Summer at the Lake (11 page)

‘That makes two of us,’ Adam said. ‘I told her about Jesse on Saturday when I called round, so perhaps she’s some kind of divining conduit.’

‘Either that or she’s a witch,’ Floriana said with a laugh.

A slow smile spread over his serious face, a face she’d noted that tended towards solemnity all too frequently. ‘Talking of witches,’ he said, ‘I’m disappointed you’re not wearing your Professor McGonagall hat for lunch. I was looking forward to that.’

‘Now that’s just plain creepy,’ she said. ‘Any more of that talk and I’ll start to revise my opinion of you.’

The house looked like somebody had lifted it up and shaken it hard, and then, just for good measure, turned it upside down and given it another shake.

It was less than a week until Christmas and with Adam’s help Floriana had moved all the furniture from the sitting room and squeezed it into the kitchen and hall. She was now sweeping the dusty bare floorboards in readiness for the arrival of the new carpet while Adam put the old one out by the front door to be taken away.

With an impressive army of people at his disposal who could provide or fix almost anything at a few hours’ notice, Floriana had voted Adam to be the most useful man on the planet. Last week he had not only mended the puncture on her bike but had arranged for one of his helpful men to replace the broken window in her bathroom. She didn’t really know what the going rate was for a job like that, but the bill was for such a small amount she was suspicious Adam had intervened and negotiated a reduced figure.

The same was true of the carpet today. ‘It’s the end of a roll,’ he’d explained airily when she’d been surprised how cheap it was. ‘No more than an offcut that I’d put to one side to use at a later date.’ He spoke like a man who had any amount of carpet offcuts just lying about. He’d brought a sample round the other day to see if she liked it and it had been just what she’d had in mind – a light oatmeal shade.

This was after she’d pulled up a corner of the old carpet and, seeing the state of the wooden floorboards beneath, had decided replacing the badly stained carpet with a new one was easiest and cheapest. She had asked Adam’s advice, seeing as he seemed to be an expert on anything to do with houses, and he’d said that he knew a man who could probably do a good job of sanding and polishing the floorboards, but the estimated cost had brought Floriana out in a cold sweat. Even factoring in paying a bit extra to get this bargain-priced carpet laid on a Sunday afternoon, it was still cheaper, and by a huge margin.

In the weeks since she had met him, it had become very obvious to Floriana that Adam’s cash flow was vastly different to hers, but in no way did he flaunt it. ‘Admirably modest’ was how Esme described him in one of her typically discerning remarks. They both agreed he played his cards pretty close to his chest, thereby making it difficult to know at times what he was thinking. But given the choice, Floriana would rather be around someone who was taciturn and genuine than a showy big-mouth. What he lacked in blether he certainly made up for in thoughtfulness and dependability.

Outside on the street, a white van pulled up behind Adam’s car. Seconds later a squat man the shape and size of an Olympic weightlifter was opening the back of the van and chatting to Adam. Together they carried the rolls of underlay and carpet into the house.

In what seemed no time at all the furniture was back in place and the manky old carpet was on its way to the tip in the back of the van. Job done.

‘Thank you so much, Adam,’ Floriana said, looking round delightedly at her transformed sitting room. ‘You’re a miracle worker. Do you walk on water as well?’

‘You’re pleased with it, then?’

‘I’m over the moon! And if we weren’t due at Esme’s, I’d throw myself on the carpet and roll about like a demented dog for the next hour!’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Go ahead, don’t let me stop you enjoying yourself.’

‘Second thoughts,’ she said with a smile. ‘Maybe I’ll save that pleasure for when I’m alone tonight.’

By the time they’d cleaned up and Floriana had changed into some kind of weird extensively layered ensemble that looked like she hadn’t known what to put on so had decided to put on everything, along with a pair of clompy boots, the first snow of winter began to fall from the darkening sky. All day the sky had been ominously leaden and the temperature had steadily dropped.

They were on their way to Trinity House to have tea with Esme; it was to be the first time since the night of Floriana’s accident that all three of them would be together again. They had each independently called on the old lady – Adam because he was frequently at his new house next door, and Floriana because she was fascinated by the old lady and wanted to get to know her better.

‘There’s just something about her,’ Floriana had said to Adam. ‘She’s so inscrutable and just when I think I’ve got her sussed, she’ll say something to make me rethink. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she turned out to be a cold-war spy and being a librarian was just a cover!’

Wildly random statements from Floriana were fairly standard issue, Adam had come to realise; they were as richly flamboyant as her quirky dress sense, which very much reflected her haphazard and impulsive personality.

There again, for all he knew there might be nothing haphazard or impulsive about her appearance, she might actually spend hours carefully crafting her look. After all, what did he know about fashion? Although under Jesse’s guidance he had learned to appreciate the sleek and stylish look she had mastered. Updating his wardrobe had been one of the first jobs she’d carried out when they’d got together. She’d rifled through his less than impressive selection of clothes and after much tutting and head-shaking had taken him shopping.

‘It’s weird,’ Floriana said now as they stood at the junction between Church Close and Latimer Street and waited for a car to pass, its wipers working at keeping the falling snow from settling on the windscreen, ‘but whenever I’m with Esme at Trinity House, I feel like I’m in a parallel world, a more interesting world. I think it’s one of the reasons I like being with her.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Adam said. ‘I’ve decided it’s all those interesting paintings she has; they create an atmosphere all of their own.’

‘Yes!’ she cried excitedly, turning to look at him so fast the pom-pom hanging at the end of the long tassel on her hat – a multicoloured hat with earflaps that looked hand-knitted – whipped round and bounced off her nose. Flicking it away with a mittened hand, she said, ‘You’re absolutely right. I know it might sound fanciful but I keep thinking that each one of those paintings tells a story of her life, you know, like a photograph album.’

‘I hadn’t thought of it exactly like that, but it’s a nice idea. Have you asked her about them yet?’

Her eyes sparkled with mischief. ‘I’m working on it.’

Adam didn’t doubt it for a minute. It was another of Floriana’s traits: an instinct for gathering information. Of her own admission, she was a hoarder of useful and not so useful trivia, and as he’d already witnessed, she could summon any of it from her mind at a metaphorical click of her fingers. ‘I just have that sort of a brain,’ she’d told him, when at his prompting to give an example of what she meant, she’d rattled off a list of proverbs from around the world, including a Russian one that he particularly liked, something about when being engaged in a fight, it’s not the time to part your hair. ‘My brain just collects data at will,’ she’d said, with a shrug, ‘whether I want it or not.’

He supposed that’s what made her enjoy her job as a tour guide so much; she could easily absorb facts and recall them effortlessly. He, for one, would never be able to retain the necessary information.

Esme had been preparing for this afternoon for the last three days. Having decided the dining room would be the best place to host her tea party, she had asked her cleaner to give it more than a cursory flick with the feather duster. Krysta came to her once a week and spoke as much English as Esme spoke Polish. Clean Sweep – the agency Esme had contacted when her previous and long-standing cleaner had moved away – had sent Krysta to her three months ago and in all that time the only words the woman had uttered with any great fluency were
Hello
and
I finish now, goodbye
.

Once the dining room had been thoroughly dusted and polished, Esme had dug out the best tablecloth only to find it had been stuffed in the drawer so long it needed to be washed and ironed to make it presentable. That done, she had sorted through the box of table decorations she hadn’t used in a very long time and decided they were too shabby so had gone to the art gallery in North Parade where they were selling a small stock of Christmas bits and pieces. She had settled on an arrangement of pine cones and some apple and cinnamon scented candles, along with a poinsettia from Buddy Joe’s and some red and green garlanded paper napkins.

Buddy Joe’s had also provided her with the means to create a menu of turkey and mushroom vol-au-vents, smoked salmon blinis, and cocktail sausages wrapped in bacon with a cranberry relish. For afters there were mince pies, and a chocolate Yuletide log. For drinks, she had mulled wine simmering gently on the hob and a limited selection of spirits if something stronger was requested.

Now, with the candles lit and the lamps switched on and the gas fire hissing faintly as it warmed the room, she checked the table to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything.

Her real concern was not that she had overlooked something but whether such a formal tea table might seem embarrassingly quaint and unfashionable to her young guests. She was hopelessly out of practice when it came to entertaining. It was rather mortifying to know that she couldn’t remember when she last invited anyone to tea.

Years and years ago she and her father used to enjoy tea at the Randolph, then more latterly she and her friends – Margaret, Dorothy and Nina – had frequented the Old Parsonage which had been far cosier. But her father and those friends were all gone now. Just the memories remained, some of which were little more than vague recollections and some so sharply in focus the events could have happened yesterday.

She looked at the painting above the fireplace and studied the young girl gazing back at her. There was a pensive intensity to the girl’s expression that never went unnoticed by anyone who took the time to study the portrait. However, it was the subtle blend of innocence and boldness that Esme had always thought made it the arresting picture it was. She had never thought of the face as being beautiful or even pretty – the chin was too pronounced, the cheekbones too defined and the hairline too low – but it was an interesting face and that counted for so much more in her opinion.

She was eighty-two years of age and had lived with this painting of herself since the day her father had finished work on it and presented it to her on her eighteenth birthday. The funny thing was, there were times when she could view it entirely objectively and feel she hardly knew the girl at all.

The painting on the wall opposite, a head and shoulders selfportrait of her father, was a very different matter. When she looked at his face, partially in shade from the hat he was wearing, the years rolled away and she could hear his softly spoken voice as clearly as though he were standing in the room with her.

Next to his self-portrait was a smaller painting; it was another portrait of Esme when she’d been ten years old. Dressed in a plain blue pinafore dress and a white blouse and socks that were sagging and wrinkled, she was sitting on a low wooden stool, her shoulders hunched, her face flushed and turned towards her father in a way that suggested he had just disturbed her. It was one of her favourite paintings and showed how clearly she resembled her father and not her mother; something for which she had always been grateful.

Reminding herself that her guests would soon be here, Esme returned her attention to the table, surveying it for a missing plate or a piece of cutlery out of line.

‘What do you think?’ she asked Euridice who was sitting at the French window watching the snow fall outside. ‘Will it do?’

The cat slowly swivelled her head and blinked.

‘I shall take that as a yes and hope for the best,’ Esme said. ‘Now then, come with me, I’m not leaving you alone in here, not when there’s so much tempting food on the table.’

The cat obediently followed her out of the dining room.

When she opened the door to her guests Esme was most amused to be greeted with a brief chorus sung by Floriana of ‘We
Two
Kings of Orient Are’, and with Adam looking on awkwardly.

‘Granted we haven’t travelled that far,’ Floriana said breathlessly, her face pink from the cold as they stood in the hall in a mêlée of hats, coats, gloves and scarves being removed, ‘but we do come bearing gifts. You have to keep them until Christmas though, no opening them before. Do you want us to take our shoes off?’

‘Heavens no! Not unless you have a burning desire to do so. Come on through to the kitchen and warm yourself up and tell me how you both are.’

‘I expect Adam needs to sit down and rest,’ Floriana said with a merry laugh. ‘I’ve worked him hard. I’m now the proud owner of a beautiful new sitting room carpet, which is something of a milestone; I’ve never owned a new carpet before. I can’t tell you how properly grown up I now feel.’

Esme smiled fondly at her, then at Adam who was probably wondering if he would ever be allowed to get a word in. ‘That being the case,’ she said, ‘I think we need to raise a glass in celebration of such an important milestone in your life.’

Not for the first time Esme thought how different this brighteyed, chatty Floriana was to the one she had met at the time of the accident. Her face still bore signs of faint bruising and the scar where she’d had stitches was a long way from fading, but her true personality had since been revealed. She was charmingly irrepressible, a delightful bundle of energy and enthusiasm and Esme never failed to enjoy time spent with her.

It wasn’t only her spirited nature that had come to the fore since recovering from the accident, there was now no mistaking how pretty she was. Esme’s father would have had fun painting her; he’d have caught the sparkling vitality in those large hazel eyes of hers with their long lashes and her delicately pointed chin and her straight dainty nose. She had a rare face, in Esme’s opinion – one that seemed incapable of a mean or disagreeable expression.