Chapter 19
‘Sorry it took a little while,’ Yvonne said as Daisy followed her back into the September Rose. ‘I keep promising myself I’ll have a proper sort through all my things, but you know what it’s like. Time just runs away from you. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure where half of these things have come from.’
It was only when Daisy stepped into her cabin that she realised exactly how big a job finding her father’s painting had been. The entire floor was lost beneath Yvonne’s paraphernalia which included – amongst other things – a vintage Roberts Radio, a set of metal dumbbells, at least three elephant ornaments and a typewriter.
‘I’ve had a few friends give me their paintings throughout the years,’ Yvonne said, as she dusted off a large, brown folder. ‘This lovely woman Fiona painted some wonderful artwork up in Glasgow, and another friend of mine, Jessica, did nude work. Very risqué stuff, not the type of thing you put up in the house. But very talented, very talented indeed.’
‘And my father’s paintings?’ Daisy asked, finding it hard not to sound impatient. ‘Is that one of his?’
Yvonne’s smile widened as she handed Daisy the folder. ‘Why don’t you take a look at that while I make a start on this mess?’
Only then did Daisy notice how her hands were shaking. And it wasn’t just her hands; her breath had grown noticeably shallower in the moments waiting for Yvonne, and her heart was drumming hard enough to crack a rib.
With the folder in her hand, she walked over to the dining room table and sat down. For a moment, she did nothing but stare at the dusty, brown cover, imagining what was inside. Every card and gift her father had tried to send her over the years, her mother had returned to sender without her even knowing. This was the closest she had ever come to having a piece of him, and she wasn’t sure which emotion was stronger: excitement or terror.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine what she would find inside. What would his style be like? Was artistic tone part of your DNA, or something you learnt? There was no way she could know until she looked inside.
With another deep breath, she opened her eyes and pulled out the first painting.
The gasp was instant, though it wasn’t caused by the painting itself but the signature on the bottom. Signed in pen, it was an elongated squiggle, yet entirely identifiable: Johnny. Not his surname, but Johnny, in bold, black pen.
With her eyes then moving from his name, Daisy took in the picture, covering her mouth as she attempted to stem her tears.
The style wasn’t anything like hers. While she went for delicate, intricate details in both the characters she drew and the landscapes she painted, her father had a wholly different approach. It was like he let the water and the paint do the talking. Some parts of the picture were in perfect focus, like the flowers in the foreground, and the butterflies and birds that rested on them, but the further back you moved, the more abstract and hazier the image became. It didn’t matter, though; Daisy knew in a heartbeat what she was looking at. It was the September Rose.
She hastily wiped at the tears sliding down her cheeks, fearful that she might damage the work. For a minute, she did nothing but stare, imagining herself lost in the moment, stood on the canal side beside her father as he sketched the image, after which she placed it to the side of the table and picked out the next.
The second painting wasn’t of a narrowboat or even a lock, but a simple meadow filled with flowers. Cowslips, daisies, dog roses, poppies. She didn’t know if it was an actual place or not, but it didn’t matter. She stared at it, mesmerised. What would the curator at the art gallery think of this? she thought as she hovered her fingers carefully above the artwork. Not that it was derivative, that was for sure. No, the colours in this were all bolder than in real life, every flower so vibrant, it looked like it was trying to burst from the page. As far as Daisy was aware, her father hadn’t gone to art school or had any formal training at all, and yet he’d been producing pieces worthy of any art gallery. By instinct, she moved it to the side of the table with the picture of the September Rose and opened the folder again, only to feel a sting of disappointment when she realised these were the only two in there. Still, two paintings from her father were a thousand times better than zero.
She was slipping the first back into the folder when her phone buzzed over in the kitchen. Wiping the tears from her face, she stood and answered the call, which was from Theo.
‘Hey, gorgeous,’ he started. ‘How are you doing?’
‘I am… I am…’ Daisy struggled to find a word. ‘Okay, I guess.’
It was a sign of how well Theo knew her that Daisy didn’t need to say any more for him to know something was wrong.
‘What happened?’
‘Yvonne found some paintings,’ she began, grateful that she had something to talk about that was straightforward. ‘Paintings that my father did.’
‘Oh, wow.’ The silence expanded, implying that Theo knew exactly how big a deal this was. ‘What are they like? Does he paint like you?’
‘He uses watercolours, but that’s about the only similarity. His style’s not like mine at all, really.’
‘Well, I can’t wait to see them. Do you wanna send me pictures? Or I can see them at the weekend. It’s only a couple of days away.’
‘At the weekend?’ Panic coursed through her. ‘I thought you weren’t here this weekend? You said you were going to be busy?’
‘I was, but I’ve had a look at the rota and I think the guys should be able to manage without me, so guess what? I’m coming to Wildflower Lock.’