Уильям Николсон - Motherland

‘There’s supposed to be compensation for all the damage,’ he says, ‘but I don’t expect we’ll ever see it.’

They look out for the sea all the way from the outskirts of Houlgate, but it remains out of sight until they’re winding their way through the little town itself. Then all at once there it is, at the far end of the narrow street, trapped between the grey shuttered houses: a band of dull gold, a band of blue. They turn onto the Rue des Bains and drive slowly past the half-timbered houses, with the wide sands and sea stretching out to their left.

‘Oh, I do so love the sea,’ says Geraldine. ‘Why do we have to be shut up in a forest? Don’t you feel when you can see all the way to the horizon that anything is possible?’

‘Mere illusion,’ says Ed. ‘Very few things are possible. Most of the time we do as we must, not as we would.’

‘Pay no attention to him, Geraldine,’ says Kitty. ‘He’s a terrible Eeyore.’

The Armitages live on Rue Henri Dobert. Larry pulls up and asks a man pushing a bicycle for directions. Driving on, he finds the road and crawls along it hunting for the house.

‘Good God! I think that must be it!’

The house is high and narrow, stuccoed, with brick edging round the windows and ivy climbing to the second storey.

‘That’s not an artist’s house,’ says Ed. ‘That’s a bank manager’s house.’

They drive onto the forecourt. On closer inspection the house can be seen to be run down, with weeds fringing the paving stones and the paintwork on the door crazed and flaking.

‘They are expecting us?’ says Geraldine.

‘Possibly,’ says Larry. ‘If the post works.’

Larry doesn’t show it, but he too is nervous. They get out and kick their legs, stiff after the long drive.

‘What’ll be for lunch?’ says Pamela.

‘Hush, darling,’ says Kitty. ‘It’s rude to ask.’

‘Why?’ says Pamela. ‘Why can’t I ask?’

Those that don’t ask don’t get . Larry’s mind echoes with the last words Nell ever spoke to him.

The door opens before they can knock, and there’s Nell.

‘You beautiful people!’ she cries, bounding out. ‘I’m going to kiss every one of you!’

She’s just the same as Larry remembers, perhaps a little plumper, her hair longer, pulled back and held under an Alice band. She’s wearing a bright check blouse and trousers. The same ease with her body, the same uncompromising meeting of eyes, the same lack of restraint.

‘So you’re Geraldine! Oh, you’re perfect! What did Lawrence do to deserve you?’

Larry sees Geraldine flinch in her embrace. Then it’s his turn.

‘Darling Larry. Don’t you look prosperous! My God, Camberwell feels like it was a million years ago. Come in and meet the monster.’

She ushers them in to a cluttered hall, and on to a big room at the rear of the house. Here windows open startlingly onto the sun-dazzled sea.

‘There!’ says Nell. ‘The house is hideous, but you could hardly get closer to the sea, could you?’

She turns and yells, ‘Tony, you mannerless shit! Come and greet your guests!’

She gives a laugh as she throws open the windows.

‘He’s completely unshameable. Now that he’s an officially proclaimed genius he behaves as if none of the usual rules apply to him.’

She loops her arm through Larry’s and leads him out into the bright sunshine.

‘Come on, darling. We have some catching up to do.’

They walk arm in arm down a path that runs beside the beach.

‘So are we still friends, Lawrence?’

‘Yes,’ says Larry, marvelling at the ease he feels in her company. ‘Of course.’

‘I know I’m a bad girl.’

‘It doesn’t matter. All in the past.’

‘The thing you have to understand,’ she says, ‘is that when people say things to each other they aren’t always saying what they’re saying. They’re saying something else, that’s harder to say.’

‘Like, Do you really love me?’

‘Exactly.’ She gives his arm a squeeze. ‘You are such a sweetiepie, Lawrence.’

‘So how are things with Tony?’

‘Oh, Tony! He’ll do for now. How are things with Geraldine?’

‘Very good.’

‘Liar, liar, pants on fire.’

Back in the house the others, abandoned, look at each other, unsure what to do.

‘Speaking purely personally, I need a drink,’ says Ed. ‘Do you think we forage for ourselves?’

‘I want to go out on the beach too,’ says Pamela.

At this point the artist himself appears, looking as if he’s only just got up.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he says.

‘Friends of Nell’s,’ says Kitty. ‘She’s out on the beach with Larry.’

‘Oh, Larry.’ He rubs his eyes. ‘So what am I supposed to do with you?’

‘You’re supposed to greet us in a friendly manner,’ says Geraldine, ‘and make us feel at home, and offer us a drink.’

She utters this advice with a charming smile. Armitage is unnerved by the direct assault.

‘Am I?’ he says, looking about him as if seeking a way out. ‘A drink, you say?’

Abruptly he withdraws to some other part of the house. Ed and Kitty both applaud Geraldine with softly clapping hands.

‘Bravo, Geraldine!’

‘Well, really!’ says Geraldine, going pink.

Armitage reappears with a bottle of pastis, a bottle of water, and three glasses.

‘Couldn’t find any more glasses,’ he says. ‘Not clean ones.’

‘You can even pour it if you want,’ says Geraldine. ‘But not for me, thanks.’

‘Nor me,’ says Kitty.

‘I’ll do it,’ says Ed.

He mixes the pastis half-and-half with water and drinks it down. Armitage leans out of the window.

‘Nell, you great cow! Get back here!’

The guests act as if they haven’t heard him.

Nell returns, with Larry in tow.

‘You behave yourself,’ she says to Armitage, ‘or no jiggerypokery for a week.’

‘What have I done?’ says Armitage in an aggrieved voice. ‘Hello, Larry. What’s wrong with you?’

‘I don’t know. What is wrong with me?’

‘You look all shiny. Have you been varnished?’

‘I told you,’ says Nell. ‘He got rich.’

It turns out there is lunch of a kind waiting for them. Nell has planned a picnic on the beach. She’s filled a big basket with bread, tomatoes, and pork rillettes . To drink, there’s a flagon of the local cider.

‘The whole idea of living here is that we have the beach on our doorstep. Tony spends hours staring at the sea. I can’t see what there is to look at, myself. It’s just a lot of nothing.’

‘You’re an empty-headed fool,’ says Armitage.

‘I think he stares at the sea to clear his mind,’ says Nell as if he hasn’t spoken. ‘Like preparing a canvas.’

‘That is perfectly true,’ says Armitage.

He goes to her and kisses her in front of them all.

They sit in a ring on the sand in the shade of a large beach umbrella, and make themselves sandwiches by tearing the baguettes apart. Pammy loves it.

‘We’re sitting on the ground and eating things with our fingers,’ she says.

Armitage stares at Kitty as he eats.

‘Don’t mind him,’ Nell says. ‘It just means he wants to paint you.’

‘Yes, I do,’ says Armitage. ‘You have an interesting face.’

‘So where do you paint?’ says Larry.

‘Over there,’ says Armitage.

‘He’s got a studio in the house,’ says Nell. ‘No more crouching in bed-sitting rooms. But it was fun in those days, wasn’t it?’ She turns to Geraldine, wanting to include her. ‘Larry and Tony and me used to walk along the river in the small hours of the morning and drink hot sweet tea from the cabbies’ café by Albert Bridge.’