I’m not a signatory for the business.’
‘I don’t know, Zac,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to speak to the bank. And Dad’s lawyer.’
After I’d shut up shop I remembered the message from Jessica. She was usually still in the office at this hour, so I went to find my address book.
‘Fran!’ she exclaimed on hearing my voice. ‘I think I’ve rung all the numbers you ever gave me. I was getting worried–thought you’d been kidnapped or something. How are you?’
I apologised and explained to her about Dad’s illness and how I needed to be here, to keep everything going. It occurred to me, as I talked, that my previous life, touring the world with orchestras, staying in a different hotel every few days, already seemed an age away. All my energies, my priorities, were becoming focused here.
‘So I don’t think I’ll be available for anything for a bit. Except maybe in London,’ I finished lamely.
‘That’s a shame, because I had something exciting lined up for you in New York. The Halliwell are touring, and one of their tuba players has gone down with pleurisy. But I quite understand. If something comes up locally, I’ll call, but otherwise I’ll wait to hear from you.’
‘Thanks, Jess.’
‘Don’t leave it too long, will you?’ she added lightly, but I picked up the veiled warning.
‘No, I’m sure I won’t,’ I said. It was all too easy to be forgotten in the music business.
I put the phone down with a mixture of regret and relief. Regret because I still wanted to be a part of that world. Relief because I was coming to accept that, for the moment, I was a part of this one.
That evening, I was toasting a cheese sandwich for supper, when the vicar rang.
‘My wife Sarah has spent most of the last couple of days going through all the boxes and filing cabinets in the church vestry and the parish office,’ he told me.
‘That’s very good of her,’ I said. ‘Any luck?’
‘She’s found a history of the church dated 1927, but it only describes the windows. There are no photographs, I’m afraid. So I’ve asked a chap I know at the diocesan archives to see if he has anything but, as I thought, he says it might take him a while.’
‘What does the description say?’ I asked.
‘Hang on a moment. Ah. “The Lady Chapel. Fine late-nineteenth-century richly coloured glass by
Minster Glass
in the
Virgin and Child Enthroned
, E. window of chapel, donor Mrs Sarah Fotherington…
Angel
in S. window, also by
Minster Glass
, donor Reverend Jas. Brownlow, in memory of his daughter Caroline.” That’s it.’
‘OK.’
I must have sighed, because he added, ‘Sorry. Not very helpful, is it?’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll have another look through Dad’s stuff later.’
I had been searching for about an hour when I struck lucky. What I found is called in the trade a vidimus, meaning ‘let us look’. It was a small colour sketch for the
Virgin and Child
window, which the artist would have showed his patron to give an early idea of how the window would look. It was beautifully executed and the colours sang.
Amazingly, there was a note clipped to it that directed me to a large cupboard at the back of the room. In this were folded and filed hundreds of much larger drawings called cartoons. Twenty minutes later, with a cry of satisfaction, I extracted one labelled ‘
Virgin and Child in Glory
, St Martin’s Church’, unfolded it and spread it onto the floor. It was a larger version of the vidimus I’d found just now, the size of the actual window, but drawn in outline, without the colour. Its purpose was to be a pattern for the window. It showed clearly the shape of each piece of glass to be cut, the details of features and drapery, and where the saddle crossbars to support the whole structure should go. Looking from the coloured vidimus to the huge cartoon, I wondered if they weren’t, most unusually, drawn by the same hand. Most of the time an artist would be commissioned only to create the original colour design and this would then be handed over to craftsmen who would enlarge it and make the window. Unless the artist was sufficiently interested, he might not see what happened to his design until the window was finished.