Jake pushed the key into the lock.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to leave you to do this alone?’ Poppy asked him.
He shook his head. ‘No, it’s fine.’ He tried a smile, because he guessed he might need a sense of humour as well as a pint. ‘The studio is technically your place now and I can’t believe Grandpa had anything to hide but … wait until you see for yourself.’
Plus, he reasoned, now that Poppy had seen his reaction when he’d opened the drawer the previous day, there wasn’t much point in hiding away what he’d glimpsed. It would have seemed a bit underhand. Also, strangely enough, he felt that if there was one person with whom he could share the secrets that might be inside, Poppy might be it. She was a stranger with no ties or baggage linked to anyone on St Piran’s and instinct told him he could trust her. She was certainly one of the very few people he’d felt he might ever be able to open up to about the loss of Harriet … About the terrible moments before she’d been knocked unconscious and fallen into the sea and about the guilt that raged in his mind that he’d never come to terms with – not only surrounding the circumstances of the accident but their whole lives together.
Jake and Harriet. Harriet and Jake. The perfect couple, crazily in love, made for each other: perfect candidates for the kind of smug and thoughtless social media post that he knew had upset Poppy far more than she was letting on. That ‘Instagrammable’ image was the one that everyone around them bought into, even Fen and Grandpa Archie. Except it wasn’t quite true, was it? The impression that outsiders got wasn’t the complete picture, just a version that Jake and Harriet had shown to the world while they battled with problems that were too personal to share with anyone else.
But he’d be leaving St Piran’s soon, unsure if and when he’d ever return, so those thoughts would thankfully stay buried unless he decided to open up completely to Poppy, but now wasn’t the time for that. He had other secrets to uncover first.
He found the drawer easier to open than previously. Poppy stood on the other side of the table, where Fen had watched them the day before. He took out the bundles of invoices and paperwork and laid them on the table. Finally, he pulled out the sketches.
Each was exquisite in its own way and each had his grandfather’s trademark style and his passion for the subject shone through every line.
Jake pushed the sketch pad towards Poppy. ‘I wasn’t imagining it.’
She rested her fingers on the edge of it. ‘Oh.’
‘Yeah. That’s what I thought.’
‘It is her, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. It can’t be anyone else. Grandpa is too good an artist not to have captured her perfectly.’ Inside and out, thought Jake, seeing the joyous light in the model’s eyes and the uninhibited, almost hedonistic, pose.
‘It’s a beautiful drawing. Your grandpa was – is – a wonderful artist. Even in this sketch, he’s captured Fen perfectly.’
‘Yes, he has … all of her.’
She let out a giggle, then held her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. I don’t find it funny, really. Fen’s a lovely person and she’s beautiful in this sketch. She still is beautiful, but it’s hard to see her like this.’
‘You mean naked? How do you think I feel? She’s practically my surrogate grandmother.’ A horrible realisation hit Jake in the guts. ‘My God. How old do you think Fen is in this picture?’
‘I don’t know.’ Poppy pulled the drawing towards her. ‘Fifty, maybe? Possibly a little younger?’
‘That’s what I thought.’ He let out a sigh of relief. ‘So, these must have been done years ago, but after my Grandma Ellie passed away.’
‘When was that?’ Poppy asked.
‘Nineteen seventy-three. She had a brain haemorrhage.’
‘Your poor grandpa!’
‘I know. Her sudden death must have almost broken him and been terrible for Dad because he was only thirteen when he lost his mum. Wait a minute …’ Jake went back to the drawer. He’d always thought his grandfather and Fen were more than ‘just good friends’ and this pointed to the kind of close relationship he’d suspected. On the other hand, artists and their models didn’t have to be in a romantic or sexual relationship of any kind, even when the model was nude. In fact, all artists had to know how to depict the human form.
He’d been commissioned to take photos of women of all ages himself – although always or most often clothed. He could honestly say that he’d seen them only as subjects for his camera. It was his job and he’d always separated his appreciation for them from the way he’d felt about Harriet or previous girlfriends.
He risked a glance at Poppy as she studied the drawing of Fen. He liked the way her hazel brown hair curled onto her shoulders, he loved her eyes and her body, of course – and not in a strictly professional way, he had to admit. He liked her tendency to speak first and think later and the way she had tried and failed not to laugh at the drawing. He couldn’t stop looking at her when he was with her or thinking about her when he was alone. Like first thing this morning.
He’d told himself these were all normal, natural feelings for a single guy who hadn’t felt this way – or allowed himself to feel this way – about another woman for almost three years. Nothing pervy or weird about them, but somehow, because he was leaving soon, they felt wrong, like a betrayal or a voyeurism, and he felt ashamed.
Dragging his eyes from Poppy, he pulled a few more bits of paperwork from the drawer and at the rear found several more sketches. His heart beat faster as he brought them into the light.
‘Oh f-f …’
They were all of Fen, and all nudes. Two seemed to be studio-based, but one was drawn outdoors, Jake guessed. At first, he hadn’t been quite sure it was Fen, but a date and an inscription on the reverse left no doubt.
‘What?’ Poppy asked.
‘I’m not sure. I wish I’d never seen these. Any of them.’ He pushed the sketches away and they slid along the table.
‘May I?’ she said quietly.
‘I – why not? It’s too late to put the demon back in the box now.’
Poppy glanced at the first two sketches showing Fen sitting on a chair in the studio and lying face down on a couch draped with a cloth. Archie hadn’t romanticised her. You could tell it was the body of a middle-aged woman, and there were lines on the face.
‘They’re still beautiful pictures, even if it’s a bit of a shock that they’re of Fen,’ she said. ‘I think they’re quite moving. You can see the tenderness in every line … but these …’ Poppy’s voice trailed off. ‘Oh, I see what you mean.’ She’d picked up the last sketch of Fen lying naked in the dunes, with one hand flung behind her head.
It was the one that had shocked Jake the most. His grandfather had clearly spent more time on it, adding in details such as wild agapanthus growing in the dunes behind his model’s hair, which was spread out like a mermaid’s. In her other hand, she held a shell. Archie had even sketched in a palette, a few inches from her curled fingers, as if he wanted to hint at his closeness to his model. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes suffused with – God, he dare not even think it …
‘She looks blissfully happy,’ said Poppy.
‘And young,’ said Jake. ‘Have you read the back of the sketch yet?’
‘No.’ She turned it over. ‘Hmm. I did wonder about the date. She can only be in her twenties …’
‘That date confirms it. And there’s the title in his own writing. “The Siren Fen, in Petroc Dunes. 1966.” Grandpa was married to my grandma, then. She’d only just had my dad. He and Fen must have been having an affair.’
Jake felt slightly sick. His grandpa had always been his idol, even though Jake knew he wasn’t perfect. He could be blunt, he liked a drink, to say the least, and he put his painting before almost everything else – not to mention cutting himself off from his own son after Grandma Ellie had died. Now, he knew why. Archie had felt guilty. Guilty about having it away with Fen – God knows how long that had gone on. Oh Christ, had his grandma known about the affair? Was it better or worse if she had?
‘This doesn’t mean anything, Jake.’ Poppy’s voice sliced into his unspoken thoughts. ‘Fen might only have been his model. His muse.’
‘Then why did he write that she was a siren? You know what the sirens did?’
‘Weren’t they the beautiful women who lured sailors to their doom on the rocks with their singing? You’re reading too much into these drawings. The sirens were mythical and I can’t imagine Fen ever wanting to cause your family pain. I haven’t known her long, but she seems far too kind and considerate.’
‘You’ve no idea what people can be like in this bloody place. You’ve no idea what some are hiding behind the perfect veneers. No one’s ever what they seem!’ The violence of his own words startled him. ‘Ignore me. That was well out of order.’
‘It’s OK. I can understand why you’re upset by seeing these drawings.’ She spoke softly as if she was stepping on hot coals.
He was ashamed of his outburst. ‘I shouldn’t have reacted like that. Grandpa and Fen are only human and it’s their business what they did. Oh God. Should I tell her about these? They are of her and rightfully, perhaps, I should give them to her.’
‘Won’t she be embarrassed? Especially if … you know …’ Poppy pointed at the ‘Siren Fen’ ‘… they actually were in a secret relationship.’
‘Yeah. That’s true. I’d probably be better off taking them and locking them away in Grandpa’s cottage. I don’t even know if Fen knows he kept them.’
‘Maybe you could ask her?’ said Poppy.
‘No! I wouldn’t dare.’
‘Hmm. True. I don’t think I could ask my grandma if she’d been having an affair with her neighbour and posed for nude pictures,’ Poppy said it deadpan. Jake opened his mouth. He saw her smiling wryly. ‘Maybe you’re right. I had absolutely no suspicions that Dan was shagging Eve.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I hope to God he’s not painting her in the nude and going to post it on Facebook.’
Jake pulled a face, then had to smile. ‘I’m probably being prudish, which is ironic considering it’s the twenty-first century and I’m meant to be tolerant and liberal. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’m worried Grandpa and Fen might have hurt my grandma, I’d say good for him.’
She handed him the sketches. ‘I think you’re right to lock them away for now and see what happens or what Archie says in the meantime. He might mention them at some point and then you won’t have to ask.’
He nodded and put the sketches inside an old folder, wondering if he’d ever dare ask his grandpa about them or even if he should. Archie probably never expected anyone to find them, and might even have forgotten they existed, although judging by the pleasure on Fen’s face, that might also be unlikely.
‘And after you’ve put them safely away, shall we go to the pub?’ Poppy’s eyes sparkled. Actually, Grandpa would have called them ‘Caspian blue’, but they reminded Jake of the deep ocean on the wild Atlantic side of St Piran’s. The sea where he’d lost Harriet …
Jake shook himself out of his memories. ‘Best idea I’ve heard all day.’
‘I’ll see you in ten?’ She grimaced. ‘I need to pop upstairs and get ready for my baptism of fire.’
‘You look fine as you are to me,’ he said, instinctively touching her forearm with his free hand. Her skin was warm but pale, the skin of someone who spent their life out of the sun and the elements. Embarrassed by his impulsive gesture, he moved his hand away quickly. ‘See you at the cottage, then,’ he said.
He heard her footsteps on the metal stair as he left the studio with the drawings. On the short walk back, his mind was swirling with conflicting emotions. There was realisation that his beloved grandpa wasn’t who he’d thought he was and that his feelings for Poppy were moving beyond purely professional.
As he walked through the door and climbed upstairs to hide the sketches, he caught sight of the crate of paintings again. What other secrets might he uncover when he opened that?