Fragile Blossoms

by Dodie Hamilton

  Shocked to the core, weeping, Freddie didn’t argue. He’d been here before, not a back alley in Rome but another alley where he was reviled and beaten but never with such venom. Flies ripped open and meat hanging out they wanted more than his money, they wanted his soul. They also wanted his velvet jacket and waistcoat carefully parted the tails before taking turns with his poor benighted arse, after which they pissed on him urine and blood running down his face.

  Poor Freddie, God knows why, but they hated him and meant to mark him, the one with rotten teeth lining up a kick while Paolo, his touch so tender, supported Freddie’s head. At the fifth or sixth kick Freddie left the scene, the pain too much and the scene too ugly. When in Rome do as the Romans do that’s what they say. Romans don’t do this! They don’t kick a man in the head and wipe shit on his face. Rome is beauty and white marble and Michelangelo.

  He passed out of his body and up into the sky. Up and out he went into a blue blackness. The stars are beautiful, there’s no need to stay with sadness. There was a moment of earth time where he saw Sidney’s man, dear old Jamieson, heave into view fists swinging. Then he heard Evie screaming, except that she wasn’t in the alley, there was only Jamieson and black-coated Carabineer, Evie was back at the Borghese, lamp light shining on her hair and highlighting her tears.

  ‘Ah, Sis, don’t cry.’

  Freddie wanted to stay and comfort her but couldn’t bear the pain. It’s not his body so much, although the tearing of skin and bone hurts, it is the pain in his heart, it is people and cruelty and it is Father and the way he was with little girls, and it is Paulo and boys before Paulo. Freddie thought Paolo liked him as he’d thought others liked him. He thought they might be friends as well as lovers. He was wrong. It is so many things. It’s the losing of Luke and Ju-ju. It is his work, the painting he adores but that is never quite good enough. It is Susan Dudley and her baby. It is today and tomorrow and every day.

  It is too much.

  Freddie sees no reason to stay.

  ‘He is here, Senora.’

  Black habit rustling and white coif obliterating the stars the Dominican Nun led the way. Evie hurried after. She wanted to ask how he was but didn’t dare. The call came an hour ago the concierge battering the door. ‘Come, senora! Your brother is hurt.’ Evie was taken to the Orsepidale, Santo Spirito.

  Such a journey, the carriage driver singing Neapolitan love songs seeming to think Evie and the accompanying police officer were on some secret love tryst.

  Jamieson was waiting in the hall. He crooked his finger. Evie knew that finger. It meant ‘Say nothing.’ Doctors were there with more policemen. There was a deal of shouting and much gesticulation but other than Freddie found badly beaten near the Temple of Apula no one was inclined to offer information.

  A Nun led Evie away. Light fading and the oleander smelling so sweet they walked through a garden which for some reason she associated with Gethsemane. They approached a bed. ‘He is here,’ said the Nun.

  Evie gazed at the figure in the bed. ‘No,’ she said, hope leaping in her heart. ‘That’s not Freddie.’

  The Nun passed a sketch book. ‘This is his book, Freddie Carrington.’

  Oh God and yes it was him, his face swollen and eyes disappeared into his flesh! Evie fell on her knees beside the bed. ‘Freddie, what have you done?’

  ‘Madam!’ Jamieson spoke. ‘I must talk to the police.’

  ‘Oh don’t leave us here alone!’

  ‘I won’t be long. I need to smooth things out.’

  Evie felt suddenly incredibly old. She couldn’t get her brain to work properly. What is she to do? What could she do if Freddie dies!

  ‘Sit!’ The Nun pushed Evie down into a chair. ‘Your Freddie walks with the Lord Jesus. Sit and hold his hand that he may find his way back to you.’

  ‘But look at him! Look at his face! Will he want to come back after this?’

  ‘Yes if he has love enough.’

  ‘I love him.’ Evie sobbed. ‘I have always loved him but it was never enough.’

  ‘Of course you love him. He is your son. Every mother loves her son.’

  A lie of thirty years hovering on her lips Evie was silent.

  The Nun held her gaze. ‘Is he not your son?’

  ‘Yes.’ Evie sighed. ‘He is my son.’

  Bitter and beautiful love the lock on her lips Evie gazed down at Freddie. Of course she is his mother. Who else would fight for him as she has fought?

  Freddie was forced upon her when she was fifteen, his father her father.

  ‘Lying whore!’ Face black with rage Father had leaned over her. ‘I am your father! I am Sir George Baines Carrington QC of Lincolns Inn. How dare you suggest such a thing! This is the work of some filthy farmyard boy you’ve been entertaining!’ The day the news broke Father was afraid and therefore dangerous. Evie believed truly he would kill her. He warned her breathe a word of her condition and she’d be locked away and the child drowned in a bucket. Then mother who for years had borne all in silence chose to speak. ‘Evelyn shall have the child and we’ll raise it as our own.’

  Abuse followed, violence during the day and hissing at keyholes at night, ‘Open the door, Evie, and let Papa in! It’s what father used to say when raking at her buttocks his saliva corrosive acid on her skin. So it went day after day but Mother held firm. ‘Once more at my daughter in that way and I shall do what I should’ve done years ago. I shall take one of your guns and put an end to my life. Then you, Sir George, can try explaining that away.’

  Evie and Mother were banished to the country and Mabel Goldsmith, Mother’s nurse. The world rocked, servants faces turned to the wall and Eve’s belly ballooning. One day Father arrived with a birth certificate for Mabel to sign. ‘My child born of Lady Carrington, sign and keep your pension.’ She signed but it was the misery in mother’s eyes that pushed the pen. Nothing to be done then but make a vow, should the child be a girl then Mother, Eve, and baby will walk by the river and finding a quiet place lie down never to rise.

  Oh and how Evie ached to be loved as a daughter should be loved. There was no love until Freddie was born. August ’74 Evie returned to society via the Ambassador’s Ball and a tubby banker from Rhode Island. Sidney had spun her round the dance floor. ‘You are one unhappy little lady. What’s wrong with your life that you are so sad?’ Unused to sympathy Evie had wept. At that Sidney danced her out onto the terrace and there went down on his knees. ‘I am a childless widower and rich as Croesus,’ he’d said. ‘I don’t know what makes you weep but I am willing to give all to dry your tears.’

  Sidney paid father a visit and took a cheque book with him. They were wed and in Rhode Island. Evie will never tell Freddie of Father’s brutality. She didn’t need to tell Sidney, he worked it out. It was his habit of an evening to sit beside her on the chaise, Miss Fancy, the Pomeranian wedged between them. He would take Eve’s hand. She would pull away. One night they fought, Sidney shouting. ‘I want to know why medics say damage to your body caused the death of our child, and I want to know why you can’t bear to hold my hand.’ She’d screamed at him. ‘It’s not your hand I dread. It’s where you might put it!’

  Years of secret humiliation were then revealed, how when Eve was a girl Sir George would take her walking her hand pushed through a secret opening in his trouser pocket. They’d walk together, stop to look at flowers or pat a dog, he smiling at neighbours and lifting his hat, and all the while he was using her hand, and no one in the world but Evie knew.

  On Freddie’s seventh birthday Sidney returned to England. It was Mable Goldsmith alerted them to danger; she wrote, ‘I wish you’d come and take young Freddie away. It is not right here. I am fearful for him.’

  Sidney went and this time without a cheque book. ‘I’m taking Jamieson instead.’ Fearful of repercussions Evie had asked what he meant to do. Sidney had shrugged. ‘A rich man has many friends. T
he highborn live in mansions and wield power in parliament. The low live in alleys and carry clubs. Which of those friends do you reckon most useful when dealing with a son-of-a-bitch like your father?’

  Weary, Evie leaned down and kissed Freddie. Thirty years she has stood between him and danger. Every move was for him, every change of house, town and country, move after move, hurt after hurt, and all caused by one man. Looking back she thinks it ought not to have been left to Mother to threaten a gun, Evie should’ve done it. God knows she wanted to! She dreams of returning to England and unlocking father’s adored Purdey guns shooting Father and Mother, because however you view it Mother came too late!

  There are those that know Eve’s secret, her American doctors and God bless him Stefan Adelman, who learned of it, as did John Singer Sargent, when in the jaws of Black Dog she cut her wrists. They swore never to tell on the condition she never again attempted to take her life. ‘You must not take your life,’ said Stefan. ‘It belongs to your son.’

  Dear Stefan accused of murder! He went to his grave with a secret. Evie will do the same. How can she share it? It is too cruel a burden for her to carry never mind a gentle soul like Freddie. Looking at him lying here so battered and hurt, she wonders if it might be better if he does die. They say God is always on the lookout for budding angels. Freddie is no angel but he doesn’t deserve this world and its cruelty.

  A small room one moment empty and the next humming, Evie stayed by the bed through the night. Doctors stitched cuts on his face, set his broken right arm, and bound his ribs. They said he was lucky to be alive and that unconscious was best, that way he was unaware of pain.

  A priest came and mumbled a prayer and held out his hand for alms; he said Freddie shouldn’t have been at the ruins, the Temple of Apula was a bad place frequented by those outside the love of God. Jamieson told him to leave and take his miserable ass with him. He said there’s no one place or person the Lord God did not love and that a true Christian would know that.

  Jamieson has made some kind of deal with the Carabineer. ‘We want to be able to get our boy back to England without delay. If parting with a few thousand lire helps makes our way smoother then all well and good.’

  Sidney knew what he was doing when he gave a home to this man. ‘I know he don’t look much. But it ain’t the look of the thing, it is the staying power.’

  Other than he was once a Jesuit Priest and a prize-fighter Evie has no idea of Rueben Jamieson not who or what he is. She doesn’t care. He adores Freddie and that is enough. A looming shadow in the shape of squatting toad he sits on the other side of the bed his glance never leaving Freddie’s face.

  ‘Is he in pain, do you think?’ Evie asked.

  ‘I hope not, madam.’

  ‘His eyelids flicker. Do you suppose he’s dreaming?’

  ‘Let’s hope they are good dreams.’

  Freddie dreams he is back in the Basilica gazing through plate glass at the Pieta. Such a beautiful thing, so clean and so white, he yearns to climb the rail and break the glass and get through, because he seems to know if he can touch Mary, even the hem of her robe, he’s done with the pain of life forever. But he can’t get started ‘cos every time he climbs the rail he hears Evie call out, ‘Freddie, please don’t leave me,’ and afraid she’ll do silly things like cut her wrists he returns to the other side.

  Evie thinks he doesn’t know she tried to kill herself by chopping at her wrists and that every night she sips laudanum, the dose ever increasing. He does know. He’s always known about her wrists, Johnny Sargent told him.

  That’s not the only thing he knows. In this liquid shifting state he knows that Evie and Sidney had a baby girl called Jenny who died, and that Sid wept, tears rolling down his cheeks. Freddie knows something else, or rather he suspects.

  It is a horrible thing and has to do with little girls in black stockings. It is so horrible he doesn’t want to know about it but Nanny Goldsmith, who for some reason is in the dream with him, wants to tell.

  Nanny takes his hand and sits him on a stool behind a screen of pink-coated huntsman. A child again he laughs thinking they’re playing ‘Hide and Seek.’

  Nanny puts her finger to her lips. ‘Be a good boy and I’ll come and fetch you when it’s all over.’

  ‘No, Nanny!’ Freddie mumbles. ‘I don’t want to see it.’

  Freddie is alone in a room with lots of books. The door opens and Papa comes in. He leads a child by the hand, a tiny girl fair as an angel. Freddie can’t see them but knows they are there.

  Soon horrible noises come from behind the screen. Papa is whispering and the girl is weeping. The noises go on and on. Freddie sticks his fingers in his ears. This is not the first time he’s dreamt this. He’s been here many times.

  ‘Open the door, little girl!’ Papa is shouting. ‘Open the door and let Papa in!’ The little girl is so afraid! Why doesn’t someone do something? Someone should help her! Freddie would help but is afraid of what he might see. He thinks he knows the little girl, that she has hair the colour of his hair and eyes the colour of his eyes. He thinks he’s always known.

  They say what the eyes don’t see the heart cannot grieve. It’s a lie! Freddie never actually saw Papa hurt this little girl but she was hurt just the same. It’s why he was brought here time-after-time. George Carrington wanted his son to know how he was conceived. Words couldn’t do it, respectability had to be maintained, so a fire-screen and a lie kept Freddie and his real mother apart.

  ‘But damn you no more!’ The little boy joined with the grown man. They leapt at the screen and threw it down where it smashed to the floor in a thousand pieces. That’s when Freddie saw Evie and he knew.

  ‘Ooh!’ Freddie opened his eyes. ‘Where am I?’

  A Nun leaned over him. ‘You are in hospital, Senor Carrington.’

  ‘Oh, yes, that’s right.’ Freddie remembered. He’d been set upon, beaten by Paolo and his friends. Jamieson was asleep in a chair on the right side of the bed, Evie on the other side her cheek resting on her hand.

  He’d been dreaming. It was an ancient dream, a nightmare really, a throw back to when he was a boy in Charlecourt. It’s always the same thing Papa abusing servant girls. This dream though was different. He knew the girl, could see her face.

  ‘Oh!’ Freddie tried to move but was overcome by pain. He groaned and Evie shifted in sleep, his pain her pain and his grimace reflected in her face.

  ‘Senor Carrington?’ The Nun hovered. ‘You are in pain?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Is it bad?’

  ‘Awful bad.’

  ‘I can help you.’

  ‘Then please do.’

  She opened a bag, took a syringe, and drew up liquid. She rubbed his arm preparing a vein. ‘You were sleeping.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘And dreaming?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dreams can be helpful. They teach us things.’

  ‘This one certainly taught me.’

  ‘Was it a good learning?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I learned a secret. It hurt me to see it.’

  ‘This will help.’ The Nun shook the phial. ‘Morphine eases pain and softens memories, sometimes it removes that we have no wish to keep.’

  Freddie looked at Evie, the fatigue and care worn face. So many years and so many nightmares! He knows now who suffered behind the smoke screen of a lie. He knows who started the lie. Sir George Carrington started it but it was his daughter, the beautiful and brilliant artist Evelyn Carrington that kept it.

  And it’s she who has since fought long and hard to keep the wretched screen in place. Not for her good, for Freddie! She didn’t want him to share her pain.

  Now he knows where his courage comes from as well as bloody-mindedness. He understands why they both suffer the Black Dog and knowing he will fight it alongside her. He sees where his ta
lent is born as well as his failures. Year after year the good moments, and the bad, the laughter and the tears, have been shared with this one woman.

  Evie is his mother, cranky, crazy and utterly wonderful, Evelyn Carrington. Through pain he was brought into a multi-coloured world, into paint and poetry, into music and Johnny Sargent, and shouting and screaming, and being alive and being loved!

  Who cares from whose loins he sprang! Look where he landed! Grace and beauty was his beginning, not poor Lady Iphigenia’s grey misery! And Oh Dear God he is glad and grateful!

  ‘So my darling Mother,’ he whispered, the name so sweet on his lips. ‘Because I love you, and because I intend to stay with you and care for you until we are both old and decrepit and you are sick of the sight of me, I shall resurrect the damned screen and keep the beloved lie because you wanted it so. Your secret now, Mother, is mine.’

  The needle plunged home.

  ‘Ouch!’ He winced.

  Evie opened her eyes.

  A tear slid down Freddie’s cheek. ‘Hello, Sis.’

  Thirty

  Shadow Man

  Julia was clearing breakfast when the doorbell rang. It has been a busy week, letters and cards arriving. And flowers! So many flowers the back parlour is a steamy hothouse. Later this morning caterers arrive to ready the front parlour. Although Mrs Mac and Leah asked to arrange the wedding breakfast Julia gave the work, and the worry, to an outside concern. She wants the maids to celebrate as friends not workers. They are her friends, good and bad, faithful and fickle they have been with her and Matty every step of the way. On the happiest day of her life she will not be without them.

  ‘You have a visitor, madam, Mr Greville Masson.’

  Julia got to her feet. ‘Thank you, Dorothy. Please show him in.’

  Tall and sun beaten, and suddenly older, he ducked under the lintel. ‘Good morning, Julianna. I hope I don’t disturb you.’

  ‘Not at all, Daniel.’