The Glass Painter's Daughter Read online

  There’d been no one at Heathrow Airport to meet me, but then I hadn’t even told Zac the time of my flight. I’d travelled straight to the hospital, where a nurse led me down a small ward to a bed at the far end.

  It took me a moment to adjust to the fact that the figure in the bed was Dad, my dad, helpless as I’d never seen him before. His eyes were closed. Tubes, running from cannulas on the back of his hand, were looped above his bed, reminding me for all the world of the long strips of lead solder draped over hooks in his workshop. A monitor beside him pulsing steady red zigzags was the only clear sign of life.

  I sat down on a chair beside the bed and studied the pale sleeping face. ‘Dad, Daddy,’ I whispered, with a flutter of unease. There was no indication that he had heard. I touched his cheek. It was cool against the back of my hand.

  In some ways he was the same, I thought, trying to calm myself. His sparse greying hair was combed back in its usual neat style; the long skull with its high cheekbones and hawkish nose still conveyed an air of dignity. But his pallid skin, the thread of saliva between greyish lips, a twitching eyelid, all these made me fear that some dreadful, strange being now lurked beneath his skin. I asked myself, not for the first time in my life, what was he really like, this man, my father?

  They say you can never truly know anyone, and there were great swathes of Edward Morrison’s inner life that he had never allowed even me, his only child, to penetrate. He was not a cruel man, but often distant, lacking in tenderness and easily irritated. Anything could annoy him–someone ringing up while we were eating, a neighbouring shopkeeper piling rubbish on the pavement when it wasn’t collection day. This worsened as he got older, and I wondered how Zac put up with it.

  Dad was peaceful enough now. I sat waiting for a rush of emotion, a release of tears. Instead, there was only numbness.

  ‘We think he will come round before long.’ Mr Bashir, the consultant, who arrived a moment later, was a calm, portly, middle-aged Pakistani. ‘There are signs that his coma is lightening, but the scans indicate that the stroke was a serious one. We do not know how he will be when he wakes.’

  ‘He’s only sixty-one,’ I managed to blurt out. ‘Isn’t that still young for something like this?’

  ‘I am afraid it is not so unusual. Especially with your father having type one diabetes. His high blood pressure was a contributory factor.’ Diabetes was something Dad had suffered from since his teens. I remembered the bad spells on the rare occasions when he was late with his insulin injections. This stroke, however, was uncharted territory.

  After Mr Bashir had gone I stared out of the window at the great expanse of clear sky. At least when Dad woke–and he would wake, I told myself fiercely–he would be able to see the changing light he loved, watch birds and clouds crossing the heavens, twilight fading into darkness, the lights of planes winking against the stars.

  And as I whispered goodbye, stroking his hand, dry and callused, this thought comforted me.

  It wasn’t until late afternoon that I remembered the formal-looking letter I’d left on the shop counter. I’d inspected the flat, finding it tidy though not very clean, made up the bed in my old room, unpacked, then gone to buy some supplies from the express supermarket around the corner. It was when I returned with my carrier bags that I noticed the letter again. With that crest it might be something important. I tore open the envelope.

  The single page inside was headed The Rectory, Parish of St Martin’s Westminster, the letter obviously typed by the rector himself for it paid no heed to layout or margins.

  Dear Ted,

  I called by yesterday but the shop was closed. Perhaps you’re away? If so, I hope this letter will find you on your return. I wonder whether you would telephone me at an early opportunity as I’ve made a discovery I think will interest you and which certainly needs your expertise, given that your firm was responsible for some of our stained glass. This might also be a good time for you to inspect the windows, as I have already mentioned to you, in line with the findings in our recent quinquennial buildings report.

  Look forward to hearing from you. I so enjoy our conversations.

  Kind regards,

  Jeremy

  REV. JEREMY QUENTIN

  St Martin’s was the sandstone Victorian-gothic church in Vincent Street, which skimmed the opposite corner of Greycoat Square, running roughly parallel to Victoria Street. I don’t remember ever going inside the church–it always appeared locked up when I passed–but I’d noticed coloured glass behind several of the metal grilles that shielded the windows and had wondered vaguely what scenes they depicted. I had a faint memory, come to think of it, of Dad telling me Minster Glass had been responsible for their creation back in Victorian times.

  I’d also been christened in the church as a baby, he told me, yet on the odd Sunday we attended a service when I was growing up, we always went to Westminster Abbey. We both loved the music and Dad found the sermons suitably intellectual. It was also easy to creep out after the service without anybody engaging him in intrusive conversation. In matters spiritual, as in everything else in life, he liked to keep himself private. It intrigued me how he’d become so friendly with the Reverend Quentin.

  I stuffed the letter back in its envelope and left it on the counter, resolving to ring the vicar myself when I had a moment and break the news about Dad’s illness.

  That evening, partly to take my mind off my troubles, I gave the flat a thorough clean, throwing old food out of the larder, mopping the faded lino, scrubbing the chipped old bath and vacuuming the living room as best I could with Dad’s whining, worn-out machine. Afterwards, exhausted by emotion, by the day’s early start and the unaccustomed physical labour, I collapsed into the armchair by the living-room window and picked at a pre-packed chicken salad.

  The gardens turned golden in the sunset, then silver, as darkness fell. One by one, lights came on in the windows of houses all around and the pavements glimmered in the soft yellow sulphur streetlamps. I’d forgotten how beautiful and peaceful the Square could be. It was difficult to believe it was in the heart of a huge city.

  Half a dozen doors down, next to an antiquarian bookshop, was a new wine bar, where people spilled out into the warm, still evening. Above the murmur of voices I became aware of the distant soaring notes of Elgar’s Cello Concerto. I got up to listen, as its heartrending phrases wafted from somewhere across the Square. And suddenly I longed to speak to Nick again so desperately, the pain was almost physical.

  I’d met him in Belgrade three weeks before, when I’d joined the Royal London Orchestra on its tour of Eastern Europe. Nick Parton was a couple of years younger than me, a liberally talented cellist and very ambitious. His energy was one of the things I found most attractive about him: that, his soft teasing voice, and–for I had the opportunity to gaze at him night after night from my place at the back of the orchestra–his smooth olive skin and perfect profile.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re strong enough to play that monster,’ were his first, careless words to me, eyeing the tuba cradled in my arms.

  ‘Just watch me,’ I sparked back. I pursed my lips and delivered such an ear-shattering blast on the instrument that the crusty leader of the orchestra knocked over his music stand and swore. Nick merely threw back his head and laughed.

  I was aware of his eyes on me all the time after that. He sought me out with exaggerated solicitousness, teasingly offering to carry my instrument case for me because I was ‘too delicate’, then, when I irritably refused, holding open the door with a gallant bow to allow me through first, despite his own considerable burden. After a few days of this I allowed myself to melt slightly. We got together properly one night when, both a little the worse for wear after a late meal in a restaurant, we shared a taxi back to the hotel and a nightcap in the bar.

  There was only one evening left after that in Belgrade, but then the orchestra moved on to Prague, Zagreb and Budapest–one glorious setting after another, so that our romance ne
ver had the opportunity to grow routine. There was one little problem, however, which I didn’t identify until our last night in Athens, and that was the existence of a fiancée, Fiona, back home in Birmingham. It turned out that Nick saw our little duet as his final ‘fling’ before they married in October. And so the last night of the tour was our finale too, ending in tears and recriminations–mine–and sulks–his.

  As I lay on my rickety bed in that Greek hostel, going over and over everything Nick had said and done during the previous few weeks, I realised that he had dropped various hints but that I had blanked out their meaning. For though I was angry and upset when he told me about Fiona, part of me hadn’t been surprised, and now a lot of things began to make sense. His refusal to stay on with me in Athens, for instance, the frequent phone messages he took, his avoidance of any discussion about what would happen after the tour.

  I tried to make myself feel better by concentrating on how horrible it must be for poor duped Fiona, imagining how I would feel if our positions were reversed and I found that my fiancé had been playing away. Surely, I told myself, she must suspect. Was it worse that she didn’t, or that she did and would marry him anyway? I couldn’t decide. At least I knew the truth and had discovered it before I was in too deep. Though it wasn’t the first time I had got myself in a mess like this. You could say I had a gift for it.

  I didn’t mean to fall in love with unobtainable men, it just happened that way. Perhaps I was hard-wired to respond to some strange pheromone that they exuded, these men who were married or who never intended to stay the course.

  I listened to the soaring song of the cello and mulled over my love of movies in which lovers came together on sinking ships or as cities fell to the enemy or an asteroid was about to hit the earth…situations in which love was desperate, snatched, a long way from humdrum reality.

  I was mature enough to recognise this painful cycle I put myself through over and over again, and I knew it was about time I broke it. Sitting alone in this scruffy old flat, which I still called home despite everything, for I had nowhere else, I fought the urge to look up Nick’s number and ring him. What finally stopped me was the thought of poor Fiona answering. I wanted Nick badly. But not a Nick who would up and leave. I knew now that I wanted someone who was wholly and eternally mine.

  Chapter 2

  And the angel said: ‘I have learned that every man lives not through care of himself, but by love.’

  Leo Tolstoy, What Men Live By

  I slept that night as though I’d been drugged and woke up miserable and starving hungry. It was while I was still in my pyjamas, scraping half an inch of fat from Dad’s grill pan, somehow missed in my whirlwind purge of yesterday evening, that the telephone rang. It was the hospital. Dad had woken briefly during the night, the nurse at the other end said. The relief was overwhelming. He would recover. Everything would be all right!

  I swallowed some toast, pulled on my jeans and a jacket, and set off at a fast walk down Horseferry Road, passing early-morning joggers and a team of dustmen feeding their van. A plump Indian lady was sweeping the pavement outside a flower shop with long slow movements, and on impulse I asked her to wrap me some freesias. Maybe the fragrance would please Dad, even if he couldn’t focus on the colours.

  On Lambeth Bridge, a bracing wind whipped off the river, chilling all optimism and inducing a mood of anxiety.

  When I walked in, I saw the curtains were closed around Dad’s bed and my anxiety turned to panic that he’d had a relapse. Then a nurse emerged, carrying a bowl of soapy water, a towel over her arm. She smiled as she moved past me, and my panic ebbed, but too soon. I saw immediately that everything was not all right.

  Dad seemed exactly like the day before, eyes closed, his mouth open, snoring slightly. I pulled the chair up, and sat looking for signs of change. Did he have more colour in his face? Possibly. Suddenly his eyes half-opened. He blinked, dazed by the light.

  ‘Dad,’ I whispered, leaning into his line of vision, and I was sure he looked directly at me. He seemed puzzled; a muscle twitched by his mouth as though he was trying to speak.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said, forlorn. His left hand, the one nearer me, trembled slightly, and I placed mine over it. We contemplated one another, he with the guileless gaze of a very young child. I turned away first, to hide my brimming eyes.

  There was one good thing, though. He recognised me, I knew he did. He was, despite all my fears, himself. Yet I had the strange feeling that he was pleading with me, like a trapped animal.

  ‘Dad, it’s all right, I’m here.’ What could I tell him that was reassuring? ‘I’ll look after everything, don’t worry. I’m sure Zac’ll help, too.’ Though I’d still heard no word from Zac since my return.

  I stayed until Dad was asleep once more. My walk back from the hospital took twice as long because I dawdled on Lambeth Bridge watching the gunmetal-grey water swell beneath, glad of the biting wind that dulled my anguish. Some tide was rising within me, too, carrying me–where? I had no idea. My life was hopelessly adrift.

  Zac was in the workshop when I walked back in, cutting shapes from a piece of glowing red glass. He looked up as I entered, his glass-cutter poised, his long lean body bent, ready to score the glass. I hovered in the safety of the dividing doorway. The old awkwardness swirled between us, as thick and mysterious as fog.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ he muttered finally, managing a smile. ‘How are things?’

  ‘I’ve just been to see Dad,’ I said, trying to hold my voice steady. Zac laid down his cutter and studied me, absent-mindedly rubbing at a callus on his forefinger.

  ‘How is he?’ he asked, his voice gruff as though he hadn’t spoken since yesterday. That would be quite believable. I had never found out much about Dad’s assistant. He’d come to work for Dad shortly after I left home twelve years ago, a thin, dark-eyed, pale-skinned man, then in his early twenties, with a Glasgow accent, a mop of thick black hair and that Celtic brooding air of mystery. He’d kept himself to himself. Now, a dozen years on, he had filled out a bit and the accent was less pronounced, but otherwise, like Minster Glass, he was exactly as always.

  Zac had never seemed bothered by the odd hours Dad asked him to work, was apparently happy to take afternoons off when business was slow, and ready to toil a seven-day week in the event of a tight deadline. At other times he came and went as it pleased him, which seemed to suit them both, though if I’d been his boss I’d have found it disconcerting. In Dad’s absence, I supposed I was his boss. The thought bothered me. What could I possibly teach Zac? Apart from a bit of charm, that is. He could at least try to look pleased to see me.

  ‘You were right about the stroke, Zac,’ I said. ‘It’s serious.’

  I explained how Dad had come round, but that the doctor I’d spoken to today–not the nice Mr Bashir but a young woman with spiky hair–said the tests were inconclusive about how bad the stroke damage was. She refused to guess when I asked how quickly Dad might recover, though agreed that his waking was a positive sign.

  Zac thrust his hands in the pockets of his shabby moleskins and stared at the floor. After a moment he said, ‘That’s terrible. I’m sorry, Fran.’ After another moment he added anxiously, ‘I did what I could, you know. Checked his breathing, called the ambulance right away. They were here in a few minutes. Perhaps if I’d done something different…’ His face showed naked distress.

  ‘I’m sure you did everything right,’ I said. ‘And you were here with him, that’s the important thing. God knows what would have happened if he’d been alone.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right there,’ he said gloomily. We stood for a moment, each lost in our own thoughts, then he spoke again. ‘What are your plans?’

  ‘Plans?’ I echoed.

  ‘I mean, how long are you back for? You know I’ll do what I can, but…’ He spread his hands in a helpless gesture.

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it. I suppose I’ll stay here for the time being. We don’t know how long Dad wil
l take to get better.’ There was another short silence during which I was aware of his eyes on me, sympathetic, but searching. I tried to consider the concept that it might be a long, long time–if ever–before Dad could work again, and pushed it away.

  ‘There’s plenty of work around to keep the business going,’ said Zac softly. ‘And I could do with assistance in the shop.’

  Thoughts started rushing in with dizzying force. Was this what Dad’s illness would mean? Being here, giving up music for the duration?

  ‘What sort of work are we talking about?’ I asked, to buy time.

  ‘There’s this.’ He lifted up the sheet of red glass so I could see the template drawing underneath. ‘A window for one of those penthouse flats by the river. The lady wants a sunrise. Not happy with her view of the real one, obviously. Look.’ He took a smaller roll of paper from another table and showed me the design he’d made–a colour sketch of the sun rising over a country scene.

  ‘That’s lovely,’ I said. ‘What else?’

  He described a few other similar commissions awaiting his attention. I then inspected the repair jobs lined up on the shelves. There were broken lampshades, dusty mirrors and picture frames with chipped decoration. An ugly folding screen with a caved-in middle section leaned against one wall. Despite myself, the years rolled away and I found myself assessing the work involved. All these I probably still had the skills to fix–if I wanted.

  ‘And there’s a whole list of domestic window repairs,’ Zac was saying.

  ‘What about this one?’ I moved over to Dad’s Celtic design, still lying beneath the window. Suddenly I wanted to do something useful. ‘Shall I finish it off?’

  ‘If you want,’ said Zac, looking surprised. ‘But don’t rush yourself. You’ve only just—’