Sweet Caress

  A car had stopped in the lane – the driver no doubt arrested by the sight of two people apparently walking on water, and tooted its horn. I turned and waved and shouted that we’d crashed into the lake.

  ‘I’ll call the fire brigade! Up at the castle,’ the driver shouted through the open window. ‘Two minutes!’ He drove off at speed.

  My father shifted his position on the Crossley’s roof, and the car beneath us wobbled slightly. He ran his hands through his dripping hair.

  ‘What a mess,’ he said. He put his arm round my shoulders and smiled at me, a strange little smile. A mad smile, his eyes dead.

  ‘I thought the lake was deeper,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d read somewhere that the lake here was exceptionally deep.’

  ‘Lucky it wasn’t.’

  ‘You’ve saved my life, Amory,’ he said. Then he began to cry, suddenly, almost howling like an animal. I hugged myself to him and begged him to stop – which he did, quickly, sniffing and coughing, breathing deeply.

  ‘I’m not well, Amory,’ he said quietly. ‘You have to remember that. You have to forgive me.’

  ‘I forgive you, Papa. We’re safe, unharmed, that’s the main thing.’

  ‘Just wet through.’ He kissed my forehead. ‘Amory, Faymory, Daymory . . . Shall we head for the shore? It seems ridiculous to be waiting here, standing on the car roof.’

  ‘You won’t do anything silly. Promise?’

  ‘I have a feeling I won’t do anything silly ever again. Promise.’

  We slid into the water and swam to the shore.

  *

  THE BARRANDALE JOURNAL 1977

  I drink gin at lunch, whisky in the evening. One large gin seems to do me fine in the middle of the day but as night falls I find the whisky too alluring. I drink it diluted with a little water in a heavy-bottomed tumbler – just standard blended whisky, whatever I can find in the shops in Oban (I’d never buy on the island, in Achnalorn, too many curious folk) – but I think I’m addicted to it, all the same. Three glasses, sometimes four. I sit reading, smoking, listening to the radio or to music and let my senses tilt steadily over into mild and delicious inebriation, hearing the wind-thud, the hoarse sea-heaving outside. It sends me to an easeful sleep and, I believe, calms and soothes my disturbing dreams. The few nights I haven’t had my whisky anaesthetic are too haunted by the past, too febrile to be endured. I leave my bed, throw more peat bricks on the fire, watch the flames sway and flicker and wait for dawn to arrive, the dog Flam curled up on his blanket watching me, uneasy, troubled.

  *

  The immediate consequence of our headlong drive into the waters of Hookland Castle Lake was that my father was certified insane and sent to a ‘posh loony bin’, as my mother termed it. I had what I now suppose was a form of nervous breakdown. I seemed unable to stop crying and would even experience a kind of fit – body-wide tremors and copious sweating – that seemed epileptic but in fact was psychotic, catalysed by sudden and spontaneous memories of those frantic seconds in the car with the water rising, the fight to open the door and, always, the image of my father’s impassive floating face, the bubble-beads streaming upwards from his mouth as if the few moments of consciousness left to him were being transformed into those buoyant quicksilver pearls of air, slowing visibly as his lungs filled with water.

  I missed the rest of that Trinity term at Amberfield, and Michaelmas, following, confined to bed, subject to ever-changing regimes of boiling baths and poultices on my back – as if something could be drawn out of me – broths and teas and drugs of some sort, no doubt. I returned in the spring of 1926 to prepare for my Higher School Certificate. The other girls were kind to me – I was an almost mythic figure, once the story of the car in the lake and the rescue of my father emerged. Even Miss Ashe, every time we crossed paths, would make a point of stopping and chatting and solicitously enquiring after me: ‘How are you, dear Amory . . . ?’ I did badly in my exams – three passes and one failure – but was never blamed. There was no further talk of Somerville College and the Senior History Scholarship.

  Curiously, I took no photographs for months and my darkroom was abandoned. That summer, after my exams, I searched my father’s study looking for his novel ‘about the war’, rummaging through the drawers in his desk and his bookcases looking for Naked in Hell, thinking it might give me some sort of clue as to why he’d tried to kill us both, but found nothing. My mother, when I asked her what Papa had been working on, said that he hadn’t written a word for two years at least, as far as she was aware.

  I was correct in one thing, however: the war did have something to do with my father’s madness. The clue wasn’t to be found in the novel he never wrote but, many years later, I did try to discover what had happened to him in France that had brought him home so changed. It was in the history of his regiment, the East Sussex Light Infantry, the ‘Martlets’, and it did help me understand a little what it might have been that had turned his mind against himself. And, thereby, me.

  Events of March 1918

  After the withdrawal to the position fronting the edge of the Bois de Vinaigre outside Saint-Croix the 5/1 service battalion occupied the new front line. Owing to the nature of the ground the enemy was never closer than 400 yards and sometimes on occasion over 800 yards distant. It was the widest stretch of no-man’s-land that the ESLI had encountered since 1915 at Loos and posed particular problems; lack of clear information regarding the German forces’ dispositions being the most significant.

  The short lull in the fighting allowed the new trenches to be strengthened and there were few casualties over the following days (two dead, seven wounded). Colonel Shawfield, commanding the 5/1 battalion, ordered a raid to be sent out on the night of the 26th to determine the nature and preparedness of the forces opposite in advance of the 5th Army’s counteroffensive scheduled for the 30th.

  The raiding party (led by Captain B. V. Clay DSO) was composed of twenty men, including two signallers who were to run a telephone line out to the ruined farm of Trois Tables, formerly battalion HQ before the retreat. The raiding party left our trenches at 2 a.m. A diversionary artillery barrage took place at 2.30 a.m. to the left of the German line at Lembras-la-Chapelle. Captain Clay’s raid met heavy resistance and at 4 a.m. only ten men had regained the ESLI lines. Captain Clay himself was missing.

  Three days later, during the 5th Army counter-attack, Trois Tables farm was retaken and Captain Clay was discovered hiding in a deep cellar beneath the ruined farm building, barely clad in a few shreds of his uniform. The bodies of Corporal S. D. Westmacott, Private W. D. Hawes and Signaller S. R. Thatcher were recovered from the same cellar. Captain Clay was starved and semi-conscious and could give no coherent account of what had happened in the three days since his raiding party had left the ESLI lines. He was sent to the base hospital at Saint-Omer where he slowly regained his strength though his memory of those three days never returned. He was awarded a bar to his DSO. The citation read that his example ‘was a monument to the strength and survival instinct of the human will under the most distressing and alarming conditions of warfare’.

  The Regimental History of the East Sussex Light Infantry,

  Vol. III, 1914–1918

  3. HIGH SOCIETY

  I WAS PLEASED WITH the way I looked. Greville said that the key thing was that I should ‘blend in’. He himself was always impeccably smart. He looked me over before we went off to Lady Cremlaine’s reception – to celebrate her daughter’s twenty-first birthday – walking around me, frowning and nodding, as if I were about to go on parade. I was wearing a floor-length silver satin dance gown with a little maroon velvet coatee over it. Hair up to one side, a diamanté clip holding it in place. My shoes were gold calf with the highest heels I could find. Heavy make-up: kohl on my eyelids, lurid crimson lips.

  ‘Very good, darling,’ Greville said. ‘You’ll be fighting all the young blades off.’ Greville had reduced his wide and luxuriant hussar’s moustache to thin pencil lines of clipped
bristle – a little chevron above his lips. It made him look quite different, I thought, more sophisticated and mysterious.

  We left Greville’s apartment and went round to the mews behind the building, where the studio and the darkroom was, to find Lockwood Mower, Greville’s apprentice, loading the backdrops, the lights, the tripods and the leather cases containing the heavy plate cameras – the Dallmeyer Reflex and the Busch Portrait – and belting them securely on the luggage rack at the rear of the motor.

  ‘You look a proper film star, Miss Clay,’ Lockwood said. I gave a demure little stage-bow. Lockwood was a tall, burly lad, about my age, I suppose, with tar-black hair and a very dark complexion, as if he were a gypsy or very heavily suntanned, like a Mediterranean sailor or olive-picker. His even features were spoiled by a slightly undershot jaw and the fact that his eyes were set a little too far apart. He looked both pugnacious and somewhat surprised, ‘like a boxer who’s just received bad news’ was how I’d described him to Greville, who found that very amusing.

  Lockwood was softly spoken and diligent and I’d noticed, in the weeks I’d been working with Greville, how Greville relied on him more and more. Lockwood did not have to blend in. He would rig up the room set aside to be used as an impromptu studio in whatever house or venue we happened to be working in and stay there. Tonight he was in his usual outfit: a black three-piece serge suit, navy blue flannel shirt and cerise tie. He had begun to copy Greville by putting some sort of pomade in his hair and there was always a pungent odour of cheap cologne about him.

  Greville and I sat in the back seat and Lockwood took the wheel.

  ‘Allons-y, mes braves,’ Greville said and we set off. I felt a little boil of excitement in my stomach as we pulled on to Kensington High Street and headed to Mayfair. Off on a job – as if we were going on a mission of some kind – ready to storm the redoubts of high society.

  Greville took out his cigarette case and offered it to me. I selected a cigarette and he lit it, before lighting his own.

  ‘Who’s this for, tonight?’ I asked, blowing smoke at the car roof. ‘The Illustrated?’

  ‘Beau Monde.’

  ‘Oh, dear, Tatler will be cross with you.’

  ‘Good,’ he smiled at me. ‘We’ve got some real scalps tonight. I might need you to ferret them out.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  I sat back in my seat as we drove up Knightsbridge. I had always thought it highly likely that I should fall in love with my uncle – and once I had gone to work for him that likelihood became irresistible, as far as I was concerned. To sit beside him like this, smoking a cigarette, our elbows touching as we were driven to Lady Cremlaine’s party, seemed the very apogee of bliss. We were already partners, working together, and I knew how much he liked me, how fond he was of me – he kept on saying it – it could only be a matter of time.

  I checked that everything was ready. Lockwood had set up in a ground-floor reception room off the hall. Lights rigged, backdrop in place – hanging in carefully arranged folds from its frame – assorted potted plants carefully positioned, and the two big cameras on their wooden tripods, lenses receiving a final polish from Lockwood’s lint-free duster.

  ‘All shipshape, Miss Clay. Who’s up first?’

  I looked at my list. ‘The Honourable Miss Edith Medcalf. Is she important? Have we done her before?’

  ‘Not by me. Maybe Mr Reade-Hill knows her.’

  ‘I’ll ask our hostess.’

  I found the Hon. Miss Medcalf – a lumpy-faced and offhand youngish woman reputedly in her late twenties, but who appeared much older (her dress looked like it had been run up from a pair of discarded curtains). She was one of those people who wouldn’t age: she’d look the same at twenty-five or sixty-five. She turned out to be very pleased with herself and her new engagement ring and I delivered her to Lockwood. Then I went in search of Greville. He had to be there to take the photograph even though all that was involved was a few seconds’ chit-chat and a click of the shutter release. Lockwood and I had done all the work, but society ladies wanted Greville Reade-Hill to take their photographs, not his niece or, heaven forbid, his apprentice.

  I swept back upstairs to the ballroom where a sizeable dance band was playing ‘Ain’t She Sweet’ and on the wide landing outside I saw Greville chatting to a diminutive slim man and two women in billowing lace. I sidled round to catch Greville’s eye; he spotted me, excused himself and came over.

  ‘Miss Medcalf awaits,’ I said.

  He handed me another list of names.

  ‘Track this lot down,’ he said. ‘We should be out of here within an hour.’

  ‘Who was that little chap you were talking to? I thought I recognised him.’

  ‘That “little chap” is the Prince of Wales. Our future king.’

  I looked round but he’d gone.

  ‘Second thoughts,’ Greville said, ‘I’d better chase after him. You snap Miss Medcalf. Then I’ll find Lady Foster-Porter.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I think you’re more than ready to open the batting,’ he said, and gave me a swift kiss on the cheek.

  Miss Medcalf was not at all pleased to discover that her photograph was to be taken by Miss Amory Clay and initially refused, demanding Greville’s presence.

  ‘He’s with the Prince of Wales,’ I said, and that both calmed and impressed her but she strode off after the photo had been taken without a word of farewell or thanks.

  The Hon. Miss Edith Medcalf at Lady Cremlaine’s ball, 1927.

  ‘Charming,’ Lockwood said. ‘Glass of champagne, Miss Clay? I snaffled a bottle from downstairs.’ Lockwood poured us both a glass, we toasted my first ‘society’ photograph and I then went in search of the Countess of Rackham and the Marchesa Lucrezia Barberini.

  Greville was right, we had nabbed our trophies in just over an hour and Lockwood drove me and the equipment back to Falkland Court. Greville was following later, continuing his wooing of the prince – a royal photograph would put him squarely in the elite and ensure a consequent rise in fees and clients. He’d already taken Prince Aly Kahn and was after Mrs Dudley Ward and Marmaduke Furness. The Prince of Wales would unlock many doors.

  Lockwood pulled up outside the mews and began to unpack the motor – he lived in a small room under the roof with a tiny dormer window – while I made sure all the film and plates were properly stored and safe and returned to the flat. Greville’s apartment was on the top floor of a large mansion block just behind the High Street and from the drawing-room windows there was a good view of Kensington Gardens and the palace. Greville’s bedroom, dressing room, bathroom and study took up most of the rest of the space. I was in the maid’s quarters behind the kitchen – a little room with a WC and a basin in a cupboard – but otherwise I had the run of the flat. I had painted the walls of my room emerald green and had hung red sackcloth curtains at the small window. I’d had some of my photographs framed and hung on the wall (‘Xan, Flying’, ‘Boy with Bat and Hat’ and ‘Running Boy’), laid a second-hand Persian rug on the floor and a patchwork quilt on the bed. There was too much colour and too much busyness for such a small room but I felt snug and secure. I was living in London – and Falkland Court was my first home away from Beckburrow – and I was earning a living (seven shillings and sixpence a day) – and I was going out to parties with all the swells at least three times a week if not four.

  I slipped out of my smart dress and hung it in the cupboard, putting on my new ‘Zemana’ – house pyjamas – with its floral appliqués. I wandered through to the drawing room, poured myself a small brandy and soda and lit a cigarette, waiting for Greville to return.

  He really did have excellent taste for a man, I thought to myself. The drawing room had lacquered red walls and a polished near-white parquet floor with silk rugs scattered here and there. A painting of a naked Negro boy dancer hung above the mantel and the occasional tables were clustered with silver- and tortoiseshell-framed photographs of his biggest social prizes. I
stood at the window with my cigarette looking over the roofscape toward the palace. Life was indeed good. You’re only nineteen, I said to myself, look how well you’re doing, a year out of boarding school. Laura and Millicent would sell their souls to the Devil to be where I was now. And who would have thought? I was meant to be at Somerville College, Oxford, reading history. Non, merci. Let life come to you, my father always said, don’t rush about looking for it. Then I heard Greville coming in the front door and I felt myself tense with warm anticipation.

  ‘You still up, you naughty girl?’

  ‘Well . . . ?’ I said, queryingly, as he came in. ‘You have to tell me.’

  ‘He didn’t say yes – and he didn’t say no. I think he’s genuinely interested – he wants to see how I’ve taken some of his set. Have we got those portraits of Lady Furness? That’ll swing it. We’ll look them out in the morning.’ He undid his tie and headed for the drinks table where he poured himself a whisky.

  ‘A perfectly acceptable evening was marred by a rather unpleasant row with Lady Foster-Porter.’ He drained his glass and topped himself up. ‘There’s no other word for it but I’m afraid Lady Foster-Porter is a ghastly old cunt.’

  I wasn’t shocked. Greville swore all the time in private, arguing that we owed it to the English language to exploit the full range of forceful expressions it offered. He went on to explain why the disagreement had arisen with Lady Foster-Porter – her refusal to honour the fee he’d demanded for her son’s wedding.

  ‘Very tiresome woman,’ he said. ‘She actually said her chauffeur could have done a better job.’

  ‘Sourpuss bitch!’ I threw in, loyally. ‘How dare she?’

  ‘Well, I was fuming by then, you can imagine. Boiling. I said her son’s wedding merited exactly the treatment I’d given it. And reminded her I’d done the Earl of Wargrave’s wedding the very next day. And he’d been delighted.’

  ‘Did she shut up?’