Page 107 of A Christmas Celebration
‘But Angus mustn’t find out that you know,’ he added seriously.
‘If he finds out you’ve spilled the beans, I’ll tell him I forced it out of you.’
Brodie’s face broke into a smile and his eyes twinkled.
‘And how exactly would you go about forcing this secret out of me?’ he asked.
I rolled my eyes.
‘This is not the time,’ I laughed. ‘Just tell me what he wants.’
‘All right,’ he said, sitting back again and picking up the thread. ‘As I’m sure you can imagine, my father was furious when I told him I was giving up my career to paint full-time.’
‘Even after what had happened at Davey and Clarkson?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He reckoned none of that mattered because I’d got out before it went belly up and that I would easily secure another position because I hadn’t been involved.’
‘He sounds like quite a piece of work.’
‘Oh, he is, but I told him I wasn’t stepping back into that world and he and his former approval disappeared faster than a hare across the Fens.’
‘That must have been tough, given that it was his approval you’d wanted all along.’
I was surprised to see Brodie shake his head at that.
‘It was easier to get my head around than you might think,’ he carried on, sounding upbeat. ‘Because I met Angus shortly after that and discovered what genuine approval and respect meant.’
That made sense.
‘How did you meet?’
‘Well, he’s a friend of the owner of the gallery where my paintings were being shown and he came to the exhibition after being told there was work on display which featured the Fens. When he told me where he lived and I explained my connection to Wynbridge, it felt as though the stars had aligned.’
‘Oh,’ I said, clapping my hands. ‘Molly would love this. According to her there are no accidents or flukes. Everything that happens is meant to and it occurs at precisely the moment it’s supposed to.’
‘I agree with her entirely.’ Brodie smiled. ‘You should have seen Angus’s face when we were looking at one of my landscapes and I told him it was the Wynthorpe estate I’d been trespassing on to create it!’
‘Oh my god!’ I grinned. ‘What were the odds of that?’
‘Like I said,’ Brodie laughed, ‘fate lent a hand.’
‘Many hands!’ I added, clapping mine again and momentarily forgetting that I still didn’t know what Angus was expecting, although it wouldn’t take a genius to work it out now. ‘So, now you’ve embraced your life’s purpose?’
‘More or less,’ he said. ‘Although I didn’t come back to the studio here uninvited as you no doubt suspected when you saw my bike in the hedge.’
My face flushed when he said that.
‘It was Angus who put me in touch with Albert and our mutual friend gave me a warm welcome, which has had a huge impact. He’s told me a lot about his life and what hewent through with his own father and I’m so grateful to know I’m not alone.’
No wonder they’d appeared so pally in town and Brodie hadn’t defied my warning at all. It was my wily godfather who had worked out the two men would get along and then put them in touch. It struck me how similar Brodie and Albert’s journeys had been. They had both suffered disapproving fathers, but had eventually embraced their art.
‘But it’s slow going,’ Brodie added, with a glance back at the easel and sounding less chipper than he had before.
‘How so?’ I asked.
The look on his face when he turned back fractured my heart a little. This reaction to his hard fought for artistic freedom was not the one I had expected.
‘I’ve been in the wilderness for months,’ he told me, his voice cracking. ‘I gave away practically all of my money to charity and to Jack to invest in the business, in the misguided belief that I could live off the money I made from selling my paintings.’
