Member-only story
Rowan Lodge
A story about art, love and ghosts.
Daisy Taylor spent most days in her painting studio on the top floor of a Mayfair townhouse where she lived with her husband Felix Reginald Taylor.
Felix owned a small gallery called The Faeger, which had an impressive collection of post-war Japanese abstracts. The Faeger was just three-blocks away from the townhouse, so this evening, same as almost every other evening, Felix walked home after work. As he approached the townhouse, Daisy could hear him singing through the street-facing window.
“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I’m half crazy, all for the love of you –” Unlike his baritone speaking voice, Felix’s singing voice was high-pitched and clear, like a prepubescent altar boy’s. Though they’d been married for a decade and two years, Daisy was still unsettled by how incongruous that delicate crooning sounded coming from a man as bearish and portly as Felix.
She wiped her paint-smudged fingers on a rag, walked down the stairs, opened the door and gave him a perfunctory hug.
“Hello darling. How’s your masterpiece coming along?” Felix asked removing his worsted coat and hanging it on the rack along the entryway.
“It’s not,” said Daisy who was already sauntering back upstairs.
