‘We want to get the figurehead into a condition where we can exhibit her in the museum by the end of June, before the influx of visitors. We wondered if you would be willing to work on her in two stages. Initially, make sure she is sound and make all the immediate repairs that are needed to safeguard the whole, plus the superficial ones that affect her appearance.
‘When you are happy that she is in a condition to be exhibited in June, having made whatever tests and analysis you consider necessary for further more detailed work later on, would it be possible for you to go on to other work and return to the figurehead at a later date, possibly when the museum is closed at the end of the season? Does this sound feasible to you?’
‘Of course, Peter. John says that the museum is kept at a regular temperature so we don’t have to worry about humidity. That would be fine. I would like to see her again, properly, out of her wrappings and in position. This inspection report is very helpful. I’ll make my own inspection and give you a quote for all the initial work I consider vital before she can be exhibited. After I’ve been working on her for a while, I’ll then submit a more detailed quote for the next stage of her restoration. Would that be OK?’
‘Perfect. Thank you for being so accommodating. By then we will hopefully have more funding and voluntary contributions coming in from interested parties. I can now appease Rowe, Penwith Council, the Heritage people, and the Cornish Historical Society. Bless you!’
Gabby laughed. ‘Does that mean …?’
‘Of course it does, Gabrielle! John and I have always been convinced you are the best person for the job. We just have to tweak terms and make it official. You’ll get a letter in a few days.’
‘I’m really looking forward to restoring her, Peter, it’s very exciting.’
‘It is, isn’t it? We are all hoping Mark Hannah comes up with more history for us. Goodnight, Gabrielle, and thanks again.’
‘YES!’ Gabby said, replacing the phone and punching the air.
‘I told you you had nothing to worry about,’ Nell said, laughing. ‘I’m off to bed.’ She nodded at the report. ‘I should remove those papers and photographs from the table. Charlie will come home and drip egg sandwich all over them.’
‘Oh, God! That wouldn’t look very professional.’
She walked to the back door with Nell. ‘Look, a new moon.’
They both looked up. It was a clear, cold night and the stars stood out like a child’s drawing on black paper.
‘Do you remember Josh and his telescope?’ Nell asked. ‘I wonder what happened to it. It was one of Elan’s extravagant presents, wasn’t it?’
Gabby felt a sudden wrench for that time again, for the simple, innocent pleasures of Josh’s childhood. ‘Josh used to get crazes on things, do you remember? Absolute passions. Then he would go on to the next thing.’
‘Don’t remind me. Do you remember the fish?’
‘Which all died, because he never took any notice of the man in the aquarium and mixed and matched them because he liked their colour or shape. Months of his pocket money eating each other up before he learnt a hard biology lesson.’
‘The fishy mess in the sink when he cleaned them out.’
‘Always at Sunday lunchtime!’
‘And the stick insects he begged for and then could not bear to touch.’
‘And the rabbits.’
‘Then the guinea pigs.’
‘He stuck to his bantams, he loved those. And the calves.’
‘And Hal. That gelding was the love of his life. I still stop in the village and he whinnies and canters over.’
‘I know. He’s a lovely character.’
‘I wonder how he’s doing. Josh, I mean. I think he’s finding Sandhurst harder, physically, than he expected.’
‘People are always saying that it’s because the young are not as fit as the last generation, but Josh has always been sporty and fit.’
Nell snorted. ‘How many late-rising youths know their way around an assault course? Or readily accept being bellowed at? Or want to trot round Dartmoor in a blizzard with a great pack on their backs? Total masochism if you ask me. Absolutely bonkers.’
Gabby began to laugh. Josh and Nell argued about the army every time he came home, but she knew perfectly well, as Josh did, he could do no wrong in Nell’s eyes.
‘Goodnight, lovie,’ Nell said, making off across the yard, watching her step in the dark.
‘’Night, Nell.’
Gabby whistled for Shadow who had scooted off into the dark. She looked up at the stars once more before shutting the door. On her way upstairs she paused and pushed Josh’s bedroom door open. Funny how a room always retained the faint smell of a person. Odd how strong a sense smell was, taking you faster than thought to a place or a person you loved.
The noise from the top field was horrendous. They were tipping concrete into the foundations. Nell, who could not bear the thought of this noise continuing for months, phoned the local nursery and ordered twenty trees. If they could plant saplings as soon as possible at least they could screen the building site and maybe it would dull the sound of machinery.
She was planting succulents in the small, walled garden she and Gabby had resurrected from a decade of neglect. They had banned all livestock; no geese, hens or dogs were allowed inside their hallowed plot.
There had been no time to garden when Ted was alive, and Nell thought, not for the first time, how released she felt. Free to be herself, to express herself in ways she had never dreamt of doing when she and Ted were running the farm on a strict budget, when they had had to labour, metaphorically, side by side.
Some mornings, when Nell woke, she also felt guilty about not missing her husband more. She would stretch luxuriously across the whole double bed and lie contemplating her day, waiting for the sun to rise beyond the top field and to creep up the covers towards her face. She felt warm and spoilt and relaxed as she heard the back door of the farmhouse bang, heard Charlie whistling for Shadow and Outside Dog. Then silence would descend and she would lie waiting for the sound of Matt, the herdsman, bringing the cows down the lane and into the yard below.
The smell of them would rise up to her window, the milking machine would start up, a dog over the fields would bark in the first light. All so familiar that any small disturbance in the pattern of a morning would make Nell rise up on her elbow, ears strained for the cause of the minute change in routine. Through it all, like hugging a secret she never got tired of, the knowledge that she did not have to get up and go out into that cold darkness ever again.
She missed the farmhouse not one jot. Most of the contents had belonged to Ted’s parents; heavy Victorian furniture to fill the large rooms. When Charlie married Gabby, Nell thought with glee of her escape to the cottage. She had gone out and bought small, light, inexpensive furniture for the tiny rooms and had taken from the farmhouse only the small pieces she was fond of.
Charlie, who missed her in the house with him and had seen no reason for her to move out, had, in a rare and overt show of affection, had the cottage centrally heated for her. This, for Nell, was like being given an invaluable, never to be taken for granted, Christmas and birthday present rolled into one. She could sit restoring for many more hours and it seemed to her that she was warm for the first time in her life.
She stopped planting for a moment