force which drives us all along? Perhaps we have a female group identity, as black-beetles do?’
‘No,’ says Chloe.
‘Do you remember those sanitary towels we used to have? Made of paper which shredded when you walked?’
‘I’d rather not remember.’
‘Do you know what today is?’ Marjorie persists. Chloe walks with her towards the Television Centre, past the rampant infertility of Shepherd’s Bush Green, down towards White City. Their nostrils are filled with diesel fumes.
‘No,’ says Chloe. ‘What is today?’
Ah, today.
Today Chloe’s children—hers by virtue of blood, or obsession or love—mark out a badminton court on an English lawn. They are well fed: they do not have hookworm, trachoma, or TB. Through the television screen they have become acquainted with the concept of violence in all its forms: the nearest they get to its reality is a bomb hoax at school, or a crashed car seen in passing on the motorway. They show little astonishment at their good fortune.
Yet at their births, who would ever have predicted so good a future for them? And they show little understanding of Chloe’s sacrifice in bringing them to this good end—if sacrifice it is, for do we not all do what ultimately we want?
So Oliver assures Chloe, when she complains about the burden of the children. And who pays, he asks? Not you, but me. Yes, thinks Chloe in her heart, but your money is easily earned. I pay with my time and energy, my life itself. Children take the mother’s strength, grow strong as she grows weak.
Inigo and Imogen. Kevin, and Kestrel, and Stanhope. Poor Stanhope.
Today Chloe lunches with Marjorie. And afterwards, Chloe will go to visit Grace. Who would have thought, after all that happened, that they would ever consent again to enjoy each other’s company?
Today Esther Songford is dead. Five bungalows stand where once the roses grew, not to mention the onions and the cabbages. A builder has bought The Poplars. He uses it as a storeroom for his materials, and waits for it to fall down so he can have planning permission to build luxury flats on the site. The motorway is coming. The chalkpit has been filled in; where Mad Doll’s boys once struggled for their lives, and lost, the slip road runs.
Today Mr Songford lives in an Old People’s Home in Bournemouth. Grace seldom visits him.
Today Patrick’s canvases fetch from £750 (for the larger works) to £2,000 (for the tiniest). He paints women making love, giving birth, dying, dead, emerging dimly from an overwhelming wealth of domestic detail.
Chloe shows Patrick Bates her father’s paintings, those near miniatures in 1947. He comes to the room behind the Rose and Crown to inspect them, one night at ten-thirty, while Gwyneth is still washing-up glasses. Chloe lies on her front on the floor, searching beneath her mother’s bed, amongst the cases and crates, for the canvas roll. She finds them right at the back, pushed against the wall. By then she is almost completely under the bed, except for her seventeen-year-old legs.
The floor is so clean that Chloe’s check dress is not even made dusty. Had Gwyneth been of a more sluttish disposition, Chloe might have given up the search earlier, and Patrick never seen her father’s paintings, or Chloe’s smooth stretched legs, for that matter.
Thus our destinies are made, for good or ill. Inigo, Imogen, Kevin, Kestrel, Stanhope: linking back to brave David Evans, sitting exhausted in a hospital bed. waiting for the taste of blood in his mouth, covering his tiny canvases with scrupulous care—obsession mingling with optimism. Courage is not in vain; the painful wresting of beauty out of ugliness is not wasted. Believe it to be forgotten, worthless, buried deep and rotting under clods of earth, yet it creeps out somehow, raises its storms of life and energy.
Patrick stares at David Evans’ paintings and seems stunned.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Very interesting.’
He looks again.
‘Well, well,’
‘No,’ says Chloe.
‘Do you remember those sanitary towels we used to have? Made of paper which shredded when you walked?’
‘I’d rather not remember.’
‘Do you know what today is?’ Marjorie persists. Chloe walks with her towards the Television Centre, past the rampant infertility of Shepherd’s Bush Green, down towards White City. Their nostrils are filled with diesel fumes.
‘No,’ says Chloe. ‘What is today?’
Ah, today.
Today Chloe’s children—hers by virtue of blood, or obsession or love—mark out a badminton court on an English lawn. They are well fed: they do not have hookworm, trachoma, or TB. Through the television screen they have become acquainted with the concept of violence in all its forms: the nearest they get to its reality is a bomb hoax at school, or a crashed car seen in passing on the motorway. They show little astonishment at their good fortune.
Yet at their births, who would ever have predicted so good a future for them? And they show little understanding of Chloe’s sacrifice in bringing them to this good end—if sacrifice it is, for do we not all do what ultimately we want?
So Oliver assures Chloe, when she complains about the burden of the children. And who pays, he asks? Not you, but me. Yes, thinks Chloe in her heart, but your money is easily earned. I pay with my time and energy, my life itself. Children take the mother’s strength, grow strong as she grows weak.
Inigo and Imogen. Kevin, and Kestrel, and Stanhope. Poor Stanhope.
Today Chloe lunches with Marjorie. And afterwards, Chloe will go to visit Grace. Who would have thought, after all that happened, that they would ever consent again to enjoy each other’s company?
Today Esther Songford is dead. Five bungalows stand where once the roses grew, not to mention the onions and the cabbages. A builder has bought The Poplars. He uses it as a storeroom for his materials, and waits for it to fall down so he can have planning permission to build luxury flats on the site. The motorway is coming. The chalkpit has been filled in; where Mad Doll’s boys once struggled for their lives, and lost, the slip road runs.
Today Mr Songford lives in an Old People’s Home in Bournemouth. Grace seldom visits him.
Today Patrick’s canvases fetch from £750 (for the larger works) to £2,000 (for the tiniest). He paints women making love, giving birth, dying, dead, emerging dimly from an overwhelming wealth of domestic detail.
Chloe shows Patrick Bates her father’s paintings, those near miniatures in 1947. He comes to the room behind the Rose and Crown to inspect them, one night at ten-thirty, while Gwyneth is still washing-up glasses. Chloe lies on her front on the floor, searching beneath her mother’s bed, amongst the cases and crates, for the canvas roll. She finds them right at the back, pushed against the wall. By then she is almost completely under the bed, except for her seventeen-year-old legs.
The floor is so clean that Chloe’s check dress is not even made dusty. Had Gwyneth been of a more sluttish disposition, Chloe might have given up the search earlier, and Patrick never seen her father’s paintings, or Chloe’s smooth stretched legs, for that matter.
Thus our destinies are made, for good or ill. Inigo, Imogen, Kevin, Kestrel, Stanhope: linking back to brave David Evans, sitting exhausted in a hospital bed. waiting for the taste of blood in his mouth, covering his tiny canvases with scrupulous care—obsession mingling with optimism. Courage is not in vain; the painful wresting of beauty out of ugliness is not wasted. Believe it to be forgotten, worthless, buried deep and rotting under clods of earth, yet it creeps out somehow, raises its storms of life and energy.
Patrick stares at David Evans’ paintings and seems stunned.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Very interesting.’
He looks again.
‘Well, well,’
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