Privileged Children (10 page)

Edmund Graham had no closer relations than Clementina, who was fifteen years older than he was. He had come to Bramham Gardens to convalesce from a head wound. He was also suffering from shell-shock, but this he sometimes denied. He rarely left his room in the basement and rarely saw anyone but Clementina, but Anatole found him sitting in the kitchen with a half-empty bottle of whisky before him on the table.

‘Have a drink?’ he said, flourishing the bottle with a gracious expression on his face.

‘Certainly,’ said Anatole. He poured himself a stiff one.

‘Been teaching little girls their scales?’ said Edmund.

‘Alas, yes,’ said Anatole.

‘Don’t you feel bored, doing that all day?’ Or scribbling music or whatever else it is you do. Don’t you feel you ought to be out there?’

Anatole looked at him and saw that his eyes were puffy with alcohol.

‘Apart from anything else, I would not be considered medically fit for the cannon’s mouth,’ he said. ‘They want strapping specimens of young manhood.’

Edmund waved his hand. ‘Totally irrelevant,’ he said, ‘absolutely irrelevant. And even if that’s true — even if that’s true — you damned Hun-loving conshies get under my skin. If you want to sit round here in this squalor scratching one another’s backs I don’t mind that,’ he scowled. ‘Look at me, you. I’ve spent three years in the damned trenches and Clementina invites me to this mad household (why on earth don’t you have proper servants?)
when I’m invalided out, because she’s charitable, is cousin Clem. So I come here and I don’t want your damned pity. But all I hear from you is how I’ve betrayed the human race. You don’t even have the damned courtesy to pretend to my face that all that pain was worth it.’

Kate came in. Her shift in the hospital had in theory finished at lunchtime. She threw her hat on the table and fell into the rocking chair by the stove. She took off her stained overall with
Dr
McQuillan
sewn on the pocket, and kicked the newspaper aside. One of the cats climbed on her lap as she was pulling the pins out of her hair. She took up a volume of poetry which had been published in 1913. Edmund watched her.

‘See?’ he said. ‘She can go away from the hospital and come back here and forget about everything. You can never ever get away from it when you’re out there,’ he said. He was snaking.

‘I know,’ said Kate. ‘I spent eighteen months in a hospital in France, if you remember.’ She had been dealing with men like him all day and through half the night. She resumed her reading of a pretty country poem which she had found meaningless before the war.

‘All right,’ said Edmund, ‘all right. You know as much about it as a woman can do. But as for you, Anatole — you just sit in your liberal pacifist bath and talk. You’re too lazy even to get up and start subverting the war effort which you hate so much. As a matter of fact you don’t even talk, not like the rest of them do. You listen to everyone and agree with everyone, you can even understand my point of view. And it’s because it all just passes over your head. I don’t care if the Germans win now I’ve done my bit,’ he said. ‘I just hope the damned war clears away the damned fence you’ve all been sitting on so that next time you can’t sneer at us from up on high.’

Anatole got up and went over to Edmund’s chair. He was not quite tall enough to tower over him even though Edmund was seated.

‘I’ve had Kate telling me about the hospitals. I’ve had Alice telling me about the War Office. I’ve had Caroline talk to me about her dead son. I’ve had you talk to me about the
trenches. And you all say how lucky I am not to be involved at all, and how I can’t possibly understand. If I can’t understand, why don’t you just leave me alone instead of piling your miseries on top of me?’

‘Anatole,’ said Alice, who was standing in the kitchen door, ‘why don’t you ever tell people to leave you alone, in that case?’

‘I am telling you!’ he shouted. ‘And I am going away. I shall go to — to Wales for a month, on my own, and you can take care of Finola.’

He waited for her to look horrified. Kate began to remonstrate. Alice said: ‘That’s a good idea.’

The house in Bramham Gardens was deserted over Christmas 1919. Kate had gone to stay with her sister in Dundee. Augustus and Clementina had gone to live in a house of their own again shortly after the armistice. Jenny was staying with a friend from her new school, Queen’s College, and Anatole, Alice, Liza and Finola had gone to King’s Norton.

On 23 December, Liza and Alice were trudging through the woods near Aunt Caitlin’s house. They had been gathering holly and they held huge bundles gingerly in their arms.

‘I’ve decided what I’m going to do,’ said Liza. ‘I’m going to teach myself to type, and then I’m going to try and get a job with a publisher. I’d like to become an editor eventually, and I might be promoted, even if I am a girl.’

‘Are you glad you left school in the summer?’ asked Alice.

‘Oh yes. I didn’t feel it was necessary for me to get a formal education, because I can teach myself the things that really interest me just by reading books. It’s different for Jenny. You have to have lessons to learn maths and chemistry.’

Soon after she had left school, Liza had got a job as a shop assistant. The hours had been long, the work dull and tiring, and she had been sacked after three months after being caught reading a novel under the counter for the second time.

‘You certainly ought to get another job soon, Liza. We need the money to keep Jenny at Queen’s,’ said Alice gently.

‘I know,’ said Liza, biting her lip. ‘I’m sorry. I will learn to
type soon. Clementina showed me how to teach yourself. You have a card with all the keys drawn on in different colours, and you attach the card to the typewriter so that you can’t see your hands or the keys underneath.’

‘It sounds like creating more difficulties than there need be, to me,’ replied Alice.

‘Clementina says it’s easier.’

‘She ought to know, I suppose.’

Liza was nearly fifteen now. She had reached her diminutive adult height, but not her adult width. She looked as though she might, like Alice, retain her adolescent figure throughout her life.

They came across a fallen branch covered with rotten lichen. ‘Let’s sit down,’ said Alice, and she dropped her bundle of holly. Liza joined her, and leaned against the tree trunk, her chilblained hands deep in the pockets of the heavy coat which she had borrowed from Aunt Caitlin.

‘I’m sure you could become an editor very soon,’ said Alice. ‘You’ve read so much you must be able to tell a fine sentence from a bad one.’

‘Oh no, you need training. You think that good prose sinks into you, but it takes years of practice at examining books and writing them to know what makes an effective sentence,’ said Liza. ‘Sometimes I read my novel and then I look at a really wonderful book, like
Vanity
Fair,
and I think about it, but I can’t put my finger on what makes my book so turgid compared to that. I cry about it, especially when I think of how well Jenny’s doing at her science. She’ll probably get a scholarship to Cambridge,’ murmured Liza. ‘Oh, Kate’s so proud of her!’

‘Liza, Kate’s the first to admit that in a way sciences are less difficult than arts, especially at Jenny’s level. Everything just falls into place for her without her thinking properly. There’s very little hard work in science compared to literature. One thing’s right and the rest is wrong. It’s not like that in the arts. It’s all much more subtle. I would say that you have to be Newton before you really have to think and use your imagination in science.’

‘But don’t you see, Alice? Science is just so removed from our understanding, and we’re so much less clever than Jenny,
that when she juggles those symbols and numbers about it looks to us as though it’s no effort for her. It’s like watching ballet.’

‘I’m glad you’re a perfectionist,’ said Alice. ‘But I wish you didn’t couple perfectionism with self-doubt.’

‘Don’t try to reassure me,’ sighed Liza.

They sat in silence for a while. Alice watched Liza’s profile, which was pink with cold. Her nose was long and pointed, like Anatole’s. Her eyelashes were thick, but so pale that they could only be seen in certain lights. Though the sky was clear today, the descending sun gave out little brilliance. Alice saw it gleaming above Liza’s head, casting the shadow of the branches in a net over her frail face. Without thinking, she put out a hand to touch Liza’s soft pink ear. Liza jumped, and turned round to face Alice, her lips slightly parted.

‘You’ve got the only colourless face I’ve ever seen which is interesting to look at,’ said Alice. She held out a hand, and Liza took it and drew close to her. Alice slid her arms inside Liza’s coat and held her. She laid her cheek against Liza’s, which was warmer than she had expected it to be. She kissed it and then, after wondering vaguely for a moment, she kissed Liza’s mouth, and found that her lips opened, and that her tongue tasted slightly bitter from the damp black stick which she had been chewing. It was a calm pleasure, not a rush of violent desire such as she might have felt with a man.

Liza put her arms round Alice’s neck and then suddenly let go and drew back. She looked at her feet, and held her face in her hands.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Alice, ‘I didn’t know I wanted to do that.’

‘Oh!’ cried Liza. ‘It was lovely!’ But she looked very worried when she turned again to face Alice.

‘Let’s get back to the house,’ said Alice. ‘It’s getting dark.’

They picked up their holly again, and continued to tread cautiously through the wood. Liza followed Alice, her eyes wide open, fixed upon her back, and smarting with the cold. Soon they reached the edge of the lawn, and could see the
lights shining from the small mullioned windows of the house.

Aunt Caitlin had used to say that even if she found life more comfortable in England, where many of the relations whom she preferred lived, she would go back to Dublin to die. But in view of the terrible troubles in Ireland, she had postponed her return.

It was nearly teatime when Alice and Liza got back. The warmth of the house made them ravenously hungry. They went into the drawing room, where Anatole was sitting with a distant cousin of Alice’s, Hugh Tahaney. Finola was on his knee.

‘I want to go for a walk,’ said Finola.

‘Liza, can you take her?’ asked Anatole. The colours and smells of the country fascinated Finola, but the lack of streets and people also frightened her, so she would never go outside alone. He gently lifted Finola off his lap.

‘It’s nearly teatime,’ said Alice.

‘I want you,’ said Finola.

‘I’m talking to Hugh, darling.’

‘Come on, Finola,’ said Liza.

Finola stood still.

‘Il faut
accompagner
ta
sœur,
ma
petite
,’ said Anatole quietly. Finola toddled over to Liza, looking at Anatole over her shoulder.

‘Hurry up, Finola,’ said Liza. She did not mind going out again: a walk without Alice or Anatole would give her time to think.

Everyone had just sat down to tea when they got back.

All the meals, including breakfast and tea, were enormous at Aunt Caitlin’s house, as though the old lady were continually reminding herself that the Great Famine was over. Today there were scones, butter, jam, cream, Indian and China tea, crumpets and two sorts of cake.

Finola nibbled shyly at one thing after another, and tried to stop the food from getting all over her face. She sat propped up on cushions, an enormous napkin tied under her chin, staring round the room. She had spent hours yesterday studying the lacquered Chinese screen in the drawing room.

Anatole sat watching her. She was small for her age, and
she had Diana Molloy’s colouring, except for her eyes which were dark grey like his. Alice dressed Finola in odds and ends, as she had dressed herself until she had stopped growing. Anatole thought how much Finola would like his Christmas present to her, which was a proper dress in dark blue viyella.

Finola carefully wiped her hands, and asked to be helped down from her chair. She went over to a small table on which there was a pair of enamelled seventeenth-century scissors. She looked at them without trying to touch.

‘Pick them up if you like, Finola,’ said Aunt Caitlin. Finola advanced a hand.

‘Oh, Caitlin, I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Liza, looking at Alice. ‘She might break them.’

‘Will you please not try and destroy her confidence, Liza,’ snapped Anatole.

‘Mother of God, Anatole, the child’s broken the typewriter and eaten some of my paints in the last month alone,’ said Alice. ‘And at least they weren’t valuable.’

‘Alice, can you not see that she has an innate respect for beauty? She even eats tidily in a beautiful room.’

‘Tidily?’ asked Liza of Alice, nodding her head at the pile of unfinished scones, crumpets and cake on Finola’s plate. Alice laughed. Finola burst into tears and ran to Anatole. He took her on his lap. Liza and Alice refused to look at him.

‘I think she’s marvellously well-behaved,’ said Hugh Tahaney brightly. ‘When I was her age I was appallingly spoilt. I used to jump on the chairs and take clocks to pieces if I got a chance.’

‘It comes of being the only boy for so long,’ said Aunt Caitlin. ‘How much older were you than poor Robin?’

‘Eight years,’ said Hugh.

‘Young people today think of nothing but their pleasures,’ said Aunt Caitlin. ‘Dancing and drinking all night, so I hear. And the music they dance to! But perhaps that’s being very puritanical. Maybe it’s to make up for the youth that was stolen from so many so little older than themselves. But now I come to think of it, this wild dancing and all the rest of it began before the war. Poor Robin,’ she said again. ‘You always knew which side your bread was buttered, Hugh.’

Hugh winced slightly. ‘I was in the Navy before the war started, Aunt Caitlin. But I agree that my luck was stupendous. I never saw a dead man, not once during the whole war.’

‘You need not think you were inactive just because you did not end up as cannon fodder,’ said Anatole. ‘I did absolutely nothing.’

‘But my dear chap …’ said Hugh, and then looked down and started buttering a crumpet.

‘Oh, no,’ said Anatole, looking hard at him, ‘I could have done some sort of useful peaceable work. I ought to have driven an ambulance. I mentioned that to one of my favourite pupils the other day, and she said that my feet would not have reached the pedals. So there we are.’

‘The war seems very far away to me,’ said Liza. ‘I don’t have a very good memory anyway, but all I remember about the war is the zeppelin raids, and the girls at school in mourning and … the first recruitment posters, too, for some reason.’

‘You didn’t know anyone who was killed, that’s why, and so you lived in a sort of vacuum,’ said Alice. ‘And you were a little girl during the war, and you’re a young woman now. Menarche is a great dividing line.’

Liza flushed slowly. Hugh Tahaney changed the subject. Liza, who was sitting next to Alice, had eaten very little, though she was hungry. She glanced continually at Alice over the rim of her tea cup, and then she would look away and fiddle with her food.

That night, Anatole said to Alice as they were getting ready for bed: ‘You know Liza is in love with you, don’t you?’

‘Oh, I’m sure she’s not,’ said Alice through her tooth powder.

‘She is. She follows you with her eyes. She agrees with everything you say in a bid for approval. Which she gets,’ he added. Alice said nothing.

They had been whispering, because Finola was asleep on a small bed in the corner. Anatole turned towards her.

‘She’ll be four in the summer,’ he said after a while. ‘Let’s have another one.’

‘No,’ said Alice. ‘She’s quite enough.’

‘Yes, I suppose parenthood comes hard if you’re a paedophile,’ he hissed. ‘You can only love a child in a sexual way, can’t you? A child of a particular age.’

Alice slammed the bathroom door on him and locked it.

‘Open it!’ he cried hoarsely, banging on the door, with one eye on Finola, who rolled over peacefully.

‘Don’t talk to me about paedophilia, or incest,’ Alice called through the door. ‘You find Jenny very nubile. Oh, I know you’ve never touched her. In fact, you haven’t touched her at all ever since you started finding her attractive. Well, I prefer Liza.’

Anatole went away from the door and searched for his pipe. He found it, and took a long time to fill and light it, in silence.

Alice slowly opened the bathroom door and came out. Anatole looked sad, not angry or resentful.

‘Can’t you see, Anatole, that if I did go to bed with Liza, it wouldn’t threaten your position at all? she said. ‘I only went to bed with Leo to spite you that time. I’ve never really wanted another man since I met you.’ And that’s more than you can say, she thought; and dismissed the thought. ‘
You
can satisfy all that sort of desire. But how on earth can I go to you for the sort of lovemaking I want from a girl?’

‘My daughter.’

‘Oh, come on, Anatole, you were never very close to her. She’s too like Charlotte for that.’

‘I am fond of Liza, and I don’t want her to be hurt. She’s very, very sensitive.’

‘I wouldn’t hurt her.’

‘Oh, Alice.’ He shook his head. ‘I take your point, and I can’t stop you in any case. You have your own peculiar sensitivity, Alice; you know exactly where everyone is vulnerable.’ He got up and went to bed. Alice joined him a little later. They did not speak or touch each other.

Liza lay in bed smoking. She was sleeping two doors down the landing from Alice and Anatole. She had heard Alice slam the bathroom door. Her hair was beautifully brushed and lay spread over the pillow. At home, Alice and Anatole had separate rooms, though they usually slept together. Liza
heard nothing for two hours after the door was slammed. The next day, Alice avoided looking at her, though Liza followed her silently whenever she could.

Back in London, Liza returned to being Alice’s model, her favourite model now. Alice would sometimes touch Liza’s pale hair and long wrists and delicate skin. They never went to bed together. Alice said nothing but Anatole guessed that, despite her anger that night, she was not sleeping with Liza.