The Choice Read online

  “Ah, yes, of course, your dear Papa… I wondered when he’d enter our riveting intellectual discussion.”

  Walter understands what an egg must feel like under an energetic whisk.

  “Henry has never liked me, never, not once for even a flicker of a second. If you tell him you need money to pay me, you don’t stand a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting a brass farthing.”

  “Nevertheless, dearest heart,” Walter’s mouth is as dry as the dusty floor, “I promise to do my best.”

  Moira sighs. She swishes towards the door. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense… The Eagle and Child it is… Something long and cool to drink,” she adds acidly, “on this deliciously bright, sumptuously exciting summer’s evening?”

  “Anything.” Walter’s imagining Moira stark naked. “I’ll buy you anything you want.” He adds fervently, “I’m entirely at your command.”

  Moira turns to look at him, her head on one side: quizzical, appraising, faintly contemptuous. “I reckon you need five hours to make yourself presentable but you’ve got five minutes.”

  Walter runs his paint-stained fingers through his thick, blue-black hair. A smudge of aquamarine streaks his nose. He picks up his briar pipe and stuffs it into his mouth.

  “Yes, darling,” he says.

  One minute she’s there beside him, in The Bird and Baby, as they call their beloved pub, at his elbow, just as she always is. She’s talking to a friend of hers, admittedly: one of those ghastly Votes-for-Women creatures she’s always in such a huddle with. But he can hear her marvellous voice above the din, feels the warmth of her arm against his.

  And the next moment she has gone. Vanished, in not even the flick of an eye or a word of explanation and goodnight.

  Startled, Walter feels bereft, as if someone has sawn off his right arm. He reaches for his beer. It’s flat and warm. He takes a long swig, mostly for comfort, and drains its dregs, as something casual and ordinary to do. It tastes disgusting. He leans his elbow on the bar to steady himself, his smile as empty as his glass, longing for a whisky chaser. Then he searches the crowd.

  Moira’s nowhere to be seen.

  He looks across the bar.

  Wait a minute.

  There she is, standing beside another man.

  She holds a glass of freshly poured champagne. It froths and shimmers in the lamplight. Where the devil has she got that glamorous drink from?

  The man beside her is strikingly tall and broad-shouldered, with a confident, swaggering panache in his every move. He wears a cream linen suit with wide lapels, and beneath it a black silk shirt with a dazzling ripple. The outfit must have cost a fortune!

  But the worst thing about the stranger is his face. He’s so handsome that Walter feels knife-wounds of jealousy drying his throat, his breath searing his lungs.

  Moira’s unknown companion – Walter has never clapped eyes on him before, he knows everybody else in The Bird and Baby, where the dickens has the stranger sprung from? – has gold-blond hair swept back from a gleaming forehead, skin burnished from the sun, and eyes the colour of the Mediterranean sea.

  Moira’s looking into them as if she has never seen a man before in her entire life.

  Someone calls Walter’s name. He tears his eyes away from the woman he worships and glances over his shoulder. His name turns into a chant.

  “Drum… Drum… Drummond. Drum… Drum… Drummond.”

  One of his art-school colleagues has just stepped off the train from Paddington and has run from Oxford’s railway station to St Giles as if his boots are on fire. He bursts into The Bird and Baby bearing the good news.

  Walter has won the Slade’s Graduate Prize of the Year.

  Within minutes he’s surrounded by friends who clap him on his back, raise him shoulder-high and bring him more drinks than he can swallow.

  “Knew you could do it, old chum!”

  “Congratulations, Drummond! All that hard work paid off!”

  “My aunt in Osney asks would you paint her portrait?”

  For a glorious hour, Walter smiles, thanks them, basks in their admiration, shakes their hands and drinks whatever he’s given. When he looks again in Moira’s direction, longing to share his triumph, she and her dazzling companion have disappeared.

  At the evening’s end, Walter staggers along the pavement towards Walton Crescent. One by one his companions drift away. He lets himself into his house and stumbles up to the attic.

  He lights a candle, filling the room with pinpricks of sun and shadow. He carries the dipping flame closer to Moira’s portrait, staring at it, pleased afresh with his handiwork. He doesn’t need any more sittings. He knows lots of people who’ll buy it. He could finish the portrait within the week, sell it, pay Moira more than the sum he owes her – much more – and get cracking on something new and equally brilliant.

  Winning that prize has placed Walter firmly on Oxford’s artistic and cultural map. People will discuss his talents. The Oxford Times might publish an article about him. He’ll be offered hundreds of new commissions. This is the longed-for beginning of his professional career.

  How often has he gone to bed dreaming of such a start!

  Walter gazes around his shabby attic. Now he can begin to earn good money, real money… Enough to pay the rent for the entire house. Enough to ask his grubby chums to find somewhere else to live because he can afford his own space. Enough to pay for a daily maid, so Moira can have her own spotless home and will agree to live with him.

  As his own true wife.

  Well, there’s no time like the present… What on God’s earth is he waiting for?

  In a drunken trance, Walter plonks the candle on his cluttered desk. He pulls a piece of paper towards him, dips his pen in black ink and begins to scribble.

  My darling Moira,

  I have won the Slade’s Graduate Prize of the Year! Our future together is assured. Will you marry me and make me the happiest man on earth? I love you more than words can ever say.

  Your very own, always, and utterly devoted

  Walter

  He scrawls Moira’s name on a dusty old envelope which is the only one he can find, blows on it to dry the ink, and stuffs the piece of paper inside. Then he crashes downstairs, out into the quiet of the night.

  Moira lives on Walton Street, five minutes’ walk away, with her best friend Lizzie Farrell, and Lizzie’s mother. Moira and Lizzie are devoted to each other, more like sisters, ever since Moira’s parents were killed in a tragic accident on an omnibus in Oxford and Mrs Farrell had offered to look after Moira as if she were her own.

  Lizzie and Moira, with Mrs Farrell’s help, earn their living as competent, sometimes imaginative, dressmakers in a house so clean and neat you could eat off the floorboards and see your reflection as clear as day in every sparkling window.

  Walter races up to the house, his hands shaking with impatience and excitement. He shoves his envelope through the letterbox, listening as it slithers to the floor.

  Then he dances home.

  In the attic he grabs Moira’s pink velvet gown. He buries his face in it, inhaling its strange perfume that always reminds him of cloves. He remembers her flashes of creamy skin, her husky voice. He flings himself onto his scruffy bed, imagining her ecstatic answer to his proposal, her radiant smile. And how they’ll celebrate with wine and love-making.

  Walter eats breakfast next morning in the chaos of the basement with his smelly chums. He stirs his tea, sternly telling his friends to clean themselves up. He’ll be giving a party that night for a special girl and a special occasion. They must all take a bath in the tin tub, wash their hair, scrub their clothes and polish their muddy boots.

  He’s met with sighs, groans and a string of impertinent questions.

  “What for, Walter? What are you celebrating? It
’s not your birthday, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t,” Walter says impatiently. “It’s much more important than that.”

  Something flaps at the front door.

  Walter leaps up to the hall, taking the stairs three at a time. His shabby envelope lies on the mat. He bends to pick it up. Someone has crossed out Moira’s name and written his own in its place. Walter stares down at it, prickles of dread running up and down his spine.

  He opens the door. He looks to his right on the crescent and then left. Apart from the milkman’s horse and cart, the street’s empty as a toothless mouth.

  He slams the door and tears the envelope open. His note has been returned.

  Alongside his passionate declaration of love, someone has written a single word.

  No.

  In a Wolvercote Garden

  North Oxford, 1907

  “I always knew that woman would spell trouble.”

  Walter’s father settles his bony haunches in his favourite garden chair after his and Walter’s Sunday luncheon together and lights another cigarette. Exactly as Moira had anticipated, Henry has given Walter some money to tide him over, warning him not to spend a single farthing of it on her.

  “Yesterday I read an article in The Oxford Times about a Miss Moira Mitchell giving a talk at one of those Oxford Women’s Suffrage Society meetings. Mrs Bertrand Russell was in the chair, if you please. A gathering of harridans if ever I saw one. Give women the vote and watch them take over the world. Then where shall we men be? Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to hear you’d given her up.”

  “Far from it.” Walter’s heart thumps with rage. “I’m just finishing her portrait. I’ve done others of her, but this one’s better, more mature. I’m proud of it.”

  He dare not tell his father that he’s proposed marriage to Moira and has been rejected. He remains in obstinate denial about the returned envelope. Moira must have been in a foul early-morning mood, not thinking straight, probably with a hangover after drinking the champagne offered by that handsome stranger.

  Walter intends to call on her the minute he has put the final flourish to his portrait. While she’s inspecting it, he’ll get down on one knee, and propose to her properly. How can she possibly refuse him then?

  “In fact,” he continues defiantly, “It’s one of the best portraits I’ve ever done.”

  “That’s as may be.” Henry inhales, coughs and wheezes. “But winning the Slade prize has given you a head start. Don’t squander your success on that Mitchell girl. She’ll eat you for breakfast and spit you out the minute she gets a better offer.”

  “Nonsense, Papa.” But Walter flinches, remembering how other men always look longingly at Moira, and how wildly jealous it makes him. “What have you got against her?”

  “She’s too pretty by half,” Henry says promptly. “And she’s clever. She has a cunning way about her I don’t trust. She’s also a dreadful flirt. The way she wears those clothes of hers—”

  “She makes her own dresses! That’s why they fit her so well.”

  “Much too well. You can see every nook and cranny—”

  “Don’t be obscene, Papa—”

  “You know exactly what I mean. She flaunts her body at you, and it’s not seemly. You need someone sensible and homely—”

  “And as dull as ditchwater.” Walter stares across the flowery garden to the edges of Port Meadow, remembering how as a child he’d wanted to draw everything – every frog he found, every flower he picked, every bird he spotted – endlessly fascinated by the challenge and excitement of accurate replication.

  “Sturdy and reliable don’t have to be boring and dull.” Henry coughs, pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes his mouth. Walter notices the virulent spots of blood. “I shan’t live forever, you know. Before I die, I want to see you with a decent woman, someone I can trust to bring up my grandchildren in a seemly fashion.”

  Walter looks at his father, startled by the blood and his mention of death. “I wish you’d think more about your health and strength, and less about my love life… Have you seen a doctor for that cough?”

  “Don’t change the subject, Walter. I’m sixty-three, you know, an old man. But you’ve got everything to live for. Marry the wrong woman and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

  “But you didn’t, did you, Papa?”

  “Of course not.” Henry mops his forehead with the stained handkerchief. “Your mother was a paragon of virtue and loveliness. The fact that God took her from me a week after you were born only made me love her all the more.”

  “I know, Papa.” Walter has heard that exact sentence a million times. When he squeezes his father’s hand, it feels cold and fragile. “We’ve both been lonely without her.”

  “So you be sure to choose a decent, old-fashioned woman. There are plenty of them in Oxford. Steer clear of modern rubbish.” Henry closes his eyes and his voice sinks to a whisper. “Choose a virtuous and beautiful survivor. Four or five grandchildren, Walter, my boy. That’s what I want to see dancing around my knees.”

  The moment Henry has fallen asleep, Walter tiptoes out of the garden and climbs onto his Raleigh bicycle. He adores the machine. It whisks him around Oxford at a moment’s notice, no matter what the weather. From its saddle, he looks back at the Wolvercote cottage. Its roof needs to be freshly thatched, its paintwork renewed, its garden weeded, mowed, pruned. Walter worries constantly about his Papa: the man who’d made a valiant attempt to be his mother and father but had never quite succeeded.

  Henry had owned and run a second-hand bookshop in Oxford. Now that he’s retired, his cottage is swamped by books, many of them valuable leather-bound first editions. He spends all morning peering at a newspaper through wobbly pince-nez that pinch his bony nose; then he complains that his eyes are tired and he has too much time on his hands. He roams Oxford’s streets until he’s exhausted, calling on Walter unexpectedly, carrying a paper bag filled with iced buns, demanding a cup of tea. Or he walks from Wolvercote to the nearby village of Wytham to visit his best friend and drink several pints of ale in the White Hart Inn.

  Walter never knows where he might next find his father. He wishes Henry had a wife who could keep a steady eye on him and entertain him quietly at home.

  Walter cycles back to Walton Crescent. The painting of Moira calls to him as if it’s speaking with her own seductive voice. There are a good four hours of working daylight left to him that afternoon, and then three more long concentrated days.

  He’ll do nothing but paint. He’ll barely stop to eat, drink or sleep. On Wednesday evening he’ll scour his attic with Vim, mop it from ceiling to floor. He’ll change the bed linen, buy fresh flowers and a bottle of champagne. On Thursday morning he’ll take a bath, and go to the barber on Walton Street. When he looks as shiny as a newly hatched butterfly, he’ll call on his beloved and invite her to inspect his handiwork.

  Moira will gasp at its brilliance. She’ll tell Walter he has captured her very essence. Then, gracefully, he’ll drop onto one knee and with as much passion as he possesses declare his undying love.

  “How persuasive you are, my darling Walter,” Moira will say. “How handsome and talented… This attic looks like a new pin… Of course I’ll marry you. There’s nothing I want more than to spend the rest of my life with you!”

  On Thursday morning, Walter walks slowly towards Moira’s house, praying she’ll be at home. His clean collar scrapes against his neck. His new shoes squeak. The barber has given him a very close shave and his cheeks feel hot and raw. He holds a bunch of cornflowers he has bought in the Covered Market with his last few farthings.

  He rehearses his speech to Moira. He’ll tell her the dazzling colour of the cornflowers matches her glorious eyes.

  Walter thumps wildly on Moira’s door in Walton Street. There’s a lo
ng silence. Then the door opens.

  “Ah, Lizzie.” Walter tries to smile but his lips refuse to move upwards. Lizzie is slim with soft brown curly hair worn in a knot, pale grey eyes and a demure look that Henry, who’d met her once, much preferred to Moira’s glamorous charm. “How very nice you look this morning.”

  “Thank you, Walter.” Lizzie pats her immaculate hair. “I’m terribly busy at the moment. Did you want anything in particular?”

  Walter stares over Lizzie’s shoulder, trying to see into the living room. He can hear their Singer sewing machine whirring from the workshop.

  “Could you tell Moira I’d very much appreciate a quick word?”

  “I would if she were here, but she’s not.”

  “Ah…” A knife of disappointment cuts through Walter’s heart. “Do you happen to know when she’ll be back?”

  Lizzie folds her arms. “I’ve no idea.”

  “You must have some—”

  “I don’t, Walter. Moira has no idea, so how could I possibly know?”

  Walter takes a step away from the voice of doom. Lizzie smells of new linen and moth balls. The midday sun beats on the back of his neck, making him dizzy.

  “So where is she?” Walter feels forlorn, as if he’s a lost child searching for his mother.

  “Somewhere on the Mediterranean,” Lizzie says. “At this very moment Moira’s probably dipping her fingers into the sea, and sunning herself on a private yacht that belongs to Pierre Tessier.”

  Walter’s mouth drops. Sweat begins to slither down his face. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me, Walter. Pierre and Moira have been – how can I describe it? – close companions since that night last week when he arrived in Oxford. He’s been staying at The Randolph Hotel. He had business at the Ashmolean: a valuable painting to sell. Moira fell for him: hook, line and sinker. I’ve never seen her so enamoured.”