Dearest Rose (18 page)

Unprepared for the tidal wave of emotion that raced through her body as she looked into his sea-green eyes, Rose struggled to steady herself. For her it was as if years of being without him, of not knowing him, never even speaking to him, vanished in an instant. Rose felt like she was looking into the eyes of an old friend – more than that, of the love of her life.

Frasier, however, obviously felt like he was looking into the eyes of an irate mother, with a taste in clothes that were far too young for her and an edgy hairstyle that looked like she meant trouble and should probably not be messed with, as she stood frozen like a manic mannequin, her hands glued to her hips. He studied her face, his expression a picture of confusion and concern.

‘I really am dreadfully sorry,’ he said in his soft Scottish accent. ‘I know I am completely remiss. There is no excuse. I can only hope that you will forgive me as no harm is done.’

‘Yes, fine, whatever,’ Rose managed to say, barely raising her voice above a whisper, battling to blink away the tears that had suddenly sprung to her eyes.

‘Are you OK?’ Frasier asked her as he climbed from the car. Reaching out, he touched her on the forearm. ‘Is it the shock? I really am so sorry.’

‘I’m fine,’ Rose said, wiping away the tears with the edge of her thumb, as she dared to glance at him. It was odd to see him so close up, so very real and yet not so very different from her idealised version of him. It seemed that an hour of really looking at him had indeed etched his image onto her mind. He looked a little older, for sure, with crinkles around his eyes, and he
carried
himself differently, with a self-assurance that was new, to Rose at least, but in every other aspect Frasier McCleod was just as she remembered him. He was lovely. ‘I’m fine, really.’

‘Why aren’t we venturing into the Valley of the Kings?’ Maddie asked, eventually making her journey back from the stile where she had been sitting for some time staring up at the sky, waiting for Rose to finish whatever it was she was doing. She glowered at Frasier, clearly blaming him for her plans not coming to fruition.

‘I was just talking to F … this gentleman,’ Rose said.

‘Valley of the Kings, hey?’ Frasier grinned at Maddie, who scowled at him. ‘Off to unwrap a few mummies, are you?’

‘No, that would be a desecration,’ Maddie scowled at him. ‘We are archaeologists, not grave robbers, and besides, this isn’t really the Valley of the Kings, that is in Egypt. This is the Lake District, although I haven’t seen a lake yet, so I don’t know why they call it that. It should be called the mountain district.’

‘Right.’ Frasier raised an amused eyebrow, his hand dropping from Rose’s arm, leaving an imprint of warmth, which quickly chilled. ‘I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Frasier McCleod, Art Dealer and Agent, John Jacobs’ art dealer and agent, to be precise. This is his land you are crossing, which strictly speaking is fine, it is a public right of way, but that doesn’t make him any more happy about it, just so you know. He’s not completely averse to throwing things at ramblers.’

‘We know who John Jacobs is,’ Maddie began. ‘He’s my –’

‘John knows we are here,’ Rose said, interrupting her daughter.

‘Oh, really?’ Frasier looked interested. ‘It’s so unusual for him to have visitors. How do you know John?’

‘She’s his –’ Maddie began.

‘Oh, um, I’ve known him for a long time,’ Rose hedged, waggling her eyebrows at her thwarted daughter, hoping she’d get the message. But Maddie, who wasn’t the greatest at picking up subtle signals at the best of times, seemed to be bursting at the seams to tell Frasier who they were. And fair enough really – how could Maddie know that Rose didn’t want him to find out who she was that way? She didn’t want to see him struggle to recall their meeting and laugh it off, as an incident that had passed fleetingly and without consequence for him, vanishing into the past without significance.

‘Really? How odd. I’ve known him for a long time too, and yet we’ve never met …?’ Frasier looked puzzled and Rose looked at the toes of her boots. ‘Anyway, is he in the barn?’

Rose nodded.

‘We’ll take you,’ Maddie said. ‘You can see my painting. It is very, very good. And it only took me twenty minutes. I don’t know why John takes so long to do his.’

‘I frequently wonder the same thing,’ Frasier said, smiling at Rose, who continued studiously to avoid his eye. Maddie loped off ahead of them, clearly delighted to have an excuse to return to the barn, and Rose trailed along beside Frasier, wondering if he would even remember meeting her at all, once it all came out that she was John Jacobs’ daughter. Now, after coming all this way, searching for this man, she discovered that she wanted nothing more than to keep things as they were, after all. To keep Frasier as that happy memory that had meant so much to her. She would rather that these last few moments as polite strangers could stretch on for ever than face the awkwardness and embarrassment that was sure to follow. As they reached the barn, Rose was not aware that
Frasier
had stopped a few paces behind her until he said her name.

‘Rose …’ At first he said it so quietly that it was almost like a whisper, uncertain. Rose paused, turning round to look at him to find a slow smile spreading over his face. ‘Of course, it’s you, it’s Rose. You are Rose!’

Before Rose could react, Frasier had enveloped her in a hug so tight that she couldn’t breathe, speak or laugh. For one second, maybe two, she stood with her face pressed to his chest, feeling his thundering heart beat time against her cheek. And then he released her as quickly as he had embraced her, leaving Rose feeling a little giddy and unsteady on her feet, and him looking awkward and surprised at his own reaction, to say the least.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, flustered. ‘It’s the surprise, the wonderful surprise of seeing you again. It made me forget myself.’ His expression was one of pure incredulity. ‘So, you made the journey to see your father at last. I’d hoped to hear from you, you know, after I wrote to you with his address, a few years back, as soon as I’d got him sober. He told me not to tell a living soul where he was, but how could I not tell you? How could I not, when I’d seen you so sad … so lost? I thought I’d worry about how angry he’d be with me after you’d reconciled. But when I didn’t hear back from you I’d assumed you moved, or decided not to contact him …?’

‘You wrote to me?’ Rose said, her mind struggling to keep up with the words tumbling out of Frasier’s mouth. ‘Another letter, apart from the postcard, you mean?’

‘Yes. You didn’t get it?’ Frasier shook his head. ‘How Shakespearean. It must have got lost in the post. I could have
phoned
you, of course, but, I don’t know, it never occurred to me. I suppose I thought you’d made your choice and you were sticking to it.’

‘You wrote to me,’ Rose said almost under her breath, somehow certain that Richard had something to do with the letter’s disappearance. Most likely it had simply been delivery of information about her father, which was more than enough reason for Richard to want to destroy it, but if she’d seen it – if she’d seen Frasier’s handwriting again, all those years ago – perhaps that would have been enough to prompt her to leave. Perhaps she might have saved years of her life.

‘I didn’t get it,’ Rose repeated unhappily.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter now,’ Frasier reassured her, although to Rose it mattered very much. ‘You are here now. So how did you find the old bugger anyway? It’s not easy, he’s an official recluse. I’ve known journalists who say finding the Holy Grail is a synch compared to Mr Jacobs.’

‘I …’ Rose almost told Frasier she had been following the clues to him, not to John, and then thought better of it, remembering the crushing disappointment she had felt only a few seconds before. It should be enough that Frasier remembered her, and thought of her as fondly as he clearly did. She would only make things awkward between them if she told him the real reason why she came here, not to mention look a bit, well, mad, frankly. And, as Shona had brutally reminded her, his life could contain a wife, children, lovers, dogs, and a hundred more reasons why he wouldn’t want to know that she’d come here to tell him she thought she very well might love him. ‘Actually, it was you that led me to him in the end. The postcard you sent, it was the only link I had to … to him. That’s why I came
to
Millthwaite. I didn’t know what I would find here when I came, if anything. I just … I felt like I had to come. And here he was – a miracle, really.’

‘You followed your heart.’ Frasier studied her face for a moment longer. ‘God, Rose, I’m such a fool. I did know it was you; from the second I saw you, inside I did. But the hair, the clothes, the context, they threw me for a minute or two.’

Self-consciously Rose touched her still unfamiliar hair. ‘I’d forgotten my hair … this is all new to me too. Bit of an impulse decision last night.’

‘It looks great,’ Frasier said, with the same enthusiasm he seemed to apply to everything. ‘Really different, but great! Things are obviously going well for you, and I’m so pleased.’

Before Rose could correct his assumption John appeared in the doorway.

‘This child will not stop talking at me about Ancient Egypt. I told her, I don’t care about Ancient Egypt. She does not seem deterred.’ He looked Frasier up and down disparagingly. ‘Oh, you are here.’

‘John!’ Warmly, Frasier greeted John, who sighed at the sight of the man before ignoring him by turning round and going back into the barn, returning to his canvas. Taking a breath, Frasier followed Maddie in, Rose close behind him.

‘This is my painting,’ Maddie said very seriously, pointing at her work, which was still propped up against the back wall. ‘He’s given me more board to shut me up, so I am also working. I shall also not talk to you.’

‘Fair enough,’ Frasier said amiably. ‘Very good work in progress, excellent use of texture and depth of colour.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ Maddie said. ‘I thought that about
the
texture. If you like you can sell it in your gallery and give me the money.’

‘The thing is, John,’ Frasier said, taking a couple of tentative steps closer to John, ‘the clients are chasing me for their commissions. I need to send the van. I keep leaving you message after message, asking you when I can send the van and pick up the latest pieces, and you never reply or call back. Three clients are waiting, John. Three. They’re ready to pay the big bucks, and the long and the short of it is if it’s not your painting on their walls, they’ll take someone else’s. They’re idiots, but that’s how it is.’

‘Good,’ John muttered. ‘Three corporate bastards who care more about colour co-ordination than art – why should I do their bidding?’

‘John!’ Rose was amused and surprised to see that Frasier was flustered by John’s disdain. Something about her father clearly set him on edge, which surprised her. After all, Frasier had known him in person for almost as many years as she had. ‘You do realise, this isn’t just about you, painting in a shed, don’t you? It’s my reputation at stake here, too. The years I’ve put into getting you fit, building your profile, making you a success. Why do we always have to have this conversation every single time I win you a commission? You know why you do it: we all have to pay the bills, John. Even you.’

John withdrew his brush from the canvas for a moment.

‘Believe me, if I could live for free, I would. This whole cesspit of art dealership is repugnant. It’s prostitution by any other name.’

Frasier sighed, and Rose could see him wrestling with what seemed like a familiar struggle: deal with John and all his angry
tics
, to get what you ultimately wanted. Rose was intrigued that her father had let anyone so far into his life, let alone have any sort of contact with a dealer or agent, especially one that made him and Frasier seem like an old married couple, destined to bicker away about the same old thing for all eternity.

In the old days John had seemed to paint almost
because
nobody wanted to look at or buy his work. But then again, in the old days he hadn’t painted these huge, looming, beautiful canvases of the landscapes that surrounded him. At some point John would have either decided or have been encouraged to become commercial, Rose realised, as she watched Frasier search for the right way to talk to her father. What on earth had happened to make him do exactly what he always swore he never would?

‘All I’m asking,’ Frasier said eventually, his tone carefully neutral, ‘is that you sometimes switch your phone on, or look at your emails on the laptop I bought you.’

‘Bloody contraptions, they poison your mind … Rose!’ The sound of John speaking her name out loud was so unexpected that it made Rose start a little, and have to stop herself from looking over her shoulder.

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘Take McCleod here to the store.’ John held out a bunch of keys, one of which was presumably to the padlock on the partition wall. ‘Two of his canvases are there; should be dry by now. This one will be ready early next week. The city folk will have their pretty art after all, and Mr McCleod will get his fifteen per cent.’

‘And you will get your money in the bank,’ Frasier chided him softly. ‘Thank you, John. You know, if you’d just taken the
time
to tell me that when I asked you, ours would be a much smoother friendship.’

‘No one said anything about friendship,’ John said, raising a brow at Maddie, who treated Frasier to a very haughty look, cloned exactly from her grandfather.

‘And this is the one destined for the Berlin bank? May I take a closer look?’ Frasier asked.

‘No, you may not.’ John presented his back to Frasier, blocking what he could of his view with his thin shoulders. ‘Rose, the store.’

Rose wasn’t entirely sure of this unexpected dynamic between her and her father, where he asked her to do things, and she did them, but she didn’t dislike it. As dreadful as he found talking to her, he must hate dealing with Frasier even more, and so was glad at least that she was there to pass the buck to. Rose was someone who could do that talking for him, and she found that it was a role she was happy to take on, and not just because it was Frasier she was talking to.