Summer in February

by Jonathan Smith

  ‘Your sister? I think she is … really very splendid.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘Anything you’ve … noticed?’

  Gilbert inhaled, wondering whether there could be anything about her he had not noticed! Did everything depend on his answer, which might well be reported back from brother to sister?

  ‘Only … that I’ve never met a more beautiful person.’

  Joey smiled at Gilbert’s nervous reply.

  ‘Yes – yes, I know all that, everyone says that, Harold Knight says that, even I can see that, but you’re such a perceptive sort of chap and I wondered, you know, don’t you ever, be honest, think she’s—’

  ‘What?’ Gilbert asked.

  Above them some leaves, weighed down with the rain, shed their drops, one of them spluttering Gilbert’s cigarette. He had to suck hard to keep it going, the heat fighting the damp.

  ‘Well, Gilbert, what do you think of her?’

  ‘I think she’s … extraordinary.’

  ‘Extra-ordinary?’ Joey asked.

  ‘Oh, yes. Very much so.’

  ‘As simple as that?’

  ‘Yes! She is extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary.’

  ‘But not extraordinarily odd?’

  ‘No, not even fairly odd, to tell you the absolute truth.’

  And by now they were both laughing, laughing like boys, like very young and very close school friends, and they left their den and walked on in the pouring rain, and a dog ran past with one hind leg in the air and they laughed in the rain (arm in arm) like a couple of absolutely extraordinary idiots.

  That night, before he once again snuggled up with Florence, all men and women elsewhere, Gilbert wrote the following words in his diary.

  Had supper with Joey and Miss C.-W. The Knights there too. Dolly and Prudence not, though expected. Most enjoyable.

  He slowly closed his diary and pulled back the bedclothes. He would read for a while. After some page-turning, from which he absorbed nothing at all, he got out of bed and opened the diary again. He picked up his pen. ‘Most enjoyable,’ he said sharply to himself. Then he suddenly felt very sad and very alone. Words really were useless. His feelings contending, he picked up his paper knife, turning it over in his hands, looking at it very closely but seeing no more than he saw when he turned the pages of the book in bed.

  Could he not add a little to that entry?

  Such as—

  Most enjoyable … mostly. If a little disconcerting.

  No, that would not help.

  Should he not keep a fuller diary, a journal, fill an exercise book with all he thought and felt?

  No, not at the moment. Too much was happening, inside him.

  He slipped back into his starched sheets, faced the wall and closed his eyes. She was not with him. He was determined that when next he opened his eyes it would be a bright fresh morning full of work and hope. It was quite simple. All he had to do was tell himself to do it, to focus on her shoulders as he did at supper, and her mouth, her wide mouth as she turned to ask him a question, but as he opened his eyes, superimposed, there was Sammy’s swollen mouth the night before he died.

  No!

  To cheer himself up:

  He would see her mouth instead, widening in a slight smile, as she asked a friendly question, her mouth making a simple, everyday teasing remark because any remark she made, about her art or his work, was made memorable because she made it. She spoke first to him just as Laura offered him more potatoes and leeks. He could see the whole scene so clearly, the blue plate, the white potatoes, the long pale green leeks, her long fingers resetting a hair pin just above the nape of her neck. He loved the way her hair swept up from her neck, to be pinned higher, and her necklace, the way it fell. He looked her up, he looked her down, and both secretly, so secretly.

  ‘Captain Evans, I saw you the other day. Just above the mill.’

  ‘Blote, it’s “Gilbert”, we’ve already settled on that.’

  His heart bumped. Where? Just above the mill? He had not seen her. His mouth dried. How on earth could he have missed seeing her?

  ‘I’m so sorry, I did not see you. Where was I?’

  ‘I was walking with a friend and you went past, swept past I should say.’

  He was none the wiser. He had no reason to be where she said she saw him. He felt bewildered. There was an unheard moan in his heart. He had no recollection at all of the scene. She put her hand on his arm.

  ‘And you were looking very serious. As you are at the moment.’

  ‘Was I? Am I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m afraid I often do, or so I’m told.’

  ‘But I like people who look serious, Stanhope Forbes looks serious as well and I so want to know what is in the minds of serious people, what’s making them so melancholy. A preoccupied face is worth a penny of anyone’s money, don’t you agree?’

  Gilbert was determined to move on to something else by bringing in Laura, but before he could do so Florence smiled and tapped her napkin as if to say that little topic, the question of his seriousness, unresolved though it was, was over for the time being and now she wanted to ask him something important. She spoke to him as if no one else was at the table. She did not want Joey butting in.

  ‘How long have you been an officer? I do want to know that.’

  ‘Eight, no, nine years now. In the Militia.’

  ‘And you fought in South Africa, at a very young age then?’

  Gilbert sensed Joey was trying to hear their conversation.

  ‘Yes. I was nineteen when I went out there.’

  ‘Nineteen! To think of you younger than I am, out there, and fighting in a dreadful war.’

  ‘Many did,’ Gilbert said. ‘It was not unusual.’

  ‘Did you kill anyone? That would be unusual, wouldn’t it?’

  Gilbert felt both his arms knot. His mind locked. He did not know what to do. In a split second Laura came in; Joey may not have heard all this but Laura certainly did.

  ‘I think, my dear, that men do not … enjoy this kind of discussion. More wine, Gilbert?’

  ‘Oh? In which case I shall never refer to it again.’

  ‘No, I don’t mind all that—’ Gilbert stuttered.

  ‘No, Laura is right, I’m sure.’

  ‘You’ve heard Alfred’s off soon?’ Laura said breezily.

  ‘Off where?’ Joey asked, equally breezily, from the other side of the table.

  ‘Captain Evans,’ Florence said, putting down her knife and fork, ‘I apologise, but Joey assured me when I arrived in Lamorna that you all talked about everything, and that was what made this place so special, that sense of frank discussion. Let us return to the water divining.’

  At the Water’s Edge

  She saw him standing alone at the water’s edge. He was trying to kick something. From her distance it might have been a pebble, and he was trying to kick it as far as he could. She moved closer, though still unseen. It was a pebble. The next one he caught only a glancing blow. He picked up another. This time he missed it completely, stubbing his toe. So he kicked the sand instead and attacked it with both feet, hoofed it, kicked it violently like a small boy whose sandcastle had been destroyed by a warring tribe and was now getting his own back on whatever lay in sight: it was a terrible, random tantrum and very prolonged. Watching it made her want to laugh. It also made her want to put her arms round him. Only when he turned from attacking the sand to attacking his dog (that little killer who was leaping around and loving every second of it) did she button up her overcoat and hurry, calling to him, as she ran down the slipway to the beach. Her face ached with cold. She called. He did not turn, though he must have heard her.

  ‘Alfred! Alfred!’

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  ‘You must have heard me.’

  ‘Quite a night,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I was hoping your roof stayed on.’

  ‘I
wasn’t at home.’

  ‘Oh, where were you?’

  He ignored her. The sea pounded down, undulating, lifting itself up in big long surges of grey lit by a multitude of white dots. The sucking and pushing and retreating was competing only a few feet from them. He walked along the foam’s edge.

  ‘I’m having a terrible time,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t paint. Can’t do it any more.’

  ‘Oh don’t be so silly.’

  ‘Just done a bloody awful one, the rocks look like sponges and the hounds look like statues, I just can’t get it right, it’s worse than beginners’ rubbish, it’s worse than the stuff they do in Forbes’ first hut.’

  ‘Even you can have an off day.’

  ‘No, it’s not that, don’t you see?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘You’re not playing bloody games, are you? It’s … it’s that I can’t paint anything except you.’

  ‘That can’t be so.’

  ‘It is so. Without you I can’t work.’

  ‘But you had a whole exhibition of work before I met you.’

  ‘Look, go away if you’re going to argue about it.’

  He picked up another stone, and punted it cleanly. This success seemed to cheer him.

  She drew level with him. For the first time she felt, with a curious stab of understanding, that she was in a sense the older person. But that was quite ridiculous. He was at least ten years her senior. Seeing her at his shoulder he accelerated away. She kept up with him, but made heavy weather of it, her feet sinking deeply into the soft sand. All along the beach there were smashed things, piles of seaweed and driftwood covered in white, decomposing froth. Where on earth could he have slept on such a night?

  He spoke sharply, without looking at her.

  ‘Why are you alone?’

  ‘Joey’s out on the rocks by Carn Barges. But I enjoy my own company …’

  ‘And what have you been doing with your own company?’

  ‘Painting all day, eight or ten hours at a time. And sitting for Harold next door, when I can.’

  ‘And entertaining, I hear. Gilbert Evans. With dances.’

  ‘Yes, that too.’

  ‘Unburdening his soul to you, was he? Was he?’

  ‘No, why would he do that? I enjoy his company very much.’

  He suddenly put his hands to his head in self-recrimination.

  ‘I made a fool of myself with you … last week. Why did I do it? A terrible exhibition.’ Then he savagely added, ‘Pleb!’ and punched himself.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Don’t “when” me, you stupid woman!’

  He pointed to his right eye with his forefinger.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Yes, said too much, usual trouble, bloody fool, no brain.’

  ‘You do exaggerate. Anyway I’m glad you felt you could tell me, I’d much rather know.’

  ‘I didn’t “feel I could tell you”, I lost my temper.’

  ‘Even so, I prefer it when people tell the truth, so much talk is so empty, isn’t it, even down here? And to have achieved all you have … is all the more—’ Her voice tailed off.

  The dog looked at them both, from one to the other, as if to say ‘Let’s go’ and they walked off the beach and up a sodden track, bordered by cigar-brown heather. As they climbed she noticed Alfred had some difficulty in moving freely. She wanted to ask him what was wrong, but dared not. At the top of the track, limping and panting a little with the exertion, he said quickly:

  ‘I’m going away soon.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘So you said the other day. Where?’

  ‘Don’t know, just know I’m going or I’ll burst. Thought I might visit your house in London, see if you’re as rich as you say you are.’

  ‘Our home in London, but—’

  ‘But I won’t, don’t worry. I’d like to go to Norfolk, or Suffolk, but I may not.’

  ‘How long will you be away?’

  He shook his head and shrugged and moved on. She had no idea where he was heading, nor why his moods affected her so much. She tried to imagine her mother’s expression as he was announced. She tried to imagine him pacing about in her London drawing-room, dressed in his strange clothes. She tried to imagine her father sitting next to him. She found herself smiling at the contrasts and the shock waves, his country accent and his unavoidable oaths.

  ‘I need to paint you again before I go, so when’s it to be?’

  ‘I’ve just told you, at the moment I can’t, I’ve promised Harold Knight I will be avail—’

  ‘I have to! That’s the point.’

  ‘All right, but only if I can paint you as well.’

  He turned to her, his colour high, his eyes piercing.

  ‘You paint me?’

  ‘Yes … I thought I would start with you, what better practice?’

  ‘Well, you can’t.’

  ‘In which case I shall have to disappoint you.’

  ‘Is that how you behave?’

  ‘Isn’t that a question you should be asking yourself?’

  ‘Oh, do as you wish.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going for a drink, then I’m going off to be with people I can be with.’

  And with that he turned on his heel and plunged deep into the high wet ferns. Taffy leapt after him.

  ‘But why,’ she called, ‘why do you drink so much?’

  Whether he heard that question or not she was not sure. A little angry with herself and very angry with him she was soon retracing her steps down the path and back along the water’s edge. Sharp and clear in the sand, going in the opposite direction, were the footprints they had made not fifteen minutes before.

  Mr Money

  A caravan:

  By the light

  Of the silvery

  Hamp-shire moon

  Dear Ev,

  A surprise!

  A letter from your friend and so very soon, barely a week after we parted. That’s what friends do, isn’t it? They think about each other!

  What an evening we had in The Wink! And those splendid crabs from Jeffery, I’ve never tasted better, but I must apologise for the spirit in which I first greeted you, what a foul day I’d had, and what a foul impression I must have made, I felt like an old buck rabbit stamping in his hutch, but we certainly got into our stride in The Wink, you and I. Never have I seen you so animated! Early next morning did you have a head? No! For was there ever in God’s world a more organised man or (I do not flatter) a more reliable one? It occurs to me some of us can only be truly prankish if some people are truly sane. Perhaps we all have our own spheres?

  How intelligent I feel tonight! In the rain yesterday I imagined you giving instructions in your gaiters, sloshing around that big cobbled yard at Boskenna. And at night are you still enjoying hippety-hops and beanos and dances (but not, I hope, enjoying them as much without me)?

  Where was I?

  Yes, what a contrast the thought of you, sitting in your room, makes with the fellow in the next caravan to me. He is wearing earrings (can I see you wearing earrings?), a deep red scarf, a black felt hat, sleeved waistcoat and tight trousers. He is sitting in a – no, he is not in his caravan, I lie in my teeth, he is in a yellow-wheeled gypsy cart. The horse is covered with brass-mounted harness. What a splendid sight! And here is something else for you to think about as you check the water levels and collect your dues and circumnavigate your farms and properties, think about this – soon there will be no coachmen, they are being pushed out by chauffers (spelling?), God help us, show-furs, and is that what you want, my engineer, my sapper friend, lots of hoots and horns all over England and not a moo to be heard?

  I think of you because all around me are tents, old Army bell-tents, and being a bit of a villain myself (set a thief to catch a thief) I smell stolen stock, and if they are stolen I only hope they do not belong to the Royal Mon
mouthshire Engineers … or Militia or whichever lot you are a big shot in or with – all the more reason for you to stay there and not carry out one of your famous inventories on the Romany estates!

  How is Florence? How is Laura? How is Joey behaving? No, let us be honest, eh, Ev? HOW IS FLORENCE? The pipe dream renders it bearable for us?

  You are sitting – I hazard a guess – in your comfortable rooms being waited on hand and foot by Mrs Jory, or perhaps you are taking your time over lunch – what a cosy place you have, or is it that wherever you are you do make other people feel at home, because you draw them out with your quiet attentiveness? – while all around me here in the cold fields are white wood ash fires on the ground, one in front of each wagon. Underneath each vehicle is a lurcher and a greyhound. To my left a stiff breeze belabours the breeches on a makeshift washing line, and to my right a man with a big bowl is throwing faggots down to hungry families. Children fight for them. Dogs are barking. Hens are thrilling. Chicks are panicking. Horses are having kicking matches.

  Life. LIFE, eh?

  Further to my left is a mission hut. The man in there plans to lead these good Romanies into the paths of righteousness, plans to take them off to God. Well! Have to say my money is on the status quo. So far at least our mission man has had very little effect on their language. Theirs makes mine seem pure driven snow. The air is as blue as the camp fire.

  ‘Do that again and I’ll kick your bleeding shins.’ (This from a man.)

  ‘Do that again and I’ll pull your bleeding lights out.’ (This from a woman.) Would she really blind her child? A Romany Regan? She looks capable of it.

  I am filled with the desire to work. It burns. It consumes. I have so many models here, all related to each other (so who knows what goes on under their painted roofs? Better not ask). How shall I describe them to you, Ev? Let us take a touchstone, known to us both, Miss F. C.-W. Well, the women here are dressy women, real dressy women (whereas Florence is dressy but does not wish you to know she is. Am I right?). One here is my favourite. She wears a black silk apron over a full, pleated skirt, a pink blouse showing off a tough, lithe little body. (You’ll be seeing more of her, Ev, my boy, in my pictures, so see if I’m not right! See the contrast with Blote; and, by the by, is not ‘Blote’ a bloody silly name?)