Chapter Thirty-Four
The time had come to tackle the boxes and bags of objects that her father had hidden away in her museum and, loath as she was to admit it, the only person she could ask to help with the job was George Rook.
For the following week, he was the sole visitor Evelyn admitted through the museum doors and she put a sign outside that said Closed for stocktake.
From time to time, she heard the radio on in Della’s shed and once someone knocked.
She deduced it was Sariah, because afterwards she heard the two women talking next door in an animated way and then hearty laughter.
Occasionally, she checked the group chat: Della said she’d sent some financial projections to the council, although Evelyn had no idea where she’d conjured them up from. Now all they could do was wait to hear if their leases would be renewed.
Alison messaged her to say her dad was having a think about giving the embroidered sailcloth back to its rightful owner, Steven West. Already, Sariah had taken away that cracked teacup and soon Evelyn would have to return the fake painting to Jacob.
Three out of the four objects she’d picked out for her poster would soon be back with their rightful owners.
Only the fourth item, her lace, seemed destined to remain in the museum.
But this week, the more pressing issue was to identify the items her father had stolen over the years from the British Museum and decide what to do with them.
As she or George sliced open a sealed box, it would send up puffs of dust that made them both cough.
Initially, not all of it looked special – there were lots of unexciting brown pottery shards and agate beads – but they did find fragments of a Roman bas-relief carving, an ancient Egyptian funerary urn not unlike the one she’d broken all those years ago, and several opaque blown glasses.
‘It’s overwhelming,’ she said at one point, sitting back on her heels. ‘I mean, what do we do with it all? It’s not like we can seal up the boxes and post them back to the British Museum.’
When she uncovered a lapis lazuli amulet that she was certain she recognised from her time in the Egyptian department, the betrayal felt complete. ‘I gave up my career because of him,’ she told George. ‘And more.’
As if in return, George unfolded a page from the Evening Standard dated February 1987 and emptied two gold coins into his palm. ‘Well, our fathers were in cahoots for a while. This is the sort of thing he sold lots of, so I sympathise,’ he replied.
‘I just want it all gone.’ Evelyn got to her feet. ‘As soon as possible.’
Her museum was no longer her sanctuary but a trap, sticky as low-tide mud, and the longer she stayed in it, the more danger she was in.
She’d half hoped that George might take some of the objects off her hands, but he said he was done with all that and so was his dad, who was seeing out his days in a care home. ‘At this stage in my life, I’d rather sell a wonky milking stool over stolen goods, any day of the week,’ he said.
As she and George continued to open scrunches of newspaper and old carrier bags, they also came across things that Evelyn had collected and, in the cold light of day, she had to admit not everything was as precious as she’d once imagined.
George suggested this was an opportunity to ‘refine her collections’ and he shook out two black bin bags and made two sticky labels. On one he wrote Rubbish; on the other he wrote Undecided.
‘I wonder if the time has come to say goodbye to this rare artefact?’ George said, holding up a faded blue jelly shoe that Evelyn remembered rescuing from the beach during the heatwave of 2021.
‘Very well,’ she conceded.
‘And this looks a bit . . . broken?’ George held up a piece of painted blue wood, part of a boat name board bearing the letters -ORA-.
‘That stays,’ she said firmly. The broken name board wasn’t anything special but it felt unlucky to throw it away. Besides, it had been one of the first things she’d found on the local beach, so it had a sentimental value.
‘And this?’ He raised a more recent beach find, a twisted and bleached piece of driftwood.
‘I thought it looked like a snake,’ she said lamely.
George frowned and wiggled the stick in the air. ‘No, not seeing it.’
She smiled. ‘OK, it can go in the Undecided bag – and that’s my final offer.’
As George thumbed through a box of pictures, he pulled out an abstract canvas and held it at arm’s length. ‘No signature, but interesting,’ he said, getting out his magnifying loupe, which she’d always assumed was only for show.
‘OK if I take a photo? Do a bit of research?’
Evelyn nodded. The box mostly contained her mother’s botanical drawings that she had donated to the museum in its early days. Instinctively wary of modern art (what if she hung it the wrong way up?) Evelyn had ignored the painting.
But George Rook was more au fait with that world and she was starting to wonder if she’d misjudged him.
She’d avoided him for years – well, except for that New Year’s Eve when she must have temporarily taken leave of her senses.
Gin and loneliness, it turned out, were a lethal combination.
But now George was proving to be both discreet and knowledgeable.
He’d helped identify plenty of the items and then labelled the boxes with words such as Earthenware, Tang dynasty and stacked them by the door, although she had no idea where the boxes would go next.
All she knew was that she wished they would disappear, along with Mr and Mrs Cornish Life and their cluttered diorama.
‘Perhaps we could tip the whole lot into the harbour at high tide,’ she remarked glumly, as George ran a length of brown sticky tape around yet another box.
George gave her a look that meant he knew she wasn’t serious: it went against everything Evelyn believed in.
Plus, as Evelyn well knew, things cast out to sea had a habit of washing back in again.
That evening, as Evelyn settled down on her uncomfortable corner sofa, she turned on the TV.
She did not often do this and soon remembered why as she skipped through the depressing news, the fake laughter of a game show and a shouty soap, but then she saw a familiar face and stopped channel hopping.
It was John Thaw in his role as the fatherly Inspector Morse and she felt a wash of affection for his character who was sensitive, scrupulously honest and just a little bit lonely.
Funny, she thought, how she and Frances Parfait had shared an unspoken love for the fictional detective while they were both being deceived by the less gentlemanly Edwin Silver.
On screen, Morse was deep in thought as he walked through an Oxford churchyard and Evelyn remembered her visit to Bloomsbury where a poorly Frances Parfait had told her all the ways in which she’d been wronged.
Forever under a cloud of suspicion for the museum thefts, her career had never recovered.
Evelyn wondered if her erstwhile landlady might like a final chance to help right some wrongs of the past.
Flicking the TV onto mute, Evelyn picked up her phone, scrolled through the short contacts list and wrote a message. Dear Frances, I hope you are doing OK. I have a proposal. If you are able, please contact me. Yours, Evelyn Silver.