Crybbe

Then the young woman had telephoned about the painting and insisted on bringing it to the house, saying she didn't want to carry it through town.

He thought he'd seen her before, but not in Crybbe, surely. Dark hair, dark-eyed. Darkly glamorous and confident in an offhand way. Arrived in a blue Land Rover.

She wore a lot of make-up. Black lipstick. But she couldn't be older than early-twenties, which made her mature talent quite frightening.

If indeed she'd done this herself; he didn't dare challenge her.

It was a large canvas – five feet by four. When he leaned it against the dresser it took over the room immediately. What it did was to draw the room into the scene, reducing the kitchen furniture to shadows, even in the brightness of this cheerfully sunny morning.

The painting, Hereward thought, stole the sunlight away.

He identified the front entrance of Crybbe Court, the building looking as romantically decrepit as it had last week when he'd strolled over there out of curiosity, to see how things were progressing. Broken cobbles in the yard. Weeds. A dull grey sky falling towards evening.

The main door was open, and a tall, black-bearded man, half-shadowed, stood inside. Behind the figure and around his head was a strange nimbus, a halo of yellowish, powdery vapour. The man had a still and beckoning air about him. Hereward was reminded in a curious way, of Holman Hunt's The Light of the World, except there was no light about this figure, only a sort of glowing darkness.

'It's very interesting,' Hereward said. 'How much?'

'Three hundred pounds.'

Hereward was pleased. It was, in its way, a major work, lustrous like a large icon. This girl was a significant discovery. He wanted to snatch his wallet out before she could change her mind, but caution prevailed. He kept his face impassive.

'Where do you work?'

'Here. In Crybbe.'

'You're… a full-time, professional painter?'

'I am now,' she said. 'Would you like to see the preliminary sketches?'

'Very much,' Hereward said.

She fetched the portfolio from the Land Rover. The sketches were in Indian ink and smudged charcoal – studies of the bearded face – and some colour-mix experiments in acrylic on paper.

He wondered who the model was, didn't like to ask; this artist had a formidable air. Watched him, unsmiling.

And she was so young.

'Does it have a title?'

'It speaks for itself.'

'I see,' Hereward said. He didn't. 'Look,' he said. 'I'll take a chance. I'll buy it.'

She'd watched him the whole time, studying his reaction. She hadn't looked once at the painting. Most unusual for an artist; normally they couldn't keep their eyes off their own work.

'Could I buy the sketches, too?'

'You can have them,' she said. 'Keep them in your attic or somewhere.'

'I certainly won't! I shall have them on my walls.'

The girl smiled.

'One thing.' She had a trace of accent. Not local, 'I might be doing more. Even if it's sold, I'd like the painting in the window of your gallery for a couple of days. No card, no identification, just the picture.'

'Well… certainly. Of course. But you really don't want your name on a card under the picture?'

Shook her head. 'You don't know my name, anyway.'

'Aren't you going to tell me?'

She left.

It was not yet ten o'clock.

The Mayor of Crybbe was seeing his youngest grandson for the first time as a man.

An unpleasant man.

He'd patrolled the farm, checking everything was all right, collected a few eggs. Then noticed that something, apart from the tractor, was missing from the vehicle shed.

When he got back to the house, he saw Warren landing hard on the settee, like he'd been doing something else, heard his grandad and flung himself down in a hurry.

'Where's the Land Rover, Warren?'

'Lent it to a friend.'

'You… what?' Mr Preece took off his cap and began to squeeze it.

'Don't get excited, Grandad. She'll bring it back.'

'She?'

'My friend,' said Warren, not looking at him. He hadn't even shaved yet.

When Mr Preece looked at Warren, he saw just how alone he was now.

'Come on. Warren, we got things to do. Jonathon's funeral tomorrow and your dad in hospital. Your gran rung yet?'

'Dunno. Has she?'

'She was gonner phone the hospital, see what kind of night Jack 'ad, see when we can visit 'im.'

'I hate hospitals,' said Warren.

'You're not gonner go?'

"Can't see me goin' today,' said Warren, like they were talking about a football match. 'I'll be busy.'

Jimmy Preece began to shake. Sprawled across the settee was a hard, thin man with a head shaved close until you got right to the top when it came out like a stiff shaving brush. A sneering man with an ear-ring which had a little metal skull hanging from it. A man with flat, lizard's eyes.

Before, it had been an irritation, the way Warren was, but it didn't matter much. You looked the other way and you saw Jonathon, you saw the chairman of the Young Farmers' Club. You saw Jimmy Preece fifty years ago.

Now this… his only surviving grandson.

He tried. 'Warren, we never talked much… before.'

Warren's laughter was like spit. 'Wasn't no reason to talk was there? Not when there was Dad, and there was good old reliable old Jonathon.'

'Don't you talk like that about…'

'And now you wanner talk, is it? What a fuckin' surprise this is. Fair knocks me over with the shock, that does.'

Jimmy Preece squeezed his cap so tightly he felt the fabric start to rip.

This… this was the only surviving Preece, apart from himself, with two good legs to climb the stairs to the belfry.

'Now you listen to me, boy,' Jimmy said. 'There's things you don't know about…'

'Correction, Grandad.' Warren uncoiled from the couch, stood up. 'There's things I don't care about. Big difference there, see.'

Jimmy Preece wanted to hit him again. But this time, Warren would be ready for it, he could tell by the way he was standing, legs apart, hands dangling loose by his sides. Wouldn't worry him one bit, beating an old man.

Jimmy Preece saw the future.

He saw himself prising Mrs Preece out of her retirement cottage, dragging her back to this old place. He saw himself running the farm again, such as it was these days, and ringing the old bell every night until Jack was out of hospital, and then Mrs Preece caring for her crippled son, and what meagre profits they made going on hired help as he, Jimmy Preece, got older and feebler.

He knew, from last night's ordeal, how hard it was going to get, ringing that bell. Jack must've sensed it, but he hadn't said a word. That was Jack, though, keep on, grit your teeth, do your duty. You don't have to like it but you got to do it.

Going to be hard. Going to be a trial.

While this… this thing slinks around the place grinning and sneering.

Going to be no fall-back. A feeble old man, and no fall-back.

'Why don't you just let it go, Grandad,' Warren said, with a shocking hint of glee. 'What's it worth? Think about the winter, them cold nights when you're all stiff and the old steps is wet and slippery. Could do yourself a mischief, isn't it.'

Jimmy Preece seeing his youngest grandson for the first time as a man.

A bad man.

He wanted to take what Goff had told him this morning and hurl it in Warren's thin, snidey face.

Instead, he turned his back on his sole remaining grandson and walked out of the house, across the yard.

Warren went back into the fireplace and lifted out the old box.

He set the box on the hearth and opened the lid.

The hand of bones looked to be lying palm up this morning, the Stanley knife across it, the fingers no longer closed around the knife.