It was just as well I didn’t turn up in a police car. My parents and Greta were waiting for me at The Heronry, arranged in a stern row along the flouncy sofa in the lounge. The Pattinsons had fed them tea and then tactfully disappeared.
“Well, I knew it would just be a mix-up,” said Dad blithely. “Terrible thing, though, what happened. Most unfortunate.” He shook his head and winked at me.
“Yes,” I said. “Terrible.”
“But you didn’t really know the man, did you?” said Greta scornfully. “Just well enough to get yourself arrested on his property.”
“I was doing a painting of his farmhouse. Working.”
“Working,” repeated Greta. I could tell she was wondering whether to temporarily depart from the subject of my criminality to deliver a short lecture on the true nature of work.
“I do wish you’d be more careful on that scooter,” said my mother, “dreadfully dangerous things, aren’t they, Don?”
“Dreadful things,” agreed my dad, meaning, I knew, the whiny piddling inefficiency of the engine, and not bothered about the danger at all.
“I am careful,” I said. “It was the other driver’s fault. And the sheep’s.”
“Not your fault, of course,” said Greta, glaring. “Nothing’s ever your fault.”
“I could look out for a little motor for you,” said Dad, “something with about fifty thousand on the clock.”
“You know why they immediately assumed it was you?” said Greta. “You’re labelled. Labelled for life.”
“Not for life,” protested Mum.
“I know a nice little Renault coming up for part ex soon, or what about a Micra?”
“I don’t want a car, Dad, honestly.”
“There’s absolutely no point,” said Greta, “until she earns an honest living.”
“She’s made a start,” my mother said.
Greta snorted. “Some start! How old is she? And I’m using my preparation time up on this, you know. Have you any idea of the strings I had to pull to get out of school?”
“You didn’t have to,” I said.
“I couldn’t leave Mum and Dad to face this on their own. When are you going to get a proper job? And don’t say you already have. You know you haven’t.”
It was easy for her. She’d always known she would be a teacher, ever since her early practice on those downcast rows of dolls and teddies. She had the impatience born of certainty, and went to university to do her B. Ed. with an air of “Well! About time too!” Greta despised anyone who didn’t have a vocation, or was so flimsy they couldn’t make their mind up – or feebly decided on a non-job, like art.
“Then maybe you could afford a proper place to live as well,” she added. She shared a glossy flat in Cockermouth with her partner Liam, who was clever, shy and silent. I liked Liam. He didn’t deserve her. “Where are you supposed to be going next? I suppose you’ll want to come and stay with me.”
That was the last thing I wanted. “I’ve got some possibilities lined up.”
“You can always come back home with us, dear,” said Mum with weary briskness. She’d had enough of me. “We’d be delighted.”
“Delighted,” echoed Dad, and he did mean it; he’d continue to be delighted for a full twenty minutes after I’d unpacked, when he would forget my presence and go back to humming around his shed. Dad worked long hours at the garage but always found time for the shed, with its sharp oily odour of engines, as sour as warm pennies: their hiss and pounding were his breath and heartbeat, and at their centre was his shiny God, the 1903 Mather and Platt.
I assured my parents that although I would be equally delighted, I hoped it wouldn’t come to that; and that I was fine, the cut on my head was nothing, well, not quite nothing, actually a serious concussion, I amended with an eye on Greta, and the doctor had put in several (fictional) stitches. But I’d cope, don’t worry. As they left, Greta paused in the hall.
“You should be ashamed,” she said.
“What of?”
“Everything. All this,” she said, exasperated. “What on earth must the Pattinsons think? How does Mum explain this to the neighbours?”
“There’s nothing to explain.”
“Not yet,” she said meaningfully.
Once they had left, I went up to my bedroom under the eaves, crawled into my bed and closed my eyes. I expected to lie awake again with a head full of blood and mud. Instead I instantly fell asleep for the rest of the day and woke up disorientated at nine o’clock that evening. Descending into the busy, alien light of the Pattinsons’ kitchen, I forced myself to eat a bowl of cornflakes and satisfy their discreet curiosity.
So that night, of course, was another largely sleepless one. I kept visualising the abandoned painting, lying mud-splattered in the doorway of the shed. What was it doing there?
At some point I stumbled up and went to stand at the window. As I drew back the curtain the darkness howled at me. I dared not put my hand against the glass.
Next morning, a continuous ache seemed to have set up home in my chest. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t paint. I couldn’t draw. What was the point anyway? I needed to get out, but I didn’t know where to go. My scooter was still at the farm, I supposed, but I dreaded going back there and hearing the bellow of the bull. I shrank from the sight of those harsh dung-spattered walls, the rustling shadow where his head had last been laid. In what shadow was his head laid now?
Eventually, after pulling the dressing from my head and replacing it with a woolly hat, I dived out into the anonymous clatter of the street without any clear aim in mind. I started walking and found myself half-way up the hill to the small block of flats where Muriel had told me that they lived. I didn’t know which one was theirs. So I rang her mobile, and she came out of the front entrance with a grave, anxious face.
“I heard something on the local radio,” she said. “Isaac Staithwaite. Isn’t that the farmer we met last week?”
“Yes,” I don’t know what my face said in addition, because she put a hand to her mouth.
“Oh, you poor dear,” she said, and then folded her arms carefully around me. She smelt of lemon soap and fresh linen. “Was he a good friend of yours?”
I shook my head. “I’d only met him three times.”
“It’s the shock,” said Muriel understandingly. “They said on the radio that he’d been found dead, cause uncertain. A woman was helping police with their enquiries.”
“That was me.”
“Oh, Lord!” She drew away and studied me with concern. “And are you – did they..?”
“I was a suspect, I think. I’m not any more.”
“My goodness! Whatever happened?”
I explained as briefly as I could. Meanwhile, she led me slowly, with several stops for questioning, through the drab shared hall and up two flights of concrete stairs.
By the time I’d finished we were in their second-floor flat. Inside was much nicer than the common parts, with a long view through a massive picture window out over rooftops to Loughrigg and the fells beyond. The furnishings looked new: tan leather sofa, an elegant white marble mantelpiece complete with matching china swans, and pale, sleek beechwood units. It might have been a show-flat had not each cupboard door and drawer been labelled with a post-it note that listed contents – placemats, scissors, stamps and bills. On the wall hung a calendar with a big yellow arrow stuck to it that announced TODAY IS. Wednesday, apparently. I’d lost track.
Griff advanced, smiling, to shake my hand.
“It’s our young friend Eden, Griff – you remember Eden?”
“To be sure I do! What an unusual name.”
“We saw Eden at the dinner party last week, where we met Isaac, the poor farmer who’s just died. Do you remember, it was on the radio?”
“Oh, dear, yes, poor man. He had a heart attack, didn’t he?”
“No,” said Muriel. “It was an accident. Wasn’t it, Eden?”
“I suppose so
. They think he fell. But at first they thought somebody might have hit him. And one of my paintings was left nearby: that’s another reason why I got hauled down to the station. I don’t know how it got there,” I added, because Muriel was looking aghast. “But it’s a bit odd.” And the mints too: the more I thought about them, the odder they became.
“Who’s this chap who fell?” said Griff.
“But who left the painting there?” asked Muriel. “What does it all mean?”
“Good question,” said Griff, nodding.
“I don’t know. Probably nothing. I probably dropped it after all.” But I was sure I hadn’t. Still, anyone at the farm could have bought it, either at Freddie’s or somewhere else. It could have been dropped there at any time. To speculate any further was just paranoid.
Anyway, I didn’t want to speculate aloud to Muriel, because she looked pale enough as it was; while Griff was just bewildered.
“It’s horrific,” she said. “An instant of carelessness and things change for ever. We were in Freddie’s shop just on Saturday, Eden, chatting about the dinner party and having a laugh about those chickpeas… ”
“Were you? Who were you with?” Griff asked, surprised.
“With you, Griff, don’t you remember? We bought a picture there.” She lifted up a mounted painting from the floor and propped it on the mantelpiece between the china swans. A large watercolour of Ullswater, decent enough; not one of mine, unfortunately.
“You bought that?” said Griff. “Without telling me?”
“A surprise,” said Muriel.
“Well, it’s very nice, but I wish you’d consult me!” Griff said, mildly aggrieved and laughing to try and cover it up. “That must have cost a lot of money!”
“We can afford it, Griff.” She sounded brusque. He looked taken aback and rather forlorn. To distract him, I enquired,
“Did you see any of Russell’s paintings while you were in Freddie’s shop?”
Muriel looked surprised. “Russell? Does he have some for sale there?”
“So do I, actually. Did Freddie not mention it?”
She pulled a regretful face. “Well – no. He was a little vague. I think he might have had a drink at lunchtime. And I’m not sure he quite knows what he’s got in his stock, to be honest.”
“Matt keeps the place in order,” I said.
“Such a patient young man, Matt,” said Muriel wistfully. “I think he has to be. I only wish I could always be as forbearing.”
“Who’s Matt?” said Griff.
“Just a friend of Freddie’s. Never mind. Put the kettle on for us, please, Griff.” Muriel sat down with a sigh, and rubbed her eyes. Griff disappeared into the kitchen at the back.
“Tired?” I asked.
“Sometimes it gets to me,” she said. “And now this death. The poor man! To die like that, alone… It makes you wonder what it’s all for.”
“I know.”
“I have no reason to complain,” said Muriel. “Such a lovely place we’ve got here. In the past we rented holiday flats in this block, various ones over the years, so when this came up for sale it seemed a natural place to return to after Griff was ill. He knows the layout and the surroundings. He only has to look out of the window and it reassures him.”
“It’s certainly very nice here.”
“Yes. Griff couldn’t go back to work, of course: and since I’m officially his guardian now, I couldn’t work either. He can’t be left alone.” She sighed again. “I managed to get early retirement. We’d just sold our old house, and downsized to a new one, but that didn’t work out.”
“Didn’t he like it?”
“It was too unfamiliar. He didn’t know the place and couldn’t learn it. I tried to buy the old house back, but the new owners weren’t interested. So I jumped at this.”
“But he thinks he’s on holiday here?”
She smiled sadly. “All the time. It’s easier just to pretend than to constantly explain the truth. What’s the point? It would only make him anxious. Sometimes we go and stay with our daughter Nina down in Reading. That’s her, with her baby.” She pointed at a photo: a pretty girl, holding a grumpy blob. “Only he’s a toddler now,” said Muriel, “and our grand-daughter is five, and Griff can’t understand how they’re growing up so fast.”
“Tricky.”
“Yes. It’s getting harder and harder to explain. People aging, places changing… at least this place doesn’t change much,” she said. “Nothing changes here, does it, Griff?”
He was carrying in a plate of biscuits which he put on the table. “Always wonderful here,” he agreed. “We always enjoy coming back here.”
“And the tea, Griff?”
“Tea? Oh, sorry. Forget my own name next!” He went back into the kitchen.
“So I should be grateful,” Muriel continued. “As long as Griff’s happy, that should be enough. It’s just that… well, I can’t get away. I can never leave him alone. I feel guilty for wanting to, but sometimes I just have to…”
“Well, I should think so! Everyone needs time to themselves. Could you not leave him in the flat for a while? Or ask a neighbour to keep an eye on him?”
She shook her head. “Really, I shouldn’t leave him alone at all. And as for neighbours – most of these flats are holiday rentals, and empty half the time.” She looked down at her hands, tightly folded on her lap. “Sometimes I just have to have some time out, but I hate myself for it. What if he had a seizure? He still does, occasionally. And he can get so emotional. It would be dreadful if he got upset.”
“What, because you’re not there?”
She nodded. “I’ve tried leaving a note explaining that I’ll be back soon. But last time I did that he never read it, and got in a panic. It was terrible. I can’t lock him in, in case of fire. But what if he went out to find me and got lost?”
“Surely he wouldn’t get lost,” I said. “He knows the area.”
“Oh, yes. He just wouldn’t know what he was doing here. He could end up going anywhere.” I thought of Hunter’s account of Muriel leading Griff, child-like, to the police station. Now I began to see why. “He forgets where we live,” she said. “We used to stay at so many different places. The first time I lost him it was dreadful. I didn’t know where to look: in the end I found him at a hotel we’d once used, shouting at the receptionist that she’d double-booked our room. I’ve tried to prime the hotels now, but I don’t think they understand.”
“Does he understand?”
“Not really. He knows something’s wrong but he doesn’t remember what. It’s as if his life is written on a whiteboard and wiped out minutes later.”
“But his memory from before the illness seems pretty good.”
“Oh, it is. The borderline is hazy: he only remembers bits and pieces from the weeks before he fell ill, and he gets them muddled, but everything before that is intact. That’s what makes life possible, so I’m grateful. He can learn new skills – like the electric tin opener – and he remembers music. Tunes do tend to stick. Snatches of songs, like little mantras.”
She got up and went to a drawer, from which she took a piece of paper. It was my portrait of Selena.
“He remembers her,” she said. “But I don’t know why. I’ve decided that it’s just another mantra, a fragment that’s somehow stuck: the Lady of the Lake. It’s not enough.” She slid the portrait into hiding behind the watercolour on the mantelpiece.
Her wistfulness touched me. “I could stay with him,” I said. “You could go out now. Why don’t you? Try it out for half an hour. Do a bit of shopping. Have a coffee.”
“Are you sure? It wouldn’t be too much trouble?” She grabbed at my suggestion like a lifeline.
“No problem. Maybe Griff could show me those Wainwright-style sketches you were telling me about.”
“What a good idea! And you’ve got my phone number, just in case.” She turned to Griff, coming in with the tea-tray. “Griff, why don’t you go and fetch your W
ainwright notes? They’re in the plastic box under the bed.”
“Is that where they are? I wondered where they’d gone!” Griff hurried away and returned a moment later with a storage box which he set down on the coffee table.
“Our young friend Eden is a professional artist,” Muriel told him.
“Really? Well, you won’t think much of these, then, I’m afraid,” Griff said with rueful grace, lifting out a sheaf of notes and drawings.
He was right. I didn’t. His ink sketches were painstaking and precise, fells and valleys covered in meticulous cross-hatching, but with none of the delicate, nubbly charm of Wainwright’s work. I could do better myself, I thought. How much would an original Wainwright fetch?
I slapped the speculation down. Don’t even begin to go there.
“I’m just popping out for some milk, Griff,” said Muriel casually. “You two will be all right for a bit, won’t you?”
“Of course,” he said absent-mindedly. As she put on her coat and slipped away, he leafed through the pseudo-Wainwrights with me, matching the drawings to the notes and maintaining a perfectly coherent flow of comment and information.
“I thought at one time of sending them to a publisher,” he said after a while, “but Muriel reckoned they wouldn’t want them. Too close to the original.”
“That would be a problem.”
“I won’t stop doing them, though. I enjoy them too much. I know I’m not a great artist…” His gaze wandered around the room and fell on the watercolour on the mantelpiece. “Not like this chap,” he said, getting up to inspect it. “That’s nice, isn’t it? I don’t know why they haven’t framed it.”
“Where did it come from?” I asked, curious to see what he would say.
“Oh, it came with the flat.” He picked it up and saw the portrait underneath. He laid it on his palm. “Who’s this?” he said.
“That’s Selena.”
“No, surely that’s the Lady of the Lake,” he said with excited recognition.
“You remember her?”
“Didn’t she go swimming? In her long red coat?”
“It was black,” I said. “But yes. We met her last Friday at the dinner party, do you remember? Freddie was there too, and Isaac the farmer.” I knew that would mean nothing to Griff: but I felt a great need to say Isaac’s name.
“A dinner party? Where was that?” He looked dubious.
“Ruby’s house. We looked at Russell’s paintings. We ate chickpeas. Freddie was there. And Isaac died,” I said. “Two days ago. He died on his farm.”
“He what? Who died?”
“Isaac, the farmer with grey hair.”
Griff stared at me. “What are you saying?”
“Isaac died.” A great weariness came over me. I was baffling Griff, but I didn’t care. No matter how often I said Isaac’s name, nothing would be changed. “The police are still investigating.”
Selena’s picture fluttered from his hand. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” He looked around wildly. “Where’s Muriel?”
“It’s all right! Muriel’s just popped out. She’ll be back in ten minutes. I’m a friend of hers, called Eden.”
“Eden?” He sounded incredulous.
“After the river. I called round to look at your Wainwright sketches.” I indicated the pile by the box.
Griff looked down at them, still disturbed. “Those,” he said. “Who told you about those?”
“Muriel did. I’m an artist. She thought I might be interested in your collection.”
“But I don’t have one! It was unintentional!”
“Was it? I think they’re very good,” I said. “Where is this one of?” I held one up at random.
“That? That’s Helm Crag.”
“Did it take you long?”
He took the drawing slowly from my hand. “It took… about two hours, I think.”
“And do you make notes as you do the walk, or afterwards?”
“In this case, I believe I made them at the time. I don’t always. It depends on the weather.”
“That’s a lovely route direct from Grasmere.”
He was beginning to relax. “Well, as long as you can avoid the crowds.”
“Isn’t that always the problem?” I said. “Which part of the Lakes is free from crowds?”
“Ah, you have to go over to the western lakes to get real peace. Wastwater and Ennerdale…” And he was off again, tramping over fells in his memory. While he rummaged in his plastic box for Wasdale Head, I retrieved Selena’s portrait and discreetly returned it to its hiding place behind the watercolour.
By the time the latch clicked and Muriel returned he was taking me on a tour of pubs in the western fells with a rundown of the menu in each one. He was perfectly happy, and I was knackered.
“Everything all right?” asked Muriel, unwinding her scarf. She looked more like herself.
“Fine. No problem.”
“Oh, good. I did as you suggested, and just had a coffee and a stroll around the shops. It was so nice. Eden – I hardly like to ask this, but would you consider doing it again? I could pay you.”
I wavered, but not because of Griff. I could see that although he was easily made anxious, he was equally easily led back to safe familiar pastures.
“Yes, I’d be glad to,” I said, and was rewarded by the thankfulness flooding over her face. Then I knew I had to tell her. “Muriel, there’s something you should know,” I said reluctantly. “I have a criminal record. A conviction.”
“Good heavens!” said Griff, staring.
Muriel searched my face. “What for?”
“Fraud. Forgery, to be exact. I forged some paintings by a dead artist. I thought I was being clever, and I needed the money. I spent ten months in jail. That was why the police suspected me after Isaac’s death – because I had a record.”
“The police?” said Griff.
“They’ve cleared me now.” It was more than just my record, I knew, that had prejudiced Larry Irlam against me: but I had a feeling that if I hadn’t been knocked off my scooter Larry would now be busy stitching me up for manslaughter or worse. Last out of prison, first on the suspect list.
“Thank you for telling me,” said Muriel gravely. “I don’t think it changes anything, however. You’ve paid your debt to society, and that’s the end of it. I shall forget about it. And Griff certainly will, won’t you, Griff?”
“Absolutely!” he said heartily. “So it was you that the police were after?”
“The past is dead and buried. Isn’t it, Griff?”
“Dead and buried,” Griff repeated, with a buoyant grin.
Chapter Fourteen