Chapter 1 #2
‘Excellent, now we are all friends, let’s get started. There is tea and coffee and biscuits in the kitchen for anyone of course, and I have some vegan rice cakes if anyone wants one.’
‘Pass,’ I murmured.
‘Won’t fight you for those,’ Anita agreed. ‘Give me a Tunnocks Tea Cake any time.’
Cassandra had brought along a bunch of sunflowers from the local supermarket, which she unwrapped, dumped in a milk jug and put in the middle of our circle on a table.
‘And remember, there is no such thing as bad painting,’ Cassandra added confidently.
‘Just remember to think about those marvellous elements. Shape, Form, Texture, Space, Value, Colour, and Line. Those are the magic ingredients. The shape of these flowers. The space they occupy. The vibrant colours of nature.’
After a bit more chatter and Gwen fretting in case anyone wanted tea already or should we wait, we finally got down to some painting.
I stared at the blank paper in front of me and wondered where to start. Eventually I did a few hesitant pencil strokes and then rubbed them out again. I looked around, worried in case anyone had seen the depth of my inability.
Next to me I could see Anita was already splashing watercolours onto her paper with some abandon.
‘Last term I tried Realism; this time I’ve decided to be an Impressionist,’ she said in answer to my enquiring look. ‘I’m doing my impression of those flowers, focusing on – what did she say? – colour and shape.’
‘Those flowers are yellow,’ I said, a bit confused.
‘They are blue and red to me; I refuse to be hidebound by convention. I think I’ll put my new dog in there too. You must have heard him barking at the squirrels in your oak tree? Bonzo’s only a pup. He loves a squirrel.’
The morning passed quite peacefully and Cassandra wandered around behind us murmuring comments and encouragement.
‘Lovely shape, Irene. Gwen, you could use a bit more of the space, don’t you think?
Rather than squeeze everything up into a corner?
You don’t have to be afraid of the paper.
It’s your friend. Yes, Dennis, I can see where you are going with this, and daring use of – shall I say – an almost architectural approach.
Anita, very bold use of form. Beryl, excellent as always.
Meg, let your brush lead you onwards. Those flowers are happy, aren’t they?
Paint them with joy. Daphne, splendid execution of the jug. ’
I did my best and halfway through when we were allowed a ten-minute break for coffee, we sneaked glances at our classmates’ paintings. They were all very different, and sitting on the other side of me, Beryl’s was by far the most accomplished.
I stopped to admire it.
‘Gosh, this is absolutely brilliant,’ I said.
Beryl, who looked about my age and was swathed in a jumble of brightly coloured scarves and sweaters, smiled modestly.
‘I haven’t painted for ages. I’m enjoying this. I wish I’d started up again years ago. My last husband used to say I should stick to walls and skirting boards. But what did he know? He couldn’t sign a Christmas card without expecting a Nobel prize for literature.’
‘Do you ever sell them?’ I asked. ‘That’s really gorgeous.’
Beryl tilted her head at her painting and smiled. ‘Actually, when I was short of cash I used to work as a life model in Paris back in the seventies. Now, if times get hard, I’m thinking of selling off my old nudes. Ten quid to get one, twenty quid not to get one.’
‘I think my dog should be bigger,’ Anita said, flicking her paintbrush carelessly at the canvas. ‘Perhaps I will give him a ball too. And Bonzo is growing a sort of doggy moustache. I’ll add that.’
‘You’re crackers.’ I laughed, loading up my brush with more yellow paint.
‘I’ve spent more than enough of my life being told what to do,’ she said, wiping a smear of blue paint off the floor.
‘Now I’m retired I can do what I like as long as I don’t break any laws.
Anyway, this is an impression of Bonzo’s ball, because the real thing is punctured and rather flat.
I’m quite proud of him actually. There’s not a dog toy out there that he can’t destroy. ’
On the other side of the circle there was a small commotion as Gwen knocked her water over, and she did a strange little tiptoe dance, trying not to get her canvas shoes wet while Polly laughed and shouted, ‘Clear up on aisle three.’
‘You’re new to the village, aren’t you?’ Polly called across from the other side of me. ‘Haven’t you just moved into High Winds?’
I agreed I had.
‘Nice house, we went for a look round when it first came on the market. We didn’t want to buy it; we were just being nosey.
Anyway, Bruce said there wasn’t room for his model railway.
It just about fills our attic. Sometimes he goes up there in the middle of the night to change the points when the new timetables come into operation.
Still, he’s not hurting anyone and I never have a problem wondering what to buy him for his birthday.
Are you all settled? Boxes all unpacked? ’
‘I did them all in the first week,’ I said proudly.
‘Marvellous, well done you. Bruce and I still have some packing cases we haven’t looked at, and we moved into The Briars thirty-one years ago next week.’
‘Got any cardboard left over?’ Anita said. ‘Rick’s always looking for some to flatten and put down over bits of the garden. Cheaper than weed-proof membrane and more ecological.’
‘The trouble is, I find myself agonising over cardboard boxes these days,’ Beryl said. ‘Some of them are really good boxes, and I hate to get rid of them because they look so useful.’
‘And are they?’ Anita said.
Beryl shrugged. ‘No, not very often. But it’s no worse than men keeping random bits of wood in the shed because they might come in handy one day.’
We chattered happily about life in the village for a few minutes, and I began to relax. I was enjoying the company of new people too. I began to think this could be the activity and the group for which I had been looking.
All of a sudden, I stopped applying paint with an uncertain hand and a small brush and started being a bit braver with my brush strokes.
Perhaps Anita was right; I shouldn’t be hidebound by convention either.
I swiped a rather bold brushful of pale lavender paint under the edge of a leaf to create a shadow and leaned back to admire it.
I was rather proud of it actually. Maybe a bit more colour in my life was what I needed.
That and the occasional bit of excitement.
‘There you are. Such a happy little flower, isn’t it?’ Cassandra said, coming up behind me and clapping her hands unexpectedly.
My paintbrush flew up into the air and landed on Anita’s lap, splattering her jeans with purple paint.
She gave me a look. ‘These jeans are my favourite; they are Versace, I’ll have you know.’
I gave a gasp of horror. ‘Really?’
Anita rolled her eyes. ‘No, of course they aren’t. They were from the market about ten years ago. Stop looking so tragic!’
* * *
When Cassandra called that it was time to start clearing up, I was amazed. The hours had passed so quickly. And for the first time in ages, I had really enjoyed myself.
Everyone seemed very jolly and encouraging, and there was a fair bit of local gossip floating around too.
Details of the couple who had taken over the shop, whether or not the produce fair in September was going to take place, how someone called Elspeth had a gentleman caller who used to be married to Judith, the woman from Scotland.
What the Young Farmers were doing in the pub on Saturday nights and who everyone suspected of breaking the window in the bar (someone called Short Kev).
It was fascinating and a great insight into village life.
Dennis began barging about, organising the chairs back into the storage room, while Gwen collected the mugs on a battered tin tray decorated with the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and started washing up. Beryl, meanwhile, was standing admiring her painting until Dennis took her easel away.
‘Typical man,’ she said, giving him a hard stare. ‘He was just as bad last term, trying to organise us all the time. I hate it when people do that. We’re not at school. How did you both get on?’
‘Good fun,’ I said, ‘as long as no one looks at the painting.’
Beryl flapped a hand at me. ‘It’s fine. We are all a bit anxious at first. You’ll get the hang of it. Nice brushwork with those leaves. And Anita, I’m loving that dog, he looks a real character.’
‘What dog?’ Dennis blustered, overhearing. ‘There wasn’t a dog.’
‘He’s my spirit animal,’ Anita said. ‘Couldn’t you see him?’
Dennis stomped off, muttering, to fold up some more easels, and Anita and I grinned at each other.
‘So how have you settled in? You’ve been there for a few weeks, haven’t you?
I kept meaning to come round and say hello properly, and then it was Hogmanay and Rick and I went off to Scotland with our dance group for two weeks and I came back with the lurgy that’s been going round.
Now the spring is coming I won’t see anything of him.
He will be out birdwatching with his mates or mowing and fussing and doing all sorts of manly things in the garden.
He’s planning a bonfire too, so apologies for that when it happens. ’
‘I like the smell of a bonfire,’ I said, ‘as long as you’re not planning on burning car tyres.’
‘I shouldn’t think so, although we do have one.
He’s got some idea he might paint it white and turn it into a planter.
’ Anita looked at her watch. ‘I must get back and make some lunch, but why don’t you come round to my house tomorrow about three for a cup of tea and a Jammie Dodger?
Rick’s planning to spend a few hours in his greenhouse, and if you are there, he can’t expect me to come and help.
He was washing the glass panes the other day and even after all these years he still thinks I will find it as exciting as he does.
What do you say? You’d be doing me a massive favour?
And I have a hidden agenda. And I can make up for my lack of hospitality at the same time. ’
‘I’d love to,’ I said.
‘Excellent, you can tell me everything about yourself. Word is in the village you are a rich widow looking for a new husband, one of the new brand of London escapees who any day now is going to complain about the smell of the farm up the lane.’
‘Totally wrong on every point,’ I said. ‘I’m a divorcee from Bristol. I’ve moved up here to be closer to my daughter and her husband who live in Cheltenham.’
‘Lower Begley is a nice village,’ Beryl said.
‘You’ll like it as long as you don’t get involved in local politics.
I’ve lived here most of my life. I watched the new estate by the old post office being built, and your house too.
I remember when all this was green fields.
That’s the sort of thing old people say, isn’t it?
Still, I suppose people have to live somewhere. ’
Gwen came out of the cupboard with a triangular floor brush that was taller than she was and started sweeping up some debris, fretting about the paint water spillage and wondering if she needed to do anything more about it.
‘Stop making such a fuss. It’s just a splash, Gwen,’ Dennis boomed across the hall. ‘The new girl made more of a mess than you did. There’s a splodge of her purple paint by the window, and by the way, you’ve missed a bit. I sharpened my pencil over there.’
‘I’ll blooming sharpen his pencil for him,’ Gwen muttered through gritted teeth.
‘He did call me a girl though,’ I said.