‘Me? Are you sure you wouldn’t rather draw Becca or Florie? I’m pretty slow at this.’
‘Don’t worry about the berries. Those two can pick for England, and I draw them all the time. I’d love to have a drawing of my niece.’
Sophie tucks a strand of hair that has escaped her ponytail behind her ear. ‘I look like a wreck.’
‘You look lovely.’
Sophie smiles. ‘I think you need to put your glasses on, Aunt Ellie.’
Ellie looks down at the turquoise glasses hanging around her neck and slides them onto her nose. She peers at Sophie. ‘Ah, you’re right. My mistake.’
‘Aunt Ellie!’ Sophie says, laughing.
Ellie giggles. ‘I’m teasing, Sophie. Just relax and pick your berries. Ignore me.’
A companionable silence settles over the berry pickers and the artist, overlaid by the buzz of insects and the hammering of a woodpecker deep in the woods. After about half an hour, Sophie stretches and sits beside Ellie on a velvety cushion of green moss. She looks at the drawing, her eyes widening. ‘Oh, you’ve made me look quite nice.’
Ellie laughs. ‘You’re very nice-looking, Sophie. You’ve got your parents’ dark hair, but the blue-grey Burgess eyes. Becca has the same eyes. Winny did too.’
Sophie smiles at Ellie. ‘You have them too. Mum had dark eyes though.’
‘Yes. Like our mother, Winnifred. She was half French. I named Winny after her.’
‘Really? I didn’t know that.’ Sophie sweeps her eyes over the drawing – the confident outlines of her own face and her body bending over the berry bushes, the fine feathering of her hair where strands are caught by the wind, and the craggy stones and fat, shaded ripeness of the berries.
Her mother had never told her anything about the family, shutting her down with a sharp ‘That’s all in the past!’ whenever she’d asked. And all her father would say was that her grandparents had been ‘lovely’. She’d given up asking, in the end.
‘I used to draw, too, a long time ago. Mum thought it was a waste of time. She said I’d never be able to make a living that way.’ Sophie shrugs. ‘I became an architect instead. Mum didn’t have a problem with me learning technical drawing. Everything had to have a purpose for her. She didn’t believe in art for art’s sake.’
‘Really?’ Ellie flips closed the cover of her drawing pad. ‘She didn’t used to be like that. She was an excellent pianist, you know.’
‘Yes, Dad told me. She played in concert halls and everything. I never heard her play. We had a piano, but she never touched it.’
Ellie shakes her head. ‘That’s a shame.’ She slides her glasses off her nose and lets them fall against her chest. ‘You should take up drawing again.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I’d be awfully rusty, and I don’t have much free time.’
‘You have plenty of free time here. Let’s go out tomorrow. We’ll go drawing together. I’ll teach you some techniques.’
‘Um … sure, why not?’ Sophie glances over to the others who are scrambling over the rocks in a competition to pick the most berries. ‘Will Becca and Florie come too?
‘No, Florie’s starting Becca on her multiplication tables tomorrow.’
‘Sam mentioned you teach Becca at home.’
‘For now, anyway. Sam thinks she’s too young to be sent off to board at the school for the deaf in St John’s, and, since the primary school in Tippy’s Tickle closed a few years ago, the closest public school is an hour bus ride away in Wesleyville. I used to teach Emmy at home before the old school reopened back in the Fifties. I taught art at the high school in Wesleyville for years, too, before I retired. Becca’s in good hands.’
‘How did Winny meet Sam?’
‘They met at Memorial University in St John’s. He’d come back from Boston to study mathematics there and be closer to his mother in Grand Falls. She wasn’t well, poor thing. Ovarian cancer. His father died in a car accident down in Boston when Sam was sixteen and she’d moved back to her hometown. He stayed in Boston until he finished high school.’
‘What were they doing down in Boston?’
‘Sam’s parents moved down there when he was a boy. Looking for more opportunities, I suppose. They had relatives down there. A lot of Irish Newfoundlanders do.
‘Sam and Winny got married at St Stephen’s here after she graduated with her Master’s in Psychology. They moved back to Boston and Sam had a very successful property development company there. They tried for years to have a baby. They’d almost given up when Becca finally came along.’ Ellie sets the drawing pad and the pencil in her lap. ‘Then …’ Ellie sighs as she looks out over the grey-blue ocean. ‘Then, she died. There was an accident.’ She shakes her head. ‘She was only forty-five.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Yes.’ Ellie clears her throat and picks up the drawing pad and pencil. Flipping open the cover, she bends over the pad and draws sweeping strokes onto the paper. ‘Poor Sam was beside himself. He was here with Becca for the funeral. We buried Winny’s ashes in St Stephen’s Cemetery. This was her home, after all.’
‘Why didn’t he stay in Boston if his business was there?’
‘Things became … difficult for him in Boston.’ She opens her mouth as if to say something, but presses her lips together.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, Becca needed special attention and … Sam took Winny’s death hard. Florie and I were worried. There were … problems with his business. He had to close it. We persuaded him to come to Tippy’s Tickle. So, three years ago he came and started helping Emmy in his boat-building business.’ She smiles at Sophie. ‘I had to twist Emmy’s arm. He’s never been one to like working with others. He fished for years up in Fogo, saved every penny he could. When Rod Fizzard’s boat-building business came up for sale twenty years ago he bought it. He’s been working there ever since.’
‘So, Emmett owns the business?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Sam’s his employee?’
‘Well, part-time. It was always meant to be a temporary arrangement until Sam got back on his feet financially. Sam’s started his own business working on the houses around here and he’s making furniture as well; Emmy showed him how to turn wood, and he’s really taken to it. He’s got a real talent for it.’ She looks over at Sophie. ‘I doubt Sam’ll stay for long. Becca loves it here. We love having them, but people move on. Tippy’s Tickle is a small place for someone like Sam.’
‘It can’t be easy for him, after running a big business in Boston.’
‘I suppose.’ Ellie smiles at Sophie. ‘Things change. Life never stays the same. I hear people say they don’t like change. That’s just ridiculous. If you don’t make choices, you can be sure choices will be made for you. I’ve always thought that it’s better to be the agent of your own destiny. Though sometimes you’ll wonder if you’ve made a huge mistake.’ She smiles at Sophie. ‘There were times I certainly did.’