Driving towards Brunson Road in Cherrywood, the signs looked good. He drove past lots of detached houses proudly displaying their well-tended front gardens. He could see a lot of expensive cars parked behind remote controlled gates. This was an affluent area. Two minutes later Peter’s satnav announced he had reached his destination. As he had done for his previous visits, he parked a few doors down the road. A ten-year-old battered Volvo didn’t give the right impression of a leading London art dealer. As number sixty-four came into view his upbeat mood dropped. He could tell from the outside it was going to be a waste of time. Unkempt bushes, a front gate barely hanging on its hinges and holes in the outside plaster. As he shuffled up the path, he almost decided it wasn’t worth ringing the doorbell but thought as he was already standing outside, what had he got to lose?
The door to the house had two frosted glass panels in the upper section. He rang the bell and watched as a figure inside approached. The door was opened by a short, thin lady with close-cropped grey hair who looked to be well into her sixties. Peter announced himself using his well-practised happy to meet you smile.
“Hello, Mrs Brown, I’m Peter the London art dealer. We spoke on the phone if you remember. It’s lovely to meet you.”
“Yes, the arty man. Come in dear; I’ve been expecting you.”
Peter stepped inside. The house had obviously enjoyed better days but those were long gone. The hallway was dingy with peeling wallpaper. The carpet was threadbare in places.
“The place could do with a lick of paint but if I ask the landlord to make improvements, he’ll probably put up my rent, so that’s not my priority at the moment.”
I’m sure you’ll be interested in the paintings. They were left to me by my parents. They must be very old.
Peter smiled in response, thinking to himself ‘not a house where you would expect to find anything of value’. But he recalled he’d been wrong before. Ten years ago he and his late dad John had visited a run-down council estate and managed to pick up an early Susie Cooper tea set and some pieces of Moorcroft pottery for a few pounds.
June Brown showed Peter through to the kitchen and, without asking, put the kettle on and placed two cups on the table. “Have a seat, dear. I expect you’ll want a nice cup of tea after your journey.”
“Please don’t bother on my account, Mrs Brown.”
“Call me June, dear. It’s no trouble at all. Nice to have a visitor to the house,” she said as she filled the kettle.
My husband and I moved here in 1978, the year after our daughter was born. Larry, that’s my late husband, he always called her Dee, as that’s her initial, but he always called her that because he said she was his diamond. His most precious possession. He adored her. He said seeing the pair of us first thing in the morning was what got him through each day. He was such a lovely man.”
Peter listened to her going on and smiled in what he thought were the right places, but he wasn’t paying much attention.
She continued. “Dee moved out when she got married in, let me think, it must have been 2005. Oh, it was such a lovely wedding. I’ve got the photo album somewhere. Then the following year she had a daughter of her own. Dee’s divorced now. She works in, what does she call it, oh yes, the hospitality trade.”
The kettle started to boil, and Mrs Brown went over to the wall cupboard and took out two tea bags from a large box, far bigger than Peter had ever seen in a supermarket. It looked like June’s daughter gave her mother one of the ‘perks’ of the trade.
“She’s a good girl, comes round twice a week. It gives me a chance to see my granddaughter while I still can. Good health, you take it for granted, don’t you.”
June poured out the tea. “Milk and sugar, dear?”
After a cup of tea and another five long minutes chat about family illness, the cost of treatment and things he considered to be of no interest and to which he paid little attention. June finally took Peter through to the front lounge where three paintings were spread across a long tatty grey sofa.
‘At last’ thought Peter. ‘I thought she’d never shut up about her problems’.
As they walked into the front room, Peter could see the patches on the wall where they had previously been hanging. It didn’t take him long to access their value. He estimated the pictures were worth maybe £180 to £220 each.
“Yes, I recognise them. These are by an artist called Camille Corot. As you can see from the detail, he wasn’t a talented artist. Although they are old, unfortunately they aren’t that rare.
“The best I can offer you is £120 for the three”. He started to pull out six crisp twenty-pound notes to entice her.
“That’s a shame dear. I was hoping they would help. I’ve got another painting. Perhaps you would like to see that.”
Peter used his well-practised fake smile as Mrs Brown said her late husband had told her the painting might be valuable one day and she was hoping it would be worth a lot as she needed money for her granddaughter, the family emergency she had told Peter about earlier.
June explained that her husband Larry had been killed in a road accident in 2003 by a drunk driver to whom the court had given a suspended sentence and £450 fine.
Larry had been given the painting before they were married when he went on a trip to France in 1965 with five friends and they had met someone one of the group knew who had been to the UK a few months earlier to study
