Motherland

by William Nicholson

  Nell says nothing. Larry feels he’s proved his point, and is demonstrably right, while at the same time knowing he’s in the wrong. As a result he’s far more disturbed than he cares to admit.

  Nell moves away and lights another cigarette. She stands by the window, smoking, looking out.

  ‘Good old fags,’ she says. ‘Something to do while we’re not talking.’

  ‘Oh, Nell,’ says Larry.

  ‘Do you feel hurt?’ she says. ‘Do you think I’m being unfair to you?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ says Larry.

  ‘You know how I am,’ she says. ‘I’ve been the same from the start, haven’t I? All I’ve ever said to you is, don’t lie to me.’

  ‘How am I lying to you?’

  ‘I’ve never asked for promises. I’ve never tried to tie you down. We’re with each other because we love each other. There’s no other reason. If you don’t want to be with me all you have to do is say so.’

  ‘But I do want to be with you.’

  ‘More than you want to be with Kitty?’

  ‘Yes!’ Larry feels helpless rage growing within him. ‘Why do you keep going on about Kitty? She’s my friend, just like Ed’s my friend. Am I not to have friends now? Nothing has ever happened between me and Kitty. First she was Ed’s girl, and now she’s Ed’s wife. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘Why do you keep going on about Kitty, Larry?’

  ‘Me!’ He waves his hands in the air with frustration. ‘Me! It’s you who’s been going on about Kitty, not me.’

  ‘Can you guess why?’

  ‘Of course I can guess why. You’re jealous of her. But I keep telling you there is nothing between me and Kitty.’

  ‘Still all about Kitty,’ says Nell.

  ‘All right! Forget Kitty! No more Kitty! She’s not important.’

  His chest feels tight. He wants to hit something.

  ‘So what’s important, Larry?’

  He gets it then, the thing that’s driving him wild. It’s the soft relentless tone, as if he’s a child who’s been set a puzzle, and she’s the teacher who wants to get him to work out the answer for himself. This has the perverse effect of making him not want to give the approved answer. He’s supposed to say, ‘You and me, that’s what’s important.’ But it won’t come out.

  Instead he says, ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ve had enough of this conversation. I don’t think it’s getting us anywhere.’

  ‘So what do you want to do instead?’ she says.

  ‘I don’t know. Relax. Enjoy being with you. I haven’t seen you for two weeks.’

  ‘You want to go to bed?’

  ‘No, I don’t mean that. Well, yes, I do. But I mean just relax. Feel good together.’

  ‘I want that too,’ says Nell.

  ‘Come over here, then. Give me a kiss.’

  She comes to him and they kiss, but he can feel her holding back from him. This, and the kiss, and having her in his arms, fills him with a sudden rush of desire.

  ‘We could go to bed,’ he says.

  ‘Would you mind if we didn’t?’ she says.

  ‘No, of course not.’

  But his body minds. The more he knows he can’t have her, the more he wants her. The code of good manners sustains him. You don’t grab. You wait to be served.

  ‘I’m supposed to be having dinner with somebody,’ she says.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A friend of Julius’s called Peter Beaumont. He came to your private view. He’s rich.’

  ‘Oh, well then. You’d better have dinner with him.’

  ‘Why don’t you come too?’

  ‘Me!’

  ‘I bet you could do with a square meal. I know I could.’

  Suddenly it all seems too ridiculous for words. Larry feels the tension melting away.

  ‘You just want the dinner?’

  ‘Of course. He’s bound to take us somewhere swish.’

  ‘But he won’t want me.’

  ‘If I tell him to, he will.’

  *

  Peter Beaumont greets Larry with a soft handshake, a sweet sad smile.

  ‘Nell’s told me all about you. I did so admire your work. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

  ‘I do hope you don’t mind me tagging along,’ says Larry.

  ‘Of course he doesn’t mind,’ says Nell. ‘I’ve told him you’re a starving artist and it’s the duty of the wealthy man to support the arts.’

  Peter takes them to the Savoy Grill. It’s immediately clear that he’s a familiar figure here. Larry feels under-dressed and out of place. Nell behaves as though she owns the restaurant.

  ‘I want heaps and heaps of red meat,’ she says.

  Peter is all too obviously smitten with Nell. From time to time he meets Larry’s eyes with a look that says, Isn’t she extraordinary! It doesn’t seem to occur to him that Larry might be a rival. He orders two bottles of excellent wine, and Larry, not really knowing what’s going on, decides to drink as much as possible.

  ‘Lawrence is a genius,’ Nell tells Peter. ‘You must buy his paintings.’

  ‘Perhaps I could visit your studio,’ Peter says to Larry, as if seeking a rare favour.

  ‘I’m afraid Nell is too kind,’ says Larry.

  She’s certainly kind to Peter. She smiles at him, and reaches across the table to touch his hand when wanting to hold his attention, and takes care to turn the conversation towards his concerns.

  ‘Peter has this terrible wife,’ she says. ‘She treats him in the most vile manner. If he ever touches her, even by accident, she shudders.’

  Peter gives Larry his sad smile.

  ‘One of those mistakes one makes,’ he says.

  ‘Poor Peter,’ says Nell, stroking his hand.

  Larry is lost. He has only joined them because it seemed Nell wanted him to be there, to witness that her evening with this male friend is innocent. And yet here she is, acting as if they’re lovers.

  ‘Isn’t Nell amazing?’ Peter says to Larry. ‘I tell her she’s like a princess in a fairy tale.’

  ‘I’m the prize you get after all that nasty questing,’ says Nell.

  By the end of the evening Peter is holding Nell’s hand in his and Larry is thoroughly miserable.

  ‘Now you must come back to my place for a nightcap,’ says Peter.

  Even Larry knows when the time has come to go.

  ‘I’ll be on my way,’ he says. ‘Excellent dinner. Do me good to walk it off.’

  Nell barely notices that he’s leaving.

  The walk back to Camberwell through night streets takes a good hour, long enough in the cool air to sober Larry up and leave him hurt and angry. He has no idea what Nell was thinking of when she included him in the dinner, and he has no idea what her relationship is with Peter Beaumont. All he knows is that he has been made to look like a fool.

  He half expects Nell to show up at his door later that night, but she never comes. Nor does she make contact the following day. His hurt and anger, feeding on itself, turns into a crazy obsession which stops him from working or thinking about anything else. Then in the evening, there she is.

  ‘Nell! Where have you been?’

  ‘That’s not much of a welcome,’ she replies.

  ‘I’ve been going insane!’

  ‘Why? Am I supposed to report to you daily?’

  Her blank pretence of not understanding him drives Larry into open rage. He shouts at her, there on the doorstep.

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re doing! I don’t know what you want of me! I don’t know why you treat me like this! But I’m sick of it. I don’t want any more!’

  She lets him shout, looking away down the street until he’s finished. Then she turns back to him as if everything he’s just said is an embarrassing body noise to be overlooked.

  ‘May I come in?’

  In his room she turns on him with cold anger.

  ‘Never do that again. Never shout at me in public. What right have you to talk
to me like that? You don’t own me.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Nell!’

  ‘If you have something to say to me, say it right now.’

  ‘You know I have.’

  ‘I only know what you tell me, Lawrence. I’m not a mind reader.’

  ‘Last night,’ says Larry. ‘That was humiliating.’

  ‘Humiliating? You ate a very good dinner, if I recall. Peter was extremely pleasant to you. Why was it humiliating?’

  ‘You went off with him at the end.’

  ‘Did you stop me?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Why not? Apparently you minded.’

  ‘Of course I minded!’ he cries.

  ‘Then why didn’t you say so?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Nell. I have my dignity. I’m not going to throw my weight about when a man has just bought me an expensive dinner.’

  ‘So I’m the one who’s supposed to throw his generosity back in his face, am I? I’m supposed to say, Sorry, Peter, I’m going home with Lawrence because he’s sulking.’

  ‘Why did you ask me last night? What was the point of that? Anybody can see he’s in love with you. Why rub my face in that?’

  ‘Maybe I wanted to show you you don’t own me.’

  ‘Of course I don’t bloody own you!’

  ‘Then what’s all this fuss about, Lawrence?’

  She’s staring at him with those big truth-demanding eyes, and he knows now he’s going to have to say something he really means.

  ‘You’re going to have my baby,’ he says.

  ‘Ah,’ she says. ‘So that’s it.’

  ‘Of course that’s it. That’s everything.’

  She takes out her cigarettes and offers him one, but he shakes his head. Her hands are steady as he lights her cigarette, but his are shaking. She draws the smoke in deep and exhales, turning her face away.

  ‘So if there wasn’t a baby, you wouldn’t mind about any of it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Yes, I’d mind.’

  ‘Do you know something I’ve realised about you, Lawrence? You never take the physical initiative. You never touch me unless I touch you.’

  Larry feels the tightness in his chest returning. Somehow he’s got caught in a trap from which there’s no escape. Perhaps she means him to touch her now. He feels paralysed.

  ‘Do you realise that?’ she says.

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘is there a point? Do tell.’

  ‘The point is the baby.’

  ‘What baby?’ she says.

  ‘The baby you’re going to have. Our baby.’

  ‘There is no baby,’ she says. ‘Not any more.’

  She goes on smoking, barely looking at him.

  ‘What?’ he says.

  ‘I had a miscarriage,’ says Nell. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you yet.’

  He stares at her, unable to take in what he’s just heard.

  ‘You weren’t going to tell me?’

  ‘But I have now.’

  He struggles to make sense of what’s happening.

  ‘Why not tell me?’

  ‘I thought if I didn’t tell you,’ she says simply, devastatingly, ‘you’d go on loving me.’

  He gives a sudden gasp.

  ‘Oh, Nell!’

  He takes her in his arms and holds her close, tears rising to his eyes.

  ‘Oh, Nell!’

  He’s overwhelmed by pity and relief and guilt. Once again the future has changed before him, swinging abruptly to send him off in a new direction. Nell reaches out from within his embrace to stub out her cigarette.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Nell. I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘Are you, darling?’

  Her gentle voice is back.

  ‘What happened? When did it happen?’

  ‘Almost two weeks ago now.’

  ‘What about your trip?’

  ‘There wasn’t any trip. Don’t keep asking me questions, darling. It’s been beastly, but I just tell myself it’s over now.’

  ‘You poor, poor sweetheart. And there I’ve been, making it all worse. You should have told me.’

  ‘Well, I’ve told you now.’

  They retreat to the bed, not for sex, but for mutual comfort. They lie there, curled in each other’s arms, like babes in the wood. The child that existed for so short a time seems to lie in their arms with them like a ghost, uniting them.

  ‘We can have another,’ says Larry, whispering.

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Of course I want to,’ he says. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m ready yet,’ she says. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘No, I don’t mind.’

  She’s wiser than him. When he talks of another baby it’s no more than his way of consoling her, and showing her he loves her. For him ‘another baby’ is an idea, not a reality. But she is the one whose body will carry the child. For her it’s more than an emotional gesture.

  ‘I want you so much to be free,’ she tells him.

  It amazes him how instinctively she understands his workings. Of course the baby placed him under a certain obligation. Hadn’t he asked her to marry him? But she knew better than him that this was not a free choice. Now she gives him back his freedom. Her truthfulness and her generosity humble him.

  Then he remembers the way she reached across the table at the Savoy Grill to stroke Peter Beaumont’s hand, and confusion overtakes him once more. He feels he’s being manipulated, but has no idea to what end.

  ‘Sometimes I don’t understand what’s happening to us,’ he says to her.

  ‘It doesn’t need to be understood,’ she says. ‘People either love each other or they don’t.’

  ‘I do love you, Nell. I’m sure of that.’

  In this moment, lying with her in his arms, released by her promise of freedom, he can say the simple words.

  ‘And I do love you, darling,’ she replies.

  For a while they stay like this, warmed by each other, silent. The immensity of the information they have exchanged has exhausted them. Then Nell pulls herself up into a sitting position and straightens her clothes.

  ‘I’m going to go now,’ she says.

  ‘When will I see you again?’

  She gets up off the bed and stretches like a cat. Then she turns to him with a smile.

  ‘Darling Lawrence,’ she says. ‘You can see me any time you want. But do you know what I think? You’re not to be cross with me. I think what you need to do now is have a real, truthful talk with your friend Kitty. Tell her whatever it is you’ve got to tell her, and hear what she has to say to you. Because until you’ve done that, I don’t think you’re really going to be able to love anyone else, not with all of your heart.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ protests Larry, going pink. ‘No, that’s wrong. That’s not how it is at all. And anyway, even if it was, what’s the point? She’s married to Ed.’

  ‘Is she happy with Ed?’

  Larry stares at Nell in consternation. It’s like hearing his own secret thoughts out loud.

  ‘I can’t do that, Nell.’

  ‘You’re quite a one for not doing things, aren’t you, Lawrence? But if you want something, you have to do something about it. It’s no good just waiting for it to fall in your lap. If you want Kitty, tell her so, and see what happens. And if it doesn’t work out, and you decide it’s me you want after all, tell me so, and see what happens.’

  She gives him a soft lingering kiss on the mouth before she leaves.

  ‘Don’t be such a scaredy-cat, darling. Those that don’t ask don’t get.’

  22

  Towards the end of January 1947 snow begins to fall over southeast England, and it continues to fall until the land is thickly blanketed. Within two days the roads and railways have become impassable. Larry, visiting River Farm for the weekend, finds himself obliged to stay longer than he intended.

 
; On that first weekend they go out sledging. Heavily wrapped in warm clothes, they cross the silent main road and climb the long diagonal track to the top of Mount Caburn. Ed carries the sledge. Larry holds Pamela’s hand, so that he can swing her up out of the deep drifts. Kitty follows behind, only her nose and eyes visible in the bundle of scarves and woolly hats.

  The sky is clear as ice. From the top of the ridge they look out over a white world. Their breath makes clouds as they stand, panting from the climb through shin-deep snow, marvelling at the view.

  ‘It’s like the whole world is starting again,’ says Kitty. ‘All young and unwrinkled.’

  ‘Are we to go right to the top?’ says Ed. ‘I have a tremendous urge to ride the sledge down the front of Caburn.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ says Kitty.

  The south face of Caburn drops steeply down to the valley, too steep for the shepherds and their sheep to climb. The tracks are all up the gentler sides of the Down.

  ‘Want to sledge!’ cries Pammy. ‘Want to sledge!’

  Even here the slope is of some concern.

  ‘It’ll be all right if we run sideways,’ says Ed, volunteering to test the ground.

  He lays the sledge on the snow and sits on it. He rocks his upper body back and forth, and away he goes. For a few minutes he proceeds sedately across the hillside. Then the sledge tips on a snow-covered ridge and he topples off to one side. The onlookers cheer.

  Ed comes trudging back, caked with snow, dragging the sledge. Kitty brushes snow off his hair and eyebrows.

  ‘Why aren’t you wearing a hat, you foolish man?’

  ‘Me, me, me!’ cries Pammy.

  The little girl has her turn, squealing with excitement, Ed loping along beside the sledge on the downhill side, holding the rope. When she in her turn tumbles off he scoops her up out of the snow and sits her back on the sledge and tows it up to the others. The collar of her coat is thick with snow, and there’s snow all down her neck, but she’s jumping with the excitement of it.

  ‘Your turn, Larry,’ says Ed, giving him the rope.

  ‘Me, me, me!’ cries Pammy.

  ‘I’ll share,’ says Larry.

  He sits on the sledge, and Pammy sits between his knees, little arms gripping his thighs. Ed gives them a push off. All the way down Pammy carols with joy, and Larry tries with outstretched gloved hands to control their direction and speed. The cold wind on his face stings his cheeks and makes his eyes water. The eager child wriggles and shouts between his legs. The sledge lurches and sways, steadily gathering speed. There are no brakes, no way of stopping, other than tumbling off into the snow.