‘Oh, no,’ Cecily said, slumping against the wall. ‘Please, Mummy, do I really have to?’
Frances shut her eyes, briefly, blinking hard. ‘Don’t you want to?’
Cecily chewed her nail. ‘Well, you know. It’s so boring, just sitting there for ages and ages, and it’s so hot in your studio. I think I’ll die sometimes, and you don’t even care.’
‘No,’ Frances said. ‘I simply could not care less if you dropped dead in the studio because of heatstroke. It would not matter to me one iota.’ She batted her daughter lightly on the rear. ‘Come on, Cec. We’re nearly there.’
‘Oh, but I wanted to go to Penzance!’ Cecily said. ‘I want to meet Louisa’s boyfriend!’
‘You’ll meet him at lunch,’ Frances said. ‘Come on.’ Cecily’s expressive eyes filled with tears, and her dark bobbed hair fell into her face. ‘But I have to get my new book out of the library and get a new exercise book from Boots – I want to spend my pocket money, Mum, you said I could buy that. I need it for the rest of my diary, I’ve nearly run out of space. Miss Powell says . . .’
At the mention of the sainted Miss Powell Frances, wanting to scream, gave in. ‘They’re not leaving for a while. Come up till then. Louisa will fetch you.’ Cecily jumped up, her eyes shining. ‘Is that all right with you, Louisa?’
‘Yes, of course, there’s room for her,’ Louisa said. She cleared her throat and said, going rather pink, ‘Aunt Frances, I hope I’ve said it already, but thank – thank you for having Frank and Guy to stay. It’s awfully kind of you.’
It must be easy, being Louisa, Frances thought, looking at her niece. Or pleasant, at least. A classic English rose, huge blue eyes, flaxen blonde hair, endless legs and a big smile. Virtually guaranteed a place at Cambridge, wealthy parents, and a young, handsome boyfriend, son of an old family friend. All so correct and proper. Frances often thought Louisa was like the heroine from a novel. Emma, maybe. What a nice life. Purposeful. Hearty. Rooted in tradition. She thought back to herself at that age, eighteen and on her way to London. She smiled. She’d worked as hard as she could to not be like that, to throw off the shackles of this boring, complacent, English way of being. Sometimes she wished, however, she could be content with a life like Louisa’s. Without the need to . . . feel, whatever it might be, danger, sadness, happiness. Without the need to feel everything, all the time. What was it? Frances didn’t know, she only knew she had to keep it to herself.
‘Our pleasure,’ Frances said, smiling at her. Out of the corner of her eye through the French windows she saw Arvind walking across the lawn. He was holding a jar of lime marmalade and talking to himself.
She was enjoying her sessions with Cecily, more than she cared to admit. Normally, Frances saw sittings as a chore: you had to do them to get the result you wanted, but it was tiresome, having to put the subject at ease. She was used to painting the landscape, marvelling at the ways it could change, rather than getting someone to sit still for an hour.
But this was different. She loved talking to her younger daughter. Cecily’s mind was like a waterfall, endlessly bubbling over with new ideas and thoughts and she had no filter, no sense that something was wrong or right. One day, she would be cured of this, be more self-conscious but for now, Frances loved it. Cecily was like her father in that respect: an original thinker, untrammelled by popular opinion. She was refreshingly, blessedly unlike her sister, in temperament, in ambition, and in looks.
This morning, they talked about the news. Cecily always wanted to talk about the trial of Stephen Ward. It seemed as if it was playing out, with hitherto unseen levels of lurid detail, as near-perfect summer entertainment for the whole country.
‘What’s he done wrong, is what I want to know? He just introduced the girls to Mr Profumo. He’s not the one who’s . . . met with the girls and done all those things, is he? It’s Mr Profumo who did that. And he lied to Parliament, and he’s not even on trial. And –’ Cecily’s voice lowered – ‘Mr Profumo was married!’
Frances, seated at her easel, smiled. The sun was flooding through the large windows into the white room, illuminating her daughter’s face and casting it into shadow as she talked. She’d long wanted to capture Cecily’s mercurial quality, however fleeting.
‘Cec, stay still for me, darling, just a few moments,’ she said. ‘Stephen Ward is a . . . scapegoat, I think. They accuse him of living off immoral earnings – don’t move! That means making money out of girls who are prostitutes. Stay still.’
‘Well, he doesn’t sound like a particularly sound fellow to me, I must say,’ Cecily said. ‘Very odd way to behave.’
Frances laughed lightly. ‘How very censorious you are, Miss Kapoor!’ She felt her heart beating fast; Cecily was so innocent in so many ways, had no idea what grown-ups could be like. When she thought of herself at that age, she wanted to laugh. ‘I simply don’t think he’s as guilty as they’re making him out to be. Profumo, too – it’s all a big storm in a teacup, really.’ She looked again. ‘Stay like that. Just a while longer, please.’
They were silent for a few moments. Outside, the faint sound of the sea crashing on the rocks beneath the house, and desultory conversation between Miranda and Archie outside on the terrace. Inside, people were moving about the house, and Frances could hear humming. That meant Arvind was working; he always hummed when he worked. She smiled.
‘Mum?’
‘Yes, darling.’
‘What’s proscuring a miscarriage?’
‘What?’
‘Proscuring a miscarriage. They had a man in the paper yesterday sent to prison for doing it to two ladies.’
Frances sighed. She hated censorship, hated lying to children about the world they were growing up in. She couldn’t stop Cecily reading the newspapers, therefore, but it was sometimes hard to explain things. Cecily was rather unworldly – she’d been at a convent boarding school for four years, after all – but it pleased Frances that she was showing signs of being surprisingly sophisticated about things, too. So awful to have a bourgeois child, a Jeremy or a Louisa! ‘Procuring, not proscuring. It’s helping girls get rid of a pregnancy they don’t want. An abortion.’
‘Why don’t they want it?’
‘Lots of reasons, I suppose,’ Frances said, after a pause. ‘They’re poor. It’s the wrong time. There’s something wrong with it. The man has run off and left them. The girl didn’t want to have sex, sometimes she was forced into it.’
‘Rape?’
‘Yes,’ Frances said. She glanced up at Cecily, but her daughter’s face was impassive. ‘This is an extremely pleasant conversation for a Thursday morning, isn’t it? Prostitution, rape and abortion. Now, stay still. I’m nearly finished.’
A faint voice floated high up to the sunny studio at the top of the house. ‘Cecily, if you want to come, we’re leaving in a couple of minutes.’
‘Fine,’ Cecily called, her long legs twitching on the stool, swinging wildly from side to side. ‘Coming.’
‘You know, because I really don’t want to be late for Frank,’ the voice continued. ‘Cecily?’
‘Yes!’ Cecily yelled back. ‘Oh, Mum,’ she said softly to Frances. ‘I know I shouldn’t say this, but Louisa is turning into a real bore.’
Frances hid her face so her daughter couldn’t see her expression, and then she looked up reprovingly. ‘You can go, darling. Thank you. Be nice to your cousin.’
Cecily jumped up, hitching down her blue Aertex shirt, and came and kissed her mother. ‘I am nice, Mum, I’m the nicest of the lot, honestly.’ She paused, and said dramatically, ‘Apart from Jeremy. Jeremy’s really nice. I like him.’
She opened the studio door and charged down the stairs, her shoes clattering erratically as she called, ‘Louisa, Jeremy! Don’t go without me!’
Frances picked up a cloth and started cleaning her brushes, half-heartedly, the silence of the big glass and concrete room echoing in her ears. She looked down at her tanned, slim hand; there were flecks of vermi
lion paint drying on her arm. She picked them off, her fingers tracing the smooth, freckled skin, up and down. Frances closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation of her own touch, feeling the whorls of each fingerprint lightly brushing the hairs on her arm . . . She breathed in. It was hot, and she was tired, that was all. There were new people coming this afternoon. That’d help. Two young men, to vary the party a little, add some excitement again, push the feeling of being trapped here in this glass studio away again . . .
She stood up and went over to the window, gazing out at the garden, down at the gazebo, where her husband sat reading a book. She stared at him. She was forty-two, but she felt as if she could be twice that age. She was tired of it all. One day, she promised herself, she’d leave them behind and just walk down to the sea by herself, slip into the clear, cool water, and swim away.
She gave a snort of laughter as she heard the car drive off. One day.
Chapter Thirteen
‘Archie’s been looking at me again,’ Louisa said, as Jeremy’s blue Ford Anglia (for which he had saved for two years and of which he was inordinately proud) trundled slowly away from the house, towards the less direct coastal road that led to Penzance. They were taking this road at Cecily’s request, bowling through the rolling green countryside with its hedge-rows full of orange kaffir lilies, blooming pink and purple rhododendrons in every garden and driveway, and palm trees visible in the distance, down towards the sea.
It was hot in the car, and the engine made an ominous spluttering sound which shook the frame.
‘What’s happened with Archie?’ said Cecily, from the back. In the front, Louisa ignored her. ‘What shall I do? He’s disgusting, Jeremy.’
Jeremy eased the car around a treacherous bend. He was silent for a moment; Jeremy was often silent. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure about what?’
‘Sure he’s been . . . peeping.’
Louisa laughed. ‘Of course I’m sure. I caught him at it once. I can hear him. And he smiles at me. These disgusting smiles, like he knows I know. As if it’s our little secret.’ She shuddered. ‘Horrid . . . I hate him.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Cecily demanded. ‘I can’t hear properly in the back. What’s Archie doing?’
‘Archie’s annoying Louisa,’ Jeremy said loudly. ‘Nothing to worry about, Cecily.’
Louisa’s sharp, pretty face appeared suddenly between the seats. She said viciously, ‘Your brother kneels on the floor outside my room and looks through the keyhole to watch me while I’m . . . getting undressed. I’ve caught him doing it twice now. And when I’m getting changed to go swimming.’
‘Oh,’ said Cecily quietly. ‘Oh.’ She paused. ‘That’s not very nice of him.’
Louisa ignored her again. ‘It’s the way he looks at me, Jeremy.’ She lowered her voice even more, and Cecily made an annoyed sound. ‘That’s what I can’t stand. Can you do something? Have a word with him? Especially with Frank and Guy arriving.’ She sighed and bit her little fingernail. ‘I have to say, I always forget how jolly odd they all are, but it’s worse this year. Arvind’s mad and darling Franty’s in a strange mood this summer, I don’t know what’s up. I don’t want the Leightons thinking we’re part of it. Don’t you agree?’
‘Er . . .’ Jeremy paused. ‘Sort of. Look,’ he said, trying to sound cheery. ‘Don’t worry, old thing. Archie’s been away at school for too long, he hasn’t seen enough girls. He’s just . . . well, he’s a curious chap.’
Cecily, watching Jeremy, opened her mouth to say something, and then shut it quickly again. Louisa made an exasperated sound.
‘You can say that again. He’s a – a pervert.’
‘I mean he’s curious about the world.’ Jeremy blinked. ‘Perfectly natural. But yes, you’re right. Shouldn’t be spying on people, sneaking around. It’s not on.’
‘You shouldn’t be talking about people behind their back,’ said Cecily loudly. ‘Especially when you’re guests in their home. I’m going to put it all in my diary.’
‘Oh, shut up, you little idiot,’ said Louisa. ‘What do you know? Nothing.’ She wound down the window and adjusted the metallic side mirror, so she could see her reflection.
‘Here, I say,’ said Jeremy. ‘I can’t see what’s coming if you do that.’
‘Just for a second, Jeremy.’ Louisa took out a rose pink lipstick and expertly applied it, winding a stray blonde curl around one finger as she did. She pushed the mirror back into place. ‘There,’ she said, leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes. ‘Gosh, this day is exhausting already. I’m quite nervous, I must say.’
She was young and beautiful, reclining in her seat, and she knew it, the wind rippling through her hair, her lightly tanned smooth skin, her long slim thighs clad in apple-green linen shorts.
Cecily was watching her. She said admiringly, ‘You do look lovely, Louisa.’
‘Thanks,’ said Louisa, who knew this to be true. ‘Like a princess – hey, look at the Celtic cross!’ Cecily shouted suddenly, and Louisa winced. ‘Someone’s hung a garland on it, isn’t that strange? Jeremy, can we get out and see?’
‘No time, Cecily, not if you want to change your book and go to Boots,’ Jeremy said, as they drove through a little green valley and the turn-off to Lamorna Cove, busy with daytrippers and cars turning in towards the beach. A car hooted at them as they passed by, people waving gaily. The weather was infectious.
‘Some people,’ Louisa said, annoyed, as if modern civilisation were on the verge of collapse.
The fields off to their left marked the beginning of the stark, wilder moorland of northern Cornwall, rich in tin and coal. In the distance was a chimney stack, a remnant of the once-great tin-mining industry that was all but extinct these days.
Cecily sighed, drinking it all in. She was her mother’s daughter, the landscape of the county was thrilling to her, no matter what the time of year. She settled back and gazed out of the window as Jeremy turned to his sister and said, ‘Between you and me, sis, it’s Miranda I’m sometimes not sure about.’
If Louisa was surprised at this sudden confidence from her brother, she didn’t show it. ‘She is rather a funny old thing, isn’t she,’ she said casually. ‘What do you mean exactly?’
Jeremy took one hand off the wheel and scratched his head in an unconscious Stan Laurel gesture. ‘I don’t know, really. Feel she’s out to cause trouble.’
‘That’s Miranda for you,’ Louisa said with some satisfaction. ‘She’s always been the same.’
‘That’s just it, though,’ Jeremy said. ‘She – well, she’s different this summer.’
‘How?’
Jeremy was lost for words. ‘I don’t know. More – grownup, in some ways. But worse, if anything. She stares at you, as if she’s got a message for you.’
Louisa misunderstood. ‘She stares at me too? Oh, goodness gracious.’
‘No, not – sorry, sis, wasn’t being clear. She stares at one,’ Jeremy explained. ‘As if she had a message for one.’
‘Oh,’ Louisa said, running her hand over her hair again. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘No one likes Miranda,’ Cecily said. ‘It’s just awful. No one likes her at school, either. It’s because she’s so moody,’ she added informatively. ‘The girls at school know how to wind her up. She got into real trouble—’ She clamped her mouth shut suddenly.
‘For what?’ Louisa, alive to any possible scandal, turned round, intrigued. ‘What did she do?’
‘I can’t say,’ Cecily said. ‘Oh, I bet it was nothing, and you’re just making it up.’
‘I’m not, it was very serious,’ Cecily said furiously. ‘Very. I promised I wouldn’t say. They nearly chucked her out – gosh, I mustn’t say more. Mind you,’ she added, as if trying to be fair, ‘she isn’t very nice. I, for example, don’t like her. And I’m her sister.’
There was a silence from the front of the car. ‘Oh, dear,’ said Louisa lightly, curling a blonde lock around one slim finger, secure in he
r position as family member adored by all. ‘Oh, dear. You shouldn’t hate your sister, you know.’
‘I can’t help it,’ Cecily said. ‘Oh, look, the Merry Maidens, I love them. Do look. I always mean to write a story about them. I might start it later. After I’ve written in my diary, of course.’
She sighed, and was silent again, as they approached Newlyn. Louisa raised her eyes at her brother, but he did not respond. Already Cecily’s diary was turning out to be a wearisome feature of the holiday, with pointed references to one person’s inclusion or not in its pages, the lists it contained, and its role as a worthy receptacle for Cecily’s world view. Last night, over fish pie, she had treated the table to a lengthy description of some girl at her school and how one day, she would definitely be sorry for being mean to her, Cecily.
‘Why, Cecily?’ Arvind had asked. ‘Why will this girl be so terribly afraid of your diary?’
The others around the table were surprised. Arvind normally didn’t speak at meals. Cecily had turned to him, brimming with excitement. ‘Because, Dad, one day I’ll be a writer and this diary will be famous. And she’ll be so sorry she was mean to me. And called me names.’
Louisa and Miranda had snorted loudly in unison, and looked up, surprised, at each other.
Now Louisa said to her brother, ‘We should plan some things for the boys. For the chaps. Ask them what they want to do.’
Jeremy nodded. ‘I thought we could go to the Minack Theatre one night.’
‘Yippee, yes, please,’ Cecily shouted from the back. ‘Oh, do we have to?’ Louisa sighed. ‘Theatre’s so incredibly boring.’
‘But the Minack is great,’ Jeremy said, laughing at his sister. ‘They’re putting on Julius Caesar. We can walk to Logan’s Rock, they’ll like that. Go to the pub for lunch, maybe. And I wondered if Aunt Frances would let us have a midnight picnic on the beach, cook some food on a campfire. It’s the last year we’ll all be together for a while, you know. Seems a shame not to make the most of it.’
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