A Trick of the Light by Ali Carter (books for 5 year olds to read themselves TXT) 📗

‘It’s okay. It sounds tough for you.’

‘I signed up for this course hoping it would take my mind off things, and now look, I’m the one bringing them up.’

‘SUSIE. RUPERT,’ shouted Lianne. ‘Come, get in the picture.’

She had everyone in a huddle with a view of the house behind – like an eighteenth-century Dutch landscape.

‘I’ve gotta post this. My friends will never believe where I am.’

‘You should be in the picture then – here, I’ll take it.’ I stretched my arm out and she handed me her mobile. Then, bouncing towards the group, she stood at the front with her hands on her hips and a smug smile across her face.

‘Ready,’ I said, and everyone apart from Louis smiled. It’s not that he looked unhappy, he just didn’t bother to join in.

‘Another,’ said Lianne, ‘just to make sure.’

‘I think I’ve taken about ten.’ I handed her the mobile and turned to Louis. ‘Don’t like having your photo taken?’

‘Why?’ he said as we walked back to the hut.

‘You didn’t smile.’

‘Ah, well, I don’t look as good when I do.’

We both grinned.

‘Look at you,’ he said, ‘your smile’s so innocent.’

Miraculously I managed not to go pink. This tutor business has given my self-confidence a boost. I have a role, a part to play and, best of all, I’m in charge. Louis Bouchon is going to have to try a lot harder if he fancies his chances at finding out how innocent I am.

As soon as we were back at the hut I announced, ‘It’s time to apply the paint,’ and once the beginners had all begun I went to have a look at what Giles and Minty had been up to. From the angle of their easels I presumed they were painting the same scene but the closer I got the fewer similarities I saw.

I had no idea what Giles was painting. ‘That’s an interesting take,’ I said, hoping he’d explain.

‘We have far more impressive trees in the arboretum at home but I thought I’d give that Japanese larch there a go.’ He pointed with his brush towards the other side of the river.

‘I see. Doesn’t it look green to you?’

‘Yes, but I’m painting this year’s growth.’

Fortunately, I knew a year’s growth of a conifer is the space between the outshoot of branches, so it was now clear Giles had chosen one particular length of trunk. He’d put a silvery-ochre almost straight line down the centre of his canvas and with a hog hair brush he was now scrubbing Payne’s grey down both sides.

‘They’re beautiful trees, aren’t they.’

‘Yes, marvellous,’ he said. ‘Everyone loves a larch and that’s why they’re planted in places like this.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Mixed through the wood for aesthetic reasons. They’re deciduous, go a lovely colour in the autumn. Here they make the Scots pine less dense, and do you know a larch grows to maturity in forty years and then stands for a whopping hundred and fifty?’

‘Wow, I didn’t know that.’

‘Well, it’s pretty great isn’t it, although lots have an awful disease so it’s nice to be able to paint one before it dies.’

‘Disease?’

Minty joined in. ‘It’s terrible. Daddy has such a problem at home.’

‘Airborne,’ said Giles. ‘Blown in across the Channel from France. It’s killed almost all Japanese larch in the West Country. We’re jolly lucky it hasn’t reached us in Suffolk yet.’

‘It will,’ said Minty, resigned to the fact.

Her lips were purply blue.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked. ‘You do look awfully cold.’

‘I’m fine. This isn’t half as brutal as the Boxing Day hunt.’

‘Fox-hunting?’ I tried not to sound biased either way.

‘Yes, I hunt with the Tynedale in Northumberland.’

‘So, you’re used to a rural setting.’

She gave me a sharp look. I put it down to her drawn features, but then she continued. ‘Well, I don’t live in a village,’ she said.

It’s not what I meant; she’s the one who thought of villages as deeply infra dig, but I let it pass.

‘We live in the middle of nowhere,’ she softened, ‘very like the Highlands in fact.’

‘It must have been a long journey from Northumberland to here.’

‘We’re in Cumbria, but yes it was. Daddy drove me, which was extremely kind as he has so much on.’

‘What does he do?’

‘Sits on various boards but this week he’s in the House of Lords. There’s a bill he’s trying to pass before Easter.’

Steering clear of politics, I asked how she felt her painting was going.

‘I’m out of practice. Last term I spent all my spare time playing lax. It’s why Mummy thought it’d be a good idea for me to do this course.’

‘Well, you’ve got the perspective of the river spot on and your interpretation of the gorge is great.’

‘I’m trying to stop myself using too many colours. I want the light to define the space.’

‘It’s really good. You could try using the other end of your brush to put in the cracks on the rocks.’

‘Like this?’ Minty scratched lines into her paint.

‘Perfect.’

‘Thanks, Susie.’

I could see Fergus with Haggis at heel, in the distance, heading back in this direction. So, leaving everyone be for a bit, forcing them to push on through any doubts they might have, I sped off to join him.

‘How’s it all going, Susie? I do hope it’s all right?’ He was as bad as Zoe with his pessimistic questions.

‘All right now, but there was a bit of a ruckus at the beginning. Lianne thought she’d seen a rat.’

‘A rat?’

‘Yes, but Giles said it was a water vole.’

‘How strange. They must be coming back. I’ve hardly ever come across one here but I saw a couple downstream as well.’ Fergus thought for a moment and when he said, ‘Hmm, it is the breeding season,’ I guessed he meant that’s why there were more of them around.

Fergus planted his walking stick into the lush grass and, using it very much as a third leg, we began walking back through the