The Pupil

by Caro Fraser

  ‘They’re completely worthless now, if you ask me,’ said Barry. Judith ignored him.

  ‘God knows, we deserve to make something out of it. He hasn’t paid any maintenance for years.’

  ‘You mean you don’t want to keep them for sentimental reasons?’ said Barry, grinning. She made as if to swipe at him.

  ‘You met that woman at the art gallery when you took the paintings over,’ said Judith. ‘Why don’t you take these to her and ask her what they’d fetch?’ She got up and took her mug to the sink and rinsed it out. Anthony thought of Mrs Marks and winced. ‘I’m sure she’d be interested to see them, at any rate.’ She dried her hands, looking at Anthony.

  Maybe, thought Anthony, he could take them over when there were lots of people about. Yes, that would be the safest thing.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll pop over at lunchtime tomorrow.’

  There were not, unfortunately, lots of people about when Anthony arrived at the gallery. Mrs Marks was standing at the curved white reception desk, talking to a very elegant, beautifully dressed young woman who was seated behind it, and going through a sheaf of price lists. She smiled with surprise when she saw Anthony.

  ‘Anthony!’ she said. ‘What a delightful surprise. Moira,’ she said, pronouncing it ‘Mwara’, ‘this is Anthony Cross, the son of Chay Cross, you know, whose exhibition is coming up soon. Moira, my assistant.’ Moira gave Anthony a chilly little smile. ‘How are you, my dear?’ Mrs Marks asked Anthony, with genuine interest, handing the sheaf of papers to Moira. She seemed utterly at ease, quite unembarrassed by any recollection of their previous encounter.

  Anthony said that he was very well, and glanced apprehensively as Moira slid into her jacket, murmured that she was going to lunch, and left.

  ‘Come this way,’ said Mrs Marks in her low voice, leading Anthony up the gallery. ‘Vincent Stammels,’ she murmured, indicating a large blue-and-white abstract that they happened to be passing. ‘Very compelling. Do you know his work?’ They reached a door and Mrs Marks opened it, ushering the hapless Anthony through ahead of her. They were in a small office, painted white like the gallery, with a large, low window covered by a white micro-blind. Apart from a desk and a few chairs, the only other objects in the room were some large green plants.

  ‘Drink?’ asked Mrs Marks, glancing enquiringly at Anthony. She saw the faint apprehension on his face, and laughed suddenly. ‘Oh, darling!’ she exclaimed. Anthony began to feel worried. ‘Don’t look so terrified!’

  ‘Do I?’ asked Anthony in surprise. She laughed again and was hauling out the gin and vermouth bottles in her merriment. Anthony wondered if he should go.

  ‘Dearest, don’t even think about the silliness last time you came here! That was just a test run, so to speak. Call it an old woman’s folly.’ She handed a very full glass to him. ‘You’re perfectly safe,’ she added in a soft, sweet voice, like someone calming a frightened child. Anthony smiled, still doubtful. She looked at him, her head on one side. ‘Was it too awful?’ she cajoled.

  ‘Well, actually,’ said Anthony uncertainly, ‘I was a bit – thrown, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I know just what you mean,’ she said. ‘Now, sit down and tell me to what I owe this charming visit.’ Feeling a little better, Anthony sat down in a chair by the window. He took a sip of his drink, remembered his last visit, and laid it gently on the windowsill, determined not to touch it again. He untied the piece of ribbon that held the folder together and cleared his throat.

  ‘My mother found these in our house,’ he said, pulling out one or two of the drawings. Mrs Marks was looking at him with kind, expectant interest. He laid the folder on the windowsill beside his drink, and got up and carried the drawings over to where she was sitting at her desk. ‘They’re some things my father did when he first knew my mother. I wondered if they’d be of any interest to you.’

  Mrs Marks spread the drawings out on her desk and looked at them critically, saying nothing for a long time. ‘My dear,’ she said eventually, ‘some of these are very interesting. They could be extremely exciting. You know how acclaimed your father is at present?’

  Anthony said, diffidently, that he didn’t know, really.

  ‘Perhaps he’s not so well known in this country yet,’ continued Mrs Marks, picking up a picture of Judith and running her eye over it, ‘but that’s just a matter of time. He’s a complete runaway success in the States.’ She paused. ‘We’d have to sort them out, but these could be worth two or three thousand each on the Californian market.’

  Anthony nodded, dazed, and took a large gulp of his drink. The gin buzzed in his veins. Thousands! It was extraordinary. People must be mad. Suddenly he thought of the painting, the nude, that he had discarded and left at Chay’s flat. Why should his father have it all? Why shouldn’t his mother have something out of it as well? She’d had a hard enough life, without any help from Chay.

  ‘I have another painting,’ he said suddenly to Mrs Marks. She looked up from the drawings. ‘It’s mine – something he left me when he went to America. I’d like to sell that, too.’

  ‘Another painting!’ Mrs Marks was visibly but collectedly excited. ‘My dear! When can I see it?’

  ‘I’ll bring it over tomorrow,’ said Anthony with decision. Chay could argue about the ownership of it later, if he wanted to, but by that time it would be well and truly sold. Mrs Marks was gazing at him. He finished his drink and then remembered that he hadn’t meant to. He had eaten nothing and felt quite light-headed. Thousands. Thousands!

  ‘Mrs Marks,’ he said suddenly, looking at her so intently that she felt a little unnerved. Such a lovely boy.

  ‘Yes, my dear?’ She was carefully putting the drawings into their folder.

  He wondered whether he should ask her about this, whether it was even a question worth asking. But he couldn’t think of anyone else to ask – she seemed sympathetic, and, somehow, the right kind of person.

  ‘Mrs Marks, do you think that I’m attractive to – men?’

  She looked up in astonishment, her eyes meeting his, and laughed. ‘Oh, my dear! What a question!’

  He took the call from Mrs Marks two weeks later, in the third week of June, the second week of Trinity Term. Anthony and Michael were working in their shirtsleeves, the window wide open. Work was going on down below on some of the Caper Court telephone lines, and the sound of machinery and workmen’s voices floated up through the summer air.

  ‘Anthony, I have some excellent news for you,’ said Mrs Marks. ‘We’ve found a buyer in New York for that nude study. Very exciting – such a different work, you know. Rather reminiscent of Lucian Freud. It’s the Blake Gallery. They’re prepared to offer fifty thousand dollars for it.’

  Anthony took a sip of his cooling tea to steady himself. ‘Fifty thousand?’

  ‘That’s right, dear. So that makes, with the drawings we’ve sold in the States so far, nearly sixty-eight thousand. Not bad, really!’

  Not bad at all, thought Anthony. He wanted very much to tell his mother straight away, but knew that it would be difficult to reach her at school. It would have to wait until this evening. He didn’t think he could wait; the anticipation of her pleasure was too great. Who were these madmen that paid all this money for mediocre paintings and adolescent scribbles?

  It was a week later that Leo, coming into his room in the morning, found a small brown envelope lying in the middle of his desk. He opened it without interest. Inside was a cheque for a hundred pounds. It was signed ‘A.C. Cross’. Leo gazed for a while at the signature, at the clear, decisive writing, as if to learn something hidden there. There was a note as well. He paused before unfolding it, all too well aware of his quickened pulse and the trembling of hope in his mind. He closed his eyes and willed himself to stop, to bring a clinical regard to the matter. He opened the note quickly. It read, ‘With many thanks, Anthony.’ What else had he expected it to say? He took his wallet from his breast pocket and opened it, slipping the cheque inside.
Then he picked up the note, looked at it, folded it, hesitated, and flicked it neatly into the empty waste-paper basket by his desk. He looked up.

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ he said to the empty room.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  There had been trouble with his mother over the painting and the fifty thousand dollars that he had received for it.

  ‘But you can’t sell it!’ his mother had exclaimed. ‘It wasn’t ours to sell! You of all people should know that.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Anthony had said. ‘Anyway, I doubt if he’s going to make a big thing of it.’

  But at last he agreed to compromise. The fifty thousand dollars was put into a deposit account for the time being. Of the remaining eighteen thousand, Judith insisted on giving the boys six thousand each.

  Anthony had never had so much money in his life. It came out at just under four thousand pounds, enough to make a significant difference to his life until the fee notes began to trickle through.

  The first difference it made was with Julia. It was impossible for him to throw off his natural prudence where money was concerned, but for the first time he was free of the business of worrying about it. The prospect of the week’s expenditure ceased to daunt, and Julia’s pleasure in being with Anthony was no longer soured by the eternal question of whether or not he could afford things. Anthony felt less adrift from her and her friends, and began to realise what life could be like if one could always afford its more modest pleasures, like a decent bottle of wine, or an evening in a good restaurant, without having to worry about whether there would be enough left for the bus home. Life became altogether sweeter. Although things between Anthony and Julia were now pleasanter, however, he began to detect an element of sameness about the times they spent together. Julia was easily bored, and occasionally felt vague longings for some new stimulus in her life. If he saw this, Anthony did not acknowledge it.

  As regarded Leo, Anthony avoided tea in the common room whenever he could, and was careful not to run into him in chambers. Leo still came to Michael’s room from time to time, but they were no more than polite and friendly to one another, and Anthony told himself that the stomach-tightening nervousness that he still felt whenever he encountered the man would gradually pass. After all, he had been forced to lose a friendship more pleasant and valuable than any he had ever had with any man. That was no small emotional wrench. But it had been a necessary excision. Leo told himself the same thing, and was relieved to find that the affair seemed to matter less as the days passed. Anthony was just another young man, after all.

  In their encounters, their eyes never quite met, as though each was afraid to see past the polite indifference of the other’s gaze.

  Anthony was also conscious that the time was fast approaching when a decision would have to be taken in chambers as to who would become the next tenant. On some days he felt gloomily that the matter must surely be a foregone conclusion. On others, particularly those when Edward came to him with a perplexed face and some query regarding the work he was supposed to be doing, he felt more optimistic. The matter began to prey on his mind to such an extent that he was forced to mention it to Michael.

  ‘Yes. I think we’re having a meeting about that at the beginning of next week.’ He looked over at Anthony, who was sitting at his desk, staring dismally at the window. ‘Don’t worry. You’ve done your best. What more can you do? I give you a better than even chance.’

  Anthony sighed. ‘It’s not really the kind of thing that should require much discussion amongst members of chambers, is it?’

  ‘Not normally, no,’ said Michael. He hesitated. ‘But in this case I think it’s a little different. Some of us feel quite strongly about it. A lot of people think very highly of you, you know.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ groaned Anthony. A lot of people thought even more highly of Sir Basil, and Sir Basil’s wishes, Anthony knew.

  On the next weekend, the second in July, the first of the chambers cricket matches was due to take place.

  ‘We’re playing 4 Sussex Court,’ Edward told Anthony at lunchtime that day.

  ‘That’s Piers’ set, isn’t it?’ said Anthony. ‘God, what fun. I can’t stand that man.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ asked Edward. ‘He’s a great chap. Anyway, I don’t think he’s after Julia any more, if that’s what’s worrying you. Wait till they get a taste of my outswinger.’ Edward took a little run and bowled at some imaginary stumps.

  Anthony had to admit that this was true, but he still did not relish the prospect of having to spend several hours in Piers’ company at a cricket match.

  The match was to take place in the village where Roderick Hayter had his home, at the Great Salingham cricket club. Members of chambers were making their way down to Great Salingham by car on Saturday morning, in time for lunch at Roderick’s, and the clerks, who made up the numbers, were to join them at the cricket club. No one, least of all the clerks, thought anything of this social division. They would much prefer to spend a couple of hours in the pub nearest the cricket ground than in the uneasy formality of Roderick Hayter’s splendid home.

  Anthony was told to bring Julia, if he wished. ‘I can give you both a lift,’ said Michael. ‘Elizabeth is coming as well.’

  Julia’s reaction, when Anthony mentioned it to her, was mixed. The prospect of cricket was not enlivening – on the other hand, there might be an opportunity to score a little off that arrogant man, Leo Davies. She hesitated.

  ‘We’re playing Piers’ chambers,’ Anthony added. At that, Julia said she would go. She thought that Piers had rather been avoiding her of late, which was both galling and puzzling. She wondered if he was still seeing Lady Juliet. She recalled his lazy protestations of undying love just a few months ago, the ones which she had affected to find tiresome, but which she really rather cherished. She missed his amusing, wicked conversation, too. How could she possibly have ceased to be attractive to him? The prospect of re-exercising her fascination over Piers made the idea of the cricket match much more interesting. All foolish little emotional games, especially ones that she could dress up for, were irresistible to Julia.

  The day of the cricket match was a particularly hot one, with only a slight breeze and a few cotton-wool clouds drifting in the sky. In the garden of Roderick Hayter’s Gloucestershire home, the silence was deep and green and lovely, broken only by faint birdsong, the occasional chirrup of a cricket hidden in the sunny grass, and the murmur of educated voices making conversation over pre-luncheon drinks. Anthony strolled around with Julia and Edward, awestruck by the magnificence of the grounds and the beauty of the house. It would take a lifetime of understanding, he reflected, a lifetime that he had not even begun, to bring together such loveliness. Even Julia was impressed. She had taken care to look especially attractive, Anthony thought; he reflected that this might, in some obscure way, be for Leo’s benefit, but he scarcely cared about that. For their separate reasons, both Anthony and Julia avoided any group that contained Leo. He was placed at the other end of the long table at luncheon, so that only drifts of amusement at his conversation reached them from time to time. Each wished vaguely that they could hear what he was saying.

  After lunch they made their way to the cricket ground. Piers and his fellow members of chambers were already there, busily changing. Anthony and Michael left Julia and Elizabeth and made their way into the familiar, musty woodenness that is every cricket pavilion. They found the changing rooms and dumped their kit. When Anthony emerged, clumping with the unaccustomed slight extra weight of his cricket boots across the verandah to where Julia stood, he saw that she was talking to Piers. He looked, leaning against one of the pillars of the verandah in his cricket whites, even larger than usual. His trousers were old and off-white, but obviously very good, and were held up by a frayed, knotted Harrow tie. He greeted Anthony lazily, arms folded.

  ‘Hello, Tony. Going to get a lot of runs?’ He chuckled slightly and gazed out across the pitch. ‘Bit of a dry wicket,
I’d say.’ Edward joined them, looking faintly annoyed.

  ‘I’ve had to borrow these from Stephen,’ he said, looking down at his trousers, which fell some three inches above the tops of his boots. He hitched at the waistband. ‘Mine’ve got a great bloody rip in them from last year. I’d just put them away and forgotten about it. Do I look a complete prat?’ he asked Julia.

  ‘No,’ she laughed. ‘No more than usual.’

  ‘Oh, thanks. Thanks very much.’ He turned to Piers. ‘Who’s your captain?’

  ‘Jefferies, of course,’ replied Piers, referring to his head of chambers. ‘Who’s yours?’

  ‘Well, Uncle Basil’s a bit past it,’ said Edward. ‘He’s going to umpire. Leo Davies is our captain.’

  ‘Is he especially good?’ asked Julia, with only faint interest.

  ‘Natural authority,’ replied Anthony shortly. At that moment, the clerks arrived from the pub, where they seemed to have enjoyed a particularly good lunch.

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Edward, watching the clerks as they made their chortling way to the changing rooms, ‘look at Robert.’

  ‘One of your clerks, is he?’ enquired Piers. ‘Looks a little the worse for wear.’

  ‘I know,’ said Edward despondently. ‘He’s meant to be one of our best players.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with clerks,’ said Piers. ‘At least we don’t have to rely on ours to do anything more than make up the numbers.’ He heaved himself off the pillar, flexed his thighs, and glanced at Julia’s low-cut, yellow cotton dress. It clung prettily to her slender figure. ‘You’re looking very well these days,’ he remarked, with indolent appreciation. ‘I could almost fall in love with you again.’

  She flushed slightly and lifted her chin.

  By now the clerks had changed and everyone was ready. Anthony’s chambers won the toss and went in to bat. Leo came across to where Anthony was sitting under the trees with Julia.