MORNING SERIAL
“COME on, let’s see if there is some fresh lemonade in the kitchen, and then I’ll take you out to the studio.”
I followed him again, this energetic, curious figure.
The place felt lonely. I had seen somebody down by the pool, maybe a couple of people, and I had been shown in by his driver, but there was no sense that there was anybody else around now. He walked me back through the hallway past the staircase – I took a shy glimpse of the towering Samurais – and through to the anaesthetic surfaces of the kitchen.
“So you were a student of Francis?” he said with his head in one of the industrial chrome refrigerators.
“Quite some time ago,” I said. It was a house that deserved staff, and yet there was no sign of them or signs of where they might have been.
“But you have made a name for yourself since then, no?” He backed out from the fridge precariously carrying a jug of pale yellow liquid. “Francis wouldn’t have put in his will for you to come here if he didn’t think highly of your work.”
“I honestly couldn’t say what his motivations were, Mr Prostakov.”
This seemed to catch him off stride a little. “Ah, yes, I understand, of course. And make sure you call me Illarion. Illie; call me Illie.” And he stopped his search for glasses into which to pour the cloudy lemonade. “I should have been clear from the beginning. There is always so much to remember.” He walked over to a door that seemed to lead back outside and he said, “Francis’s belongings.” “What about them?” I said. “Come. I’ll show you.” And he opened the door and went out into the heat of the day.
My footing was off by now – I had come expecting a hard encounter, one with an intimidating Russian who would explain something to me about Francis and perhaps I would leave somewhat less of a man than I had arrived, but I had taken solace in the fact I was expected to make my own way out there, and had not been either fetched or tumbled into the back of that Bentley against my will.
> The Golden Orphans by Gary Raymond is published by Parthian www.parthianbooks.com
CONTINUES MONDAY