Privileged Children

by Frances Vernon

Liza was nearly fifteen now. She had reached her diminutive adult height, but not her adult width. She looked as though she might, like Alice, retain her adolescent figure throughout her life.

  They came across a fallen branch covered with rotten lichen. ‘Let’s sit down,’ said Alice, and she dropped her bundle of holly. Liza joined her, and leaned against the tree trunk, her chilblained hands deep in the pockets of the heavy coat which she had borrowed from Aunt Caitlin.

  ‘I’m sure you could become an editor very soon,’ said Alice. ‘You’ve read so much you must be able to tell a fine sentence from a bad one.’

  ‘Oh no, you need training. You think that good prose sinks into you, but it takes years of practice at examining books and writing them to know what makes an effective sentence,’ said Liza. ‘Sometimes I read my novel and then I look at a really wonderful book, like Vanity Fair, and I think about it, but I can’t put my finger on what makes my book so turgid compared to that. I cry about it, especially when I think of how well Jenny’s doing at her science. She’ll probably get a scholarship to Cambridge,’ murmured Liza. ‘Oh, Kate’s so proud of her!’

  ‘Liza, Kate’s the first to admit that in a way sciences are less difficult than arts, especially at Jenny’s level. Everything just falls into place for her without her thinking properly. There’s very little hard work in science compared to literature. One thing’s right and the rest is wrong. It’s not like that in the arts. It’s all much more subtle. I would say that you have to be Newton before you really have to think and use your imagination in science.’

  ‘But don’t you see, Alice? Science is just so removed from our understanding, and we’re so much less clever than Jenny, that when she juggles those symbols and numbers about it looks to us as though it’s no effort for her. It’s like watching ballet.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re a perfectionist,’ said Alice. ‘But I wish you didn’t couple perfectionism with self-doubt.’

  ‘Don’t try to reassure me,’ sighed Liza.

  They sat in silence for a while. Alice watched Liza’s profile, which was pink with cold. Her nose was long and pointed, like Anatole’s. Her eyelashes were thick, but so pale that they could only be seen in certain lights. Though the sky was clear today, the descending sun gave out little brilliance. Alice saw it gleaming above Liza’s head, casting the shadow of the branches in a net over her frail face. Without thinking, she put out a hand to touch Liza’s soft pink ear. Liza jumped, and turned round to face Alice, her lips slightly parted.

  ‘You’ve got the only colourless face I’ve ever seen which is interesting to look at,’ said Alice. She held out a hand, and Liza took it and drew close to her. Alice slid her arms inside Liza’s coat and held her. She laid her cheek against Liza’s, which was warmer than she had expected it to be. She kissed it and then, after wondering vaguely for a moment, she kissed Liza’s mouth, and found that her lips opened, and that her tongue tasted slightly bitter from the damp black stick which she had been chewing. It was a calm pleasure, not a rush of violent desire such as she might have felt with a man.

  Liza put her arms round Alice’s neck and then suddenly let go and drew back. She looked at her feet, and held her face in her hands.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Alice, ‘I didn’t know I wanted to do that.’

  ‘Oh!’ cried Liza. ‘It was lovely!’ But she looked very worried when she turned again to face Alice.

  ‘Let’s get back to the house,’ said Alice. ‘It’s getting dark.’

  They picked up their holly again, and continued to tread cautiously through the wood. Liza followed Alice, her eyes wide open, fixed upon her back, and smarting with the cold. Soon they reached the edge of the lawn, and could see the lights shining from the small mullioned windows of the house.

  Aunt Caitlin had used to say that even if she found life more comfortable in England, where many of the relations whom she preferred lived, she would go back to Dublin to die. But in view of the terrible troubles in Ireland, she had postponed her return.

  It was nearly teatime when Alice and Liza got back. The warmth of the house made them ravenously hungry. They went into the drawing room, where Anatole was sitting with a distant cousin of Alice’s, Hugh Tahaney. Finola was on his knee.

  ‘I want to go for a walk,’ said Finola.

  ‘Liza, can you take her?’ asked Anatole. The colours and smells of the country fascinated Finola, but the lack of streets and people also frightened her, so she would never go outside alone. He gently lifted Finola off his lap.

  ‘It’s nearly teatime,’ said Alice.

  ‘I want you,’ said Finola.

  ‘I’m talking to Hugh, darling.’

  ‘Come on, Finola,’ said Liza.

  Finola stood still.

  ‘Il faut accompagner ta sœur, ma petite,’ said Anatole quietly. Finola toddled over to Liza, looking at Anatole over her shoulder.

  ‘Hurry up, Finola,’ said Liza. She did not mind going out again: a walk without Alice or Anatole would give her time to think.

  Everyone had just sat down to tea when they got back.

  All the meals, including breakfast and tea, were enormous at Aunt Caitlin’s house, as though the old lady were continually reminding herself that the Great Famine was over. Today there were scones, butter, jam, cream, Indian and China tea, crumpets and two sorts of cake.

  Finola nibbled shyly at one thing after another, and tried to stop the food from getting all over her face. She sat propped up on cushions, an enormous napkin tied under her chin, staring round the room. She had spent hours yesterday studying the lacquered Chinese screen in the drawing room.

  Anatole sat watching her. She was small for her age, and she had Diana Molloy’s colouring, except for her eyes which were dark grey like his. Alice dressed Finola in odds and ends, as she had dressed herself until she had stopped growing. Anatole thought how much Finola would like his Christmas present to her, which was a proper dress in dark blue viyella.

  Finola carefully wiped her hands, and asked to be helped down from her chair. She went over to a small table on which there was a pair of enamelled seventeenth-century scissors. She looked at them without trying to touch.

  ‘Pick them up if you like, Finola,’ said Aunt Caitlin. Finola advanced a hand.

  ‘Oh, Caitlin, I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Liza, looking at Alice. ‘She might break them.’

  ‘Will you please not try and destroy her confidence, Liza,’ snapped Anatole.

  ‘Mother of God, Anatole, the child’s broken the typewriter and eaten some of my paints in the last month alone,’ said Alice. ‘And at least they weren’t valuable.’

  ‘Alice, can you not see that she has an innate respect for beauty? She even eats tidily in a beautiful room.’

  ‘Tidily?’ asked Liza of Alice, nodding her head at the pile of unfinished scones, crumpets and cake on Finola’s plate. Alice laughed. Finola burst into tears and ran to Anatole. He took her on his lap. Liza and Alice refused to look at him.

  ‘I think she’s marvellously well-behaved,’ said Hugh Tahaney brightly. ‘When I was her age I was appallingly spoilt. I used to jump on the chairs and take clocks to pieces if I got a chance.’

  ‘It comes of being the only boy for so long,’ said Aunt Caitlin. ‘How much older were you than poor Robin?’

  ‘Eight years,’ said Hugh.

  ‘Young people today think of nothing but their pleasures,’ said Aunt Caitlin. ‘Dancing and drinking all night, so I hear. And the music they dance to! But perhaps that’s being very puritanical. Maybe it’s to make up for the youth that was stolen from so many so little older than themselves. But now I come to think of it, this wild dancing and all the rest of it began before the war. Poor Robin,’ she said again. ‘You always knew which side your bread was buttered, Hugh.’

  Hugh winced slightly. ‘I was in the Navy before the war started, Aunt Caitlin. But I agree that my luck was stupendous. I never saw a dead man, not once during the whole war.’
<
br />   ‘You need not think you were inactive just because you did not end up as cannon fodder,’ said Anatole. ‘I did absolutely nothing.’

  ‘But my dear chap …’ said Hugh, and then looked down and started buttering a crumpet.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Anatole, looking hard at him, ‘I could have done some sort of useful peaceable work. I ought to have driven an ambulance. I mentioned that to one of my favourite pupils the other day, and she said that my feet would not have reached the pedals. So there we are.’

  ‘The war seems very far away to me,’ said Liza. ‘I don’t have a very good memory anyway, but all I remember about the war is the zeppelin raids, and the girls at school in mourning and … the first recruitment posters, too, for some reason.’

  ‘You didn’t know anyone who was killed, that’s why, and so you lived in a sort of vacuum,’ said Alice. ‘And you were a little girl during the war, and you’re a young woman now. Menarche is a great dividing line.’

  Liza flushed slowly. Hugh Tahaney changed the subject. Liza, who was sitting next to Alice, had eaten very little, though she was hungry. She glanced continually at Alice over the rim of her tea cup, and then she would look away and fiddle with her food.

  That night, Anatole said to Alice as they were getting ready for bed: ‘You know Liza is in love with you, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure she’s not,’ said Alice through her tooth powder.

  ‘She is. She follows you with her eyes. She agrees with everything you say in a bid for approval. Which she gets,’ he added. Alice said nothing.

  They had been whispering, because Finola was asleep on a small bed in the corner. Anatole turned towards her.

  ‘She’ll be four in the summer,’ he said after a while. ‘Let’s have another one.’

  ‘No,’ said Alice. ‘She’s quite enough.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose parenthood comes hard if you’re a paedophile,’ he hissed. ‘You can only love a child in a sexual way, can’t you? A child of a particular age.’

  Alice slammed the bathroom door on him and locked it.

  ‘Open it!’ he cried hoarsely, banging on the door, with one eye on Finola, who rolled over peacefully.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about paedophilia, or incest,’ Alice called through the door. ‘You find Jenny very nubile. Oh, I know you’ve never touched her. In fact, you haven’t touched her at all ever since you started finding her attractive. Well, I prefer Liza.’

  Anatole went away from the door and searched for his pipe. He found it, and took a long time to fill and light it, in silence.

  Alice slowly opened the bathroom door and came out. Anatole looked sad, not angry or resentful.

  ‘Can’t you see, Anatole, that if I did go to bed with Liza, it wouldn’t threaten your position at all? she said. ‘I only went to bed with Leo to spite you that time. I’ve never really wanted another man since I met you.’ And that’s more than you can say, she thought; and dismissed the thought. ‘You can satisfy all that sort of desire. But how on earth can I go to you for the sort of lovemaking I want from a girl?’

  ‘My daughter.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Anatole, you were never very close to her. She’s too like Charlotte for that.’

  ‘I am fond of Liza, and I don’t want her to be hurt. She’s very, very sensitive.’

  ‘I wouldn’t hurt her.’

  ‘Oh, Alice.’ He shook his head. ‘I take your point, and I can’t stop you in any case. You have your own peculiar sensitivity, Alice; you know exactly where everyone is vulnerable.’ He got up and went to bed. Alice joined him a little later. They did not speak or touch each other.

  Liza lay in bed smoking. She was sleeping two doors down the landing from Alice and Anatole. She had heard Alice slam the bathroom door. Her hair was beautifully brushed and lay spread over the pillow. At home, Alice and Anatole had separate rooms, though they usually slept together. Liza heard nothing for two hours after the door was slammed. The next day, Alice avoided looking at her, though Liza followed her silently whenever she could.

  Back in London, Liza returned to being Alice’s model, her favourite model now. Alice would sometimes touch Liza’s pale hair and long wrists and delicate skin. They never went to bed together. Alice said nothing but Anatole guessed that, despite her anger that night, she was not sleeping with Liza.

  CHAPTER 13

  BRAMHAM GARDENS

  EARL’S COURT

  October 1922

  Clementina had recently bought one of Alice’s paintings. Alice took it round to her herself one evening. Finola, who got on well with all the Woods, came with her.

  The Woods now lived in Chelsea. Alice intended to walk there, but Finola soon said that she was tired, and that she wanted to take a taxi.

  ‘Mother of God, Fin, we can’t spend half a crown on a taxi!’ said Alice.

  ‘Oh please. I’ve never been in one. Just once.’

  The painting was quite heavy, so Alice agreed. Inside the cab, Finola pushed herself into the depths of the leather seat, so that she could hardly see out of the thick windows. The taxi was dark and smoky, and she could hear the motor throbbing through the seat. She crossed her hands on her lap and stretched her feet out in front of her.

  A year ago, the first time she had ventured out alone, Finola had nearly been run over. Since then, she had never gone out alone again. This had also happened to Alice when she was five, but she had merely learned to cross the street when it was not full of traffic.

  Finola pulled herself up, so that she could see the people who were walking, and on buses, and look them in the eye. No one, she found, took any notice of her being in a taxi at last.

  Alice stopped the taxi before it reached Clementina’s house. Finola complained about this while Alice was paying the driver. ‘Don’t spoil it by moaning, Fin. It’ll be your last taxi ride for a long time.’

  ‘Will you unbutton my smock, please?’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘I don’t want to go out in it.’

  Alice undid the two buttons at the back of the sleeveless, deep-pocketed smock. It was very like her own, a useful article which Alice had worn since she was very small.

  Finola studied the sleeves of her jersey, which were tight and threadbare. ‘Can I have a new jersey?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. We can buy one next week. Come on, we’ll be late for Clementina.’

  Finola trailed behind Alice, who walked very fast. Occasionally Alice stopped to allow Finola to catch up with her. She would frown when she did so, and kick the ground.

  Clementina’s housemaid opened the door to them. The Woods employed two maids. Finola wondered why they chose to live with such melancholy and silent people as the black-clad maids seemed to be. Of course, they were very polite and helpful, but so much so that they made Finola feel nervous.

  Clementina’s sitting room was painted duck-egg blue and had a large window at either end. It was furnished with cushioned wicker chairs and an old wooden table, which was scattered with books and magazines ranging from the Boys’ Own Paper to an illicit copy of Ulysses, smuggled over by Augustus from Paris.

  ‘Come on, let’s hang it up,’ said Clementina, tearing open the brown paper in which the painting was wrapped. Finola went to play with Michael’s puppy, underneath the window.

  The painting was in oil, and it showed a group of suffragettes in Trafalgar Square in 1913. These suffragettes had been one of the first things Alice had seen on her return from Melton Balbridge. She had depicted the scene in grey, brown, dark blue and indigo, all except for the messages on the suffragette banners, which were in bright green.

  ‘How long ago all that seems!’ said Clementina.

  ‘It’s rather like a tombstone,’ Alice commented. ‘I wouldn’t really like to have it on my wall.’

  ‘A monument, at least. A little further up at your end, Alice.’

  When they had finished hanging it and Clementina stood back to look at it, Alice caught sight of a copy o
f The Interpretation of Dreams on the table. ‘I didn’t know you were interested in psychology, Clem.’

  ‘It’s Augustus’s. I’ve tried it, and I’ve never read such pernicious rubbish in all my life.’

  ‘What do you mean? I think there’s a lot of truth in the idea that most people’s problems are related to their sexuality.’

  ‘That’s understating his thesis. Anyway, it’s not his theories about sexual repression that I object to. He’s so against women, Alice. For heaven’s sake, you’re partly lesbian yourself. Can you accept some silly little Viennese crank — and a friend of Leo’s has met him and said he’s never seen such a repressed-looking person — telling you that you have a sexual problem which stems from your having been born without the great mark of maleness? Castration complex, indeed! It’s men who’ve missed out. Wombs ought to mean, and could mean, and perhaps did once mean, power.’

  ‘I can see that he’s trying to make a scientific justification for the oppression of women, now that the old methods have begun to fail. But still, don’t you think that if his ideas became a sort of public myth, ordinary people would be able to enjoy free love?’

  ‘Perhaps. But it’ll take a different kind of theory — and economic system — to create true free love for women. Anyway, I’m not sure that complete free love would be altogether a good thing. Don’t attack me, Alice.’

  Michael came into the room. ‘Hello, Fin,’ he said, walking straight over to her without greeting Alice. ‘D’you want to come and see my new train?’

  ‘Oh yes, please,’ said Finola, surprised. They went out together, with the puppy. Michael led her upstairs.

  When Michael was five, and Finola three, and the Woods had been living at Bramham Gardens, Michael had said that he was going to marry Finola. Now Michael had gone to school and, if Finola made any reference to this matter, he brushed it aside. He had not even spoken to her very much recently.

  In his room, Michael fished the clockwork train out of his toy box and put it firmly between them as they crouched on the floor. ‘You’re my half-sister,’ he announced, scowling. ‘So you see, even if you do want to marry me when we’re grown up, you can’t.’