by Ella Carey
She moved through her bedroom, her glance taking in the pink sunset that glowed outside the window like a beautiful hint of things yet to come. Emma made her way toward the bathroom that she had all to herself here in the house.
She turned on the brass tap on the claw-foot bathtub, running her fingers under the warm water, pouring in her milky-toned bath salts and waiting while the water became chalk-white. She unfastened her skirt—knowing full well that Patrick hadn’t gone away—and pulled her blouse over her head until she stood in her undergarment, thin, loose silk that floated around her body, hiding parts of her and exposing her forearms and her bare legs just below her knees. She reached up to tuck a few stray tendrils of hair into her loose dark bun, turned off the tap, and stepped into the bath, her transparent slip floating around her body in the water.
He sat down on the wooden chair in the corner of the room, crossing one leg over the other. And pulled out the sketchbook he’d been using to make preliminary drawings for his portrait of her.
“Do you mind if I make some more sketches of your face . . . your hair? And I want to capture your hands.”
She smiled her assent, slipping back into the warm, scented water and into an awareness that felt both natural and exquisite at the same time. Whatever was between them was a rare bird indeed. Was this love?
The connection she felt with Patrick ran like a streak of light between them every time they were together. She was drawn to him in a way she’d never been drawn to anyone in her life.
Emma picked up the sponge on the side of her bath and soaped one extended leg.
“I feel bad about Lawrence,” she said.
“Don’t,” Patrick responded, resting the sketchbook on one crossed knee. “For all his cleverness, he’s an active, doing person. He’s not reflective enough for you. You’re too different. There’s nothing to feel guilty about.”
Emma focused on the way water ran down her arm in clear rivulets, sliding off her skin, wet and sensuous. She slid her head back into the bath.
Was she destined to love in triangles? Her, Oscar, and Mrs. Townsend; Lawrence, her, and Patrick? Patrick, all those men, and her . . .
Emma sat up abruptly. Water cascaded and rippled down her body—her hair clung damp to her neck. She reached out and collected her towel from the chair by the bath. Emma pulled out the plug, and as she stood in the bath, her face hot with steam and her hair wet, she looked at him, feeling wounded. And yet, what had he done?
“Most women would be panicking about that,” he said, his hands moving, quick-fire, with his small piece of charcoal.
“What?” Her voice seemed too sharp through the hazy steam from the bath.
“The fact that your hair is now soaking wet. But you just stand there, your hands still spattered with paint, and you don’t care. I love that about you.”
Emma picked up the towel that was on the wooden rail beside the bath and began drying herself.
“Whether you adorn yourself or not tonight for the party, it won’t matter either way. Everyone adores you, Em. You need to know that.”
Everyone? Emma stepped out of the bath and made her way across to her bedroom.
“Would you like me to help you choose?” he asked, his voice quiet. He put the sketchbook back in his pocket.
But everyone loved Patrick. They didn’t love her. He smashed all the rules.
“I’m not sure what to put on,” she said, keeping her tone light.
“Want to play dress up?”
Silently she slipped off her wet undergarment, leaving it to pool—a wet skein of silk on the wooden floor. She dried her naked body in languid strokes while he fossicked in her wardrobe. She watched the way his hands slipped around her small collection of dresses. Emma pulled fresh underwear out of a drawer, and a new slip, and made her way to stand behind him.
“How about I go and raid the house for you, see if there is anything in another bedroom that belongs to someone else? Surely we can borrow things. It’s hardly stealing,” he murmured.
“What a good idea,” she said. “Perhaps there’s something left here by some French ingenue last summer?”
“There’s plenty of spare rooms in the house. I’ll go and search, see what we can find for you to play with. Sound good?”
She nodded up at him, and he slipped away in his elegant dinner suit.
Emma moved across the room to her dressing table. She dabbed a little powder on her nose and stained her lips with rouge. She’d never enhanced her eyes with anything. They twinkled back at her, large and brown and sparkling.
After a few moments, he returned.
Emma gasped when he held up an apricot silk dress, its bodice beaded and low cut in the shape of a square. The skirt flowed, and the soft fabric was looped into a knot at the knees.
“It’s beautiful,” Emma breathed. “Where on earth did you find that?”
He held a finger to his lips. “It was in the first room I went into. You have every reason to adorn yourself,” Patrick said. “There’s no need to hide anything, Em, and no need to be surprised when you attract a lot of attention tonight.”
She stood up from her little stool. The problem was that she didn’t want other men’s attention.
“Turn around,” he whispered. “Enjoy yourself. You’re allowed to have fun, you know. Allowed to let go.”
She raised her hands above her head. Behind her, he slipped the garment over her body until it hugged her curves across the bodice, flowing softly around her legs. Silently, he did up the buttons that ran down her back. And slowly, she moved to face him. He reached around, tugging at the loose bun that had held her dark hair all day while they painted, and let it tumble in a cascade of wet, deep-brown curls down her back. Next, he reached for the crystal vase of orange blossom that sat on the dressing table behind her and placed a sprig in her hair.
“Heavenly,” he murmured. “Let’s go now . . .”
By midnight, everyone was dancing on Thea and Beatrice’s terrace. Tea candles decorated the tables, flickering honeyed light into the dark, warm night. Champagne glasses cut of the finest crystal and shimmering glass bowls of strawberries lay about like the remnants of some extravagant feast.
Beatrice and Thea knew exactly whom to invite to a party. The guests tonight were other bohemians who shared in Emma’s and her artistic friends’ liberal views; they would not judge Patrick, Ambrose, Thea, or Beatrice for who they were.
While Patrick flitted around the gathering, Emma felt freer than she had in years. Her only obligation was to her darling son, Calum. She wasn’t married to any man except Oscar, who right now did not count; she wasn’t tied down now by being in love with Patrick. She loved the way that tonight, he gave her the leeway to be herself, while letting her know that he was right here and that he could, at an extraordinarily deep emotional level, satisfy her, while not making her feel in any way obliged. She only hoped whatever this was between them would last beyond this magical time in France.
As she sat on a rug out on the lawn in the early hours of the morning, her legs stretched in front of her while her shoes had been scattered off who knew where, she watched him and wondered whether an immensely close connection with a man of his leanings couldn’t be one of the easiest relationships in the world.
As the dawn rose in the eastern sky, it was Ambrose who was, as usual, cuttingly astute.
“It seems that Mrs. Townsend takes Oscar, Patrick takes Emma, and I will be left responsible for young Calum.”
Emma caressed the silk folds of her apricot dress. A secret smile formed on her lips as she sensed Patrick stirring nearby.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
London, 1980
Laura leaned against one of the long corridors in the grand redbrick building that housed the Royal College of Music. Nausea, wrought by fear of losing everything, had become her only regular accompaniment now. She forced herself to eat but often found herself staring blankly at the fridge in her tiny studio, unable to conjure up the motiv
ation to prepare food anymore. She’d spent the last couple of shifts at the supermarket in a daze—and she knew that her poor violin students had suffered a lackluster teacher this week.
Jasper appeared alongside her. He’d caught her eye while he chatted with a group of students farther up the hallway. With exams looming, everyone was in a panic heightened by nerves and mounting pressure to excel in their performances. The idea loomed that once they graduated in a year, they would all be in competition with each other, for coveted positions in orchestras ran among them like an uneasy thread. The fact was, no matter what instrument they might play, some of them would get jobs, and some of them would have to miss out.
Laura had just botched another violin lesson. The second in a row. She’d had to walk out, her hands shaking and her face pale with shame. She could not talk openly with her teacher. She had to resolve matters herself. There was a queue for miles to get a place to study here, and Laura was not about to risk any gossip spreading that she could not afford to pay her fees or that she was unable to concentrate on her music anymore.
“Come on,” Jasper said, taking Laura’s elbow, hauling her violin up from where it sat next to her on the floor and clasping it in his hand. “Let’s go somewhere quiet and talk.”
Jasper moved to a private spot in the common room and sat down opposite her on one of the low, wide leather seats. And waited, reading her, she knew, in a way that no one else could.
“Sorry. I’m not much company,” she said.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Laura scanned the room. Other students sat alone, hunched over scores, their faces twisted in their own particular silent concentration.
Laura glanced at the exam timetable that was pinned to the board. Two weeks until she had to perform the Bartók. Right now, she was playing both it and the Bach Double that she adored with the delicacy of an elephant. When she picked up her violin, it was as if she couldn’t see past the next note.
“Emma would have dealt with this as smoothly as if she were running her hands down a silk dress,” Laura said. “She got through two world wars; kept her relationships with all the men in her life intact, including an ex-husband, a gay man whom she loved, and another man who loved her all his life; raised two children; and had a career doing what she is passionate about . . . I can’t even make it past college without hashing everything up. And destroying Emma’s and Patrick’s artistic and personal reputations single-handedly, while losing Emma her home to boot.”
Jasper took her hands in his own. “No. You are talented and capable. You work hard. I think, like Emma, you have a genius for your art, but now, don’t you see, here’s your chance to show your genius for life.”
Laura leaned her forehead against his. “You have no idea how valuable you are to me,” she murmured. And she reached out, touching his face in a way she had never done before, because touching was something that they just didn’t do, no matter how close they were. “I’m so lucky to have you.”
He smiled at her. “And I you,” he whispered back. “All you need is proof of what you already know. Emma is still alive. And while she’s alive, you have hope of putting this right.”
Laura bit her lip. “I struggle with the effects of this on her health.”
“If only we could protect the ones we love from the problems in the world,” Jasper said. “It’s what we try and do.”
Laura stood up. She hauled her violin onto her back and held Jasper’s outstretched hand for a moment. “Go and practice, Jasper,” she said. “Please don’t put your future at risk, whatever you do.”
“I have such faith in you and Emma as a team. You are the strong ones. You’re both cut from the same cloth.”
Laura hugged him, but as she moved out toward the entrance, guilt about the dreadful effects of this on Emma sat like a slippery stone in her gut. She moved down Prince Consort Road and turned toward the station. Getting Emma involved even deeper and risking her feeling even more emotional pain than she must already be experiencing was the very, very last thing she wanted to do.
Emma let Laura in the front door herself as evening fell over Gordon Square. Laura waited, charmed by the way the door opened slowly and by the fact that Emma’s brown lace-up shoes were the first thing she saw, even though her heart ached at the way Emma’s feet puffed with age and seemed almost stuffed into her old leather shoes.
“I’ve rung the bank,” Emma announced, looking up at Laura with a determined expression on her face. She pushed her frame toward her living room and faced Laura in the middle of the lovely space with its large picture windows. Every time Laura came in here, she felt the spirit of the parties and the intellectual conversations that had happened in this house lingering about. It was extraordinary to think that Ambrose, who had become a famous economist, and Lawrence, one of the leading lights in the art world during the twentieth century, both had been Emma’s closest admirers and loyal friends, not to mention the love she’d shared with the famous modernist artist Patrick Adams. Surely one day Emma, too, would be recognized as the major breakthrough talent that she was.
“I’ve told Ivan that it means nothing to me to let go of this house,” Emma announced. “Instead of paying such high rent, I shall move into cheaper accommodations and hand over everything I own toward paying off your loan so that you can keep studying. There is simply no other way.”
Laura pressed her fingers into the back of the nearest upholstered chair.
Emma eased herself down on the sofa, placing one of her exquisite decorated cushions behind her back.
“How could anyone even consider kicking you out of this house, Gran? Everyone knows how connected it is with your friends in the Circle. I can’t imagine, quite frankly, anyone else sitting between these walls. And one day, if they do, the place is going to resonate with all the wonderful conversations that you held here.”
Laura’s glance tore around the room, landing like a fluttering moth on the wooden framed photographs of Patrick, Lawrence, Ambrose, and Freya. Friendship had been the heartbeat of their extraordinary group.
“You are not losing your home, your reputation, or your life over this. You’ve fought bigger battles, Em, with quiet determination and strength. I, too, am determined to do just that now. Although I do wish I had inherited a little more of your patience.”
Emma looked out the window, a vague smile passing across her face. The trees that lined the edge of the square sat still, silhouetted against the streetlamps that had just turned on.
“It’s all in the past now, though, Laura.” Emma spoke softly in the waning light. “Whether we like it or not. It’s what happens, dear. You can’t hold on to what has gone.”
“That’s true, but you need to protect what you know is truth and look after your own interests, Gran.”
“Laura . . .” Emma’s voice trailed off.
Laura came to kneel in front of Emma. “I hate to have to ask you to do anything, but can you try to remember if Patrick left any notes, evidence, diaries, clues? Is there anything remaining at Summerfield? Shall I go there and look? Any photographs of him painting the portrait? What about the others—did they keep diaries? And are you sure there are no preliminary sketches that he did lurking around anywhere?”
After a silence, Emma finally spoke. “There’s nothing at Summerfield. I cleaned everything out as they all died, one by one, Lawrence, Oscar, Patrick, and Ambrose. I gave all Lawrence’s, Ambrose’s, and Oscar’s things to their relatives. It seemed right to do that, even though they had their own rooms there, you know, and they were my family. And now they are all gone. As for the preliminary sketches of me that Patrick did, they were burned during the bombing of our studio in the war.”
“Gran”—Laura moved over to sit on one of her grandmother’s dining room chairs—“can you tell me what you remember about the time the painting was done?”
Emma eased herself back into her cushion. “While Ambrose contributed to the war effort from August 1914 by landing an
economics post in the War Office, Patrick did what he knew best. He painted, cataloguing his horror at the war. I suppose we retreated from the atrocities of life and set up an alternative. I couldn’t see another way . . .”
Laura regarded Emma. How she needed Emma to get to 1923. But the pinpoint approach she needed her to take was clearly not on the table this time . . .
“Patrick’s mother was raised in Australia. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“Patrick’s mother traveled to India when she married, accompanying Patrick’s father there. She was appalled that Patrick would not enlist at the outset of war that summer in 1914. He registered as a conscientious objector.”
Laura stayed quiet.
“Patrick tried to go to France during the First World War. He was offered a position designing stage sets for a production of Macbeth in Paris, but he was turned away and then hassled back in England, at Dover, because he was not contributing to the fighting.”
Laura sighed. “War, like love, is never black and white.”
Emma shot her a glance that held remnants of a far younger woman’s sharp gaze.
“The art that Patrick created during the war was his contribution; like all art, it lives on beyond his death, and his recordings of that time were not wasted, nor were they a waste of time, even though he was a pacifist. Although he did more than paint.”
Laura waited.
“During the war, modernism became frowned upon. It was viewed as ‘foreign’ and ‘new’ when patriotism and a turning to all things traditionally British became de rigueur. Nationalism was the force that drove Britain through those dark years. The feeling in this country became utterly conservative in a world that was trying to become modern, and those who were not patriotic in the face of the war were seen as betraying us all.”