Chapter 10
‘I’m delighted for you, Clem. I was starting to worry that there wasn’t a man good enough for you in the whole of London.’ Ben stretched his legs out in the back of the taxi and stretched his arms over his head, grinning.
They were barrelling their way through London towards the Imperial War Museum, where Ben had promised to show Clementine what he considered to be Edwin’s best paintings.
Her visit to Foxwood had made her even more intrigued by him, and she wanted to find out everything she could about the man who could have been her brother-in-law.
‘Me too,’ she laughed. ‘Although I wasn’t crying into my pillow every night convinced I was going to be a spinster.
I knew someone would come along eventually.
And even if they hadn’t, so what? Getting married isn’t the be all and end all.
’ She grinned. ‘I’m secretly quite excited.
Prepared to be bored rigid by wedding talk. ’
‘I’d better start advertising for your replacement.’ Ben made a face.
‘Don’t you dare.’ Clementine slapped her half-brother on the leg. ‘We’re staying in London for the time being. He’s not starting at the factory until after Christmas. And even then I’m not giving up work.’
Ben raised his eyebrows. ‘Is Alfie happy about that?’
‘Of course. I made it clear that’s the deal.’
Ben laughed. ‘He’s got no idea what he’s taking on, has he?’
‘Oh, come on. I’m a pussy cat. You know that.’ But Clementine was smiling. ‘Anyway, he’s very progressive. He doesn’t want me barefoot in the kitchen. And he knows how important the gallery is to me. So you’re stuck with me for the time being.’
‘Well, I’m glad. I don’t know where I’d find another you. And by the way, congratulations.’
She glanced at the ring on her finger. She still wasn’t used to seeing it there, but she had to admit it was perfect. Even Henrietta had been impressed, declaring it very pretty and just the right side of flashy.
‘You don’t think I’ve made a mistake, then? You don’t think it’s too sudden?’ she asked now, suddenly not so sure of herself.
‘Come on, Clem. If you’ve got anything, it’s a good gut. You’ve got a sixth sense about people. You’re the one who tells me which artists to work with; the ones who are going to be tricky. And you can always spot the clients who are going to be difficult. I’d trust your judgement entirely.’
‘Oh.’ Clementine was pleased with this assessment. ‘Good.’
‘You do know the gallery wouldn’t be half the success it is without you, don’t you? You’re my sounding board. I never make any decisions without asking you first.’
‘Really?’
Ben stared hard at her through his thick-rimmed glasses.
His curly hair looked as if it had never seen a comb, and his green velvet suit looked as if it had been slept in.
It probably had. They made a great team, she thought.
He had such a brilliant eye, and was a consummate risk-taker, happy to gamble on someone he thought might be a success.
And she was skilled at corralling his genius, imposing order on the chaos of the crazy social life that went with running a gallery, as well as looking out for newer talent.
‘In fact,’ he said. ‘I was hoping to make you a partner one day. If you’d be interested.’
‘A partner?’ She couldn’t help laughing.
‘Bell and Bell. It has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?’
She groaned at his play on words, but she was smiling. ‘That would make me so proud. And Mum and Dad would be tickled pink.’
Her father Jeff had adopted Ben when he’d married her mother, and Ben had taken on his surname when he was eleven, keeping Renfrew as his middle name, which had touched Jeff no end.
To think of both their names over the gallery door one day made her glow with pride.
She was so lucky, thought Clementine. A wonderful husband-to-be.
A wonderful brother – there was nothing half about him.
They’d shared everything when they were growing up, even though they were far apart in age.
He’d shown her the ropes when she came to London. She thought the world of him.
‘Tell me more about Edwin,’ she said to him now. ‘I’m completely fascinated. I keep picking up little bits here and there about what he was like, but of course I can’t be too nosy. I feel as if there was more to him than meets the eye.’
As the cab wended its way from Soho to Southwark, Ben told Clementine what he knew. He’d heard lots of gossip over the years, from artists who’d known him, who’d drunk with him in the haunts around Soho and the clubs of Mayfair he frequented.
‘Apparently, he could have had any woman he wanted. They threw themselves at his feet. But he was engaged to some American.’
‘Meg. Meg Engadine.’ Clementine nodded.
‘That’s it. Anyway, everyone seemed to like him. He was always resolutely cheerful and upbeat, not like most artists. You know what a thundering nuisance they can be. He didn’t seem to suffer from self-doubt, or torture himself about his art, or drink himself into oblivion.
‘If only they were all like that.’ Clementine did her fair share of reassuring their clients.
She mulled over his words as they headed into the East End.
The scars of war were much more evident here than in the West End, as they weren’t as far on with the restoration.
Sometimes, in the middle of London, you could forget it had ever happened.
And then there it was, the grand facade of the Imperial War Museum, standing proud despite taking a hit forty-one times at the height of the bombings.
Ben led Clementine at a smart pace through endless galleries, underneath a First World War fighter plane and cases full of memorabilia that she didn’t have a chance to examine before stopping in a room full of paintings depicting scenes from the war.
‘I know it sounds strange, but this is one of my favourite places to come, when I want to think,’ he told her, his voice filled with awe. ‘All these moments, captured so we couldn’t forget.’
They wandered through the exhibition. A cherry-picked selection from the nation’s war artists, from Edward Ardizzone to Henry Moore to Laura Knight.
Service men wandering through Hyde Park, clusters of people tucked up in the Underground for the night, buildings razed to the ground in front of St Paul’s.
Factory workers heading down the escalator to a secret underground factory.
An evacuation train filled with nurses. Tiny scenes of intimacy and huge apocalyptic landscapes.
Camaraderie and solidarity, despondency and determination, terror and bravery, the everyday and the extraordinary – it was sobering, a salutary reminder of what had happened, but also inspiring, to think that a human being could capture such intimate moments either from memory or from being at the scene, pulling the observer straight into the heart of the story.
Sometimes it was the humdrum scenes that held the most impact, small domestic details that tugged at the heartstrings. In a short space of time, Clementine felt she had relived the whole of the war, from a hundred different perspectives. It was exhausting, yet she felt honoured to have seen it.
It was one of the few times Clementine had seen Ben subdued. He was so overcome with emotion, both at the subject matter and the talent, that at one point there were tears rolling down his face.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘It’s over.’
‘Not for everyone,’ he told her, and he was right, of course, for so many people were still suffering the loss of a loved one or a home or sometimes both. And it must be a reminder of how he’d lost his own father in the previous war, a man he couldn’t even remember, for he had been tiny.
Clementine hooked her arm in his as they stood in front of three paintings by Edwin: a looming warship, a trio of Spitfires, and a flotilla of Walrus seaplanes floating up a river.
His style was unmistakable: everything was drawn with a draughtsman’s precision, depicting the gargantuan machines of war with a keen accuracy, yet he gave them his own spin, using pale colours and intricate crosshatching that took the menace out of what he was drawing.
‘I think he was one of the best,’ sighed Ben. ‘There’s no drama to hide behind in his work. Just pure majesty and stillness. The calm before the storm. What a waste of talent.’
‘What a waste full stop,’ said Clementine. ‘I can’t tell you how much his family still miss him. You can feel him everywhere in the house. You can see it in their eyes. You can see them looking for him. As if they expect him to walk back in at any moment.’
‘Still?’
‘I suppose you don’t get over it, do you?’
‘Doesn’t it make you feel out of place?’
‘No. Not at all. They’re all very nice to me. Well, except his sister Diana. I don’t think she likes me. I think she thinks I’m trying to take over.’
‘Take over what?’
‘Well, exactly.’
She didn’t tell him about Elizabeth. She kept that secret to herself, for she felt a strange kind of loyalty to her future mother-in-law.
Just because someone had suffered didn’t mean they could behave how they liked, but there was something fragile, something vulnerable about Elizabeth that made Clementine feel protective.
She had been so kind since meeting her. She hoped in time they might become quite close.
‘Thank you for bringing me here,’ she told Ben. ‘It’s given me a bit more insight into who Edwin was.’ She sighed. ‘I’d love to have known him. But I’ve got Alfie, which makes me the luckiest girl in the world.’
After much debate, Alfie and Clementine decided on a very small wedding.
They both agreed that if they were going to get married, they should get on with it, and keeping things simple was the easiest way.
Clementine was going through the horror of vicariously organising Henrietta’s; her friend was getting married any minute now at her family home in Berkshire.
It was an elaborate affair, with over a hundred guests.
‘Honestly, it’s fraught with problems,’ Clementine told Alfie.
‘What size gravy boat to put on the wedding list? Who to choose as a bridesmaid? As for the dress fitting – it’s a three-act drama.
I think a small wedding is rather smart.
Everyone will thank us for it. No one wants to spend hours and hours sitting next to someone they don’t know and never want to see again. ’
Alfie was worried that if they had it at Foxwood, it would get out of control, with more and more guests added to the list.
‘Too many people would be offended if they weren’t asked.’
‘Why don’t we get married in London?’ suggested Clementine. ‘My parents won’t mind me not getting married from home. In fact, they would probably be relieved. My mother really isn’t the organising type. She’d find it completely overwhelming. She and my father would much rather turn up on the day.’
Her parents had been quietly pleased when she told them about marrying Alfie.
They didn’t question her haste at all. Like Ben, they trusted Clementine’s judgement.
They’d always treated her like a mini-adult as a child, letting her make her own choices and decisions, with a kind of fond distance, almost as if she didn’t have anything to do with them, but was something rather delightful they’d found in the house one day.
They plumped for a ceremony at St James’s on Piccadilly, then lunch for twenty at the Savoy, as it was where they had met. They booked rooms at the hotel for both sets of parents, and Diana and Rory. Michael insisted on paying for a suite for the happy couple as part of their wedding present.
Apart from family, the only other guests would be Henrietta and Nigel, Freddie and his girlfriend Camilla, and Ben and Alexandra and Jasper.
‘I feel as if there’s more of my side than yours,’ Alfie worried.
‘I don’t mind. Your family’s bigger than mine. And we don’t want any more guests, do we?’
Alfie looked again at the list they’d drawn up.
‘I think twenty is the perfect number. My idea of hell would be a big wedding. I’ve done enough of them, I can tell you, both as a guest and as a client. The bigger they are, the more can go wrong.’
‘Nothing’s going to go wrong,’ said Clementine.
The only thing they disagreed on was the best man. In fact, they almost had their first argument when Alfie said he was going to ask Jasper.
‘He did a brilliant eulogy for Edwin, so I know he’ll do a good speech.’
‘But surely you want Freddie? He’s your best friend. And won’t he be very hurt?’
‘Of course not. He understands that Jasper is my surrogate brother. He stepped up when Edwin died. He was always there, to do all the things Edwin used to do. Give me advice, take me out on the town, remind me when it was Mum’s birthday …
’ Alfie looked upset. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without him.
And Edwin would have been my best man, if he was still here. So of course I’m going to ask Jasper.’
Clementine went very quiet. There wasn’t much she could say.
‘I don’t understand your objection.’ Alfie could sense her disapproval.
‘I haven’t got one. Not really. It’s just … I don’t know. Ignore me.’ Clementine knew if she said anything more, she would ruin the wedding. She would ruin everything. ‘I think I’m tired. There’s too much whirling around in my head. Of course you should ask Jasper. I’m sure he’ll be wonderful.’