Motherland

by William Nicholson

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Larry,’ says Larry.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ exclaims Armitage. Then, ‘I’ll come down.’

  He lets Larry in the front door.

  ‘I’ve not been outside for a week,’ he says. ‘Too bloody cold.’

  Larry follows him up several flights of bare stairs to the rooms in the roof.

  ‘I’ve got nothing to eat,’ says Armitage. ‘There may be some brandy left.’

  His living quarters consist of one sizeable room with a big north-facing window, which is his studio, his kitchen, and his washroom, a single butler sink serving all these purposes; beyond, a closed door leads to a small bedroom. The electric light bulb that illuminates the studio is either very low-powered or the electricity is weak. In its grudging light Larry sees a chaotic array of paintings, most of them unfinished.

  ‘I lose heart,’ says Armitage. ‘I know exactly what it is I mean to do, and then I see what I’ve actually done, and I lose heart.’

  He doesn’t ask Larry why he’s come. He offers him brandy in a teacup. Larry looks round the canvases.

  ‘But your work is so good,’ he says.

  He means it. Even in this poor light he can see that his friend’s paintings are exploding with life. As he admires them, he feels with deep shock the contrast with his own work. Somehow this has never been as apparent to him before. Over the last two years his work has become accomplished, but looking at Armitage’s pictures, he knows with a terrible certainty that he will never be a true artist. He has enough understanding of technique to see how Armitage achieves his effects, while at the same time knowing that this is so much more than technique. In his portraits particularly, he has the gift of expressing the fine complexity of life itself.

  ‘This is so good,’ he says again. ‘You’re good, Tony.’

  ‘I’m better than good,’ says Armitage. ‘I’m the real thing. Which is why I drive myself crazy. All this’ – he gestures round the studio – ‘this is nothing. One day I’ll show you what I can do.’

  Larry comes upon two quite small sketches of Nell.

  ‘There’s Nell,’ he says. In one of them she’s looking towards the artist but past him, playing her unreachable game. ‘That’s so Nell.’

  He realises now why he’s come. He wants to talk to someone about Nell.

  ‘She never sits still for long enough,’ says Armitage. ‘Also her skin’s too smooth. I like wrinkles.’

  ‘I think I might be in love with her,’ says Larry.

  ‘Oh, everyone’s in love with Nell,’ says Armitage. ‘That’s her function in life. She’s a muse.’

  ‘I don’t think she wants to be a muse.’

  ‘Of course she does. Why else does she hang around artists? You get girls like that.’

  Larry laughs. Tony Armitage, barely twenty-one years old, his wild curls serving only to emphasise his boyish face, makes an unconvincing bohemian roué.

  ‘How on earth do you know? You’ve only just left school.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with age. I was seven when I found out I had talent. I was fifteen when I knew I would be one of the greats. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I know all this is poor prentice work. But give me five more years, and you won’t be laughing.’

  ‘I’m not laughing at your work, Tony,’ Larry says. ‘I’m in awe of your work. But I’m not sure I’m quite ready to see you as a fount of wisdom on the opposite sex.’

  ‘Oh, girls.’ He speaks dismissively, evidently not very interested.

  ‘Don’t you care for girls?’

  ‘Yes, in their way. Up to a point. One has to eat and so forth.’

  Larry can’t help laughing again. But he’s impressed by the young man’s invincible conviction of his own worth. It could be the groundless arrogance of youth, but on the whole Larry is inclined to take it at face value; all too aware that he lacks such self-belief himself.

  ‘I’m afraid I get myself into much more of a mess with girls than you seem to,’ he says. ‘With Nell, anyway.’ Then on an impulse he reveals more. ‘Did she tell you I asked her to marry me?’

  ‘No.’ He seems surprised. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I wanted to marry her. And also because she was pregnant.’

  ‘Nell told you she was pregnant?’

  ‘She isn’t any more. She had a miscarriage. I expect I shouldn’t be telling you this. But she’s fine now.’

  ‘Nell told you she had a miscarriage?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It strikes Larry now that Armitage is looking at him in an odd way.

  ‘And you believed her?’ he says.

  ‘Yes,’ says Larry. ‘I know Nell’s got her own strange ways, but the one thing she’d never do is tell a lie. She’s got an obsession with truthfulness.’

  Armitage stares at Larry. Then he lets out a harsh cackle of laughter. Larry frowns, annoyed.

  ‘Nell never tell a lie!’ says Armitage. ‘She does nothing but lie.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Larry. ‘I don’t think you know her as I do.’

  ‘But Larry,’ says Armitage. ‘Telling you she’s pregnant! It’s the oldest trick in the book.’

  He falls to laughing again.

  ‘A trick to achieve what, precisely?’

  Larry’s voice has gone cold.

  ‘To get you to marry her, of course.’

  ‘I offered. She declined.’

  This seems to Larry to be conclusive proof of Nell’s integrity. To his surprise Armitage takes it in his stride.

  ‘Oh, she’s not stupid, our Nell. She must’ve picked up that you weren’t a solid enough bet.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tony. I don’t see things your way, that’s all. I shouldn’t have spoken about private matters.’

  ‘Private? She tried the pregnancy trick on Peter Beaumont too, you know?’

  Now it’s Larry’s turn to stare.

  ‘Peter fell for it hook, line and sinker. But she decided to keep him in reserve. For a rainy day, as she puts it.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Larry’s voice has become quiet. Armitage realises for the first time that this is no laughing matter.

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ he says.

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘She’s not a bad girl. She’s a wonderful girl, really. But she’s penniless. She has to look out for herself.’

  ‘She told Peter Beaumont it was his baby?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  Larry feels tired and confused. He passes one hand over his brow. He finds he’s sweating.

  ‘So whose baby was it?’

  Armitage pours Larry the last of the brandy, and presses the teacup on him.

  ‘There was no baby, Larry.’

  ‘No baby?’

  ‘No pregnancy. No miscarriage.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, no one can ever be sure of anything with Nell. But I’m pretty sure. She tried it on me, but I just laughed.’

  ‘You?’

  Larry drinks the brandy, draining the cup.

  ‘Look, old man,’ says Armitage, ‘I can see this has all rather hit you for six. Were you really serious about Nell?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Larry. ‘I think I was.’

  ‘I begin to see I’ve struck a bit of a wrong note.’

  Larry can’t reply. He’s experiencing hot flushes of shame, beneath which far deeper griefs are waiting their turn.

  ‘I’m very fond of Nell too,’ says Armitage, trying clumsily to make amends. ‘I suppose I don’t mind her looking out for herself, because I do it too. We’re all getting by as best we can.’

  ‘But to lie to me.’ Larry is still scarcely able to believe it. ‘The first thing she ever said to me was, We tell each other the truth. She was always going on about the truth.’

  ‘That’s how it works, isn’t it?’ says Armitage. ‘Thieves lock up their valuables. Cheats tell you the rules of the game.’

  ‘Dear God,’ says Larry. ‘I feel so st
upid.’

  ‘Did you have a good time with her?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Larry with a sigh.

  ‘Nothing stupid about that.’

  Larry shakes his head, and looks round the room. There are all Armitage’s works. There are the two sketches of Nell.

  ‘You see more clearly than me, Tony,’ he says. ‘That’s why you’re a better artist.’

  ‘Oh, come on. Don’t start doing yourself down.’

  ‘No, it’s true. People talk about talent as if it’s a gift of the gods, like being beautiful. But I think it’s just as much to do with character. You’ve got the right character, Tony, and I haven’t. You see clearly, and you believe in yourself. You’re right, you will be one of the greats.’

  ‘And you too, Larry. Why not?’

  Larry turns from the power of the paintings to the boy who has painted them.

  ‘You’ve seen my work,’ he says. ‘You know I’ll never be like you.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t you be?’ says Armitage. But Larry sees it in his eyes. He’s not Nell. He can’t look you in the face and lie.

  ‘Thanks for the brandy,’ Larry says. ‘And thanks for the home truths. Not much fun, but I needed to know. Now I’m going to go off and sort myself out.’

  Armitage sees him down to the street. Outside the street lights have gone off, and the only light on the icy pavements is the soft spill from curtained windows. Larry walks back to his room, oblivious to the cold. He’s ashamed, and hurt, and angry, and lost.

  When he gets back to his room he collects up all his paintings and bundles them in a blanket from his bed. There are over thirty works, mostly quite small, but one or two are an awkward size. He carries the bundle out into the street, and up the Grove to Church Street. He has some dim notion of walking all the way to the river, but a cab passes, and he hails it. The cab drops him at the southern end of Waterloo Bridge. He carries his bundle to the middle of the bridge, and unwraps it by the railings. Then one by one he throws his paintings into the river, and watches them slowly carried away downstream.

  24

  Larry lies awake in bed, cold even beneath all the blankets he possesses, and both his outer coats. He expects to pass the long night without sleep, dulled by dread, not wanting the new day to come, bringing with it the empty failure that is now his life. But in the small hours his body surrenders, and when he next opens his eyes there is light at his curtains.

  Curtains he drew closed on that first afternoon Nell came to his room and undressed for him and lay in his arms. Light that has fallen on canvases that have held him breathless with concentration for hours on end. All this now gone: all this a stupidity, a vanity, a mistake. How is it possible to lose so much and still go on? Go on where?

  At such times Larry has only one recourse. Just as he prayed when his mother died; just as he prayed when some small crisis at boarding school, great to him, left him friendless and alone; so now he turns to the familiar God of his childhood for kindness, and the comfort that lies in the prospect of eternity.

  God, my God, God of my fathers, he prays. Show me what it is you want of me. Tell me where I’m to go, and what I’m to do. I have no will of my own any more. Your will be done, if only I can know it. Save me from myself. Teach me how to forget myself. I will serve only you.

  How little, how ridiculous, his own existence now seems to him. Like a spoiled child he has strutted about, imagining that all eyes are on him, that the world has been made to gratify his desires. And all the time he has been a little squeaking nothing.

  Driven from his bitter room by the need to escape himself and the memory of himself, he walks the dirty snow of London’s streets, on and on, wanting only to wear himself out. In this way he trudges down the bombed canyon of Victoria Street to Westminster Cathedral. He has been here before, of course, with his father, to see the new mosaics in the Lady Chapel, and once, when he was ten, to Easter midnight Mass. He remembers the immensity of the nave, and its darkness. It’s this darkness he now seeks, where he can become invisible, and his shame be forgotten.

  On this winter Tuesday, approaching midday, the cathedral is virtually empty. Candles burn before the high altar, on the votive rack, but the electric lights are turned off. The massive walls of bare brick, one day to be made glorious with golden mosaic, reach up into the vaulted darkness on either side, as stern as a prison. He remains near the back of the nave, feeling neither the wish nor the right to approach the high altar. When some others enter from the street he withdraws into a side chapel, preferring not to be seen even by strangers.

  In the side chapel he kneels, and rests his elbows on the chair back in front, and stares unseeingly at the small chapel altar and the decorated panel above it. Two saints gaze back at him, both unsmilingly secure in the truth they have to offer. One is a pope, signified by the triple golden crown; the other a monk, with tonsure and humble robe. Like generals of a victorious army, they admit no doubt in the justice of their war. The pope has one hand raised, one finger pointing skyward, invoking the Almighty God he represents, whose power and authority flow through him.

  Such massive certainty. And yet popes and saints must have known what he, Larry, now knows. How little we are, how ridiculous, how lost, in the eye of eternity.

  To his irritation the strangers now follow him into the side chapel. A man of his own age and a younger woman. The woman is slender, dressed simply but elegantly. Looking up he catches a glimpse of her face, and it seems to him he’s seen it before: the pure line of the cheek, the mouth that curves without smiling, the blue-grey eyes. They stand before the altar, speaking in whispers so as not to disturb him in his prayers.

  ‘There he is,’ says the man. ‘That’s Gregory the Great.’

  Larry realises then that the pope in the altarpiece is the same St Gregory who presides over Downside Abbey and School; and that the tall balding man in the chapel is his old schoolfellow Rupert Blundell.

  ‘Rupert, is that you?’

  The man turns round and peers at him over his bony nose.

  ‘Good God! Larry!’

  Larry rises and they shake hands. Rupert introduces the girl, who turns out to be his sister Geraldine. Looking at her directly now, Larry remembers where he has seen her before. She has a little of the look of Primavera, the goddess of spring, in the Botticelli painting.

  ‘Larry and I were at Downside together,’ Rupert tells her, ‘and then we were both in Combined Ops.’ To Larry he says, ‘We’ve been on a buying spree at the army and navy stores. Fancy bumping into you here. Though I suppose it’s not so odd, given that we’re both Old Gregorians.’

  ‘That’s enough, Rupert,’ says Geraldine. ‘Can’t you see we’re interrupting your friend’s prayers?’

  ‘Oh, I’m done,’ says Larry. ‘If prayers can ever be said to be done.’

  ‘Do you make a habit of this?’ says Rupert, gesturing round the chapel.

  ‘Not at all,’ says Larry. ‘I’ve not been in here for years.’

  ‘Me neither,’ says Rupert. ‘It’s hideous, isn’t it? Of course I know it’s not finished. But it seems all wrong to me, building a cathedral out of red brick.’

  ‘And all stripy, like a cake,’ says Larry.

  Geraldine smiles at that.

  ‘To be fair, I think it’s supposed to be Byzantine,’ says Rupert. ‘Do you approve of it, as an artist?’

  ‘Oh, are you an artist?’ says Geraldine, opening her eyes wide.

  ‘I was,’ says Larry. ‘Not any more.’

  Rupert is surprised to hear this.

  ‘I’d got the idea you were pretty set on it.’

  ‘You know how it goes,’ says Larry. ‘Time goes by. You move on.’

  ‘So what line are you in now?’ says Rupert.

  ‘Just looking about,’ says Larry.

  ‘Nothing fixed?’

  ‘Not as yet.’

  They walk out of the chapel and across the nave to the exit. The light beyond the doors is a bright pearl-grey. />
  ‘Guess where I’m off to,’ says Rupert. ‘India.’

  ‘Oh?’ says Larry politely, not interested.

  ‘I’m back with Dickie Mountbatten. He’s been given the viceroy job. He’s being sent out there to wind up the Empire.’

  ‘At least it’ll get you away from this winter,’ says Larry.

  ‘You know Dickie thinks the world of you,’ says Rupert. ‘Ever since you volunteered for the Dieppe show.’

  ‘Not very bright of me, as it turned out.’

  ‘Look here, Larry. Why don’t you come with us?’

  He’s come to a standstill in the narthex. The cold air from the outer doors ruffles their coats. He’s looking at Larry as if he’s serious.

  ‘To India?’

  ‘Yes. Dickie’s been told he can hire all the staff he likes. Alan Campbell-Johnson’s coming, and Ronnie Brockman, and George Nicholls. There’ll be a lot of the old crowd there.’

  ‘But why would he want me? What would I do?’

  ‘Oh, it’s going to be a devil of a posting, don’t you worry about that. More work than any of us can handle. The great thing is, Dickie says, to surround yourself with good men. And you know what, Larry? We’ll see history in the making. It may not be what you call glorious, but it’ll be unforgettable.’

  The proposal is so far-fetched that Larry wants to laugh. But at the same time the prospect Rupert conjures up fills him with excitement. To go far away, to a new world, with new concerns. To learn fast and work hard and forget the past. To leave behind in the endless winter that is England the fool who thought he was an artist, and thought he was loved by Nell. To start again, and be someone new.

  ‘Do you really think Dickie would have me?’

  ‘Yes, I do. It’s chaos, to be honest, the whole shooting match. We’re scheduled to go east in a month, and they’re still arguing over the timetable for independence, or even if it’s to be called independence. Winston and the Tories won’t hear of anything with that name, and of course the nationalist leaders out there won’t accept anything less.’

  ‘I’m getting cold, Rupert,’ says Geraldine.

  ‘Yes, right, we’re on our way.’ To Larry, ‘Do you want me to put in a word?’