A Cornish Summer

by Catherine Alliott

  As the sun caught his eyes and his handsome face relaxed, the effect was terrific. Oh, it wasn’t hard to see what Babs saw in him. Roger was a very good-looking man. Tall, athletic – he’d played cricket for Cornwall in his youth and sailed tall ships in Australia – he was twinkly, naughty, and great fun. Years ago he’d been considered a huge catch and the fact that he’d married Belinda Chamberlain had been a source of great astonishment to the county. There’d been that lovely Fiona Driver, not to mention Coco H-B. But Belinda had been very, very determined, Mum told me. And Roger was biddable and open to flattery, and a tiny bit lazy, if she was honest. Fi and Coco played fast and loose and were up and down to London the whole time, and Roger hated London. They also played hard to get, although they definitely didn’t mean it, and Belinda was – well, just there. Available.

  Roger had quietly leaned across and unlocked the cabinet whilst I was squeezing Prussian Blue on to my palette, and was even now fondling a smooth, mahogany stock and gazing admiringly at it. Unless you’re the sort of painter who gets off on a sour, uncomfortable subject, this was definitely what one wanted in a sitter’s eyes: love. And this was surely the closest I was going to get to it, short of having Babs in here, and then I knew I’d get raucous laughter, tears streaming down faces, and that unmistakable spark of lust which they’d snap off in an instant in public and save for later. I’d seen it in the past and I didn’t imagine much had changed. No, I was happy with the gun.

  ‘English, of course,’ he told me reverently. He rubbed a bit of imaginary grime away with his finger. ‘Not a Purdey – got one of those – but same period. Nothing wrong with continental, of course. Got a lovely Spanish four-two. Like to see? No? But you can’t beat a bit of English craftsmanship. Want me to put it down?’

  ‘No, you’re fine, Roger. I’m just getting the perspective. I’ll be a while yet.’ I was. He gazed beyond me, into the middle distance.

  ‘Everything all right, Flora?’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Yes thanks, Roger. How d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, I was thinking. Must be odd for you. Coming back.’

  I glanced up at him from my palette. His eyes were waiting for mine. I smiled. ‘I’m fine. But thank you for asking.’ He nodded, satisfied. We were quiet again. Roger resumed rubbing his gun with his finger.

  ‘Do you prefer it to hunting?’ I asked, jerking my head at it. ‘Shooting?’

  ‘Lost my bottle for the chase, Flora. Had one tumble too many. Ended up having a brain scan in Truro General. Bab—Belinda said I was too old for it. Nothing like it, though, eh?’ His blue eyes gleamed at me with such intensity that despite them being watercolours of their former selves, I saw his much younger self.

  ‘Nothing. Particularly in country like ours.’

  ‘Quite.’

  We fell to silence, both in our respective reveries. He looked very far away, no doubt landing in some muddy field in his red coat with all the usual suspects. This last association no doubt led to the next, seeming non sequitur.

  ‘You know Shona’s on the box?’ he exclaimed, glancing up.

  I grinned. Reached for my box of charcoals. ‘I do.’

  ‘Couldn’t believe it! There I was, boiled egg perched on lap for Sunday supper, and she came on with a ruddy great microphone outside the Eden Project! Reporting about some break-in! Shot my egg clean into the fire I sat up with such a jolt.’

  I laughed.

  ‘Roared for Belinda but she just paused by the door and said she’d already seen her. Ages ago. Imagine! She hadn’t told me.’

  I could imagine. I chose a small, stubby, well-used charcoal from the box. ‘I haven’t seen her yet, but Mum heard through Babs that she’s really good.’

  ‘Really good? Oh, but she’s splendid, Flora. Regional news, of course, so you wouldn’t get it where you are, just Devon and Cornwall. But there she is, bright as a button, pixie smile in place, all pert and pretty in a very fetching yellow frock, I must say. She looks heaps better than that terrible mousy girl we used to have who murders her vowels and mumbles so you can’t hear a bloody word. Speak up, you dismal woman! Not our Shona. Crisp, distinct Queen’s English. No messing about. I watch her every night at six thirty with my second Gin and French. Quite makes my evening.’

  I grinned. ‘I’ll tell her. She’ll be thrilled.’ She really would, actually.

  Roger stroked his gun barrel, staring into space. ‘Slip of a thing,’ he mused reflectively. ‘Tell her not to mumble, eh?’

  ‘I’ll pass it on.’

  We fell to silence. I started sketching him out with my charcoal, my hand moving quickly over the canvas, and time passed peacefully. After a bit, we both heard tyres on gravel at exactly the same moment – Belinda, back from her parish council meeting. Roger jumped to his feet and replaced the gun in the cabinet. As he sat down, he whipped a silk cravat from his pocket and put it round his neck.

  ‘Bit smarter,’ he told me with an enormous wink as he crossed his legs. ‘She’ll like that. Can always lose it later.’

  The front door slammed. Footsteps could be heard moving down the hall to the kitchen. Then they approached, back down the passageway. Roger pursed his lips to suppress a smile, eyes wide and innocent. Moments later, the door opened and Belinda appeared. She was wearing another floral number, pink and white this time with a huge tulip pattern, and her grey-blonde hair was freshly waved and swept back in a great swoop from her forehead. She blinked.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’

  ‘It’s my fault, Belinda. The light was terrible in Roger’s study and he looked so stiff and awkward in his suit. I thought this might be more natural.’ The truth, I find, works best in a tight spot.

  ‘What about the drawing room?’

  Bugger the truth, I lunged for the lie. ‘We tried that, but the light was wrong. And also I thought it would be terribly inconvenient. After all, you use it, and no one comes in here.’

  ‘Except Roger. How absurd.’ She frowned. ‘I can’t imagine how it will look in the hall with all the other portraits. They’re far more traditional. Most odd, I should imagine.’

  Roger seemed to be shrinking down in his chair and holding his breath. I carried on mapping him out with the charcoal. No one spoke. I think she imagined we’d get up and move. ‘Oh well, you know best,’ she snapped eventually, clearly piqued. ‘But take that ridiculous scarf off from round your neck. You look like a pirate.’

  Roger dutifully removed it and she swept frostily from the room. She was truly cross and Belinda didn’t do cross, she was far too controlled. She did disappointed. Or uncomprehending, even, at the strange ways of others. As her footsteps receded, Roger regarded me with awe.

  ‘You were magnificent!’ he breathed.

  I sketched on, my hand, if I’m honest, a bit sweaty. We heard Belinda moving about the kitchen. Slamming about, let’s face it, very noisily. Drawers were opened and shut. Cupboards banged. She obviously very much intended us to hear. Then a different noise. A regular, rhythmic, scything noise. One of steel on steel. Roger gasped.

  ‘She’s sharpening the knives!’ he whispered. ‘That’s really bad news. Only happens in absolute extremis. You’re for the high jump, Flora!’ he squealed, utterly delighted, clearly thrilled it wasn’t him.

  ‘Well, she’s hardly going to stab me, is she, Roger?’ I said, sounding far more confident than I felt.

  He lurched towards me in his chair. ‘We can only hope!’ he whispered theatrically. Then he sat back, chuckling, inordinately amused.

  Later that day, when I was exhausted by the concentration and so was Roger, I sought out Celia. She took some finding. I walked all along the cliff path above the estuary where Babs had suggested she position herself, but there was no sign of her. As I rounded the corner and gazed up towards the headland, only a couple of lone walkers strolled by with a terrier. Back I turned towards the cottage. It was only when I happened to glance below to the beach that I spotted her, perched halfway down the cliff, o
n a wide ledge. There she was, before her portable easel in her blue smock, beret on head – Celia always liked to look the part – palette in hand. It was actually a terrific spot for a seascape, if a little precarious, and she must have scrambled down a pretty rocky incline to get there. Celia was very much a lounge lizard and I was quietly impressed. I scrambled down to join her, the chalk crumbling with an aching familiarity beneath my fingers and my canvas shoes, a whole panorama of my childhood panning out in that single, simple sensation.

  ‘Don’t fall in!’ I called, clinging to the tussocks of grass sprouting from between the rocks as I edged along to join her.

  ‘Try not to,’ she laughed. ‘But isn’t this marvellous? What a spot!’ The wind was in her hair, her eyes alight.

  ‘Well, it is today, but if you get a westerly tomorrow you might find somewhere more sheltered. You’ll be blasted off the cliff.’

  ‘Nonsense, I’ve got that protrusion overhead sheltering me,’ she jerked her head up. ‘And anyway, this weather’s set fair for ages, I checked my app. Look at that view!’

  She waved her brush yonder and we gazed out across the estuary. Blue and shimmering in the sun, it was dotted with small bobbing boats, strips of golden sand bordering it on either side. Just a few children were building sandcastles, watched by their parents, the more popular beach being further on. The cliff on the opposite side rose palely to sloping green fields where cows, looking strangely large and out of proportion as they always did from this perspective, grazed quietly. The distant hills beyond were hazy in the heat and just the odd wisp of cloud scudded through the bluest of skies above. I glanced at her canvas. She’d dived straight in as usual, no sketching for our Celia. Currently she was deep in the clear blue waters, her brush darting from blue to white to grey to silver on her palette – really getting to grips with the tricky way the sun shimmered on the surface of the water.

  ‘That’s good,’ I said, meaning it, as she added a dab.

  ‘Oh, it’s not hard here,’ she said, eyes shining. ‘This is fabulous, Flora. I feel totally alive and driven for the first time in ages. I can imagine how Cézanne felt when he got to the South of France – the light! The amazing vivid tones! The translucent effect, the vivacity. And it’s all here on a day like this – in sodding England! I can’t tell you how energized I feel.’

  She looked it, too. Her dark eyes were shining, black curls blowing under her beret, and her slightly sallow complexion was almost pink today.

  ‘How did you get on?’ she asked, still painting away, eyes narrowed at the view.

  ‘Oh, terrific, painting-wise. But I changed the location and the clothing, and Belinda started sharpening Sabatiers in the kitchen.’

  Celia shrugged. ‘A few innocent vegetables for lunch? Skinning a mackerel, perhaps?’

  ‘Perhaps. All the same, if I go missing, you’ll probably find me in small pieces in the cellar. Or no, actually, she’s got a few Gloucestershire Old Spots. If you can’t find the body, check their sty for bones. Although apparently some pigs eat the bones, too.’

  ‘Will do,’ she said, not really listening, but I was genuinely a little perturbed.

  ‘I saw Babs, by the way,’ Celia went on. ‘So sweet. She popped down to see how I was getting on and brought me a flask of coffee. And I met Christina, with her children. She was very cheery.’ She glanced at me to see how this had gone down.

  I made a face. ‘I never really trust someone who smiles all the time and laughs too quickly, do you?’

  She ignored me and painted on. ‘Oh, and Iris was here, riding along the top. She gave me a wave. I’ve never had so many friends!’

  It was true, Celia was a bit of a recluse in London: didn’t really do groups of girlfriends, and could get a bit lonely and down in the dumps, what with our solitary occupation and Edward and his therapy chat. Terribly important, of course, to get to the bottom of problems, but rather sad and soul-sapping, too. Right now she looked as if her soul had popped right out of its socket, done a few cartwheels on the beach, and popped back in, scrubbed, gleaming and refreshed.

  ‘And I felt so daunted a few weeks ago at the thought of filling half that gallery in Flood Street, but at this rate, and with this amount of inspiration – look at that colour, Flora, there, on that darling pink boat – I’ll be ringing and asking for the whole bloody gallery!’

  ‘Right.’ I nodded, watching her paint on, attending to biting my thumbnail down to the quick. She wasn’t a sensitive artist for nothing, though, and after a bit she paused. Looked me in the eye.

  ‘Listen, Flora, this was always going to be hard. No one, except you, said it wouldn’t be. Me, your mum, Peter even, once he’d got over his initial delight. But now we’re here, it’s actually fine. Better than fine. And Belinda will come round, you’ll see. She’s allowed to throw a hissy fit if she thinks she’s been overruled in her own house, I would, too. Probably a bigger one than that. But she’ll get over it. I suspect she’s got far bigger fish to fry than which room you paint her husband in.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  She shrugged. ‘I just feel she’s quite – you know – manipulative. Controlling. Like there’s stuff going on here under the surface, you know? A subtext. Absolutely nothing to do with us. Maybe family stuff, I don’t know. I haven’t quite sized them all up yet. But I’ll let you know.’ She grinned. ‘There.’ She lowered her brush suddenly. Stood back and gazed piercingly at her canvas. ‘I’m done for the day.’

  Celia was full of abrupt certainties like this, each one more irrevocably positive and truer than the last, be it time for tea, her stance on Brexit, or taking a violent dislike to the colour of someone’s eyes. I was used to such pronouncements and often thought it was where I went wrong in life, being so uncertain. So full of wavering, shambolic dithering.

  She was packing her bag efficiently with tubes of paint and rags. ‘Here. You take this,’ she commanded, handing me the rucksack. ‘And I’ll manage the easel. I’ll keep the canvas screwed in for the moment, it’s good and tight. Oh, you might take my palette, too.’

  ‘I can’t imagine how you got down here alone in the first place,’ I said, gathering her stuff, but she was peering distractedly over the cliff now, moving along the ridge to get a better view. ‘I’m surprised you made it.’

  She wasn’t listening. Her eyes were roving along the beach, until she found something, or someone.

  She cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘See you later!’ she called down.

  There was a pause, then:

  ‘Need any help?’ drifted up. A man’s voice.

  ‘No thanks, my friend’s here now!’

  I stared at her, but she wasn’t meeting my eye. She’d already plucked up the easel then sidled round ahead of me. On she forged with her back to me, painting and easel outstretched in one hand, steadying herself on the tufts of grass with the other. I’d never seen her so agile and dexterous. She reached the little path and walked on up to the top of the cliff as I followed.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I asked, as I joined her at the top.

  ‘Hmm?’ She pretended to be busy, unscrewing the canvas and setting it on the grass.

  ‘Who were you talking to, Cele? Down there on the beach?’

  ‘What? Oh, that’s Ted,’ she said nonchalantly, taking her backpack from me and swinging it on to her shoulders. She kept her eyes averted as she collapsed the easel and popped it under her arm. ‘He’s down here doing some conservation project. I ran into him up here on the cliff and he helped me down with all my stuff.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  I turned and gazed back down below. A tall, tanned, blond-haired man with windblown curls, very much channelling the beachcombing look in a faded blue T-shirt and old khaki shorts, grinned and waved. Celia beamed and waved extravagantly back. Still avoiding my eye, she picked up her painting and, holding it delicately with the tips of her fingers, easel under arm, she turned to go. Before she’d turned, though, I’d seen the light in her eyes. It had n
othing to do with the vivid, sun-baked colours or the light glancing off the water. Nor the way the tints and the tones were speaking to her. Nothing to do with the way her painting was flowing off her brush, brimming, as she was, with creative impulse. It had nothing to do with any of that, at all.

  8

  Babs was just leaving our front door as we got back to the cottage, with Piggy trotting busily at her feet.

  ‘Ah! There you are.’ She stopped. ‘I was just coming to look for you. Iris and I are going for a ride on the beach later – want to come?’

  ‘Oh, I’d adore to!’ I felt my spirits lift immediately.

  ‘Thought so. Celia?’

  ‘I won’t, I’m afraid. I’m a suburban girl. My adolescent leisure activities revolved around the public baths, the library and cleaning out my budgie.’

  ‘Ah well, there wasn’t much else to do around here, was there, Flora? Apart from surfing.’

  ‘Sounds idyllic,’ said Celia enviously. ‘Can you surf down there?’ She jerked her head back towards the beach.

  ‘No, darling, that’s an estuary. But you can just around the bay, in Portmarrow, where I am. We’ll go one day if you like. I’ll see you up at the stables, then, Flora. About half an hour?’

  ‘Perfect. And they won’t mind?’

  ‘Certainly not, they’re delighted to have them exercised, as you know. I’m going like this and Iris has got plenty of hats up there, so don’t dress up. See you in a bit.’

  And off she sauntered to her red, convertible Triumph Stag, pert bottom swinging in white capri pants, and about to look even more fetching astride some huge, prancing steed.

  ‘She is so cool,’ breathed Celia as we watched her roar off down the track, blonde hair streaming. ‘I want to be her when I grow up. In fact, I want to be her now. And still surfing.’

  ‘She always used to go before breakfast. As did Roger. And then back to her cottage to warm up.’

  ‘I can imagine. But not Belinda’s thing?’