He was nothing like his father. She had known that almost from the beginning – even as a baby, he had lacked that unmistakable vigour which James later displayed. Cameron was a dreamer, like her. He was a child who smiled a lot and seemed to want to please, and his very amiability had worried Paul. With James, it was different. She was a puzzle to him and his bafflement over her behaviour since his father had died had made him uneasy in her company. He kept trying to show concern, and then backing off from the implications if there turned out to be any. ‘Are you all right, Mum?’ he kept asking, but there was nothing hesitant about the question, and he clearly expected the answer to be yes. And then, insultingly, though she knew he was unaware of the insult, ‘Maybe you should talk to Melissa, you know, have a chat with her?’ Melissa had done a course in counselling, and James was proud of her caring nature. No, she told him, as gently as possible, she didn’t think she needed to have a word with his wife, she was perfectly all right, he need not worry. ‘But I do,’ he said, in an irritable tone of voice, as though she were being difficult. ‘I can’t stop worrying about you. Melissa says …’ She thought how shocked Melissa would be to know just how far she had moved on, just how swiftly she had come to terms with Paul’s death. This had to remain unspoken.
But she went so far as to say, ‘I’m fine, James. I find I like being on my own.’ He patted her hand, and smiled. She was just a little afraid of James. Even his size – he was over six foot, and powerfully built, like his father – intimidated her. He never looked right in her house, seeming to make chairs too small and rooms too full. His marriage, so young, to Melissa had been a surprise but also a relief – she felt that Melissa, American and clever, took the place she had never adequately filled. If, behind his convincingly mature façade, there lurked a more uncertain James, then Melissa could deal with him. Neither of her sons, she knew, could stand in for their father, and she was glad of it.
*
She wasn’t sure, that first month back in London, whether it was quite true that she liked being on her own in the family house. It was, of course, quite different from being alone in the croft on the island. Here, at every turn, there were reminders of that other life, the life she had lived with Paul all those years. Inevitably, they disturbed her. The memories of happier times were sharp and persistent and it puzzled her that they were not also comforting.
The house, which she had always loved, began to get on her nerves. She didn’t fit in any more, she wasn’t a woman who wanted a large sitting room full of furniture, or a kitchen where family feasts could be accommodated. Cameron was right, she must sell it and find somewhere smaller; much smaller. Then, she could get rid of all the belongings which had begun to haunt her with their history. She could choose new things, uninfluenced by Paul’s taste – and everywhere she looked she saw his taste. It always struck people as odd that Paul collected modern art. Such a hobby (though rather more serious and expensive than a hobby) did not fit with his persona as a man of action, ex-army, known to be ruthless in the conduct of business. But Ailsa had seen this other side of Paul from the start and had been convinced it showed the ‘real’ Paul, the true self he did not wish to reveal to others, in case they thought him soft. Sometimes she had heard him lie, telling people that some painting he’d bought had been his wife’s choice. This was especially true if the painting was of a nude woman. She hadn’t minded, but she knew that in fact her own influence was absent so far as their paintings were concerned. Her own taste was only evident in the colour of a pair of curtains or the pattern on a rug (a rug Paul had never liked). It could all go, and Paul’s art collection too. The boys could have what they wanted and the rest could be sold.
First, though, she had to sort through all the many drawers and cupboards and dispose of personal effects. About this, Melissa was right, she had indeed been in denial. She’d gone off to her island leaving everything just as it was, closing the door especially firmly on the room that had been Paul’s study, and into which he had liked to be wheeled even during his last weeks. She thought about asking one of her sons to tackle this room, but feared that what they might find would shatter their image of their father as devoted husband. She had to do it herself, and quickly, in a matter-of-fact way. So one dark November day she took into the room a roll of black bin liners and a few large cardboard boxes and set to, starting with the desk. It had six drawers, all crammed with papers, neatly arranged. She saw that in fact there were little labels on the rims of the drawers – ‘Insurance’, ‘Car’, ‘Stocks and Shares’. They could go to Paul’s accountant, she needn’t bother with them. The sixth drawer was locked. She hunted around for a key, but there didn’t appear to be one. She doubted very much whether Paul had opened this drawer in the last year – he couldn’t have managed to bend down that far, nor had he had the strength in his by then almost useless fingers to turn a key. She would have to force the lock. But standing looking at the desk, she remembered that there was another desk Paul had used before this one which looked very much the same.
It had been moved to Cameron’s old room, where he still slept when he stayed with her. Six drawers, exactly the same, and in the sixth, the bottom one, a key was, helpfully, sticking out. She knew it would fit before she even removed it, and returned to Paul’s study. The drawer held letters, all still in their envelopes. They were tied in bundles, with ordinary string or elastic bands. Some were from her. The sight of the pale green envelopes (very expensive these had been, lined with a sort of tissue paper) made her feel slightly nauseous. Only twelve of them, written to Paul in the six months before they became engaged when she had gone back home to Scotland to help nurse her dying father. She didn’t need to read them to remember the contents. Most of these letters had been full of details about her father’s condition, and professions of love for Paul. These had been extravagant, probably embarrassingly so. She’d been so passionately in love, so desperate to be with him, swearing that she couldn’t live without him. She thought she’d burn them, late in the afternoon, in the garden. Nobody would see her.
A small collection of letters from the boys, only nine in all, six from Cameron, three from James, written from school. They might like to have them, though the letters were not of much interest. They were addressed to her as well as Paul, but it was Paul who had elected to keep them, which now seemed touching. She was sure that Melissa would read great significance into James’s illiterate scribbles. Another bundle, also slim, from his mother, written from the cruises she was so addicted to. And then the last packet. It was sealed. She opened it: two letters. Plain white envelopes, bold writing. They could only be from Lucasta Jenkinson. The Cornish postmarks were clear.
She thought how, a year ago, she would have grabbed these letters feverishly, with shaking hands, and devoured every word in them even while her vision clouded with hate. She would have wanted to know everything, every last thing that this woman had been saying to her husband. Had she been begging Paul to leave, and come to her? But no, it couldn’t have been like that, she had dumped him. Paul would not have lied about that. So why, if she had rejected him, did she write to him at all? Because he had written to her? The answer would be in these letters, or the clues to the answer. She must surely have been responding to letters from Paul. What had he said? Had he begged her to take him back? Had he said he would leave his wife? Holding these two envelopes in her hands, hot with tension, sweaty with it, Ailsa felt the weight of her decision. Was she strong enough to burn these letters too, without reading them? Was she strong enough to read them first? Was there any need? Was there any benefit to be had?
Paul had kept them. Locked up. Hidden from her.
*
Cameron took charge of selling the house. He assumed she would not want to show people around, or even be in the house when the estate agent did so, but he was wrong. She wanted to see who might be taking her place and said she would always be there whenever a prospective buyer was brought to look round. The estate agent, never mind her s
on, did not quite like this, but she was firm. All appointments were for the afternoon, except on Saturdays and Sundays when she agreed to almost any hour. The moment the house went on the estate agent’s books there were many applicants – six different lots of people came to look round on the very first day, and thereafter never fewer than two in an afternoon.
Ailsa enjoyed it. She didn’t feel in the least (as Cameron had warned her she would) ‘invaded’ by these people. On the contrary, she felt absolutely in control of them and took them round the house as though she herself were the agent (who pattered behind, occasionally pointing out things she’d missed). ‘What a lovely house,’ everyone said at some point, usually when she led them through to the conservatory and they saw the terrace and the garden. They all enquired how long she had lived here and when she told them almost twenty years they were impressed. They had been told, of course, that she was a widow, and so did not ask any upsetting questions – it was enough that she wanted somewhere smaller now that it was understood she was on her own. Offers were quickly made, so quickly that she was advised to hang on and she might very well get more than the asking price. (Property prices were buoyant in the 1980s.) Cameron thought she should wait for a cash buyer who could complete in the minimum time, without waiting to sell their own property, and at the end of the second week one appeared.
She was French, but spoke excellent and almost accentless English. She was married, with three young children, but she came on her own, in the evening. The estate agent brought her but, by mutual agreement, left her to be shown round by Ailsa, who by then had grown used to the inevitable questions about boilers and central heating, and felt she could cope. The woman, a Mme Verlon, Claudette Verlon, didn’t ask any of them. She smiled, but was virtually silent as she was taken from room to room. Ailsa saw her eyes darting about, though, and knew she was taking everything in. When the tour was over Ailsa ended up in the kitchen and, on impulse, asked Mme Verlon if she would like a glass of wine while she thought if she wanted to see anything again. The offer was accepted. Ailsa poured two glasses of white wine, and they sat at the table.
It was two weeks before Christmas and dark outside, and had been since soon after four. The kitchen was not cosy – it was much too big – but it was colourful, with a fine collection of plates on the pine dresser. Mme Verlon admired the plates, recognising several as being from Provence, and ventured the opinion that Ailsa was artistic. Ailsa shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I have no feeling for art. It was my husband who collected most of the pictures and pottery. He had an eye, though it was untrained.’ ‘And was it he who bought the little painting in your bedroom, Madame?’ Ailsa stared at her in astonishment. They had only been in her bedroom a couple of minutes, with only one lamp switched on, and she had never drawn attention to the attic painting. She had instead mentioned only the large cupboard (because the estate agent was forever telling her to point out such ‘features’). Mme Verlon hadn’t mentioned the painting either, and she hadn’t had time to study it.
‘The little painting,’ she echoed, ‘on my bedroom wall, facing the bed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why ever does it interest you? How did you notice it?’
Mme Verlon shrugged, drank some wine. ‘I think I recognised it,’ she said. ‘It is quite valuable, no?’
‘Is it? I’ve no idea. I’ve never had it valued.’
‘Your husband bought it, perhaps?’
Ailsa hesitated, then said, avoiding Mme Verlon’s gaze, ‘No. It was a gift. To him.’
‘How fortunate he was. You have it insured?’
‘I don’t think so, not on its own, I mean, only as part of the house and contents insurance.’
‘You should treasure it, but perhaps you do, or it would not be on your bedroom wall. It means something, yes?’
Again, Ailsa hesitated. She felt herself blush, and said, hurriedly, ‘I don’t know. I’m never sure. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. It seems sad, mostly.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so, no. Though her life was maybe sad.’
‘Whose life?’
‘The artist’s.’
‘Tell me!’ Ailsa felt suddenly excited, and leaned across the table to touch the other woman’s hand. ‘I’ve always wanted to know who painted it, and why. I don’t think my husband knew either, or the person who gave it to him.’
‘She was English, but lived in Paris. I’ve seen some of her work. Your painting is like one of her other paintings, almost a copy of it, but I don’t think it is a copy. I would have to look at it carefully.’
Ailsa went to fetch the painting.
*
Mme Verlon held the little painting in her hands and studied it closely. ‘May I?’ she asked, turning it over, poised to take off the frame. Ailsa nodded. The canvas came out of it easily. Mme Verlon turned it over and scrutinised the back of the canvas. ‘I believe she rarely signed her work,’ she said. ‘It is not significant that this bears no signature. But I think it is genuine. I think it is by Gwen John.’
‘Is she still alive?’
‘No, no. Dead long ago, I don’t know exactly when, but before the last war, I think.’
‘Did she live in a room like this?’
‘I think so. She was poor. Her brother, you know him, Augustus John, was more famous, and much richer.’
‘And she was his sister? How odd. Was she married?’
‘No.’
‘Children?’
‘No.’
‘So she was lonely, it is a sad painting.’
‘I don’t know. Someone will be able to tell you. But if I am right, it is precious. You must take care of it. I would love to have it, but I cannot afford to buy it, at the moment, if I am to buy your house, which I would like to do, please.’
The sale went through very quickly, without a hitch, and Ailsa had only a month to find somewhere else and to dispose of the furniture and contents. Cameron, delighted at the amount of money the house had raised, thought his mother should come and stay with him, or else rent somewhere, while she looked ‘properly’ for her future home, but Ailsa had already made her mind up. She was going to travel, and needed only a base until she’d satisfied her wanderlust, so she bought a tiny flat through the estate agency which had handled her house sale – one room, with kitchen and bathroom, in a new block by the river. Her sons couldn’t understand her choice, but were bound to admit it was sensible, for a woman her age. There was a lift, and a porter, and it was new so maintenance would be easy. It would do, for the time being, and be easy to sell when their mother was ready to settle down.
They moved her things for her. It was not an arduous job, since she was keeping hardly anything from the family house. Most of what went into her pied-à-terre was new – a new (smaller) bed, because her existing one would have filled the room; a new small pine table; two rather uncomfortable cane chairs – and that was it. ‘Pretty comfortless, Mum,’ James said, ‘and what about a fitted carpet?’ No, she didn’t want the white-tiled floor covered. She would buy a rug, eventually. In spite of its size, the room fortunately had plenty of storage space, cleverly hidden behind a false wall, and all Ailsa’s clothes and boxes went into this long, narrow compartment. The kitchen, though there was hardly room to turn round in it (literally) was well and cunningly equipped. So was the bathroom. She had everything, she announced, that she needed.
The walls were white, a brilliant white. Everything in the place was white – kitchen appliances, kitchen floor, bath, bathroom floor. She’d deliberately put a white woven cotton bedspread over her new bed and made white cushions for the chairs. The effect, not surprisingly, was stark and hurt her eyes, she had to admit. There was so much light, with two big windows, both large, double-glazed panes of glass, flooding the room with sun whenever the weather was good and illuminating it strongly when it was not. There were white slatted blinds in place, but she had rolled them up and never intended to use them – no one, except passing seagulls, could see
in and she liked the panorama before her. But something would have to be done eventually about the whiteness, to tone it down. She thought she might buy a grey rug, and maybe one comfortable chair, covered in grey linen. She would also have some sort of curtains, even if she would rarely draw them – there was enough space either side of the windows for them to hang and tone down the whiteness of the other walls.
‘You need some pictures,’ James said. ‘Haven’t you brought some nice pictures? What’s happening to all Dad’s pictures?’
‘I’ve brought one,’ Ailsa said.
*
There was no one else in the block as yet, though the other flats had all been sold, and unlike being in the croft on the island, Ailsa found the atmosphere eerie. All that emptiness below her made her feel curiously vulnerable, though in fact the porter was there, in residence, and she was quite secure. Going into her flat she felt startled each and every time – she found herself catching her breath at the sight of this unknown space. No memories at all. No reminders of any previous life. All that connected her with the past was the little painting, said to be by a well-respected artist, Gwendoline Mary John. The focus of attention, it now looked lost on the white wall. The eye was drawn to it, in the strong light, and stayed, reluctant to leave the only interruption in all that bright white.
She had not, as Mme Verlon advised, taken the painting to an expert. She was content to accept the Frenchwoman’s opinion and had found out from her all that she wanted to know. She hadn’t insured it separately either – she didn’t want anyone to look at it. The first thing she would have to do when she returned from Italy was to have the wall upon which the picture hung repainted, a beige colour, she thought. It pleased her to think she had this to come back to, the simplicity of it, contrasting so strongly with the complexity of the family house. She wouldn’t get overwhelmed ever again – this room was her life now down to the core. She didn’t even want her sons to come into it, or not as they once had done. She was quite free of entanglements, at last. The picture, when she locked the door upon it, reassured her that this was true.
Keeping the World Away Page 32
