CHAPTER 7 #2
She made her way inside, hoping no one was around.
She was in luck. The kitchen was empty, though the meaty fragrance of supper cooking was entwined enticingly with the sweetness of plum jam.
Harriet was nowhere to be seen. Joanna took the stairs at a half-run.
From the bathroom, she could hear her mother singing ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ and from the study came Harriet’s tap tap tapping.
She slipped into her bedroom. She pulled the letters out of her bag once more.
Venice. Her gaze travelled from the letter written in that watery Italian city to the picture on her primrose-wallpapered bedroom wall.
It had been there as long as she could remember, so familiar during her childhood that back then she hardly gave it a second glance.
But it was beautiful. The wooden bridge lit into gold by the yellow light of early evening formed a perfect arc over the canal.
The sun was low in the blue sky and the water was rich with flecks of light and shade.
Joanna had never known the name of the artist – the signature was illegible – though she saw now as she looked closer that it could be ‘Emily’ and the surname definitely began with an S.
She peered at it again. ‘Emily’ to ‘Emmy’ wasn’t a stretch.
And the handwriting had the same graceful slope to it, although the letter was easy to read and the surname of the signature on the painting almost illegible.
She paused, hovering in front of the picture, holding up the letter, comparing the two signatures.
They had to be the same hand. And it wasn’t a coincidence, because they were both in this house, the letters and the picture, so Emmy must have lived here in Mulberry Farm Cottage, which had been in Joanna’s family, the Shepherd family, for generations.
The surname on the painting began with an ‘S’.
She was definitely an ancestor then. But who exactly?
Joanna didn’t know much about their family tree. Would Harriet have any idea?
Joanna was out of the door in seconds. Unthinking, she burst into the study without knocking.
‘Harriet . . .’
Her sister jumped, clicked the minimise button on the PC, but not before Joanna had clocked the picture of some bloke of forty plus smiling into the camera. Well, now . . . The image changed back to Harriet’s screensaver – an innocent Austrian landscape scene.
‘I wish you wouldn’t burst in like that,’ Harriet grumbled. ‘What’s the matter? Is it Mother?’
‘No, no. Sorry.’ What was Harriet up to? ‘I was just wondering . . . have you ever investigated our family tree?’
‘What?’ Harriet was looking at her as if she were mad.
‘Do you know the names of our ancestors? The people who lived here – in the cottage – before us?’
‘Well, obviously the grandparents.’ Harriet’s fingers were tapping on the desk next to the keyboard. Clearly, she was anxious to get on. Alone. ‘Father’s parents.’
‘No, not them. Before that. In the early 1900s.’
‘Early 1900s?’ Harriet’s eyebrows rose. ‘Why?’
‘Oh . . .’ For a moment, Joanna floundered. She still wasn’t quite ready to share. ‘Research,’ she said.
Harriet didn’t even question this. ‘There are some photos around somewhere.’ She waved an arm vaguely towards the old mahogany bookcase. ‘I’ll have a look after supper, if you want.’
‘I could look. Now.’
Harriet’s gaze could transmit frostbite. ‘I’m busy in here, Joanna,’ she snapped. ‘Can’t you see?’
‘OK, sorry.’ Joanna backed out. She certainly had seen. ‘One thing, though, Het . . .’
Harriet blinked at her. Joanna realised she hadn’t used that pet name for . . . well, for ages.
‘What?’
‘Who painted the bridge?’
‘The bridge?’
‘The Venetian bridge in my room. The picture.’
‘No idea.’ Already her fingers were back on the keyboard, her shoulders were hunched, she was focusing all her attention on the Austrian mountains.
Joanna left her to it.
Back in her room, she flicked through the letters. They were written from the cities of Venice, Lisbon and Prague, three long letters, hence the three bundles. Why those three cities? Joanna was intrigued. They were all addressed to my dearest Rufus, my heart’s love. Emmy didn’t hold back.
Joanna returned to the final page of the letter from Venice.
You have asked me why, on this trip, I shall paint so many bridges. An excellent question, my dear. A bridge, it seems to me, is a crossing point, a joining, a connection. Place to place, time to time; the bond that you and I share is just such a joining in my mind and in my heart.
Wow. It must have been quite a relationship.
Special. The once in a lifetime kind. Joanna thought of Martin.
Had it ever been that way with him? She had thought so – at first. But now, when she looked back on it, she wasn’t so sure.
She wondered if she’d simply been young, impressionable, more than ready to fall in love and forge a partnership with a man who had made her heart flutter.
Bridges provide a pathway, do they not? A way through.
At a certain point, there are choices: to go back, to go forward or to stay still; much as in life.
From the bridge there is a broad perspective, a new way of seeing.
The bridge rises above the men who built it, the men who walk it, even the water or earth beneath it.
And, my dearest love, at the top of its span there lies a particular moment, still and tangible; a pause in time.
It is this moment, this pause, which I should like to paint, to capture.
We are in that moment, Rufus. Which pathway is it to be?
I know that you, my most dear, my heart’s love, will understand.
And so I remain, as I write from Venice with love,
Your Emmy
It was powerful stuff. Emmy’s letters contained tantalising fragments of a life, and a love; glimpses of an artist and a traveller.
An ancestor who had shared Joanna’s travelling gene .
. . She put the letters down on the bed beside her.
She stared at the painting, imagined her – Emmy – with her brushes and paints, all those years ago, trying to capture the water, the bridge, the moment in time . . .
Joanna heard her mother get out of the bath, heard her humming ‘Move Over Darling’ as she crossed the landing.
‘I’m out of the bath now, Harriet,’ their mother called. ‘Is supper ready?’
‘Ten minutes,’ Harriet called back.
Joanna tucked the letters under the coverlet again and smiled to herself as she reviewed what she had discovered.
Emmy was in love with Rufus and so perhaps they had lived together here at Mulberry Farm Cottage which still housed her painting and her letters.
Rufus was, then, her husband. Emmy travelled a lot with her father.
And everywhere she went she painted bridges.
A crossing point. A spanning point. A pause.
A moment. What had she meant by that exactly?
‘I’ll lay the table,’ she called out to Harriet.
‘You’d better lay a place for Owen too. He’s on his way.’
‘Oh, that’s nice.’ Joanna had always liked Owen with his friendly manner and directness.
You knew where you were with a man like Owen – probably on a farm mucking out a pigsty.
She chuckled to herself. Briskly, she walked down the stairs to the kitchen.
Tomorrow morning she would phone Toby. And despite everything, she felt a shiver of excitement.
It was time to take stock and make some changes.
Endings – if this was an ending – could lead to new beginnings.
It was only the seed of an idea. But when you had such a seed you had to nurture it.
Sometimes, some things were meant to be.