Last Telegram Read online

  But it was impossible to be disappointed for long. From the Backs, the city seemed enchanted, the white filigree stonework of King’s Chapel luminous against the unblemished blue of the sky. Robbie handled the unwieldy pole with great skill, and as we glided along the river, the swallows swooped close, dipping into the water and swirling into the air with shrill shrieks of warning.

  Halfway to Grantchester, we moored by a quiet bank shaded by weeping willows, and curious cows came over, huffing at us with their sweet grassy breath before wandering away. He poured champagne and we toasted the English countryside, summertime, and even the increasingly unlikely peace.

  I drank too quickly and the bubbles went to my head. For a while, we ate smoked salmon sandwiches and made silly conversation about nothing in particular. Robbie told stories and made me laugh. He refilled my glass several times and I didn’t stop him. This must be what falling in love is like, I thought.

  When we’d finished eating, he wedged his empty glass between the cushions and turned to me, taking my hands, his expression suddenly serious.

  “Lily, my dear, you must know by now how I feel about you?”

  I nodded uncertainly, my heart starting to pound. Was he going to tell me he loved me? So soon?

  “I’ve knocked around a bit, as you’ve probably gathered, but you’re something special. Like the song says, I’ve got you under my skin.”

  I giggled nervously at the cliché, but he seemed unembarrassed.

  “Why don’t you come and give me a kiss?” he said, taking off his jacket, lying back, and patting the cushions beside him. I hesitated a moment, feeling oddly reluctant. Kissing lying down seemed a little intimate, but what harm could come, out in the open air?

  I lay down beside him and we cuddled and then kissed gently for a while. It was delicious, lying in his strong arms, safe and protected. He stroked my hair and said it smelled like apple blossom. He told me I was beautiful.

  Then we started kissing again and it became more intense. Just relax and try to enjoy it, I said to myself; this is the way it is meant to be. But his tongue felt like an invasion, as if he was trying to capture me with his mouth. I found it difficult to breathe.

  Then, when I was distracted by this, I felt his hand move to my breasts and start to squeeze them, each in turn. This is supposed to feel sexy, I thought, but it was just annoying and mildly uncomfortable. As it went on, the pressure got stronger and started to hurt a bit, so I pushed his hand away. He didn’t seem to take the hint. After a moment or two, his hand moved back. I pushed it away again.

  To my relief, his hand stayed away this time. But then, to my alarm, I realized that it had moved downward, below his waist. The horrid thought flashed into my head that he was undoing his fly buttons. Surely not, I thought, not here? It scared me. I pulled away and started to sit up, but in a swift surprising movement that caught me unawares, his hand suddenly moved again, reaching up my skirt, almost to the top of my legs.

  I squeaked with surprise and tried to push his hand away, but he took no notice, grabbing my arm and forcing it back over my head. He was so strong there was nothing I could do to resist. At the same time, he moved his leg heavily over mine and pinned me down. I tried to sit up again, but he was holding my wrist almost painfully tight, and his chest was like a dead weight on top of me. I was trapped, terrified of what he might do next. I felt the warmth of bare flesh on my leg and panicked.

  “No, Robbie. No!” My shout echoed across the water and an alarmed coot squawked in sympathy. “Let me go!”

  He held me a moment longer, as if considering his next move. Then I heard him mutter, “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” He let go of my wrist and pushed me back roughly, almost violently, sat up, fumbled with his fly, and rummaged in his jacket pocket for a cigarette. He was red in the face, panting as if he’d run a steeplechase.

  “Whatever’s the matter with you?” he said gruffly. “You lead me on, then push me away.” He lit a cigarette and blew angry clouds of smoke across the water. I took deep breaths, trying to control the tears prickling the back of my throat.

  “I’m sorry,” I said miserably, sitting up and straightening my clothes.

  He was silent for a moment, then, “But there is something between us, isn’t there?”

  “I think so. I mean, yes. But not that, not yet.” My head was spinning from the champagne and I couldn’t think straight.

  “Don’t you feel the same way about me?” It felt like an interrogation.

  “I just…” I stuttered.

  “Then what is it? Is there someone else? That Kraut boy?”

  “No, not really.”

  “No, not really,” he mimicked viciously. “You owe me the truth, Lily.”

  Now the shock was receding, my head was starting to ache, and I started to feel irritated. “It’s just that I’m not sure about us.”

  “You don’t fancy me?”

  “Yes, I mean, no.”

  “Is that a yes, you don’t fancy me, or a no, you do?”

  He took another long drag on his cigarette. As he turned away to exhale, I noticed for the first time the hair thinning on the crown of his head and felt a little sorry for him.

  “I don’t really know what I feel, if you want the honest truth,” I blurted. “I like being with you. We have fun, don’t we? This has been a lovely day, and I’m sorry if I’ve spoiled it. I just don’t think I’m ready for that. With anyone.”

  I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. He passed me a large, white gentleman’s handkerchief, and I blew my nose as elegantly as possible.

  “You should have thought about that before, shouldn’t you?” His cigarette end hissed as it hit the water. “You shouldn’t promise what you don’t intend to deliver.”

  I hadn’t promised anything, I thought angrily. But I didn’t want to row with him anymore, so I bit my tongue. He stood up and adjusted his trouser belt, walked to the end of the punt, and took up the pole.

  • • •

  The drive back to Westbury was tense. I tried to lighten the mood by telling him the story of Gog Magog as we drove over the hills.

  “They say giants sleep under here, did you know that?”

  Robbie shook his head.

  “King Gog led his Magog tribe of giants in a battle against the Romans. They found dozens of skeletons.”

  “That’s what you get with wars,” he muttered morosely.

  When we got home, I kissed him on the cheek, just to be courteous, and thanked him for the day. He said rather curtly, “Better get off. Things to do, people to see. Be in touch soon.”

  I knew he wouldn’t, not this time, and realized that I didn’t really care anymore. When John asked me, oh so breezily, how my “big date” went, I told him everything except the bit after the picnic, but then he asked when I was seeing Robbie again, and when I said, as casually as possible, “Probably not for a while,” he smelled a rat.

  “I thought you were an item?” he said sharply. “You haven’t cheesed him off, have you?”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” I said. “It’s just I don’t think we’re really suited.”

  “He’s bloody keen on you. He pretty much admitted it to me, in so many words,” John said. “For goodness’ sake, don’t mess around with Robbie. You’re playing with fire. Verners needs his contract.”

  “He’s signed it already,” I retorted.

  “For an initial six months,” John said. “We need to keep him on side so he’ll renew it.”

  I reassured him, of course, but his words troubled me. I hadn’t known the contract was so short. Did I really have to pretend to be in love with someone, just to make sure we got it renewed? The idea made me feel grubby, and I tried to push it to the back of my mind.

  • • •

  At work, I was becoming more confident under Gwen’s careful tutelage. Though I’d struggled to master the technique, with a few economical movements I could now knot threads as fine as a single hair. There was a round knot for no
rmal use, or a more complex flat one for very fine material. The knot had to be trimmed closely, leaving no stray ends. Like all the weavers, I held concealed in my right palm a pair of tiny metal shears, like an extra set of finely sharpened fingers.

  At first it had seemed an impossibility to fix a single broken warp thread among so many thousands, but Gwen showed us how to find a tiny end, deftly rethread and retie it, in a matter of seconds. She assured us that it would become second nature, in time.

  I was nearing the end of my apprenticeship, and I was proud of my new skills, feeling for the first time like a genuine weaver, not a fraud anymore. My hands were smooth and soft, coated with microscopic filaments of silk that molted from the fabrics we handled all day. And my lip-reading was fluent.

  My unfavorable first impressions of Gwen were long forgotten, replaced by a deep admiration for her encyclopedic knowledge of loom mechanics, her appreciation of the artistry of silk and its many woven designs and colors, and the dextrous way she handled its gossamer threads. I’d come to realize that her eccentric fashion sense was merely a proud disregard for convention, and that beneath the stern demeanor was a fiercely intelligent mind. Yet my attempts at moving toward a closer friendship had, until now, been rebuffed. That’s not to say we’d been unfriendly, but we had not become pals in the way that I’d hoped, that girl-to-girl way I had with Vera. There was still something mysterious about Gwen that I couldn’t fathom.

  Then, at long last, she invited me to tea. I felt curiously nervous as I arrived at the large Victorian house on the other side of Westbury and rang the bell for the top floor flat, as instructed.

  The Gwen who answered the door was very different from the one I knew at the mill. In a flowery shirt and casual, even stylish, slacks, her curls freed from the severe turban she always wore at work, she seemed relaxed and softer, more feminine.

  “I’m afraid it’s three flights,” she said, leading the way. “My flat’s in the old servants’ quarters.”

  As we reached the top of the stairs and she opened the door, a delicious smell of baking wafted out. “Mmm. What’s cooking, Gwen?” I asked. “It’s making my mouth water.”

  “I’ve made scones, but they’re not quite ready yet. Come in.”

  The sloped ceilings of her little attic flat were so low I had to stoop my head. None of the furniture matched, and it had a comfortable, lived-in atmosphere.

  “It’s so homely,” I said. “How long have you lived here?”

  “Six years or so. Ever since I came to Westbury,” she said. “Have a seat.”

  “So what brought you here?” I asked. “You never did tell me.”

  “It’s a long story,” she sighed.

  “You know almost everything about my family,” I said. “And I know almost nothing about yours. It’s only fair.”

  “How long have you got?”

  “Until the scones are ready.”

  “Then it’ll be the edited version,” she said, settling comfortably into the sofa. She seemed so much gentler and warmer at home, somehow more vulnerable. With her back to the window, the sunlight blazed through her curls like a ginger halo, and she looked almost beautiful.

  “My family are—were—a bit unusual,” she started with uncharacteristic hesitancy, and I found myself feeling mildly uneasy. What was she about to reveal, I wondered?

  “Grandfather was a wealthy man, a silk merchant, and my father went into the business with him,” she went on. “He got pretty rich playing the stock market. He was clever and successful, but he wasn’t really happy. He’d always wanted to be an artist, so he took up art classes and fell in love with his tutor—my mother.”

  “Throwing over the traces? I like him already.”

  “His parents opposed it, of course, but they married anyway and over the next few years he redeemed himself by making a fortune on the stock exchange. But then he defied them again. Quite suddenly, he threw in the towel and resigned from the company, sold some of his shares, and bought a big rambling old house in Essex. Said he wanted to dedicate his life to art and love. That’s when Grandfather officially disowned him. And that’s where I was born.”

  “Wow,” I said, “what a romantic character.”

  “You could call it that.” She sighed. “He was certainly a charmer, very clever but totally feckless. When I was in my second year of textile design, the stock market crashed and he lost all his—well, our—money. I had to leave art school and get a job as a waitress to support them. Over the next two or three years, he became more and more miserable and took to the bottle.” She paused again, distractedly twisting a curl in her finger, looking at something beyond me, beyond the walls of the attic room.

  “Drink’s a devil, Lily,” she said after a moment. I winced at the memory of what had happened in the punt, when I’d drunk too much.

  “It gets people in its grip and sucks out their souls,” she said fiercely. “In the end, he was drunk most of the time, and Mother threw him out of the house. We haven’t heard from him since.” She glanced out of the window, as if he might just appear in view.

  Best not to ask any more about him, I thought. “You poor things. Where’s your mother now?”

  “She sold the house and rents a place near her sister in Dorset. I send checks when I can. We were penniless, literally, but Grandfather took pity on us and offered to try to find me a job. He introduced me to Harold—they knew each other through the Weavers’ Company. I went to see him at Cheapside and he offered me a job in the design room, here in Westbury.”

  “A designer? So how come you ended up a weaver?”

  “To be a designer, you need to know about weaving and the rest of the process, and I knew precious little. So Harold put me on a weaver’s apprenticeship and I loved it. Loved the silk and the grease and the looms. Never looked back, thanks to him.”

  “And look at you now, assistant factory manager.”

  “I’m lucky. I still enjoy it, even after six years.”

  “What happened to the art, though? Where are your masterpieces?” I gestured round the room.

  “It’s difficult to hang anything on these sloping walls,” she said in an offhand way.

  The smell of baking wafted mouthwateringly on the air. “Hang on a tick, I think those scones are done.” She leaped to her feet and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Would you show them to me?” I shouted. She didn’t reply, so when she came back I repeated the question. She put the plate of scones on the table, with butter and raspberry jam.

  “Have one while they’re still warm,” she said, pouring more tea.

  “Thanks, they look delicious.” We helped ourselves and ate and talked about things at work for a while, and then I remembered. “Really. I do want to see them, your paintings.”

  “I don’t show them to anyone, Lily.”

  “We’re friends, aren’t we? That’s what friends are for.” I mistook her reluctance for false modesty. “I’m not just being polite.”

  “I’m flattered,” she said, “but they’re life drawings, you know? Nudes. A bit personal. You might be shocked.”

  “Try me,” I said breezily, picturing the Rubens I’d seen in the Royal Academy. “I’m unshockable.” How little I knew.

  “You’re very persistent,” she sighed, putting down her plate. She leaned behind the sofa to pull out a large cardboard portfolio and laid it on the hearthrug between us. Then she kneeled on the floor and I sat down beside her, now apprehensive about what she might be about to reveal. She untied the pink ribbons at either side of the portfolio. Then, as she turned the cardboard cover and the blank first page, it took all my self-control not to gasp with astonishment.

  It was a drawing, in fluid and uncompromising charcoal lines, of a naked woman reclining sensuously on her back, with one knee bent and her arms relaxed above her head. The face was not fully drawn, but dark smudges around the eyes conveyed the same intensity I’d often seen in Gwen’s. White chalk highlighted strong feminine curves
, and dark bushes of underarm and pubic hair were fiercely scribbled in black.

  I could feel myself blushing and Gwen’s eyes on me, watching my face.

  “She’s very beautiful. Was she one of your models at art school?” I fumbled uncertainly.

  “Not exactly.”

  I hardly dared ask. “Someone you knew?”

  “Yes, she was a friend.”

  “Why ‘was’? Have you had a row?”

  “Not really.” She paused again and knelt back on her heels, brushing her fingers through her hair, still looking at the drawing. To ease the awkwardness, I said, “Would you rather not talk about her?”

  “It feels like a long time ago now,” she said flatly. “She was a fellow student in London. When I moved here it was impossible, just seeing her at weekends, all that pretense. It just fell apart.”

  “Poor you. It’s horrid when you argue with friends.”

  She looked at me, oddly. “We weren’t just friends, Lily,” she said in a quiet voice, leaning back against the sofa, uncrossing then recrossing her legs. “Look, can I tell you something in confidence?”

  “Of course,” I said, fearful of what she was going to say.

  “There’s something you need to know about me.” I felt like a leaf being reluctantly and inexorably drawn into a whirlpool. There was no going back.

  “She was my lover.”

  Her lover? I tried to take in what she’d said. “You loved her?”

  “We were lovers,” she said, to make sure I really understood.

  Lovers. It meant they did “it.” They were the real thing.

  My face burned, and my mind went blank. The air felt hot and heavy, compressed by the low ceilings. My brain skittered around the implication of the word and I had absolutely no idea how to respond.

  “Oh my goodness. I knew you weren’t married, but…” I pointed to her ringless finger, desperate not to sound shocked or blurt out something hurtful or stupid.

  She turned back to the portfolio, pensively turning the loose leaves of heavy cartridge paper. Now there was nothing left to conceal. All the drawings were of the same woman; dressed and undressed, head and shoulder portraits, laughing, serious, coquettish. They felt so intimate, almost as if it were Gwen revealing herself.