He returns to his room and gets dressed. Down in the kitchen he ignores the blandishments of the Filipino girls, who are fond of children, and helps himself to cold macaroni cheese from the larder, and hunks of bread and peanut butter.
He goes out, into the mist that is melting now under the streaming sunshine. He wades through the long wet grass of the prospect and takes a private path through the trees and into the kitchen garden, where he wanders down the grassy alley beside the old herbaceous border, a battlefield these days where huge clumps of white daisies and goldenrod loudly triumph. At the far end of the alley he sees one of the people on the course, one of the ladies, the nice one who showed him how to make arrows with his penknife. She is on her hands and knees with her face almost on the grass, quite still, which interests him mildly. He wonders if she has a pain in her tummy, or if she has lost something, or what. At this moment he remembers suddenly his fly-trap in the old dovecote, and forgets her at once.
There are two flies in the fly-trap, fizzing. Jason takes one out between finger and thumb and stares at it. After a moment he gingerly pulls off its wings and observes the gyrations of what remains. After a minute, though, he wishes he had not done this; it gives him a funny feeling inside and he leaves the dovecote in a hurry.
Mary Chambers, waking early, has gone out for a stroll before breakfast. She walks along the herbaceous border, thinking what a pity it has been so neglected. There has been rain in the night which has beaten down a clump of aquilegias: pale gold trumpets are scattered all over the grass. And among these fallen blooms, she sees, are two very large black slugs. She stoops to look more closely and sees that the slugs are grazing on the aquilegia trumpets, grazing just like sheep. There is an atmosphere of unhurried contentment down there on the rain-sodden grass. The slugs are black and shiny, with a smooth mantle behind the head giving way to a complex pleated area, like taffeta or watered silk. And there they are, chomping away: Mary, down now with her head a few inches above them, realizes that she can actually hear them grazing, small delicate tearing sounds. The larger of the two eats deliberately and in a considered way, contemplating the aquilegia blossom and then opening a mouth that is lined with pink. Teeth? She takes her glasses off (for the very myopic, that is the only solution) but still cannot quite see.
The aquilegia, she knows, is aquilegia longissima, a particularly pretty one. She wishes she knew the name of the slugs, so very far removed from the kind of thing you find in a lettuce, or lurking beneath flower-pots. The elephants of the slug world: impressive in their way.
Bob, too, is up early. Last night didn’t work out according to plan; he’d thought he had her nicely warmed up but the girl scarpered as soon as they got in, in a tizz about something or other.
He sets up the studio for the morning’s work. At the far end, concealed by a hessian curtain from the gaze of course members, is a stack of fired pots awaiting collection by the Birmingham department store which has ordered them: three dozen toby jugs in a viscous yellow glaze. The toby jugs are a new departure, less tricky than the garden gnomes which preceded them; the Birmingham buyer is very taken and talking of an additional line in thatched-cottage honeypots. He says Bob’s work has individuality, it’s out of the common run. Bob checks the toby jugs for flaws and re-draws the curtain, whistling.
Framleigh, in many ways, is a piece of cake. He reckons on another year or two at least, given a few things which need working out. Very adequate facilities, a regular supply of crumpet, a reasonable cash flow. An improvement on the Somerset village where, for two years previously, Bob struggled to keep a pottery going. The trouble there was that every other Somerset village within a radius of twenty miles also had a resident potter; the market, even in the crowded summer months, simply could not sustain the competition. You could end up giving the stuff away. Curiously, he’d found that the higher you shoved the prices and the more sparsely you displayed the pots the more of them you shifted. People seemed to reckon that if they’d paid through the nose for something it must be good, certain kind of people at any rate. Not that the things weren’t good, bloody good come to that, he was too fastidious a craftsmen to tolerate a dud. The toby jugs, in their way, are masterpieces. And he could see the point of preferring to be surrounded by decently made objects; most of the junk Toby and Paula have at Framleigh turns him up, frankly. But it went beyond that, with some people: it was as though by the possession of a chunk of art, so-called, they acquired its mystique, as well. It was this observation that had decided Bob to get out of the craft circuit and move further into art proper. He ran into Toby at a party in London, got talking, paid a visit to Framleigh, and the two of them recognized a possibility of mutual convenience.
He checks the benches and the wheels to make sure that all is ready for the morning’s work: a tidy-minded, methodical man. And goes back to the house to collect his group.
It is another lovely day. The party gathers again on the terrace in the sunshine; Toby patrols once more with his clip-board. This morning, though, everyone is more relaxed; they know where they are now, at Framleigh.
“This afternoon,” says Toby, “I do the Nature Trail, for anyone who fancies a spot of nature.”
“And I should jolly well hope you do,” Paula breaks in. “Toby’s fantastically knowledgeable about the birds and the bees.”
Toby lays a tolerant but quietening hand on her arm. “That’s straight after lunch, and this morning we split up as yesterday. Now, let’s see … Sue, would you like a go in the pottery studio?”
And Sue, who does not know how to counter this suggestion, sees her world collapse, at least until lunch-time.
Keith Harrap, more adept, is able to attach himself once more to Paula’s group.
Mary Chambers, a little to Toby’s surprise, says that she thinks she will go to Greg’s poetry workshop. For a moment Toby, who seldom notices other people, is visited by doubts; he wonders if this suburban housewife is really going to care much for Greg’s kind of thing.
Everyone accommodated, the terrace empties. Only Jason remains, curled up in the cracked and pedestal-less bowl of an urn. He is, in fact, at sea on a life-raft, rocked by the waves, protected by enormous whales, in communion with the gulls.
“Art,” says Greg, “being creative, being able to get it together, is just a question of whether you’ve got it or not. Being a writer, being really into words, projecting, is either what you’re about, or it isn’t. If it isn’t, then there’s no way you’re going to be.”
“Easy with that clay, love,” says Bob. “Gently does it. Stroke it like you were stroking your boyfriend, eh?” And Jean Simpson, many years married, flushes and giggles.
“Today, children,” says Paula, “I think we’ll try some plasterwork. Something nice and tactile.” And she beams upon them, a munificent earth-mother – elemental, wise – handing out goodies by way of plaster of paris and innumerable coloured beads.
Toby, leaving his group for a while in Nick’s care, slumps in the leather armchair in the gun-room, one leg hooked over the arm. He holds the telephone receiver to his ear and listens to the voice that crackles from it.
“One million five,” says the man in London. “That’s a lot of money, Mr Standish.”
“Framleigh,” says Toby, “is unique.” He picks a strand of horsehair from a slit in the leather and winds it round his finger.
“The surveyor’s preliminary report has suggested to the Bank a figure of something like a hundred thousand to put the place in some kind of order.”
Toby raises his eyes to the ceiling, the paint of which is kippered a reddish brown by years of open fires. He shrugs. He says, in silken tones, “It depends, of course, to what extent you’re going to, um, adjust the character of the place. You realize you’re dealing with a Grade 1 listed building? Leading architectural experts consider that Framleigh …”
“The nature of any renovations,” says the man in London crisply, “will naturally be the concern of the purchaser.”
“Oh, absolutely. I was merely stressing what one might call the heritage side of things. Not of course quantifiable in any cash sense, which is what makes it so difficult to arrive at figures in this kind of negotiation.”
“The figure we’re talking of,” says the man in London, “if we talk at all, is seven hundred and fifty thousand. If we talk at all.”
“Ah,” says Toby softly. He seems to ponder for a moment. “And then of course there is the question of the Bank’s financial support of the Framleigh Creative Centre once the conversion and enlargement of the stable block is completed and we move over there.”
“That side of the arrangement, frankly, Mr Standish, is the one that is meeting with least enthusiasm from other members of my Board.”
“What I envisage,” continues Toby, “is a scheme whereby you people share in some of the prestige of the Centre.”
“And pick up the bills?” enquires the man in London.
There is a pause. Toby stares through the red and blue stained glass porthole window of the gun-room (nineteen thirty-two and conceivably, it occurs to him at this moment, a saleable or shortly-to-be-saleable commodity – this stuff is beginning to arouse interest). “The Framleigh Foundation is what I have in mind. Something along those lines. With your organization’s name very prominent in the literature. A fascinating, um, interdependence of commerce and art.”
“Interdependence is an interesting word,” says the man in London, “under the circumstances. Like show-jumping, do you mean? Take your fences by courtesy of Imperial Tobacco.”
“Art …” begins Toby.
“Oh, quite,” says the man in London. “Look, Mr Standish, I have a meeting in two minutes from now. We’ll come back to you on this, if we may. As I say, there’s a great deal that my Board isn’t happy about. Our Chairman, Sir Henry Butters, may be in your part of the world this weekend in which case he thought he might run over to Framleigh and have a look round, if that’s all right with you. Good to hear from you, Mr Standish.”
Toby puts the receiver down. He unfurls himself from the armchair and goes out into the hall. There, he meets Paula, just coming in from her session in the studio. She says, “Oh – were you phoning that blasted plumber? He still hasn’t come.”
“No, the heating people. By the way, next time you’re in Woodbury go into the antique place and ask them if they’re interested in thirties stained glass yet.”
And the sun benignly shines. When the members of the course emerge, at lunch-time, it is high and hot and when, a couple of hours later, those who wish to be taken on Toby’s Nature Trail gather on the terrace it is hanging leaden in the dead centre of the prospect, smiting the landscape with lethargy.
“All here?” says Toby. “Right, then, let’s get going,” and the group, wedge-shaped, Toby at its head, straggles off down the steps and across the grass in the direction of the woodland way. At the last minute Nick comes hurrying from the house calling, “O.K. if I come too, Toby? I haven’t actually ever done the Trail”. And Toby waves, laconic, a downward motioning of the hand that seems to say: feel free, suit yourself, who cares.
Among the trees, there is downy sunlight and the continuous comforting rhythm of wood-pigeons. Pale woodland flowers push up through the leaf-mould; plump cushions of emerald moss cling to trunks and branches. Toby talks of oaks, sessile and pedunculate, of hard and soft wood, of squirrel damage. He points out ecological balances; he shows how the world is less random than you might think.
“There is a parallel there, of course,” says the elderly doctor earnestly, “with art. The imposition of the rational upon the irrational, the creation of order out of disorder.”
Toby, haloed by a shaft of sunlight, smiles. “That, if I may say so, is very much a non-artist’s response. One isn’t really concerned with making nice patterns. Art is essentially expressive.”
The doctor, discomfited, retires to the back of the group.
Toby leads them to a clearing and waves them into silence. “Ssh! You should be able to hear about five different kinds of birdsong from here.”
They stand, straining their ears, sorting sounds. Nick, at Toby’s elbow, stares down at dead leaves and feels miserable. Sue, furtively, gazes at Toby. The doctor studies a fungus and rather wishes he had not come. Mary Chambers recognizes a chaffinch and a blue tit. Keith Harrap feels like a tourist in Westminster Abbey.
“Nuthatch,” says Toby. “That’s a bit of luck for you.” The group murmurs in gratitude.
They emerge into the more open atmosphere of Kent’s woodland ride and proceed towards the central point, the intersection of three such paths. From time to time they pause for Toby to indicate areas of interest: a patch of wild garlic, the tracks of a fallow deer, a dead tree-trunk acting as host to three different mosses and clumps of saffron mushrooms. “Isn’t this wood-sorrel?” asks Tessa and Toby lays a hand across her shoulders saying, “Clever girl, go to the top of the class”. The sight of his hand on Tessa’s flesh occasions for both Sue and Nick a sick folding of the stomach.
The doctor, determined to recover lost face, lectures Keith on theories of the picturesque. “It’s the cult of the irregular, you see. And the natural. But the point is that the whole thing has to make a picture. You compose nature into a picture. Interesting idea, I’ve always thought.”
“Mmn,” says Keith.
Above them, a robin pours out song of amazing complexity.
“Doesn’t he sound happy?” says Tessa.
The doctor, his self-esteem restored, chuckles. “That, my dear, is the pathetic fallacy at work.”
Tessa stares. “Come again?”
“Frankly,” says Toby, “it’s sex, neither more nor less. I think we’ll turn off down here. Mind yourselves on that wire.”
Tessa stiffens with embarrassment. Is he getting at her? Does he know about …? In any case that word always makes her feel funny. She is a stocky girl with a high colour and a black fringe almost to her eyebrows: not pretty but tantalizing to men, a fact she has not yet realized.
They are on one of the serpentine paths now, winding up a slope towards the grotto. The undergrowth is dense here, the path itself almost impenetrable at points. “Go ahead, Nick, will you,” says Toby. “Slash at those brambles a bit.”
From behind someone calls out, “What’s that awful smell?”
Toby halts. There is, indeed, a stench of putrefaction, towards the source of which they seem to be heading.
“It’s something dead,” pronounces the doctor.
Nick pales, he looks queasy. “Actually, Toby, it’s silly I know but I’ve got a sort of phobia about dead things. D’you mind if I …”
Toby contemplates him; he looks beyond him down the path and faintly smiles. Behind, the group hovers. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’ll be a fox, I imagine. We’ll have to bury it. Probably a bit further along the path. Go on.”
“Please, Toby …”
“Go on,” says Toby, “you’re holding us all up.”
“Look, I’ll go in front,” offers Keith. “I’ve got a cast-iron stomach.” But Nick is already stumbling ahead. Once he puts a hand to his mouth and retches.
The smell is appalling. There is also, now, the buzzing of a mass of flies. “Ugh,” says Tessa. “I don’t like this.”
Nick rounds a bend in the path, hesitates, gives a kind of squawk and turns heaving into the bushes. On the far side, in a clearing, huge clouds of black flies fume up from the leaf-mould.
Keith begins to laugh. “It’s a bloody mushroom!”
Three or four phallic knobs, coated with insects, stick up from the ground. Toby takes a branch and hits one of them. It disintegrates, releasing more vile smell and a gust of flies. Nick, green, watches from ten yards off.
“My dear Nick,” says Toby. “You shouldn’t be so absurdly squeamish. Nature’s like that. Didn’t you know?” He destroys the rest of the stinkhorns. “Interesting species, actually. It’s not quite clear how they fit into the
scheme of things, though. If you’re through with the display of sensitivity, Nick, would you mind leading on?”
And the birds sing. And the flowers nod their seraphic faces to the bees and the butterflies.
The path winds on to emerge at last into an open grassy space dominated at one end by Kent’s grotto. The grotto itself commands a view down a slope and out over open countryside through a clearing in the trees. There, time was, you culminated your stroll with a break for contemplation. The spring around which the grotto was built has ceased to erupt elegantly from a niche within and now dribbles out all over the place, so that much of the floor is sodden. The basin beneath the niche is empty except for wet leaves.
“Impressive,” says the doctor. “All right if we have a look round?”
Toby sits down on the grass beyond the grotto. “Go ahead. We’ll take a break for a few minutes anyway.”
The group disperses. Mary Chambers examines a tangle of flowers and tries to put names to things. Sue and Nick place themselves on opposite sides of Toby at a couple of yards distance and sit in electric silence, unaware of each other.
Toby draws attention to the distant call of an owl.
“Goodness …” says Sue, “I thought they only came out at night.”
“Not at all,” says Toby. “Tawnies are quite often about by day. Another misconception.” He turns on Sue his deprecating, charming smile. “Nothing in this world is ever as one thinks, haven’t you learned that yet, Sue?”
Nick, with the face of a punished child, pulls clover heads to pieces.
The doctor, accompanied by one or two others, inspects the grotto. They pick their way gingerly around the mud on the floor, touch the encrustations of shells, speculate about the other niche in which once stood the marble statue of Aphrodite – also disposed of by Toby’s father during a period of financial embarrassment. They observe the old mattress standing on its end in the drier area, and think its presence a pity. They emerge and comment to one another upon the growths of ferns around and above the grotto. The doctor claims to be something of an authority on ferns; that clump right on the top, he says, is a rather unusual species. Slightly to the alarm of his younger companions, he begins awkwardly to scramble up the stony slippery side of the grotto, to take a closer look. Here, says one of the younger men, let me … Careful on that wet stone … But the doctor declares himself perfectly safe – did a lot of rock-climbing at one time in fact, there we are, I can reach it now …
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