The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [250]
“Shall I read it?” asked Marian.
“I’ll lend it to you. Wrapped in brown paper, wrapped in newspaper. Keep it in a drawer. You’ll find you don’t really want to read it in bed. Or so I imagine.”
At the end of the year Dorothy had passed all parts of the Preliminary Exam except Physics, which she was to resit. Griselda had matriculated. Julian had his First—neither the best, nor the worst First, a gentlemanly First. Karl had passed Part I of the Maths Tripos. Tom had failed again. Philip was working on a new, silvery blue glaze.
34
When Geraint, or Gerry, Fludd left Purchase House he wanted, he thought to himself, deliberately using the cliché, to shake its dust from his feet. His mind was full of images both mocking and distasteful. The holes in the long dirty carpets in the corridors. The vacancy in his mother’s large eyes. Pomona being skittish or girlish. Half-cooked fish (before Elsie came) and watery porridge. Clutter, as though the workshop was trying to infest the living space with drying knobs of clay and smears of engobe. He needed to get out, and he had got out. Now he was calmer, and had his own life, he began to feel he might have responsibilities.
This feeling was inextricable from his need to continue to visit the Cains, which was easy for him to do, because his sister was there. But after some time he began to be really interested in Imogen’s future, as opposed to appearing to be so. She was good-looking, in an elongated, old-fashioned way, and her slow speech and gestures were less mannered, more natural. She appeared to have talent. She was worth helping. And if he helped her, intelligently, he would be helping those abandoned helpless ones in the Marshes. His father might be a genius but he was the exact opposite of a good businessman, even more a good salesman. He did not appear to want to part with anything he had made. And he might turn Philip Warren into a copy of himself. Geraint visited the Cains when Prosper came back from his visit to Berlin. He said he thought there should be a showplace somewhere in London, where Imogen’s work could be displayed and sold—and the work of the Purchase potters also, and possibly other selected artists who had been at the Royal College with Imogen. Somewhere perhaps in Holborn or Clerkenwell. It could combine a studio with the display—so Imogen, perhaps, and a potter, maybe—could be seen working, and could explain the work to interested visitors. He had talked to Basil Well-wood, and Katharina, and they were interested in investing in the project. And he himself could help with managing.
Imogen said she had thought she should leave South Kensington and set up on her own. Major Cain said he hoped she would not—it was good for Florence to have her company—she should feel more than welcome to stay at least until this excellent idea had been put in place, and was running. Geraint looked at Florence, to see if she was happy. He did not think her expression was one of pleasure. Much of the smiling poised calm he had loved her for had vanished lately. But he still loved her, doggedly. He thought of her in the beds of the women he visited, and he remembered this now, as he looked at her, and flushed. “What do you think?” he asked her. She said it was a clever idea, and she wished she had a talent, as Imogen had.
The showroom was set up in a street in Clerkenwell where other artisans already worked and showed. It had a plate-glass window and display shelves and cabinets (made by furniture students) in elegant modern Arts and Crafts forms. There was a counter which was more like a long hall table, also in pale wood, and behind the counter, a recessed space in which Imogen’s work table, with blow-pipe and leather bags, was set up, next to a wheel for a potter. Various