The Keeper

Robert Helps Dean

Shortly after that, the letter arrived from 'Whitmore & Perkins, Solicitors', petitioning for divorce on the grounds of adultery, and demanding half of everything. Dean wrote to them and said that was fine, but that she could have everything but his car, what was in the shed, and the clothes he could fit into an old backpack.

When he met his friend again, Robert told him he was a nutter. "You're playing right into her hands, you know that? She's probably been having an affair long before you started up with your student girl. Don't you see what she's doing? She's taking advantage of you to take everything."

"That's not true; she would've taken half, but I didn't want it. I never wanted any of it in the first place. She's doing me a favour, really. Now I have no excuse not to paint. And I won't be making a mess of the bloody awful carpets."

"That's good news, at least. I know I can sell your paintings."

"It's too early for that, Robert,"

"Okay, fine, but what are you going to do for money?"

"I've cashed in some old premium bonds and sold my bike."

Robert knew that wouldn't amount to much. "Then what?"

"I'll find something. Something a long way from here. At the end of the Earth, preferably."

"Well, I might be able to help you there. I've been asking around; a friend of a friend has some space in her old barn. I saw the place a while back; it was a wreck then, so god knows what it's like now. Anyway, she needs someone to clear it out and tidy up the garden, so that people staying in her cottage don't have to look out onto a wasteland. You could probably live there until the cold weather comes. It's on the other side of Truro, which might as well be the end of the Earth as far as people around here are concerned. How does that sound?"

"Tell me more."

Before Dean left, he made Robert swear not to tell anybody anything about where he was. Robert did so on the condition that Dean promise he would let him sell his paintings when he was ready.

By the end of the week, Dean had packed his backpack and the contents of the shed into his car and was ready to drive west. He knew it was a risk, but he had to write one last letter to Martha. He left it at the Post and hoped she was still checking it.