George had come good, as she’d hoped – no, she’d known he would – the cheque arriving four times a year. Slowly, month by month, year by year, she’d paid off Thomas’s debt and the interest the scrounging banks and loan sharks had demanded. She’d managed to clear everything except the mortgage. Then, one day, the cheques stopped coming. Just dried up, like a plant she’d forgotten to water. When three months passed with no money, and the mortgage falling behind, she’d written to George. But she didn’t hear from him again, until …
No, it was best not to think of that. She’d go mad if she thought about that.
Taking in lodgers and giving art lessons at the high school down in Wesleyville, with the amount of money Emmy gave her when he could, had helped keep her and Winny afloat after that. Someday she’d pay that final mortgage payment, and the house would be theirs. No one would ever take it away from her. It would be her legacy to her children.
The bedroom door moans on its hinges as it opens. A blonde head, the wheat-gold hair tied into a long braid, pops around the door.
‘Are you ready, Mom? Emmy’s worried we’re going to be late.’
‘Just coming now, honey. What on earth is that on your face?’
Winny lopes across the room with the uneven grace of a colt and gazes into the mirror on the wall above the bureau. She twists her mouth to get a better view of the peace sign painted in bright blue on her cheek. ‘Florie did it. She’s got one too.’ Winny spins around and raises her right fingers in a V. ‘Peace, Mom.’
Ellie rolls her eyes. ‘I’m going to have to have a word with her. I can’t have her turning you into a flower child just because she’s one.’
‘Oh, Mom. She’s groovy. She’s got a guitar – did you know that? She’s bringing it to the jamboree.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Winny. Everyone in Tippy’s Tickle is going to think I’ve turned this place into a hippy commune. I’ll get called up in front of the town council, just you watch.’
***
‘Hey, there, m’dear!’
Ellie glances up from the table where she’s laid out her artwork to the athletic woman of about thirty striding across the field towards the craft tent. She wears a long-sleeved pink T-shirt and dungarees decorated with psychedelic flowers and peace signs. One of the straps on the dungarees is undone, and it flaps across her belly as she approaches.
‘Hi, Florie. You found me.’
‘I certainly did. Winny told me where to find you.’ She holds out a hot dog dripping with mustard. ‘She sent you this. She’s doin’ a grand job over there on the barbecue.’
Ellie leaps up from her stool to catch a drip of mustard leaking from the hot dog. ‘Don’t let it drip on the drawings. Wait a minute, I’ll come around the table.’
‘How’re the sales goin’?’ Florie asks as she watches Ellie bite into the hot dog.
Ellie shrugs. ‘Sold one to Bertha Perkins, but I think she felt sorry for me. The day trippers don’t seem to be much into art.’ She nods towards the cliff where a cluster of about twenty people hover like gulls, their cameras pointed out towards the ocean. ‘It’s all about the whales and icebergs. Someone up from Toronto asked me if the berg out at the mouth of the tickle is the same one that sank the Titanic.’
Florie chuckles and wrinkles her nose. A scattering of faint freckles sits across her nose like flecks of dust. ‘Bless them CFAs. You gots to laugh. What did you tells them?’
‘I said yes, of course.’
‘Ha! Good goin’.’ Florie tosses her long brown hair over her shoulder and picks up a drawing, blowing at her overgrown fringe as she scrutinises the charcoal view of Tippy’s Tickle. Setting it down, she picks up another, a view of the lighthouse down the coast. She looks at Ellie, squinting as she cocks her head. ‘You did these? Seriously?’
‘Yes. Why are you so surprised?’
‘Oh, don’t mine me, duck. Sometimes I talks outta my arse. These are great. You definitely knows what you’re doin’.’ She sets the drawing down and steps back, frowning at the display. ‘But you wouldn’t know how to sell a flea to a dog, m’dear. Not a one can see what you gots on the table. You gots to hang them up. Your paintin’ has to be right smack in the middle for all to see.’
Ellie purses her lips. ‘That’s all very well and good, but if you notice, I don’t have a wall to hang anything on. I’m under a tent.’
‘Oh, m’dear. You might be an artist, but you lacks imagination. I’ll be back before you knows it.’
Florie returns fifteen minutes later with a roll of string and a bag of wooden clothes pegs. Ellie watches as she ties the string between two tent poles and clips the drawings to the line with the pegs. She ducks behind the tent and returns with two small orange buoys, which she uses to prop the painting against on the table.
Standing back from the display, she nods. ‘There you goes, m’dear. That’s better, don’t you thinks?’
Ellie nods. ‘You’re right. It is better.’
‘It’s better, but we needs one more thing.’ Florie pulls the stool out from behind the table and plops down on it. ‘Now, draw my picture.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t you likes my face? Draw my picture.’ She nods to the tourists on the hill and
