Summer in February

by Jonathan Smith

  By three o’clock, when he placed his damaged machine next to the long iron railing, the skating rink was packed, so packed he was at first sure all his friends must have left. She must have left. There was no Florence. Never mind.

  What do you mean, never mind?

  Mind you, he did not quite know what he was expecting to find. In his mind’s eye, while pushing his bicycle, he had seen her and perhaps twenty others on the rink. In fact there must have been over a hundred. There was a roar of noise, and the roar of the skates; there were excited cries and anguished warnings, near misses and exuberant twists and turns. He could recognise no one.

  Then he saw A.J., lemon-yellow muffler flying behind him, A.J. with his boyishly high parting and port-wine complexion, whoosh, he went past like an ostler being chased by the furies, only he was taking someone to hell with him. Dolly! He was holding her round the waist with one hand, and holding her waist as if he did not give a damn who saw him holding her waist. He whooshed past again, showing the cut of his jacket, his dark grey Melton jacket, and wasn’t he the thing, and wasn’t he holding her so tight and wasn’t she enjoying it!

  Spotting Gilbert he raised both arms in a salute and nearly lost his balance.

  ‘Gilbert! Thank God, you’re here at last!’ A.J. shouted, his eye as hard as a sparrow’s, then he swerved and nearly caused a collision. With his arm round Dolly’s waist he came over.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Working, I’m afraid. Dolly, how well you skate!’

  ‘Working?’ Dolly said. ‘On a Saturday?’

  ‘D’you mean I don’t skate well?’ A.J. asked.

  ‘Gilbert!’

  It was Laura, bouncing over like a balloon.

  ‘Laura!’

  ‘We all thought you’d deserted us, where have you been, no, don’t tell me, the speed machine, I can see it in your face, disaster strikes again?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

  Gilbert felt he was a symbol of silliness. Laura laughed like a trooper.

  ‘You poor boy, trust these,’ Laura said, pointing down at her shod feet.

  ‘I’ve got news for you, Laura. Very good news.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Following the business with … the two ladies.’

  ‘What business?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard about Colonel Paynter and the complaint? You must have.’

  ‘No.’

  So Gilbert told her, shouting to make himself heard above the roar of the rollers. She was aghast.

  ‘Oh, Lord. Really? No! I didn’t realise. How typical of me.’

  ‘No, do listen, please, the Colonel didn’t mind one jot, he sent them off with a flea in their ears, you’d have loved every second of it, they walked in, and the Colonel heard them out, looked them in the eye and said, “Mrs Knight is on my land, and Mrs Knight is a very remarkable artist and Mrs Knight can paint who or what she likes and now if you would both be so kind I am extremely busy.”’

  ‘The Colonel said that? You were there?’

  ‘No, he gave me a verbatim account. He’s obviously very proud of himself.’

  ‘So he should be,’ she clapped, ‘so he should be.’

  And Laura jumped up and down, her face red, her ragged skirt whirling, her unruly thatch of hair bouncing.

  ‘And there’s more to come … Just before I left he said he would very much like you to have a studio on his land.’

  ‘But I can’t afford one, my pictures don’t fetch A.J.’s prices, you know!’

  ‘This is rent-free for you to have as long as you like, I promise, rent-free, it’s only a little shed, but I went to check it yesterday afternoon, and with a little work—’

  ‘It’s not that one on the way to Tregiffian, the one we walked past?’

  It was dry, with a view of the ocean, with a sound roof, a foursquare place with room enough for a table, easels, and a chair: set up in there and an artist’s hours would fly by.

  ‘Yes, that’s the one.’

  Laura hugged him hard, then kissed him loud smacks on both cheeks. Smack, smack. ‘Gilbert Evans, you’re my saviour!’

  Gilbert was very pleased for her, if a bit uncomfortable with the length and power of the hug. Laura’s noise level went up as the news went round and in no time Gilbert was The Saviour, surrounded by A.J., Dolly, Florence and Joey. A.J. handed over a hip flask of whisky in celebration and Laura (to Dolly’s evident delight) retold the story to Alfred. Dolly’s eyes widened and she clapped her hand to her mouth and kept on saying, ‘No! No, really?’

  Florence stared hard at Dolly, then hard at Gilbert. Feeling he had to release himself, and without knowing quite how he managed it – he felt automatic as he moved – Gilbert found he had taken Florence’s elbow, though saying not a word, and soon he was skating away in the middle of the rink with her. She seemed pleased. He did not speak but he had somehow disentangled himself from the crowd and was alone with her: that was the point, that was all that mattered, he had done what he most wanted to do, he was with her, he was holding her hand.

  ‘You skate very well,’ she said.

  ‘So do you.’

  As they came round past the noisy group again, A.J. bawled something and pointed at Dolly. Gilbert did not hear it, but he did see Dolly’s head go back with her loud laugh.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Florence asked, suggesting she had.

  ‘No, what was it?’

  ‘Only one of his awful rhymes.’

  With a small shake of the head she finished the topic and smiled at Gilbert.

  After a few more circuits, with Gilbert enjoying it more each minute, she came off the rink at the opposite side from the others. She led the way to a wooden bench, indicating he should sit next to her. She unbuttoned her coat, looking steadily across the rink.

  ‘Gilbert?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you feel impelled to rescue me?’

  ‘No, I wanted to skate with you.’

  ‘Laura is very smitten with Alfred, isn’t she? It’s rather obvious.’

  ‘I think it’s more that they are two of a kind,’ Gilbert said.

  ‘Two of a kind?’

  ‘She is very devoted to Harold. That is clear.’

  ‘Is it? I’m sure you’re right. How lovely … to be so devoted. But in what way are Laura and Alfred two of a kind?’

  ‘Perhaps she should have been a boy, who knows, but she obviously cannot abide stuck-up men.’

  ‘And who could be less stuck-up than A.J.?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And he perhaps cannot abide … stuck-up women, as you call them?’

  ‘I think that’s likely, yes.’

  ‘Hence Dolly.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘This is all very reassuring, it really is.’

  She leant over and touched his arm. He felt his body go taut with her touch.

  ‘And tell me another thing, if you would. Something quite different. Do you think the only people who can understand artists are other artists? I’ve heard Joey say that, and as you’re not an artist, I thought I’d ask Captain Evans.’

  As she finished on ‘Captain Evans’ she smiled, so here he was sitting far away from the others and having an intimate talk with the most beautiful woman in the world, a beauty worthy of Botticelli’s genius.

  ‘No, I don’t think that. It’s true I’m not an artist, but the main thing is to imagine what it’s like to be someone else, to stand in their shoes. If you do that you’ve made a big start to understanding A.J. or Laura, or whoever.’

  ‘And Laura loves vulgar things?’

  ‘Does she?’

  ‘Yes, of course she does, and I must try to remember that, because it has always seemed to me difficult to despise and desire at the same time.’

  Gilbert was baffled by all this.

  ‘She loves a good time,’ he said, ‘that’s all. That’s a healthy thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘And Alfred Munnings is a g
ood time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because he breaks the rules? Whereas you do not?’

  ‘Yes, you must know that as well as I do. He does what he likes. And he’s changed everything down here, hasn’t he? I’ve never met anyone like him.’

  ‘I seem to hear that every day of the week!’

  ‘Well, have you? Have you met anyone like him?’

  Her eyes widened.

  ‘No, of course I haven’t. Where would I have done? Before you got here, by the way, Laura said something very disgusting. Something very disgusting indeed.’

  ‘Did she? What was that?’

  ‘Do you really want to know?’

  ‘If it would help to tell me.’

  ‘What she said was, she disliked being red in the face so much, that when she was young and wanting Harold to marry her she used to go into her family’s back kitchen, would you believe, and touch the bullock’s heart that was there … It was on a plate. She said it was red and bloody and slippery and to touch it, to look closely at it and then touch it, made her feel sick and go white … So that when she went back into the room to see Harold she was as pale as she wanted to be.’

  Gilbert smiled. Florence, who had gone very pale herself, turned and looked at him.

  ‘That is disgusting, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t take it that seriously,’ Gilbert said. ‘Quite a lot of what Laura says, and what A.J. says for that matter, is really for effect. For fun. They’re looking for attention, for applause, I had friends like that at school and in the army, people are always trying to show off … It’s fairly harmless, it’s circus entertainment. Believe me, there are many more disgusting things than touching a bullock’s heart.’

  ‘Are there?’

  ‘Oh yes. Many.’

  ‘In which case, I bow to your experience.’

  Uncertain what exactly he had transmitted to merit this tone he said:

  ‘There is no need to put it like that.’

  ‘When I said I bow to your experience I meant it.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘After all you are the only one Alfred communicates with.’

  ‘You mean when he was staying with the gypsies? Did you hope he would write to you?’

  There was a full silence, and it lengthened. Then she stood up very deliberately and walked back towards the skating-rink. At the edge she turned and took Gilbert’s arm. Moving slowly, then skilfully together, a tall and elegant couple, they passed Joey and Dolly, then A.J. and Laura going the opposite way round, then it was A.J. and Dolly again, and Joey and Laura, a skating kaleidoscope, but Florence refused pressing invitations from others on the rink. Others could swap partners all they liked all afternoon. She assured Gilbert she was more than happy to continue as she was, skating with him, she was enjoying every moment, and she would look forward to the evening with Colonel and Mrs Paynter, whenever that might be, and seeing the walled garden at Boskenna, very much look forward to it, and to further talks with him. Gilbert felt powerful and powerless. Above the rink he felt there was a shower of roses, cut short at the stalk, hanging and hovering in the air.

  Later that night Gilbert took out his diary and dipped his pen in the ink. He wrote quite slowly:

  A long day. The History of the Monmouthshire Militia arrived in the post. Boskenna with Col. Paynter in the morning. Arrived Penzance p.m., roller-skating. Puncture en route. A.J.M. and Miss C.-W. announce their engagement.

  Part Three

  Sammy’s Exercise Book

  Last night, just before my supper was served, Laura Knight rushed along the upper landing in Jory’s to tell me how everything had gone at the wedding. She had promised she would do so. However, the moment she knocked and hurried into my room, looking paler than I had ever believed she could be, I could see her news was shocking.

  In a week or so, when they return here, I will no doubt find out more. Laura told me all she knew and all she could surmise. Then she added:

  ‘And, thank God, they are coming to live here in the hotel.’

  ‘Here!’ I said.

  ‘You’ll be such a help, Gilbert.’

  ‘I will?’

  ‘Yes! Of course, of course you will, it’s the best possible plan. Surely you can see that?’

  Though less shocking, this was (if possible) even more of a jolt to me than her earlier dreadful news. The only rooms that can possibly be allotted to them – the only rooms Mrs Jory has available – are next to mine. They will be my closest neighbours; she will be next door, only a bedroom wall away. When last we spoke, admittedly some weeks ago, Florence assured me they had rented and intended to live in that house on the outskirts of Penzance. We both agreed that was a sensible plan. It couldn’t go on, and a few miles would be easier for us both than a few feet. I even went to view the house a number of times to check if it was the most suitable place in the area they could hope to find, with generous studio space for them both, a studio each in fact, and stabling nearby. It was. Yet now I am told, if Laura is correct, that they will be back here, man and wife, here in Lamorna, in this hotel, on this floor – and eating at the same table.

  What are they thinking of! And whose idea is it?

  Before that happens, however, it is essential during the intervening days that I run through in my mind all that took place in the period between the announcement of their future intentions at the skating rink and Laura’s terrible account.

  One thing is clear. My diary will not serve this purpose. The cramped, small pages of the Letts diaries I use every year allow only the briefest entry for each day. Normally that is sufficient. That is my army training, and I shall of course continue as usual to record the main events in that way, while seeing this exercise book (an unused one I found in my brother Sammy’s bedroom when I tidied up his things – it even has his name on the cover) as the more private account.

  In the first few weeks following Florence’s engagement to Munnings I felt like a lone swimmer on a surging sea. I saw next to nothing of her and nothing at all of him. This was deliberate. For reasons of pride, and with my stomach a net full of knots, I found myself unable to help Joey with any further exploration of the rock pools, even though I knew he had discovered a dahlia anemone, usually only found on the Yorkshire coast, because to see his face would be to see hers, and how on earth could we avoid the whole question? Equally, I’m afraid, I found myself unable to ride Merrilegs. I could not bring myself to ask Munnings if I could borrow the horse, even though this proved an increasing inconvenience. The daily footslogging and bicycle riding was exhausting, but I settled for that.

  So, to compensate for the lost hours, I got up earlier and earlier each morning. Soon I was living in a half-world of unremitting work, a detached and driven wretchedness, a borderland in which I looked into every aspect of the estate’s dilapidations. Property after property was examined. I drove the men too hard. I tidied my desk every day and reorganised all the drawers in my Lamorna office. One evening I banged my head so hard on a low beam I was dazed for half an hour but even that did not hurt. I ceased to notice, shame to say, that I was living on the most beautiful coastline in England. The great virtue of all this busyness was that when I undressed I slept and slept the sleep of the dead. Except, of course, when I had my dreadful dreams, as I still do.

  She had chosen him. That was the end of the matter. For Florence I had been some moment’s dalliance on a skating rink. Perhaps she saw my concern for her, and my approach (if such I had) as solicitude, and for her, perhaps, solicitude seemed a kind of slavery.

  It was not difficult to avoid Munnings. He was only in Lamorna for a few very short periods in between his engagement and his wedding day. He went to London (for his Leicester Square exhibition, amongst other necessary meetings), to Hampshire and to Norfolk, from where he wrote to me.

  The London exhibition of his paintings, entitled Horses, Hunting and Country Life, was a great triumph. Laura described it in those words herself and showed me an artic
le in The Daily Telegraph where the critic saw the paintings as a ‘slap in the face of the Royal Academy, as well as a long-needed change to the landscape of English Art’. For the opening, Florence and Laura travelled up together on the Cornish Riviera Express, Alfred having gone on ahead by himself. This was the first time (Florence later told me) she had been on a train ‘since the day we met’, the day she saw the man dreadfully truncated while successfully trying to end his life.

  Do most men, like me, wonder what women talk about together, in the privacy of their rooms or in a railway carriage? I find it difficult to picture what Florence and Laura talked of from Penzance to Paddington. Did they discuss the forthcoming marriage? Did they discuss Laura and Harold’s marriage? Did they discuss Alfred, the man they both – in their doubtless very different ways – loved? Did they sit in silence? Did they talk about art? Was I mentioned, with understanding smiles? I have no idea. Most men in my position and of my background are, perhaps, rather in the dark where women are concerned.

  On that first journey to London, as well as the exhibition, there was another matter pending. Munnings himself had to call on Mr Carter-Wood at his home to ask formally for the hand of Florence. To put it mildly this meeting was not (according to Laura) a great success. Munnings, it seems, stormed in, moved through the mahogany and across the marble, as if he was on his way to sorting out a tiresomely overdue account with Jory at The Wink – only to be asked to take a seat.

  While sitting down, never Munnings’ favourite position at the best of times, he was informed by a very severe Mr Carter-Wood that he had never had much confidence in artists as a bunch and saw little evidence before him to alter that view now, that artists usually failed to provide a proper home and standard of life for themselves let alone their wives and families, that his daughter was accustomed to a full allowance of privilege and had always been expected to marry well, that his son and heir, Joseph, had managed so far to waste ten precious months of his young life clambering over cliffs and into rock pools collecting even odder species of multicoloured life than artists and was so little known to Mr Stanhope Forbes of Newlyn (to whom substantial fees were being paid) that the same Mr Stanhope Forbes could not even put a face to the name of Joseph Carter-Wood, and that Mr Munnings, as a token of his serious hopes and honourable intentions of becoming the future husband of his daughter Edith Florence and his son-in-law to boot, would be expected to show willing by earning a thousand guineas before they could even consider the possibility of sitting down to discuss any dates or arrangements for the wedding ceremony.