A Half Forgotten Song (17 page)

While she was at the bar, Zach stared at the pictures of Dennis again, and wondered at her change in demeanor. Possibly it was as innocent a reversal as she’d explained—he hoped so. Dennis. Three young men, all similar, all sweet, all with an air of goodness and innocence that was childlike, as though the artist had been keen to prove that here was a person who had never had a base thought in all his life. Never bullied anyone, or taken advantage of another person’s weakness. Never acted selfish or deceitful in pursuit of lust or envy or financial gain. But he just could not get away from the notion that there was something wrong with them. Each face was minutely, subtly different; either physically or emotionally. As if they were three different young men, not the same one. Either three different young men, drawn by Aubrey and all called Dennis; or else the same young man drawn three times, by somebody other than Aubrey. Neither option made much sense. He ran his hands through his hair in confusion and wondered if he was cracking up. Nobody else seemed to have any doubts about their authenticity.

Zach checked the information in the front of the Christie’s brochure. The sale was in eight days’ time; viewing had been two days ago. He knew a member of the fine art team at the auction house—Paul Gibbons, who’d been at Goldsmiths with him. Another artist who had sidestepped from trying to make a living selling his own art to making a living selling other people’s. Zach had already tried to discover the identity of the vendor of the recent Aubrey pictures from Paul and been told in no uncertain terms that strict anonymity was a condition of sale. Now he wrote Paul a quick e-mail to ask if there was some way he could get in touch with any of the people who’d bought one of the portraits of Dennis. It was a long shot, he knew, but there was a chance that seeing the work in the flesh might provide some extra insight.

“Who’s that?” said Hannah, looking at the catalog as she sat back down and passed Zach another pint, even though he’d refused her offer. “Drink up,” she said.

“Therein lies the mystery,” Zach said, and took several gulps from his glass. Suddenly, getting drunk at lunchtime with this hard, vibrant woman, who smelled of sheep but swam in a red bikini, seemed like as good a plan as any. “Dennis. No other name, no reference to him in any of Aubrey’s letters or in any of the books about him.”

“Is that a big deal?”

“Most definitely. Aubrey was faddy, obsessive; he fell in love with something—a place or a person, or an idea—and he painted and drew that thing or person exhaustively, until he’d got everything from it he could, creatively. Then he . . .”

“Dumped them?”

“Moved on. Artistically speaking. And during that time of immersion he wrote about them in letters, and sometimes in his workbook. Letters to friends, or other artists, or his agent. Listen to this one he wrote about Dimity—I must show her this, actually. I think she’d be pleased. Listen.” He scrabbled around in his notes for a moment, until he found the page he was looking for, marked with a pink paper tag. “This is a letter to one of his patrons, Sir Henry Ides. ‘I have met the most wonderful child here in Dorset. She seems to have been raised half wild, and has never left this village in all her young life. Her whole sphere of reference is the village and the coast within a five-mile radius of the cottage where she grew up. She is untouched, in every sense, and this innocence radiates from her like light. A rare bird indeed, and quite the loveliest thing I have ever seen. She draws the eye the way a splendid view will, or a lance of sunshine breaking through clouds. I enclose a sketch. I plan a large canvas with this girl to embody the essence of nature, or English folk at their very core.’ ” Zach looked up, and Hannah raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t think you should show that to Dimity.”

“Why not?”

“It’ll upset her. She has her own memories and . . . ideas about what passed between her and Charles. I don’t think it would sit well to hear herself described so objectively.”

“But . . . he says she’s the loveliest thing he’s ever seen.”

“That’s not the same as being in love with her, though, is it?”

“You don’t think he was?”

“I don’t know. How should I know? Maybe he was. I’m just saying that that’s not what he’s saying in this letter, is it? I wouldn’t show it to her, but it’s up to you,” she said.

“I think it shows love. But perhaps not
that
kind of love . . . She ignited his . . . his creative zeal. She was his muse, for a while. A long while. But this Dennis . . . he never mentions him. And when I showed Dimity one of these pictures of him, she said she’d never seen him before, and didn’t know who he was. It just strikes me as . . . very odd.”

“Aubrey was only here two or three months of the year, you know. This young man could be someone he met during any one of the remaining ten months, somewhere other than here . . .” She trailed off as Zach shook his head.

“Look at the dates. July 1937; then February and August 1939. We know Aubrey was here in July 1937, in London in February 1939, and here and in Morocco in August 1939. So, did this Dennis travel with him? From Blacknowle, or from London? Surely if Aubrey knew him well enough to take him on holiday, there’d be mention of him somewhere? But that’s not the only weird thing. These three pictures all came from an anonymous collection in Dorset. All from the same seller. But I don’t think . . . I don’t think they’re by Charles Aubrey. There’s something just not quite right about them.” He slid them towards Hannah, but she barely glanced at them. A tiny frown had appeared between her brows. She pushed the catalogs away from her.

“Does it really matter?” she said.

“Does it matter?” Zach echoed, louder than he’d intended. He realized he was definitely quite drunk. “Of course it does,” he said, more quietly. “Wouldn’t Dimity know? Shouldn’t she know who this Dennis is, if these drawings were done by Aubrey here in Blacknowle? She says she spent as much time as she could with him and his family . . .”

“But that doesn’t mean she was there
all
the time, or that she knew
everything
he was doing. She was just a kid, remember?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“And if you don’t think Charles Aubrey drew these, who do you think did? You think they’re forgeries?” she asked lightly.

“They could be. And yet . . . and yet, the shading, the draftsmanship . . .” He trailed off, bewildered. Hannah seemed to think hard, and tapped her fingernails on the page of one of the catalogs for a moment; a rapid little staccato that, just for a second, betrayed some kind of agitation. Then she stopped, and curled the hand into a loose fist when Zach spoke again. “I think,” he said, still lost in thought, “I think these pictures were here, in Blacknowle, before they were sold. And I think there could be more of them.”

“That’s a big theory. You mean Dimity, I take it? You think Mitzy Hatcher is a skilled enough artist to forge Aubrey works so that they could pass as genuine?”

“Well, maybe not. Aubrey must have given her the pictures, then . . . or perhaps she took them for herself. That would explain why she’s so cagey about certain things . . .”

“Come on, Zach. Mitzy? Little old Mitzy with the dowager’s hump? Does she really live like someone with a hidden stash of priceless artworks?”

“Well, no, not at all. But if she really needed the money, she might have started to sell a few of them . . . she’d be reluctant to, of course. She would want to keep anything with connections to him.”

“And she just nips out and takes them up to London from time to time, and makes thousands?”

“Well . . .” Zach struggled. “When you put it like that, it doesn’t sound too probable. But she could phone the auction house and get them to send a courier for them, or something.”

“It doesn’t sound probable because it’s wholly improbable. She doesn’t even have a phone, Zach. And there are loads of big houses tucked away around here—any one of them would be far more likely to have an art collection like that. What makes you even think they’re in Blacknowle?”

“It was . . . kind of just a hunch.”

“Or wishful thinking, perhaps?”

“Maybe,” said Zach, deflated.

“You know what I think?” she said.

“What?”

“I think you should stop chewing it over for now and drink more of the Spout Lantern’s finest.” She raised her glass to salute him before downing the last of her own. Zach smiled woozily at her.

“Just what is a spout lantern, anyway?” he said. Hannah turned in her seat and pointed up at a rusty metal object on a high shelf, amid green glass floats and old fishing nets, and he recognized it as the kind of distorted watering can that was on the pub’s sign.

“Smuggler’s lamp,” she explained. “There’s a little oil lamp in the main body of it, but the light is only visible if you’re standing directly in front of the spout. A single beam of light, great for signaling and guiding a boat ashore . . .”

“I see, like a laser beam, eighteenth-century style.”

“Precisely. So, tell me something about the wider world. I don’t get out much,” Hannah said with a smile.

They talked for a while about the gallery and about Elise, and touched lightly on the subject of missing spouses, although Hannah would not be drawn to talk about her husband other than to give his name as Toby. She paused after she said it, as if that single word had the power to rob her of speech. Zach wondered if his body had been recovered, or if he was lost at sea, washed away like so many before him. He had a sudden idea that chilled him. That when Hannah swam, she was looking for him. He remembered the way she had dived, again and again, swimming as much below the surface as above it. He sensed that she was determined enough, resolute enough for this. Strong enough to keep searching, years later, for something she’d lost beneath the waves.

“Do you swim in winter? In the sea, I mean?” he asked.

“Talk about your non sequitur. Yes. I swim all year round. It’s good for you, clears out all the junk.” She looked at him curiously. “In case you’re picturing it, I have a wetsuit for the winter months.” Her tone was wry.

“No! No, I wasn’t picturing it. I . . . Good idea, though—a wetsuit. Must be freezing otherwise.”

“It’d make your bollocks jump right back up inside your body,” she said dolefully, then grinned. “Luckily, I don’t have to worry about that.” They laughed, rather drunkenly.

“Hannah, have you ever seen anyone else at Dimity’s place? I’ve heard these odd noises, coming from upstairs,” said Zach. She stopped laughing at once, as suddenly as hitting a brick wall. She stared into her glass for a moment, and Zach retraced his verbal steps, trying to work out what he’d said wrong.

“No. No, as far as I know, nobody else ever goes there,” Hannah said. There was an uneasy pause, then she stood up unsteadily. “I should really be getting back. Things to do, you know. Down on the farm.”

“What can you do after all that beer? Stay and finish your pint at least. We don’t have to talk about . . .” But he trailed off as Hannah turned to go. She looked back, and her delicate features were serious now, and steady. Her eyes looked sharp, not drunk at all, and Zach felt like a fool.

“Come down to the farm, if you want to, another day. I’ll show you around. If you’re interested, that is.” She shrugged one shoulder and walked away, leaving Zach with the beer she’d been drinking and her empty seat, and a sudden, unexpected sense of loss at her absence. Pete appeared and gathered up the empty glasses.

“You look a bit green around the gills.” He shook his head incredulously. “It’s a foolish man that tries to outdrink Hannah Brock. What did you say to her to make her march off like that? Usually once she’s had two pints she’s here till closing time.”

“I don’t know. I really don’t,” said Zach, mystified.

T
owards the end of that first summer, Dimity began to daydream about going with the Aubreys to the harvest home, when there would be a huge fête on the village green after the church service; a band and bunting and songs and games. Apple pies that smelled divine. Wilf Coulson had fetched one for her the year before, bringing it to where she was hiding behind a tent, enveloped in the heady, exciting smell of canvas—a once-a-year smell of something different, something fun. Dimity told Delphine all about it, and only left out the fact that she had always longed to be able to explore the fête just like everyone else—to buy a hop garland and play all the games, like skittles, splat the rat, the coconut shy—rather than watching from a hidden place.

Valentina never went to the harvest home; never wanted to go. She curled her lip, sneered at the idea.
I’ve no need to watch them play merry-go-bloody-rounds, like they’re all so good and wholesome
. Every year she made Dimity spend some time circulating with a tray hanging around her neck, selling posies and charms and tonics. Valentina’s famous Gypsy beauty balm, guaranteed to halt the signs of aging—a sticky mix of lard and cold cream, scented with elderflowers and infused with red dock root for its regenerative properties; or her Romany balm, an arcane brew of the fat from a pig’s kidney, horse hoof clippings, house leek, and elder bark, known to cure any kind of skin complaint, boil, or bruise. The village kids all followed Dimity, calling her names and throwing nuggets of dung, knowing that she couldn’t chase or fight back, not with the heavy tray swinging in front of her. But the Aubreys weren’t afraid of the people of Blacknowle, even if people did whisper that Celeste was his mistress, not his wife; even if they did put their noses up slightly and pretend to disapprove. People still accepted them, and were polite to them. They couldn’t help themselves. Charles was too charming, and Celeste too beautiful; and their daughters were so safe and happy that they didn’t even notice it when the publican’s wife’s lips pinched up the way they did. So this year would be different, because Dimity would be with the Aubreys, and they would shield her.

She was plucking two pigeons when this daydream evaporated, pulling out the feathers a pinch at a time, her fingers moving slowly so she wouldn’t finish before Charles had done his drawing. She sat facing him, cross-legged, with the dead birds in her lap. She’d tied her hair back, but she knew there were still tiny feathers caught up in it. She could see one, hovering at the edge of her vision, up above her eyebrows. A tiny gray feather that trembled in the still air. When she looked up at it, she could snatch a look at Charles too. The intensity of his gaze frightened her at first. He sometimes looked so stern that she expected to be scolded. But gradually she realized that he wasn’t even aware of her gaze. She let her eyes linger on his face, fascinated. A deep crease marked the bridge of his nose, and as the sun sank west, that nose threw a dark, pointed shadow onto his cheek. The cheek had a slight hollow below the ridge of bone around his eye, making a steep line to his jaw, which was long and angular. Studying it like this, Dimity came to know his face every bit as well, perhaps even better, than she knew her own; than she knew Delphine’s, or Valentina’s. There were few times when it was acceptable, or possible, to examine someone for such a length of time.