Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales) (7 page)

“No problem. Yes, go, Stevie. After all, when do you ever take a day off?”

Only on Mondays, and only because we’re closed
, she thought. Days off, she never knew quite what to do with herself. Sometimes she’d go shopping, or to the library or cinema in the center of Birmingham, but often she’d find herself back in the museum, dusting, restocking or rearranging displays.

Stevie had to admit that her life was, frankly, a bit sad.

“Thank you. That wasn’t the big favor, though.” She gave an apologetic grin. “Please can I borrow your car?”

“What?” Fin sounded more startled than horrified.

“His mother lives in the wilds of Derbyshire. I could go by train and taxi, but that would take forever.”

“Fine, but, er, do you actually possess a driving license?”

“Yes, of course. Look.” She took her purse from under the counter and produced the document. “I live over the shop, and I can walk into town or take the tram, so there’s no point in me owning a car.”

“I know.” Fin rolled her eyes. “And since my car’s an old banger, only fit to run my kids around in—”

“Hey, I never suggested that.”

“I’m stating a fact. Don’t expect leather luxury. Yes, fine, when do I refuse you anything? We’ll hold the fort.” Fin passed her the keys. “Ignore the chocolate wrappers and dog hairs. My insurance should cover you … I
think
 … just don’t put any dents in it, okay? Any
more
dents.”

“You’re my fairy godmother,” said Stevie. “Make sure Alec pulls his weight. Don’t let him sit playing with his clock all day … er, you know what I mean.”

“Sure, and please be back in time for me collect the children—five at the latest—if you don’t want to be turned into a pumpkin,” Fin retorted cheerfully.

*   *   *

Frances Manifold lived in a small village called Nethervale, deep in the countryside on the Leicestershire-Derbyshire border. The drive took Stevie only an hour. It was years since she’d passed along these narrow, hedge-lined roads, but as soon as she reached the village boundary, every detail was familiar, as if she’d never left.

She turned off the main street into a side lane that curved between a mixture of farmland, cottages, and barns converted into smart modern dwellings. A stream ran along the left-hand side. The wide, grassy bank was lined with trees. Crows cawed, high above in their leafless crowns. Presently she reached a row of old houses, each one set back in its own grounds.

Stevie pulled in at the side of the lane. Fog hung in the air and moisture dripped from the trees, soaking the grass and asphalt beneath. The lane was deserted, the air saturated with the wintry farm smells of wet grass and manure.

The Manifold residence was a small Georgian-style manor, poised on an incline in a walled, wooded garden. As Stevie walked up the curve of the gravel driveway, the house, with its greyish white walls and unpretentious shabbiness, woke vivid memories of Daniel.

His father had died when Daniel was nine. Lung cancer. That was all Stevie knew. She could only guess how hard his death had hit his wife and son, because they’d rarely talked about him. Frances Manifold was not one to show emotion.

Which was harder, Stevie wondered, losing a parent or having no family in the first place? The ache of chronic absence versus the acute pain of loss—could they even be compared?

Her feeling of dread rose as she approached the front door. She recalled Frances Manifold as a tallish, thin, acerbic woman, with copper hair cut in a short bob. Angular and tough, she was a paleontologist and looked the part in trousers and shirt of pale khaki. Her outdoorsy clothes and air of suppressed energy had made her seem always ready for action. She was a professor at a Midlands university, but Stevie suspected she was restless in lecture halls and yearned to be out digging up fossils in the wilds.

At their first meeting, Frances had shaken her hand, her grip powerful and bony, her eyes like those of an eagle locked on to prey.

Stevie had felt instant admiration for this strong, educated woman, and a desire for approval. Frances, unfortunately, had not reciprocated. The moment they met, Stevie felt she had been judged and found wanting.

Perhaps she subjected all Daniel’s friends to the same caustic probing, challenging them to earn her respect. She made no secret of the fact that she’d wanted Daniel to go into science, like his parents. Art was not a proper career. And she seemed to consider Stevie a dreamy, shady reprobate who’d come to steal her little boy.

Stevie, shy and awkward in her presence, had never known how to break the ice.

Now she raised her chin and reminded herself that she was a grown-up, a professional in her own right, equal to anyone.

The door opened before she reached it. Frances Manifold stood waiting on the threshold. Superficially she looked the same, but Stevie saw signs of aging and stress. A few more lines around her eyes, her expression tight with worry. Grey roots striped the coppery hair. Always bony, Frances had lost weight, which made her appear more brittle than tough.

“Hello, Stephanie.” No smile, but her tone was civil. “It’s so good of you to come.”

She held the door open and Stevie went in, breathing a miasma of floor polish, damp dog and stale cooking. The house hadn’t changed. The large entrance hall was grand yet gloomy: defiantly unmodernized. The same black-and-white engravings of Victorian explorers still hung on the greying ivory walls. A grandfather clock ticked portentously. Two glass cabinets full of fossils stood opposite the door, as she remembered.

A golden cocker spaniel came lolloping out of a doorway, skidding on the buffed floor tiles. This was new. He snuffed at Stevie’s knees, tail wagging wildly.

“Settle down, Humphrey,” said the professor, as Stevie bent to stroke the silky head. “He’s two, but still acts like a puppy. I seem to recall you’re not a dog person?” The tilt of her eyebrows seemed to imply an accusation. “I can remove him, if he bothers you.”

“Oh, no, he’s fine, he’s really sweet.” Stevie was determined to defuse the tension that Daniel’s mother created without trying.

“Well, I never thought I’d see you again, after you and Daniel parted company.”

Yes, the edge was still there in her voice. Stevie sighed inwardly. “We never quarreled. No hearts were broken. We drifted apart, but we stayed friends.”

“Hmm. Oh, let me take your coat and scarf. Chilly, isn’t it? This sort of damp cold gets right into the bones.”

Frances continued, as she hung the garments on a peg, “So-called friends these days don’t see each other from one year to the next. It’s all email and social networking. Perhaps if you and Daniel had stayed in closer touch—oh, I don’t know what I’m saying. Come through and I’ll make tea.”

“Thank you, Professor Manifold.”

“Call me Frances.”

“Are you sure? And I’m Stevie, not Stephanie.”

“I’m not calling you by a boy’s name. That would be like you calling me Frank. Ridiculous.”

Was there a hint of humor in the remark? Trying not to fall over Humphrey as he swerved in front of her, she followed Frances into a large reception room overlooking the back garden.

She looked around to see the same mismatched furniture, so antiquated it was almost in fashion again. Authentic “shabby chic.” Stevie breathed in the musty scents and listened to the heavy tick of the grandfather clock. Nothing had changed here either. At the rear of the room, glass doors stood open to a conservatory, if that was the right word for the dilapidated glass house attached to the back of the building. The space was so full of potted plants that she could hardly tell where the garden began.

Daniel used to paint in there.

“Sorry about the cold. I leave the doors open for the dog, you see. I’m used to it. Make yourself at home while I put the kettle on,” said Frances. She hurried through another door, Humphrey bounding after her. Chances were the kitchen hadn’t changed either; Stevie recalled green-painted cupboards, a vast black oven range and an oblong sink flanked by wooden draining boards.

Stevie wandered into the conservatory, where the pungent scent of hibernating potted plants enveloped her. Condensation streamed down the glass. Rubbing a clear patch, she looked out at the garden. The lawn edges vanished under masses of shrubbery and dark conifers. The high walls surrounding the garden were thickly cloaked with ivy. A stone goddess tilted a shell towards a round, mossy basin, but no water ran.

She recalled long afternoons spent in here with Daniel, talking as he worked. His battered easel still stood in a corner. She shivered with an eerie sense of nostalgia.

Daniel had been gentle and quiet by nature—but once he got going, he would talk endlessly about
his
ideas,
his
visions. He rarely asked about her course; hammering and soldering fiddly bits of metal must have seemed a dull business to a fine artist.

Stevie hadn’t minded. She’d never cared to talk about herself. There was no egotism in Daniel’s character. Rather, he’d possessed a sort of wild yet innocent enthusiasm that he couldn’t suppress.

A spasm of loss went through her. Daniel should be here but he wasn’t. Where was he, what had happened to him?

Humphrey came scampering in. Frances was in the doorway with a tray. “Do come and sit down. Close these doors, and I’ll try to get the fire going. We’ll soon warm up.”

Stevie obeyed, realizing that the house was almost colder inside than out. She sat on a sagging couch in front of the fireplace and poured tea into flowery cups while Professor Manifold added logs to the sulking fire. Sparks spiraled up the chimney.

With a faint huff the professor sat down at the far end of the couch, her knees making bony angles in her trousers. Stevie, seeing how underweight she was, how tired, felt her concern deepen. Frances sat straight-backed but brokenhearted, diminished by anxiety.

“So, you say he sent you some artwork?”

“Yes.” Stevie handed Daniel’s scribbled note to her. “This is all he said. That’s why I’m trying to contact him.”

Frances’s hand tightened on the paper, making creases. “Damn. I so hoped you might be able to tell
me
something. Did you even realize that he hasn’t been well?”

“I didn’t know.” Stevie felt irrationally guilty. She wished she hadn’t let their friendship drift, but at times Daniel had simply been too intense for comfort. That was partly why she’d let him go in the first place. “He had a studio in London, so I thought he was doing okay. What happened?”

“He was overstretching himself in every aspect of his life. That was my opinion.” The comment was waspish. “He wouldn’t listen to me.”

“But weren’t you proud of him? You must have visited his studio, seen his latest work?”

A pause. Damp logs popped and whined on the fire. “No.”

“Why not?”

“The rare times he phoned or came home, all we did was argue. He invited me, but I made a point of not going. And now I feel dreadful about it, of course, but I couldn’t give my approval…”

She trailed off. Stevie said, “When you say he wasn’t well, how do you mean?”

“Oh, you know how he was.” Frances flapped a hand as if to push it all away.

“Well, not really.” Stevie was trying to be sensitive. “At college, he was a bit eccentric, and he was a workaholic, but lots of creative people are like that.”

Frances gave an empty laugh. “And you encouraged him, Stephanie; taking him food and strong coffee so he could work all night. I wouldn’t indulge him like that.”

She ignored the dig. “But none of that means he was ill, does it?”

“I suppose it depends on your perspective.” Frances caressed Humphrey’s head, not looking at her. “It’s a shade of grey along a scale, isn’t it? Many might regard me as eccentric, digging up old bones for a living. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to work for twelve hours preparing lectures, or cataloguing finds. However, I draw the line at moving from coffee to amphetamines to LSD or other dangerous substances. I do not suffer delusions that my fossils are talking to me.”

Stevie felt dread trickling through her. “Was Daniel that bad?”

“Oh, Stephanie, he was out of control. Every time I saw him he looked worse; exhausted, manic, talking nonsense. I was extremely concerned about his lifestyle, the company he was keeping. He brushed me off, told me to stop interfering.”

“What company? A girlfriend?”

“No, I mean the assorted low-lives who encouraged him because they think it’s clever and radical to be constantly stoned. He needed protecting from himself! I wanted him to see a doctor, but just the mention of it made him furious, and I couldn’t force him.”

“That’s terrible.” The understatement was all she could manage.

“The warning signs were always there. You know that.”

“But we didn’t take drugs at college. An occasional joint at a party, maybe, but neither of us was into it.” Stevie had to challenge Frances’s view of her son. “Are you certain he was ill? Or is it more that you didn’t approve of him?”

Frances sipped her tea and put down the cup. She looked haggard. “My disapproval is irrelevant. Things had gone far beyond that. He’d talk about the visions he was painting as if they were marvelous, when anyone could hear he was raving. He even tried to win me round by bringing home one of his supposedly wonderful new friends.” Her mouth turned down in distaste. “Wonderful! This ‘friend’ was like some unwashed druggie off the streets. Each time I tried to reason with him, we’d descend into a dreadful argument and he’d walk out, or slam down the phone.”

Stevie was quiet. The spaniel put his head on her knee, giving her a chance to think as she petted him. There were two possible interpretations. Perhaps Danny was excited about his work and simply wanted his mother to
understand
. Her indifference crushed him, yet he never gave up trying. Or maybe Frances was right. Daniel was mentally ill and in desperate need of help.

She began softly, “Professor—Frances, I know you didn’t approve of him choosing art, but is it right still to be giving him such a hard time about it, ten years on?”

She tilted her head, meeting Stevie’s gaze. “I don’t know what went wrong. I so hoped he’d take after his father. His logical career path would have been the sciences, medicine, even law. It’s a parent’s worst nightmare to watch their child going off the rails into a fanciful occupation that’s never going to bring any money or status.”