Summer in February

by Jonathan Smith

  ‘Once upon a midnight dreary, whilst I pondered weak and weary,

  Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

  Whilst I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

  As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.’

  He recited the whole poem, all eighteen stanzas, without one hesitation or one loss of total control.

  All Gilbert, his heart a slow hammer, wrote in his diary that evening was:

  Horribly wet. Studio party. Stayed late. Munnings rather stole the show.

  Sammy’s Birds’ Eggs

  After only a few hours of restless half-sleep, punctuated by some terrible dreams, Gilbert was up at 6.30 the next morning. He was up early every morning, except on Sundays, and even then he always tried to make the early service at St Buryan.

  Already obsessed, he opened the curtains in his little bedroom and looked down the valley towards the cove. The sea was slate grey and the sky streaky bacon. The violence of the storm had blown itself to bits, the land was swept bare, and at the side of the hotel the sodden grass was trying to shine in the watery light, but the light was not quite strong enough to help. Still, it wasn’t raining, which was something, so Gilbert ducked down and put his head out of the bedroom window, leaning right out, to see if all was well underneath his sill. Good, the house-martin’s nest was still securely there. All was well.

  Next he checked to see if his trousers, hanging up behind his bedroom door, had dried out. They had, more or less. Good. He pulled them on, and as he pulled them on, he thought of Florence.

  He usually took his breakfast downstairs alone, well before anyone else, because he liked to be properly organised and on site at Boskenna before the first of the workmen arrived in the yard. That was part of his army discipline, part of what a decent officer should do, and it also suited him to eat early because he liked to be fed, not fussed over. After a plate of bacon, egg and sausage he cleaned his teeth and prepared to leave.

  Before he did so (and it was the very last thing he did each morning before leaving) he opened the small drawer full of birds’ eggs, displayed carefully on cotton wool. Each morning he opened this drawer and each morning his heart clenched, then sank. These eggs belonged to Sammy. He touched the eggs with his fingertips, very lightly. ‘Sammy’, as his younger brother Basil was nicknamed, died last year. On the fateful Friday, Friday the 13th of August, he was bitten on the lip by an insect. It all looked innocuous enough at first, just a hard little red dot, but on the Monday he suddenly developed a fever and started to wander in his mind. Gilbert sat up all night with him, talking to him, telling him about the best tries the Welsh three-quarters had scored, telling him everything would be all right in the morning, Sammy, very much better in the morning; but on the Tuesday afternoon Sammy died.

  Gilbert resettled the eggs and closed his eyes. How could such things happen to such a lovely boy? Who ‘allowed’ them to happen? Who? What explanation or comfort could there be? Gilbert remembered sitting through a hopelessly inadequate sermon on this subject at Rugby. To him it was an inexplicable grief. Each day Gilbert asked himself ‘Who?’ and ‘Why?’ and each day, unable to answer these questions, he opened the drawer and took out the birds’ eggs as his tribute to Sammy, a private ceremony to remind himself how fragile life was, how vulnerable not only Sammy was but all mankind, how precious a gift life was (and here he thought of Florence) and how much he would try to be worthy of it.

  Strangely enough, leaving Cardiff and coming down to Cornwall, which was partly done to overcome the pain, had only intensified the loss. One of the reasons for this, strangely enough again, was Joey Carter-Wood, because Joey bore more than a passing resemblance to Sammy. Sometimes, indeed, it was uncanny: there was the same shy look in his eye with girls, the same walk, the same generous laugh, the same optimistic spirit and the same love of the countryside. Both Sammy and Joey enjoyed clambering, rucksacks on backs, over slippery rocks and steep hills. No doubt, had he lived to be a man, Sammy would have turned into just the sort of splendid fellow Joey was.

  Thinking of Joey made Gilbert think again of Joey’s sister, now asleep up in the middle one of the low cottages, made him think of her fingers and her face, her black cape, and her drying hair. On what pretext could he call on her? He was not sure. But call he would. And every morning from now on, merely seeing the birds’ eggs, feeling their almost weightless bodily presence and the oblique access they gave to Sammy’s life, would open the same happy-sad sequence of circular thoughts in Gilbert:

  Sammy, Joey, Florence,

  Florence, Joey, Sammy.

  He decided, all being well at Boskenna, he would bicycle across after lunch to see the carpenter (for Laura) and then contact the chimney sweep (for A.J.) and then, perhaps for tea, to the Carter-Woods, why not, and if they weren’t in, he could easily and naturally drop in next door on Laura. Having them all so conveniently placed at the top of the lane was a bonus. And, if they were out, no matter, it was good exercise. If you had something gnawing away at your heart and mind exercise was the thing.

  He put away the birds’ eggs.

  Yes.

  The world was once again a fine place as Gilbert set off from the hotel, high on the saddle, riding his bicycle up the lane, and he cut a fine, upright figure. To everyone in the village he was very much ‘Captain Evans riding over to Boskenna’. There was not much in the whole district he did not pass his eye over, and everyone, in return, waved to him.

  Laura Knight and Alfred Munnings were up early, too. Among the artists they were always the first risers. However late their night, however unsteady Alfred’s hand was on his razor, they pushed themselves out into the elements.

  Her hobnails ringing on the road, her overcoat buttoned up to her neck, Laura strode down from Oakhill Cottages to the cove, turning sharp right at the bottom. Today was another challenge for Laura. Today she would try to capture the grandeur of that overhanging rock, the sort of rock she imagined frightened the young Wordsworth as he rowed across the dark lake. As she strode down she sometimes smiled to herself, a bit shocked, reliving some of the fun of the night before. And how magnificent Alfred’s recitation of ‘The Raven’ had been.

  What a man Munnings was!

  Meanwhile, having climbed the uncarpeted stairs to his studio, her husband Harold, clear-headed, austere and immaculate, was drinking his first cup of tea. He sat in front of the easel. And sipped his tea. He eyed one corner of his painting. That corner was not right. It required more careful work. He moved his heavy-lidded eyes closer to the small particles of paint. He would, once he had finished his tea, give it that work. As far as Harold was concerned it was perfectly possible to paint a good picture without having to go out in all weathers and catch your death of cold in doing so. He could not, somehow, see Vermeer or Pieter de Hooch clambering over wet rocks or keeping going in a gale.

  Second out of the stalls, banging the door behind him, came Alfred Munnings. He was incompetently shaven and unable to face any kind of food. He also had a stabbing pain, a volcano of blood vessels, in his left eye. If his left eye hurt that much, Alfred worried. He did not look up at the sky or breathe in deeply or do anything to suggest how good and bracing it was to be alive that morning. Instead, head down, he berated himself for his excesses, thrust his hands and sketch pad into his pocket and set off down to the cove. Knowing his master’s moods in the early morning only too well, Taffy, his terrier, trotted along just out of kicking distance.

  At the bottom Alfred turned left, in the opposite direction from Laura, across a small patch of worm-riddled sand to climb past the quarry and meet the footpath to Mousehole. Riding with the Western Hounds the other day had given him an idea for a painting, a setting near the coastguard lookout, which would combine various aspects – part real, part imaginary, part Cornwall, part Norfolk – into which he would later fit the many figures of dogs and horses and huntsmen. Well, that was the idea, anyway. But having ideas was one thin
g: doing the bloody thing was quite another.

  If his head cleared by lunchtime he might have a sleep on the rocks, or he might ride Grey Tick in the afternoon, depending on how he got on this morning – he might even go over to see Evans at Boskenna, good bloke, Evans – then again he might not. The wind stabbed him in the eyes. He almost stumbled on a stone. This was not the moment to ask Munnings what his plans for the later part of the day were. At the moment he had the energy of a slackened drum.

  He crossed the small stream which, after the prolonged storm, was now a milky spate, and his feet hit the bottom of the wet dirt path. As they did so there was a great explosive roar and rumble from the quarry. Alfred coughed up more of last night’s smoky mucus from his lungs and spat into the bracken.

  Over at Boskenna Gilbert worked hard all morning. From eight until ten he supervised the men hauling the stones, some large, some small, which would improve the surface around the yard and so allow easier access for the flow of carts on their way in and out. When the daffodil packing began in earnest it was like Piccadilly Circus. He took off his jacket and joined in with the men, lifting, carrying, glistening with sweat, his veins bulged and the harder he worked the better he felt.

  From ten until noon he attended to the Colonel’s correspondence. There was a heavy batch. While he was sorting through all this with the shorthand clerk, Mrs Paynter popped in to ask him for lunch (cold lamb, followed by baked Bramleys) and over lunch with the Colonel the conversation soon took the turn which was now fast becoming the norm in Lamorna.

  ‘What’s all this I hear about the Munnings chappie?’ the Colonel asked. Gilbert took the opportunity of a full mouth to consider his reply. What exactly had the Colonel heard about A.J.? Given the wide range of possibilities it was probably best to play a straight, defensive bat. Gilbert wiped his mouth on his napkin.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t follow, Colonel.’

  ‘Got into trouble over in Newlyn, I understand. Quite considerable trouble.’

  ‘Really?’ Mrs P. was now interested. ‘What sort of trouble?’

  ‘That, my dear, is what I’m asking Gilbert.’

  ‘Well, there are always rumours, aren’t there?’ Gilbert said. ‘You know what the village is like.’

  They ate for a while in silence. Then the Colonel asked:

  ‘D’you know him well?’

  ‘Not well, not yet.’

  ‘But you like him?’

  ‘Yes, I like him.’

  ‘So there’s nothing in the rumours? Nothing a bit “off” with the fella?’

  The Colonel looked at his wife and let the sentence hang. With his spoon and fork Gilbert split open his white, puffy Bramley; it oozed sultanas and cream, as the Colonel continued:

  ‘Don’t want a cad on my land, d’you see? Not if I can help it. Not a cad, is he?’

  ‘He’s … unusual, I’d say. But not a cad, Colonel, no.’

  ‘Fancies himself as a comic, I’ve heard, but impresses as a buffoon.’

  ‘I think that’s rather harsh, sir.’

  ‘Bit of a painter too, isn’t he?’

  ‘They say he’s a genius.’

  ‘Oh, a genius, is he?’

  And Colonel Paynter’s sniff suggested some considerable reservations over geniuses. Gilbert kept eating, but all that splendid lunch, the cold lamb and the Bramleys, nearly came up again five minutes later because a servant girl half ran in to the dining-room, apologised and said Flirt, Mrs Paynter’s favourite terrier, had eaten some rat poison and was dying.

  Gilbert hurried over to the stables, while Mrs Paynter and the servants gathered to watch from a distance. Gilbert held the dog as it retched all over his shoes.

  The smell!

  He felt his stomach churn and he only just choked back in time. The dog writhed and gasped, its shanks sucking themselves in. After a few failed attempts Gilbert managed to spoon some warm milk into Flirt’s mouth, not the easiest of operations with the dog grinding her teeth and biting the spoon, but Gilbert kept at it. Butter and mustard followed. Fraction by fraction Gilbert somehow slipped some morsels of that down. The dog writhed on, her eyes rolling, her breathing uncertain.

  After an airless and emetic hour, with chubby maids whispering just out of sight, with Flirt’s heart bumping fast in Gilbert’s hand, her breathing gradually settled into a more steady beat. It seemed the storm had passed. Gilbert stayed on, then laid her, hot and exhausted, in her basket. Exhausted but alive. She looked up at Gilbert with droopy eyes.

  He mopped up.

  ‘So kind of you,’ Mrs Paynter said, ‘so kind.’

  ‘She’ll live, I think,’ Gilbert said. ‘That’s the main thing, isn’t it?’

  White-faced and needing some fresh air, Gilbert bicycled as fast as his legs would take him all the way back to Lamorna swallowing and gulping harsh wonderful gulps of air, but the smell of the poison and the sickness seemed to have seeped deep into his own skin and clothes; and even though he had thoroughly washed his hands and his shoes he wished he had some eau-de-Cologne. The taste was on his tongue, too. He tried to spit it out into the thorny furze and the bramble sprays, but only smeared his mouth with saliva, and when he propped his bicycle against the low wall outside the Carter-Woods’ cottage he felt his nerve nearly fail. Next cottage along, he could see Harold Knight’s back bent, still working upstairs in his studio, and he considered going instead down the Knights’ front path for a harmless social hour, but Joey was sitting in his front room and waved excitedly to Gilbert, motioning him to come in. The door was thrown open. The brother and sister stood side by side, arms open wide in welcome: Florence and Joey, smiling at him.

  ‘How good of you to visit us!’ Joey said.

  ‘I hope I’m not intruding?’

  ‘No, couldn’t be better, we’ve just this minute come in from the rocks, haven’t we, Blote?’

  ‘Captain Evans,’ Florence said, her eyes steadily on Gilbert.

  ‘Gilbert,’ Joey corrected.

  ‘We’ve been collecting anemones,’ Florence added, shaking Gilbert’s hand, ‘and Joey is very excited with his findings.’

  ‘In a minute you can help us classify them,’ Joey said, taking Gilbert’s arm and leading him into the small sitting-room, ‘you’re just the man we need.’ There was, as usual, a sharp, salty smell permeating the house. Joey had one tank set up down near the shore line, and an aquarium round at the back of the cottage to which he carried his specimens. On most days he could be seen staggering back up the hill, with buckets yoked over his shoulders.

  ‘So you’re interested in marine biology too?’ Florence asked.

  ‘Your brother’s the expert,’ Gilbert said, ‘I just double-check on the details. He’s opened up another world for me.’

  ‘Has he?’

  Dressed in silver-grey, she looked younger, less composed, more vulnerable, more lovely, more everything.

  ‘Did you enjoy last night?’ Joey wanted to know of Gilbert, with a conspiratorial grin.

  ‘Oh, very much.’

  ‘Is that … typical?’ Florence asked. ‘What went on, I mean? Later.’

  ‘Sit down, sit down,’ Joey moved some of his things, ‘pretty wild, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it was.’

  ‘And the poem,’ Florence said, widening her eyes with meaning, ‘what was your opinion of that?’

  ‘Extraordinary, wasn’t it?’ Joey said. ‘Quite extraordinary.’

  ‘I asked Captain Evans, Joey. I know what you think about everything.’

  ‘Gilbert,’ Gilbert corrected, ‘please.’

  ‘Gilbert, then.’

  She looked at him, waiting. He felt himself being assessed. He moved his feet. What did he think of the poem? Well, it certainly went on a long time.

  ‘I simply don’t know how anyone could learn all that. I know I couldn’t.’

  ‘Quite so,’ Joey said, ‘extraordinary, but then he is, isn’t he!’

  ‘Mind you, your entry was even
more dramatic,’ Gilbert said to Florence.

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘And did you see A.J.’s face!’ Joey laughed. ‘If looks could kill.’

  ‘What about his face?’ Florence asked her brother.

  ‘Well, spoiling his moment like that, I mean one doesn’t lightly interrupt A.J., does one, Gilbert? No, one does not!’

  ‘Really?’ Florence said. ‘Is he so very important?’

  ‘More than one’s life is worth to interrupt A.J.,’ Joey went on. ‘Still, come on, can’t wait to show you what I’ve just got out the back. And the little devil stung me for my pains.’

  ‘Stung you?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Badly?’ Gilbert asked.

  ‘Very,’ Florence said. ‘Is all this worth it?’

  Joey looked at his hand.

  ‘Bit of a jolt, just as I pulled it off the rock, but it’s a beauty, the best snakelocks I’ve seen, lovely purples and greens, she’s going to draw it for me later, aren’t you? Do you want to see my little poisoner?’

  ‘Oh, do let Captain Evans sit for a moment, he’s only just arrived.’

  Once again Gilbert felt her eyes on his face. He looked steadily at Joey and asked:

  ‘What does the sting feel like now?’

  ‘Oh, prickly torture, nothing more,’ Joey said. ‘Lots of little explosions, that’s all, lots of invisible barbs. Mind you, I’ve just been reading in Gosse about the Dr Waller experiment, you won’t see me doing that, Gilbert, not in a month of Sundays.’

  ‘Doing what?’ Florence asked.

  ‘Well, it seems this Dr Waller deliberately allowed the anemone’s tentacles to touch the tip of his tongue, because he wanted to know the full effect. That was a snakelocks, too.’

  ‘His tongue!’ Florence’s voice was a low whisper. ‘Did you say his … tongue? He allowed one of those … things to touch his tongue?’

  ‘Yes, and the anemone seized it very hard and it took him about a minute or more to claw it off. Imagine that, a snakelocks clamped on your tongue.’