KENT, 2010
The sickly sweetness of the tiny white flowers overwhelmed Kathryn as she snipped away at the star jasmine and fought the desire to sneeze. She was clearing a view out of the pagoda so that they could see across the length of the garden and up to the house. The old wooden structure was totally overgrown and had fallen into disrepair, and with no one around to fix it, Eleanor had stopped coming down here.
‘See, isn’t that better?’ Kathryn said as she stood back, admiring the view through the newly created window and down the hillside to the orchards.
Eleanor was sitting on a bench at the ornamental table, camel coat buttoned up to her chin and tartan blanket spread across her lap, sipping tea as she took in the vista. To the left, fields undulated away to ancient woodlands; orchards and hills dominated the central landscape; while on the right, hop farms gave way to the spires and chimneys of the market town of Tonbridge in the distance.
‘I can see you haven’t lost your green fingers,’ Eleanor said, casting Kathryn a look.
‘Green thumbs—that’s what you say in Australia.’
‘How strange,’ Eleanor said, looking thoughtful. ‘Can’t see how your thumb is more important than your fingers.’
‘I know. It’s just one of those terms that you have to get used to, like “chips” instead of “crisps”.’
Kathryn had got used to lots of things, and Australian native plants were one of them, she thought as she carried on pruning. It had taken her a while to get used to the spiky shrubs and grasses, but now she really liked their structural forms and had evolved her design work to include native gardens if her clients asked for this.
‘You know, you could come and visit us, Gran,’ she said. ‘You could cruise over on one of the big P & O liners, like you and Grand-pops used to.’
‘I don’t think I’ve got it in me, Katie.’
‘Really? I don’t know about that.’
She was convinced that her grandmother wasn’t as vulnerable as she’d first appeared. For now she was testing her theory by getting her outdoors; the next step would be a trip to the local village of Pembury.
‘See, we’ll have this place back to new in no time,’ she said, rearranging the chairs around the cast-iron table.
She had washed down the furniture but now more rust than white paint was visible, and the pagoda itself was in need of proper repair. Chris would have to get the hammer and nails out on their next trip—
It was revealing how her thoughts of the future had changed over the past few days, from doing things on her own to doing them with her husband. Maybe Helen’s vision board was working after all, or perhaps it was just the time away that had helped.
The sun was slanting through the trees, the crisp air filled with the song of sandpipers and common snipes. Kathryn sat down and drained the remnants of her coffee, watching the delicate movements of a snipe as it hopped from table to branch and back again, eyeing their breakfast keenly.
But while the clear sunrise and cloudless sky promised a beautiful day, Kathryn’s mood was confused. She would be back home in forty-eight hours, and although she had learned so much about her gran and herself on this trip, she hadn’t been able to keep the promise she’d made six days ago: I’ll find out what happened to him.
Eleanor was gazing into the distance, and Kathryn followed her line of sight to where the fence emerged from the orchard, running up the crest of the hill and disappearing over the other side. The trees were lush, the kind she never got tired of looking at, always a new shape or leaf colour to notice, a new texture to inspire her. It was no wonder that so many artists took their cues from nature.
The snipe hopped onto the table, grasped a large crumb in its beak and bobbed its head from side to side as if listening. It reminded Kathryn of Eleanor the night before when they had Skyped with Oliver and Chris.
‘So, I’ll just sit here and not press a thing,’ Eleanor had said plaintively.
‘Yes, that’s right. Just look into the camera and that’s what they can see,’ Kathryn reminded her.
‘I’m sure I must look a lot younger from here, don’t you think, dear?’
‘I’m sure you will, Gran. Oli might not be able to tell us apart.’ Kathryn clicked on the video icon.
‘You’re too kind.’
‘Hold on, it’s ringing now.’
The black screen flickered and Oliver’s image appeared, bleary-eyed with hair in tufts.
‘Hello, sleepy head,’ Kathryn said over Eleanor’s shoulder. ‘Look who’s here to talk to you.’
‘Granny!’
‘Hello, Oliver. What a treat, I get to see you again!’
‘I know—see, you are going to need a computer now. Mummy can get one for you before she leaves.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Eleanor said, then changed the subject. ‘Have you done your piano practice?’
His grin turned cheeky. ‘Yes…’
‘Who’s that?’ Chris’s voice sounded in the background. ‘Who are you talking to?’
‘It’s Mummy.’
‘It can’t be, Mummy’s on her way…Eleanor, it is you,’ he said surprised. ‘Where’s Kathryn?’
‘I’m here.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to be on your way home?’ His tone was accusatory.
‘Tomorrow, I just extended it by one day. I’ll come straight to the concert when I land,’ she said and waited for his reaction.
A pause. ‘You look well, Eleanor. Looking after you, is she?’ Chris asked with a restrained smile.
Eleanor had dressed for the occasion as though she was going out: silk floral blouse, pearl strand and a stab of pink lipstick.
‘Oh yes, very well, thank you,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, you can have her back soon.’
Kathryn hadn’t wanted to ask Eleanor about the paintings until she found the right time, but Oliver brought it up.
‘The pictures aren’t by the same person, Mummy!’ he blurted out.
The colour drained from Eleanor’s face.
‘How do you know, Oli?’ Kathryn asked.
‘The same as last time—I just played spot the difference.’
There was some scrabbling around and then he held up printouts of two pictures. ‘This one’s Fire Drill at a School and this is Children in the Attic.’
‘What can you tell me about them, Oli?’ Kathryn asked. ‘How do you know really that they’re not by the same artist?’
He held them closer, squinting. ‘They just look different to me. Why does it matter?’
‘It doesn’t matter right now, but I think you’re right.’
They spent the rest of the call doing a run-through on the piano of Für Elise, Oliver’s concert piece, and then chatted about how the Nautilus project was going, but Eleanor said very little.
‘Are you okay, Gran?’ Kathryn asked when the call ended.
‘I’m fine,’ she said tearfully. ‘It’s just seeing Oliver. He’s growing up so fast.’
Kathryn was sure that this wasn’t the real reason, but she hadn’t pressed the issue last night. Eleanor had gone to bed and Kathryn had called Chris back and persuaded him to support her decision to stay when she explained all that had happened. Then she had looked at the images again. There was little doubt in her mind.
‘Gran,’ she said now, her voice soft and forgiving, as they sat together in the brilliant morning light, ‘it’s your picture, isn’t it?’
Eleanor wiped her eyes. She seemed to steel herself before she nodded. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. Jack substituted the picture for one of his. I didn’t know about it at the time but when I found out I suspected that it might have caused problems for us. That perhaps it was why the committee was so reluctant to help me find him.’
Kathryn felt a surge of anger. Why hadn’t Eleanor simply told her this in the beginning? Why had she then lied about it? But she didn’t know how to ask her these questions.
‘Surely your history with the WAAC must have counted for something?’ Kathryn said. ‘And weren’t they set up partly to support artists like Jack and their families?’
‘Yes, I’m sure the committee would have helped under normal circumstances, dear, but apparently they were furious with Jack for substituting the picture.’ Eleanor spoke forcefully, as if the memory had brought back the frustrations of her own search all those years ago. ‘It called their reputation and credibility into question. Imagine it—if one war artist was discovered representing work that wasn’t theirs, who was to say how many others were doing it?’ Eleanor shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘There was concern about how it would damage the WAAC at home and their standing around the world. Sir Robert would never let that happen.’
Her figure suddenly looked tiny in the seat, and Kathryn detected what seemed to be a look of relief flickering across her face.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Eleanor said. ‘Was that really enough to have them disassociate themselves from Jack?’ She sighed. ‘I have asked myself that a hundred times and I can’t find any other explanation.’
Kathryn followed the path of the snipe as it took off and soared overhead. Were the insecurities of a past generation really to blame for Jack vanishing from Eleanor’s life?
‘Is there anything else, Gran, no matter how small?’
Eleanor watched the bird too as it wheeled into the adjoining field and made a sudden descent. The sun was warming, and Eleanor threw the blanket off her lap and reached out for Kathryn to help her up. They walked a few steps towards the wood, looking out at the tangle of heather at the bottom of the lawn and the symphony of bees hovering around it.
‘Just before Jack left,’ Eleanor said, ‘in September 1942, I went to his studio. He had been quite prolific in those few weeks he was back: there were lots of paintings he had worked up from his sketches, a few oils too. But there were also some larger paintings, not his usual style. Dramatic battle scenes, the type of thing he didn’t usually go in for,’ she said, looking at Kathryn.
‘Go on…’
‘Well, when I asked him about them, he said they were private commissions for the officers he served with. I knew he needed the money for his mother’s treatment so I didn’t think any less of him for it. But after they never reached the gallery, there was some talk. You see, when you were under contract with the WAAC, everything you painted technically belonged to them. He wouldn’t have been allowed to sell them privately.’
‘I remember—there were salaried artists, short commissions and purchased artworks.’ Kathryn had learned as much from her conversations with Alexander, and that the temperament of the artist dictated what contract they were offered.
‘Yes. You see, it was considered rather poor form to be moonlighting. Jack’s reputation wasn’t the same after that. I always believed that was another reason why there was so little assistance when I tried to find him. I felt as though the committee had turned their back on me, excluded me because they blamed me for that too.’
Kathryn recollected one of Jack’s entries in the 1943 diary about a colonel pressuring him to paint a private commission. It sounded like a reasonable enough explanation for why Kathryn had found less in the archives about Jack than the other war artists, and why Stephen had been so reluctant to talk about him. Did he know about this and believe that Jack had been disgraced?
‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?’ she asked her grandmother.
‘I suppose I didn’t really think it was important, until now.’
Kathryn tried to piece together the fragments Eleanor had just shared with what she already knew. ‘I suppose it explains why there’s not so much about him in the official records. But it still doesn’t really explain why you couldn’t find him at the end of the war.’
‘I told you, he lost his studio, and I never got to meet his mother or his sister before he went away. His orders came and a few days later he left. I tried to find his family eventually, of course, but they had moved.’ Eleanor shook her head. ‘I didn’t know what had become of him. I always assumed he was captured. They were confusing times, Kathryn. I’d hoped that even POWs got to write home, but sadly not. And artists in London were getting arrested for being spies. There was no trust.’
The word ‘trust’ felt loaded, but it had opened the door, and so she felt entitled to ask. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about any of this before, Gran? Don’t you see how important it could have been?’
Eleanor looked unrepentant. ‘Because, my dear, I didn’t want to have to. I wanted Jack to tell you.’
But it was too late for that. Kathryn’s stomach tightened again at the thought of leaving Eleanor without keeping her promise.
She watched her grandmother gaze out at the garden, wondering what secrets still lay locked behind those hazel eyes. What it was that had really happened between her and Jack Valante all those years ago. It looked as if Kathryn would never know now, but she only had one more afternoon to spend with Eleanor and she wanted to make it count.