The Things We Keep

Chapter Three: The Things We Keep

TAVIAN

My mother had written the dates beneath every photograph.

Not just the month or the year. The day.

14 June. Tavian refuses to swim.

In the photograph, I stood at the edge of a pool wearing an expression I recognised. My father was waist-deep in the water, holding out his arms. My mother’s shadow fell across the paving behind me.

I turned the page.

22 June. He finally jumps.

I had forgotten that I was ever afraid of water.

The album rested across my knees. It was nearly midnight, and the sitting room lamps cast a yellow light over furniture nobody used. Across from me, a bowl of wooden fruit sat on the low table. My mother had bought it at a market because, she said, at least these wouldn’t be left to rot.

Someone still dusted them.

I turned another page.

There were photographs of the conservatory before the vines reached the roof. My mother stood beside the unfinished mural, laughing at something outside the frame. She wore an old shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

I remembered that shirt.

I had forgotten her hands.

Not their shape, exactly, but the things she did with them. Tucking her hair behind one ear. Holding a page flat while she read. Resting two fingers against my forehead to check for a fever.

I pressed my thumb against the edge of the photograph, careful not to touch her face.

On the next page, she stood beneath the conservatory doorway with a woman I didn’t recognise. There was a paint tin between them. The woman had turned away from the camera, one hand lifted to her hair.

No date beneath that one.

Only three words.

Before we began.

I looked through the rest of the album for her.

She wasn’t there again.

By one, I had set aside eleven photographs for the conservator.

By two, I was still holding the twelfth.

ILYRA

Two men were coming down from the conservatory roof when I arrived the next morning.

The damaged panes had been secured, and a temporary covering stretched above the worst section. Someone had swept the path. Inside, the buckets had been moved away from the worktable and arranged beneath the remaining leaks.

It should have made the room feel less neglected.

Instead, it made my presence feel permanent.

I put down my bag.

On the table, beside a fresh pair of work lights, lay a brown envelope with my name written across it.

Inside were photographs.

For a moment, I couldn’t make myself touch them.

Then I pulled on clean gloves and began laying them out.

The room appeared in stages. Bare plaster. The first green wash. Birds with unfinished wings. A painted branch stopping abruptly where the artist had apparently gone home for the day.

In one photograph, Tavian sat cross-legged beneath the mural, holding a brush in his fist.

He was missing a front tooth.

I turned it over.

My assistant, his mother had written.

There was no reason for those two words to hurt as much as they did.

I put the photograph down.

“Useful?”

I turned.

He stood in the doorway carrying a cup of coffee. His coat was open, and there was a crease near the collar of his shirt.

“Very,” I said. “Thank you.”

He came to the table but stayed on the opposite side.

“These should help establish which sections were added later. Some of the colours have changed quite significantly.”

He looked at the photograph of himself.

“I remember that brush being bigger.”

“It probably wasn’t intended for someone your size.”

“My mother said the same thing.”

His eyes remained on the image.

I wanted to ask what happened next. Whether he had spilled the paint. Whether she had laughed. Whether there had been an afternoon after that one when she measured him against the wall.

Instead, I said, “I’ll make digital copies and return the originals.”

“Keep them here until you’re finished.”

“I’d prefer not to leave them in the damp.”

“Then tell Mrs. Dacre where they should go.”

I nodded.

He took a drink of coffee, then noticed the unopened flask beside my bag.

“Have you eaten?”

“Yes.”

He looked almost suspicious of the answer.

“Mrs. Dacre asked me before I came through the house,” I explained.

“She does that.”

“She’s very persuasive.”

“She’s had practice.”

The exchange was small enough that I might have forgotten it in another life. Here, I found myself wishing he would leave before it became something I wanted to remember.

He reached into his coat and took out one more photograph.

“This one may help with the doorway.”

He placed it between us.

His mother stood beside a dark-haired woman whose face was partly hidden. Behind them, the narrow painted border around the entrance was clearly visible.

I bent closer.

“There used to be lettering.”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember what it said?”

“No.”

I examined the image beneath the lamp. The woman beside his mother wore a long cardigan despite the open windows. One sleeve had slipped back.

There was a small dark mark near her wrist.

I barely registered it. I was looking at the paintwork behind her.

“The current surface is quite opaque,” I said. “I’ll need to establish whether it’s dirt, varnish or a later coating before I can tell you what survives underneath.”

“Can you recover it?”

“Perhaps.”

He exhaled through his nose.

“You don’t like that answer,” I said.

“I’m becoming familiar with it.”

“It’s a useful word.”

“For you.”

“For the paintings.”

He glanced at me, and for a moment his expression eased.

Then his phone rang.

He read the screen, and whatever had almost happened between us ended.

“I need to go.”

I moved the photographs clear of the work area.

At the doorway, he stopped.

“The woman in that picture. If you find her in any of the records, let me know.”

“Was she the artist’s assistant?”

“I don’t know.”

When he had gone, I turned the photograph over.

There was nothing on the back.

TAVIAN

Edmund Rusk’s daughter lived above a chemist on a street where parking required negotiation.

Severin left the car at the corner.

“Do you want me to come up?”

“No.”

The woman who opened the door was younger than I expected, perhaps forty. She had her father’s narrow face, though it took me a moment to place the resemblance.

“Mr. Veyr?”

“Tavian.”

“Celia Rusk.”

We shook hands.

She led me into a small sitting room crowded with books and children’s school photographs. A cardigan lay over the arm of a chair. She moved it before offering me the seat.

“Tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“I’ve already made it.”

“Then yes.”

She poured with the concentration of someone who needed a task.

I had attended enough difficult meetings to know the difference between fear and grief. Celia seemed to be struggling with both.

“I’m sorry about your father,” I said.

She looked up.

“Thank you.”

“Was he ill?”

“For a while.”

I waited while she added milk to her cup.

“He liked working at your house,” she said. “He was proud of it.”

“I remember him.”

It was true, though until that morning I had remembered him mainly as a hand emerging from the lodge window to wave our car through.

“He used to talk about the grounds,” she continued. “Your mother let him take cuttings from the garden.”

My cup remained untouched between my hands.

“Did he ever talk about the day she died?”

Celia lowered her eyes.

“Sometimes.”

“What did he say?”

“That he should have stayed where he was.”

“Why didn’t he?”

She reached for a biscuit, then changed her mind.

“Your man asked about the money.”

“Severin.”

“He made it sound as though Dad was being paid to keep quiet.”

“Was he?”

Her face tightened.

“He worked there for thirty-one years.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“No,” she said. “It doesn’t.”

For the first time, she met my eyes properly.

“My father helped my son through college with that money. When he needed a stairlift, he didn’t have to wait for the council. I’m grateful for those things. I don’t know whether that makes me a bad person.”

“I didn’t come here to judge you.”

“You came to find someone to blame.”

I looked at the photographs behind her. A boy in a graduation gown. The same boy much younger, missing his two front teeth.

“I came because someone left flowers in my mother’s room.”

She frowned.

“And a note asking why the gate was open.”

Her hand went still against the arm of the chair.

“Did your father ever mention someone calling themselves Moth?”

“No.”

“What about anyone asking questions before he died?”

She shook her head.

Then, after a moment, she stood.

“There’s something you should see.”

ILYRA

By midday, I had marked twelve areas of unstable plaster.

The work demanded enough attention that, for stretches of time, I managed to think only about the wall.

Then my phone would light up beside the notebook, and I would remember everything.

My father had called twice.

I let both calls end.

During lunch, I opened his last message.

Please tell me you’re not there.

I read it while sitting on the back step with a sandwich Mrs. Dacre had wrapped in a cloth napkin.

For most of my childhood, my father had asked me to tell him where I was. A friend’s house. The library. The bus stop after dark.

I had found it irritating.

Now I wanted to go back to a time when his concern had been simple enough to resent.

I typed, I’m working.

Before I could put the phone away, his reply appeared.

You don’t understand what you’re getting involved in.

My fingers rested on the screen.

Then explain it.

The message showed as read.

He didn’t answer.

I finished half the sandwich and returned to the conservatory.

The photographs were still spread beneath the lamp. I studied the image of the doorway again, comparing the painted border with what remained on the wall.

A dark green layer covered the area where the lettering should have been.

At the lower edge, close to the doorframe, a narrow crack exposed a trace of pale blue beneath it.

I photographed the surface, noted the location and began preparing a tiny test area.

There was comfort in following a procedure. Recording what I found. Refusing to guess.

I wished I had brought that same discipline to the rest of my life.

Mrs