Drowning Rose (17 page)

Rose drew on her cigarette. ‘What?’

‘Three on a match,’ Eliza said. ‘You remember, the First World War thing?’

‘No,’ Rose shook her head. ‘Wasn’t there myself.’

Eliza sat back up and as she hugged her knees to her chest I could see the back of her milky-white thighs all the way up to her knickers. I think she saw me looking because she pulled her skirt down really quickly. ‘If three soldiers lit the cigarette from the same match the man who was third on the match would be shot.’

‘Why? Why would he get shot?’ Portia asked.

‘What happened was that when the first soldier lit his cigarette the enemy would see the light; when the second soldier lit his cigarette from the same match the enemy would take aim and then, when the third soldier lit his cigarette from the same match, the enemy would fire. It’s been considered bad luck ever since.’

‘So who would cop it?’ Portia asked. ‘The guy holding the match or the guy lighting his cigarette from it?’

‘Hm?’ Eliza tilted her head to one side and rubbed the side of her nose with her middle finger. ‘I suppose I always assumed it was the guy lighting his cigarette.’

‘Bang bang,’ I said. Pointing my pistol finger at her.

‘Not funny,’ Rose frowned.

But Eliza and Portia laughed so Rose laughed and then I laughed too.

Rose stubbed her cigarette out on a stone. She never smoked them to the end. Then she spat on it to make sure it had gone out before brushing it into the long grass. She looked up at the sky and then at all of us. ‘God, we’re so lucky,’ she said.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Think if we’d been boys and it was back then. Two of my great-uncles died in the trenches. They were really young.’

‘The average life expectancy of a junior army officer in 1914 was eleven days,’ Eliza said. And her eyes grew round the way they always did when she thought about some interesting fact or was about to tell a story. ‘They were so young and so brave and then it all ended, for nothing, face down in that stinking mud. They would have sat around just like we’re doing now, talking about everything they were going to do and see and feel with all those lovely years. And then the war started and those beautiful boys put on their uniforms and picked up their guns and went off singing as if they were off on a great adventure.’

I thought of all the spotty spindly teasing youths I knew and I said, ‘They weren’t all beautiful, or brave either. And them dying made no difference to anyone other than their mothers.’

There was a silence. Then Eliza shook her head. ‘No, I won’t allow that. No one knows, that’s the thing. Because they died before they could be much of anything, the world will never know what it missed or from whom.’ Then she smiled. ‘So that’s why anyone who dies young gets to be good and beautiful. It’s part of the deal.’

‘Julian would be about to go off to war if now had been then,’ Portia said, ‘Or then had been now. It would kill my mother even if it didn’t kill him.’

Julian, Julian who
was
beautiful and good, my Julian. My heart lurched.

Rose squeaked. ‘Don’t even say things like that.’

Eliza leant forward and patted her knee. ‘It’s OK, Rose. It won’t happen again. At least not while we’re young.’

‘How do you know?’ Rose asked.

Eliza shrugged. ‘I don’t. But I assume.’

Portia said, ‘I can’t make up my mind whether I’ll be an ambassador or just live in a big crumbling house in the country with masses of dogs and horses and children.’

‘What about a husband?’ Rose asked again.

‘Of course,’ Portia said, just as Eliza had.

‘You think you can just decide?’ I said to them. ‘You seem to think it’s all just out there, just sitting there, waiting for you to go and get it.’

All three princesses turned surprised faces in my direction. ‘How do you mean?’ Portia asked.

I couldn’t believe she had to ask. Eliza lay back down in the grass. ‘What about you, Cassandra?’ She touched my shoe with the tip of hers. ‘Where do you reckon you’ll be twenty years from now?’

I looked across at the lake that sat like crumpled foil at the foot of the hill. ‘Oh, I expect I’ll be working in some office somewhere.’

I waited for them to argue with me. Instead they seemed to accept this as a suitable limit, not only to my ambitions but also to my prospects. I looked at the sky, staring at the sun until my eyes stung. Then I looked at back them. They looked blurred. You know nothing, I thought. You don’t know that twenty years from now all you’ll be able to say is, ‘To think we knew her.’

Eighteen

Eliza

‘I had great hopes for you, you know, Eliza,’ Uncle Ian said. ‘You were such a bright lively girl.’

It was winter still in Sweden. At home I had left behind flowering cherries and green grass and, in the parts of London where pollution pushed up the temperature by a couple of degrees, even some precocious daffodils. It was different here. Heaps of packed snow still congregated in the shady corners of the courtyard and the grass was yet to green up.

Uncle Ian and I were sitting on the glass veranda drinking coffee; I had got used to Katarina’s bitter black brew boiled on the stove.

‘I remember soon after you were born, your father took me up to where you were lying in your nursery. And there you were, like a bug all tucked up. “A new generation,” he said. “There’s been enough latent talent and unfulfilled promise amongst the women of my family. This little one will be different.” ’

‘All parents think that about their children,’ I said, though the thought of my father showing me off with such pride to his friend made me ache to know this man I could not myself remember.

‘Perhaps that’s so, but as you grew up I began to think that in your case he had been right. Rose was a lovely girl but she was not intellectually or artistically gifted.’

‘Everyone adored her,’ I said. ‘That’s a gift. To be lovable.’

‘Did they? Did they really?’ He sat back, looking pleased.

I nodded emphatically although I’d realised as I spoke that I didn’t remember whether or not Rose had been especially liked. I had loved her, of course. And she’d been close to Portia. And the boys had all liked her. But otherwise maybe admired would have been a better way of describing the way she was regarded, and envied, of course. Because you could not look like Rose and not elicit envy.

‘The thing is, none of us know what she might have achieved,’ I said. And I had to look away because my eyes had started to tear over suddenly, without warning. ‘That’s what I can’t bear, that’s the greatest wrong done to Rose, to those who die young, that they were never afforded the chance to be the best they could.’

We sat side by side, on our chairs, looking out at the garden, at the in-between landscape of yellows and browns and greys that was Sweden in not quite winter and not yet spring. Then I felt his hand take mine. We raised our twinned hands in the manner of two people striding, then lowered them down between our seats before letting go.

‘And you, Eliza. Do you feel you’re the best you could be?’

I looked at him. ‘In the job I’ve chosen, yes, I’m pretty good.’

‘That’s very satisfactory, then.’

Katarina had gone shopping and in the silence of the house I listened to the old man’s breathing: heavy, wheezing. It made me think he must find it tiring just to be alive. It was warm in the room and I thought he might be about to doze off but then he spoke again, asking me about his mother’s stories.

‘You were going to illustrate them, wasn’t that the idea?’

I smiled, thinking about it. ‘All those plans . . . Though I expect she was just being kind.’

‘Nonsense. And God knows she needed someone to sort out all those notes. She only ever published two volumes of her fairy tales. She spent so much of her time travelling around the countryside collecting the stories; that was the thing. Then she died. Awful waste. But you could do it for her, write them out and illustrate them. I’ve got her notes as well as many of the recordings she made.’

‘I’m not good enough to be a professional illustrator.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says me.’

‘Don’t be so defeatist.’

‘You sound like my ex-husband. Anyway, I call it being realistic.’

‘Sometimes the two are one and the same.’

I gave a little laugh. ‘No doubt. But then you can’t build victory/success – whatever you think of as the opposite of defeat – on delusion.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Or perhaps you can. Anyway, I really enjoy the work I’m doing. I’m not looking for anything new.’

‘So tell me then, what is it with mending old pots that you find so fulfilling?’

I frowned at him but he didn’t notice so I tried to explain instead. ‘I like it because so often ceramics, porcelain, are a combination of art and craft, of the decorative and the practical. I like the idea of someone taking the trouble to make something that is essentially a utilitarian workhorse of an object into a thing of joy. I think it’s touching. And it makes me happy to think that instead of that thought and effort being thrown away and lost I can bring it back to usefulness.’

Uncle Ian said he could see the charm in that. He used that word, charm. I thought of the pieces that had passed through my hands; the refined Meissen and rustic Staffordshire, the intricate Willow Patterns and achingly sophisticated Sèvres, the humorous Tobys, the frail Minton, the joyful Wemyss, and I thought yes, charm was a good word.

‘So have you thought some more about my offer?’

I was yanked back into the world outside work. ‘Yes. Yes, I have.’

‘And?’

‘Uncle Ian.’

‘Yes.’

‘At the inquest I said I thought she was following.’

He looked at me, a question in his eyes, and then he nodded, slowly.

‘And that I thought she was just mucking around when she called out.’

‘Yes.’

I sighed and the sigh was so heavy I thought it might drag me with it to the ground. ‘But that might not have been completely right. I might have realised she wasn’t following. I was panicking, in a silly schoolgirl way; giggling and flapping both at once.’ I paused and looked down at my hands, the fingers twisting and untwisting like crazed snakes, then I looked up at him. ‘It’s all such a muddle, but I might have realised.’

There was a long silence. I looked down at my hands again. Keeping my fingers still and flat against my thighs.

‘Might?’

I nodded without looking up. ‘I honestly don’t know for sure. I realise that sounds just terrible because every second of that night should be seared on my mind, but the truth is I can’t be sure.’

‘Eliza. Look at me.’

I kept my head lowered but my gaze sidled towards him.

‘Did you mean for any harm to come to Rose?’

My chin jerked upwards. ‘Of course not. I loved her.’

‘Well, then, that’s all we need to consider, isn’t it?’

‘Is it? I mean, how can it be?’

‘How can it not be? We lost Rose. No one meant for that to happen but it did. I’m quite sure that if you really had thought that Rose was in trouble you would have turned back to help.’

My snake-fingers began their twisting, folding, entwining once more. I looked into his eyes; I couldn’t read his expression. ‘I’m not,’ I whispered. ‘I’m not so sure.’

I was laying the table for dinner. Katarina had pointed me in the direction of the Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica china.

‘We’re using it today again?’

It was the same with the silver cutlery, George Jensen’s Acorn, and the crystal, Orrefors; they used it all for everyday, but it was the china that took my breath away.

‘Your godfather wants to enjoy his beautiful things,’ she told me.

‘How sick is he?’ I asked.

‘He’s sick,’ was all she would say.

As we sat down to dinner Uncle Ian acted no differently from the way he had before our last conversation. I looked at him when I thought he wouldn’t notice, when he was busy helping himself to potatoes from the large Flora Danica bowl and butter from the cut crystal dish. I had laid out my soul on the ground before him and he had stepped daintily across while looking the other way. What was he thinking? Our eyes met for a moment. His were serious, considered. God knows what my own expression was like.

‘Did you know that Flora Danica porcelain was intended to be botanically informative as well as beautiful and useful?’ I heard myself say. I swallowed hard and continued. ‘The imagery on the original set included not just flowers but roots and seed pods too.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Katarina.

‘Nor did I,’ said Uncle Ian.

‘You see, the painting of flowers on porcelain was common enough at the end of the eighteenth century but the ornamentation conformed to aesthetic criteria. The decorations on the Flora Danica porcelain, on the other hand, were not chosen for their aesthetics but instead, and in tune with the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment, it was decided to make exact “scientific” copies of the plates of the highly praised book
Flora Danica
. It was no easy task, however, to transfer the pictures from the engraved plates in the book. They would have been square, whereas the dinner service required oval or round shapes and sometimes compromises had to be made . . .’