Twenties Girl

Malcolm Gledhill looks like he wants to burst into tears. “I don’t know how you got that information.” He appeals to Ed. “You will be a witness to the fact I did not reveal any information to Miss Lington.”

“So she’s right?” says Ed, raising his eyebrows. This only seems to panic Malcolm Gledhill more.

“I can’t say whether or not-whether-” He breaks off and wipes his brow. “At no stage was the agreement out of my sight, at no stage did I let it into her view-”

“You didn’t have to,” says Ed reassuringly. “She’s psychic.”

My mind is going around in circles as I try to get over my shock and think this all through. Uncle Bill had the painting. Uncle Bill sold the painting. Dad’s voice keeps running through my mind: … put in a storage unit and left there for years. Nobody could face dealing with it. It was Bill who sorted it all out… Strange to imagine, but Bill was the idler in those days .

It’s all obvious. He must have found the painting all those years ago, realized it was valuable, and sold it to the London Portrait Gallery in a secret agreement.

“Are you OK?” Ed touches my arm. “Lara?”

But I can’t move. Now my mind is moving in bigger circles. Wilder circles. I’m putting two and two together. I’m putting eight and eight together. And I’m making a hundred million.

Bill set up Lingtons Coffee in 1982.

The same year he secretly made half a million from selling Sadie’s painting.

And now, finally, finally… it’s all falling into place. It’s all making sense. He had £500,000 that no one knew about, £500,000 that he’s never mentioned. Not in any interview. Not in any seminar. Not in any book.

I feel light-headed. The enormity of this is only slowly sinking in. The whole thing is a lie. The whole world thinks he’s a business genius who started with two little coins. Half a million notes, more like.

And he covered it up so no one would know. He must have realized the painting was of Sadie as soon as he saw it. He must have realized it belonged to her. But he let the world believe it was some servant called Mabel. He probably fed them that story himself. That way, no one would come knocking on any Lington’s door, asking about the beautiful girl in the painting.

“Lara?” Ed’s waving a hand in front of my face. “Speak to me. What is it?”

“The year 1982.” I look up in a daze. “Sound familiar? That’s when Uncle Bill started up Lingtons Coffee. You know? With his famous ‘Two Little Coins.’” I do quote marks with my fingers. “Or was there, in fact, half a million pounds which started him off? Which he somehow forgot to mention because it wasn’t his in the first place?”

There’s silence. I can see the pieces falling into place in Ed’s mind.

“Jesus Christ,” he says at last, and looks up at me. “This is huge. Huge.”

“I know.” I swallow. “Huge.”

“So the whole Two Little Coins story, the seminars, the book, the DVD, the movie…”

“All complete bullshit.”

“If I were Pierce Brosnan, I’d be calling my agent right about now.” Ed raises his eyebrows comically.

I’d want to laugh, too, if I didn’t want to cry. If I wasn’t so sad and furious and sick at what Uncle Bill did.

That was Sadie’s painting. It was hers to sell or keep. He took it and he used it and he never breathed a word. How dare he? How dare he?

With sickening clarity, I can see a parallel universe in which someone else, someone decent like my dad, had found the painting and done the right thing. I can see Sadie sitting in her nursing home, wearing her necklace, looking at her beautiful painting throughout her old age, until the very last light faded from her eyes.

Or maybe she would have sold it. But it would have been hers to sell. It would have been her glory. I can see her brought out of her nursing home and shown the painting hanging in the London Portrait Gallery. I can see the joy that would have given her. And I can even see her sitting in her chair, having Stephen’s letters read aloud to her by some kind archivist.

Uncle Bill robbed her of years and years of possible happiness. And I’ll never forgive him.

“She should have known.” I can’t contain my anger anymore. “Sadie should have known she was hanging up here. She went to her death with no idea. And that was wrong. It was wrong.”

I glance over at Sadie, who has wandered away from the conversation as though she’s not interested. She shrugs, as though to brush away all my angst and fury.

“Darling, don’t drone on about it. Too dull. At least I’ve found it now. At least it wasn’t destroyed. And at least I don’t look as fat as I remember,” she adds with sudden animation. “My arms look rather wonderful, don’t they? I always did have good arms.”