Bombs on Aunt Dainty (14 page)

Otto and Aunt Dainty looked at each other.

“Did he get far?” she asked, and he shook his head.

“Only two doors away.”

The old man had found some apple tart on the table and began absently to eat it.

“Father –” said Otto.

“My dear, it’s no use,” said Aunt Dainty, but Otto ignored her. He moved a few steps towards his father – carefully, so as not to frighten him.

“Father,” he said, “it’s me – Otto.”

The old man went on eating.

“You’re no longer in the concentration camp,” said Otto. “We got you out – don’t you remember? You’re safe now, in England. You’re home.”

His father turned his face towards him. The cake was still in his hand and his nightshirt had somehow got caught round one of his bare ankles. He stared at Otto intensely with his old man’s eyes. Then he screamed.

“Ring the doctor,” said Aunt Dainty.

“Father –” said Otto again, but it was no use.

Aunt Dainty went quickly over to the old man and took him by the shoulders. He tried to struggle, but he was no match for her, and she led him back to bed while Otto went to the telephone. Anna saw his face as he passed her and it looked as though he were dead.

She and Mama did not speak at all until Aunt Dainty came back into the room. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish it hadn’t happened while you were here.”

Mama put her arms round her large shoulders. “My dear Dainty,” she cried, “I didn’t know!”

“It’s all right,” said Aunt Dainty. “I’m used to it now – as far as one ever gets used …” Suddenly tears were running down her face. “It’s Otto,” she cried. “I can’t bear to see him. He’s always been so fond of his father. I remember when he was small he used to talk about him all the time.” She looked towards the bedroom where the old man was battering feebly on the door. “How can people do such things?” she asked. “How can they do them?”

When they were sitting on the bus on the long ride home Anna asked, “How did they get Uncle Victor out of the concentration camp?”

“It was a kind of ransom,” said Mama. “Dainty sold all her possessions – she was quite rich – and gave the money to the Nazis. And Otto was already in England. He talked to someone at the Home Office and got them to agree that Victor could come here – otherwise the Nazis would never have let him go.”

“That’s why he always says the English are wonderful,” said Anna.

She wondered what it would feel like to be Otto. Supposing it had been Papa in the concentration camp…It did not bear even thinking about. She was glad that at least Otto had his job. She could imagine him in Canada, throwing himself into the work with no thought of anything else, to blot out what had been done to his father, to help the wonderful English win their war. Whatever research Otto was given to do, she thought he would do it extremely well.

“Mama,” she said, “what’s very small in physics?”

Mama was cold and tired. “Oh, you must know,” she said. “Molecules – atoms – things like that.”

Atoms, thought Anna – what a pity. It did not sound as though Otto’s research would be very important.

A few days later Otto came to say goodbye. His father was better, he said. The doctor had prescribed some new sedatives and he now slept most of the time.

“Keep an eye on my mother,” he asked Mama, who promised to do so.

Just before he left he handed her a leaflet. “My mother asked me to give it to you,” he said, a little embarrassed. “She thought you might be interested – it’s all about her evening classes.”

Anna glanced through it after he had gone. It was extraordinary what you could learn for a modest fee – anything from book-keeping through Ancient Greek to upholstery. Suddenly she noticed something.

“Look, Mama,” she said. “There are even classes in drawing.”

“So there are,” said Mama.

Unbelievingly they checked the fee. Eight shillings and sixpence a term.

“We’ll ring up first thing in the morning,” said Mama.

They spent Christmas in the country with the Rosenbergs. The Professor’s sister and her two boys had gone to stay with another relative in Manchester, where the schooling was better, and the atmosphere was much more peaceful than when Anna had been there before. Everyone was happy because the Americans had finally come into the war, and the Professor even said it might all be over by the end of 1942.

Aunt Louise had decorated a Christmas tree which filled a corner of the dining room, and on Christmas Day Max managed to come for lunch by dint of hitching lifts both ways. He was learning to fly and had almost completed his training as a pilot. As usual, he had emerged top of all the exams and had already been recommended for a commission.

Anna told him that she was going to drawing lessons after the holidays.

“A life class,” she said, “at a proper art school.”

“Good show,” said Max because that was what people said in the Air Force, but Aunt Louise flew into a flutter of amazement.

“A life class!” she cried. “Oh dear! You’ll meet all sorts of people there!”

It was impossible to tell whether she considered the prospect dangerous or attractive, but she clearly thought it fraught with excitement. As a result Anna was a little disappointed when, a week or two later, she went to her first evening class at the Holborn School of Art.

She was directed to a large, bare room with a wooden platform and a screen at one end. A few people were sitting about, some with drawing boards propped up in front of them, some reading newspapers. Nearly all of them had kept their coats on, for the room was very cold.

Just after she had come in a little woman with a shopping bag arrived and hurried behind the screen. There was a thump as she put the bag down and a potato rolled out from under the screen, but she retrieved it quickly and emerged a moment later in a pink dressing gown.

“Christ, it’s freezing,” she said, switched on an electric fire aimed at the platform and crouched in front of it.

By this time Anna had helped herself to some drawing paper from a stack marked one penny a sheet and pinned it to one of the boards which seemed to be for general use. She got out her pencil and rubber and sat astride one of the wooden forms provided, propping up her board against the easel-shaped front like the other students. She was ready to learn to draw, but nothing happened. On one side of her, an elderly woman was knitting a sock and on the other, a youth of sixteen or so was finishing a sandwich.

At last the door opened again and a man in a duffel coat appeared.

“Late again, John!” sang out the youth next to Anna in a strong Welsh accent.

The man looked across the room with absent-minded blue eyes before his attention focused.

“Don’t be cheeky, William,” he said. “And you’d better do me a good drawing today, or I’ll tell your father what I really think of you!”

The Welsh boy laughed and said, “Yes sir,” with mock respect, while the man threw off his duffel and went to confer with the model.

Anna heard him say something about a standing pose, but the model shook her head.

“Not tonight, Mr Cotmore,” she cried. “My feet aren’t up to it.”

She had taken off the pink dressing gown and was standing there with no clothes on at all and with the electric fire casting a red glow on her rather tubby stomach.

Anna had been a little nervous of this moment. She had wondered what it would feel like to be in a roomful of people all looking at someone naked. But everyone else took it so much for granted that after a minute or two it seemed quite normal.

“I’ve been queueing an hour for fish,” said the model and indeed, even without her clothes, it was only too easy to imagine her with a shopping bag in her hand.

“A sitting pose, then,” said the man called Cotmore and
covered a chair on the platform with what looked like an old curtain for the model to sit on. When he had arranged her to his satisfaction he said, “Well keep this pose for the whole evening.” There was a rustle of newspapers being put down; the woman with the sock reluctantly rolled up her wool, and everyone began to draw.

Anna looked at the model and at her blank sheet of paper and wondered where to start. She had never spent more than a few minutes drawing anyone, and now she would have two and a half hours. How could one possibly fill in the time? She glanced at a girl in front of her who seemed to be covering her entire paper with pencil strokes. Of course, she thought – if you made the drawing bigger it was bound to take longer and you could put in more detail. She grasped her pencil and began.

After an hour she had worked down from the model’s head to her middle. There was something not quite right about the shoulders, but she was pleased with the way she had drawn each of the many curls in the model’s hair and was just about to start on the hands which were folded on one side of the stomach, when the man called Cotmore said, “Rest!”

The model stretched, stood up and wrapped herself in her dressing-gown and all the students put down their pencils. How annoying, thought Anna – just when she was getting into her stride.

A murmur of conversation went up from the class, newspapers were unfolded, and the woman next to her
went back to her knitting. Anna found that in spite of having kept her coat on, her feet and hands were frozen.

“Chilly tonight,” said a man with a muffler and offered her a toffee out of a paper bag.

The model came down from her throne and walked slowly from one drawing-board to the next, inspecting the different versions of herself all round the room.

“Have we done you justice?” called Mr Cotmore. He was surrounded by a small group of students, the Welsh boy among them, and they were all chatting and laughing.

The model shook her head. “They’ve all made me look fat,” she said, and went glumly back to her chair.

When Anna returned to her drawing at the end of the rest it did not seem quite as good as before. The shoulders were definitely wrong: the trouble, she realised, was that she had drawn the right shoulder higher than the left, whereas the way the model was sitting it was the other way round. How could she not have seen this before? But it was too late to change it, so she concentrated on the hands.

They were folded together in a complicated way, with the fingers interlaced, and as she tried to copy all the joints and knuckles and fingernails she became increasingly confused. Also, she could not help noticing that as a result of the mistake over the shoulders, one arm had come out longer than the other. She was staring at it all, wondering what to do, when a voice behind her said, “May I?”

It was Mr Cotmore.

He motioned to her to get up and sat down in her place.

“Don’t draw it all in bits,” he said, and began a drawing of his own at the side of the paper.

Anna watched him, and at first she could not think what he was drawing. There were straight lines like scaffolding in different directions, then a round shape which turned out to be the model’s head and then, gradually, the rest of her appeared among the scaffolding, supported by the straight lines which indicated, Anna now realised, the angle of the shoulders, the hips, the hands in relation to the arms. It was all finished in a few minutes and although there were no details – no curls and no fingernails – it looked far more like the model than Anna’s drawing.

“See?” said Mr Cotmore, as he stood up and walked away.

Anna was left staring at his work. Well, of course it was easier to do it small, she thought. And she wasn’t sure that putting in all those guide lines wasn’t a kind of cheating. All the same …

She could hardly bear to look at her own drawing after his. It wambled all over the paper with its funny shoulders and its one long arm and one short arm and its fingers like sausages. She wanted to crumple it up and throw it away but had just decided that this would attract too much attention, when she became aware of the Welsh boy looking down at it.

“Not bad,” he said.

For a moment her heart leapt. Perhaps after all …?

“One of Cotmore’s best,” said the boy. “He’s in form tonight.” He must have sensed her disappointment, for he added, “Your first attempt?”

Anna nodded.

“Yes, well –” The Welsh boy averted his eyes from her drawing and searched for a kindly comment. “It’s often difficult to start with,” he said.

When Anna got home Mama was waiting to hear how it had all gone. “I think it’s very good,” she cried when she saw the drawing, “for someone who’s never done anything like that before!”

Papa was more interested in Mr Cotmore’s version. “John Cotmore,” he said. “I’ve read something about him recently. An exhibition, I think – very well reviewed.”

“Really?” said Mama. “He must be good then.”

“Oh yes,” said Papa, “he’s quite distinguished.”

They were sitting on the beds in the room which Anna and Mama shared, and Mama was trying to reheat the supper Anna had missed earlier in the dining room. She had lit the gas ring which Frau Gruber had provided in each of the bedrooms and was stirring up some unidentifiable meat, boiled potatoes and turnips in a saucepan she had bought from Woolworth’s.

“It’s a bit burned,” she said. “I don’t know – perhaps next time it might be better to eat it cold.”

Anna said nothing.

It was nearly ten o’clock and she was tired. Her
appalling drawing lay on the floor beside her. Next time? she thought. There did not seem much point.

However, by the following week she was anxious to try again. Surely, she thought, she was bound to do better this time.

It turned out that the model was the same, but this time Mr Cotmore had persuaded her into a standing pose. Divested of her pink dressing gown, she leaned with one hand on the back of the chair to steady herself and stared gloomily at her feet.

Anna, remembering the lesson of the previous week, at once attacked her paper with scaffolding lines in every direction. She tried not to be distracted by details, and the upper part of her drawing came out better than before, but all her newfound skill deserted her when she reached the legs and feet.

She could not make her drawing stand. The feet were at the bottom, but the figure appeared to float or hang on the paper with no weight and nothing to support it. Again and again she rubbed out and re-drew, but it was no use until, towards the end of the evening, Mr Cotmore came round to her. He sat down without a word and drew a foot at the side of her paper. It was facing straight forward like the model’s, but instead of drawing a line round it, as Anna had tried to do, he built it up section by section from the foreshortened toes at the front, through the arch of the foot, to the heel at the back, each piece fitting solidly behind the other, until there on the paper was a
sturdy foot standing firmly on an invisible floor.

“See?” he said.

“Yes,” said Anna and he smiled slightly.

He must be about forty, she thought, with intelligent eyes and a curious wide mouth.

“Difficult things, feet,” he said, and walked away.

After this Anna went to art school every Tuesday night. She became obsessed with learning to draw. If she could just do one drawing, she thought, that looked as she wanted it to – but each time she mastered one difficulty she seemed to become aware of two or three more whose existence she had not even suspected. Sometimes Mr Cotmore helped her, but often she spent the whole evening struggling alone.

“You’re getting better, though,” said the Welsh boy. His name was Ward but everyone called him Welsh William. “Remember the first drawing you did? It was bloody awful.”

“Were your drawings awful when you first started?” asked Anna.

Welsh William shook his head. “I’ve always found it easy – perhaps too easy. John Cotmore says I’m facile.”

Anna sighed as she looked at the beautiful fluid drawing which he had produced, apparently without effort.

“I wish I was,” she said. Her own work was black with being redrawn and almost in holes with being rubbed out.

Sometimes, as she travelled home on the half-empty tube after the class had finished, she despaired at her lack of
talent. But the following week she would be back with a new pencil and another sheet of paper, thinking, “Perhaps this time …”

She came home from the classes looking so peaky that Mama worried about her.

“It can’t be good for you, sitting for hours in the cold like that,” she said, for there was a fuel shortage and often the art school was entirely without heating, but Anna said impatiently, “I’m all right – I keep my coat on.”

There was heavy snow in February and again in March. Everyone was depressed because Singapore had fallen to the Japanese, and the German army, far from succumbing to the Russians, seemed about to enter Moscow. At the office Mrs Hammond caught ‘flu and did not come in for nearly three weeks, so the old ladies were steeped in even deeper gloom. Miss Clinton-Brown no longer thanked God for letting her cut out the pyjamas, but instead had formed a new alliance with Miss Potter against Mrs Riley who upset them all with her Japanese atrocity stories.

She knew an amazing number and always told them with all possible drama. Leaning on the table with one hand, she would peer over her Bovril with narrowed eyes to impersonate a Japanese commander of unspeakable cruelty, and then open them wide for the noble, well-spoken replies from his English captives who were, however, invariably doomed. Miss Potter always became very distressed by these dramatics and once had to go home in the middle of
a pyjama jacket to see, she said confusedly, if her budgie was safe.

When Mrs Hammond recovered from her bout of ‘flu she told Mrs Riley very firmly to stop repeating such ill-founded rumours about the fate of British prisoners. Mrs Riley sulked for two days and Miss Clinton-Brown thanked God that there were still some sensible people left in the world who were not afraid to speak their mind. It would all have been quite funny, thought Anna, if one hadn’t suspected that most of Mrs Riley’s stories were probably true.

Going to art school after all this was a relief. Anna had discovered that there was another life class on Thursdays which, for an extra three shillings and sixpence, she was entitled to attend, so she now went twice a week. All the classes had shrunk, for the intense cold kept the knitters and the newspaper-readers away, and Mr Cotmore had more time to teach those students who remained. He corrected most of their drawings every night and during the rest period he would sit in a corner of the life-room with a favoured few and talk. Anna watched them from a distance. They always seemed to have a good time, arguing and laughing, and she thought how splendid it must be to belong to that inner circle. But she was too shy to go anywhere near them, and after school they always left very quickly in a bunch.