Katherine Bucknell - What You Will

KATHERINE BUCKNELL

For Bob

Title Page WHAT YOU WILL KATHERINE BUCKNELL Dedication For Bob Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Acknowledgements Also By Katherine Bucknell Copyright About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

‘How on earth could she fuck things up so badly?’ Lawrence asked.

‘I know.’ Gwen shrugged with her scant brown eyebrows. ‘She commits in a big way. It’s one of the great things about her. One of the things I love.’

He settled a pillow behind his head, slouching down into bed with his book, and put on his nearly invisible reading glasses; their delicate wings, spreading from the little gold clip on the bridge of his nose, made him look stern and scholarly yet somehow motherly, concerned. ‘Her engagement, her job, her flat in New York all scuppered in – what – twenty-four hours? Over an imaginary love affair with her assistant while she was working here in London this summer? Something of a minor masterpiece, don’t you think? She’s not – dumb? Your American slang dumb?’

‘No. She’s not dumb.’ Gwen studied the green paint underneath her fingernails, first with her grime-whorled palms upward, fingers curled towards her, then, flipping her hands over, with her fingers stretched out straight. ‘Not dumb – except maybe the way beasts are. Silent and unprotesting. She just takes what comes. She’s open-hearted, and she has the appetite for anything. She’s not – suspicious, you know, so she doesn’t try to protect herself from hurt.’

‘Sort of a hero to you,’ Lawrence observed, nonplussed, finding the page where he had left off. ‘Because she’s not afraid to suffer?’

‘But she doesn’t want to suffer.’ Gwen was sharp with him. ‘I mean – she says she has to fight it out for her job and finish what she was trying to do.’

‘How old is she getting to be?’ he asked vaguely, pulling his eyes up to his wife from the book. Behind his spectacles, the curves of flesh from lid to brow were broad and high, overlaying his grey-blue eyes with a permanent look of melancholy grandeur. His wax-white skin was ruddy around the nose, a little ruined by living. His once blond hair still grew thickly, to the verge of chaos.

‘Thirty-four. Same as me. Exactly.’

‘Funny, how she’s always seemed younger,’ Lawrence muttered. ‘Like a little sister somehow. Though I guess you were both in my class that year. I remember she used to work terribly hard. And sit in the back row. Silent, just as you say. So – she needs to grow up; there’ll surely be new vistas and new opportunities. She just doesn’t know yet what they are. Neither do we. And we won’t find out tonight.’ He yawned.

‘It’s this willingness she has,’ Gwen persisted. ‘Doing things for the sake of what other people want. Picking up on everyone else’s signals.’

‘She doesn’t appear to pick up on everyone else’s signals very well,’ Lawrence scoffed. ‘One feels she ought to stay away from men for a while.’

Gwen was silent.

Lawrence caught her eye, sensing her concern.

At last Gwen said, ‘She should be with someone, you know? It’s just so tough – thinking of her alone. And I feel like – well, I never did that.’

‘Weren’t you alone when I met you? It seemed so to me. Anyway, you’re not Hilary. Why do you want to put yourself in Hilary’s shoes?’

‘Would you like me in Hilary’s shoes?’ The tease was perverse.

Lawrence laughed. ‘Your feet wouldn’t fill them, would they? Your actual rather tiny feet. You’d have to grow yourself – quite a lot.’ And then in a tone of admonishment, a little impatient, ‘Why do you admire it, Gwen? Her blindness? Her inability to think clearly or to make sound judgements about other people?’

Gwen didn’t like being admonished, and she answered hotly: ‘I don’t admire it; I feel moved by it. By the way she exposes herself to things – to life.’

‘Yes, well, that you have done – taken your chances, huge ones. On me, for starters, and on living in England. You’ve shown plenty of nerve. It’s just that you’ve shown a surer instinct, don’t you think?’

‘A surer instinct for Englishmen?’ She was engaging him again, light-heartedly. They both laughed.

‘There does seem to be generous play on that theme,’ Lawrence said drily. ‘So perhaps she wants what you have and just doesn’t know how to get it? Perhaps it’s only natural? A little rivalry between the pair of you, being so close?’

‘An Englishman of her own? I don’t know that she likes you all that much, darling.’

‘I suppose not, or she might have made it up to see us at the cottage. She adores you, though. And we’ve been happy?’ The question trailed away, a wisp of interrogative, then he punctuated it flatly: ‘She’s well aware of that.’ His attention was wandering. He turned his eyes to his book.

Gwen nodded, pondering, tried to draw him back with a note of drama. ‘It’s major, Lawrence; she’s way out there now. Precarious. How does anybody deal with that?’

She hardly got more than a stock reply. ‘They turn to friends, my dear, just as she’s done. Lucky for her, she has you. And evidently plenty of aeroplane tickets.’

‘Maybe no more tickets, though; she has to be low on money, don’t you think? Which is another reason she really ought to stay here for at least a while. She needs us to take care of her.’ It was an explanation and also a plea.

‘She needs you to take care of her, my love.’ Lawrence gave a half-smile.

‘All of us,’ Gwen said emphatically.

‘I don’t see what I have to contribute apart from general fondness. I don’t mind at all, Gwen, if you feel you can persuade her. It’s nice for Will to spend time with his godmother. And nice for you. Especially when I’m in Oxford and staying at the cottage so much. I expect family life will wear thin with her quite quickly, and she’ll be off back to the States again no matter what you do for her or say to her.’ He paused; his eyes grew serious, his mouth settled in a forceful line. ‘But will you be ready for your exhibition, my love? That’s what you need to be sure of. She’s going to be hanging about, needing sympathy, endless conversation. It might prove to be like having two children. You’ve only just managed to settle Will at school and get shot of childminders. How will you paint? How long have you got?’

‘The show’s not till after Christmas. I’ve been thinking about it ever since she got here – Hilary sleeping up in the studio right now. I’m close enough. It’s about four months away, and there are plenty of canvases that are nearly ready. But the real point is that the work’s going well and I don’t want to stop. There are new things happening.’ She tested the very tips of each thumb against their first two fingers, rubbing lightly, then pincering open and closed like a crab, as if her hands tingled with energy and with excitement. Her eyes gleamed, her strange opaque green eyes. They had the look of cabochon emeralds, milky, as if she were threatened by cataracts, and they were shaped like drops turned sideways, spreading from the narrow tips inside the bridge of her nose. The deep brown lids were slow to blink, like the lids of a bird of prey.