Rachel's Coming Home by Gillian Villiers

Author:Gillian Villiers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Accent Press

Chapter Ten

Rachel hadn’t forgotten she was going to do something about Anthony. On the Monday she made a trip into Boroughbie and sought out Rupert Randall’s studio. She stood before the door for a moment, nervous now. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to say and had no idea if she would be welcome.

She tapped on the half-open door of what was clearly a converted garage, a square stone building with double doors.

‘In you come,’ shouted a voice, so friendly she felt herself relaxing.

The room she entered was large and airy, lit by numerous skylights. A small, balding man was bent over a worktable in the centre. ‘I cannae stop the now,’ he said. ‘But take a seat, I’ll no’ be a minute.’

‘Thanks. I’m sorry to disturb you.’

Rachel looked around for a chair, but found they were all being used to prop up canvases or hold piles of paper. She didn’t mind. The place was fascinating enough for her just to stand and look. There were pictures everywhere, mostly the same distinctive black and white designs she recognised from the little card, but also sketches, water colours, and piles and piles of what she assumed to be artists’ supplies – paper and ink and knives, brushes, sheets of lino, and she didn’t know what else.

She was amazed to see all this here, in a little back road out of Boroughbie. She had thought of this as an agricultural area, a little market town, and now realised there was so much more she didn’t know about the place.

The man finished his task and wiped his hands on a cloth. ‘Good afternoon to you,’ he said with a twinkling smile. ‘Now, what can I do for you?’

‘I’m Rachel Collington. You won’t know me, but I think you’ve met my brother.’

‘I recognise you from the papers,’ he said with a grin. ‘You’re the heroine.’

Rachel pulled a face. ‘Hardly. My brother came up and spoke to you at the show, a tall, fair-haired boy, nineteen-years-old?’ She hoped the man remembered him. So much of her plan relied on that.

‘Aye, I mind him. Had a young lady and a wee lassie with him, did he no’?’

‘That’s right. Our neighbour Gemma and the little girl was Amelia, niece of Philip Milligan who opened the show … But never mind about that. Anthony was really interested in your work.’

‘He said so. I told him to come and see me.’

‘Yes. The thing is, he’s a bit … shy. And, I don’t know, maybe it’s just a teenage thing. He is really keen but he doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself at the moment. He wanted to come but he wouldn’t, so I thought I’d come and talk to you myself.’

‘Aye?’ said the man. His round face seemed amused by her interference.

Rachel tried again. ‘Anthony’s not doing anything with himself at the moment. I wondered if he could spend some time with you as a, I don’t know, an assistant or a dogsbody or whatever.

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