Love Always (12 page)

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 vermilion 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 her 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.’

‘What do you mean? The last year? Summercove’s not going anywhere, is it?’

Jeremy was looking in the mirror. He didn’t reply immediately. After a while he said, ‘Just – I just sometimes think, it might be different next year. We’ll all be off doing different things. And Franty won’t want us coming down every year.’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘Just don’t know if we’ll go there every year.’

Louisa looked slightly alarmed. ‘I can’t imagine us not coming down here every year,’ she said. ‘I love it.’ Cecily’s face appeared again between the seats.

‘I used to think that, now I don’t,’ Jeremy said. ‘That’s why I want to make the most of this summer.’

Cecily opened her mouth and shut it again. Her eyes were huge. But Louisa was watching her brother, who never expressed an opinion about anything. She patted his arm.

‘I think the Minack’s a great idea,’ she said. They were on the outskirts of Penzance now, every other house a B&B or a café. Holidaymakers were walking along the harbour front, carrying buckets and spades. The outdoor seawater pool behind the harbour was in full swing, girls in bikinis and perfect hair demurely dangling their feet into the water. A group of boys lounged against a few motorbikes, parked up by the boats. They were smoking, in black leather jackets, their hair slicked back, and they stared at the car as it shuddered past them. Cecily stared out at them, fascinated.

‘Mods are so passé. Honestly, Penzance is so out of date,’ said the worldly Londoner Louisa, glancing scornfully at them as they drove past. ‘Bet they’ve never even
heard
of
Bazaar
.’ She smoothed her hair behind her ears, anxiously, as Cecily watched in fascination. ‘Come on, Frank. Hurry up.’ She corrected herself. ‘Jeremy, sorry.’

Jeremy laughed, and his brow cleared. ‘Don’t worry. Look, here we are now.’

Cecily got out early while Jeremy parked the car. Louisa was by this point actively anxious, looking at her reflection in every window they passed, even the glass of the ticket office at the end of the platform, much to the bemusement of the bulbous-nosed ticket officer who stared at her. It was a hot day, hotter in the station than outside, where there was a cooling breeze from the sea.

‘It’s strange being in a town on a boiling day like this, after a few days at Summercove,’ said Jeremy, running his forefinger around the collar of his shirt. ‘Actually does make you realise how lovely it is to be there.’

‘I know,’ said Louisa. ‘It is the most beautiful place. And we are lucky. I shouldn’t be rude about them. I do love Franty. I love being there. Joining in – all of that.’

‘Such a little homemaker,’ Jeremy said, nudging her. ‘Love it when everyone’s all together having a wonderful time, don’t you? Even when they’re not?’

Louisa put her hands on her hips. ‘Be quiet, Jeremy. That’s rubbish. I just like . . . I like the idea that we’re all together. And then we get here and . . . it’s not how I expected.’ She shrugged. ‘But hey-ho – let’s go onto the platform, shall we?’ she said, squinting at the train track.

They waited in the covered station until the train chugged slowly into view, past St Michael’s Mount in the distance, the granite castle out to sea glowing strangely gold in the midday sun.

‘There it is!’ Louisa cried. ‘There it is!’ She stared at the black engine hoving into view, as if she expected Frank and his brother to be standing on top of it, waving placards. ‘I can’t see them!’

‘Of course you can’t, you ninny,’ Jeremy said, shaking his head at his sister. Goodness, girls were such idiots about chaps. There was Frank, a perfectly decent sort, nothing wildly eccentric or unusual, and Louisa was completely gaga over him. It made him almost uncomfortable, he didn’t know how to talk to her about him. She’d even used the word ‘marriage’! Louisa, who he’d always thought was a sensible sort of girl, the kind of sister one didn’t mind having, the sort who got scholarships to study sensible things like biology . . . And it turned out she was just like all the others, obsessed with weddings and babies after all. Jeremy didn’t know what Frank would think about that at all. Yes, girls were odd sometimes, even one’s sister.

The plumes of thick white and grey steam cleared, the doors opened, and there was mayhem. Porters scurried to help the first-class passengers, elderly gentlemen in tweeds and their immaculate county ladies in neat hats and gloves carrying crocodile travel cases. Cross, important-looking City gents in bowler hats, their starched collars wilting in the heat, clutching furled umbrellas and briefcases.