‘I’m used to things now,’ said Hooper, still gazing at the skull. ‘And I’ve realized that there isn’t time to be afraid of everything. I’m still not sure what to tell Teddy when we get back. He only likes books and cricket and tailors’ shops, but I’d like to do some more of this. Well, he might be like Frank and Wilfred and give it a go, but I know he would never permit the Alps.’
‘Then climb as much as you can before you get married,’ said Parr. ‘Or marry someone else.’
Locke laughed and shook her head at Parr. ‘That’s rather severe advice.’
I stirred the stew on my plate. Tiny globules of mutton fat glistened in the firelight and I chased them with my fork. I remembered my mother’s remarks about Frank’s appearance. How irritating that she should be right.
Flames twisted and lapped against the cottage walls. For miles around us there was nothing but thick forest. I imagined the shepherd who had once inhabited this place, living out of sight among the dark trees, lighting his fire under the big chimney, and listening alone to the sheep out on the hills.
Our day in Barmouth was all pleasure. Frank and Wilfred, Mr and Mrs Taylor, and the four members of the Society all went off together on the train. We walked on the beach and we strolled around the town. The four of us were tired and sore so we didn’t walk far. After a week on the mountains your limbs are full of bent springs and dodgy hinges. But we had a lovely luncheon in a cafe with a view right out to the sparkling grey sea. In the afternoon, we stopped on the promenade for ices. Parr and Locke stood together and pointed at something on the horizon. I don’t know what it was, but they were nodding at their shared observation, seeming quite friendly and pleased.
Frank and I became closer in Barmouth. The others watched us so I tried to keep apart from him and not show much interest, but it was such a pleasure to have him there that I could not help but talk to him sometimes. Don’t ask me what we said because I cannot remember, and I have often tried. Then, at dinner, Mrs Taylor arranged things so that I was seated beside him. We hardly spoke, though, because Locke was quizzing Mrs Taylor on her Alpine climbs and I wanted to listen.
‘And I suppose you didn’t get mountain sickness or you wouldn’t have been able to climb Mont Blanc.’
‘I probably had a headache when we reached the summit, but I would hardly have noticed it by then. There was the view, and the pleasure of having done the job, and the soreness everywhere.’
‘It’s very romantic.’ Locke’s nose was pink and sore-looking from the wind. Her cheeks were pale and made her hair seem darker than usual. There was tiredness in her features but she chattered away, as lively and interested as ever.
‘Yes, but one is always aware of the dangers,’ said Mrs Taylor. ‘We saw accidents and – well.’
There was a silence and I am sure that we were all thinking of Parr’s parents. Parr reached for her water glass and took a sip. She seemed about to speak but changed her mind and, distracted, turned the glass between her fingers.
Frank and I had a moment alone near the station and he kissed me.
A kiss on my hand. That was all and it was over my glove, my cream glove. It seems like nothing now, I know, but then—
Frank wanted to see me again, of course. I wrote to say that it would be difficult to receive him at college, but that the picture gallery was open to visitors on Thursday afternoons and had a notable collection of Victorian paintings. He might like to visit one day.
A kiss, on my left hand. Yes. The fingers inside the glove were rope-burned and scree-grazed. The nails were broken and scraggy. The hand belonged to me, but when I regard my hand now it has the look of another person’s altogether. I am not sure where that leaves the kiss.
Chapter Ten
‘Father, what happened to Edward Whymper after the Matterhorn accident?’
I knew the story but wanted to hear it from him. It was the end of the summer vacation. I sat beside him in the drawing room. King Edward had passed away in May and Father decided that he must follow shortly. My life is nicely finished off now, he would say. I don’t want to straggle on into somebody else’s era. I’d be the unwelcome guest at the dinner party and I’d rather just go. Catherine was in her position at the piano but not playing. She moved her fingers around above the keys as though thinking where to start, but she had been doing this for several minutes and I wondered if some music was playing in her head that she could not quite catch and tether. My father pushed tobacco into his pipe and patted it down with his finger stub. He lit it and sucked deeply.
‘There was an inquest, of course, all that business about the rope breaking and whether he or Taugwalder cut it. Not possible, of course. The weight of four men already plummeting and pulling you down – how could you have time to pick up a sharp stone or find your knife to cut the rope? Whymper didn’t even see what happened because he was last, still coming round the corner when the first one went. I have always felt a sort of connection with him because of the tragedy, not that it was the same thing as – well – of course, but you know. To see those men die and be too late to save them. It’s a terrible thing to live with.’ My father’s eyelids pinkened. ‘Don’t know where the poor chap is now, but I think he’s still alive. He’s been all over the world. He’s probably up a mountain somewhere, though nothing so high or dangerous as the Matterhorn again. You’d lose your nerve, wouldn’t you?’
‘The Matterhorn is not so difficult for modern climbers, is it?’
‘Good God. Many have climbed it but some still die. It hasn’t got any smaller, or less treacherous. Nobody has yet climbed the north face, of course. Look at a picture and you’ll see why. Mind you, if they get away with building a railway to the top, that’ll be the end of it as a proper mountain. You can take your wife up to the top and bring her down again half an hour later. Pah.’
‘But some women have climbed Whymper’s route, and from the Italian side, too.’
‘Yes, a few obstinate female creatures who must spoil it for the climbers.’
I thought there was a glimmer in his eye and he might be teasing me so I ignored the comment.
‘But it’s not the highest peak in the Alps, is it?’
‘No, of course not. There are several higher. Mont Blanc and the Monte Rosa are the highest, but it’s the shape of the Matterhorn that’s the thing, the way it has been chopped and carved into a thing that cannot be climbed and yet must be. I’m glad I never saw it when I was a young man, or else I’d have probably wanted to give it a try. Damned silly way to break your neck, though. Or worse. They never found the body of Lord Francis Douglas, just shreds of his clothing. All that was left.’ My father gazed into the fire, wiped his left eye. His hair was in tufts of white, which glistened at the roots. ‘Still, at least Queen Victoria never managed to ban the sport. Men will always have to do it, schoolboys will dream of doing it, and that is that. I’ll have my veronal now. This conversation has made me sad.’
‘Do you suppose that he would have been strong enough to reach the South Pole?’
‘Who, Whymper? He wasn’t anywhere near the South Pole. What are you talking about? Don’t suppose he was even interested in it. Greenland – he went there.’
‘No, I meant his strength and technique on the mountains. Having learned those skills, he could use them to cross the Antarctic, if he had wanted to reach the South Pole.’
‘Oh, yes. Well, I expect so then, but you’ve got to want to do it. You wouldn’t succeed otherwise.’
Nothing ever changed in Dulwich. I returned each vacation but no longer considered it my home. In the evenings we gathered around the fireplace and Mrs Horton brought cocoa. Father read his journals, accompanied by the rattling and wheezing of his chest. Mother embroidered linen and offered unconnected remarks every so often. Catherine sometimes played the piano and sometimes worked at her knitted dolls and animals for orphans. She had become accomplished at these and made little elephants with curving trunks and tusks, cats with long, fine whiskers. I
sat sighing in the cosy corner and made a show of reading my largest and most difficult college textbooks.
Catherine and I sometimes strolled together around the neighbourhood. We visited our old schoolfriends, but she did not ask much about my new life and I probably showed no interest in her activities at home. Once she surprised me by saying she was expecting to get married, but when I questioned her she admitted that there was no suitor.
My last few days at home during that vacation were quiet. Father took to his bed and we nursed him. My parents begged me not to return to college but the doctor said that my father’s condition was not dangerous, or no more so than usual, and so I shrugged and apologized, and said that I must go. The old arguments caught light and burned until my head ached. I longed for my friends, my place in the lab, the classroom where the Society met, and my room with my own furniture and kettle.
Catherine helped me pack.
‘I wish I could be as strong as you and just do what I wanted regardless of everyone.’
‘And what do you want?’
‘To play the piano with Frank again.’ She did not pause. Her answer was simple and straight as though she could want nothing else.
‘I’m sure you will.’ I tried to smile.
‘I’m too shy to ask him but perhaps he’ll come one day.’
I hugged her and together we pushed my trunk to the door and down the stairs.
‘I’m worried about you, Grace. I wish you wouldn’t go away. I have a feeling about it.’ She puffed for breath, leaned against the wall. Her arms, freckled and long, folded across her chest.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You should really stay here. It’s going to be harder when you finish university and can’t find anyone to marry you.’
‘I’ll do without marriage then,’ I said, but I had no idea whether or not I should mean it. I often thought of Frank but, like Locke, did not want to imagine myself as a wife. ‘It was never my ambition.’
I spent the last weekend with Locke’s family in Kensington. There was a party to celebrate Mrs Locke’s final performance in a new play. I wore a pink silk dress that had once belonged to Catherine and I fastened a band of tiny roses in my hair. We walked through a hall that smelled of lavender and almonds. And then we were in a drawing room. Jewels, bright gowns and dark suits blurred and merged into dancing shapes around the floor.
I drank champagne for the first time. The sudden, sharp fizz made me sneeze.
A door opened to a small courtyard. I breathed sweet air that did not smell of London. In the centre, a small pond rippled in the night breeze. I shivered, smiling, and stepped towards the water. Two young men stood at its edge, intense in their conversation, gesticulating with cigars. Their smoke mingled and rose above their heads into a ribbon of satin. Locke introduced me to her lover, Horace, and her brother, Geoffrey.
Geoffrey resembled his older sister but was tall, a column with a puff of biscuit-coloured hair on top. He was a sweet, overgrown sort of boy who welcomed me cheerfully to their home, then teased Locke about her height. Still not ready to grow up, my dear sister? Horace was of medium height but stocky, dark-haired and dark-eyed. He had rough skin and a loud, full voice. It was no surprise that his most successful role so far had been as a pirate.
Locke sauntered to Horace, snatched his cigar from his hand, put it to her lips and took a deep drag, before putting it back in his mouth. Like an actress, she was aware of her appearance at each turn and from every angle, but there was humour in her affectations and she was never conceited. Horace kept his eyes on her, an almost-smile on his lips at everything she said.
The cigar smoke gave me a warm, exotic feeling and seemed to go pleasantly with the champagne. Locke’s father told me that a friend of his, a theatre producer, had met Shackleton on a ship to Australia and they had put on a charity show for the other passengers. The producer was taking a production of When Knights Were Bold to Hobart, the play that had inspired his daughter’s magnum opus.
And then we were in an upstairs room, white-walled and airy. The party murmured through the floorboards and I was still clutching my glass. Locke and Geoffrey disappeared into another room to find the costumes. There was much banging and cursing and after a few minutes they dragged a trunk into the room. It was filled with cloaks, shawls, fans, masks, jewels, wigs, swords and a gun. We were going to try out Locke’s play, Turn Back the Clocks! I was eager to begin.
Horace played Charles and I played Caroline. Geoffrey took the role of Charles’s best friend, and Locke played all the other parts. We followed the rough stage directions in Locke’s script and we made up moves ourselves. It was comical and sometimes we couldn’t speak for laughing. We added a shooting scene so that we could use the gun and this resulted in Caroline shooting Charles so that there was no possibility of returning to the old days as the play demanded. I thought this gave the story a satisfying conclusion, but Charles reversed the act by waking up from death, making the shooting part of his dream. He then shot Caroline and I enjoyed performing her violent death.
Locke came to my room at bedtime.
‘My brother likes you. Did you notice how he laughed at everything you said? He isn’t usually like that. I think you might get along well together.’
I smiled in the darkness. I didn’t know whether or not I could fall in love with Geoffrey – though I liked him – but the knowledge that he liked me was unexpected and sweet.
Now I was thinking of the strange encounter between Shackleton and the theatre producer. I imagined them performing some play together, with the whiteness of Antarctica as their backdrop, the whole world their audience.
‘Night then.’
‘Night, Locke. I liked your play.’
‘You shall be in it when it is performed, one day. You’re a proper actress you know.’
‘Oh, I’d be no good. I want to do things that are real, not make-believe.’ I shut my eyes and boarded the ship to Tasmania.
If only my family could be like Locke’s.
The following day Locke and I took the train back to college.
Chapter Eleven
Frank swayed slightly on his feet, a willow in the mildest breeze. He blinked and scratched his nose. His head moved from left to right and then back, as though he were not looking at the painting but watching it. I backed into my hiding place at the gallery’s entrance, a gloomy corner between the outer and inner doors. The air seethed with floor polish and library-book dust and I stifled sneezes into my handkerchief. I had slipped out of the lab early, left Locke to clear up my bench and invent an excuse for my disappearance. Here was Frank, not quite real now, slight in his morning suit and heavy black shoes. I imagined him as a character from some secret painting, a thoughtful gentleman pretending to examine paintings in a gallery as he waited for his lover who, unbeknown to him, watched from a dark place.
But Frank had come all the way from Oxford to see me. It would not do to make him wait while I spied on him. I opened my journal, as though I might be making a few notes for my next drawing class, and crossed the room with the feeling that there was no floor and I was swimming from my side to his. I tried to banish the thought of myself as his secret lover in case it showed on my face and appalled him. A kiss on the glove is no kind of promise, after all.
‘Grace.’ In his nerves he gave me a smile that was too wide and looked odd on his narrow face, but I did just the same. ‘How nice to see you. How are you?’
‘I’m very well.’ I grinned and nodded like a puppet.
‘Extraordinary place this. What a collection.’
‘Yes.’
He nodded too and his smile simmered down into something quite attractive. He gestured towards my journal and spoke in a low, secretive voice. ‘You’ve brought work to do. Are you sketching out a masterpiece of your own?’
‘Oh, no. It’s just a – a prop to make it look as though I’m supposed to be here.’ I snapped the book shut lest he see my inadequate efforts. ‘How are yo
u, Frank?’
‘I’m well. Are you able to talk to me or is this awkward? It is awkward, isn’t it?’
‘Rather.’ I fingered the edges of my notebook. ‘We must just behave as though our meeting is a coincidence.’
‘Right you are. Of course.’ He stepped back, raised his voice. ‘Goodness me. I hadn’t realized that you studied here. Extraordinary.’
Two ladies in osprey-feathered hats glanced at us from the nearby still life of apples and pears.
‘Perhaps not,’ I whispered. ‘We had better talk about the paintings. I’m not sure who might be listening. I mean, not that we’re saying anything much but—’ I gestured towards the painting. ‘Was this the one that you particularly wanted to see? It’s considered especially fine, though I must say I can’t bear it.’
It was a sentimental portrait of a little golden-haired girl on a swing, bluebells in her hand and a long-eared dog at her feet.
Frank laughed. ‘It was something to look at till you arrived but I was too conscious of myself to notice much about it. She’s a smug little thing, isn’t she? Let me guess your favourite. I’ve seen most of them now.’
‘I’m sure you can’t.’
‘Oh, I think I can.’
He left me to make a quick circuit of the gallery, returned with a smile. ‘Yes, I know your favourite and you mustn’t deny it.’
‘You seem very sure of yourself.’
Frank led me directly to a painting of a broken ship in Arctic ice. Polar bears prowled and surveyed the wreckage. It was a wild scene that provoked the deepest terror of Nature.
‘I remember playing at explorers with you and your father. And then you told me about your Society when we were in Wales. But it’s more than that. You like its violence. And the loneliness. It’s the wrong Pole, of course. I’m aware of that.’
I looked around to see if anyone had heard. The two feathered ladies were now standing beside a Millais, discussing it with the art tutor. I lifted my journal and pretended to be looking at some detail in the painting, checking it with my notes.
When Nights Were Cold Page 11
