shock had knocked her off her feet.
‘Your dad doesn’t know about this, does he?’
Phoebe shrugged, and in the sudden firm set of the girl’s mouth Becky saw something of her father’s stubbornness. ‘He hasn’t asked.’
‘Hmn.’ Becky added improving father-daughter communication to her Charlie task list. ‘And you’re sure you want to join one of the most beloved professions in the world?’
‘I know. “Kill all the lawyers”, right?’
Henry VI, Part II, thought Becky, unable to stop herself. She rubbed her hand over her mouth. Thank God she hadn’t blurted it out. The girl had to like her, not think she was weird.
‘Maybe not all of them.’
Although fairly sure Charlie wouldn’t be thrilled with her career choice, Becky wasn’t about to put the girl off a good profession which came with steady work and financial security. If only she’d had the sense to become a lawyer.
‘Do you think you can help my dad?’ Phoebe lifted her hair and let it fall through her fingers. A few strands dropped forward, giving her a temporary fringe which highlighted her freckles and the concern in her eyes.
‘Yes,’ said Becky, hoping to convince herself as much as Phoebe. The girl’s smudged eyeliner was only slightly darker than the shadows beneath it. Poor kid. She had worried enough about her mother to make herself ill and now she had fretting about her dad to keep her awake at night. ‘I’ve had more difficult cases.’
‘Really?’ Phoebe brushed the hair out of her eyes and returned to picking her nails. ‘Like what?’
‘Businesses bordering on bankruptcy, collapsed marriages, runaway kids, various addictions … Real life coaches help their clients fix their own problems. The people I work with need someone to do some of the fixing for them.’ She rolled her eyes at her continued inability to make her job sound convincing. ‘Basically I sort stuff out however I think best and apologise later.’
‘Good.’ Phoebe nodded. ‘But can you get him painting again?’
It was Becky’s turn to be surprised. ‘He’s stopped completely?’
‘I don’t think he’s managed anything the past couple of weeks. It’s been really bad since the New Aesthetics article came out last month.’
She got up and stood by the door, her head tilted towards the stairs. Apparently satisfied they were still alone in the house, Phoebe closed the door, lifted her mattress and retrieved a magazine.
‘Page twelve,’ said Phoebe. ‘Although the bit about Dad is towards the end. It’s mostly about the Comptons. You know, the usual stuff about the Whitehalls coming here and South Compton becoming a haven for Britain’s famous artists.’
Becky flicked through the pages and recognised postcard shots of Compton High Street, images of several local galleries, and paintings by Sheila and George Whitehall. There was also a black-and-white photograph of the Whitehalls in their studio dated 1852.
Phoebe dropped back onto the bed and continued, ‘But then the writer’s tried to be clever. He’s contrasted the new interest in the artistic history of the area and the success of its galleries with Dad’s problems.’
As Becky scanned the final paragraphs of the article she realised Phoebe was avoiding speaking the harsh truth: this was a hatchet job. The author’s first mention of Charlie was promising: how serendipitous that one of the nation’s most successful contemporary artists had made the fertile artistic region of the Comptons his home! A brief round-up of the first two decades of Charlie’s career followed, charting his growing critical and commercial success. But then, five years ago, a show in New York, expected to be his best yet, was a disappointment. Two more solo exhibitions had followed, each more derivative and dull than the last. And in the last two years Handren’s work had only appeared in group shows, where it was overlooked at best and derided at worst.
‘The end of that paragraph is the worst,’ Phoebe said, wrapping her arms around herself, drawing the T-shirt close to her thin frame. ‘He basically calls Dad a recluse and hints he might be losing it. Aunt Lauren says we’re lucky they used a photo of Dad from a few years ago and not one from the past few months.’
‘If it’s not too personal a question …’ Becky winced, no one said that unless they were about to ask too personal a question. ‘When did your dad start on his current … look?’
‘You mean what Aunt Lauren calls “beardie-weirdie chic”?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘It was before Christmas. Soon after the last time he exhibited anything.’
‘I’m guessing that didn’t go well.’
‘It was only one