A Deep Deceit by Hilary Bonner Read Free Book Online Page B

bigger than my Pumpkin Soup . Its vibrant colour and dramatic shapes seemed to dominate the gallery. I reckoned it was the finest piece of work in the room – apart from the Gunnell bronze, perhaps.
    Will was silent for what seemed a lifetime. ‘You get better with every canvas, Carl,’ he said eventually.
    Carl beamed. I glowed. We both respected Will’s opinion enormously – don’t take my description of him to suggest that we regarded him as a figure of fun, because we didn’t. Rather, we considered him a true eccentric, but also a true expert.
    The other two paintings, smaller but equally original and striking, also met with the gallery owner’s approval.
    â€˜You’ll take them all?’ queried Carl anxiously. He knew that his abstracts weren’t easy to sell.
    â€˜Of course I’ll take them,’ said Will. ‘I just wish I could sell them for what they’re really worth, that’s all.’
    Carl and I knew exactly what he meant. Art is a world of great contrasts, like show business really. Those at the top of the tree are mega-earning superstars and those at the bottom barely make a living at all – particularly if they try to be original.
    Carl’s name was not well known and two or three hundred pounds was the most that Will could ever ask for one of his paintings – even those large abstracts he sweated blood over. Not a lot for something Carl had worked on over several weeks.
    Nonetheless we left the gallery in high spirits.
    â€˜How about a little celebration in the Sloop?’ Carl asked, clutching my hand and swinging both our arms. I happily agreed and we began to amble down to the harbour.
    Although for various deep-seated reasons neither Carl nor I approved of excessive drinking – we had each in different ways seen the damage it can do – we both liked pubs. Carl had the fascination common among Americans for English pubs and I think we both saw public houses as somewhere we could enjoy a certain conviviality without involvement. Mind you, perhaps to ensure we didn’t get too involved, once a week was about the limit of our pub-going, more often than not at a lunchtime rather than the heavier evening session. However, the promise of a decent sale changed things.
    It was late afternoon, almost five o’clock. The day had been quite glorious and the setting sun glowed amber and orange. Carl actively disliked going down to St Ives harbour or to the beaches during the tourist season when the place was overrun with people. He had made an exception for the eclipse, partly because I had been so determined that we should watch it from the waterside, but normally he preferred to remain in our little bit of town, up on the hill and way back from the harbour and the beaches, which stayed much the same throughout the year. I wasn’t quite so fussy, but he did have a point. I remembered my noisy summer lunchtime visits to the seafront with Mariette and thought how there was just no comparison with the joy of being down by the waterside on a fine, holidaymaker-free, November day like this one. In the quiet off-season times Carl and I loved to walk together along the beach at low tide and, indeed, to visit the Sloop, which was one of the places we avoided in high season because it was always packed with tourists.
    As we approached the famous old waterside inn, a familiar figure emerged through the pub doors and began to totter somewhat unsteadily towards us.
    â€˜Oh, no,’ muttered Carl. ‘I really can’t stand that woman.’
    â€˜At least she’s leaving,’ I said in his ear.
    â€˜Whisky must have run out,’ Carl responded uncharitably.
    We both half stopped in our tracks, wondering if we could turn round and escape notice, but by this time Fenella Austen was already upon us. In some ways I was less concerned by this than Carl, because in the six years we had lived in the town Fenella, still widely