‘You all know that Frances Seymour was one of the best-loved and most-respected artists of the post-war period. She found an instant rapport with the public, who loved her timeless, evocative, yet entirely modern paintings. I even have a statistic here from Tate Britain, which is that “A Day at the Beach”, one of her best-known paintings, is the fifth-most popular postcard in the gallery shop.’ She smiles at this, and a little ripple goes through the crowd.
‘What you don’t know about her is who she really was, my mother.’
She pauses. I look around, past a couple of scribbling journalists, at the members of my family. I see, with a jolt of shock, that Octavia is here. I hadn’t expected to see her and then I think about it and it makes sense. Jay wouldn’t come unless it was made clear to him he had to. Octavia is that kind of person who has absolutely no reason to be present, so of course she is here, standing next to her mother, looking officious. She scowls impatiently at me, though that’s actually her natural expression. Louisa is clasping her hands, her lips moving. She is counting something in her head, and I wonder what it is. The Bowler Hat is beside them, an air of quiet concentration on his smooth features, Archie, hands in pockets, nodding as he watches his sister. Arvind, as ever a mask of neutrality. And behind me on the wall: Cecily frowning.
‘Yes. Who she really was.’
I stare at the painting, until I realise someone is watching me. Guy. I meet his gaze, and again the voice of unease strikes up in my head. He looks at me. He touches his hand to his heart, and then switches his gaze back to my mother. I think of him staring at Cecily, in this very room, all those years ago, the two of them realising their feelings for each other, how scary it was, how wonderful . . . I can see her scrawling, black handwriting, flowering across the page, the words so fresh and clear in my mind. Like electricity shooting through me, like I was alive, alive for the first time. I looked at him, & he looked at me . . .
Mum is swallowing. She clears her throat. Stares at Louisa, at the Bowler Hat. The silence is stretching, it’s too long now, she needs to say something. Don’t, Mum. Please don’t do it.
Next to me, an old, sweaty man in a pink checked shirt and ancient blazer, clutching a notebook, sighs under his breath. Still my mother waits.
I look at her imploringly, my hand on Cecily’s necklace around my neck. Mum meets my gaze. Gives a little smile. And for the first time, I feel we understand each other, that we are the only ones who know what’s going on.
‘Frances Seymour was a difficult woman, but that is the territory with genius,’ she says. ‘She was beautiful, mercurial, enormous fun. She lit up a room. She opened her doors to anyone and everyone. You got quite used to coming back from school for the holidays and finding two Polish soldiers sleeping in your room, a penniless cellist and her son in the attic and an ascetic priest with a long beard practising the piano in the sitting room.’ There was a low laugh. ‘She was very understanding, as well. I remember when my brother and I were little, we said we wanted to run away and live in the woods. She came with us. She painted us huge Red Indian headdresses, and we camped out by the sea, ate sausages we’d cooked over the fire, and told ghost stories all night. When my father’s book was launched, she had a special hardback edition bound just for him, with an engraving of Lahore, his home town, on the front.’ She pauses again. ‘And when my sister Cecily died . . .’
There’s total silence in the room, and perhaps I’m imagining it, but a cloud of tension seems to hang, shimmering, over the assembled throng.
‘She never painted after that.’ Mum clears her throat again.
‘She locked the door to her studio and didn’t go back. Some asked why. If she felt guilt.’
She looks straight at the Bowler Hat. I see Louisa turn to him, questioning. An arrow of pain shoots into my knotted stomach. Don’t do it, Mum. Please.
‘The truth is, she did feel guilt,’ Mum says.
Her head is bowed; her voice soft. I clutch my hands together so tightly it’s painful.
‘And,’ my mother says, ‘it’s also true to say she shouldn’t have. We can never know how much it cost her, to never paint again. It was her life. But she chose to give it up. She chose to punish herself that way. She thought she was responsible for my sister’s death.’
I stare at her. ‘But she wasn’t.’ For one second, Mum’s eyes rest on me. And then she’s talking again, her gaze sweeping the floor, the sense of occasion apparent again. ‘We will never know what she could have achieved if she’d carried on painting. We must just be glad we have what we do. And so in honour of my mother Frances, and my sister Cecily Kapoor, who never lived on to fulfil her potential, we launch this foundation. Louisa, my wonderful cousin who has organised today, and who is the backbone of our family, or Didier, my mother’s very great dealer, have an information pack for all of you on the foundation and the upcoming exhibition at the Tate, which we hope will be in eighteen months’ time. Thank you all for coming today. Thank you.’
And she leans down and kisses her father, as the crowd applauds politely. Guy is nodding, clapping enthusiastically. Archie claps loudly, his hands raised high, smiling at his sister. She smiles back at him, and he nods. Well done, he mouths. Octavia is watching uncertainly, a frown puckering her forehead, and Louisa is looking at my mother, hugging a pile of brochures close to her body, with an expression on her face that I have never seen before.
Chapter Forty-Six
The wind is still howling outside though it is sunny again. I talk to various people, old friends from the neighbourhood, a couple of gallery owners who have shown Granny’s work in the past, some of Mum’s friends from Granny and Arvind’s days in London. It’s been a long, strange day. Archie has already said he will give us a lift back to Penzance to get the sleeper, Mum and I. The Leightons are driving back tomorrow. In happy contrast to my last visit to Summercove, this time it is work for which I need to be back in London as soon as possible. Maya, the intern, is slaving away in my absence making up necklaces and bracelets so we can fulfil all the orders, but it’s not fair she should do all the work by herself.
I’m having an in-depth conversation about Granny’s legacy with a journalist, a friendly woman in her fifties from a rather highbrow art journal. I am pretending (and failing) to sound as though I know what I’m talking about, when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn around and it’s Guy.
‘Hello,’ I say. ‘You off?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’m driving back tonight. Left the car here last week. Came down in advance to finish the cataloguing.’
‘Oh, right,’ I say.
‘I had some things to sort out. Hey – I just came to say bye. Listen, Natasha. I’m sorry we haven’t talked. Since you—’
‘Excuse me,’ I say, turning back to Mary the journalist. ‘Nice to meet you.’ She smiles and moves off to greet someone else. I turn back to Guy, trying to sound jovial, scatty, breezy. ‘Phew. She was asking me about Futurism. I was out of my depth. Go on.’
‘Since you read the diary, I was wanting to say,’ he continues. ‘I’ve had a lot to think about, for my part. It’s been strange.’
‘It must have been,’ I say. ‘I had no idea – you poor thing.’ I don’t mean to, but I put my hand on his arm.
The muscles around his jaw tighten. He swallows. ‘I was head over heels in love with her, you know,’ he says. ‘Reading it, hearing her voice again, it was almost unbearable, after all these years when I’d tried to put her out of my mind.’ He speaks so softly in the hubbub of the crowd. ‘It has been . . . very strange.’
‘I’m sure,’ I say. ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you, reading it now, finding out about Granny and all of that, now . . .’
‘Interesting,’ he smiles, his eyes still blank. ‘It’s been – yes, interesting. There’s no one else quite like Cecily. Never has been. I thought, at least. Now I’m not so sure.’
He stares at me again. ‘Guy – I really would like to come and talk to
you about it,’ I say. I don’t want to sound as though I’m begging, but I think it creeps into my voice anyway. ‘Just one afternoon. I know it must be upsetting, but you know – it’s my family. I won’t bother you again—’
‘Your family,’ he says, as though he’s considering this. ‘Your family. It is, isn’t it? Look, Natasha, that’s what I was coming to say. I was a prat, that’s all. Come whenever you like. I’ll be in touch if not. Have you spoken to your mother?’
‘Mum? About the diary?’ Someone pushes past me, and I sway a little on my feet. ‘Well, she’s been away . . .’ I say, and I trail off. He smiles.
‘Of course she has. And she will be again soon, I’ll bet.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, but I do have to go. Listen, come round when you get back to London. Yes? And try and talk to your mother again.’ He hugs me. ‘Goodbye, my dear,’ he says. Dear. It’s such an old-fashioned term. I like it.
So the afternoon wears on into evening and sooner than I would have realised it is time to leave. They have taken Arvind away already, around tea-time. I have arranged to go and see him next month. People in the crowd were practically genuflecting as Archie wheeled his father out to the car. I kissed him goodbye and clutched his hand, and he stared up at me.
‘Glad you came,’ he said. ‘Just remember.’ He half-sang, half-spoke. ‘“The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la, have nothing to do with the case.”’
I don’t worry about my grandfather. It sounds callous but I don’t. He learned how to file everything away in his mind a long time ago, and I wish I had that gift: I think I’m just beginning to learn it. Perhaps it’s the nature of his job, perhaps it’s being a foreigner in a strange country, never going back to the city you were from. Perhaps it’s seeing your child die. Whatever the truth is about his marriage to Granny, it was successful in its longevity, which isn’t important perhaps, but it is when you honestly believe, as I do, that they actually rubbed along pretty well together. Not very romantic, but perhaps that’s real life. I don’t think he was the best father in the world, and that’s an awful thing to say about someone, but there are worse fathers, and like his wife he leaves an extraordinary legacy behind. I find myself wondering what we’ll do when he dies, and then stop myself. Knowing Arvind, that won’t be for another decade or so.
Clutching my bag over my arm, I walk down towards the sea one more time, the wind whipping about me. I think I will always remember these last few moments here, will remember the trees just coming into bud, the greenery everywhere instead of the bleached yellow and grey of August. Arvind is right about the flowers that bloom in the spring: cow parsley, hawthorns and the beginnings of the apple blossom smother the lanes, and there are daffodils everywhere on the ground: these are not the flowers I remember from Summercove in the summer. For me it will still, always, be the place I spent the summer. Cecily’s diary is in my bag, and I take it out and look at it. I feel I can read it again now, if I have to. I have stapled the first, loose pages, to the red cover, so it’s all together again. I open the book, transported back into her world again.
I am writing this sitting on my bed at Summercove.
I look down to the sea. It is choppy. The path where Cecily fell is still dangerous, the rocks still slimy from winter. I peer down. I hear a voice, calling behind me.
‘Natasha? Natasha! What are you doing?’
I turn around, and there are Louisa and Octavia, coming towards me. I sigh.
‘Be careful, Natasha! It’s very slippery!’
‘I know,’ I say, walking towards them. The diary is still in my hand; I fold it under my armpit, hugging it to myself.
Louisa says, almost sharply, ‘Your mother’s looking for you, Nat darling. Says it’s time to go.’ She runs a hand through her hair. ‘Phew,’ she says, blowing air through her lips. ‘When will they go? I’m about to run out of rosé, and I wanted to keep at least a bottle back for myself. I’ll need it, I tell you.’
It’s so Louisa, that; apparently rather bossy and straight, but in actuality a bit of a flapper, unsure of what to do next, and much nicer in her insecurity.
I run my tongue around my teeth; my mouth tastes stale, bitter. ‘Sorry to make you come looking for me,’ I say. ‘I was just – thinking.’
Octavia is watching me, her arms crossed. ‘What have you got there?’ she asks, and she nudges my hand with Cecily’s diary in it.
‘Nothing,’ I say, immediately realising that’s a stupid thing to say.
‘Come on, what is it?’ she persists. Octavia is a burly, serious girl. I don’t like the way she’s looking at the diary.
‘Natasha? You’re there!’ I hear someone calling. I turn. Mum is running down the path, her hair and her scarf flying behind her. The wind is blowing against her, it is strong now. She reaches us, panting. ‘We’re going, Natasha,’ she says. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere—’
‘Just a minute.’ Octavia steps in front of us. ‘I want you to answer something, Miranda.’ She points at my mother. ‘I want to know what you were talking about, during your speech.’
‘Octavia – sshh,’ says Louisa. ‘Please, don’t make a scene.’
‘You were getting at something, I know you were,’ Octavia says.
‘I said your mother was the backbone of our family. And it’s true.’
Octavia crosses her arms. ‘What a load of bullshit. I mean the other stuff you said. The insinuations about Franty, making out she was guilty of things—’
‘I’m afraid you’re wrong about that, Octavia,’ my mother says lightly.
‘I know all about you –’ Octavia says. ‘About the way you were carrying on that summer.’
‘Octavia!’ Louisa says angrily. ‘Stop it!’
Mum holds up a hand. ‘No. Let her go on. I want to hear it. What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean.’ Octavia squares up to her, her mannish figure taller than Mum’s. ‘You. Throwing yourself at my father, and my uncle! Your vile brother, perving over my mother. The two of you, bullying poor Cecily to death, just because she wouldn’t go along with you—’
‘Hey! Octavia!’ I say, finding my voice. ‘You don’t know anything! Shut the hell up!’
‘No!’ Her eyes are popping out of her head. ‘You stupid girl,’ Mum says, baring her teeth. A strong gust blows her hair round her head, like a banshee. She looks terrifying. ‘Where do you get off, accusing me? You know nothing, darling. You don’t know the fucking half of it, you have no—’
And then Octavia reaches forward and whips the diary out from under my arm, with a movement so sharp and quick it’s gone before I can stop her.
‘Continuing the Diary of Cecily Kapoor,’ she reads. She looks up, smiling, as though she’s won something.
Louisa’s mouth drops open. ‘No –’ she says, scanning the red cover. ‘That’s her handwriting, that’s Cecily’s—’ She stares at her cousin. ‘Miranda – is that her diary?’
‘It is,’ Mum says. ‘How—’ Louisa’s eyes are wide. ‘From that summer?’
‘Yes,’ Mum says. She gently puts her hand on Octavia’s wrist and strokes it, as though she’s a cat, and Octavia’s fingers slowly open. Mum takes the diary out. She looks at it, then at her cousin. ‘Yes, I’ve read it. It’s pretty interesting.’
‘I bet it is,’ Octavia says. ‘No wonder you haven’t told anyone about it, all these years.’
‘We only found it after Granny died,’ I point out. ‘OK?’
‘What’s in it?’
‘Yes,’ Louisa says, shaking her head. But she looks terrified. And then she looks at my mother and steps back. ‘You know – I don’t think I want to know. I just want to remember her as she was.’
‘Louisa, tell me something,’ Mum asks. ‘What do you remember about that summer? Before she died, I mean.’
‘Well—’ Louisa looks wary. ‘Why?’
‘It’s Cecily’s diary, not yours, or mine. She was writing what she wanted to write about. We were th
ere too, weren’t we? What do you remember?’
‘Oh . . .’ Louisa screws up her face. ‘I remember . . . “Please Please Me”.’ They smile at each other. ‘And my new shorts, Mummy said they were indecent, but I loved them. And the awful springs on Jeremy’s car. I remember . . . oh gosh, how hot it was. Mary making lavender ice-cream the day we arrived, it was absolutely delicious. Archie . . .’ She blushes. ‘Archie being a Peeping Tom. For years afterwards I’d try to avoid him. I always forget that’s why, it got mixed up with everything else, didn’t it? Oh, I remember Frank and Guy arriving, and how wonderful it was . . . at first. It all changed, after that. I don’t know why.’
‘Everything did get mixed up,’ Mum says. She hugs the diary close. ‘I remember my new clothes, and my feet looking brown in the pumps I’d bought, and I remember how much I hated it at home, how I wished I could leave. I’d lie awake at night with Cecily snoring away and work out how I’d do it. Go somewhere where I wasn’t the stupid one, the slow one, the lazy one. Be the pretty one, the fun one, the exciting one.’
‘But you were,’ Louisa says in amazement. ‘We thought you were absolutely it. We were so boring, Jeremy and I, compared to you three. You’d met everyone, seen everything, your parents let you do what you wanted . . .’
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ Mum isn’t smiling though. The wind buffets us, stinging my cheeks. I am transfixed. ‘That’s not how I remember it. At all. Look, it’s all in the past now,’ she says. ‘It’s gone. It’s like the diary. It’s her version, not mine, not yours.’ She clutches the diary close, drumming her fingers against it.
I hadn’t thought of it like that. How if I were to read Mum’s diary of the summer, or Archie’s, or even Granny’s, it might be different. I guess I’ll never know the rest. They were all there that summer, they know what it was like, but even then there’s still a lot they’ll never really understand.
‘I still think about her, I can still picture her so clearly,’ Louisa says. ‘Don’t you?’
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