CHAPTER 13
‘So how long have you been painting, Dorna?’ he asked, looking over at Dorna’s canvas. She appeared to be focusing on an increasingly phallic-looking war memorial, with long, dark, thick straight lines reaching towards a pointed apex.
‘Oh, years,’ she replied with a rattle of her bangles. ‘I thought about it as a career, actually.’
‘You did!’ Prichard had always been terrible at hiding his feelings. He squawked, then coughed and tried to control his voice. ‘You did?’ he said, a little lower.
‘I considered art school, the Slade, St Martin’s, I even looked at a foundation course at Brighton art college. Just think, I could have been here, on the coast, a few decades earlier.’ She laughed.
‘But instead you went into property,’ said Pat. ‘Quite a difference.’
‘Well, no, not really, it’s all creative and artistic in the end, isn’t it? It’s about making something out of nothing.’ Dorna raised her shoulders with pleasure.
‘The Downs aren’t nothing,’ replied Pat sharply. ‘They are an area of outstanding natural beauty, and should be owned by the nation rather than sold off to the highest bidder.’
‘Nothing’s sacred, is it, though?’ Dorna looked over at Pat and gave a tight little smile. ‘If we were all nimbies, nothing would ever get built, not even the pyramids.’
‘You’re not seriously likening Boho Golf to one of the Seven Wonders of the World?’ Pat was biting her tongue; this was by far the most polite response she could think of.
‘What is it everyone’s saying these days, Patricia? “Build, baby, build.” I think that’s the motto.’
‘They also sang: “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”’
‘I think you’ll find that was in the sixties. A bit before my time.’
They sat and painted in silence for a few minutes.
‘So, I went to have a look at the bats in the barn yesterday, and you’re right, Dorna, they appeared to have moved on,’ Prichard said, his chin in the air as he peered over the cars and concentrated on Bev’s cottage.
Dorna’s brush stopped moving and she turned to look at him. Pat held her breath and involuntarily raised an eyebrow.
‘But I own the barn, Prichard, so therefore you were trespassing.’ Dorna’s voice was cold, hard and clipped. The hairs on Pat’s arms stood up. Dorna’s hand looked as if it was shaking a little, her knuckles white on the back of her scratched, puffy hand as she gripped the paintbrush.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ said Prichard effusively, with a wide smile. He could be very charming and beguiling when he wanted to be. ‘But you see, I’m a bat enthusiast, just ask Pat.’
‘He is,’ confirmed Pat, looking straight ahead.
‘And, well, I was just a little bereft that they had gone. I’ve been watching and monitoring that community for years.
So I do apologise.’ He nodded slowly. ‘I should have asked you. The previous owners didn’t mind, you see.
They were also happy with the local teenagers using the place as a smoking den.
Very dangerous, obviously, with all that straw. ’
‘Not to worry,’ replied Dorna, still bristling.
‘But I suppose it’s only because you own the barn that you’re allowed to build there anyway, now that the bats have gone,’ Prichard continued.
‘And now that the Save the Seashore Group have also gone, we’re free to move ahead,’ replied Dorna, starting to fill in her phallic war memorial column using fifty different shades of grey.
‘Gone?’ asked Pat.
Dorna turned swiftly to face her, a snap of irritation flickering across her face. ‘They seem to have run out of puff; they failed to file an objection in time. Well, that was it.’ She smiled again. ‘So all’s well that ends well.’
‘Except not for Henry Clayton,’ retorted Pat. ‘All is not well for him.’
‘No, perhaps not,’ replied Dorna, turning back, and as Pat watched, she gave her right hand the briefest glance.
Pat eyed Dorna’s canvas. The obelisk rose starkly, thick and pointed, like something that wanted to assert itself. It didn’t look much like remembrance. It looked like dominance.
‘How’s everyone getting on?’ asked Jacqui, rubbing her hands together as she walked between the painters in her voluminous skirt.
‘It’s all about the details, remember. It’s the tiny things that make a painting.
Find something that excites you and concentrate on that.
Oh, Prichard!’ She paused placing a hand on his shoulder.
‘That’s coming along nicely. I love your elegant, delicate strokes and your beautiful use of colour.
The wisteria is beautiful.’ She moved along the group.
‘Colonel, you never let me down.’ She sighed loudly.
‘Your eye is always impeccable. Dorna? Well! What can I say? What a great grey obelisk you’ve painted.
Don’t forget to put a little bit of green in there, and perhaps some flowers.
And Pat …’ Jacqui paused and simply stared.
‘I see you’ve painted all the cars. And the wheelie bins. It’s very, um, interesting.’
‘Just painting what I can see,’ replied Pat.
‘Er, yes,’ said Jacqui. ‘Margot …’ She moved on.
It was just before lunch when they started to pack up.
Their paintings were still very much works in progress, but as they brought their canvases back inside the village hall, it was apparent that the entire class had gone the chocolate-box route with cottages and flowers and a pale blue spring sky.
Except Dorna, whose war memorial looked increasingly like a Scud missile the more detail she added, and Pat, who had painted the car park, which was, technically, the actual view from the village hall.
Pat didn’t think of herself as contrary; she simply focused on things others seemed to prefer to overlook.
It was only when she was packing away the easels that she realised Fi had disappeared, her Tupperware box of carrots still sitting in the kitchenette next to her handbag.
‘Where’s Fiona?’ she asked. ‘She’s left her things.’
‘I think she’s in the lavatory,’ replied Margot.
‘Oh, thanks, Pat.’ Fi appeared as if summoned, sailing through the swing door. ‘I still can’t believe that no one ate my carrots.’ She picked up the box and looked piteously into its depths. ‘Will you have one?’
Fiona had done her face in the ladies’: thick layers of mascara and a golden shimmer to her eyelids, some heavy blush complemented by bright pink lipstick.
She had also ditched the leopard leggings and zipped top and was wearing a short white frilled skirt, with bare brown legs, a wedge heel and a low white blouse unbuttoned right to the middle of her cleavage.
‘Are you going somewhere?’ asked Pat, crunching on her carrot stick.
‘More meetings,’ replied Fi with another shake of her blonde hair. ‘For Vibrant-Sea.’
‘Sounds good.’ Pat nodded and chewed.
‘Oh, it is. I’m working with a guru. He’s like a marketing king. I’m sure he’ll be hugely expensive, but Mal says he doesn’t mind just so long as I’m happy.’
‘That’s nice of Mal.’
‘I know. A happy wife is a happy life, as they say.’ Fiona grinned, before turning around and throwing the carrots into the nearby pedal bin, where they landed with a hollow clatter. ‘I’m going to wait outside.’
Prichard and Pat both followed her slowly out of the hall, blinking in the sunshine, just as a red sports car pulled up, roof down, loud music playing. There was a young man with dirty-blonde hair at the wheel.
‘A Toyota Supra,’ mumbled Prichard out of the side of his mouth. ‘Nice suit, terrible car.’
The engine stopped, the music died and the young man took off his sunglasses. Pat’s heart most definitely stopped for a moment. She moved her hand to take hold of Prichard’s forearm. The blonde hair, the nice suit, the bright blue eyes.
‘Derek!’ cried Fiona as she flew down the steps like a teenager and leapt straight into the passenger seat. The car quickly roared off round the green and up the hill.
‘Prichard!’ said Pat loudly. ‘Chilli con carne!’
‘What?’ He looked at her blankly.
‘Chilli con carne, Prichard! Jesus!’ Pat rolled her eyes. ‘What’s the point of having a safe word if you can’t bloody remember it!’