Уильям Николсон - Motherland

What a rare creature she is! A child of truth. With her in his life there’ll be no complacency, and no idling. His days will be vivid and his nights will be warm. He can see her naked body now, rosy in the gaslight, and feels his body’s gratitude to her tingling in his veins. Is this such a small thing? Some would say it’s the basis of everything. Find happiness with each other in bed and love will never die.

His beer finished, his spirits excited by his train of thought, he feels the need of companionship. With luck Nell will get his note tomorrow and be with him by the end of the day. He has much to say to her. But between now and then he does not want to be alone. He could walk into Kensington and call on his father. Then he has a better idea. He will call on Tony Armitage.

Armitage has a studio in Valmar Road, on the other side of Denmark Hill. There’s a fair chance he’ll be in. Larry buttons his overcoat up to his chin and sets out into the snowy streets once more. Valmar Road isn’t far, but it’s an awkward place to find. A distant church clock is chiming seven as he rings the top bell at the street door.

A window opens above. Armitage’s head pokes out.

‘Who’s that?’

‘Larry,’ says Larry.

‘Bloody hell!’ exclaims Armitage. Then, ‘I’ll come down.’

He lets Larry in the front door.

‘I’ve not been outside for a week,’ he says. ‘Too bloody cold.’

Larry follows him up several flights of bare stairs to the rooms in the roof.

‘I’ve got nothing to eat,’ says Armitage. ‘There may be some brandy left.’

His living quarters consist of one sizeable room with a big north-facing window, which is his studio, his kitchen, and his washroom, a single butler sink serving all these purposes; beyond, a closed door leads to a small bedroom. The electric light bulb that illuminates the studio is either very low-powered or the electricity is weak. In its grudging light Larry sees a chaotic array of paintings, most of them unfinished.

‘I lose heart,’ says Armitage. ‘I know exactly what it is I mean to do, and then I see what I’ve actually done, and I lose heart.’

He doesn’t ask Larry why he’s come. He offers him brandy in a teacup. Larry looks round the canvases.

‘But your work is so good,’ he says.

He means it. Even in this poor light he can see that his friend’s paintings are exploding with life. As he admires them, he feels with deep shock the contrast with his own work. Somehow this has never been as apparent to him before. Over the last two years his work has become accomplished, but looking at Armitage’s pictures, he knows with a terrible certainty that he will never be a true artist. He has enough understanding of technique to see how Armitage achieves his effects, while at the same time knowing that this is so much more than technique. In his portraits particularly, he has the gift of expressing the fine complexity of life itself.

‘This is so good,’ he says again. ‘You’re good, Tony.’

‘I’m better than good,’ says Armitage. ‘I’m the real thing. Which is why I drive myself crazy. All this’ – he gestures round the studio – ‘this is nothing. One day I’ll show you what I can do.’

Larry comes upon two quite small sketches of Nell.

‘There’s Nell,’ he says. In one of them she’s looking towards the artist but past him, playing her unreachable game. ‘That’s so Nell.’

He realises now why he’s come. He wants to talk to someone about Nell.

‘She never sits still for long enough,’ says Armitage. ‘Also her skin’s too smooth. I like wrinkles.’

‘I think I might be in love with her,’ says Larry.

‘Oh, everyone’s in love with Nell,’ says Armitage. ‘That’s her function in life. She’s a muse.’

‘I don’t think she wants to be a muse.’

‘Of course she does. Why else does she hang around artists? You get girls like that.’

Larry laughs. Tony Armitage, barely twenty-one years old, his wild curls serving only to emphasise his boyish face, makes an unconvincing bohemian roué.

‘How on earth do you know? You’ve only just left school.’

‘It’s nothing to do with age. I was seven when I found out I had talent. I was fifteen when I knew I would be one of the greats. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I know all this is poor prentice work. But give me five more years, and you won’t be laughing.’

‘I’m not laughing at your work, Tony,’ Larry says. ‘I’m in awe of your work. But I’m not sure I’m quite ready to see you as a fount of wisdom on the opposite sex.’

‘Oh, girls.’ He speaks dismissively, evidently not very interested.

‘Don’t you care for girls?’

‘Yes, in their way. Up to a point. One has to eat and so forth.’

Larry can’t help laughing again. But he’s impressed by the young man’s invincible conviction of his own worth. It could be the groundless arrogance of youth, but on the whole Larry is inclined to take it at face value; all too aware that he lacks such self-belief himself.

‘I’m afraid I get myself into much more of a mess with girls than you seem to,’ he says. ‘With Nell, anyway.’ Then on an impulse he reveals more. ‘Did she tell you I asked her to marry me?’

‘No.’ He seems surprised. ‘Why?’

‘Because I wanted to marry her. And also because she was pregnant.’

‘Nell told you she was pregnant?’

‘She isn’t any more. She had a miscarriage. I expect I shouldn’t be telling you this. But she’s fine now.’

‘Nell told you she had a miscarriage?’

‘Yes.’

It strikes Larry now that Armitage is looking at him in an odd way.

‘And you believed her?’ he says.

‘Yes,’ says Larry. ‘I know Nell’s got her own strange ways, but the one thing she’d never do is tell a lie. She’s got an obsession with truthfulness.’

Armitage stares at Larry. Then he lets out a harsh cackle of laughter. Larry frowns, annoyed.

‘Nell never tell a lie!’ says Armitage. ‘She does nothing but lie.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Larry. ‘I don’t think you know her as I do.’

‘But Larry,’ says Armitage. ‘Telling you she’s pregnant! It’s the oldest trick in the book.’

He falls to laughing again.

‘A trick to achieve what, precisely?’

Larry’s voice has gone cold.

‘To get you to marry her, of course.’

‘I offered. She declined.’

This seems to Larry to be conclusive proof of Nell’s integrity. To his surprise Armitage takes it in his stride.

‘Oh, she’s not stupid, our Nell. She must’ve picked up that you weren’t a solid enough bet.’

‘I’m sorry, Tony. I don’t see things your way, that’s all. I shouldn’t have spoken about private matters.’

‘Private? She tried the pregnancy trick on Peter Beaumont too, you know?’

Now it’s Larry’s turn to stare.

‘Peter fell for it hook, line and sinker. But she decided to keep him in reserve. For a rainy day, as she puts it.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Larry’s voice has become quiet. Armitage realises for the first time that this is no laughing matter.

‘Didn’t you know?’ he says.

‘Apparently not.’

‘She’s not a bad girl. She’s a wonderful girl, really. But she’s penniless. She has to look out for herself.’

‘She told Peter Beaumont it was his baby?’

‘Well, yes.’

Larry feels tired and confused. He passes one hand over his brow. He finds he’s sweating.

‘So whose baby was it?’

Armitage pours Larry the last of the brandy, and presses the teacup on him.

‘There was no baby, Larry.’

‘No baby?’

‘No pregnancy. No miscarriage.’

‘Are you sure?’