Jan Siegel - Prospero’s Children

Fern went to assist her, largely out of curiosity. The paintings in question were propped up against the bumper, shrouded in a protective cloth. Alison vanished indoors and Fern lifted the material to steal a glance at the topmost canvas. She had been expecting an abstract but this work was representational, though it struck her as strangely distorted, not for effect but because of some clumsiness on the part of the artist. It showed a horse’s head peering over a stable door, a conventional enough subject, but there were bars impeding it and an odd discoloration creeping in from the borders of the image like mould. The horse’s mane was unnaturally long and tangled and its forehead seemed somehow misshapen, as though its creator had made no real effort for verisimilitude, yet its eyes were intensely alive, heart-breakingly real, dark wild eyes gazing out at Fern with a mixture of pleading and defiance. Being in London most of the time Fern had had few opportunities to ride, but she loved horses and still dreamed of having the chance to learn. She found herself reaching out to touch the canvas, her hand going instinctively to the lock on the stable door; the paint felt rough and hard, like metal, like rust. ‘Leave it!’ The voice behind her was Alison’s, almost unrecognisable in its abrupt alteration.

Fern jumped. Her hand dropped; the cloth slipped back into place. ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said with exquisite politeness. ‘I wasn’t aware the pictures were private.’

For a second, she thought Alison was discomfited; then both curtness and awkwardness melted away and a thin veil of warmth slid over her face, leaving it as before. ‘The paintings are old,’ she explained, ‘and very fragile. If you touch the paint you could damage them. I’m keeping them for restoration work: my own personal project. As a matter of fact, I think that whole scene has been applied on top of something else. The layers have to be removed very carefully. As you saw, I’ve only just started.’ The area that looks like mould, Fern thought, only half satisfied. ‘A lot of stolen masterpieces get painted over to make them easier to hide or transport. I keep hoping I’m going to come across something special.’

She carried the pictures upstairs herself. They had installed her, by common consensus, on the top floor—‘Out of the way,’ said Will—in a room that felt chill and gloomy from long vacancy. Alison, however, professed herself delighted with the crooked ceiling, the balding velvet of cushion and curtain, the smoky mirror above the mantle. ‘I trust you won’t think me obsessive,’ she said, ‘but if I might just have the key? I have this thing about privacy. My own space is vital to me—I can’t help it, it’s just how I am. I grew up sharing with three sisters: I expect that’s how it started.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Fern blandly. ‘We only have the house keys. Great-Cousin Ned seems to have put all the others in a safe place.’

‘We’ve looked everywhere,’ Will added. ‘At least, Fern has.’

Watching Alison, Fern was convinced there was another flicker in her expression, a momentary freezing-over. ‘I’d be obliged,’ she said, ‘if you didn’t come into my room when I’m not here. I’m sure you understand.’

Do I? thought Fern.

She and Will went back downstairs, leaving Alison to unpack.

‘She’s very nice,’ said Will, ‘if you like niceness. It’s hard to tell how sincere she is. She seems to be working at it—but if she’s keen on Dad she would, wouldn’t she?’

‘The niceness is all on the surface,’ declared Fern. ‘All sparkle, no substance. It’s called charm.’

‘Like tinsel,’ said Will, ‘on a shoddy Christmas tree. I don’t think I trust her. I haven’t quite made up my mind.’

‘I have,’ said his sister. ‘You don’t.’

In the hall, Mrs Wicklow was putting on her coat. ‘I’ll be off now,’ she said. ‘There’s a pie in t’ oven. I daresay Madam won’t eat it, she’s too skinny to eat pie: probably lives off brown rice and that muesli. Still, I know you two appreciate my cooking.’

‘We do,’ Will concurred warmly.

‘Queer thing about her,’ she added, glancing up in the direction of Alison’s room. ‘Odd fancies you do get sometimes.’

‘What fancy?’ asked Fern.

‘Miss Redmond comes from London: that’s what you said?’

Fern nodded. ‘She works in an art gallery in the West End.’

‘There was a young woman over from Guisborough, three…four months before t’ Captain died. Happen I mentioned it. Something to do with antiques. I didn’t get a good look at her, of course, and she didn’t have all that hair—I think she had a kind of bob, just about shoulder-length—but I could swear it was t’ same woman. Heard her, I did, chattering away to t’ Captain, sweet as sugar. She didn’t notice me, mind: she’s t’ sort who sees them as interest her and doesn’t bother to look at t’ rest of us. I’d have bet five pounds it was your Miss Redmond.’ She gave a brisk shake, as if throwing off a cobweb. ‘Must be my fancy. Still, you take care. Third house from end of t’ village if you need me.’

‘Thanks,’ said Fern, smiling, making light of the matter. But the smile vanished with Mrs Wicklow and she went to check on the pie with a sombre face.

Dinner was a polite meal. Alison kept the conversation going by discussing her ideas for the house. ‘I think we could do something really exciting with that barn,’ she said, having duly admired the Seawitch and her current residence. ‘Your father’s very keen to have my advice. Hell be calling from the States in a day or two: I’m going to ask him if I can make a start. I have a friend in the building trade who specialises in these sort of commissions. I thought I’d get him up here to give us an estimate. Of course, we must take care of that wonderful boat. It should be all right outside for the time being, if we cover it in tarpaulins. After all, it is supposed to be summer, even if it hasn’t reached Yorkshire yet.’

‘We like the Yorkshire summer,’ Will said. ‘It’s bracing.’

Fern sucked in her cheeks to suppress a smile. Will had never been noted for appreciating a bracing climate. ‘We only need to tidy the place up before putting it on the market,’ she pointed out. ‘Daddy doesn’t want to spend any money on it.’

‘It would be a good investment,’ Alison insisted. ‘Convert the barn and you can sell two properties instead of one. I’ll discuss it with Robin when he calls.’

The inference was unmistakable: Fern was a child, it was none of her business, financial matters were beyond the zone of her responsibility. The hairs bristled on her nape; her small face set in lines that might have been etched in steel. But for the moment there was little she could do: final authority rested officially with her father, and while he was in America it would be difficult for her to counteract Alison’s influence. She had a suspicion the telephone would not lend itself to an assertion of filial control. She was conscious of a frustration that bordered on panic, but she fought it down.

‘Delicious pie,’ Alison said, pushing the pastry to the side of her plate.

They went to bed early. Inevitably, Fern lay sleepless for an hour or more before drifting into an uneasy doze. Suppressed anxieties surfaced as garbled dreams: she was at a private view in New York trying to reach her father who was on the far side of the room, but a huge crowd of people impeded her, and her father saw her, and waved and smiled as if there was nothing wrong at all. He was talking to a woman who had to be Alison Redmond, but when she turned round it was a stranger, and Alison was right next to Fern, wearing a dress that rippled like water, and her hair rippled as she moved, so you could not tell where the hair ended and the dress began. ‘Come,’ she said, laying a long-fingered hand on Fern’s shoulder, and there was Javier Holt, standing beside the etching of the Lost City , and the door was open, and the streets unravelled below her, and the drums were beating in the temple, and she knew she must not cross the threshold, but she couldn’t remember why. She awoke from a jumble of colour and incident more vivid than life, but recollection faded even as she tried to hold onto it, and there was only her heart’s pounding and a disproportionate sense of loss. The night-noises that were growing familiar came to her ears: the endless sough of the wind; sudden and startling, the screech of a bird. She was floating back towards sleep when the snuffling began.