Tin Man(18)

You all right out here? his father asked him.

Yeah. You warm enough?

Course. I’ve got a new cap. Wool, isn’t it?

It is, said Ellis.

See you still smoke, then?

Yeah.

When did you start? Never asked you.

Nineteen? Twenty? Should stop, I know.

I started as a kid. Smoked the way others ate sweets.

Right.

I’ve asked Carol to marry me.

What? Just now?

No, said his father with a rare laugh. For the last twenty years. She’s always said no.

Really?

Says she doesn’t want me telling her what to do with her money.

And I thought she was just being modern, Ellis smiled.

Yeah, that too. But she said I had to get your permission first.

Mine?

So that’s what I’m asking.

You have it.

You can think about it—

– Nothing to think about.

But you might feel different later.

I won’t. Just marry her, Dad. Marry her.

His father took off his cap and smoothed his hair. He put the cap back on. Painting’s upstairs, he said.

On the landing, Ellis pulled down the ladder and climbed up into the loft. He wasn’t surprised by the tidiness or the order. Crawl boards splayed out in a grid system that made it easy to walk about, and boxes were neatly stacked with the contents written on the side: ‘Reader’s Digest’. ‘Shoes’. ‘Bank Statements’. He heard his father’s voice below: I left it just inside. You can’t miss it.

I haven’t missed it! Oh, for fuck’s sake, he said under his breath.

It’s here. I’ve got it, he said loudly.

It was wrapped up in one of his mother’s dresses. He tugged the fabric away from the top right corner and the bowing head of a sunflower flashed out of the gloom.

I’m handing it down, he said. Here, he said, and his father reached up and took the painting from him. His father said, Don’t forget the box as well. And Ellis said, What box?

And his father said, You’ll see it. It’s just inside to the left.

He turned to his left and saw it. A medium-sized cardboard box with ‘MICHAEL’ written on the side.

Carol pulled up outside the house. She helped Ellis inside with the painting and the box, and when he turned on the lights in the back room, he asked if she wanted a drink or a coffee.

No, she said. I won’t stop, and she turned to go.

Carol?

What, love?

The box. Michael’s things, he said. Why’s he got it?

She paused. She said, You came to us after you cleaned out his flat. You don’t remember, do you?

No.

You got back from London and stayed with us for weeks. You slept mostly. So we just kept the stuff with us.

Right.

It was difficult, Ellis. A very difficult time. Your dad thought it best to keep the status quo. What did he call that box? Pandora’s box – that’s it. He was worried that anything might set you off again. So we never mentioned it again. Just kept it up there. Did we do wrong?

No, course not—

– If we did, I’m sorry—

– You didn’t.

But we don’t have to worry now, do we?

No, you don’t.

Carol buttoned up her coat. Said, It’ll be strange not phoning you tomorrow, making sure you’re OK. Won’t know what to do with myself.

Ellis walked her along the hallway.

Come see us, she said. Don’t be a stranger.

I won’t. And he bent down and kissed her.

The front door shut. Silence now. The lingering smell of her perfume and lost, misunderstood years.

He uncovered the painting and leant it against the wall. It was bigger than he remembered. And it was a fine copy, and deserved more than the incongruous fate of being a prize in a Christmas draw. The only signature on the front was ‘Vincent’ written in blue. On the back, though, was the painter’s signature: ‘John Chadwick’. But who John Chadwick was, no one would ever know.

Fifteen sunflowers, some in bloom and some turning. Yellow on yellow pigment that darkened to ochre. Yellow earthenware vase decorated by a complementary blue line that cut across its middle.

The original was painted by one of the loneliest men on earth. But painted in a frenzy of optimism and gratitude and hope. A celebration of the transcendent power of the colour yellow.

Nine years ago, in 1987, it sold for nearly twenty-five million pounds at Christie’s auction house. His mum would have said, Told you so.

The garden took shape under April’s eye. The flowerbeds along the fence and walls of the house had been freed of weeds and transformed into perfect rectangles of tilled brown earth. Climbing roses and ivy were now supporting the crumbling back wall, and rhododendrons simply did their thing, flamboyant and loud in red and pink. He came across a family of primroses hidden under a nondescript shrub and transferred them to an area by the bench where he sat. He had grown to like primroses.

He stopped for lunch and ate outside. A plate of ham that he didn’t need to cut, just folded it into his mouth with a fork. He remembered a time when he didn’t like to be in this garden. He thought he had punished it, secretly, for being the last place he had spent time with them. He chose not to go further with those thoughts that day, and began to peel a boiled egg. A blackbird joined him on the arm of the bench. It had followed him around the garden most of the morning and made him think about the possibility of getting a pet.