The phone ringing penetrates her reveries. She ignores it; there is no one she wants to speak to. Then into her mind floats an image of her mother. Perhaps it’s Shirley calling her? In a mad moment, Amy wonders if somehow her mother has come alive. Taking no chances, the girl pelts into the house, down the corridor and slams into the office.
‘Hallo, hallo!’ she gasps, her heart leaping with hope.
‘It’s Mr Stratton for you. Hold, please,’ an efficient female replies. Disappointment is replaced by excitement. Amy imagines Seymour’s secretary’s red-nailed fingers pressing buttons. A few minutes later, Seymour’s voice is on the other end.
‘Hallo? Who’s that?’ he asks as though it is she who has called him.
‘It’s Amy.’
‘Amy, how lovely to hear you. Have I dragged the green-fingered goddess from her garden on this glorious day?’
‘Oh, I’m just planting out the tomatoes… How are things in London, how are you?’
‘All the better for hearing your sweet tones and hurrah, this summer we’ll have provender. Now, I was thinking of having a party this weekend. I want to bring some friends down. What are you all up to?’
It is obvious the party will take place: Seymour only ever gives the illusion of choice. It is disappointing that he is bringing London people; she rather hoped to spend some time with him alone.
‘The thing is,’ he continues, ‘I was thinking of quite a big party. So we may need, in fact, we will need the bedrooms in the house for guests.’ He paused, letting the implications sink in. ‘The cottage is almost habitable now, isn’t it? I was thinking…Isn’t it time you lot moved in there, at least for a while? You have a few days to get it ready. What do you think?’
Seymour had often talked about the farm as a place where friends would escape the ‘wonderful stink of the city’, where artists could replenish themselves. ‘We all need the buzz,’ he’d say, ‘but sometimes it has to be from a distance.’
The cottage was part of this plan, apparently. A place where people could stay or even live for a while. Amy adored it when Seymour talked like this; she hung on every word though she never quite dared ask how she fit into this scheme. She had never envisaged the world where such opportunities might exist and here she was – part of it. A place where people could work and express themselves and… just be.
Seymour continued: ‘Be a darling and have a chat to the others, Amy?’
‘Okay, I will. It sounds fine.’ She does not mention all the work that’s still to be completed.
‘Good girl. You’ll need furniture. Ask Julian to show you the stuff in the barn. Must dash, a call on the other line. See you around teatime on Friday. Do make some of your marvelous bread, Amy, could you? Bye…’
The next day when David and Amy are out doing errands, Julian takes Maggie and Simon to one of the barns. It is full of furniture, much of it draped in sheets or in boxes and crates.
‘Stuff Dad inherited from Granny,’ he says, unlocking a padlock, ‘though I can’t imagine that all of it was hers. I know this was from the Chelsea flat and some of it was from Mum’s house, I think.’
‘Wow. I n-n-ever knew all this w-w-was stored here. It’s an Aladdin’s c-c-cave.’
Julian sits on a white leather sofa while the other two explore the barn. He thinks back to the Chelsea flat where he lived with his parents. A seven-year-old boy kneeling up on the sofa to watch from the window as they went into the drugstore opposite their flat. Girls in purple cat suits slipped in and out of the place that was famous for its famous clientele. The place where his parents would stay there until the small hours of the morning, unaware their son waited and sometimes wept, too frightened to fall asleep alone in the flat. The boy’s dread when he heard them agreeing over supper that it was ‘alright to leave him since it’s only for a quick one’.
‘Look at this, Julian.’ Maggie pulls a dust sheet off a side table and a stack of chairs. ‘Can we take these?’
Julian is brought back from painful memories but the feelings of loneliness remain. ‘Oh that’ll be fine,’ he says quietly.
‘I’ve found a w-w-wardrobe’s but it’s too massive to get up the c-c-cottage s-s-stairs,’ calls Simon from behind a cupboard. ‘But there are iron b-b-bedsteads and bedsprings and m-m-mattresses that will be fine.’
Maggie points to a chest of drawers. ‘I could strip it back to the wood and leave it bare. I can’t believe we’re going to live in our own place!’ She straddles a child’s rocking chair. ‘I mean your Dad is cool, don’t get me wrong Julian, but to be on our own...’
‘You s-s-sound so ungrateful, Maggie,’ Simon says, ‘and after Seymour’s been g-g-generous to us.’
She shrugs: ‘I don’t mean to. It’ll just be nice to think we’ll be on our own, that’s all. Do you think your Dad will let us stay as long as we want to? What about his talk of turning this place into an artist’s retreat?’ Her tone is slightly mocking.
‘Maggie, you’re being a b-b-bit uncool, you know,’ Simon says gently.
‘Piss off.’
‘I don’t think that idea will come to anything. Seymour and his plans…’ Julian replies.
Simon wanders into another part of the barn.
‘I’m just glad you don’t mind with being kicked
