The Last Summer

by Judith Kinghorn

“Oh my God, Clarissa, don’t you know? You must know . . . he’s worth a fortune, darling. In fact, he now owns your family’s old place in the country, and half of London!”

  “Yes, sorry, of course, I do know that. I’m very much aware of how successful he’s been, Rose.”

  “I should say! And to think we all turned our noses up at him, ha! How times have changed. But I must tell you, dear, although I’m not sure when you last saw him . . .” She stopped, looked at me, and I shrugged. She narrowed her eyes for a moment, as though performing some complex internal calculation, and then continued. “Well, anyway, we crossed paths with him at a house party, oh, a few months ago now . . . the Langbournes? Blandford Forum?”

  I shook my head.

  “He was there with his wife, an American.” She arched an eyebrow. “Not entirely sure . . . quite haughty and aloof, I thought. Anyway, and more to the point, Mr. Cuthbert is, I can tell you, still as divine as ever. Do you remember how handsome he was?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, I can tell you he’s even more handsome now, darling. Money and impending middle age certainly suit him. Oh, it’s too depressing! Handsome men just become better looking as they age, whilst we ladies simply fade.” She laughed, raised her eyes heavenward, then turned to me again. “But I must say, you haven’t faded at all, Clarissa. But that’s probably because you haven’t had children. You know they really do take such a huge toll on one’s body . . . and one’s energy.”

  I blinked, smiled.

  She leaned toward me, conspiratorially. “On our second night at the Langbournes’ I was placed next to him at dinner . . .” She clasped at her string of pearls. “And he remembered me.”

  “Ah!”

  “Well, I think he did. He didn’t mention our little thing as such, but he certainly remembered that time . . . the madness, all of us on that dizzy circuit.” She paused again, lost in her memory of that time, and perhaps of him. “Anyway,” she continued, “I had only recently discovered that he’d bought Deyning Park, and so of course I reminded him that you and I had been dear, dear friends . . . and that I knew the house from way back when. ‘Oh really?’ he said. ‘I never knew that.’ And then he said, ‘Do you ever see Clarissa?’” She stared at me, waiting for something—I wasn’t sure what, perhaps a gasp.

  “So I told him,” she went on, “that I hadn’t seen you for years, which was a shame, because you were on my shortlist as a potential god-mama to Sophia . . . and that I was determined to look you up again soon. It’s been too, too long, dear.”

  I was distracted, doing my own internal calculation. I realized that Rose must have seen him not long after my unfortunate encounter—trespassing.

  Rose continued. “And so he said, ‘Should you see her, Rose, would you be so kind as to pass on a message?’ Of course, I told him, because—really—I was determined to catch up with you, darling. ‘Would you tell her that I still have her tent . . .’”—she paused, looking at me, wide eyed—“‘and that . . .’” She looked away again, struggling to remember the remainder of the message.

  “Yes?” I leaned toward her. “And that . . .”

  “And that . . .” she repeated, now transfixed by the linen tablecloth. “And that . . . Oh dear, Clarissa, I’m so sorry, I can’t remember. Anyway, he has your tent, dear, and I shan’t ask any questions. You know me, I abhor indiscretion and gossip.”

  She sat in silence for a moment, waiting for me to elucidate, but I chose not to say anything. Five minutes later, as I rose to my feet, she said, “But how simply lovely . . . and how fortuitous our meeting like this.”

  “Yes, it’s been so nice, Rose,” I said, bending down to kiss her, and then, as I began to walk away, she shouted after me, “An island! He has your tent on some island, dear.”

  I turned and smiled at her. And I continued to smile as I walked down the wooden staircase and out of the shop. I traveled home by bus that day, but I didn’t see any street, person, or vehicle. I saw my Arabian tent, on the island at home. And I saw Tom, lying inside it, gazing up at those tiny stars, thinking of me; remembering us.

  —

  Trust, Mama once told me, is the cornerstone of a marriage. Without trust, she said, there is nothing: for what can be achieved without it?

  But Charlie and I led increasingly separate lives. We occasionally attended dinners, parties and the theater together, smiling, but in private, at home, we avoided each other as best we could, and rarely ate together. When we did, we spoke of mundane matters, trivia. He returned home from the city late most evenings, and often went out again, later still. I asked no questions. I didn’t want to know. And I only discovered his affair because he told me. He had to tell me.

  Of course it wasn’t the first. There had been other liaisons before that, I knew, and I’d chosen to turn a blind eye to them. But this one was different. Madge Parsons had lived with us for over a year, employed as our parlormaid. And Madge had succeeded where I’d failed: she was pregnant with my husband’s baby. I went to stay with my mother, leaving him to deal with the debris. I was not heartbroken, but I was humiliated, defeated. And I wasn’t sure what to do. I did not love my husband and our marriage was a sham, but it had taken two people, I thought, to create that sham. I was not blameless. And which was better: the sham of respectability or the shame of divorce? Although I’d never told my mother, or anyone else, of the way Charlie loved me in private, I knew her thoughts on divorce. It was anathema to her.

  Charlie swiftly removed Madge from our home. He begged me to give our marriage another chance. He promised me that he would be different; that he would be a better, more faithful husband. And my mother sat me down and told me once again, “Marriages involve sacrifice and compromise; they’re not something one simply abandons at the first hurdle.” She took it upon herself to explain to me that men have different needs to women; they require . . . other things, she said. And I’d immediately imagined a garment of some type: a hat, a scarf or a pair of mittens. Charlie wrapped up for winter. Then I imagined how she’d react if I told her about the other things my husband required. I thought of Mademoiselle, and momentarily wondered where she was; was she still alive, somewhere? Was she explaining to some young housebound girl that men had never evolved properly? And perhaps she was correct; perhaps some men hadn’t, but it seemed to me then that Mama and Mademoiselle had more in common than I’d realized.

  But I didn’t want to resume my unhappy life with Charlie. I could no longer breathe around him, or in that house. I didn’t love my husband. We barely spoke. And I yearned to be free, to be able to make my own decisions, to live my own life. Charlie and I were two different people to the idealistic young officer and naive dreamy girl who’d become engaged druing the war. At that time I’d wanted to please my mother; I’d wanted to make her happy again, proud of me. I’d yearned for normality, for some sort of order to be restored to our broken lives, and I’d thought that marriage would deliver that, as well as a sense of security and, perhaps, even happiness. But my marriage to Charlie had not brought me what I’d craved. I could never love him the way he wanted me to, or the way I knew I could love. Despite everything, I still cared about him and would continue to, but not as a husband and certainly not as a lover. I knew the time had come: I had an opportunity to change my life. I owed no explanation to my husband, but I knew my mother would be aghast at my desire for independence. And so, “Trust, Mama, is the cornerstone of a marriage. Without trust, there is nothing. Without trust what can be achieved?”

  . . . I’m delighted. It is the only photograph I had of the two of you together, and quite right that you should have it. As you say, in the blink of an eye. I too have thought of those times, & oh how often! And yes, I remember the boathouse . . . I remember it all. But I do believe everything has turned out as it was meant. Time, rightly or wrongly, is a great leveler of emotion, & of ambition also, and certainly we have ALL mellowed . . . Yes, my life is different, but it is fine and I am happy, and though this pl
ace is small, I must admit—it is rather cozy, & very manageable. In fact, I can say I feel rather liberated to be relieved of the accumulated paraphernalia. But how peculiar to have spent a lifetime collecting it—only to dispose of it!

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  When spring finally comes she never ceases to surprise me with the lightness and warmth of her touch, her early dawns and frenzied revelry. She is a symphony of rapturous color and vibrant luminosity; she is memory restored, senses reawakened—brought back to life; and I fall in love once more. For is there another season that inspires so many unabashed romantic notions? Is there any other time of the year when we can truly luxuriate in the feeling of being at one with our universe?

  I remember this season at Deyning. I remember the cuckoo, the woodpecker and the lark. I remember the blackbird that nested in the tree beyond my bedroom window, and the song thrush upon the roof above my room. I remember looking out on to a never-ending green world. And for a moment I am back there. I feel that soft, breathless air upon my face, hear their song once more.

  From the day I moved into my small flat in Kensington, I felt free. I could at last be whoever I wanted to be. I could breathe. For the very first time in my life I was living on my own, making my own decisions and in charge of my destiny. I’d finally taken that leap into the great unknown: independence. Within the space of twenty-four hours my world condensed itself into five rooms, and could easily have fit into what had once been my bedroom and dressing room at Deyning. But I felt no sense of confinement, or that sense of claustrophobia I had lived with for so many years. I looked out on to a bustling street, where buses passed by my window and people once again looked back at me and smiled. London, it suddenly seemed to me, was filled with friendly faces and limitless possibilities.

  It was during those first heady days of my late-found independence that I began to make plans: plans for me and about me. I received money each month from Charlie, enough to live on and pay my rent, and I had some savings in a bank account, money left to me by my grandfather. But I still longed to do something with my life, to be fully independent, earn my own money. The man at the employment bureau had succeeded in making me feel something of a joke, unemployable, so I began to think about other avenues, a business, a shop: a flower shop . . . a hat shop . . . a dress shop. Then, for a while, I contemplated a bookshop: an antiquarian bookshop.

  What I hadn’t anticipated when I embarked upon my new singular life was my own ineptitude. I had never shopped for food, or cooked a meal, either for myself or anyone else; never done any laundry, or sewn or mended clothes; and I had never truly managed a penny, let alone a pound. I’d never uncorked a bottle of wine; never cleaned, or polished or dusted; never disposed of household rubbish; and I’d never used an iron. I could have employed someone, a cleaner, a cook, but it seemed a ridiculous extravagance for one person. So, I purchased a book and set about teaching myself the rudiments of cookery, starting with the basics, such as boiling an egg. I confess I did, however, employ a local service to do my laundry, and, eventually, once the novelty of cleaning and washing up burned pans had worn off, I employed a woman to come in two mornings a week. It was all a new experience, all of it, and I loved it.

  Sometimes I shopped for food in Fortnum and Mason or Harrods, mesmerized by the colorful displays and choice, and, perhaps inevitably, returning home with enough food for an army. But usually I patronized the local bakeries, greengrocers and butchers. I became familiar with another world, a place I’d glimpsed once before, beyond the green baize door; the place Edna, Mabel, Stephens and Wilson had come from. At last the world had opened up to me, and it welcomed me with more warmth than I could ever have imagined. And it struck me how queer it was that the smaller, more confined my material world, the more freedom and space I sensed around me; as though God, nature, the universe or whatever it is, is somehow able to balance one’s experience—one’s lot in life—upon a scale. At Deyning I’d had everything and nothing; now I had nothing—and everything.

  I enrolled in an art class and began to paint once more; I met new people, was invited out to new places. I was wooed by a French diplomat, and very nearly fell in love with my art teacher. I realized that I could survive alone, and I enjoyed life in a way I hadn’t for years. Then, at a dinner party, I met Antonio Capparelli. Antonio owned a gallery in Mayfair, and he was impressed by my knowledge and love of art, surprised that I’d done nothing with it, with my life. I’d explained to him that I’d had no real education, that girls like me were simply expected to marry and produce children. Something I’d clearly failed at. He suggested I work for him, at his gallery, two or three days a week perhaps, whatever I wanted, and it was tempting, but not enough. And then it came to me: a gallery, I’d set up my own gallery.

  I used my savings as the down payment on premises just around the corner from where I lived, on the Fulham Road, and, initially at least, I considered the whole enterprise a type of experiment. If it failed, at least I’d tried. My mother, of course, was mortified; and not just because I’d plundered what little money I had into what she considered to be a reckless business venture. To have a daughter who’d elected to be a divorcee was bad enough, but to have a daughter who wanted to work as well was quite beyond her.

  And so, “It’s a different world, Mama.”

  I’d been reassured, encouraged, and advised by my new friend, Antonio. It had been his idea that I should only exhibit work by new, undiscovered British artists; that I should focus my attention there, and visit art schools in London and any local exhibitions. And so for those first few months I spent my time getting to know some of the new up-and-coming artists on the scene, visiting Chelsea Art College, the Slade and various other more far-flung institutions. I’d decided early on that any profits from the gallery—once I’d paid myself enough to live on—should go to charities supporting war veterans and families of those killed in the war, in memory of my brothers. I had no need of money, and my motivation to set up a business was never about making money for myself.

  I named my gallery the Deyning Gallery. I couldn’t think of a better name at the time, and it never occurred to me that there might be any conflict of interest with Tom Cuthbert’s burgeoning business empire. Although there were a few people who inquired as to whether the gallery was a “part of Cuthbert-Deyning.”

  The gallery did well, very well. And I had a number of loyal patrons who seemed keen to invest and purchase new paintings. One collector, who remained nameless, and whom I never actually met, always knew exactly what I was exhibiting. I’d receive a telephone call from a Mr. Pritchard who’d later arrive by taxicab, to pay for and remove the painting, or paintings, his employer had heard of or noticed.

  “Does he live locally then, your employer?” I asked, as I wrapped yet another framed canvas for Mr. P.

  “No, madam, he does not.”

  “Are you able to disclose his name to me?”

  “No, madam, unfortunately I’m not at liberty to do that.”

  Of course, he wasn’t the only one. There were a few collectors who simply didn’t want to be seen to be spending money on something as frivolous as art, particularly modern art. And Antonio had told me it was the norm, even before the war.

  I hadn’t planned on having an affair with Antonio. He was sixteen years my senior, and I’d always considered his flirting to be something synonymous with his Italian character. We met regularly for lunch and often attended exhibitions, auctions and private views together. And then one night after dinner, he came home with me.

  Passionate, handsome, educated, and amusing, Antonio made me feel like a girl of sixteen again. He called me Clereeza, and liked me to say certain words so that he could repeat them, mimicking my accent.

  “Haughty . . .”

  “Hor-tee,” he repeated.

  “Peculiar . . .”

  “Pick-u-lee-ar.”

  “Gorgeous . . .”

  “Gor-juz.”

  Life with Antonio was anyth
ing but dull. And, after Charlie, I was once again in the maelstrom of life. We invariably ate out each evening and attended the theater two or three times a week; and I laughed in a way I hadn’t for years. I was more than content: I was happy. But things have a habit of creeping up on us when we’re least expecting them, or need them.

  I’d kept track of Tom, through a grapevine of sorts. I’d heard that he and Nancy had separated and that Deyning stood empty once more. Davina saw him, and reasonably often, and she’d informed me that he’d recently purchased another prime site in central London. “He’s unstoppable!” she’d exclaimed, her eyes flashing with excitement. And then she told me of his penchant for beautiful women.

  “Oh well, he has the lifestyle, and the money—why not?” I replied. “But it sounds as though he’s become everything I wish to escape from,” I said, somewhat disingenuously. For of course I had thought of him, and thought of him often.

  When I saw him with Venetia in the bar of the Theater Royal that evening—and I saw them before they saw me—I was shocked. And I thought twice about going over to speak to them.

  Venetia and Tom.

  I panicked, and Antonio must have seen something in my face.

  “Whatever’s the matter, my darling? Why the frown and look of alarm?” he asked. And so I told him.

  “There’s an old friend of mine . . . over at the bar, with . . . with my godmother.”

  He turned to look. “Ah, yes, I see . . . I see. But Venetia, she very much likes the handsome young men.”

  “Actually, he’s not that young,” I said. “He’s rather rapidly approaching forty.”

  But the irony wasn’t lost on me: there I was, with a man almost old enough to be my father, and there was he, with a woman definitely old enough to be his mother.

  “Shall we say hello?” Antonio asked.

  “Let me take a moment, please, Antonio,” I said, still not entirely sure whether I wished to step forward and speak to them.