The Memory Garden by Rachel Hore

obstacles they had to deal with to become successful painters. I’m still fine-tuning my arguments,’ Mel said. ‘Are you sure I’m not boring you?’
    ‘Not at all. It’s fascinating.’
    Mel plunged into an explanation of her theories about the women painters, the subjects they chose to paint, their relationships with the men and how they had different obstacles in pursuing their careers.
    ‘Some of them came from quite privileged backgrounds,’ she said. ‘Nineteen hundred was still a time when it was very difficult for a woman of no means or social standing to develop artistic talent, unlike some of the men – Lamorna Birch is a great example of a man who pulled himself up by his bootstraps. Laura Knight was left in near poverty after her mother died, but she was a middle-class girl with education and connections. She still needed enormous determination, though, to become a painter.’
    ‘Sometimes a working girl became a model and married the painter,’ Patrick suggested.
    ‘Well, yes,’ she said, ‘that did happen. But of course,’ she added quickly, ‘the husband might not encourage her talent, and then children would start to come along. She would have to be very strongminded to practise her art in that case. She would have to make sacrifices.’
    ‘And you?’ Patrick said, leaning forward and carefully placing his wine glass on the table. He sat back, his hands clasped behind his head, and considered her seriously. ‘Do you make sacrifices? Chrissie told me you work much too hard.’
    ‘I enjoy my work,’ Mel replied. ‘It’s challenging and creative. So what else has my wretched sister been telling you?’
    ‘Nothing terrible, I assure you,’ he teased.
    ‘What about you, what is it you do?’ she said. Somehow he had got away with asking all the questions.
    ‘I sell inventions.’
    ‘You’re an inventor?’ She looked at him with curiosity.
    ‘Not exactly. My partner and I run a website for inventors. We help them sort out patents, which is a complex business, and try to find firms to develop and manufacture their ideas. We take a cut if it works out.’
    ‘What inventions have you sold?’
    ‘Quite a range, really. A new kind of rotary clothes-line, ergonomic chairs, gardening tools. There was a children’s toy that was a nice little earner a couple of Christmases ago – a remote controlled cat that climbed curtains.’
    ‘I remember – it was cute. My boyfriend’s kids had one. Ex-boyfriend, I mean.’ She stared at the ugly whorls on the carpet to hide her confusion. Boxing Day, three Christmases ago, the four of them together in Jake’s flat, little Freya bouncing with excitement as she ripped brightly coloured paper off present after present, her laughter at the antics of the funny little robot cat.
    ‘. . . plenty of less interesting things, too,’ Patrick was saying. ‘Widgets that reduce friction in engines, new types of packaging. And a lot of ideas that waste time and never come to anything.
    ‘How long have you been going?’
    ‘Five or six years. It started when Geoff and I were at uni. We had a deeply boring job picking blackcurrants one summer, and we thought up a gadget to help. In the end, about eight years ago, we got a manufacturer to take it up, but he ripped us off, designed his own version and did very well with it. Never gave us a penny. We didn’t want that to happen to other people so we started up the business as a sideline. It just grew and grew. On the whole I like the job. I was in high finance before and, quite frankly, I was getting burned out. It’s flexible, there’s some travel involved and you never know what you’ll be dealing with next. It’s amazing trying to gauge which idea is going to take off. But Geoff’s pulling out now, selling me his share of the business. I’ll be free to do what I want with it.’
    Mel nodded. ‘Will you need to be up in London all the time?’
    ‘That’s one of the things I’m considering. I’m