A Sky Painted Gold

by Laura Wood

  How surprisingly thoughtful of Robert, I think, and again I have the sense that Bernie can read my mind. He chuckles. “Oh, you’ll find that Robert can be most charming when he puts his mind to it,” he says.

  “Not on the evidence I’ve seen,” I grumble.

  Bernie makes no response to that. We round the bend in the path and now the Cardew House is in front of us lit up, the reflection of the lights dancing in the water.

  “I’m a terribly selfish person,” Bernie says then, rather unexpectedly. His eyes are trained on the house.

  “What?” I stumble. What am I supposed to say to that?

  Bernie looks down and smiles at me. “Oh, I am, darling. I like to please myself, and I’m afraid I’m not awfully careful with people’s feelings. But the Cardews…” He trails off here, and reaches into his pocket for a cigarette case. He offers one to me and I shake my head. In a graceful movement Bernie lifts a cigarette to his lips and lights it with a silver lighter. He inhales. “The Cardews are my friends.” He places an emphasis on the word that makes it clear Bernie doesn’t consider many people in this capacity. The Cardews are special. “And those two have been through a lot.” Bernie is still looking out at the house and I have gone very still beside him. His words are hypnotic. “I do not care for many people, Lou, but I care for them.” He finishes, turning to me.

  This serious, careful Bernie is completely at odds with the man I met last night. With a start I begin to think I understand. Bernie is being protective of his friends. But why?

  “They’ve been kind to me,” I say carefully. And it’s true. Even though I hardly know them.

  Bernie looks at me through narrow eyes, and finally he nods. “One can’t be too careful,” he says, and his voice is tinged with weariness. “The vultures are always circling, and the press…” He trails off and clears his throat. “When someone new arrives, someone entirely unknown, you understand, it puts one at a disadvantage.” He smiles, showing his teeth. “I am not used to being in the dark about people, but I confess that you are a mystery to me.”

  “I promise you, I’m not the least bit mysterious,” I reply quickly.

  “And you’re not in contact with the press in any way?” Bernie asks. His voice is soft and silky, but I know there’s steel behind it.

  I’m surprised by the question. “Of course not!” I exclaim. “Why on earth would I be?” I gesture back towards the farm. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly in the middle of things here. I’m hardly at the hub of some bustling metropolis crackling with news.” I fold my arms. “Besides which, I’d never sneak to the papers about anything even if I were.”

  Bernie smiles a little at this.

  “Why … why isn’t Caitlin ever in the papers?” I ask hesitantly.

  Bernie exhales a stream of smoke. “Because of Robert,” he says finally. “Robert is the sacrificial lamb when it comes to the press. He lets them run what they like on him. But they can’t go near Caitlin.”

  “Why not?” I ask, and my voice is little more than a whisper. There is something underneath Bernie’s words, something slippery and secret.

  “Caitlin is … a trifle delicate.” Bernie shifts beside me. “Which is why I wanted to talk to you, to make sure…” He leaves his sentence trailing in the air, but this time the meaning is clear. He wants to make sure I won’t hurt her.

  “I—” I begin, and I take a deep breath. “I’m not completely sure what you mean,” I say, although I do think there’s more going on with her than meets the eye, but I want to reassure Bernie somehow. “But, if it helps … I just want to be her friend.” The words sound small, but they are true, and they mean something to me.

  I think Bernie understands that. I think neither of us has a large group of friends – not real, true friends anyway. I have always had Alice, I suppose, so I’ve never really thought about it, but Bernie’s reasons must be different.

  “Good.” He throws the cigarette to the ground, grinding it under his shoe. The smile he gives me now reaches his eyes. “Then I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. We all do.” With that he takes my hand and lifts it to his lips with exaggerated chivalry.

  I feel like I have passed some kind of test. Bernie tips his hat to me once more and saunters off down the path, back towards the causeway. He looks so untroubled that it is as if the conversation never took place. I stand for a moment, looking out at the island before turning for home.

  Over the top of all the emotions stirred by my conversation with Bernie, one thought clamours to the front. I am going back. Tomorrow. I hug the news tightly to my chest. They do want me. Aunt Irene is wrong about them, just as she is wrong about me. I feel something heavy lifting off me as a fierce desire fills my body.

  Change is coming, I can feel it crackling in the air around me, and I know that I am dancing on the edge of something new and deliciously unknown. The rest of the summer reaches out before me and I decide that I will take everything it has to offer with greedy, outstretched hands.

  Part Two

  “There was music from my neighbor’s

  house through the summer nights. In

  his blue gardens men and girls came and

  went like moths among the whisperings

  and the champagne and the stars.”

  — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  August, 1929

  It has been five weeks since that first party and I have barely been home. At first I stay over at the Cardew House for the odd night, but soon I begin to disappear from the farm for three or four days at a time. Caitlin has renamed the blue room “Lou’s room” and each time I arrive there seems to be some new little luxury waiting for me – a silk scarf, some chocolates, or a new bottle of scent. Waking up in that big cloud-like bed – just as comfortable as I hoped it would be – I marvel at how lucky I am and, although I know it can’t last for ever, like Cinderella I am happy simply to enjoy the time I have at the party – every last bit of it.

  The Cardews plan to leave Cornwall and return to London at the end of the month, which leaves me three more weeks of freedom. It’s strange that I think of it that way, I suppose, but I do – here, I’m gloriously free from reality, free from decision-making, free from all thoughts of the future. If there is one thing that the Cardews and their friends really excel at, it’s living in the moment. Why think about tomorrow when there is so much pleasure to be squeezed out of today?

  Plans are rarely made, but whims are often followed. We burn the candle at both ends, and even at our most languorous and lazy – even when it seems we are doing little more than lolling about – I feel an electric pulse running through us all. Perhaps it is the weather, so hot as to make me feel feverish, but there is an undeniable energy about the place that crackles more and more intensely as the weeks pass. We are a powder keg waiting to explode.

  And if we are all burning, then Caitlin is burning the brightest. She is always moving, always talking, always dancing. She is also thinner than she was when she arrived, and I rarely see her eat anything – although a drink is never far from her reach. I notice that Robert sometimes prepares food for her, quietly peeling fruit and placing it next to her so that she eats it, absently, without pausing in her excited conversation. It’s one of many small actions that remind me of Bernie’s word, delicate.

  People come and go from the house, and Robert is away often, for days at a time, seeing to the murky and mysterious world of “business” in London. He comes back from these trips more tightly wound, more serious. As a result, I haven’t seen as much of him, but we are getting on a little better, our bickering only occasionally erupting into something more serious. Between his surprising tenderness towards his sister and his love of Gothic fiction I am beginning to think it’s possible that I might have judged him a little harshly. At least, I start to until he says something to deliberately antagonize me.

  Caitlin has yet to leave the island a
t all. She has firmly planted herself here, and she surrounds herself with people. They buzz around her all day like little bees around their queen.

  There has been plenty to enjoy. More parties, of course, and dinners, and – when Robert is home – trips to Penzance in the shiny blue car with the roof down. There has been swimming, and games on the beach, and music in the evenings, and cocktails on the lawn. There has been dancing around the sitting room to the latest records, playing cards and trading jibes, and curling up in corners reading all the new additions Robert has bought for the library. My life has, in short, turned into one long, pleasure-seeking holiday, and why on earth would I be anything other than ecstatic about it?

  The island keeps us safe in our fantasy – cocooned, and far removed from the brisk realities of the outside world. When the tide comes in and the water kisses the sand down in the cove I breathe a sigh of relief that I have been marooned again. I feel the hours slipping dreamily through my fingers, and the pleasure and pain of it is almost too much to bear.

  The evenings that I enjoy best of all are the ones where all the guests disappear and Caitlin, Robert, Laurie, Charlie and I eat dinner outside, at a long table pulled out underneath a cloud of honeysuckle. Moths reel overhead, drunk on moonlight, as we talk until the candles on the table gutter and burn down. The evenings are warm and intoxicating, and we laugh and use our fingers to tear into the perfectly ripe figs that the orchard offers up like a gift.

  One afternoon at the beginning of August, though who knows precisely which, as the days melt effortlessly into one another, I am on one of my visits home when Alice drops by. Every so often I duck back to the farm to show my face and take care of some of the chores that I have been wilfully neglecting, while placating Freya, who has taken over quite a lot of them on the promise of payment in books and new fabric for her Medusa costume. I should feel guilty about it, I know, but I don’t really. Perhaps it’s because without my presence, the farm and everything on it seems to continue to run just fine; in fact, it has been rather bruising to my ego how dispensable I seem to be.

  Pa seems largely oblivious to my whereabouts anyway, and Midge accepts my disappearances without question. At first I feel I need to ask her permission, but after a while she tells me that she has enough to worry about, what with Freya and Tom trying to kill each other, the triplets wriggling their way into mischief at all hours of the day and night, and the baby teething. I am a sensible girl, she says, I can do what I like. I am glad that Midge thinks this, but I certainly don’t feel sensible. What I feel is giddy and reckless. I feel like turning cartwheels in the sand.

  At this particular instant I am having a rare moment of quiet, sitting in the meadow in front of the house alone and writing in my journal. A shout splits the air and I look up to see Alice cutting along the path through the field towards me. Her hair spills over her shoulders and her pale blue dress is hiked up as she walks barefoot along the dusty path. She looks for a moment like she has dropped out of another century, she is such an ideal picture of a rural beauty – almost as if she should be holding a crook and followed by a line of gambolling little lambs. I haven’t seen much of Alice in the last few weeks, and that feels odd, agitating – like an itch I can’t scratch. It is difficult to put my finger on what has shifted in our relationship, but it is clear that something has, something important.

  “Hello!” I call, lifting a hand to my eyes and I am surprised by the flutter of nerves in my stomach. Why would I feel nervous about seeing Alice? I shake my head, as if to shake the feeling loose.

  Alice comes to a stop just in front of me and for a moment I think that she feels the same awkwardness, but then she smiles her Alice smile and flops down in the long grass beside me. “What are you writing?” she asks.

  “Nothing really,” I say, casually closing the journal. “Just some notes. Story ideas.”

  “That’s great.” Alice tugs at a long blade of grass. “It’s been ages since you’ve written anything. I’m still waiting for the further adventures of Lady Amelia.”

  “Oh.” I cough awkwardly. “Yes. I have actually written a bit more of that.”

  “Have you?” Alice’s voice is surprised but pleased. “That’s good,” she says lightly. “I thought you’d forgotten all about her.”

  “Actually, I thought you probably had,” I say honestly. “I thought you’d be, you know, too busy for that now.”

  “Too busy for Lady Amelia?” She turns to me, indignant. “Of course not. So, can I read it?”

  “I-I don’t have it here.” I stumble because the conversation feels like it’s moving into dangerous territory somehow. “It’s at the Cardew House.” There is a long pause and I shift my feet. I feel Alice’s eyes move to my toes, and to the ruby-red paint gleaming on the nails.

  “I see,” she says.

  “But next time I come back I’ll bring it for you…” I begin eagerly, too eagerly. “I’m actually just about to head over so I could—”

  Alice interrupts with a wave of her hand. “Oh, no, don’t worry,” she says, and again her voice is as light as the snowy meringues that Midge whips up. “I’ll read it at some point, I’m sure. I’m actually quite busy at the moment with sorting the house out. I’ve finally started digging out the garden and Pa promised me some seeds.” She pushes herself to her feet. “I should go and find him.” She stands above me, and her smile is gone now. A small crease of worry mars her lovely face.

  I nod. “Of course,” I agree, and my voice sounds a little hollow. I hold out my hand and Alice takes it, helping me to my feet. I keep hold of her fingers for a moment, giving them a gentle squeeze. “I can’t wait to see what it looks like when you’re finished,” I say.

  Her face softens. “Yes, I’d like that,” she says, and then she lets go of my hand.

  “I suppose I’d better go as well,” I murmur.

  “Yes.” Alice dusts off the front of her dress with brisk hands. “Well, have a nice time, then,” she says, not quite looking at me.

  “Thank you,” I say, wondering why our voices have gone all stiff and polite again. “Good luck with the seeds,” I call after her as she walks towards the house. “Although,” I add, my voice getting louder, “if you actually manage to grow anything after the way you slaughtered those sunflowers I’ll be amazed.”

  Alice burbles with laughter and I immediately feel lighter. “How on earth was I supposed to know you could overwater the things?” she shouts back over her shoulder, and she lifts her hand in a jaunty wave.

  I return the gesture and set off once more, bound for the Cardew House. As I walk I think about Alice. It feels as if our once-familiar rhythm has been thrown off, always a beat ahead or behind one another.

  But there is no room for unpleasant things in my life at the moment. I am keeping all uncomfortable thoughts firmly at bay, defending myself against them with endless wish fulfilment. These thoughts may mostly be about my own future, but they include my relationship with Alice as well. In an increasingly hard to ignore corner of my brain I know that things will be different after the summer is over, so for now I am living like a mayfly, enjoying my brief time in the sun and turning away all ideas of tomorrow.

  I hustle along, over the causeway, feeling my worries slipping away with each step I take towards the house. When I reach the front door I turn the handle, letting myself in without ceremony. I go to the sitting room first, although I don’t expect anyone to be there. On such a nice day they’re probably down at the beach, so I will collect my book and join them. I am humming, my footsteps ringing through the hallway as I walk.

  I open the door and stop abruptly on the threshold. I’m surprised to find Robert inside, sprawled in one of the armchairs with a book in his hands. He’s been gone for most of the week, and the sight of him gives me a strange jolt of pleasure that leaves me feeling flustered. I have found that as the weeks pass I look forward to his homecoming more and more. I don’t know why. Probably because Caitlin is obviously so much happi
er when he’s around.

  “I was reading that,” I say, pushing the feeling away as I make my way into the room.

  He gets to his feet, the book hanging from his fingers. Despite the warmth of the day he is smartly dressed, and he looks as sharp and polished as a piece of silverware. We must make an odd picture as I stand in front of him in a worn green dress that’s slightly too small for me, my hair a tangle of sea breeze. He reaches inside his jacket pocket and pulls out a blue notebook, and I feel a pang of guilt about the conversation I have just had with Alice, mixed with an undeniable sense of pleasure, though I try to keep all sign of that out of my eyes.

  It is not the same blue notebook that he had before. In fact, I have written several more chapters of Lady Amelia’s Revenge and passed them on to Robert. I don’t like to admit to myself how much his quiet enjoyment of them means to me. Some evenings we have even sat together, me writing and him scribbling away in his own notebook – probably dull-as-dishwater matters of business, but still, there has been something companionable about it. I take the book from him. “Well?” I ask, studiously disinterested.

  “You certainly caught me out with the red herring of the missing key,” he admits, sitting back in the chair, while I flop into the sofa across from him. “But I don’t think much of this new character.” He looks at me from under his eyebrows.

  “Oh?” I manage faintly.

  “Yes,” he says. “This wicked Lord Marvell is a bit much, if you ask me.”

  “Oh, really?” I keep my voice polite, but I still can’t meet his eye.

  “Really.” Robert’s voice is dry. “So obnoxious and arrogant. I can’t imagine where you found the inspiration for such a villain.”

  “Mmm,” I choke.

  “I actually rather liked him,” Robert continues silkily. “Poor fellow’s probably misunderstood. Just after a bit of peace and quiet…”