Liberty Silk (4 page)

‘Scotch? Scotch, what’s up? Have I bored you to death with my drivel?’

He said nothing – just shook his head.

‘Come on. Out with it!’

‘It’s nothing, nothing.’

‘Tell me!’ she said, laying an encouraging hand on his arm. ‘You can talk about it – talk away! We talk about everything!’

The honeymooners talked endlessly: they talked with their mouths full (Jessie’s mother would be appalled!), they talked while cleaning their teeth, they spent hours every night after making love talking until the small hours, and then they would laugh and tell each other to shut up as the sun was rising.

The packed earth of the path had given way to softer sand. Emerging on to the beach, they found it deserted – apart from a couple of family groups and a handful of shrimpers who had staked their claim to the eastern stretch. Jessie glanced at Scotch, but he was gazing out to sea, refusing for some reason to meet her eye. She stooped to take off her sandals, noticing how the pale stripes left by the straps contrasted with the dark gold of her bare skin. She’d visit Dorothy Perkins on her return to London, to buy stockings. Lisle, not silk: she would have to learn economy now that she was a married woman.

Jamming her shoes into her satchel, Jessie turned to face her husband. ‘You’re in rather a funk, aren’t you? Tell me what’s up, my love. We
have
to be happy today – it’s the rule. We can’t let anything spoil the last day of our honeymoon.’

Scotch abandoned his scrutiny of the horizon. ‘You’re right. It would be criminal.’

‘Make me laugh, then. Tell me a joke.’

‘You’ve heard all my jokes.’

‘But I
love
your jokes!’

‘I don’t have the energy.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Scotch. I forget sometimes that you’re still recuperating.’

He took a pack of Gitanes from his pocket and extracted a half-smoked butt. Jessie wanted to say, ‘
Pas de tabac!
’ but thought better of it.

‘Hell, Jessie,’ Scotch said, as he lit up. ‘Forgive me. It’s just that sometimes I feel so damnably inadequate.’

‘Inadequate? Whatever for?’

‘Don’t think I didn’t see the envy in your eyes when you spotted those girls back there. And I saw the way you ogled the displays in the Champs-Elysées last week, and I know you pretend not to mind when we travel third class. I know you still hanker after finery and fashion.’

‘Finery and fashion mean nothing to me! I’m a socialist now, and perfectly happy to be one.’ Pulling a lace-edged handkerchief from her pocket, Jessie dabbed her neck, wishing she’d brought some eau-de-cologne.

Scotch looked thoughtful, and flicked the ash from his cigarette. ‘You know what Alexander Herzen said about your kind of socialism?’

Jessie didn’t want to admit that she didn’t know who Alexander Herzen was, so she gave a careless shrug. ‘What did he say?’

‘He said, and I paraphrase: “Some people talk about socialism over pastry and champagne while others die of cold and hunger.”’

She looked at him uncertainly.

‘You miss all that, don’t you?’ he said. ‘Of course you must. The pastry and champagne, the boxes at the opera, the gala evenings, the Saturday-to-Mondays in grand country estates, the shopping, the cocktail parties . . .’

‘On the contrary, I don’t miss them at all.’

‘Then why did you pack an evening dress? You knew we wouldn’t be staying at the Ritz.’

‘A girl has to think of every eventuality,’ she said, with mock snootiness. ‘We might have had an invitation to a high-class
vernissage
, or a salon. And we
did
get invitations. Count Demetrios suggested dinner, remember, should we happen to meet up with him in Paris.’

‘And instead we end up carousing with low-life in spit and sawdust cafés, drinking cheap wine when you’re used to vintage. What would your parents have to say about that?’

‘Pawpey would just be glad that I’m having a lark.’

‘A lark? With a penniless artist for a husband? A blasted amputee, at that?’

‘Oh, come, my dear! You’re more dexterous than some of the so-called able-bodied men I’ve known.’ She slanted him a smile. ‘I’ll never forget that time in Chambéry when you challenged the Italian attaché to billiards and beat him so effortlessly. I thought his
amie
was going to swoon with ardour. No wonder she asked you to paint her.’

‘She wasn’t his
amie
.’

‘She certainly behaved as if she was, driving out with him in his Isotta every day.’

Jessie had been furious that she had not been invited to accompany the attaché on his drives. She used to watch from the
pension
window as the signorina was handed into the car by a flunkey, then crane her neck to follow the progress of the car as it bowled off along the road: paintwork gleaming, engine purring, sleek and streamlined as the dusky beauty lounging in the passenger seat. She remembered how she had written home from Chambéry, affecting a blasé attitude as though she were quite indifferent to the allure the girl held for Scotch:

She was fearfully keen on him painting her portrait, so he did one, in water-colour, and tears his hair with rage to think that his oil-box is in Paris . . .

‘She was an extremely intelligent woman,’ Scotch remarked.

‘She didn’t look it.’

‘You didn’t spend as much time with her as I did. She was a student at Turin University—’

I studied at Cambridge!
Jessie wanted to retort.

‘—and had plans to become a professor of languages. She’d have made a top-class teacher, too. She even managed to interest me in Italian opera, and you know I’ve always found it a colossal bore.’

‘What else did you learn from her? How to flirt in Italian? How very useful!’ She had meant the words to sound light-hearted, jocular – but they came out as peevish, and she regretted them immediately.

Scotch gave her a perplexed look. Then he tossed aside his cigarette, turned away from her and strode off along the beach.

Flustered, Jessie had to quicken her step to keep up. They carried on walking without exchanging another word. Finding the perfect place for their picnic had become a kind of ritual for Scotch and Jessie, but this was the first time they had done it in silence. And it was a horrible silence, a rotten preamble to the news she wanted to tell him, about the baby, and about Pawpey’s wonderful offer of help, and her plans for their future.

They finally found a spot to the west, to spread their rug. Further along the beach a group of children were playing what seemed to be a game of nurses and soldiers, the girls binding make-believe wounds with old broadcloth puttees, and telling the boys to keep quiet and be brave.

Jessie peeled off her dress and sat down, stretching out her legs and digging her toes into the sand. Lowering himself onto the rug beside her, Scotch picked up a stick and started hewing it with his penknife.

The silence stretched on and on until finally Jessie said, in a very small voice:

‘Scotch?’

‘Mm?’

‘I have good news. Pawpey wants to give us a wedding present.’

‘
Another
one? For Christ’s sake, Jessie – I can’t possibly accept anything else from him. He paid for your trousseau, he paid for that quite unnecessarily lavish wedding, he paid for our trip to Venice—’

‘But he knew that our honeymoon would be incomplete without Venice! And this particular – gift – would solve all our financial headaches. We won’t ever have to worry about money again if we take him up on this offer.’

‘He wants to give us money?’ Scotch sounded aghast.

‘No, no. He wants to buy us a house.’ She didn’t dare look at his face. She busied herself unpacking her satchel, laying out her writing paper, her precious Onoto pen, Stevenson’s
Songs of Travel and Other Verses
. . .

‘No.’

‘But, Scotch—’

‘No. There’s an end to it.’

Because Scotch’s eyes were in shadow under the brim of his hat, Jessie could not read his expression, but suddenly she felt uneasy. Opening her volume of poetry she leafed through it randomly, and came across the following:
I will make you brooches and toys for your delight/Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night./I will make a palace fit for you and me/Of green days in forests and blue days at sea
. Raising her eyes, Jessie contemplated the horizon, where turquoise met azure. This was a blue day, to be sure, one to be treasured. She must not do or say anything that might mar it.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Scotch take from his rucksack the sketchbook she had bought for his birthday in Florence, in a specialist leather goods shop near the Boboli Gardens. It was a beauty, bound in hand-tooled calfskin with marbled endpapers, and inscribed in her most careful handwriting with a love poem by Sir Philip Sidney. Scotch had told her that she should keep it as a diary of their travels, that it was too special to besmirch with his scribbles, but she had insisted. ‘Look!’ she had told him, as they’d sat over birthday tea and cakes in the Piazza Repubblica. ‘I’ve already dedicated it to you.’

And so she had; thus:

A present to my true-love!

This book is the record of an impromptu birthday. It came as a ray of sun and illuminated with its glow a whole day. It is a festive book, and is the child of a happy Love whose face is always smiling and contented, but who has moments of thoughtfulness and moments of wild unrestrained joy. It first saw the light opposite the Strozzi Palace amid an aroma of delicious tea and delectable cakes.

Aware that Scotch was sketching her, Jessie continued to turn the pages of her poetry book, reading aloud a random selection of verses, and chatting idly.

He was engrossed now, in his drawing. She could tell by the frown that appeared between his eyebrows. What went through his mind as he worked? What did he see, that other people did not? Sometimes she felt strangely vulnerable when Scotch painted her, as though he were privy to the innermost working of her mind.

By the time he finally put his sketchbook away, their shadows had grown longer on the sand and Jessie thought she might have fallen asleep because she was sure she had dreamed something, something that for some reason she did not care to remember. Her face was burning despite the efforts she had taken to protect it from the glare of the sun, and she had the kind of lump in her throat that she’d often had when she was a little girl being scolded by her mother, trying hard not to cry.

Scotch was looking at her with the oddest expression. He turned away to rearrange the contents of his knapsack, and there was something unfamiliar – something almost hostile – about his demeanour. When he turned back to her, Jessie was relieved to see that his smile was once more in place.

‘Say something silly,’ he said.

‘I can’t.’

‘Go on. Say something that will make me laugh. You know how good you are at that.’

Jessie’s mind cast around randomly. ‘Um. I am your Dear Rib,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘It was Doctor Livingstone’s pet name for his wife. It comes from the Bible – you know, when God created Eve from one of Adam’s ribs. She must have been frightfully skinny.’

Scotch laughed. ‘Oh, just look at you!’ he exulted, pushing her back onto the rug and rolling on top of her. ‘How beautiful you are – how beautiful is my beloved! But look out – there’s a fly on you, one of those nasty stinging ones.’ He slapped her thigh robustly.

‘I don’t believe there was any fly on me!’ she cried, rolling away from him. ‘I believe you made it up just so’s you could smack me.’

‘And there’s another one!’ crowed Scotch, slapping her bottom. ‘We can’t have flies on you. There can be
no
flies on my Dear Rib!’

Jessie scrambled to her feet and made for the sea. He caught up with her and pulled her to him, holding her tight and kissing her over and over. Waist-high in water, they stood clinging to one another for many minutes. Then, releasing her from his embrace, he turned to face the horizon. His cheeks were wet: drops of water clung to his eyelashes.

‘I love you,’ he said, and suddenly everything was right in her world again. He
would
make a palace for her – this beautiful, talented, creative man – of green days and blue days, and days in all kinds of other colours. She’d wait another week or two to tell him about the baby, and then he would reconsider Pawpey’s proposal – of course he would. No newlywed in their right mind could turn down the offer of a house.

Plunging into the tide, Jessie swam three or four strokes, then turned over and floated on her back, gazing at the canopy of blue above her.

What colour would she paint the nursery? Pink, she hoped – palest pink with a stencilled frieze of daisies. She’d love a little girl to dress up and play doll’s house with, and to delight with fairies’ picnics at the bottom of the garden. But then, perhaps Scotch would prefer a boy.

He had swum out to join her. Taking his hand, she rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. He was gazing out to sea, his expression unreadable. ‘What are you thinking, love?’ she asked.

He looked down at her tenderly, and studied her, and she felt as though he were learning her face like a map; the contour of her cheekbones, the line of her jaw, the swell of her lips, the retroussé nose, every plane and curve . . .

‘I’m thinking that I shall remember this day – this last, perfect, halcyon day – for as long as I live,’ he said.

16 Aug. 1919

The sands of Raguenez,

Pont-Aven
,

Finistère.

We’ve had the most gorgeous day out here all day, bathing and running about in bathing dresses on deserted sands. This is the beautifullest stretch of coast, sands and lovely brown cliffs, and not overrun with trippers.

We are as fit as fiddles, and Scotch! – he’s so brimming over with energy and good health that he can’t leave me in peace for 2 seconds. He spends his time killing imaginary flies on me, and it’s an awful job to keep him in order – quite hopeless.

We are getting faces the colour of nothing on earth. We are about to have a picnic now consisting of biscuits and jam, blackberry jam that we have made ourselves. We gathered the blackberries, sneaked the sugar from restaurants etc, and made it on the little stove in the tea basket – tray bon – this is the second lot we have made, so we’re feeling very proud of ourselves.