Another Life: Escape to Cornwall with this gripping, emotional, page-turning read. Sara MacDonald
it’s in good condition for its age, so there will be a good bit of bidding. I’m taking Alan with me – to make sure I don’t get carried away and spend too much money.’ He grinned at them both and disappeared out of the door.
‘Good luck,’ Gabby called as she carried his plate and mug to the sink.
The buildings and harbour in Penzance were bathed in early yellow light. With the figurehead in mind, Gabby spent a satisfying half-hour gathering materials together. She treated herself to a new ultraviolet light and x-ray equipment. Solvents and adhesives, oil paints and waxes. Japanese tissue and beeswax for Nell. Fine brushes and powder pigments, swabs of cotton wool on slim sticks, some new pots to hold the solvents so that they wouldn’t spill, and, finally, resins to make varnishes and some new scalpels.
It was a good thing Charlie could not see the size of the cheque she wrote or know that the estimate she had given for work on the figurehead was on the low side. She happily flicked through the manuals lying on the counter. She loved this, this checking out new chemicals, chatting to the girl who ran the shop, sometimes meeting people she knew and swapping the merits of new brands of cleaning components or varnishes.
It had been all this, Nell’s array of little bags and boxes of resins, drawers full of varnishes and paint pigments and unknown substances, that had first fascinated Gabby. In the beginning, before she knew anything about restoring, it had seemed as if Nell worked a form of magic; an alchemist, transforming a painting, bringing out the subtle colours, reverting it to all its former detail.
And it was the detail that was so satisfying. Working out carefully and scientifically testing and patching, watching something damaged coming slowly alive under your fingertips. Even the smell of the potentially dangerous chemicals used to clean canvas or wood excited her with their possibilities.
Gabby knew the importance of wearing gloves and a mask, and sometimes she felt like a surgeon about to perform a tricky operation. She still felt thrilled at an unexpected discovery and the fact that each painting had a history, a story behind it. Each restoration was entirely different and often revealed secrets and questions as the cleaning progressed. Sometimes the point of interest was merely in the people who had once owned a painting, carefully setting it in a time and a place in history.
When she had finished she peered in the windows of the myriad mobile-phone shops and picked one at random. A boy as thin as a pencil in a shiny suit that flapped strangely round his thin ankles swooped, and with a cherubic smile began to explain with enthusiasm the various wonders of each phone.
His boss, an older, stocky man, very dapper in a suit with enormous lapels, brought her coffee, and Gabby suddenly wanted to giggle. The two men looked so incongruous, like the Mafia in a bad American film.
The boy like a pencil set it all up for her, showed her how to text and how to use the answer-machine. Flushing painfully, he put various numbers in her phone book, including his own in case she got stuck, and Gabby suddenly realized he was rather taken with her.
She emerged from the shop, triumphant with mobile phone. This was the first major transaction she had ever made on her own and she felt heady. Per-lease, she thought, I’m pathetic.
She sat in her car, seeing if she could remember how to text Josh. Her anticipation was out of all proportion. HI JOSH. SEE GOT MOBILE LUV G.
She started to drive home when she remembered Charlie’s hay trough. She turned back, loaded it into the back seat and set off again, worrying guiltily about the waste of a working morning, the primary object of which had really been to buy the mobile phone.
As she turned off the main road towards the Lizard, she avoided the question, too, of whether she would have the courage to phone Mark Hannah; but the possibility that she could if she wanted to lay there like a shiny washed pebble.
As she drove into the yard Nell came out of the cottage in her walking shoes with Shadow bouncing excitedly beside her.
‘The Canadian, Mark Hannah, rang, Gabby. He said he would ring again. He said to tell you he had traced some graves and turned up something quite interesting about Tom Welland.’
Gabby got out of the car and bent to lift her packages out. ‘Heavens, he works quickly, or he must have loads of contacts.’
‘He probably has research assistants or something,’ Nell said, then, looking into Gabby’s car, ‘I really don’t think Charlie should ask you to carry farm stuff. If that had fallen on you, Gabby, it would have been nasty.’
‘It was tightly wedged, Nell, I don’t think it could fall anywhere. I’ve got your stuff and some new brown varnish I’m going to try.’
Nell smiled. ‘Interesting. I shall look at it later. I’m tired of the monster, I’m going to walk over and see Elan. Did you get yourself a mobile phone?’
‘Yes, it took ages, there are hundreds.’
‘Well done. See you later.’
Inside, Gabby made herself a coffee and took her phone out. She put Mark Hannah’s name in the phone book then turned again to the instructions to text him. RE TOM HOW EXCITING GABBY.
As the message vanished down the line she saw Charlie drive into the yard for an early lunch. She went to her room and put the phone into a drawer. Coming back, she placed bread and cheese and pickle onto the table and put the kettle on the Aga. Charlie was pulling the trough out of the back seat.
She saw the sun was not going to last; dark clouds were gathering over the sea. Even if it rained Gabby knew she must walk this afternoon. She could not stay inside, she felt jittery and wound tight. She would work tonight. She felt as if a part of her had detached itself and was poised, waiting. The other part of her turned to Charlie and said automatically, ‘Hi there, how did you get on? Did you manage to get the bailer?’
Gabby drove over to St Piran the next day. She wanted to run some tests and take photographs of the figurehead before she started the restoration. She had been given an airy space to work in on the first floor of the small museum; the light was good and she had plenty of room.
Lady Isabella lay carefully wedged on her back on a large table as if she was sleeping. Gabby saw now in the better light that the wood section at the central lower front, under a fold of drapery, was rotten and would have to be investigated. This had caused deterioration in both gesso and paint layer. The gesso had become crumbly and the paint was flaking. Most other wood sections appeared sound and the adhesive secure.
Lady Isabella measured approximately sixty inches/152.4cms high. Her core consisted of vertical rectangular pieces of wood, glued and possibly nailed together, although the nails were invisible. The outer wood was carved into the figure shape. The paint layer was mainly cream in colour, probably oil and white lead. There was, as Valerie Mischell had said, evidence of an earlier cream paint and traces of gold and blue.
Gabby had brought Nell with her and she too was captivated. Gabby knew Nell would not give advice unless she asked for it so she outlined the initial treatments she intended to follow before she asked Nell for her opinion.
‘There seems to be about four areas of paint loss and missing gesso beneath the neck, with cracks in between … on the upper chest there …’ Gabby got out her measuring tape ‘… and here, Nell, see? Those vertical cracks following the underlying wood edges, they are …’ Gabby measured them carefully ‘… six centimetres apart on the lower half and skirt front. And here, the edges of the restorer’s paint are chipped on the lily she’s holding, and here on the dark edges of her hair.’
Nell peered down at the figurehead. ‘She doesn’t appear to have a varnish layer.’ She borrowed Gabby’s magnifying glasses and moved slowly round the table. ‘Rot has set in there, definitely. You can see the wood is more fragile here. Damage to the area has caused loss of paint and wood. This area will have to be carefully prepared, Gabby,