Summer in the City

by Fiona Collins

  ‘You must remember,’ says Kemp, throwing me an odd look.

  I do. I do. How can I forget? How we sat on the freezing stone steps at the front of the house and swigged out of the bottle of beer Kemp had smuggled out of the pub. How Kemp leapt up at one point and walked unsteadily backwards down the grassy bank to the pond, spreading his arms wide and calling out, ‘They filmed Notting Hill here, you know? When Julia Roberts is shooting that Henry James movie. I’m just a boy, prancing around in front of a permanently grumpy girl …’ How he returned to the steps and there our beautiful friendship ended.

  ‘You broke in,’ says Dad, sounding impressed. ‘A precursor for all this urban exploring you’re doing then, lad?’

  ‘I guess so,’ says Kemp. ‘It can be magical being somewhere you’re not supposed to be. It was the last night I saw you, Prue,’ he adds, looking in my direction.

  ‘Let’s walk a little, round the perimeter of the house,’ I say quickly. ‘People keep having to walk around us.’

  We walk, the three of us. As I describe sash windows and pillars and porticos to Dad, I know it’s also magical, and heartbreaking, being with someone you’re not supposed to be with. I was not supposed to be sitting so close to this amazing man, in the moonlight, in front of this beautiful house, in these wonderful grounds that had been shut up for the night. I was not supposed to feel the way I did about him. When Kemp returned from his Notting Hill backwards-walking shtick, he plonked himself back down on the steps and his right thigh, in those dusty jeans, was touching mine and I could feel the heat of him, but it was nothing compared to the heat that was soaring through me, the pain of knowing I loved him but he couldn’t feel the same about me – ever. I was ugly, inside and out. I was not good, like him. I had too many black marks against me and he knew most of them.

  ‘I’m going to India next month,’ he told me, on that step. ‘Jaipur and Udaipur. The palaces.’

  ‘How lovely,’ I replied. ‘I bet you’ll get some amazing photos.’

  ‘Yeah, should be good,’ he said. ‘Have you been?’

  ‘Where, to India? Of course I haven’t!’

  He nodded. He looked at me for a few seconds and then it seemed he might be about to say something else, but instead he turned and looked out over the darkness, beer in hand, dreaming of those places, I assumed; dreaming of the adventures he’d have. I stared and stared at the side of his face. I couldn’t bear that he was going away again, without a care. Not missing me. Not wanting me. Not counting the days until he saw me again, like I did with him. I couldn’t bear that I could only ever be his friend. Someone for jokes, and ghost stories, and drinks in the pub. Someone for everything but love.

  I wanted and I wanted and I wanted to take that glorious, miraculous, warm and lovely face in my hands and kiss him and tell him I loved him. Instead, I just said, ‘Kemp,’ and he turned to me with a smile and said, ‘What?’ and I said, ‘I’m cold, shall we go back now?’

  I wasn’t cold. I was burning inside, with the pain of a love that couldn’t be returned, and I knew I couldn’t go on feeling it. Not any more.

  Dad’s hand is tugging on my arm slightly. His right foot crunches on the gravel. ‘Shall we go in the house now?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  The three of us step into the entrance hall, where it is cool and smells of old houses, a smell Dad breathes in deeply as we go through the door and I pretend to do the same, but really I am taking a deep breath of relief. There are no memories in here, apart from the ones of Angela and I tearing through these rooms, giggling and excited (well, she was tearing; I was just in the slipstream), and staring, bored, at paintings and clomp-clomp-clomping in our sandals on the oak staircase, because it sounded nice and it was fun. There is no Kemp in here.

  I spot a tactile map of the house on the wall, which I manoeuvre Dad to, and he runs his hand over it.

  ‘Robert Adam designed much of Kenwood House,’ he says. ‘It was built in the seventeenth century and served as a residence for the Earls of Mansfield through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It’s kept today in its original condition, exactly like a house, for people to walk freely through and experience – a house with many priceless old masters and landscapes hanging on its walls, of course.’

  It’s just how I remember it: the wooden floors, the gorgeous winding staircases with their great acoustics, the richly patterned rugs, those imposing old masters. We start to make our way round. Dad and I lead; Kemp follows. There’s a Braille guide in each room. Dad is impressed.

  We trail through, room after room. I describe what I can see to Dad. The rich Aubusson rugs; the marble fireplaces and the cast-iron radiators; the window seats framed by heavy and pelmeted velvet curtains. The extensive artwork. I describe everything as carefully and concisely as I can. We enter the library, or great room. Here there is a stunningly pretty panelled and decorated domed ceiling, in pale pink and blue.

  ‘Look up,’ says Dad, ‘at the cornicing. They’ve painted over some of the gilding, apparently, after extensive research of hundreds of forensic paint samples. Can you see it?’

  I don’t know what I’m looking at.

  ‘A protective barrier between the old gilding and new paint, but the next generation of renovators will still be able to get to the gilded layer and—’

  ‘Oh, it’s Carina!’ Kemp exclaims. ‘Excuse me a moment.’

  Looking away from the cornicing, I see him bounding over to a woman in a black shift dress and navy ballet pumps, who is staring up at one of the old masters. Her hair is a blond contained chignon; her arms are gilded with wide bronze cuffs; she has an enormous designer bag over one shoulder. She is one of those women – glossy, polished. The sort of woman that makes me feel like the last pumpkin in the bargain bucket at Halloween.

  She looks delighted to see Kemp. They share a hug and two air kisses. I turn back to Dad and a portrait of a man sitting on a gold chair. I describe the painting to Dad: the colours – as best I can, hoping he can imagine them – the use of light and shade, the direction of the brushstrokes.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asks me.

  ‘Yes, absolutely fine. Why?’

  ‘With Kemp being here, I mean. You seem a bit off.’

  ‘I’m OK,’ I say flippantly. ‘I’m fine. Of course I’m fine.’ I stare resolutely at the painting. I am not going to look over at Kemp and his polished Carina. He’s never hugged me like that.

  ‘You like him, don’t you?’

  ‘Everyone likes Kemp. What’s not to like?’

  ‘No, I mean like him.’

  I move Dad on to another painting of another long-dead gentleman. Lots to describe here. A rather interesting hat.

  ‘I liked him,’ I say. ‘We were friends. That’s it.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I say so. Now, let me tell you about this painting—’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘What do you mean “hmm”? Are you OK, Dad?’ I ask. I’m deflecting like crazy, but I also want to know. ‘After what we talked about at the Shard? Are you OK today? Being out? Being here?’

  ‘I’m fine, Prue,’ says Dad. ‘Nice subject change, by the way …’ He smiles at me. ‘You just have to keep on keeping on, you know? Isn’t it all we can do? And I’ve got you, haven’t I?’ I think of our huge hug again, in front of the Shard. ‘To keep me brave.’

  ‘Brave?’

  ‘To keep coming out again. To keep saying “yes”. To take opportunities. To put myself out there even if it’s scary. I want to ask you something.’

  He already has, hasn’t he? Asked me about Kemp. And I have fibbed. It’s my default position, hiding my true feelings from Dad, isn’t it? I’ve done it for so long. ‘Go on.’

  ‘You can take opportunities, can’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You can say “yes” to things; you can put yourself out there. You could look for opportunities, if you wanted to. Develop your passions.’

  ‘Y
ou’ve lost me.’

  ‘I found your paintings,’ says Dad.

  ‘What paintings?’

  ‘Come on, you know what I’m talking about! Ten or eleven pieces of A4 cartridge paper, curled at the corners or slightly crunchy – some of them – like they’d been made wet and then had dried – plus paintbrushes, paints, one of those trays with the thumb hole in it … I may not be able to see but I can feel.’

  ‘When did you find those?’ I rack my brains for when I may have left them out.

  ‘About a year ago. You were out, on one of your occasional visits to a charity shop or something. You must have forgotten to put them away.’

  ‘A year ago. You never mentioned it.’

  ‘You obviously didn’t want to tell me about them, so I didn’t ask. Well, I asked you at Little Venice, about taking up art again. You brushed me off, if you excuse the pun. But I’m asking you now.’

  ‘Well, yes, I’ve done some paintings.’ I’m so cross with myself for inadvertently leaving them around; how could I have been so stupid?

  ‘And are they good? Are you going to show them to anyone?’

  I gently move Dad out of the way as a mother and son are trying to file past us.

  ‘I don’t know, and no.’

  ‘You’ll never know if they’re good or not if you don’t show them to someone.’

  ‘Well, then I guess I’ll never know.’

  ‘Are you scared?’

  I laugh. ‘I’m not scared, Dad.’

  ‘Really? I think you are. I think you’re scared you’ll be told they’re good and I think you’re scared you’ll be told they’re not.’

  ‘I’m not scared,’ I repeat.

  ‘Well, then show them to someone.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘It might be time for some true bravery, Prue. It might be time for—’

  ‘Dad …’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ says Kemp. He is back. Carina has gone. I see the final corner of her expansive bag disappearing round a door frame.

  ‘Friend of yours?’ I ask him.

  ‘Kind of.’

  I look at Dad, worried he is going to continue our conversation. He doesn’t. He takes my arm and we carry on circling the room, with me continuing to describe the paintings to him in a half-hearted manner. I’m sorry Dad found mine, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m not going to show them to anyone. I’m not going to do anything about them.

  Kemp trails after us. He studies the paintings in great detail. Well, he’s an artist, isn’t he? It’s his kind of deal.

  ‘There’s a self-portrait of Rembrandt in the dining room,’ he says to Dad and me, after a while. ‘And after that shall we go and get some lunch?’

  CHAPTER 27

  We go to the Brew House café and sit outside in its pretty courtyard garden. I have a slice of coffee-and-walnut cake; Kemp has an enormous brownie. Dad orders a fresh ravioli dish and salad, which he has to wait ten minutes for but they offer to bring it over. We make small talk, mostly about the glorious weather, and I pour tea for us, and then Dad’s lunch is delivered to him by a smiling woman in a pale blue apron.

  ‘Enjoy,’ she says, placing it in front of him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘It smells wonderful, just like the ravioli san Marzano Mama used to make. Bellissimo!’

  She smiles. ‘You’re Italian?’ she asks.

  ‘Si,’ replies Dad.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Ah,’ says Dad, and they both give a silly little laugh.

  She moves off to the next table to chat to the couple there. Dad takes a bite of his ravioli.

  ‘Delicious,’ he says. ‘Compliments to the chef,’ he comments to me and Kemp.

  ‘The chef is me,’ the woman giggles from the next table. ‘Sorry,’ she adds, turning back to us. ‘I appear to be highly tuned to the slightest compliment.’

  ‘So you should be.’ Dad smiles. ‘It really is wonderful. It’s got a lovely lemony hint to it.’

  ‘That’s the lemon balm. We grow it here in the gardens.’

  ‘I love lemon balm,’ says Dad. ‘I sometimes sprinkle it through a caprese salad.’

  ‘Nice. And it’s wonderful with fish,’ she adds. ‘There’s also plenty of basil and wild garlic in that dish, all grown here.’

  ‘Wild garlic is the nectar of the gods,’ offers Dad. ‘I throw it in everything, from ribollita to pasta alla Norma …’

  Kemp and I glance at each other.

  ‘You cook?’ asks the woman.

  ‘Every night,’ says Dad, turning his face in my direction. I grin sheepishly.

  The chef tucks her hands in the front pocket of her apron. ‘I can take you to our herb garden, when you’ve finished eating, and talk you through what we grow here, if you’d like.’

  ‘I’m blind,’ says Dad. ‘And do you have the time?’

  ‘I thought you might be,’ she replies. ‘And, yes I do, I’m on my break in twenty minutes.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ says Dad.

  Kemp and I raise eyebrows at each other. Dad is saying ‘yes’, I think, yes to opportunities. He’s giving me an out-and-out demonstration.

  ‘Perfetto. Then I’ll be back.’

  And twenty minutes later she is, sans apron, and with a, ‘Shall we?’ Dad gets up from the table.

  ‘I’ll need to hold on to your arm,’ he says.

  ‘Absolutely fine,’ says the woman, and Dad takes her arm and they wander out of the courtyard and in the direction of Kenwood House’s kitchen gardens.

  ‘Well, look at that,’ remarks Kemp. ‘Your dad’s on a herby date.’

  ‘It looks that way,’ I laugh. I am quite astonished, really. Off he’s gone, just like that. ‘Funny the things people are interested in,’ I add. ‘I wouldn’t know a basil from a brush.’

  Kemp laughs too, and I realize we’re sitting in the same positions we used to sit at, at our table in the pub. Except now we have tea not Jack Daniel’s and Coke and I don’t have a beer mat to tear to pieces, so I work on a napkin in between sipping at my tea and stabbing my finger at the remaining crumbs of my cake.

  ‘Here, put your sunglasses on, Ted.’

  There’s an elderly couple at the next table. The man – white-haired and frail-looking – is blinking in the sunlight; the woman – soft platinum hair and pale eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses – rummages in her bag and tenderly places a pair of sunglasses on the old man’s face, pushing them up his nose until they are in the right position.

  ‘There,’ she says.

  ‘Thank you, Annie,’ he replies. I watch as she cuts his piece of cake into neat slices and pushes the plate closer to him. He smiles at her. She winks back at him and says, ‘It’s a lovely sponge. Try some.’ I glance at Kemp and he is looking at them too.

  ‘I’d like to be like that, one day,’ he says.

  ‘What, not losing your sunglasses because someone else always has them in her bag?’

  ‘No, well, yes – but no, in a couple like that. Look at how in love they are.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. We watch as the woman gently wipes crumbs from the man’s mouth with a napkin. She affectionately pats him on the chin with it, too, and his hand grabs hold of hers and holds it tight, for a few seconds, as they look into each other’s eyes and smile the smile of the known and loved.

  ‘How lovely to grow old with someone,’ he says.

  ‘Is it? I’m not sure I want someone to see me get old,’ I say, with all due nonchalance, but I am not telling the truth as I think I would love this, this tender slipping into the night, whilst holding someone’s hand – this love and companionship, to the very end.

  ‘I would,’ says Kemp, looking thoughtful. ‘I think it would be wonderful. To have someone who sees everything. To have someone to call “home”.’

  ‘Better find someone, then,’ I say. ‘Before it’s too late.’

  ‘Charming!’

  ‘Better just grab anyone you can.’

 
; Kemp looks at me. ‘Thanks very much,’ he says slowly. ‘I might just have to do that. Settle with just anyone so I won’t be a lonely old fool.’

  ‘Wherever you lay your hat …’ I shrug.

  I know he won’t do this. I know he would only grow old with someone he deserves. Someone he would place very carefully in his heart, and keep safe. Lucky cow. ‘Good plan.’

  He raises his left eyebrow slightly at me. ‘You know that woman, in the house, she was my ex-girlfriend.’

  ‘Oh?’ The napkin suddenly becomes completely fascinating.

  ‘Yes. Carina. We went out for almost a year.’

  The feigned nonchalance is still holding up. ‘Why did you break up?’

  ‘Well, she was lovely, but, ultimately, she was too linear for me.’

  ‘Linear? I don’t get it.’

  ‘No mystery, nothing to unravel. Straightforward, open. Too nice. Too easy to get along with. Not for me.’

  ‘Oh, right. You want someone you don’t get along with? That’s a bit weird.’

  ‘No, not exactly that. I want someone who doesn’t always agree with me. I want banter. I want someone who I feel there’s constantly more to discover about. I want an onion.’

  ‘You want an onion.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  ‘I miss you,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said I miss you. I missed you. All this time.’ I am looking up from the napkin. Into his face. His eyes. I have no idea what they’re saying to me. ‘We had such a great time, you and me.’

  I screw the napkin into a ball with my fist. Hold on to it tight. ‘Why do you miss me? Have you still not got any friends?’

  This is cruel and I immediately regret it. I think of David Somebody, the school friend who moved away. Kemp, the loner in the darkroom. The boy who always had a plan.