Page 75 of A Fresh Start at Bramble Cottage
“Right.” She started with a search for Ian Botham — it didn’t take long to find a stack of news items about his spectacular achievement in the test match. “Here it is — February 1980. So, let’s look for Spanish artists who died that year.”
There were plenty of famous artists listed, but some were still alive and others had died in the wrong year. She scrolled down a little further — and hit pay dirt.
“Yesss!”
Kate hurried out from behind the counter. “You’ve found him?”
“I think so.” There was a bubble of excitement in her voice. “His name was Juan-Jorge Conejero. I thinkconejeromeans rabbit warren in Spanish — that’s probably why he signed his work with what looked like rabbit’s ears.” She clicked on the link to a webpage. “This is him.”
Debbie and her mum leaned in to look at the image that had popped up on the screen. “Oh... He really was very good-looking, wasn’t he?” Kate chuckled. “Lucky Molly!”
“There’s a few of his paintings on here.” She scrolled down. There were several portraits similar to the one of Molly, some abstracts and still lifes, and half a dozen landscapes — wild, surreal, as if on another planet. “He seems to have been quite famous — some of these are in the Pradera in Spain.”
“I wonder if yours is worth anything?” Kate mused.
“It could be. I’m really not sure if I should sell it, though. Molly was obviously very fond of it. She had it hanging in her bedroom.”
Debbie shook her head decisively. “But it might mean you could pay the tax and keep the cottage, wouldn’t it?” she pointed out. “Molly would want that.”
Vicky frowned. “I suppose . . .”
“Of course she would. Anyway, why not just see if it’s worth anything first, then you can have a think about it.”
Vicky nodded thoughtfully. “You’re probably right.”
“Do we still have the one of Granny, Mum?” Debbie asked. “It didn’t get thrown away when she died?”
Kate thought for a moment. “Yes, we’ve still got it — it’s in the back of my wardrobe.”
“Would you sell it?”
“Yes — why not? There’s not much point in keeping it tucked away. I don’t suppose it’ll be worth anything like as much as your portrait, but even a couple of hundred would come in handy towards a new freezer.”
While Kate hurried upstairs to fetch the drawing of her mother, Vicky and Debbie put their heads together to look up a couple of auction houses that sold modern art.
“This one looks the most likely — Cottesmore. I’ve heard of them, anyway. They’re in Kensington, and they seem to sell quitea lot of this kind of thing.” She typed out an email and attached the images of Molly’s portrait and Arthur’s and Kate’s sketches. “I don’t suppose we’ll hear anything for a while — it could be weeks.”
She needed to be sensible, she reminded herself — not let herself get carried away with the idea that the painting could really be valuable.
Sensible. Ugh!
* * *
“This is the most tedious part of the job.” Lisa pulled a wry face. “Doing the staff rota. No matter how carefully you do it, someone will come and complain that they always have Wednesday afternoons off, or they need to take Friday because it’s the kids’ sports day.”
Vicky laughed.
“I usually do it,” Lisa explained, “because poor Mike gets in a terrible tizz, trying not to let anyone down, bless him. This is the spreadsheet. I work on a three-week rolling repeat — that way everyone knows in advance what shift they’re on and there’s plenty of time if there does need to be changes. Really, most of the staff are very good and willing to be flexible — this is a happy place to work; a lot of our people have been here for years.”
Vicky studied the spreadsheet while she sipped her coffee. “That looks clear enough. When I worked in the café while I was at uni we had a similar system, and I’d sometimes help draw up the rotas when the manager was busy.”
“Great — I’m sure you’ll soon get the hang of it. If you have any problems with it, you can always give me a call. Finished your coffee?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“Good.” Lisa put down her own coffee cup and rose to her feet. “Now I did give you a quick tour of the rooms before, butlet’s have a proper look now, and I’ll show you how to check that the cleaning and maintenance are up to standard.” She lifted a clipboard down from a hook beside her desk. “This is the checklist. I do a walk-through once a day — that’s usually enough.”
“Right.”
