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‘Come on, Bev. Be reasonable.’ The voice was pleady and distant.
‘I’ll give you sodding reasonable,’ her mother’s voice shrieked from the hall. Bleary-eyed and half-asleep, Maisie stumbled out of her bedroom to witness her irate mother launching a brown leather shoe out the landing window – three black sacks of clothes and books at her slippered feet.
‘Owww. That got me across the shoulder. Look what you’re doing, woman.’ Her dad’s troubled voice floated in through the open window and across to a bemused Maisie. What was Daddy doing on the outside?
‘It was meant to land smack bang across your lying, cheating mouth and break a few of those perfect teeth of yours,’ her mother yelled, pulling back a Russian shot putter’s arm, pausing to take considered aim, and launching its companion on a similar trajectory. Open-mouthed, Maisie watched as her mother heaved up one of the sacks and tipped the contents out the window, giving the bag a final shake, before it was caught by a gust of wind and carried into the stratosphere.
‘And I’m changing the locks. You’ll have to find somewhere else to live because you aren’t welcome here any longer.’
‘Why does Daddy have to live somewhere else?’ Still in her Hello Kitty pyjamas, Maisie returned to her bedroom to ask Zoe what the confusing scene was all about – it was Saturday so neither Lisa nor Ben would surface until the afternoon. Zoe wasn’t quite a teenager like her older siblings but she was at high school so practically a grown-up. She kissed boys and everything.
‘He’s got this … friend that Mummy doesn’t like. In fact, she’s only just found out about her. But it’s complicated,’ Zoe sighed.
Maisie thought about this for a moment and her eyes expanded as she processed the information and its consequences. Inwardly, she resolved to steer clear of that new girl in her class. All showy-offy and sly. Mummy wouldn’t like her at all.
The verbal warfare continued through the open window as her mother stomped backwards and forwards along the landing, scouring the house to seek out all vestiges of her husband. The lawn was now a colourful and abstract display of one man’s possessions as the owner chased loose sheets of paper across lawns and pavements. Amused neighbours gathered at the edges of their gardens, intrigued by the spectacle, as he repeatedly begged his wife to let him in.
But the lady was not for turning. Her father eventually scraped together his scattered belongings from the front lawn and drove off in his company car. And Meredith Mayhew, who had remained inside for the duration of the showdown, opened her front door, walked purposefully down to the road, U-turned up her neighbour’s drive and gave the front door three sharp knocks. It was opened by, Maisie’s sobbing mother, floundering around in a world that had collapsed overnight, and in which she was now bereft of adult companionship.
‘The offer of tea still stands. The kettle is on and we only have to talk if you want to.’
‘I’d like that,’ her mum replied between sobs, and the older lady ushered her down the front path with Maisie trotting behind, determined not to lose both parents during the course of a morning.
Meredith’s house was the semi attached to their house. Everything was mirrored. And considerably tidier. And smelled less like stinky socks and overused deodorant. As she walked into the kind lady’s living room, Maisie felt all fuzzy and peculiar – a bit like when you had to stand up in assembly and talk to the whole school, and were worried everyone would stare and laugh. She sat on the edge of the floral-patterned sofa, her small feet barely reaching the Chinese rug that covered the centre of the room. Maisie crossed her chubby legs in front of her and then uncrossed them again. They sat in silence for a few moments until Meredith reappeared with a tray.
‘Drink this,’ Meredith ordered, picking up a curious black and white teapot and pouring a steaming stream of dark brown tea into a dainty cup. The tulip-shaped cups and saucers matched each other, but didn’t match the pot – Maisie always noticed things like that. ‘It will take the edge off things, Beverley. I promise.’
Unable to drag her eyes from the teapot, Maisie felt the pricklings become more intense. Meredith looked across at her as Maisie stared, transfixed, and rubbed her small hands up to her shoulders and down to her elbows.
‘Are you okay, dear?’ she asked, returning the teapot to the tray. Maisie’s wide eyes followed her movements, as if hypnotized.
‘Um …’
‘Can you feel something?’ She bent over the little girl, her voice breathy and excited. ‘Gamma used to go all peculiar and tingly whenever she brought out this tea set. She was so insistent it was like a family and should be kept as a whole. “Split the set; split the family,” she used to say. It had been in our family several generations, so she was very attached to it. But then it isn’t a set any more …’ The old lady looked sad, Maisie noticed. ‘And my darling teapot so misses her companions.’
Maisie shook her head but kept her lips firmly pressed together, not wanting to be associated with a mad, old and long-dead relative of Meredith’s. There was something funny about the teapot, but at seven, she couldn’t even begin to articulate what it might be. And with two grown-ups both staring at her, she wasn’t inclined to try.
Maisie uncrossed her arms and stared down at her blue T-Bar canvas shoes.
‘I think we’ve all got rather more on our minds than a silly old teapot – no offence,’ her mum sniffed.
‘Of course. I suppose I always wanted to believe there was something unworldly about the teapot or even that I might feel it too …’ Meredith’s voice tailed off and she placed it back on the tray.
Maisie’s mum lifted the delicate bone china cup to her trembling lips, eyes red-rimmed and posture defeated, and half-sipped, half-choked on the scalding tea.
And a silent seven-year-old Maisie tried to ignore the continued prickling sensation, as she watched the pain drain from her mother’s face and her hunched-up shoulders relax.
‘Wow,’ said her mum. ‘You’re not wrong, Meredith. That tea is remarkable.’
Chapter 7
The saleroom find unnerved Maisie for the remainder of the day. It opened a chapter of memories she’d not allowed herself to dwell on for many years. The divorce had been difficult and drawn-out but the children were shielded to a degree. Ultimately, the Meadows siblings knew they were loved by both parents; Mum’s love a daily dose of kisses to heal grazed knees, broken teenage hearts and academic disappointments. Dad’s love demonstrated by the fun activities he did with them every weekend, facilitated by his bulging wallet. His magnetic personality made him a delight to be around. But then everyone who came across David Meadows fell under his spell. His monumental charm was used to great advantage at work – hence the healthy finances – but more destructively with the female population of the planet – hence the divorce.
Despite a busy afternoon setting up social media accounts for the company, Maisie felt called back to look at the teapot before she left for home – the blissful ten-minute commute still a novelty. As she wandered towards the centre of the barn, Johnny bumbled in. The pricklings had started as soon as she walked up the middle aisle.
‘How are you doing, most magnificent of marketing executives?’ he asked, rubbing his hands together and blowing over them, trying to summon a warming flow of circulation from somewhere. ‘Found something interesting?’ He wandered over to where she was prodding about in the box.
‘Yes and no,’ she said. ‘It’s this teapot …’ She lifted it out and held it aloft.
Johnny peered over the steel rims of his spectacles. ‘Part of a household clearance from last week. These boxes of odds and sods don’t fetch much. Five to ten, at best.’
‘But it’s so unusual …’
‘Not really. Hip-hop design, probably mid-Eighties – not at all my cup of Darjeeling.’ A frisson of distaste rippled through him. ‘At home, I’m classic Wedgwood all the way.’
Not wanting to correct her boss, who clearly knew his vintage ceramic onions, Maisie frowned. She thought the teapot was significantly older than that. Meredith had told her it belonged to her mother, and her grandmother before that. It had stuck in her mind at the time because she couldn’t imagine Meredith ever being young enough to have a mother, and certainly not that mother having a mother.
‘I like it,’ said Maisie, more to herself than to Johnny. ‘My kitchen has a monochrome theme. It would look lovely on the corner display shelf near the window. Everything is black, white or a cheery bright red.’
‘Ah, a girl who co-ordinates. Perhaps you won’t get on with our Theodore as much as I hoped.’ A little sigh escaped from his full lips. ‘I’ve never before met a man who embraced such a mismatch of colours and styles. Sometimes I think he does it on purpose, just to wind me up. As for the teapot – nothing to stop you placing a written bid, dah-ling. Your money is as good as the next man’s.’
‘I might,’ Maisie said, but she knew in her heart she would because it was destined to belong to her.
‘Whilst you’re about it, put a bid on these ridiculous and vulgar garden ornaments.’ He pointed his highly polished toe at a box of six-inch-high garden gnomes. As she studied them more carefully she noticed they weren’t undertaking the usual gnomish activities such as fishing and wheelbarrow-pushing. These gnomes were engaged in more dodgy pastimes; pole-dancing, naturist sunbathing (with alarming anatomical detail) and a variety of other unpalatable, largely naked, pursuits.
‘Who on earth will want these monstrosities, I simply cannot imagine.’
Maisie thought it was funny – not only the thought of someone displaying them in their garden but also Johnny’s obvious discomfort and abject horror at their very existence.
‘Oh, I don’t know. You could make a feature of them,’ she joked, her face deadpan. ‘Or give them as Christmas presents to the people you don’t like. In fact, I can picture them dotted along my flower border.’
One of Johnny’s haystack eyebrows came out to play. It bobbed above his spectacles and stayed there. ‘Really?’ he huffed in disbelief. ‘Well, it takes all sorts, I suppose.’
Placing her soft leather house shoes neatly outside the door to her tiny spare room, Maisie stepped inside and onto the plastic sheeting. Everyone had a hobby and most people happily talked to others about the activities they engaged in during their free time. Maisie didn’t talk about her pastime much. She didn’t want to be judged for indulging in something so … unregulated, but she got far more satisfaction from this than she ever did from alphabetizing a bookcase or ironing the bed linen.
Pulling her long hair back into a ponytail and placing a one-and-a-half-metre-square board in the centre of the room, she grabbed a tube of vivid violet acrylic paint, took a deep breath, focused, and with a ferocious sweep of the arm sprayed a satisfying run of paint across both board and floor.
It felt amazing.
As she added to her creation, grabbing more tubes and squirting them just as wildly, a glorious array of colours emerged on the floor before her. The greens and purples seeped into one another, wild and untamed, and her heartbeat began to accelerate.
She flicked on her iPod and the docking station speakers pumped loud rock music into the room. A further frenetic burst of activity followed; dripping and smudging, flicking and scraping. A damp rag in her left hand was used to wipe clean the brushes and spatulas and, as she reached the crescendo with a forceful thumbprint on the bottom right-hand corner, her hands.
If the resulting mess hadn’t been such a rainbow of colours, the room would have resembled a horrific and brutal murder scene. Daubs of true ochre were on her cheek and spatters of black plum had caught the skirting board. (She’d promised the landlord this room would be totally redecorated should she leave, but then he was so delighted with what she’d done to neaten up the tiny garden that he hadn’t made a fuss about her messy pastime.)
Now that, she thought to herself, was intensely satisfying. Although the paints had very little odour, she walked over to open the window and let in some fresh air. Her abandoned mobile buzzed and her brother’s name flashed up.
‘Benjamin Meadows. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?’ she said, running the back of her hand across her sweaty brow and inadvertently streaking herself with pistachio mint.
‘Sis …’ Whilst not everyone could be as verbose as Johnny, her brother rather took it to the other extreme.
At thirty-three, he was the perennial teenager who’d ambled through life with minimum effort. He didn’t have far-reaching ambitions or crave great wealth. He was happy with a Beef and Tomato King Pot Noodle and a four-pack. Luckily for him, his high-school band had picked up a few gigs as he’d drifted through sixth form and things took off unexpectedly. In their heyday, they’d even opened for Quo and were consistently massive in Bulgaria. Although perhaps not to Ed Sheeran proportions, for the last fifteen years it had earned him a moderate living. Consequently, he’d never had to attend a formal interview in his life and had bypassed the need to get to grips with the structure of a proper sentence.
‘How’s the tour?’ she said, to kick-start the conversation.
‘Good.’ There was a pause. ‘Mum said you’d given Gareth the heave-ho?’
Maisie was one of the few people who understood that below Ben’s thick veneer of not giving a flying ferret about the world, beat the heart of a man who noticed things – little things. She wouldn’t hear from him for weeks at a time, but when there was cause for concern or even celebration (like the bunch of flowers that arrived the day after she got her A-level results), he came through for her. It was often under false pretences, as if he couldn’t bear anyone to know how much he cared, but it was apparent to Maisie now he was checking in to see if she was okay after Mr Two-Timing Pants had betrayed her.
‘I felt hurt at the time but he wasn’t right for me – I see that now. I trusted him. I gave my heart to him. And he stabbed it with a pickle fork. Fundamentally, I think—’
‘Yeah, well, I don’t need the gory details or to talk emotions and stuff. Just checking you don’t want me to thump him for you.’ From across the Channel, it would have to be one hell of a left hook. ‘So, up to much?’ He’d satisfied himself she wasn’t about to launch herself off a high-rise and was making an effort at small talk, but his social skills were nanoscopic.
Maisie swallowed and looked at the paint-encrusted canvas on the floor. ‘Oh, you know me. Running the hoover around and combing the grass,’ she joked. She couldn’t possibly divulge her hobby to Ben. How could she insist washing was hung on the line in colour groups and size order, or that every pen in her desk-tidy at Gildersleeve’s was the right way up, when her spare room looked like Mr Creosote had eaten his last wafer-thin mint at her desk? She returned to the centre of the room but there was a squelching sound as her bare foot landed in a puddle of blue. ‘Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask if there’s any chance of you popping back to the UK soon? I’ve decided we need to do more family stuff together.’
He snorted down the line. ‘You ARE yanking my chain? It would be like trying to organise a social outing for a pride of lions and herd of gazelles. You can count me out.’
And as a blob of crimson red dribbled down the wall, so did Maisie’s hopes.
Chapter 8
Maisie quickly found her auctioneering feet and began to make wholesale improvements to Gildersleeve’s. She mentioned the possibility of bringing in a mobile coffee shop to keep the bidders fed and watered but Johnny was one step ahead. Planning permission for a small café at the end of the car park was already in place and work was due to start in the spring.
She embarked upon a serious clean and tidy of the salerooms, an area Arthur struggled with, admitting Pam had always done the housework and it really wasn’t his forte. Once the barns were more presentable, she experimented with dressing the barn. She laid a dinner service out on a dining table that was in the sale and knew it made both lots look so much more appealing. With Arthur’s help, she dragged a sofa and two non-matching armchairs into a horseshoe, placing a glass-topped nest of tables in the middle, and arranged some ornaments on the low tables.
Johnny wandered in, clutching the digital camera, and stopped in front of the homely arrangement.
‘Oh, magnificent work, young lady. Why we did not have the perspicacity to think of such an ingenious yet simple idea, I do not know. So embarrassingly obvious now I give it thought.’ He stuck out a plump hand to shake hers vigorously.
‘I’m glad you approve,’ she said, hoping people could now envisage the items in their homes and that would increase their appeal. As an added benefit, it would improve the catalogue photos and make Gildersleeve’s look more like an upmarket antique shop and less like a bargain warehouse.
‘I do indeed, my little budding Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. Talking of which, a couple of interesting items came in late this morning and I’d like them photographed. The lot numbers are on the sheet and I’m certain you’ll whiz through them in no time,’ Johnny said. He thrust the camera at her and words such as ‘inspired’ and ‘marketing genius’ tumbled from his lips. Whizzing wasn’t the word she’d use. It took longer than you thought to take decent photographs but she was again suitably flattered so didn’t protest.
Saleroom Two was peaceful and she worked undisturbed, glad of her extra layers as the industrial oil-fired heaters struggled to keep the hangar-like space warm. There were plans afoot to update the insulation of both barns – also scheduled for the better weather – so sturdy thermal knickers and thick black tights under her smart trousers were the order of the day.
As she stood back to get a shot of an Edwardian wardrobe, she heard footsteps echo down the far end and looked across the barn to see a dark figure moving about. Letting the camera hang from her neck by the strap, and giving her hands a quick rub in an attempt to get some blood flowing back into her stiff fingers, she walked up to see if it was one of the porters. Perhaps they could help shuffle the wardrobe forward into the light. She was toying with hanging a Nineteen-Fifties faux fur coat inside and taking the photo with the door ajar, to give it a Narnia-esque appeal.
An unshaven young man, wearing a thick-knit striped woolly hat, and a shabby camel-coloured duffel coat, was behind the glass cabinet. Johnny had left it unlocked as she needed access to a couple of the lots.
‘Excuse me,’ she called, getting closer now and realising he was sliding the cabinet door open. Some of the most valuable pieces were kept in there; this week they included a selection of Victorian enamel brooches, a couple of pocket watches and a gold sovereign. Exactly the sort of easily pocketable items opportunistic thieves went for and exactly why they had the lockable cabinet. Arthur had told her earlier they’d had a spate of thefts before Christmas. The staff at Gildersleeve’s wore many hats and it seemed security guard was yet another they were expected to wear – especially the porters, who prowled the salerooms with friendly smiles but beady eyes.
‘Viewings are Thursday evenings and Friday mornings.’ Maisie used her PowerPoint-presentation-giving voice – clear and with assumed authority. ‘The salerooms aren’t open to the public at the moment.’
The figure ignored her, continuing to slide the door back and reach inside. He clearly thought she wasn’t a threat. Arthur said the pre-Christmas thieves were so self-assured, no one thought to challenge them. They had the balls to carry a fifty-inch screen TV out the saleroom, with everyone assuming they were either staff or customers. Was this scruffy man brazening it out with her, knowing full well he was stronger and faster, and she was unlikely to try anything physical? Where the heck were the porters? She cast a nervous glance around. They were normally wandering about, moving furniture or stickering up recently delivered lots.
‘Morning,’ the untidy chap said, several days’ worth of pale stubble scattered across his chin. ‘Nice selection this week. The half-hunter pocket watch should fetch a bit. I’m hoping to get at least three hundred for it.’ He slid the cabinet door shut, the watch still in his hand, and turned to walk towards the back door.
The cheek of the man. Not only was he stealing from them but he was also shamelessly informing her of his plans to sell the items once he’d made off with his loot. Well, not on her watch – pun intended. Maisie lifted the camera strap over her head and laid it gently on the glass top. He continued to head for the back door, and without pausing for thoughts of his size, her gender, or her zero knowledge of any form of self-defence, she launched herself at his back with grunting tennis player sound effects, clinging to him like a baby koala clinging to its mother’s back as she scaled the lofty eucalyptus trees.
‘DROP THE POCKET WATCH, YOU THIEVING BASTARD!’ she screamed, as loud as her squashed lungs would let her. And as an afterthought: ‘Help! We’re being robbed.’ The pair of them tumbled to the ground, the man’s knees hitting the concrete floor with an unpleasant crunch. She gave him an elbow in the side for good measure and heard a muffled oomph from the face-down woolly hat. A not entirely unpleasant waft of pine soap and musky aftershave drifted past. Were shoplifters allowed to smell this appealing? Shouldn’t they smell of stale alcohol and used ten-pound notes?
It was only as they lay together in a wriggling heap, that it occurred to Maisie he might be armed – carrying a knife or even a gun. But within a microsecond of her piercing yells, the back door of the barn was flung open, a bitter February wind slicing through the air, and several people burst in, including a heavily panting Johnny. His hands fell to his mustard, corduroy-covered knees as he took in the tangled bodies before him.
Her squirming quarry gave up his futile struggles and lifted his head to face the assembled crowd, standing in a concerned semicircle looking down at the pair of them.
‘Theodore, dah-ling.’ Johnny sounded most puzzled. ‘What on earth are you doing to the new girl?’
Chapter 9
Theodore? As in Johnny’s partner? Hashtag Endofpromisingcareer. Maisie rolled off the man and onto her bottom.
‘She hit me! Really hard,’ Theodore said, as he lifted his head from the floor, the knitted hat now slipped down half over one eye. He put a hand to his head and tugged it back, enabling him to throw Maisie a dirty look. Now she thought about it, he looked vaguely familiar …
‘I … I thought he was stealing from us,’ she blustered.
‘Oh, bless you and your misguided company loyalty,’ Johnny said, offering his arm to Maisie, who heaved herself from the floor and brushed down her dusty knees.
‘This is Maisie?’ Theodore asked, looking at Johnny and waving a vague hand in her direction. ‘The one you were interviewing when I was on my way to the studios last month? You said you’d employed an extra pair of hands, not a bloody guard dog.’
Could this man be the clean-shaven figure who had caught her attention a couple of weeks ago? This man was more stubble than skin. No wonder she hadn’t made the connection.
‘This is indeed she.’ Johnny put out the same burgundy velvet arm to help Theodore to his feet.
‘She whacked me really hard in the guts,’ Theodore grumbled, rubbing his left side.
‘Maisie was multi-tasking, dah-ling – photographer, marketing whiz and guard dog.’
‘I. Am. So. Sorry,’ she said. ‘I honestly didn’t know who you were.’