Love Always

it to herself.

‘Our pleasure,’ Frances said, smiling at her. Out of the corner of her eye through the French windows she saw Arvind walking across the lawn.

He was holding a jar of lime marmalade and talking to himself.

She was enjoying her sessions with Cecily, more than she cared to admit. Normal y, Frances saw sittings as a chore: you had to do them to get the result you wanted, but it was tiresome, having to put the subject at ease. She was used to painting the landscape, marvel ing at the ways it could change, rather than getting someone to sit stil for an hour.

But this was different. She loved talking to her younger daughter. Cecily’s mind was like a waterfal , endlessly bubbling over with new ideas and thoughts and she had no filter, no sense that something was wrong or right. One day, she would be cured of this, be more self-conscious but for now, Frances loved it. Cecily was like her father in that respect: an original thinker, untrammel ed by popular opinion. She was refreshingly, blessedly unlike her sister, in temperament, in ambition, and in looks.

This morning, they talked about the news. Cecily always wanted to talk about the trial of Stephen Ward. It seemed as if it was playing out, with hitherto unseen levels of lurid detail, as near-perfect summer entertainment for the whole country.

‘What’s he done wrong, is what I want to know? He just introduced the girls to Mr Profumo. He’s not the one who’s . . . met with the girls and done al those things, is he? It’s Mr Profumo who did that. And he lied to Parliament, and he’s not even on trial. And –’ Cecily’s voice lowered – ‘Mr Profumo was married!’

Frances, seated at her easel, smiled. The sun was flooding through the large windows into the white room, il uminating her daughter’s face and casting it into shadow as she talked. She’d long wanted to capture Cecily’s mercurial quality, however fleeting.

‘Cec, stay stil for me, darling, just a few moments,’ she said. ‘Stephen Ward is a . . . scapegoat, I think. They accuse him of living off immoral earnings – don’t move! That means making money out of girls who are prostitutes. Stay stil .’

‘Wel , he doesn’t sound like a particularly sound fel ow to me, I must say,’ Cecily said. ‘Very odd way to behave.’

Frances laughed lightly. ‘How very censorious you are, Miss Kapoor!’ She felt her heart beating fast; Cecily was so innocent in so many ways, had no idea what grown-ups could be like. When she thought of herself at that age, she wanted to laugh. ‘I simply don’t think he’s as guilty as they’re making him out to be. Profumo, too – it’s al a big storm in a teacup, real y.’ She looked again. ‘Stay like that. Just a while longer, please.’

They were silent for a few moments. Outside, the faint sound of the sea crashing on the rocks beneath the house, and desultory conversation between Miranda and Archie outside on the terrace. Inside, people were moving about the house, and Frances could hear humming. That meant Arvind was working; he always hummed when he worked. She smiled.

‘Mum?’

‘Yes, darling.’

‘What’s proscuring a miscarriage?’

‘What?’

‘Proscuring a miscarriage. They had a man in the paper yesterday sent to prison for doing it to two ladies.’

Frances sighed. She hated censorship, hated lying to children about the world they were growing up in. She couldn’t stop Cecily reading the newspapers, therefore, but it was sometimes hard to explain things. Cecily was rather unworldly – she’d been at a convent boarding school for four years, after al – but it pleased Frances that she was showing signs of being surprisingly sophisticated about things, too. So awful to have a bourgeois child, a Jeremy or a Louisa! ‘Procuring, not proscuring. It’s helping girls get rid of a pregnancy they don’t want. An abortion.’

‘Why don’t they want it?’

‘Lots of reasons, I suppose,’ Frances said, after a pause. ‘They’re poor. It’s the wrong time. There’s something wrong with it. The man has run off and left them. The girl didn’t want to have sex, sometimes she was forced into it.’

‘Rape?’

‘Yes,’ Frances said. She glanced up at Cecily, but her daughter’s face was impassive. ‘This is an extremely pleasant conversation for a Thursday morning, isn’t it? Prostitution, rape and abortion. Now, stay stil . I’m nearly finished.’

A faint voice floated high up to the sunny studio at the top of the house. ‘Cecily, if you want to come, we’re leaving in a couple of minutes.’

‘Fine,’ Cecily cal ed, her long legs twitching on the stool, swinging wildly from side to side. ‘Coming.’

‘You know, because I real y don’t want to be late for Frank,’ the voice continued. ‘Cecily?’

‘Yes!’ Cecily yel ed back. ‘Oh, Mum,’ she said softly to Frances. ‘I know I shouldn’t say this, but Louisa is turning into a real bore.’

Frances hid her face so her daughter couldn’t see her expression, and then she looked up reprovingly. ‘You can go, darling. Thank you. Be nice to your cousin.’

Cecily jumped up, hitching down her blue Aertex shirt, and came and kissed her mother. ‘I am nice, Mum, I’m the nicest of the lot, honestly.’

She paused, and said dramatical y, ‘Apart from Jeremy. Jeremy’s really nice. I like him.’

She opened the studio door and charged down the stairs, her shoes clattering erratical y as she cal ed, ‘Louisa, Jeremy! Don’t go without me!’