The pub was heaving by the time they got there but thanks to Holly’s advice Harry had reserved a table. Not only that but it was in a small alcove and there were two red roses displayed together in a narrow glass vase. Harry knew how to woo and there was more to come.
They’d managed to talk inconsequentially during the meal though Harry was obviously trying hard to impress. To Holly it felt like a first date, more so when he covered her hand with his own as she reached for her serviette. They were at the coffee and truffles stage and some of the chocolate had stuck to finger and thumb. She fought hard not to lick it off, instead regretfully wiping it away on the cloth.
A vision of paper napkins and Humpty Dumpty tablemats flashed into her mind and she smiled. Harry thought the smile was for him and increased the pressure on her hand. He drew something from his pocket and placed it in front of her, a small box wrapped in red tissue with a tiny cardboard heart attached. She read its message. ‘With love for ever.’
Her eyes sought his, a question in them. What was he doing? It couldn’t be an engagement ring; he’d already given her one of those. A ring that like her wedding band she no longer wore, something Harry had managed not to remark upon though his thumb had caressed the place where they should have been.
‘Open it, Holly,’ he said, his voice all at once husky, his composure suddenly gone.
Reluctantly, and with trembling fingers, she did so. Not an engagement ring. Nestling in the little box was an eternity ring. She drew it out with her by now clean finger and thumb but she didn’t put it on. Harry took it from her and went to place it on her finger but she withdrew her hand.
‘It’s beautiful, Harry, but I can’t accept it.’
‘It’s an eternity ring, Holly.’
‘I know what it is, but for ever isn’t for us. Too much has happened between us, between us and others, that I can’t forgive and I can’t forget. Very soon we will officially be unmarried. That’s how it is now. You’ll always hold a very special place in my heart but I’ve built a new life now. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have come.’
There was none of Harry’s habitual bluster. He looked like a defeated man and Holly’s heart went out to him but she dared not weaken, couldn’t tell him that in some way she loved him still and that a part of her always would. That would have been crueller, she felt, than remaining silent. He obviously hadn’t accepted their previous break as permanent. She had to make sure he did so this time.
***
It rained on Sunday and Holly was at a loss to know why she felt so alive and ready to take on the world. She’d left Harry in the pub drowning his sorrows and gone home alone. A clean break was the best break. There would have been an inevitable awkwardness if he’d come back for coffee, or even just dropped her at the door.
She’d expected to sleep fitfully, if at all, but oblivion enfolded her almost as her head hit the pillow. In the morning she’d awoken refreshed, stretched herself like a cat in that enormous bed, and made yet another momentous decision. Gordon had done wonders for her confidence and self-esteem but she knew in her heart of hearts that, though she was drawn to him, it was on an entirely different level to the one he was experiencing. There was also her barely acknowledged interest in Adam Whitney. But she couldn’t forget how her heart had flipped at the sight of Harry on her doorstep and, even though she’d turned her back on him, she wasn’t ready for anyone else to take his place.
Like any healthy young woman she had her needs but her emotions weren’t engaged. She had, she decided, got far too much to do without taking on another complication. It would hardly be fair to Gordon. He was a nice man, fun to be with, but she wanted a friend not a lover. Better to let things ride than contact him again with an apology or an attempt at an explanation. Either might be hurtful and she wasn’t in the habit of gratuitously hurting people. She’d listened enough to excuses and suffered enough herself. They would meet again inevitably, and soon, and she hoped friendship would blossom naturally. In the future who knew what might happen but for the present she had a business to get started.
Holly spent the morning in the studio starting a painting of the previous day’s adventure, the one down by the river, not the one with Harry. At the same time her head was full of plans for the future. She began to build a picture around Old Meg, enjoying the colour scheme – browns and greys, touches of silver; showing the dog, the water splashing on the pebbles, the footpath, the trees. There was little green around yet though some of the timbers were showing signs of sprouting.
It was more an impression than a portrait and she smiled as she worked, running the experience over in her mind like a film clip, remembering the worry, the tears, and finally the joy. This was one picture she would never sell and, as she set it to one side to dry before adding another dimension, she knew it would always remind her of an old and frightened lady whom she had helped to rescue and who had lived to go AWOL another day.
***
Years ago there had been a carport where the projected studio/gallery now stood. The extension that replaced it was built with a huge bay window, deep as well as wide and with a dropped sill big enough to use as a seat. Holly had other plans for it though. As well as allowing light into the room, it also faced the road. Holly’s new home had come with a serendipitously ready-installed commercial frontage.
Because it ran the whole depth of the cottage there would be enough room, she knew, to move the big pine table towards the back and it was this area she would utilise as a studio. The front of the room would become the gallery and come the nice weather she’d be able to set up some display stands outside, under the window. Again she could foresee no objection, as a precedent had already been set.
What she wouldn’t do was have a fascia fitted. She still nurtured hopes of thatching the roof at some time in the future. It was above all her home and she certainly wasn’t going to spoil the character of the building by putting a huge banner across the front. Instead she planned to make her own advertising hoarding to go in a frame on the side of the studio.
A wide path ran from the street to her garden gate and it was this she would use as access to the gallery. For some reason Mrs Foster had had a door installed on that wall. Perhaps like a lot of country people she didn’t use the front door. It certainly simplified things considerably for Holly. The hoarding would stand to the far side of the path, as close to the pavement as was practical. She had no difficulty in imagining what it would look like.
Holly Hunter – Art-e-Mis
And she would decorate it accordingly. Unable to wait, she dragged the table and chairs to the back, managing not to give herself a hernia in the process. The room looked almost empty and she began gathering her various art forms from other parts of the house, mainly the someday to be dining room, which looked remarkably bigger after she’d removed most of its contents.
Apart from the door that led onto the path and the other to the kitchen, the walls were free of encumbrance, except for two rather charming circular windows high up on the back wall. There would be ample space to display paintings, as well as plenty of square footage on the floor.
Her excitement level was mounting with every minute that passed. Holly set her mind to thinking of ways to display a variety of things without spending a small fortune on shop fittings. Nor did she want to cram things in. Little is more. I’m an artist, for heaven’s sake! I should be able to think of something.
Her ambition was to make it look like a gallery, albeit a commercial one, rather than the shop it most certainly wouldn’t be. Mainly there would be paintings but she had models as well that she’d crafted over the years and these would go on display on stands that would be sited on the central floor space. Not too many though; she wanted each item to stand for itself. There were several options and this was one decision she certainly didn’t want to make in a hurry. She’d only have one go at it and it was important to get it right.
The phone rang and she jumped, dreading it might be Harry, or thinking – in spite of what he’d said – it might be Gordon. It was neither.
‘Just checking to see how you’re doing today. What did he say?’
‘I haven’t spoken to him, Emma.’
‘But you were going to have dinner with him!’
‘Oh, Harry. I couldn’t believe it, Emma. He tried to give me an eternity ring. With his track record eternity lasts about three weeks, if you’re lucky. He was charming. He’s always charming but you know what, I also realised he’s very needy and that’s sad. I think this time I managed to convince him our marriage really is over.’
‘So it’s Gordon you haven’t spoken to?’
‘Well, only after I got home from yours yesterday afternoon. He wasn’t very happy. Said I should call him sometime.’
‘And will you?’
‘No, Emma. I think I got a bit carried away the other night though fortunately not too carried away. I realised it was the whole romance thing that was sweeping me along. Don’t get me wrong. I like Gordon very much. Enough to want him as a friend rather than a boyfriend.’
‘You’re probably right. What are you doing now?’
‘I’ve been doing a bit of sorting in the studio and that I really am excited about.’
‘Don’t want to go shopping to stock up the kitchen then? Tom’s taken the twins to the park to play football.’
‘Don’t I just! You sure?’
‘Well you did ask if I could do a Sunday and in any case since when did I need an excuse to go shopping? Of course I’m sure. As it happens, I need a couple of things myself.’
‘Brilliant! I’ll be ready by the time you get here.’
Holly was just wolfing down a quick sandwich when Emma arrived. Two women. Retail therapy. It’ll do it every time. Even though it was Sunday and they’d lost the morning they still had plenty of time to do justice to their trip out. They went to one of those huge warehouse type places and managed to spend a substantial amount of money. Having said that, by the end of the day Holly had equipped the kitchen with almost everything she needed, including, oh joy, a real coffee maker. It was one luxury she was happy to pay for. That and a flat-screen television to replace the old portable she’d brought with her from London. Emma’s large family car swallowed everything and she dropped Holly and her shopping home late in the afternoon.
‘Do you want to come back to ours for something to eat?’
‘Thanks, but I’ll pass. I’ve got masses to do and in any case I want to get the telly sorted.’
‘Okay, I’ll leave you to it. Bye.’
‘Bye.’
Holly left most of the shopping in the kitchen to deal with tomorrow. Following the instructions she had the television set up in no time and, as it was getting late, she raided the freezer and heated something in the microwave. Then, tired but content, she sat down to spend what was left of the evening designing the noticeboard for the side path.
The following morning work started in earnest. Holly spent an enjoyable couple of hours opening parcels and deciding what to put where. The coffee machine naturally had pride of place on the worktop. Back in the gallery, she carried on from where she’d left off to go shopping with Emma. She wanted a small desk on the wall near the side door to use as a cash point and wrapping area, but decided she could improvise for the time being by using the kitchen table and covering it with a bright cloth. That way she would be facing her customers both as they came in and as they left.
The remaining space was considerable but there was no shortage of things to fill it – just the worry about whether her work was marketable, or not! And she’d have to think seriously about pricing. Although watercolours are cheaper than oils – apart from the oils themselves the canvases are far more expensive than paper – there was still the initial expenditure to recover. She didn’t only use miscellaneous bits and pieces she’d picked up from skips or off the ground. And of course not everything was a painting. There were the various models and ornaments too that she wanted to put on show and she’d had to invest in supplies to create them.
Overheads would have to be considered and a reasonable percentage put on any asking price to make a profit. Am I getting ahead of myself here? she wondered. It’s not like I’ve invested a lot of money, just done a lot of work. If they turn me down all I will have lost is the time I’ve put in. If I get the okay I’ll be ready to go immediately. I can’t bear the thought of them turning me down.
The next couple of days raced by. She contacted someone about creating a website, having decided this was one thing she’d leave to the professionals.
‘Just give me a little bit of notice and I’ll have it set up in no time. I can understand that you want to wait until you get the okay from the council.’
Holly had told him the situation. In the end, however, she decided to give him the go-ahead immediately. In the unlikely event she was refused permission she could still sell her work online.
‘I think I’d like to proceed straight away. To start with I’ll take some photos of some of my paintings, just as examples, and email them to you, but as we go on I think I’d like you to set it up so I can add the prices in later.’
She told Emma what she’d done. ‘I’ve no idea if anyone will buy online. My main objective is to use the website as a showcase, but you never know what might develop. It could be a worthwhile investment, I think.’
Holly scrounged several large sturdy boxes to use as stands and covered them in royal blue material. She’d quite like to have used felt but decided it was a dust magnet and therefore not a good idea. She was pleased with what she’d done, particularly where she had, in one instance, placed a smaller box on top of a large one to give a shelf display as well as the upper surface. Coupled with the hint of yellow in the painted walls the whole effect was sharp and clean.
Next she collected the leaflets and spent the rest of that day finding new roads and lanes that she hadn’t known existed, as she walked for hours posting them through letterboxes. There were some fabulous houses away from the centre; she found both the junior and senior schools, Adam’s surgery – she didn’t go in – and a small industrial estate tucked away at the end of a short no through road.
Finally she finished up on the main street and resolutely looked away as she pushed a leaflet through Gordon’s door. She hadn’t seen him since Saturday. This was the one cloud on her horizon. Being with him had felt like wearing a comfortable old cardigan with holes at the elbows, not a tight-fitting figure-hugging dress. She hoped she’d have a chance to offer friendship, and that it would be accepted.
The library was closed on Wednesdays so the leaflets she wanted to leave there would have to wait a couple of days because tomorrow was Thursday, the day she’d arranged to go out with Kate and Phoebe. By the time she got home it was dark, she was aching in every part of her body, particularly her feet, but in those few days she’d done so much and she was truly optimistic about being ready to open by the end of March.
Armed with her book, she eased herself into a hot bubbly bath and stayed there for ages, occasionally topping up with hot water. And occasionally topping up the glass of wine from the bottle she’d taken with her. Then she took the nailbrush, a metal file, and a toothpick – very useful for things other than picking teeth – and tried hard to remove the rubbish she’d collected under her nails during yet another trip she’d made to the riverbank to forage. She wasn’t entirely successful, but there was certainly a vast improvement. She asked herself, not for the first time, why it was so easy to get dirt under your fingernails and so seemingly impossible to get it out.
One finished book and too much wine later, she wrapped herself in a warm robe, dried her hair then dragged a brush through her curls. Fortunately, and because she kept it fairly short, it usually fell nicely into place without too much effort on her part. Just as well because she was absolutely hopeless at doing anything stylish with it. And me an artist! Somehow she seemed to lose all coordination when she lifted both arms over her head.
Finally, grabbing one of her home-made frozen dinners and blessing the purchase of a microwave, she settled in front of the television for the rest of the evening. She had no guilty feelings about being a slob. She’d worked like a Trojan for days. She’d earned it!