The Sisters Mortland

by Sally Beauman

  I ignore him as I say this. I look at the lake, and the plants at its border, and the birds. There are irises, and there’s a huge clump of Gunnera manicata. Its leaves are the size of an umbrella—larger. Its thick stalks bristle with crimson hairs.

  Edmund is now motionless. I can feel the heat of his palm. I wonder if he wants me to protest, as I did the first time, but it appears not. I watch as a moorhen moves fussily across the still, dark water. It has a flotilla of chicks. I begin to count them silently: one, two, five, nine. Edmund stands up abruptly. He moves behind the bench. I know I mustn’t look around until he tells me, so I continue to watch the lake. There’s the moorhen, nine chicks, two ducks, and a drake. In the distance, gliding toward me, is a swan.

  I can hear sounds behind me now, and they remind me of the sounds I heard this morning behind the dining room door. There’s urgency to them, perhaps desperation. “Look at me,” Edmund says in a choked voice. “Look at me. Turn round.”

  I turn round. He’s right behind me, not two feet away. His face is crimson. His mouth is slack; his eyes are wide. He’s holding that thing in his hand. It looks like a fat stick of rhubarb, only livelier. He rubs it and shakes it at me. I pretend to watch for a minute or two; then I take the small white handkerchief from my pocket and hand it to him. I’ve never done that before. For a moment his rhythm falters, then it speeds up again, even faster than before. I’d hoped that might be the effect, as I’m anxious to truncate matters. Last year it went on for three minutes ten seconds, and Edmund wanted me to touch it. I wouldn’t. I dislike slimy things.

  There’s a blur of white, and red, and white. As I’d hoped, it doesn’t take long. He gives a shudder and then doubles up, as if he’s been winded, and groans. Buttons are fastened; I rise. We walk back through the long grass at a smart pace. When we’re in the lovely shade of the birch grove again, I hesitate. I had intended to explain our current situation, and Stella’s plans, but suddenly I can’t be bothered. So I come to a halt, and I say: “Edmund, that will be two thousand pounds.”

  At first, he thinks he’s misheard. Then he imagines I’m teasing. He stares at me in a wounded way and then tries to plead and cajole. When he realizes that’s ineffective, he loses his temper. He starts to insult my family and me; he calls me names. He asks who is going to believe me, for he’ll simply deny it all.… I will record his remarks.

  “My word against yours,” he says. “Not much of a contest, is it? Everyone else thinks you’re mad, not right in the head—little Maisie, who walks in her sleep and talks to dead nuns—the girl who won’t eat, the girl who doesn’t grow, the girl with no friends, the girl they daren’t send away to school. Are you still taking the medication, Maisie? Is it working at last? Humphrey says you’re dopey with drugs—and that’s why you walk round in a trance half the time. Violet doesn’t agree, but then Violet thinks you’re retarded, of course. Even your mother knows there’s something terribly wrong. They’re all scared witless you’ll turn out like that father of yours. Don’t you realize the reason they’re so obsessed about money is you? Who’s going to take care of Maisie, what’s going to happen to Maisie—that’s what they’re discussing in there right now. Christ! If only they knew. You may not talk like a normal person, or think like one, but you’re cunning, even so—I see that now. You’re a liar—a filthy little liar, Maisie. And luckily for me, everyone knows that. So who’s going to believe you?”

  “I don’t foresee a problem,” I reply politely, and I pull the wet scrunched-up handkerchief out of my pocket. It smells sour. I toss it up in the air and catch it. He gives a great bellow of anger and tries to grab it, but I’m too fast for him. I snatch it away, and then I run.

  There’s no way he can catch me; he’s far too slow and heavy. He lumbers behind, and I stop only when I reach the Madonna lilies, thirty feet from the Viper’s French doors: I know I’m safe there. When Edmund finally catches up with me, I’m cool and collected; I’m staring at air.

  “Please, Maisie,” Edmund says, his chest heaving, trying to catch his breath. “Listen to me. I thought—I thought we were friends. Forgive me, I didn’t mean what I just said—I lost my temper, that’s all. You can’t help the way you are. It isn’t your fault. You’re clever in many ways, quick off the mark, original. I like talking to you—I always have done, and you know that full well. You know what it’s like for me, being here, putting up with Violet, being told who to marry and who I am. I don’t have any choice—can’t you understand that? I’m fond of you, Maisie, deeply fond. I never intended any harm. If I had my way—I always planned…”

  A bead of sweat drips from his brow. He sounds as if he’s being strangled. I really can’t bear to listen; it’s so pathetic, so predictable. In another universe, I could be merciful to Edmund, because I understand misfits. But I’m not in that universe now. “Make the check out to Stella, please. And give it to me before we leave,” I tell him. “If it bounces, you know what I’ll do.”

  And, to my surprise, for I wasn’t sure my plan would succeed, he obeys me. As we’re climbing into Gramps’s Wolseley for the return journey, Edmund sidles up. He presses a folded envelope into my hand. I see the fear flare in his eyes. I nod, so he knows he’s safe and I’ll keep my side of the bargain, then I climb into the car.

  It’s a long drive back. I fall asleep, and I dream. I dream all’s well that ends well: The roof is mended; Stella’s cookery school is prospering; Finn and Dan are reunited. Strangers never look at me oddly; they don’t whisper behind my back anymore. In my dream, Lucas has finished his portrait. I take my father to admire The Sisters Mortland—this is a good dream, and Daddy’s come home. We’re together at last.

  We inspect the portrait for a long time, hand in hand, in the quiet of the refectory. I think Daddy must have come straight from that wartime airfield in Sussex, because he’s wearing his leather flying jacket, and he looks very young: younger than my sisters, younger than Dan. His eyes are such an extraordinary blue—he looks fearless. I ask him what Edmund meant—why should my resembling Daddy make people afraid?

  I ask him how many sorties he flew and how many enemy planes he shot down today. Never in the history of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few, I say to him. I’m sure this must reach him, but my words echo around the refectory. I’m not sure Daddy can hear me. He doesn’t reply.

  It’s a perfect summer’s evening. There’s the smell of new-mown hay; swallows dart through English skies. My hearing is acute again, the way it was that day at Bella’s. I listen to the wheat ripening. We gaze at The Sisters Mortland for a long time, my father and I.

  I think Daddy is impressed by Lucas’s work, and I think it moves him. He gives a sigh. My beloved girls, he says, his voice so low that even I can scarcely hear him. The portrait is very true, very like, and it brings tears to his eyes.

  Finally, I show him Lucas’s four drawings of me. There I am in spring, summer, autumn, and winter—Maisie transformed. I look grown-up in the portraits, tall and elegant, not abnormal, not peculiar at all. Daddy reads the pictures with close attention, then gathers me tight in his arms. Ah, Maisie, he says. Don’t cry. I understand. I understand.

  part iv

  Retrospective

  [ nine ]

  Correspondence

  August 5, 1989, 2:15 a.m. Fax from Daniel Nunn, the Oriental Hotel, Bangkok, to Jonathan Aske, the Royal Academy, London.

  Jonathan—Indeed I remember you from Cambridge. Who could forget? It’s twenty-plus years, but the memory’s indelible. Sorry you’ve had to write four times, and at such length—I’m permanently on the move, working on umpteen campaigns back to back. I know you need a reply quickly, so I’m faxing this.

  To answer at least some of your questions: Yes, Lucas told me about the retrospective, but I didn’t know you were organizing it. And I didn’t realize it would include so much of his early work. Obviously, The Sisters Mortland has to be there. It’s been the subject of so much controversy, rumour, and su
rmise that you could hardly leave it out. But I can’t believe Lucas has agreed to include the 1967 drawings of Maisie, Julia, & Finn. Is this definite? He’s never allowed those drawings to be exhibited before.

  You say you regard this as a “coup.” I don’t see it that way. That summer at the Abbey ended badly, and I prefer not to dwell on it. I don’t want to intrude on the Mortlands’ grief, or compound it, and it makes no difference whether it all happened twenty-two years ago or two hundred. So I can’t help with background, and I won’t answer the questions you raise. If Lucas intends showing those drawings, I want nothing to do with it.

  As for Trinity Daniel: Yes, it’s pencil and chalk, three linked portraits of me, a kind of triptych—or so Lucas used to say. He drew it just after Finals, in 1967, the day before we left for the Abbey—he dashed it off in a couple of hours. We were in my rooms at Whewell’s Court, Trinity—and the location is the sole reason Lucas gave it that title. There’s no other reason I’m aware of—who suggested there was? Why should there be?

  And, yes, I do own it: Lucas gave it to me. But I’m moving house, so at present it’s in storage. And likely to remain there—God knows when I’ll get around to moving in. I’m not sure I’d want to lend it for the exhibition, anyway.

  I move on from Thailand tomorrow, so it’s no good trying to reach me here—or anywhere else. I won’t be back in England for months.

  I’d reconsider the inclusion of those drawings, if I were you.

  Daniel Nunn

  August 5, 1989. Letter from Daniel Nunn, the Oriental Hotel, Bangkok, to Lucas Feld, Notting Hill, London.

  Dear Lucas,

  You bastard—what’s all this about a retrospective? You never said a word to me. Some curator called Jonathan Aske, or Arse, is hounding me—did you put him on to me? He says he was at Cambridge with us. I don’t damn well remember him, and he’s a total shit, a bloodsucker and a pompous evil man. He’s written six letters. I lost the first two and ignored the next four, but he won’t take a hint. He phoned my PA in London eight times last week. He’s now got this hotel number, and he’s already called twice—I was out at the shoot both days, so luckily I missed him. I’ve just sent him a Get Lost fax.

  He was writing to ask if I’d lend Trinity Daniel for the exhibition—at least, that was his excuse. Once he’d buttered me up with that enquiry, he went on to ask a hundred questions about that summer at the Abbey—all hypersensitively worded in view of what he calls the “tragic events.” I didn’t answer them. I can’t bear to think back to that time. It was such an extraordinary summer: everything seemed possible; we had the future in our grasp, and then, suddenly—it was like that scene in Love’s Labours Lost: Enter Mercade, the messenger of death. I didn’t see that coming, and I should have done. Maybe you did.

  Sorry, Lucas: it’s three in the morning, and I can’t sleep. It’s one of those nights when the past pursues you. I had to make the weekly call to Dad—who hasn’t been well—and that’s always difficult. Then I had to get Aske off my back. I know it’s no good phoning you—I’ll just get that damn machine. So I’m writing instead. I wish I could talk to you: Aske says you’ve agreed to show the drawings of Finn, Maisie, and Julia—I cannot believe you’d do that.

  Christ, I’m depressed. I hate Bangkok—it’s a fucking miserable place, crawling with fat pedophile sex-tourists. It’s ninety degrees outside, and the humidity’s 100%. I’m burning those anti-mosquito smoke things, and they’re useless—I can’t breathe, and I’m covered in bites. I’ve got veins full of venom, and I’ve done six fifteen-hour days on the trot. This new hotshot director is a pain in the ass, we’re going over budget—the whole commercial is spinning out of control, and I can’t seem to stop it—it’s like the worst kind of trip. Tomorrow, there’s a cast of thousands, but today we had a simple setup, one establishing shot of the TAA plane on the tarmac. Wunderkind pissed about for the entire morning, altering the lighting, rejigging the camera angles. In the end, we got a shot that should have taken one hour maximum. It took Ingmar thirty-five takes.

  Twenty years ago, I’d have sold my soul to get a campaign as big as this: twenty years ago, I probably did. Now too many people are chasing me. I’m suffering from a surfeit of planes, hotel rooms, rampant egos, and sheer mind-numbing fucking idiocy: you can imagine the effect. A surfeit of brandy, too, probably. Thai brandy, tastes foul, but to begin with, it helped me sleep.

  Send me one of your cards, Lucas—it would cheer me up. Send it to the Lutetia in Paris—I’ll be working in Paris next week. Tell me this retrospective isn’t going to happen. Tell me you’re going to keep those drawings at home, hanging where they always did. I can’t stand them being exposed to the hordes and their greasy curiosity. Tell me—oh, I don’t know—that there was nothing we could have done, that we couldn’t have foreseen, that it wasn’t our fault.

  Tell me you’re alive—it might remind me that I am.

  Dan

  10.8.1989. Card from Lucas Feld, London, to Daniel Nunn, Hotel Lutetia, Paris.

  Now, dear Dan, what’s the matter with you?

  You remember Jonathan Aske perfectly well. He played Laertes in that Brechtian Hamlet you directed at the Cambridge ADC. I don’t know whether he’s a bloodsucker, nor do I care. He’s useful. That’s that.

  The retrospective has my blessing. I’m lending The Sisters Mortland and all the finished drawings of Maisie, Julia, and Finn. I want Trinity Daniel alongside them, so stop being difficult.

  What happened that summer is now irrelevant. My work ain’t.

  I didn’t see it coming, any more than you did. How could we? If we could foresee accidents, they wouldn’t be accidental, n’est-ce pas?

  I am alive—very much so. So are you. You just need a different job. How can advertising agencies use the term “creatives” and keep a straight face? It’s a blasphemy. And I did warn you.

  Lucas

  August 12, 1989. Postcard from Daniel Nunn, Paris, to Lucas Feld, London.

  Sorry, Lucas. Don’t worry—I was waving, not drowning. If I can dig out Trinity Daniel, I’ll think about lending it. Just tell Aske to bugger off. I’m in New York tomorrow, then LA, then Tokyo. Will get in touch when I’m back. That “irrelevant” was monstrous—but I guess you knew that.

  Dan

  December 27, 1989. Card from Lucas Feld to Daniel Nunn, Highbury Fields, London N5.

  Dan—Where are you? No one’s heard from you for months. Surely those TAA commercials must be in the can by now? I’ve been trying you at home, without luck. I met someone at a party the other week, and she said you were in Tokyo; someone else said New York. I finally called your agency, but they’re being tight-lipped and won’t give a forwarding address. Listen, now Christfest is over, why don’t you come and drink a toast to the New Year & the new decade with me? If you’re in London, give me a call. On our own—no ex-wives, I promise.

  Lucas

  P.S.: You’re not angry with me, are you? Don’t be. We’ve been friends too long for that.

  January 1, 1990. Letter from Joe Nunn, 29, the Street, Wykenfield, Suffolk, to Daniel Nunn, Highbury Fields, London N5.

  Dear Son,

  It did my heart good to talk to you last night. I was glad to know youd be home soon and that youd been thinking about your old Dad on New Years Eve. You must’nt worry on my account, as I’m feeling fit as a fiddle. I’m sitting by the fire in my new Xmas slippers. They fit a treat. Hector McIver came in this afternoon he gets more like his father Angus by the day and he’s a dab hand with the electrics, so the long and short of it is that the new telly is all set up. Hector said he’s never seen a screen that big—its caused a stir in the village I can tell you. How you managed to get it sent and the slippers to, when your the other side of the globe, I’ll never know. And to hear you last night clear as a bell, you might of been next door instead of a hotel in Tokyo Japan, I could’nt get over it. I wish your Gran was here to see it.

  I have your Xmas gift all wrapped up and ready Hec
tor advised not to post it. I was getting in a bit of a fret about that, but as he says your moving about and so best keep it here till you are next in Wykenfield, which I hope will be soon Danny. It is always a red letter day for me when I see my dear boy, you know that.

  I dont have much news to report. Things are quiet here as usual—All Quiet on the Eastern Front as you used to say, I expect you remember. Hector thinks of oil seed rape in Acre Field which will be the last of the pasture gone if so, but has not yet decided. That rumour about the Abbey being let has come to nothing. The house is still all shut up and I hear is going to rack and ruin with my old veg garden nothing but docks and nettles. I have not been out and about as the weather is bad and snow is threatening. Not much to add except I am ticking over and cant complain and am as pleased as punch with the new telly. I watched out for that advert you wrote, as per instructions. It came on after the news finally. That is a bit late for me but it was worth the wait and gave me a hearty laugh. You could always tell a joke well and it made me very proud of my son. As your Gran used to say I do not know where you get all your cleverness from, Danny.

  My prayer is this will be a joyful new year for you, bringing you all you hope for. A new decade to and soon it will be a new century and a new milenium which is a thought and a half isnt it. Give my best to your old friend Nick Marlow when you see him. He sent an Xmas card. I often think of him he was always a good pal to you.