by Lisa Jewell
‘Well, I’m doing some detective work,’ she said. ‘My grandmother just passed away and she left a substantial amount of money in her will to a mysterious beneficiary. I’ve got as far as working out that she was part of the jazz scene in Soho in the early twenties and that she was friends with your uncle, Gideon Worsley. In fact, he painted her.’
Suddenly Jeremiah Worsley’s entire demeanour changed. He drew himself up straight in his capacious chair, pulled his slouching shoulders up to his chin, slammed his hands down upon the table top and shouted out, ‘Arlette!’
Betty gasped. ‘Yes!’ she said. ‘How did you know?’
‘An educated guess, dear girl. So, good grief, you’re her granddaughter, you say?’
‘I’m her step-granddaughter. But we were very close.’
‘Oh my goodness, my goodness. Arlette’s granddaughter! This calls for a tipple. Can I get you one?’ He pulled a decanter from a drawer inside his desk and held out two tumblers.
‘Yes, please.’ Betty had no idea what she was about to be given, but agreed with Jeremiah that this seemed absolutely the right moment for a stiff drink. This was it, she thought, she was right on the cusp of finding Clara Pickle.
He passed her something brown and fumy and she took a sip. She suspected it might be brandy.
‘Well, well,’ he said, smiling broadly now, revealing brandy-ravaged teeth. ‘So, tell me more. Tell me what you need to know.’
‘Everything,’ said Betty, her throat burning against the drink. ‘I need to know everything.’
‘Well, dear oh dear. All I know is family lore. All I know is that Arlette was my uncle’s muse, a lovely-looking girl, it would seem, going by his portraits of her.’
‘Did you ever meet her?’
‘Oh, no. Good grief, no, she was long gone before I was even born.’
‘Gone where?’
‘I have no idea. Wherever you found her, I presume. The story goes that my uncle Gideon fell madly in love with her, pursued her, but she was in love with another man. I think, possibly, one of the jazz musicians they were comporting with. And then all of a sudden she had a change of heart, ditched the musician and married Gideon. And then, it seemed, she simply disappeared.’
‘Disappeared?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And Uncle Gideon went rather mad after this. Rather unhinged. Stopped painting. Was made to marry his cousin, rather against his will, and then topped himself the night before the wedding.’
‘I thought he fell from a horse.’
‘Ah, yes, well, that’s what it says in the NPG. Yes, the official line. The family history, though, says that he drank himself into a stupor, took some terrible opiate and then took off over the hills without any saddlery on a horse that everyone knew was not to be trusted. Seeking oblivion. Knew that if the booze and the drugs didn’t wipe him out, the mad horse would.’
‘So Gideon had no children?’
‘None that we know of. Although, of course, the lore could be wrong, Arlette might have fallen pregnant with his child – maybe that’s why she disappeared. What was the surname of the girl named in the will?’
‘Pickle.’
Jeremiah guffawed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘really?’
‘That is it. Really. Clara Pickle.’
He stopped laughing and furrowed his brow. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that makes no sense whatsoever. I think, in that case, the connection ends here. There is no one called Pickle in our family and I have never even heard of the name before. There is obviously another strand to this story that does not involve the Worsley family.’ He sighed. ‘What a terrible pity.’
‘Are there any other portraits?’ asked Betty. ‘That you know of?’
‘Of Arlette? Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘gosh, yes. Plenty. The estate has them.’
‘The estate?’
‘Yes, what was formerly our family home in Oxfordshire, and is now a tourist attraction and wedding venue. Gideon’s portraits live there now. In the Gideon Worsley Room. Lots of Arlette. You should head up there, take a look.’
Betty blinked. ‘Really?’ she said.
‘Oh, yes. About five or six, I’d say. Including quite a famous one. Here, hold on just one minute ...’ He turned in his swivel chair and hooked a large hardback book out of a shelf with a fat finger. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘this is one of Uncle Gideon’s most famous paintings.’
He opened the book up in front of him and then turned it to face her. He tapped the picture with his finger. ‘It’s called Arlette and Sandy. Imagine that, sixty inches square.’ He described a large square with his hands. ‘It’s utterly mesmerising.’
Betty leaned forward to look at the painting.
It was composed of Arlette, looking very young and delicate, seated on a chaise longue in a loosely buttoned chiffon blouse, leaning with her head against the shoulder of a very handsome black man. The man had a long face, large eyes, a roman nose and was wearing a white shirt under an unbuttoned waistcoat, staring lustily at the artist. It was a picture full of passion and yearning. The sitters looked as though they had just been caught in the act of undressing each other by the artist.
‘Sandy,’ she said, running a finger across the picture. ‘Who was he?’
‘No idea,’ said Jeremiah. ‘A jazz musician, I suppose.’
‘But it looks ...’ Betty paused. ‘Don’t you think, it looks as if they were lovers?’
Jeremiah turned the page to face him and shrugged. ‘I suppose it does, rather, but then, you know, anything went, back in the twenties. Everyone was at it.’
‘But if Gideon was in love with my grandmother, and Gideon painted this, then maybe this was the chap she was in love with while he was pursuing her?’
‘Yes,’ Jeremiah agreed, ‘it probably was.’
‘Wow.’ Betty stared again at the noble-looking man with the coal-black skin. And then she suddenly felt a rush of familiarity. ‘You know,’ she said, pulling the book back to her and staring at it more closely, ‘this man, his face. I feel sure I’ve seen him before. He’s not the same man in the National Portrait Gallery, is he?’
‘No, no, that man looked entirely different, to my eye, but then, you know ...’
He chuckled, and she glared at him before he said what she almost definitely thought he was about to say and cut in with, ‘I know! I know where I recognise him from. I’ve got a flyer for a gig from 1920. Sandy Beach and the Love Brothers! Of course. How stupid of me. This is Sandy Beach! He was in the Southern Syncopated Orchestra!’
‘The what orchestra?’
‘World famous. Played for the King. Toast of the town.’
Jeremiah looked at her sceptically, as though she could not possibly know something about jazz that he did not already know.
‘My friend’s researching them for me. I’m having dinner with her tonight.’ She fizzed with excitement. ‘This is it. I think we’re nearly there. The pieces of the puzzle are falling into place.’
‘But Clara Pickle. She’s still rather unaccounted for.’
Betty grimaced. ‘Well, yes. But I’ve got a feeling she’s just around the corner. I really have. In fact, I know exactly where I’m going next.’ She checked the time. It was five o’clock. She just about had time to do it before she met Alexandra. But then she wouldn’t have time to go back to the hospital for visiting hours. She sighed. Tomorrow morning, she thought; she could go tomorrow morning.
‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for your time. Do you have a card I could take, in case I have any more questions?’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ He wheezed forwards, pulled one from a small wooden box and passed it to her. ‘And likewise, when you find out about the mysterious Ms Pickle, I insist you call me, or drop by, let me know. I shan’t sleep otherwise.’
‘I will,’ she smiled. ‘Definitely.’
‘Lovely to meet you, Betty. Goodbye.’
He looked as if he was attempting to rise to his feet, a feat that worried Betty somewhat, so she smiled and said, ‘Don�
��t get up. I can see myself out.’
‘Good,’ said Jeremiah, sinking back into his Jeremiah-shaped chair and smiling with relief. ‘Good.’
Jimmy’s was a big scruffy basement restaurant, loud as hell, all Formica and plastic tablecloths and sweat-stained waiters running around theatrically as though they were being filmed.
Betty scanned the room for the familiar shock of Alexandra’s white-blond hair and then threaded her way through the dense network of tables towards her.
‘Hi!’ she said.
‘Oh, great,’ said Alexandra, resting her cigarette in a glass ashtray and standing to kiss Betty on each cheek. ‘You got my message. So glad.’
‘Yeah, I must have just missed you. It was seven thirty.’
Alexandra picked her half-smoked cigarette out of the ashtray and inhaled on it. ‘No worries,’ she said. ‘I’m here most nights.’
‘You are?’
‘Yeah. I’m always forgetting to eat. Suddenly it’s, like, seven o’clock, my stomach is literally eating its own lining. And then I think: kleftiko.’ She smiled and tipped some ash into the tray. ‘And you know, I’d spend more in M&S buying the fucking ingredients to make a fucking kleftiko than it costs to eat one here. That someone else has made. Someone Greek. Who then washes up my stuff afterwards.’ She smiled happily and passed Betty a menu.
Betty smiled at her. ‘Do I need to ask what you’d recommend?’
Alexandra laughed and took the menu back, then she called over a waiter and ordered two kleftikos and a bottle of white.
Thirty seconds later the waiter returned with a bowl of pickled carrots and olives and big wrinkly green chillies, which they both devoured hungrily.
‘So,’ said Alexandra, ‘how’s the job going?’
Betty shrugged. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘It’s fun.’
Alexandra shuddered. ‘Three under three,’ she said. ‘Rather you than me.’
‘Yes, but they’re not mine. I can give them back.’
‘Oh, yes, I know all that,’ she said with a dismissive flap of her hand. ‘But I honestly don’t even think I could do five minutes. I’d lose one. Or, Christ, accidentally kill one or something. I mean, I have no concept of safety around children.’
‘One of them choked,’ said Betty, ‘the first time I was left with them.’
‘Urgh!’ Alexandra clutched her chest with a bony hand. ‘My God, what did you do?’
‘Heimlich manoeuvre.’
‘What the fuck is that?’ She looked appalled.
‘You know, when you wrap your arms round their chest and squeeze.’
She shuddered again. ‘There, you see,’ she said. ‘If that had been me, that child would now be dead. And then I would have to kill myself.’ She put her hand to her throat dramatically. ‘Not a child person,’ she finished sagely.
She poured them each a glass of wine and drank hers thirstily. ‘Mmm,’ she said, her eyes rolling backwards slightly with pleasure. ‘I needed that. Fucking awful day.’
Betty smiled. It seemed from her brief exposure to Alexandra Brightly that pretty much every day was fucking awful.
‘I’ve just been to the hospital,’ Betty said, ‘to see your brother.’
‘What!’
‘He’s got legionnaire’s disease.’
Alexandra shivered gently with distaste. ‘Oh God, how fucking typical.’
‘And mild concussion.’
Her face screwed up in horror. ‘How awful. What on fucking earth has he been doing?’
‘Well, living in a damp flat and working too hard, mainly.’
‘Good God,’ Alexandra said, ‘this is why I don’t bother with him. Why on earth is he still living in that ridiculous flat? London is full of flats. He’s making loads of money. It’s fucking crazy.’ She sighed and pulled another cigarette from a packet in front of her and lit it. She inhaled crossly and then exhaled, letting her face soften. ‘Is he OK?’ she asked, almost reluctantly.
‘He’s fine,’ Betty said. ‘He’ll be out tomorrow. And he’s coming to stay with me.’
‘Oh, that’s nuts. He can come and stay with me. There’s no reason why you should have to put up with him.’
Betty smiled, slightly embarrassed. ‘Yes, I think he’d rather stay with me, closer to work, you know ...’ She drifted off, not wishing to venture any further into the murky depths of their fractious sibling dynamic. ‘It’s fine,’ she finished. ‘I don’t mind at all.’
Alexandra narrowed her eyes. ‘What’s going on with you two?’ she asked.
‘Absolutely nothing,’ Betty replied nonchalantly.
‘Hmm, I smell more-than-just-good-friends.’
‘No,’ Betty said, ‘definitely not. He’s just ... we are just friends, honestly. He helps me out, and I help him out.’
‘He helps you out?’ Alexandra asked sceptically.
‘Yes,’ Betty replied. ‘Just today, for example, he went to the library for me and did some research.’
Alexandra snorted derisively. ‘Yeah, right,’ she said, ‘and I’m sure that was incredibly useful.’
‘It was!’ Betty cried. ‘He found Gideon Worsley’s nephew. And I’ve just been to see him.’
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘No. I’m not. He’s called Jeremiah and he owns an antiques shop, and he told me loads of stuff about Gideon and Arlette.’
‘Like what?’ Alexandra looked simultaneously delighted and aghast.
‘Like that they were married, that Arlette disappeared, like that Arlette was having an affair with Sandy Beach – you know, the guy on the flyer – and that she ditched him for Gideon, and that Gideon killed himself because he was so destroyed about losing Arlette.’
‘Oh God, pure gold!’ Alexandra exclaimed with her hand to her throat. ‘Well done, Johnny Boy. But listen, listen,’ She put down her wine glass and put on her reading glasses. ‘I have also got some things to tell you.’ She pulled some stuff out of a big leather bag hanging from the back of her chair and started to leaf through it. Then she paused and stared at Betty pensively. ‘I hope you’re ready for it,’ she said gently. ‘Because if it means what I think it means then it’s really rather sad ...’
49
1921
ARLETTE NEVER SAW the baby. It was taken away from her before she had a chance to set eyes on it. She’d been delirious at the time, full of ether and chloroform, crazy as a street lady, no idea what was happening. The only thing she knew was that her baby had come three months early and was already dead.
‘What colour is it?’ she asked the midwife as the baby was carried from the room, like waste product.
‘Please don’t talk, Mrs De La Mare,’ she was told sternly.
‘Is it white?’ she screamed. ‘Is it white?’
‘Of course it’s white,’ the midwife snapped at her. ‘What other colour could you possibly expect it to be? A tiny white boy. Poor wee soul.’
She strode from the room and Arlette was left alone, her body aching and empty.
A tiny white boy.
Thank God for that.
Thank God for that.
For months she had feared her instincts wrong. A tiny, gritty part of her, quietly questioning the evidence. Maybe it was Godfrey’s.
But no. The baby had not been Godfrey’s. It had been Gideon’s. She had not gone through these past four months of wretchedness for nothing.
She put her trembling hands to her belly. It was still full and firm. A cruel illusion. No baby. Just an empty sack. She had known, she had known for days. Where once there had been the soothing, fascinating tumble and kick of a being inside her, suddenly there had been nothing, just a desolate stillness. And then when the pain had begun, she’d known. Known that she would be pushing out of her a baby that she would never hold in her arms.
A tiny white boy.
Francis Worsley. That was to be his name.
She sat up and felt the room spin in circles around her head. The door opened and a man stood in the
doorway, a tall handsome man. Her husband. Her rapist. He was crying.
‘There,’ she said coldly. ‘There. It is over. We can end this farce. The marriage will be annulled.’
‘Our baby,’ he sobbed. Mucus bubbled from his nose.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘It was never meant to be. It was your punishment,’ she continued, ‘for what you did to me.’
He stared at her desperately, his fist half-stuffed into his mouth to hold back the tears. ‘You callous whore,’ he sobbed. ‘You dirty, callous whore.’
She stared at him. ‘You made a whore out of me, Gideon. All of this is your fault. Every last bit of it.’
‘I cannot believe I ever loved you. I had no idea your heart was made of lead.’
She turned and faced the wall, her back to him, her hands tucked beneath her cheek. ‘Please go, Gideon,’ she said. ‘When the midwife says I am fit to be up, I will pack my things and return to the Millers.’
She heard him in the doorway, the damp, ugly noises of misery, his fist beating the wall twice, and then the sound of his leather soles turning on the floorboards and the door slamming closed behind him.
She breathed in hard, sucking down her own desperate sobs.
Her baby was dead.
But her future was reborn.
Most of the orchestra was based in London now – the tour suspended temporarily because their manager had been declared bankrupt and his case was going through the courts – picking up cheques and handfuls of notes here and there, performing in smaller groups around the Soho clubs.
Arlette had kept up with Godfrey’s comings and goings through Minu, who still frequented the clubs and parties. It had been painful to be reminded that beyond the walls of her strange Chelsea prison, beyond her empty, loveless marriage with Gideon, life was still continuing in all its silly, glittering, light-hearted glory. Godfrey was still living in his rooms in south London and playing with the Love Brothers, a regular nightly slot at the Blue Butterfly on Coventry Street.
