A Cornish Orphan, page 26
His first sketches were inspired by the way the huge rocks framed bits of the distant landscape. There was something bold and rebellious about the massive, wind-sculpted granite, the way it dominated, making the cottages and the tin mines, the trees and squares of field look so tiny, like toys. He longed for a paint box. Then he could paint the delicate misty blues of the landscape captured in glimpses between the dark powerful rock shapes.
There must be a beach nearby, where tourists went. Portreath, he remembered. In a few days he’d go there, where nobody knew him, and try to sell his drawings. He turned the sketch pad over and began to practise signing his name with a flourish: Matt Lanroska.
His first paper money would buy him a paint box and a hat to shade his eyes while he was working, and a sizzling hot Cornish pasty. All he needed now was a beard, he thought, stroking the down that was beginning to grow on his chin.
Seeing the Red Cross Ambulance turning in to the gates of Hendravean, bringing Jenny home, was an intensely emotional moment. Lottie stood back, waiting on the doorstep with Nan, letting Tom go out there first. He’d picked a bunch of marigolds, lavender and montbretia and Nan helped him arrange it into a beautiful posy, tied with an orange satin ribbon. ‘I just know he’s going to drop it,’ Nan said, but she let Tom take it out. ‘Don’t rush at your mum,’ she warned. ‘You might knock her over. She’s very precarious.’
The ambulance came to a halt and Tom hopped from one foot to the other while two confident Red Cross ladies opened the doors, put a ramp there, and wheeled Jenny out in a chair. ‘A wise move,’ Nan said. Lottie held her hand tightly, a lump in her throat as she caught the first glimpse of Jenny. Tom’s heartfelt cry of ‘Mum!’ was something she’d never forget. Jenny held out her arms to catch Tom as he hurtled towards her and the flowers went flying. The Red Cross lady picked them up and shook them back into shape, then stood, misty-eyed, watching the reunion. Tom clung to Jenny and she leaned her cheek against his hair, patting his back and whispering to him. The seagulls marked the occasion by circling over Hendravean, their orange beaks filling the sky with wild spirals of music.
Lottie fidgeted. She looked up at Nan standing so solid and reliable. ‘Go on – you go!’ Nan said, but Lottie felt suddenly desolate and lost. Jenny’s not my real mum, she thought. I wish my real mum would stop living in America and come to find me. I’d hug her the way Tom is hugging Jenny. I wish I knew who my real father was. I’d love him too, and we’d read stories together and go to the beach.
But Jenny was Jenny, and Lottie felt a bond with her, so she skipped over to her, glad to be part of the welcoming hug. Tom looked at her with sleepy eyes, dreamy and content, the way he used to be.
‘Lottie!’ Jenny gazed at her. ‘You’ve grown – quite a young lady now, aren’t you? How I’ve missed you.’
The three of them hugged, Tom on one side, Lottie on the other, all silently aware of the empty space where Matt should have been.
‘Can’t you walk, Mum?’ Tom asked.
‘I can, a bit. I’ve got to practise every day.’
‘We’ll lend you the chair,’ the Red Cross lady said, pushing Jenny towards the house, ‘until you don’t need it any more.’
Nan looked pale, her jaw set tight as if she found this moment difficult. She and Jenny smiled at each other, and the smiles were like book covers, hiding the pages of love and hate, laughter and regret.
When the ambulance had gone, they sat around Nan’s kitchen table, sharing mugs of tea and gingerbread. Jenny fished into the big carpetbag she’d brought with her. Balls of bright wool and knitting needles tumbled out. ‘I’ve been busy,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t do much but I made a little present for each of you. Here’s yours, Tom.’ She handed him a brown paper bag.
Tom’s eyes shone. He pulled out a hand-knitted beanie hat with the Cornish flag of St Piran embroidered on the front. He put it on immediately. ‘It’s warm.’
‘When you wear it, remember I knitted it, and every strand of wool passed through my fingers and picked up the love I’ve got for you,’ Jenny said. ‘I even said some prayers for you and knitted them in. You can’t see them, but they’re in there – for always.’
Tom looked impressed, and so did Nan. Jenny took out another paper bag, bigger, with something knobbly inside. ‘This is for you, Lottie. It took me ages to make – but it’s got love and prayers knitted into it too. I’ll bet you can’t guess what it is!’
Lottie felt the shape inside the paper bag. ‘I don’t know what it can possibly be,’ she said, intrigued. She opened the bag, peeped in and gasped in surprise. Out came a beautifully knitted donkey in soft greys and browns, like Mufty. It had two shiny black beads for eyes, with clever white stitching around them. It had a dark dorsal stripe down its back and a tassel for a tail. Jenny had made a bridle from scarlet wool and had even managed to stitch the name, MUFTY, on the browband. It had a tiny bell, and brightly coloured flowers along the reins.
‘Oh, Jenny!’ Lottie was overwhelmed. ‘I can’t believe you made this. It’s wonderful.’
Nan’s eyes sparkled with interest. ‘It’s exquisite. Well done.’ Praise indeed from Nan.
Jenny looked pleased. ‘He’s got pipecleaners inside his legs so you can bend them. You can stand him up or sit him down.’
‘I LOVE him,’ Lottie said. ‘I’ll keep him forever; even when I’m an old lady, I’ll still have him.’
‘Now yours, Nan.’ Jenny handed a bigger, fatter paper bag to Nan.
Nan looked moved. ‘I’m too old for presents . . . but it’s very kind of you.’ The paper crackled and she drew out a plump knitted tea cosy with an embroidered cat on each side, with their names neatly stitched. BESSIE and BARTHOLOMEW. ‘How lovely!’ Nan said, and she fitted it over the brown teapot.
‘I didn’t know you were so clever, Mum,’ Tom said, wide-eyed.
‘That’s ’cause I was always washing and cooking,’ Jenny said. ‘When you’re ill, like I was, you can do all sorts of wonderful things.’ Her happy face went sad again, and she took one more present out of the bag and put it on the table. It had a name on it. MATT.
Everyone looked at it in silence.
‘Is it a hat like mine?’ Tom said at last.
Jenny nodded.
‘And did you knit prayers and love into it?’
She nodded.
‘Don’t cry, Jenny.’ Lottie noticed the tears brimming and she walked round the table, the model donkey in her hand, to give Jenny a cuddle.
‘What are we gonna do?’ Jenny whispered, looking round at the concerned eyes. ‘Matt said . . . he said . . .’ She paused and took a deep, shuddering breath.
‘Said what? You can tell us, Jenny.’ Lottie held on to her tightly.
‘He said he was gonna make a life of his own. He said he was never coming back,’ Jenny wept, and suddenly her lovely gifts looked too bright, almost mockingly bright. ‘I mean – he’s only thirteen, coming up fourteen. How can he live on his own? Where’s he gonna sleep?’
‘Matt’s clever,’ Lottie said. ‘He’s a good survivor.’
‘Living rough is all very well in this weather,’ Jenny wailed, ‘but what’ll he do when the storms come in? Where can he shelter? What’s he gonna eat?’
Tom and Lottie looked at each other in a silent pact. But Jenny knew.
‘He’ll go thieving,’ she said, ‘and then he’ll get in trouble. If the police catch him stealing – they’ll send him to a Borstal.’
Nan opened her mouth and shut it again, biting back her version of how Matt would get his come-uppance.
‘What’s a Borstal?’ Lottie asked.
‘It’s a terrible, terrible place. It’s for bad boys, and it’s worse than an orphanage,’ Jenny said.
Tom looked at her. ‘Matt thinks you don’t love him.’
Jenny looked horrified. ‘Oh – but I do. I DO. I just . . . always seem to get it wrong with Matt. Oh, what are we gonna do? How can we get him back?’
Nan broke her silence. ‘We can’t. The only strong thing to do is to let go. Let him go – and one day he’ll come home, Jenny. Believe me – to possess is to set free.’
Matt was on his way to Portreath a few days later. He travelled early in the morning, on foot, his precious sketch pad half full of his drawings of the Carn Brea. He’d run out of food but he didn’t intend to steal in Portreath but use the money he hoped to make by selling his drawings. In Portreath he’d be a respectable Cornish artist. So as he walked past South Crofty tin mine, he again followed a baker’s delivery cart and pinched saffron bread and doorstep milk. No one challenged him. His luck held, and he felt jubilant as he walked towards the sea along the bright green banks of a stream, seeing tiny blue butterflies and turquoise dragonflies.
What he wanted, more than anything, was to go in the sea and come out refreshed and clean. The beach was quiet in the early morning and a group of seals were sunning themselves on the shoreline. Away to the right was a harbour, hidden behind a substantial granite pier. Matt walked along the beach, picking up unusual pebbles of banded agate, and gazing up at the high, dark cliffs. A steep rocky island loomed beyond the shore, white with seagulls, gannets and guillemots. At the far end of the sandy beach was a spectacular sea cave, open at both ends, with cool green rock pools and fragmented views of the surf. Obviously at high tide the waves would come surging through it. Portreath was full of pictures just waiting to be drawn.
Matt had endured the humdrum, frugal regime of the orphanage by letting his mind detach and dream. He’d dreamed of the moment when he would dive into the sparkles between waves and let the incoming surf pound his body with thousands of salty bubbles and sinuous curls of emerald water.
Leaving his clothes and haversack high up on a rocky ledge, Matt splashed through the sea cave and plunged into the surf. He swam out, beyond the waves, and floated blissfully on the swell, his face to the sun. A seal came close and looked at him with limpid, dark eyes. It gave him an idea. He swam with it, underwater, rolling and twisting, looping over and under each other, the seal’s face coming close to look at him, playing and responding like a dog, its huge, appealing eyes seeming to communicate with him. They sent each other peaceful thoughts. Matt knew seals sometimes attacked and bit people, but he felt totally at ease with this wild creature. They didn’t try to touch each other but there was a closeness and a tingle between them.
He emerged from the sea feeling reborn, aware of the seal’s mysterious, motherly face watching him from the shimmering water.
A glaze of salt covered his skin as it dried in the sunshine, and the hot sand filled the spaces between his toes. Matt felt confident as he pulled his clothes on, knowing he was clean, and his hair would dry tousled and shiny. Tourists were strolling up the beach now. It was time to start drawing. A friend doesn’t have to be human, Matt thought, and using the thick, dark 2B pencil, he began to draw swirly pictures of seals on the wet sand.
A man and a woman stood behind him, edging closer, watching the picture appearing on the creamy white paper. Matt had learned to draw fast, in swift, bold strokes. His first few pictures had been tight and fussy. Girlish. While he was drawing now, he felt strong and bold. Totally absorbed, he jumped when the man spoke to him.
‘That’s a beautiful drawing. Would you sell it?’
‘D’reckly.’
The woman laughed pleasantly. ‘Ah – you’re a Cornish artist.’
‘Yes.’ Matt went on shading the seal’s underbelly.
‘How much would you want for it?’ she asked. ‘I’d like it so much.’
Matt was going to say two pounds, but the seal looked back at him from the paper. Like a wise woman. Be careful what you say. Matt signed his name with a flourish. ‘Make me an offer,’ he said, feeling very daring. His heart began to race. What if she suspected he was a schoolboy on the run?
There was a pause, and a rustle of paper money.
‘Would you take five pounds for it?’ The man held out five crisp new pound notes.
Matt pretended to be unimpressed. ‘Yes – yes, I will.’ He peeled the sketch away from the pad and handed it to him, without smiling.
‘Oh, how wonderful – thank you,’ the woman said, warmly. ‘And good luck with your work, young man. You’re going to be a top artist one of these days.’
They walked away with his picture of the seal, leaving Matt sitting on the sand, round-eyed as he stared at the five pounds. FIVE WHOLE POUNDS. In his hand.
The euphoria froze in his mind like ice. The years of learning not to trust happiness gathered around him on the sand. He’d sold his best picture. He wanted it back. He could have given it to Lottie. Eventually. When he went home, if he ever did.
Another feeling taunted him. He had no one to share his success. No one he could run to and say, ‘I sold my first picture for FIVE POUNDS.’
Freedom was glorious, and cold as ice.
‘I could have a baby now if I wanted,’ boasted Morwenna as the two girls strolled along Porthmeor Beach.
Lottie gave her a candid stare. ‘How come?’
Morwenna’s eyes gleamed. She lowered her voice. ‘’Cause I started my periods. I’m a woman now.’
Lottie went quiet. She’d noticed her friend’s breasts and the way she flaunted them. It was confusing. In the orphanage, the girls had been collectively told about periods in a passionless, military style by Miss Poltair who looked as if her breasts were made of concrete. The big girls whispered horror stories to the younger ones about the 2Bs – bleeding and bellyache – and how terrible it was.
‘Haven’t you started yet?’ Morwenna asked.
‘No, and I don’t want to either.’
‘Don’t be daft – course you do.’
But Lottie shook her head, suddenly feeling vulnerable in Morwenna’s assured presence.
‘Why not? You’re so quaint, Lottie. Don’t you want to grow up?’
‘Not yet.’
‘But why?’
Lottie sighed. She knew Morwenna would peck and peck at her like a bird until she got an answer. ‘Growing up has got nothing to do with periods,’ she said.
‘Yes, it has.’
‘No, it hasn’t.’
‘It has.’
‘It HAS NOT.’
The two friends came close to falling out and Lottie didn’t want that to happen. She towed Morwenna up the beach past the row of little tents used by the tourists. She sat down in the warm, dry sand. ‘I’ll explain it to you, but only because you’re my best friend. But you’ve got to promise to keep it a secret.’
‘Promise. Cross my heart.’
Lottie scooped a handful of sand, letting it trickle through her fingers. ‘I never thought I would grow up without my mother, my real mother, not Jenny. I want to find my mother while I’ve still got some childhood left.’
‘I get that, Lottie. But how can you find her? The world is so big.’
‘My mother went to America. So that’s where I shall go to look for her.’
‘You can’t go to America!’
‘I can.’
‘How?’
‘I shall stow away on a ship. That’s how I came to St Ives. But this time, I shall be very organised. I shall take a map, and a picnic, and some money, and some envelopes and stamps so that I can write and tell Jenny where I am, and tell her I still love her. Jenny’s had enough upsets in her life.’
‘What about your father?’
Lottie shrugged. ‘I don’t remember him. He was never there. My gran told me he was working far away in another country. I wish I knew where he was and if he ever thinks about me.’ Lottie stared into Morwenna’s concerned eyes, finding it comforting to share her secret pain with her friend.
‘But you CAN’T go to America,’ insisted Morwenna. ‘You’re my best friend and I only just got you back.’
‘It’s a dream,’ Lottie said, staring at the flare path of the sunset over the water. Somewhere out there was America. ‘But dreams can come true – if you make them come true.’
Chapter 22
A Telegram
On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in New York, Coraline was busy preparing the Rex and Coraline Gallery for its morning opening time. She swirled around, dusting frames and polishing glass, arranging the table and chair where she would spend her morning, making sure she had a tall glass of water, pen and paper, and a few art reference books. She took the Visitors’ Book from its drawer and laid it out at the other end of the table, next to an ornate glass inkwell and a carved onyx box with a Waterman fountain pen and a freshly sharpened royal blue pencil.
Coraline did a final check, her black court shoes tapping briskly over the polished wood floor. She took her job very seriously, honouring each painting as she passed. Every one of the 108 pictures had a message and a story, all from artists she had met, encouraged, and listened to. She felt their presence with her in the gallery, gazing through canvas and paper and glass. Discovering Charlotte was in Room 3, and Coraline often paused in front of it, thinking of John and praying he would one day reconnect with the little girl who had stolen his heart.
She unlocked the door, releasing the fragrance of sandalwood polish and oil paint into the busy street where the morning air smelled of horses, motorcars and coffee houses. She put the OPEN sign up and sat down at her table, a book on Monet open in front of her.
The usual kind of people came in. Wealthy old ladies staring eagerly into the distance. Charismatic art dealers and reviewers who frowned, scribbled on notepads and gave nothing away. Couples looking for an unusual picture to hang in their home. Students brimming over with questions. And mysterious loners, like the tight-lipped young woman coming in now.
She wore dark glasses and gave Coraline the briefest of nods as she glided in. Her powder-blue suit hung limp around her as if she had lost weight. It had once been smart, but Coraline noticed the slightly frayed cuffs and the way its buttons had lost their lustre. Like the eyes, she suspected, only those were well hidden. Coiled hair, drawn back from a sweet, doll-like face which was spoiled by the tense jaw and pursed lips. She radiated suffering, Coraline thought, keeping a discreet eye on her as she wandered around the gallery in silent shoes, her toes pointed outwards like those of a dancer.
