by Ann Swinfen
Despite the fatigues of the day, he did not feel like sleeping, preferring to lie still and ponder. He had discovered that one consequence of losing his speech was the greater time he had to think – an advantage he was quite sure that the members of his family (so tense and anxious to help) were unaware of. It was so much easier to think, to live inside his head, than to make the grotesque effort at speech. He felt oddly liberated, after his stroke, able to distance himself from those around him and from his own body, watching its antics with detached amusement. Of course he would regain his speech, eventually. He practised his exercises carefully and in private, but at present he took a certain guilty pleasure in retreating behind his glass screen of non-communication. He also understood, for the first time, just why Peter grew so wild when people began to treat him like an imbecile after he was confined to a wheelchair. Towards William this attitude was even more pronounced, but he had come to see it, humbly, as a gift, a chance to feel life as others must feel it. Did autistic children feel as he did now? Or those who were the victims of some mental handicap? Perfectly lucid and ordered within their own worlds, but unable to communicate?
As a young man during the Normandy invasions in 1944, William had become separated from the rest of his company during the bloody chaos of the first few days. He had found himself at a remote farm, down a narrow country lane that looked like the twin of any English country lane across the Channel. In a field he had come upon a toothless old man hoeing turnips. He might have been any English farmer, too elderly for conscription and carrying on alone. Never much of a linguist, William had tried out his half-forgotten schoolboy French, asking for directions. The old man had at first stared at him, then – recognising his uniform – had seized his arm and begun to pour out a perfect torrent of incomprehensible sounds. Later, looking back, William realised that the man's lack of teeth and a strong local patois had contributed to the difficulty. At the time he had felt as though he was drowning in a flood like black treacle – clearly warm and welcoming, but stifling in its lack of meaning. He often thought of that man now when he forced his lips and tongue through the hideously complicated motions of speech.
Frances had said that she would come later and talk to him. For Frances he would make the effort, and try not to shame either of them by gaping or dribbling. It was only his daughter, he knew, who would have thought to take his poor confused dog for a walk. If he could lean on Frances's arm, and didn't attempt to go too far, he almost felt he might manage himself to walk with old Harry to the top of the meadow rise and back.
* * *
Frances found Mrs Patel talking to Muriel Lacey beside the neglected pond at the lower end of the ground below the ha-ha. This pond had been the creation and enthusiasm of a long-departed member of the community, a sculptor who had worked during the sixties – unsuccessfully – with bricks and objects retrieved from municipal tips. Even in those times, so cherishing of the untalented, he had been unable to achieve any recognition for his bizarre artefacts. He had consoled himself by turning the old natural duckpond into a small ornamental lake, and for some years it had graced the rough ground and attracted frogs and dragonflies over from the Ludbrook.
Common sense and the chance to return to a safe job with the council had enticed him away from St Martins in the early seventies, and since then the pond had been neglected. Birgit and Peter had never much cared for it; their taste was for more formal gardens. Mr Dawlish had some mysterious and unexplained hostility to all garden pools. When asked about it, he would simply shake his head and shift away from the subject. So the pool was drifting back to a state of muddled nature: unkempt, unattractive – and probably dangerous when there were children about. Although it dated from the period after she had moved away from St Martins, Frances had always been rather fond of the miniature lake, with its water-lilies and flag irises, and the island a third of the way along its length which supported a small rowan and a colony of nesting ducks. The children had adored the place, retrieving frog spawn from it to take back in jam jars to their bedrooms in Reading – where Frances had unpleasant memories of rescuing bold tadpoles who had managed to crawl out of their bowls and start off across the carpet, and of trying, sickeningly, to separate the cannibalistic ones from their tasty siblings.
Now she found herself longing to change into jeans and waders, and get into the pond to rake out the weed that was smothering the surface and strangling the lilies. The lower bank, she thought, could be cleared of weeds and filled with bog plants. And the water irises were in desperate need of being lifted and separated.
Muriel and Mrs Patel were sitting on the seat that had been placed for viewing the pond. It was not particularly comfortable – just some boards supported on two low brick pillars – but it stood under the edge of a weeping willow tree, providing a secluded and pleasant place on a hot afternoon.
'Don't get up,' said Frances to them firmly, as they tried to make room for her on the seat, which was only large enough for two. 'I'm going to make myself useful and do a bit of tidying.'
She found a long thin branch which had come down from the willow during the winter storms, and thrust it into the pond. Then she began to wind up the weed like spaghetti, drawing it to the side of the pond and scooping it off the stick into the long grass.
'Very clever,' said Muriel.
'It was Nick who worked out the method, when he was about fifteen. It's surprisingly effective.'
'Samira,' said Mrs Patel shyly, 'is so fond of his daughter.'
'We love Samira too,' said Frances, scooping away at the weed, with her back to them. 'I think she and Chrissie are really good friends – it's lasted five years now, and that's a good basis for a lifetime's friendship.'
'They both often come and help me in the museum,' said Muriel. 'They're very useful, not like some children. Chrissie arranges and dusts the exhibits, and Samira likes to do the metal polishing. I always give them old shirts of Richard's to wear as overalls. I do hope Samira doesn't come home too dirty.'
'Sometimes children need the chance to get dirty,' said Frances. 'Especially little girls. They're always being told to wash their hands and brush their hair and tidy themselves up. Little boys, of course, quite rightly ignore all this. They go out and have a gloriously creative time making messes. The pressures are greater on little girls to conform to some tidy image, aren't they? Even nowadays.'
She turned round, a cone of weed like drowned green hair dripping across her arm. 'But I think we should encourage our girls to enjoy their freedom while they're young, don't you?' She gave Samira's mother a wide conspiratorial smile.
'I – I'm not sure,' said Mrs Patel, hesitantly.
'They need the chance to develop their potential, without having to be miniature adult women. Heaven knows they'll spend so much of the rest of their lives caring for other people, doing what other people expect of them – conforming.' Frances made a face. 'Of course, it's a good thing for all children to develop a sense of responsibility, not to think that they have special privileges and will always be waited on.'
'Yes. You are right, of course,' said Mrs Patel.
'I remember,' said Muriel, 'when I was eight I longed for a guinea pig. My mother said I could have one, but only on condition that I took on the entire responsibility for looking after it myself. Of course I promised glibly, having no idea what was involved. I soon learned! I hated cleaning out the cage, but as he lived in my room, I had to put up with the smell if I didn't! And once I forgot to give him fresh food for two days. When he nearly died I was so upset I really understood what it meant, to keep a pet.'
Bless you, Muriel, thought Frances.
'I always think a dog is the best pet for a child,' she went on, innocently. 'There isn't all the cleaning up you have with a caged pet – dogs don't really make a mess. Looking after the feeding is a responsibility, but not too troublesome. Then taking a dog for a walk, and perhaps going to obedience classes, is good healthy exercise. And I always feel,' she said, roundin
g off her case, 'that a child with a dog is a lot safer from danger than a child on her own.'
She shook the wad of pondweed decisively off into the grass.
There was a little silence, while Mrs Patel thought this over.
'I've just had a splendid idea,' said Muriel. 'Sally will be wanting homes for Jeannie's pups, won't she?'
'Yes. One is promised to Miss Bagshaw, but that's all. And of course Chrissie is to have one. They felt it was time she took on responsibility for her own dog.'
'That means there will be three left,' Muriel cried with shining eyes, turning to Mrs Patel. 'Why don't you ask Sally if you could have one for Samira? Harry and Jeannie's pups are always lovely dogs, very intelligent and well behaved. Do ask her!'
'Oh, I couldn't possibly! But perhaps you are right. Perhaps she should have a dog. We could get one at a pet shop.'
'No, no,' said Frances firmly. 'You really wouldn't know what you were getting. I'd be very happy to ask Sally. Shall I?'
'Yes,' said Mrs Patel, suddenly deciding that she liked the idea. 'Yes, if you please.'
* * *
Mia fully understood that she had been manoeuvred by Frances in the matter of the puppy for Samira, but she had allowed it to happen. Partly because the suggestion had taken her completely by surprise and partly because she was amused by Frances's naïve English attempt at deception. It would have been so hopelessly out-matched by the wiles of her own mother or grandmother negotiating with a fruit-seller or workman over prices and services in her own village. She found it entertaining that Frances thought she had been taken in, but she liked Frances and managed to keep her own face straight.
* * *
It was cool in Gregor's studio, after the sun in the garden. To let in the breeze and some light he opened the tops of two of the old stall doors, where horses had once poked their heads out into the yard, but closed the big main door behind him, shutting out the view of the pretentious silver Mercedes parked outside. He had told Mabel he was going to do some work and allowed her to think that meant his Venus. But in truth the Venus was all but ready to ship, apart from a final rub over.
He stood with folded arms, looking at the huge, angry piece with its pendulous breasts and ravenous mouth, and remembered the stricken look on Frances's face when she had seen it that morning. He had come to hate it himself, and had nearly abandoned it in disgust, but a sort of guilt about leaving any task unfinished, however distasteful (probably inflicted on him in childhood by Mabel), had kept him going to the end. He would make arrangements to ship it off to Texas next week, and that would be the last of it.
With a dismissive shrug, he turned and climbed up the spiral staircase that led to his quarters above the stables. When he had returned to St Martins from California the stables had been only partially converted – the ground floor level being used as overflow studios when they were needed, while the upstairs – reached by an interior door from the music rooms, now blocked – simply served as storage space. Gregor had built the spiral staircase himself, and it now provided the only access to his private part of St Martins. Natasha had insisted that Nicholas and Sally should have a proper family home, but the other members of the community, apart from Gregor, all lived together in a happy muddle, sharing the kitchen and two bathrooms, and using Natasha's drawing room whenever they wished. This arrangement only worked because they all respected each other's privacy, but even so Natasha knew that Gregor would be happier with his own domain.
He had made the row of lofts into one large space, lit from both east and west by two windows – at one side set into the old trapdoor for the hoist and at the other replacing the broken remains of a dovecote. His bed consisted of a slatted platform (again made by himself) and he had built cupboards by boxing in the wedge-shaped space created by the slope of the roof. There had already been a cold stand-pipe in the stable, for the use of the grooms in the old days. Natasha had had this extended upstairs for him and a small water heater installed over the sink, which served him for cooking and washing. When he wanted a shower he went over to the main house, but his near self-sufficiency pleased him. He could always retreat here when he wanted to be alone and quiet.
He rinsed a dirty mug now under the tap – his normal labour-saving method of washing up – and plugged in the electric kettle. When it boiled he put coffee, sugar and milk all in the bottom of the mug and poured the hot water over them. Ignoring the lumps of undissolved coffee floating about on the surface, he carried the mug over to his one ancient armchair by the east-facing window. The mug had been given to him last Christmas by Katya – cheeky monkey – and said in big careless letters on the side: 'Sculptors do it in clay'. She said she had had it specially made for him by a college friend of Tony's who was down on his luck. Gregor felt himself both repelled by it and fond of it. He used it for his coffee every day.
He drank some of the coffee, then set the mug down on the floor by his feet and leaned his head back against the chair, with his eyes closed. In the last few years he had begun to feel he was settled for life. This bare spacious room provided all his physical needs, the studio below – together with his work – all his spiritual ones. He had envisaged himself growing old with vigour and grace, like Natasha, amongst people he loved, in the place he preferred before anywhere else in the world. His secure reputation brought him more commissions than he could handle. Because he worked slowly and painstakingly, he would never become a rich man, but he had more than sufficient for his needs.
Now, it seemed, there was a snake in his Eden. The news Nick had broken to him, along with Natasha and Peter, had stunned him. He accepted, humbly, that he was not in many ways a practical man. He was good with his hands, whether he was working at his sculpture or mending a chair leg, but he never bothered his head with household budgeting. He paid his rent and his share of the running costs into the trust by standing order, and never gave them another thought. He was ashamed that Nick had had to take on the worry over the repairs, but he felt helpless himself when confronted with the prospective cost. He would see what he could do to raise some money towards it, and he felt awkward about two commissions he had recently turned down because he wanted time to work on his new piece, a bronze, which he was doing for his own satisfaction and would not sell.
His mind reeled at the amount – £100,000. How could they possibly raise that much? None of them was rich. Nick said the repairs to the roof must be done before the winter, or the rain and snow would start to come in, causing more damage. The repointing of the tower could probably be left till next spring. The dangerous state of the wiring – well, it depended how far they were prepared to risk their lives.
'We could go back to oil lamps,' Gregor now said defiantly out loud, 'and disconnect the electricity.' But that would mean no hot water for him, and only the wood stove in the studio to heat this great volume of air – no storage heaters on both levels as there were now. He could sleep downstairs by the stove. He himself and Nick's family could all eat in the big kitchen with the others. Thank God they had kept the old solid fuel range. But he saw that all this could only be a makeshift arrangement. They had managed in primitive conditions in the first few years of the community, but there had been no elderly people to keep warm then. Peter, stuck in his wheel chair, had difficulties with his circulation. William would need special care for a long while yet. Natasha was over ninety.
Oh God, he groaned, what are we going to do?
And although he tried to keep the question of the money at the front of his mind, as the most urgent, there was this other problem. St Martins might cease to be his concern, because for the last six months he had been thinking that he might have to leave.
When he had returned to St Martins – more than ten years ago now – he had known that Frances was safely living in Reading. It was all so long ago. He was well over it. She . . . well, she had shown how she felt by her betrayal of him. At her wedding reception Gregor, for the first and last time in his life, had drunk himself silly, th
en spent the whole night after they had left for their honeymoon wandering around the estate, being sick into the bushes every hour or so. He had not originally intended to stay for the wedding. After his fight with Frances in the wood-shed the previous Christmas he would have liked to walk out of St Martins, but he was taking his second optional year at art college and felt that he could not let Natasha down by dropping out. Since the wedding was to take place the weekend after his summer term finished, he decided that to leave before it would be a sign of weakness – it would show Frances how much he cared – so he had waited until she had departed on her honeymoon and then announced to Natasha that he was going to Italy. She had not been surprised, only grieved.
She had said simply, 'You have your work, Gregor. Many men do not have that.'
Coming back after his years of travelling and occasional desultory affairs, he was sure that Frances's visits to St Martins with her children would cause him no pain. He had put behind him any thought of marriage and children; celibacy seemed in keeping with the solitary nature of his work. Reaching this decision had brought him a sense of release, a cool, clean feeling of independence.
By the end of the first day of the first visit of Frances and her children to St Martins, he realised that his feelings for her were not as cool and detached as he had supposed. Their long separation had left him confused and ambivalent. After that, he tried to avoid her when she visited – pleading work, skulking in his studio – but this discovery about himself did not change his resolve. He got on well with the children, rather to his surprise. They seemed to have little of Giles in their make-up, apart from some physical resemblances in Anya and Tony. Perhaps it came of their being brought up so much by their mother. When he had been home about a year, Mabel let drop the true situation between Frances and Giles: his string of affairs, carelessly flaunted; her loyalty (misplaced, in Mabel's view).