The Way We Were_ A Novel - Marcia Willett [106]
‘How's Andy?’ she asked. ‘We haven't seen him for a while.’
‘Andy's fine. Actually he sent a message. He asked me to pick something up for him.’
‘Really?’ Julia looked surprised. Her hands were locked in her lap and she didn't attempt to pick up her mug of coffee.
‘I don't know if you've seen all the fuss in the art world at the moment?’ Cat waited, watching for a reaction. ‘No? Well, it's all a bit silly but Andy asked me to ask you if I could bring back a little statue. I remember I saw it when I was a child. It's Merlin as a boy. Andy thinks that there's a very faint chance that it might be a copy made by this man who's on trial in Paris. If that's so it would make it an interesting piece and he said he'd like to take it to an expert to have it checked.’
Julia frowned. ‘I think I can remember it,’ she said slowly. ‘But I haven't seen it for years.’ She shook her head. ‘It was a silly little thing, as I remember, but the children liked it. I've no idea where it might be. Tell Andy I'll have a look for it if he's really serious. Sounds crazy to me.’
Cat watched her. ‘I was wondering if it belonged to Tiggy’
‘To Tiggy?’ Julia shrugged, as if puzzled by the question. ‘Why should it have? To be honest, I simply can't remember much about it. There were always so many toys and odd bits and pieces when the children were small.’
‘I was talking to Mum about it this morning and we were remembering a big scene right here in your kitchen when I picked it up and Tiggy came in and screamed at me for touching it. That's why we wondered if it might have been hers. Mum said she had no family but everyone has a family, don't they?’ A pause. ‘Who was she?’
Julia's gut churned; her hands were icy. ‘She was a school friend of mine,’ she answered. ‘Her parents died young in an accident when she was very small and she had no brothers and sisters, just a grandmother. She was Tiggy's only relation. She died just after Tiggy came to stay with us. I was her best friend, that's why she came to Trescairn. And she was Charlie's godmother, of course.’
‘And Zack's mother.’
‘Yes. She was Zack's mother.’
Cat's watchful slant-eyed stare was disconcerting. She finished her coffee and put down her mug. ‘Is it OK if I use the loo before I go, Mrs Bodrugan? I'd better be getting on.’
Julia watched her go out; she unclenched her hands, drank her coffee quickly. Putting her hand down behind her she felt the reassuring weight in the knitting bag. She heard the creaking of a board and light footsteps in the bedroom overhead: she waited. Presently Cat reappeared.
‘Finished?’ Julia asked brightly.
Cat stared at her. ‘I'll tell Andy I saw you,’ she said, ‘and that you'll look for the Merlin.’
‘I'll tell him,’ said Julia. ‘I'll phone him tonight.’
‘The newspaper report says that this man who's on trial is a widower but there's a son called Jean-Paul who lives in Switzerland,’ said Cat as she went out to the car. ‘What did you say Tiggy's real name was?’
‘Antigone,’ answered Julia promptly. ‘Antigone Dacre. Her father was a classics tutor or something at Oxford, I think. Goodbye, Cat.’
Watching her drive away, Julia was reminded of Angela's visits all those years before. She went back into the house, took the bag from the chair and put it back again. Aunt Em had suggested that she should drop it down a mine shaft or throw it off a cliff but now Julia had an irrational fear that Cat might be watching her; parked up somewhere waiting for her to go out. Perhaps she'd arrived earlier, when she and Aunt Em had been with Caroline, and had parked higher up on the moor watching for the car to come back. She'd have seen Aunt Em driving away and Liv arriving almost immediately afterwards and had waited for her to leave; which is why she hadn't passed her on the road.
Julia