Like so many Brits – unless they had been on a school trip – Esme had visited precious few of London’s landmarks. She had never been to the Tower of London, never seen the Royal Mews, despite her passion for horses. She had taken her city of birth for granted and while she’d always assumed she’d go and see them all ‘one day’, that day had never arrived. Looking at the throngs of sightseers who had flown thousands of miles to experience London’s history, to walk the paths of kings and queens, Esme knew how unusual her childhood had been. Growing up next door to a castle, and socializing with the royalty that visited there in the great walls of Culcairn, made for a funny kind of normal – she could see that now.
She continued down The Mall towards Buck House. The flag was down, indicating Her Majesty wasn’t in residence. It was a magnificent building but austere. No wonder Princess Margaret, always Esme’s favourite, preferred communal living at Kensington Palace. Her state apartment was said to be enormous, as befitting the queen’s sister, but at least there she had neighbours. The Waleses, Kents, the Gloucesters and a household of personnel and staff inhabited the sprawling two-storey stronghold. And it wasn’t open to the public so she and Lord Snowdon could live at least part of their lives without scrutiny. Even more necessary since they had divorced, she imagined.
St James’s Park was sparsely populated. It wasn’t that she didn’t like children but, in her hungover state, one of the benefits of St James’s was the lack of a playground to attract young families. The pelicans were still a draw however, and she saw a small boy chucking bits of bread into the eagerly waiting beaks. Couples lay, soaking up the sun, flirting and in various stages of intimacy. Clothes had been removed. There was a mildly erotic undercurrent to the lazy heat; people sunbathing but sneaking glances at their companions. Boyfriends and girlfriends meeting in quiet corners. She wondered how many first kisses took place in parks? How often the first intimations of adultery occurred? Then there were scattered groups of picnickers with their potato salad and sliced ham sitting on tartan rugs in dappled shade. One group had managed to pull together a jug of Pimm’s. Sitting near a group like that would make her feel awkward for being alone, though she knew in all likelihood they’d be too busy having fun to notice her, still she would feel self-conscious.
The clearing she chose instead was surrounded by shrubs and hidden from prying eyes – but not dogs, it seemed. A red setter trotted by and she wished dear old Digger was still here to provide a foil for her solitude. Making sure she couldn’t be seen, she stripped to her underwear, using her skirt as a blanket. Feeling queasy again, she put her lunch in the shade and lay down. The sun was strong and the grass dry and prickly. A draught of wind wafted across her body bringing with it the sweet smell of lime trees. The ground beneath her hands was sticky with their sap. She closed her eyes and listened to the hum of traffic and distant laughter. Her mind emptied and sunspots floated across her vision and disappeared when she followed them from left to right. An insect crawled up her leg. She shook it off and turned onto her stomach.
A pair of sandals came into view. Men’s sandals on a pair of tufted feet with yellowing toenails.
She faced the other way hoping the man would disappear. She remembered she was next to naked.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’
How dare he? she thought, the brief moment of peace gone.
The accent was Northern. Newcastle maybe. A nice enough voice but she thought it was fairly clear she wasn’t looking for company. Esme pretended to be asleep and inwardly told him to fuck off.
‘Y’right? Do you mind if…’
She grunted angrily what she hoped he would take for a ‘Yes, I do mind.’
She felt the flick of a towel or something being laid next to her and then a groan as he lay or sat down. A waft of body odour and garlic came and went in waves as he got comfortable. This was not what her hangover needed.
‘Ahhhh,’ he sighed. ‘Nice here, don’t you think?’
It was a statement rather than a question, indicating this badly washed lump intended staying put. Couldn’t he see she was asleep – or at least, trying to maintain the pretence of it?
‘Funny how you like the same spot as me.’
Esme tried to make her wall of silence as high as possible. Suddenly the calm of the glade felt like threatening rather than peaceful.
‘Didn’t know anyone else knew about it. You must like to get away from the crowds too.’
Crowds? What bloody crowds? The park was hardly Brighton beach. What little breeze there was suddenly stopped, like her breathing, as she felt him shuffle closer. Something landed on her back, a leaf or catkin. Esme flicked her shoulder.
‘Here, let me.’
A clammy finger lingered a fraction too long on her skin.
This was too much. She jumped up, pulling her skirt over her underwear.
‘What is your fucking problem? You’ve got the whole park to lie in. Piss off.’
Stunned, the man lying on his side raised his hands in mock defeat.
‘OK, OK.’
She looked at him properly for the first time. Boiled rice white skin, six o’clock shadow and an enormous Adam’s apple that was dotted by stubble and in-grown hairs. Even with wash and a shave, she wouldn’t have bought into his clumsy charm offensive.
‘It’s actually not OK. Go and find someone else to pester.’
Vanquished but unperturbed, the stranger saw that Esme was a waste of time. Gathering his belongings, he moved without further protestation. Esme monitored his departure, watching him scramble through a bush, his hairy back getting scratched by branches. He slouched across the grass in a pair of low-slung football shorts, T-shirt in hand. She waited until he was out of sight then unpacked her lunch, pleased with her boldness. She had probably been unnecessarily rude but it felt good. Like a small victory won only with words and a lot of attitude. Cece would have been proud of her.
Esme woke from a deep sleep. The sun had lost its sting and bled through the trees in the dying twilight. She still felt its heat on the skin of her arms and shoulders where she’d burned. It was tight and prickled like it had shrunk and stretched across her bones. A pleasant feeling, symbolic of the freedom summer offered. Winter was so much more effort. Laying and lighting fires. Heating on or off? Umbrella? Dark afternoons that trapped people indoors. Her mother’s bad days were relentless in winter, stretching into weeks and months. It was winter when her mother had first attempted suicide. A winter which felt like it never ended. From then on winter became the season of alcohol, pills and despair. When her mother was prone to torpor, hysteria and suicide. Once her mother had thoughts of suicide in her mind, they were there to stay, slowly corrupting and draining her of hope, until she found her way back to life or gave in and tried again, usually in January.
Distance relieved Esme from constant gnawing guilt and midnight vigils at her mother’s bedroom to check she was sleeping soundly. The kindly nurses and round-the-clock carers shouldered the responsibility for her welfare now. What a relief to know she could rely on their specialist attention. And it was June. Her mother had never attempted suicide in the summer months, being predisposed to finding joy in the bloom of spring and onwards until the world folded into the cold of autumn.
The ambient noise of park life had shifted up a gear and her mood dropped. Laughter, yelps of flirtatious protestation and an acoustic guitar. It was definitely not the time to be seen alone now as friends hooked up to begin their night of revelry.
She slipped on her clothes and wandered back home with no purpose other than more sleep. As she drew nearer the gallery, the hum of urban life reduced to a whisper of activity. The calm before the storm of Saturday night partying when the suburbs descended for a piece of the city’s sophistication. Clubs that were closed to bridge and tunnel revellers during the week gratefully accepted the suburban pound. Every now and then an empty bus would pass or the diesel engine of a black cab would amplify her feeling of melancholy. No one w
ould be waiting at the gallery, save her ragged teddy bear Gelatin, the one who had bought comfort at school. He still held the ghost of the scent of her mother’s perfume after she’d ritually drenched him before sending her away to school, in the hope it would have the same effect as a ‘whelping blanket for pups weaned from their mum’. It hadn’t. He had made the journey to London more out of habit than necessity but still, in damp weather, smelt of orange blossom and rose.
She turned into Jermyn Street carrying the weight of the night before. She was hot, sunburnt and dead tired. There was still no wind to circulate the monotonous heat from the concrete jungle. It was hard to breathe in its density and Esme longed for the open wilds of Scotland, a heather bed and to swim in the briny pools of the river that ran through Culcairn. But she didn’t feel homesick. It was a physical yearning not an emotional one. Tomorrow she was going to Max’s studio and who knew what revelations might turn up. Buoyed by the anticipation of discovery, there was no need to wallow in the past. She turned her key in the lock and climbed the stairs with a smile on her face.
Chapter Eleven
‘I’ve bought some croissants,’ she said, handing Max a brown paper bag, spotted by grease.
Esme had at first been surprised that Max had suggested a Sunday to meet up and then she remembered he was doing her a favour and reserved his better-paid work for weekdays.
‘Thank you. I’m ravenous.’
There was no sign of her picture. The easel was bare and from Max’s appearance it was clear he had just woken up. He looked tired. A hollow-eyed, scruffy inhabitant in his dingy, cramped little room. But he seemed happy enough in solitude (notwithstanding a snoozing Flea in his basket). Bill had told her Max cared for none of the trappings of his work, not money or status or recognition. The nature of restoration meant he worked behind the scenes, allowing the client to benefit from the glory of his expertise. Max was a man without ego who was totally at ease in his own skin. She envied him for the absolute gratification his work bought. Bringing paintings back to life was his vocation and his life’s work hung in galleries and private homes all over the world.
‘Where’s the picture?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Let’s get some coffee on.’
Alarm bells went off. Was he delaying bad news with a drink? She said nothing. He seemed calm as he went about packing ground coffee into a cafétière, the kind you put directly onto a naked flame. Filling the base with water, he screwed on the top and lit a Calor gas stove. It wasn’t long until the noxious air had overtones of fresh coffee. The coffee pot soon bubbled and spat with a deep gurgle. He picked it up with a stained towel and poured the coffee into two espresso cups.
‘Sugar?’
‘Yes, please.’
Esme took a croissant and dunked it in her coffee, the liquid dribbling down her chin. She wiped it with her hand.
‘Amazing coffee.’
‘Italian. I always bring it back with me.’
Bill had mentioned Max had a studio flat in Porto Ercole where he would disappear in the spring and early summer. It was his base when he trawled local flea markets and houses of newly widowed ladies in search of undiscovered masterpieces. His lanky good looks were no doubt welcomed by lonely women lacking a man about the house.
‘How’s the cleaning coming along?’ she tried again.
‘See for yourself.’
He reached behind an enormous canvas facing the wall and placed her picture on his easel.
‘Voila!’ He was clearly pleased with his progress.
Esme choked on her coffee. The portrait in front of her was uncannily like her mother. Her expression held a cunning naïveté that was both self-possessed and needy. She was erotic in her innocence, otherworldly yet so present that her gaze looked right into Esme’s heart. It was a ravishing yet unsettling portrait, full of contradiction and nuanced emotions.
‘She’s stunning, isn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ breathed Esme. But her breath caught in her chest. All the longing, all the turmoil and disappointment – her entire childhood came flooding back. It was as if her mother was revealing herself through this ethereal nineteenth-century beauty and for the first time Esme saw who she was. A shrew inside an angel and an angel inside a vixen. And now she was nothing, just an empty carcass with a beating heart existing because she wasn’t allowed to die.
‘Are you all right, Esme? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Yes… No… I don’t know.’
Sensing her distress, Flea padded over to her and put his head on her lap. She stroked him.
‘I think you’ve been burning the candle at both ends, gorgeous. You look terrible. I remember being your age, shagging everything that moved and drinking myself stupid every night. Party, party, party. But it catches up with you.’
If only, thought Esme.
‘Who do you think is the artist?’
‘I don’t think. I know. It’s a Romney and I suspect the sitter is Emma Hamilton.’
‘Nelson’s mistress?’
‘The very one.’
There’s a coincidence, thought Esme. Beautiful enough to bag a hero but destined to end her life as it began, in poverty. Whilst her mother wasn’t a pauper, her life had descended into no life at all. Esme knew Lady Hamilton had been – among other things – an actress, and in this painting she had clearly taken the role of Greco-Roman servant girl. She wondered if the painting had been in the Culcairn collection for years or whether the Earl had bought it after meeting her mother. That Emma Hamilton fell for the great Lord Nelson, a man well above her humble beginnings, would not have passed him by. He would have seen the correlation.
‘She’s brushing up well. Literally!’ she said, trying to regain her composure.
‘Most paintings I get have been retouched at some point. Some have had fingers or fig leaves added, or animals blotted out. There is less scope for change in a portrait. Although the paint is very thin in places.’
‘Does this mean you have to repaint?’
‘More of a touch-up.’
He showed her a patch where the colour had worn thin and was broken up, like a scab. Dabbing his brush in a dot of paint and with the precision of a surgeon he filled a minuscule section of the balding area. There must have been half a dozen shades of blue that could only be differentiated if you looked closely. It was painstaking work.
‘I wasn’t sure who it was by until I could see the relaxed brushstrokes. There is a feeling of freshness. It’s effortless.’
Esme saw that compared to someone like Reynolds, the picture had an instinctive informality. The pose was so natural and the palette exquisite. The artist infused the grand manner of eighteenth-century portraiture with a feeling of freshness and ease. The colours were clear, clean, bright and strong, the pigment freely applied with a loose brush.
When Esme told Max her thoughts, he was impressed.
‘Did you learn this on your course?’
‘Some. But it’s clear, isn’t it?’
Max said he wasn’t going to restore her fully. Emma Hamilton had led a complicated life. She was a complex character and he felt the painting ought to reflect that.
‘Sometimes it’s the cracks and imperfections that make a painting more beautiful. Same with women,’ said Max. ‘What lies beneath is what’s important to the restorer. Surface perfection is dull and too easy to manufacture.’
‘Do you mean perfect imperfection?’
‘Exactly!’ Max chinked his mug to hers. ‘Any woman can get their nails painted and hair dyed, apply a mask of make-up – but that’s bullshit if she’s rotten to the core. I have no time for women who try too hard.’
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
‘I find them disingenuous. I mistrust all women who plaster themselves in make-up. What are they trying to hide?’
‘Maybe they are just insecure.’ Esme thought of what he’d have said if he’d seen her on Friday dressed for Heaven.
Insecurity is c
harming, he told her. Vulnerability is what men find attractive in women. If they have the strength to wear uncertainties on their sleeve, then that was a sign of them being open-hearted, he claimed. Esme wasn’t sure it was just women who had to make peace with their vulnerability. She didn’t buy the whole white-knight-on-a-steed-rescuing-a-fragile-woman idea.
‘I want to see a woman, warts and all. Baggy pants and sagging tits. That’s a woman I’ll to take to bed.’ Max grinned and Esme’s ire vanished.
‘Is Emma wearing baggy knickers?’ Esme laughed.
‘If she was alive today, I suspect they would be crotchless.’
As Max worked, Esme sat quietly, Flea at her feet. He wore a miner’s torch on his head and thick glasses. In profile his hawkish face became even more like a bird of prey devouring its kill with voracious concentration. With no distractions, not even a radio, it was easier for him to shut the world out and focus; much like the peace of mind her father seemed to find when he was painting. If only she had a skill to block negative feelings when they threatened to overwhelm her. She thought again about Max’s take on women. She understood it to a certain degree. But as far as she saw it, women dressed to impress each other more than they did to bag a man. Except for on a night out. She had felt liberated from herself by her transformation on Friday but that was, like Max said, because she was hiding behind a disguise.
Summer in Mayfair Page 13
