The figure of the man moved towards the young woman. She smiled him at him.
‘I like you in white,’ he said. ‘Can you wear that?’
She shook her head.
‘I think I’ll go as I am.’
She stood up and stripped off the white garment, to show a small, naked, body that had grown from that of a girl to a woman. Thomas sat down on the spindly dressing-table chair she had vacated, clutching his chest, mimicking a heart attack and fanning himself.
‘Oh my, I’m too old for this. The stress, the stress. You’ve got to wear clothes otherwise you’ll get a chill and I shall be incoherent. Am I too old for this?’
‘Think of Picasso,’ she said. ‘And you’re much better looking than him.’
Thomas wasn’t remotely old to her. He simply was what he was and she adored him. She was struggling into a tight dress, and stood with one arm in it, one arm out, striking a comical pose, yanking it down over her knees, getting stuck in the thing, peeking at him through a sleeve, looking at his velvet jacket.
‘I wonder what’s it like to be elegant?’ she asked him.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said.
Thomas was remarkably inept with his own clothes today. Vintage velvet jacket and unmatched trousers, a lovely clashing ensemble which had virtue in her eyes, simply because it was what he wanted to wear and it showed off the fine colour of his skin and the whiteness of his hair. She came and sat next to him.
‘Will they turn up?’ she asked. ‘Please, let them turn up and see you so handsome.’
‘If my daughters turn up,’ he said. ‘They may behave badly. Announce just cause and impediment.’
She seized his hand and kissed it.
‘But it was right to ask them,’ she insisted.
‘Even after they threatened to put me in the madhouse?’
It was a ragged red dress she had on, but sublimely comfortable. At the end of her third summer, her skin really was the colour of sand.
‘Thomas, my dearest and only love, I want to know. I want to know that you aren’t doing this to spite them, because if you are, it isn’t a good enough reason. I don’t need a ring.’
He stroked her head. ‘But I do,’ he said. ‘I want to do this for the future. To keep us safe. To acknowledge you for being what you are. To make us partners in name. Let no man cast us asunder. And above all, because I’m so … ’ he struggled for words ‘… so very proud of you.’
‘Shush,’ she said, always embarrassed by compliments.
‘And because, do you know what, I have always wanted to be a happily married man.’
She took his face between her hands and kissed him. Then she pulled him upright, straightened his clothes and regarded him with frank admiration. So handsome in his crazy garb; she curtsied to him.
‘You can run away afterwards,’ he said, solemnly, tucking her arm into his. ‘When I turn into a Frog.’
‘My Prince,’ she said. ‘Shall we walk, or shall we take the pumpkin?’
She was thinking, if you knew how much I love you, you might be the one to run away.
‘Not a good day’s work,’ Jones said later to another onlooker of his acquaintance, both of them waiting outside the Town Hall that morning. The onlooker spat on the ground.
Jones looked anxiously at the gathering crowd. News like this got about: there were curious faces, predictable remarks, such as, I can see what’s in it for her, what’s in it for him? But there was distraction. It was early afternoon and warm, a group of drunks newly released from the pub reeling into the space, guests from another wedding earlier in the day, a warring family spoiling for a fight, just there by accident. Jones’s attention was distracted by a figure on the other side of the street and he moved quickly.
Thomas and Diana emerged into the light, blinking at the unexpected gathering. The man Jones saw had one arm outstretched towards her as if begging, as she moved into sunlight. She was blinded by the light, squinting, looking heavenwards to focus, confused by the presence of people. Jones stopped the man with a punch: he stumbled down the step into the drunken group and from then on, the fight started from nowhere and swayed across the street, as if someone had ignited the blue touch paper and failed to retire.
The witnesses to the marriage, someone remembered, namely that foppish man, and the other, earnest creature who looked as if he was sent from central casting to be a lawyer, flanked the wedded couple and shepherded them away. No one could say if the pair looked happy or doomed: the focus was on the fight.
‘My, my,’ Beatrice said. ‘Cinderella goes to the brawl.’
Gayle and Patrick stood to the side, too late to attend the wedding, because by some odd mistake, Raymond Forrest had given them the wrong time.
‘No matter we couldn’t stop it,’ Gayle said in her calm voice. ‘Nothing as tawdry as this could ever last. Come away.’
King Frog has got married to the witch, Patrick said to himself. Good.
‘Well, that went well,’ Saul Blythe said to Raymond Forrest as they travelled back together on the train later in the day.
‘As well as can be expected,’ Raymond Forrest said, stiffly.
The two men were not mutually sympathetic. It was the first time they had met and even in the enforced intimacy of a shared table on an empty, London-bound train, they could not quite be frank with each other. One was a creative collector with a dubious morality, the other a solid man of duty. While Raymond was concerned to protect his client’s assets and scarcely noticed his client’s environment, it was that environment and all the paintings in it which was Saul’s sole concern. The landscape passed by in a journey already familiar to the couple whose strange marriage they had witnessed. Di loved the train, she had told Raymond Forrest, but then it seemed to him she loved everything without much discrimination at all, and would inevitably love the spending of his client’s money, a prospect he regarded with grave suspicion. He was wondering if Diana Porteous knew the extent of her husband’s assets, and decided she probably didn’t – yet – whereas this man on the other side of the table most certainly did.
Saul could almost see Raymond’s mind whirring with polite queries and a certain, sterile curiosity.
‘One would hope,’ Raymond said, ‘that people would leave them alone for a while.’
‘I fear they will,’ Saul said. ‘Can’t see local society rushing to embrace them. But tell me,’ he said, leaning forward over the table so far and so confidentially that Raymond recoiled, ‘how did the girls take the news of the nuptials? I gather you were deputed to give them the happy tidings and invite them to the wedding.’
‘Yes. Always the messenger boy. Are you acquainted with them, Mr Blythe?’
‘Yes, slightly.’ The lie tripped off his tongue. Saul was beginning to know them rather well.
Discretion returned, along with pomposity. Raymond shook his head.
‘There was mention of moral degeneracy. Beatrice in particular considered her father’s decision to marry as an obscene insult to their mother. I was able to reassure them, in accordance with my instructions, that their expectations of him were assured, and he would do his duty by them. In other words, their inheritance remains whatever it was before.’
Saul wanted to laugh and instead assumed an expression of equal gravity.
Family duty; a concept Saul could not understand. He simply did not comprehend the duties created by blood. Duties towards things of beauty were surely greater.
‘But he’s done his duty,’ Saul said. ‘They got into adulthood on his money. After that, it was up to them, wasn’t it?’
‘You might assume so, but that isn’t quite how it works, in my experience,’ Raymond said. ‘Children of rich fathers will always feel entitled. Especially if they are already aggrieved. Especially if they blame him for the mess of their lives.’
‘But they did attend the wedding,’ Saul said. ‘Even if they were too late to bear witness.’
Raymond nodded with the glimmer of a
smile.
‘That was my fault, I fear. And then there was that convenient fight. Otherwise, I fear that Beatrice might have attacked the bride. She feels … strongly.’
‘And Gayle?’
‘Mrs Edward Morton is a civilised woman. I do not know what she thinks.’
The old fool admires her, Saul thought. Try again.
‘So they feel secure about getting the money when the time comes?’ He was asking for confirmation of what he knew.
Raymond nodded.‘They have been told there is no change. Thomas thought that was best. If they were to think otherwise, they would plague the pair of them. Edward would be sent to bully him. Beatrice would pretend to love him.’
‘Well,’ Saul said heartily. ‘That’s all in the distance. Thomas is as fit as a flea. They’ve got years and years.’
They did not have years and years. They had three. And Saul was right: they were left alone. It was not that young Mrs Porteous and youthful old Thomas Porteous were shunned in the time that followed: it was simply that they were not embraced. They fitted nowhere, belonged in no social pocket, complied to no known formula in the town where they had been born. The doors were always open Chez Porteous; anyone who came in search of a donation was never turned away, but the odd couple seemed to need for so little by way of society, and were always so busy, they were almost insulting in their self-sufficiency. They travelled, left and came back with ease. Maybe the quiet happiness, or the appearance of it, was repellent, all by itself. Maybe envy played a part. Anyway, they were left alone. They were seen staggering back from the beach with pieces of flint.
And the house breathed in and out and bloomed and blossomed and the paintings on the walls grew in number, size, variety. Wisteria grew in the back yard, birds nested. Di Porteous was better dressed and had her hair done. Thomas kept a daily journal, so that you will know, he said, how happy you have made me.
He did it till the day he died. They did not have years and years. They had two of health and one of illness. Cancer of the oesophagus, and still, the children did not come; they did not see the point. The adult children, that is.Patrick came, though, as soon as he was old enough to catch the train: he came in secret, and went back in secret. He came because he wanted to.
And Thomas Porteous kept his vibrant will to live almost to the end. He died when he had done what he thought he needed to do.
The evening after Thomas Porteous died, the fireworks started popping all the way along the beach. November 5th, Guy Fawkes day, with a mist.
Like fireworks on the radio, she remembered him saying last year.
Like somebody digesting food, he said. Listen to them.
Noises on shingle, heard from this vast, unobtrusive house where she lived, explosions in the mist sounding like a series of farts. Di looked from the gallery window and went back to the desk, which was full of neatly stacked files, lists of indexes, lists of contingencies printed from the screen and, most explicit of all, the words typed out in his steady hand.
You make it your business to acquire beautiful things, to keep them from the rapacious who would destroy them. You acquire them so they can go on living and delight and inform others. Then you give them away, with love, so that they can become something else to somebody else. You pass them on. You’re a Collector, Diana my Huntress, and Collectors must keep things safe. Remember to record what you think before you forget, for thus is learning. I love you so much …
She looked at the words. Love things, pass them on, let them go. Keep them first.
Then she heard the sound of breaking glass and went downstairs. Someone had hurled a stone from the beach against the leaded window of the disused front door. A small pane broken; a portent of what was to come. Only a small window, only a small life, not hers, somebody else’s.
I am the Collector now. I carry the flame. You are only ever the custodian. The trustee.
She was waiting for him to come back, listening for the sound of him.
Wait for the friends, he wrote. And beware the enemies. You carry the Flame.
You are the best thing that ever happened to me.
And you to me, she wrote.
The greatest mystery in the entire world, someone said, is the true state of a marriage. She only knew that the brief years of hers, which had passed with such reckless, joyful speed, would never be enough, and now there was no one alive who knew her. But Thomas had; Thomas did.
Recognition of a true colour. No one knew the colour of her, except him.
It was a dangerous way to be.
Nobody knew her, and the last that anyone would think was how much she loved him. She was ashamed of that last afternoon. Perhaps she should have let him speak.
Jones thought she had killed him.
She went down to the basement, to the point where she had first come in, almost ten years ago. Curled herself into a ball in the warm dark.
Come back, Thomas: please come back.
Thought of what might be happening elsewhere. Raymond Forrest giving the daughters the news. Surely there would be room for grief. Regret that they had not come, even when she begged them to. Surely there would be regret that they had not seen him, known him. Surely they would soften and see the point of their father.
She could not cry.
Later, Raymond Forrest wrote notes on the occasion when he had witnessed the response of Thomas’s children to the news of his death and his legacies. Like Thomas, he enjoyed writing notes.
There were a few small drawings on the wall of this little pied-à-terre. Childish scribbles: Thomas loved drawings by children. A selection of porcelain objects on shelves, a room full of light and knick-knacks, darkened by the presence of three adults standing crouched around a laptop on a bare table, with the child, Patrick, sitting to one side on the floor, scribbling in his sketch book.
Don’t shoot the messenger. Raymond was sick of being the messenger, and yet he knew it was his role. He had heard one of them, Edward, remarking that Forrest looked like a large mole, which he did and he knew it, but he did not like him for that observation. To his eyes, they looked like hungry rats, Gayle the elder, Edward her husband, Beatrice with her snake-like eyes, dressed in smelly wool, all of them ready for the reading of the will from a screen.
We met in the London abode of my late client, Raymond noted. Same place as before, cosy little studio place, where Thomas came on shopping trips and Di rearranged. No oil paintings, a few drawings and these ceramics, which look a little fragile, especially in this company. These are fragile people. Gayle, elegant, Edward, stocky, Beatrice, the loose cannon. They have planned for this occasion … oh dear.
There was a sharp intake of breath, he wrote. Then they all hissed, like wasps humming in a nest, until Gayle raised a hand in a command to be quiet.
Edward looked as if he might have shouted, but refrained in response to his wife’s gesture. As the mere messenger, Raymond would not have minded them shouting; anything would be better than this ominous silence. He noticed how the boy – how old was he now? Eleven? Twelve? – put his hands over his ears.
‘So, no mention of us,’ Gayle murmured. ‘Absolutely no mention at all. Some mistake, surely? Our father, the children’s grandfather, and he doesn’t mention any of us at all.’
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Raymond said, and for a moment he was. He admired Gayle, and to disenfranchise your own children completely was a terrible thing to do.
‘However,’ he added. ‘It really was his last will and testament. And he was in sound mind when he wrote it.’
‘Was he really?’ Gayle murmured, moving towards him, maintaining her mesmerising eye contact throughout before moving away. ‘Of course, you had no choice. You drafted what he wanted. You had no choice.’
‘He drafted everything, I merely received,’ Raymond corrected, appreciative of her understanding, while Beatrice hissed in the background. He always managed to encourage the perception that he was on everyone’s side, expressing sympathy for event
s beyond his control and they believed him.
‘That bitch,’ Beatrice hissed. ‘That BITCH has got it all.’
‘Hush,’ Gayle said.
‘Diana has been heroic,’ Raymond said quietly. ‘It hasn’t been easy.’
‘Bitch,’ said Beatrice. ‘Perverted bitch.’
‘Be quiet,’ Gayle said. ‘That isn’t fair. Would you give her condolences, Raymond?’
Gayle smiled at Raymond, entirely in control of her emotions, and he knew he was afraid of her without knowing the reason why, while being grateful to her for keeping the peace.
‘Formidable girl,’ Gayle murmured. ‘Truly formidable. She took him on, coped wonderfully well. Is there anything she fears? Poor soul.’
She turned to Raymond, trustingly. ‘Tell me,’ she said, looking into his eyes. ‘Anything at all? We must try and help her through this terrible time. She did nurse our father after all. Artificial feeding and everything. Kept in touch. Must have been hell.’
And where were you? Raymond began to stutter under the impact of her gaze.
‘Yes, I think it was. Yes, of course she has fears, everyone does. She’s claustrophobic, I think: it was hard, being shut in—oh well, never mind.’
He had said too much.
‘That might explain why she needs so much space to live in,’ Gayle said smoothly. ‘We do want to help. To comfort, to understand. Poor Di, didn’t she have a terrible childhood? Didn’t she go to prison, once?’
‘We’ve had her THOROUGHLY INVESTIGATED,’ Edward shouted. He was slightly drunk at that stage, although not as drunk as he would be. He could hardly control his fury. All these years, he had been studying, valuing, for this. Raymond smiled, uncomfortably, disliking himself for spilling the smallest bean. Edward laughed, not quite in tune, not an amusing sound.
‘You know what you are, Forrest? You’re a bastard. You’re the messenger boy. You’ve got us all believing that Thomas was going to leave it to us, while all the time you knew he wasn’t.’
‘I didn’t say that. I said he would do his duty.’
‘And YOU think, YOU,’ stabbing Raymond’s chest, ‘YOU think we know nothing. But we do, you know, we bloody do. Like we know what an evil bitch she is. We’ve got her dad, we’ve got him watching.’
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