Rebecca Watson. An unwanted intruder, dark against the view.
This was mostly Lauren’s fault. She was the one who had found this life-fixer character and foisted her number onto him. Although he had to take the blame for calling her and letting her into the house. God, he was pathetic! He’d allowed embarrassment and guilt to push him into being accommodating. And now he was taking her to the studio! What was he thinking?
As he closed the door after Becky, Charlie entertained a fleeting fantasy in which he hopped back inside, turned the key in the lock, and left his sister’s spy to find her own way out of the grounds.
‘Is that your studio?’
Her right hand still hovering over her eyes, Becky was using her left to point towards the large red brick building to the south, close to the perimeter wall.
‘Yes.’
Without wasting energy on extending an invitation, he made off towards the building. If the woman wanted to see his studio she could bloody well keep up. ‘It was the engine shed and workshop,’ he said, glancing at Becky who had caught up and was trotting along next to him. ‘We kept as much of the original walls as we could. We bricked in the windows on the long sides, which are about fifty feet long. We also restored the two sets of large wooden doors in both of the short ends of the shed. And the roof is new.’
They paused as they reached the nearest end of the building. An ordinary-sized door nestled within the giant frame of the original wooden gates.
‘We’ll go through the small door on the south side.’ He set off down the small strip of shade along the east side of the studio.
‘Why can’t we use the door here?’
He rolled his eyes. Without turning back, he raised his voice and arm to beckon. ‘Come on!’
Moments later she was back at his elbow. ‘What did you do to the roof?’
‘It had all but fallen in. We took what was left away and put up a roof with two slopes. At first the sides go up steeply.’ He held his hands up, palms facing, and tilted his fingers together. ‘Then the pitch changes and the slope is much flatter until the two sides meet at the apex.’ He let his fingers drop until the tips touched.
‘Why?’
He unlocked and opened the door. With his hand resting on the handle he turned back to her. ‘You’ll see,’ he said and stepped inside.
Not many people had been inside the studio, but the happy few had been impressed. Two-thirds of the building formed a single open space. Currently furthest from Charlie and Becky, the height of the final third was divided in two by a mezzanine platform, which gave access to a floating gangway running along the long sides of the studio. Panels of grey-tinted glass acted as a safety barrier, reducing the risk of anyone taking a ten-foot drop to the floor. Sunlight poured through skylights in the higher roof panels and a series of windows in the north wall above the platform.
Charlie watched as Becky drifted like a sleepwalker to the middle of the building. She paused alongside his battered brown leather sofa and tilted her head back to examine the upper galleries. God alone knew what Lauren had told this woman. She had blabbed about Mel leaving and had probably laid it on thick: my brother, the sad, desperate loser.
Becky wandered to her right, stopping by the old card catalogue. She lifted her fingers towards one of the brass drawer handles and Charlie winced in anticipation of her touch. The large oak chest had been another of Mel’s projects. A university somewhere in the south-west was digitalising its records and the beautiful piece of furniture had been bound for the scrap heap when Mel swooped in to save it. She spent the best part of a month sanding, varnishing and telling Charlie how much trouble he’d be in if he got paint on it. Hours crouching in a fine layer of wood dust, her dark hair pulled back in a high ponytail, smiling to herself as she worked. The memory was sharp and bright, and he was surprised by how much it stung.
In his pocket, his phone vibrated and a muffled voice shouted, ‘Dad! You’ve got a message!’
Charlie swore and rooted out his phone. ‘My daughter. Messing around with my phone again. She thinks she’s funny.’
‘Don’t worry. My son can already work my mobile better than me.’ Becky