At the top of the hill, late that night, he said goodbye to Laura and Harold Knight; and at the hotel early next morning, with Jory waiting outside with his pony and trap, Gilbert said goodbye to Alfred and Florence Munnings.
Part Five
A Letter to Africa
Cliff House Temperance Hotel,
Lamorna Cove
Penzance
(HOOT of an address, eh?)
Dear Ev,
This will be the very first letter you will receive in West Africa. It must be! First ever! It will await your arrival, and you will read it to the sound of distant drums. If, that is, I copied down your Godforsaken address correctly, and you remain uneaten.
Now, as I write, you of course will be somewhere in the Irish Sea, with the spray hitting your face. Have to say I prefer dry land, even in the rain, if you get my slant.
I did not say this to you, Ev, when we made our goodbyes (morning is no kind of time for a proper man-to-man), so I’ll say it now: I think you have been wise to make the move you did. Very wise. This last year this place has become limited and dull, VERY DULL. We’re stuck, I feel, in an old fusty groove, I was saying this to Laura only the other day, and we agreed, you’re a cheerful chap and you and your shifting cargo will, by the time you unseal this, have seen new seas and new lands and new people. All colours. Quite right too. And well done! It’ll put a spring in your step.
We all miss you of course and I miss you TERRIBLY, but I go along as usual, feeling very humdrum, painting or picking up all those bits of paper and orange peel and matchboxes strewn all over the clifftop. What awful people trippers are.
Even so, once the fog cleared this morning, and the heavy dew gave way to sun and sharp outlines, I had a gorgeous metallic light. I went over to Carn Barges and set up shop on the rocks and thoroughly enjoyed it all. A big ship was being towed round from The Lizard to Land’s End by a small tug which left a trail of smoke, and I did a nice sketch which I can use, and later a big ironclad appeared round and steamed past, plus lots of those little white birds which fly low to the surface like a silver chain, all making for the Scillies I suppose. A good day, with all the hallmarks of useful indolence, which is a phrase I have been determined to use all evening.
Yesterday, by way of contrast, was the last day of the hunt, with big banks, damned big banks. But Grey Tick, on top form, flew over wall and bank. By the way, I’ve been forgiven for the fox affair, you may remember it, well, they’ve let the renegade dauber back into the club. I got back to Jory’s as happy as the day is long, though damned tired, and slept like a top.
But what am I saying? Only just now I said how dull everything is!
Blote, I’m glad to say, has been to tea with the Knights – she needed something to pick her up – yeast splits and jam and Cornish cream apparently. She’s been a touch off her food these last few days and painting too long hours. That may sound a bit steep coming from me but she’s only a filly and not too sprightly. Got to be careful what I write, she’s next door, dressing for dinner. She came through not five minutes ago looking very pale and very ordinary in blouse and skirt so I suggested she had another shot and gave her startling blue dress an airing. (‘Startling blue’ was how she described her dress as depicted in Harold Knight’s latest portrait, now en route for the R.A.)
General news: no news of your successor though Jory assures me over the bar the Colonel did briskly interview some chap yesterday who turned up out of the blue at Boskenna and the Colonel threw a box of flowers at him which he missed so that was the end of him.
As for my work, I’ve finished six horse paintings, let’s call them a SERIES, eh, and sell ’em for even more, the dealers are that daft, still, as long as the commissions keep coming in, who cares? And I’m off to Suffolk soon. Wish you were joining me.
Funny thing about letters, when you write you see the person you’re talking to, in my case my dear friend Gilbert of the Royal Engineers Survey Party, but he can’t reply, though he’s standing there clear as day.
Am I talking rot?
Anyway, never regret going from here but LOOK FORWARD TO THE WORLD. You are greatly missed.
Your great friend,
A.J.
A Walk in the Park
Gilbert was not pacing the deck in the Irish Sea. The SS Dundas, due to sail from Liverpool at 8 a.m. on Tuesday 21st, was delayed for five days while some last-minute fittings were made. With profound apologies all the passengers were requested by the Elder Dempster Line to reassemble at the dock the following Sunday morning.
Gilbert stood becalmed, looking blankly at the huge grey ship and the fog just beyond. He turned round slowly, wondering which way to go. Five days. That was long enough to do something, albeit long enough to become thoroughly unsettled again. He reviewed the alternatives.
He could not go back to Lamorna.
He could, at a pinch, go back to Cardiff for the remaining days but he’d only just said his goodbyes to Mother, Lionel and Maud. That painful break had been made. To arrive on the doorstep again so soon would feel silly and uncomfortable, if not false.
He could book into the Adelphi Hotel, but what would he do in a foggy city he did not know, with that idle ship mocking him at the docks?
His cabin companion, a Captain Sinclair, a pleasant enough chap to whom he had just been introduced, said, ‘Well, it’s London for me, what about you?’ so London it was for Gilbert. Exactly what he would do there, travelling light and aimless, he did not know, beyond the feeling that the London bustle might, far more than any other place, sweep him along, as it did so many aimless others.
On the journey down, once Sinclair had settled to his newspaper, Gilbert started a letter to Florence; in fact he started and screwed up a few letters to Florence, with Sinclair’s saucer eyes peering over the top of his paper and the rhythm and sway of the train making his writing irregular and messy, much in the way his mind felt. Nagging at the back of every clumsy sentence was ‘How do I address the envelope?’ Could he write a letter only to her, a letter addressed to ‘Mrs Alfred Munnings’? How could that possibly work? A.J. would go off like a bomb. As for Mrs Jory …
The train jerked.
Damnation!
Why hadn’t he thought straight? Surely they should, in those final days together, have agreed on some plan, some collecting place, Penzance Post Office, somewhere, some-where.
The frustration of it made him seethe.
Long before they arrived in London he had given up: he would have to write to them both from the ship and from Nigeria, knowing that she would read between the lines, knowing she would know all that was being left unsaid. Such as:
I love you, he whispered to the window.
Better to leave things unsaid on paper than try to say the impossible and make, as he was now making, a bad mess worse.
Damnation!
‘Sorry?’ Sinclair said.
‘Nothing … I do apologise.’
‘It’s frustrating, I agree, but what can one do? We’ll have a bit of fun in London, eh? Final fling?’
‘Yes … let’s.’
Gilbert strangled a yawn and stared out of the window. England rushed past. Or he ran over England. Whichever. He looked glumly at it, the England he would soon be leaving, but he felt only the loss of Florence. He felt guilty. Her loss, the loss of another man’s wife, blanked out England and Wales and family and friends and all their claims. There was only Florence.
He started to feel a bilious attack coming on. All he could do was swallow hard and close his eyes, mind over matter, Gilbert, and think of her as they sat on the fallen tree.
‘I say … Evans?’
‘Yes.’
‘Meant to ask you, where d’you stay in town?’
‘I don’t go up that often.’
‘But when you do?’
‘The last time … a friend booked me into … Fuller’s.’
‘Good spot?’
‘As I remember … yes.’
‘Fact is, I haven’t the foggiest where to stay. Mind if I join you?’
‘No, not at all.’
Sinclair folded his paper.
‘Thanks. Thanks … And where have you been?’
‘Been? Up to now?’
‘Yes. In recent years.’
‘Oh, Cornwall.’
‘Cornwall.’ He half laughed.
‘Yes, just south of Penzance.’
‘Really? Right out in the bush? Or should I say practically on the brink?’
Sinclair’s mobile mouth twitched in self-congratulation.
‘A bit of both, I suppose.’
Gilbert turned his shoulder away into the seat and half stretched and allowed his half-closed eyes to remain visible.
‘Enjoy it? Down there?’
‘Yes. Very much.’
‘Good … good.’
Gilbert knew he should now ask some reciprocal questions, only civilised to do so, and what about you, Sinclair, what are you leaving behind, and what drew you to Nigeria, and so on and so forth, but he did not. Minutes passed. Sinclair picked up and noisily shook open his paper.
Eyes closed, Gilbert was quickly back with her, traversing the sweet distance of love, her weight nicely on his shoulder in the hut, on the fallen tree, in the carriage, but just as quickly the tree rolled away and all he could see was A.J. on Merrilegs leaning down and launching in his usual way into Laura.
‘Fact is, Laura, Blote needs cheering up. Badly needs it.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.’
‘That’s the top and tail of it.’
‘But you’re just the chap to cheer anyone up, A.J. Pop in for a cup of tea?’
And Gilbert saw Harold sharpening his pencils upstairs and heard him telling Laura to stop exaggerating about Alfred the Great and stop showing off with Alfred the Gregarious and to settle down herself to do some serious, quiet work and kindly to allow him to continue painting his Venus, she’s happy enough up here with me.
‘That’s it, strike while the iron is hot, Harold!’ Laura boomed.
Gilbert smiled, and tried again.
Florence. Not Alfred, not Laura, not Harold. Only Florence, thank you.
Yes.
Yes, she’s here. She’s with me.
Florence was by his side, on the cushions, her newly washed hair on his shoulder, but the picture faded as her self-dramatising garrulous husband sat opposite him in the carriage talking loudly about his native village of Mendham on the river Waveney on the Norfolk-Suffolk border, with the thatched houses and blacksmith shop and vicarage garden and the sharp corner where he had a spill on his grey, and the racing at Bungay and how he called in to the Harleston Swan (or was it the taproom at the Coach and Horses?) and picked up how to make punch and sang ‘Landlord fill the flowing bowl’ and patted his horse’s head and Gilbert slumped into dry-mouthed half-sleep until the white skull snorted loudly and shocked him wide staring awake.
‘You all right, Evans?’
‘Yes, fine … fine. Sorry … Sinclair. Bit of a dream.’
‘A nightmare, more like.’
Sinclair laughed very earnestly at his joke.
It was as if he had gone into church to pray, only to feel cheated. He stood in the same dark corner, but she was not there. Perhaps he had gone wrong somewhere? He swivelled and retraced his steps, scanning every wall in every gallery, giving himself the excuse that he had been disorientated the last time. He hadn’t. No, with a sinking certainty he arrived back in the same dark corner. She was not there in the clearing, with the light on her coat and her back so upright. Nor were there any approaching footsteps.
How dare the Hanging Committee do it!
How dare they take it down!
He asked the attendant. The attendant had hairy hands and an obsequious smile. It was the Academy’s policy, and had been for some years, to change or rotate the pictures on show quite regularly. There was a large permanent stock, and if he cared to ask in the Secretary’s office on the second floor for further details …
Gilbert did not care to do so.
He felt a bit bovine.
He noticed a goitre on the man’s throat.
She was not there.
That was all that really mattered.
Bottled up, he went heavily down the steps and outside. The fluffy cotton skies had cleared. He blinked in the brightness and put on his hat. Then he crossed the cobbled yard and turned right into Piccadilly.
Accept facts, Gilbert. Be a soldier.
Come on, Gilbert, he said. Buck up.
How about a walk?
A walk in the park is in order.
Anything to keep away from that ass Sinclair.
Sinclair all too easily thought he was on easy terms.
He turned.
And the shock he felt was unlike any other he had ever experienced, or ever would. Looking back later, looking back over his long life, although terrible things were to happen, he never doubted that this was his biggest single shock. The pavement was packed. The sun shone directly down. Ten yards away. It must be a trick of the light.
Head bowed, Florence stepped down from a cab.
His knees went.
No, it could not be her.
Other women were beautiful. Other women wore beautiful coats. Other women had hair of her colour. There were many beautiful women in London, Venuses even.
She stood, head down, listening to an unseen man.
The man inside waved a weathered hand.
Then Gilbert heard A.J. barking from the back, he heard the voice from the Norfolk-Suffolk border:
‘King’s Cross, driver, and hurry. I need a new suit!’
Only A.J. could speak like that. Only he threw his hands around like that.
Gilbert still did not move. A passer-by brushed into him. Excuse me. Another bumped him. I’m sorry. My fault. I do apologise.
She walked towards Burlington House.
He’d know that walk anywhere in the world.
His body now moved.
He followed her, automatic, weightless, his eyes fixed.
Along how many cliff paths had he followed those legs, that back, that hair?
He did not call.
She turned.
It took them half an hour to recover. Gilbert sat her down on the seat in the courtyard, his face as white as hers, his lips as blue. There were explanations. They touched each other’s hands very tentatively, as if unsure there was a body to be touched. There was. They looked at each other and shook their heads and bit their lips.
When they stood up, arm in arm, a little colour returning to their faces, he asked her if she was all right, and she said yes she was, and he asked her if she would like to take that long-awaited walk in the park and she smiled and said yes yes she would.
They were reflected in a slow line of shop windows. They were smiling.
They walked to the park, with strength returning to their legs, they walked, happy and anonymous, and when they had tea, they sat opposite each other, their hands sliding together through the cups and spoons. She said I hope it’s a good safe ship, I want you to be safe, very safe. Alfred was off to Suffolk and she would stay at her parents’ but she did not mind, whatever, whatever. Whatever happens, she said, I’ll never stop thanking God for this. Nor will I.
You’re a windfall. A wonder.
He bought some eau-de-Cologne from a machine. It cooled his hands.
From being head down and small she felt large in spirit, warm, swept along in the certainty that she could climb any cliff, accept any fate. They drove to Fuller’s, there was never any doubt they would. Going up the stairs they met Sinclair coming down and Sinclair’s eyes said I say Evans you’re a quick worker.
Tuesday
Liverpool. Departure delayed. Went down to London.
Wednesday
Spent day with Sinclair.
Thursday
Another day with Sinclair. (A third would be a terrible prospect.)
&nbs
p; Friday
Met Blote! Walk in park. Had tea together, then drove to the hotel. Dinner with her.
Saturday
Met Blote at Trocadero. Went into park and sat and talked. Back to Trocadero for lunch. She saw me off at station. We parted at 3.15. I went to the train, alone and very sad.
Putting Together the Pieces
It was only when he was shot, an injury which took him back across the seas, that Gilbert was able to put the pieces together, or as many pieces as fitted. Laura Knight provided the framework. She was the only one who could, and anyway she was the only one who he could find in Lamorna that morning. Although A.J. kept his studio, not surprisingly he had moved out of his rooms and was, Mrs Jory said, rarely seen in the district these days.
As for Harold Knight, he was very ill in Penzance Hospital. It all started before the war with a mouth infection but soon his whole system was seriously affected. With the outbreak of hostilities and Harold’s reaffirmation of his conscientious objection, he was put to work alone in the open fields on the coastline by Zennor, on the bleak stretch sloping down to the place where Alfred saved the fox. In the appallingly cold conditions of the 1914-15 winter, frozen to the marrow and cut to the quick, the ostracised Harold buckled and broke. Having explained all this, Laura put two more apple logs on the fire, and turned the toast on the fork.
‘But that,’ she said, her face red from the heat, ‘is not what you came to hear.’
‘I’ll go to see Harold this afternoon. If I may.’
‘Oh, would you? That is kind … would you take some more pencils in for him? You remember what he’s like over his soft pencils.’
‘Of course I will, Laura, anything you like.’
Summer in February Page 26