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By then, memories had become enormously important, and a new generation was growing up who had never known those years when Britain, rich and powerful, basked in a social climate that we imagined was high noon—but was, in fact, twilight, the sun sinking as the nation faced, with some resolution, the frightening might of Hitler’s Third Reich.
The juxtaposition of faces, canvases, cliffs, moors, and sea all at once brought the whole concept together, and so The Shell Seekers was born.
All I can say is that I would like to think that perhaps it will be bought as a present for some twelve- or thirteen-year-old, sated with comics and teenage mags, and ready and waiting to sink his or her teeth into an adult book that will arouse their interest and attention, keep them turning the pages, and start them off on the long and wonderful road of reading for pleasure. I can’t think of greater satisfaction for any writer.
Living, now, had become not simple existence that one took for granted, but a bonus, a gift, with every day that lay ahead an experience to be savoured. Time did not last forever. I shall not waste a single moment, she promised herself. She had never felt so strong, so optimistic. As though she was young once more, starting out, and something marvellous was just about to happen.
George had entered his name the day after Rupert was born, and taken out a small educational insurance at the same time, but the paltry sum that this would realize would now, in 1984, scarcely pay the first train fare.
When I get married, she had sworn as a child, I shall have a drawing room and a dining room, just like other people do, and I shall go into the kitchen as seldom as I can.
Five minutes later she was indulging in the most comfortable occupation she knew, which was to lie in a hot bath and drink cold whisky at the same time.
The reason that she gazed at it with so much interest was the fact that it was by Lawrence Stern. For he had been Penelope Keeling’s father, and so, Nancy’s grandfather.
An oil, and product of Stern’s later years, it was called The Shell Seekers. It had a lot of white-capped sea, and a beach, and a sky full of blowing clouds.
The baby name as usual irritated Nancy. All three of Penelope’s children called her by a different name. Noel addressed her as Ma. Nancy, for some years, had called her Mother, which she considered suitable to their ages and to Nancy’s own station in life. Only Olivia—so hard-hearted and sophisticated in every other way—persisted with “Mumma.”
Why did Olivia have to be so brusque, so heartless, so unfeeling? Was there never to be an occasion when, cosily, they could talk as sisters without Olivia flaunting her busy career, as though Nancy’s life, with its solid priorities of home, husband, and children, counted for nothing?
But although Olivia asked their mother to go and stay and Penelope accepted with delight and spent more than a month with her and Cosmo, no such invitation ever came the way of the Chamberlains, and for this Nancy had never forgiven her sister.
Now the heat of the morning was intensifying, and, with the delicious taste of fresh citrus on her tongue, she felt warm and content as a cat in the sun. Slowly,
Like a vessel that has been empty for too long, she felt herself filled with peace. I could stay here. A small voice, a hand tugging at her sleeve. This is a place where I could stay.
“So?” “It’s just that … this is the sort of place where I think I could stay. I wouldn’t feel trapped or rooted here. I don’t know why.” She smiled at him. “I don’t know why.”
“Then stay,” he said. “For today? For tonight?” “No. Just stay.”
“She was quite right. Let’s say the date of arrival is today and the date of departure you can decide for yourself.” She gazed at him, assessing motives, implications. Finally, “You’re asking me to move in with you?” “Yes.”
This was exactly her mother’s environment; this enchanting, meandering house, this tangled garden. The almond groves, the sun-baked terrace, even the bantams—especially the bantams—would fill her with delight.
She would give herself, like some wonderful gift, a single year.
Her hair shone, her dark eyes, thick-lashed, were lustrous with contentment, and even the bones of her face seemed to lose their stressful angles and become rounded and smooth. Tall, rake-thin, tanned brown as a chestnut, she looked in the mirror and saw herself, for the first time ever, as truly beautiful.
“Olivia, your life and what you do with it is none of my business. But that doesn’t mean I have no concern for you.”
When Olivia, Nancy, and Noel were children, a visit from Aunt Ethel was always keenly awaited, not because she brought them presents, but because she was such fun, and not like an ordinary grown-up at all. And
They swam constantly, for exercise and refreshment, and when the evenings grew cooler, went for little rural strolls, through cornfields and past small houses and farmyards where naked-bottomed babies played happily in the dust along with the goats and the hens, while their mothers unpegged washing, or drew water from the well.
To own your own house has always seemed to me the most important of priorities. It gives you security in every sense of the word. Oakley Street belonged to my mother, and because of that, as children, we always felt safe. Nobody could take it away from us. One of the best feelings in the world was coming home, indoors, off the street, and closing the door and knowing you were home.”
And because it buys lovely things; not fast cars or fur coats or cruises to Hawaii or any of that rubbish, but real, lovely things, like independence and freedom and dignity. And learning. And time.”
But I told you, that first day I came to Ca’n D’alt. I’ve never wanted to be married, have children. I love people. I’m fascinated by them, but I need my privacy too. To be myself. To live alone.”
His years of weekending in strange houses had sharpened his perceptions to such a degree that he was able, almost from the moment he walked through a new front door, to gauge the possibilities of the days that lay ahead and accord them his own private system of grading.
maquillage
And she was filled with disgust at herself. This is Antonia, you selfish cow, appealing for help. This is Cosmo’s Antonia and Cosmo is dead, and the fact that she’s turning to you is the greatest compliment she could pay you. For once in your life, stop thinking of yourself.
“This is obviously my lucky day.” Now the Cotswolds lay ahead. The roads narrowed, winding through watery meadows and over small stone bridges. Houses and farmsteads, built of honey-coloured Cotswold stone, stood golden in the sunshine, with cottage gardens that, in summer, would be a riot of colour, and orchards of plums and apple trees.
It was not just that she had yet to come to terms with the shock and grief of Cosmo’s death, but she felt as well surrounded, besieged by other people’s problems. Antonia would arrive, would come and stay, would have to be comforted, encouraged, supported, and, in all likelihood, at the end of the day, be helped to find some sort of a job. Nancy
The road climbed, twisting up the side of a hill, and at its summit the village came into view, nestled like a child’s toy in the dip of the valley, with the silver waters of the Windrush, like a ribbon, winding by. The first houses came to meet them; golden stone cottages of great antiquity and beauty. They
She liked laundry to be hung in the open air, giving it a delicious fresh smell, and making it infinitely easier to iron.
But Penelope knew that you couldn’t change the name of a house any more than you could change the name of a person.
Visions widened, like views seen from the slopes of a painfully climbed mountain, and having come so far, it seemed ridiculous not to pause and enjoy them.
It occurred to her then that people went on living until somebody told you they were dead. Perhaps it was a pity that anybody ever told anybody anything.
Oh, my darling, I am so sorry. You were so much to each other. Are you all right?”
“Yes, I did. In that year, he became part of me. He changed me, as no other person ever has.”
She set it on the table, and being one of those people to whom it is really worthwhile giving presents, instantly opened it. The two bottles were unwrapped from their tissue paper, and her delight was gratifying.
It measured perhaps five feet by three and dominated the room. The Shell Seekers. Olivia knew that she would never tire of the painting, even if she lived with it for most of her life. Its impact hit you like a gust of cold, salty air. The windy sky, racing with clouds; the sea, scudding with white-caps, breaking waves hissing up onto the shore. The subtle pinks and greys of the sand; shallow pools left by the ebbing tide and shimmering with translucent reflected sunlight. And the figures of the three children, grouped to the side of the picture; two girls with straw hats and dresses bundled
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As soon as the words were out, however, she was filled with guilt, because she saw the momentary disappointment cloud Penelope’s face, to be instantly replaced with an understanding smile.
“How could you possibly know whether I would miss them or not?” He shrugged. “Just taking a guess. It’s not as though they’re very good, and the subject matter is nauseous.”
indoors. She closed the door and stood in the kitchen, filled with unease. What had he hoped to find in the loft? He had known perfectly well that the squash racket was not there, so what had he been looking for?
sea was one of the reasons she wanted so much to go back. Gloucestershire was beautiful, but it had no sea, and she had a hunger for the sea. The past is another country, but the journey could be made. There was nothing to stop her going. Alone or in company, it didn’t matter. Before it was too late, she would take the road west to that rugged claw of England where, once, she had lived, and loved and been young.
“Balloon’s gone up, then.” She handed the bar of chocolate across the counter. “We’re at war with those dratted Germans Mr. Chamberlain says.” Mrs. Thomas was sixty. She had already lived through one devastating war, as had Penelope’s father and millions of other innocent people all over Europe.
Everywhere the grown-ups went, Penelope went too, the child of a mother young as a sister, and a father old enough to be her grandparent.
It was her first bit of War Work. She stripped the wallpaper and whitewashed walls and ceiling, washed the windows, painted the woodwork, and scrubbed the floor.
Under the eye of the authorities, and at great personal risk to themselves, they made contacts, obtained passports, saw to travel arrangements, and lent money. Their enterprise and fortitude resulted in a number of Jewish families’ getting out of the country, escaping across the guarded borders to reach the safety of England, or to travel on and settle in the United States.
