Summer in February
Jonathan Smith
was educated at Christ College, Brecon and St John’s College, Cambridge, where he read English. Since then he has been a
full-time schoolmaster, teaching in Scotland, in Australia and at Tonbridge, where he is now Head of Humanities.
His first novel,
Wilfred and Eileen
, was made into a BBC TV serial. He has written four more novels, a cricket book and a television play. Over the last fifteen
years he has also established a reputation as one of the most distinguished contemporary radio dramatists.
Wilfred and Eileen
The English Lover
In Flight
Come Back
Published by Hachette Digital
ISBN: 978-1-4055-1999-1
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © Jonathan Smith 1995
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
for David Evans
&
the Evans family
That morning, sitting in his spacious study in Castle House, Dedham, Sir Alfred Munnings opened a letter. It was from his
old friend, Dame Laura Knight.
16, Langford Place,
St John’s Wood,
London
27th April 1949
Dear A.J.,
So you’re really really going to do it tomorrow? Is it wise? Is it for the best? And why at the banquet? Won’t it open up
old wounds?
Whatever, I’ll be listening.
With love,
Laura.
It was time for the President’s big speech. The tapping, the call to order, was pretty close to his right ear so he had no
problem hearing it, and it was clear and crisp enough for everyone sitting at the top table. But then those about to speak
in public – as you’ll know if you’ve ever done it – are always on the edge of their seats, waiting for the moment to arrive,
picking at their food, wanting the lavatory, as dry-mouthed as jockeys lining up for the start at Newmarket, all tensed up
and ready for the off, and conscious that the eyes of the world are about to be on them.
And, in the President’s case, thousands of ears.
Not that he was nervous. Not a bit of it. If he had been nervous he would have written the whole speech out, wouldn’t he,
instead of just jotting down a couple of phrases on the back of his menu while enjoying his dinner to the full. Food and drink,
the President always maintained, were there to be enjoyed, and the truth was he was looking forward to this speech, to his
swansong: he knew what needed to be said to the assembled company and, by God, he was going to say it.
He was under starter’s orders.
But!
But, the table-tapping, while loud enough for him, was little match for that large gallery full of all-male banter, and no
match at all for the distant, well-oiled laughter which rose to the ceiling with the cigar smoke. The younger academicians
on the far tables, who had half heard the toastmaster tapping, pretended, in the time-honoured way, that they had not; and
when he was sitting in their place many years ago, the President used to do the same thing, employ the same delaying tactics,
only a damn sight worse. So, seeing the distant diners were not going to shut up for that genteel top table tapping, he turned
round and told the toastmaster to try again, only this time to ‘put a bit of beef into it’. And the toastmaster, a man of
solid muscle and bone, took the President at his word and fairly hammered the gavel. He hammered it slowly and loudly, with
more than a bit of come-on-gentle-men-now-please.
And that, the extra volume plus the emphatic pauses, did the trick. Even the rowdiest table fell silent; and once the lull
was established, the toastmaster, resplendent in red, puffed out his barrel chest and projected his voice full blast over
everyone’s heads, past the paintings hanging two or three deep on the walls, through the mahogany doors and out into Piccadilly
itself.
‘Your Royal Highness,’ he intoned – and that word ‘Highness’ helped to do the trick, bringing a respectful hush – ‘Your Excellencies,
Your Graces, My Lords and Gentlemen – Pray Silence for the President of the Royal Academy, Sir Alfred Munnings.’
Yes, that’s him!
Pray Silence for the second son of a Suffolk miller, a son of the soil, but then Constable, the great Constable, was the
son of a Suffolk miller too, and who wouldn’t be as proud as Punch to follow in
his
footsteps?
There was, too, something about the toastmaster’s style that the President liked. Good toastmastering, he always maintained,
was like gunnery practice: you cleaned the barrels, you slammed in the shells, you got the trajectory right, and then you
discharged a deafening salvo at the enemy. Take aim, fire! and the enemy were brought down. Enemy? At a banquet in Burlington
House?
What enemy?
But the enemy were there all right, and in numbers.
As the toastmaster intoned his phrases, the President savoured each and every word. He enjoyed each e-nun-ci-ated syllable.
Now
that
, he said to himself, is how to introduce a chap, straight from the shoulder, no mumbling, no beating about the bush.
‘Your Royal Highness’ – and there indeed was the Duke of Gloucester on his right, more or less upright if rather the worse
for wear—
‘Your Excellencies’ – and there were ambassadors from God knows which country at every table, including some Turk or other,
Mr Aki-Cacky, on Top Table—
‘Your Graces’ – yes, including the Archbishop of Canterbury himself who’d just been up on his feet wittering away – mixed
up with the odd Admiral and Field Marshal, he could see old Monty at the end of the table. Not to mention loads of lords and
plenty of gents, plenty of boiled shirts and stuffed shirts, plus a sprinkling of pansies who couldn’t tell a decent painting
from a pool of horse piss.
No, steady on now, Alfred, he said to himself, careful, old boy, you’re not in The Coach and Horses now, you’re in civilised
company, surrounded by The Great and The Good, and they’re here for a slap-up do and they’re also
here, Alfred, to hear your Retiring President’s speech and, by God, they’re going to get it!
On the toastmaster’s final words ‘Sir Alfred Munnings’ there was some kind of welcoming applause, mostly from Winston and
those close by on top table, but enough in all conscience to suggest some kind of recognition of all he had done as President.
As the applause died down, Sir Alfred took one more gulp of wine, a bloody good claret he’d selected himself, and checked
his flies. All secure there, he stood up.
The banquet was in Gallery Three, Burlington House, Piccadilly, and the place was jam-packed with one hundred and eighty diners.
The President ran his eye around the candle-lit tables, then placed both his fists, knuckles down, on the white tablecloth.
It was a position he liked to adopt when speaking. Not only did it take some weight off his dicky leg, but the stance also
(he felt) suited his attacking style.
So, here he was.
And there they were.
The President faced the Academy; he would not be presumptuous enough to say ‘his’ Academy. And he faced them with the nation
listening on the wireless, thousands of good people from John O’Groats to Land’s End had turned on their sets, ordinary folk
who liked to hear the simple truth spoken in simple plain English.
So, the truth it was to be.
‘Your Royal Highness,’ he began slowly, ‘My Lords and Gentlemen.’ As was his wont, he took his time over each syllable. After
a good evening he always maintained it was only sensible to take your time; it was always best to walk your horse home nice
and slowly through the lanes. Hurry along, as he’d found to his cost, and you could go arse over tip. The trouble was, though,
not only was he slow, he was
too
slow, and without meaning to, his voice caught some of the toastmaster’s tone.
‘I am,’ he began, ‘gett-ing some-what dis-tressed. Through some extra-ordin-ary arrange-ment these toasts have all been put
upon the Pres-i-dent.’
In amongst that lot there were too many rs and too many ps.
Rs
andps could, the President knew, be a ruddy problem and if he didn’t watch it he’d soon be reciting Poe’s ‘Raven’ or running
round the ragged rock with the rugged rascals or whichever way round it was.
Pause, he said to himself. Pause, Alfred!
He paused. There was time now to take a quick look down at the notes he’d been jotting down on the menu card, so he lifted
it up close to his eye and saw
Casserole of Sole Chablis
Rose Duckling with Olives
Garden Peas
New Potatoes
Asparagus
Gateau St Honoré
Ices
Petits Fois
Dessert
& Coffee
and there was not a lot of help there if you were already stuck on your feet, but there also
was a rather good pencil drawing of Winston smoking his cigar, done not ten minutes ago. Damned good likeness it was too.
It looked like Winston, his heavily hunched shoulders, his wrinkled forehead, his big cigar, the old boy to a T., and that’s
what a drawing should do, shouldn’t it, look like the subject?
Pleased with this thought, emboldened by this conviction, the President launched himself again, only this time at a canter,
so to speak, pushing the horse on a bit.
‘I know what it is, and have known what it is, to sit at the tables when there has been a much more company’ – what? a much
more company, what does
that
mean? Never mind, no time, keep going – ‘ca-rousing and drinking, little thinking of the poor President there at his table,
regardless of all he had to go through, and to get away with, to put it in a common turn of speech.’
He breathed out. That sentence, while something of a mish-mash, went a lot better, though there was a nasty moment after ‘ca-rousing
and drinking, little thinking’, when he felt a touch of panic in his palms that he might be slipping into that familiar, bouncy
metre and that familiar rhyme, slipping in fact into one of his impromptu ballads.
But, dammit, he wasn’t in some snug pub or artists’ party reciting Edgar Allan Poe, he was the President of the Royal Academy
and all dressed up like a toff. He was the most famous figure in British Art, and the main thing was, he had to make sense!
He had to speak simple English!
‘Now here I am, responding for The Academy. Now the Archbishop of Canter-bury has talked’ … a load of complete … ‘in a very
accomplished way about this body … but what
of
the body?’
The body of men, he meant, the collective body of English Art, the packed tables laid out in front of him in Burlington House.
And he glared from table to table; he glared left, and he glared right, and he glared ahead; and he had to say he did not
like much of what he saw. He did not like it one little bit. It was high time a question was put to the collective body of
English Art, and put bluntly in front
of the nation on the wireless. Then they couldn’t say they hadn’t heard it, could they?
Are they worthy? Yes, that’s it—
‘Are they worthy of this building in which they are housed? Are we all doing the great work which we should do? Well, it is
not for me to stand here on my head’ –
head
? You’re standing on your feet, Alfred – ‘here tonight and find fault with the Academy.’
At this there were some murmurs of approval, murmurs from posh people trying to warn him off, stuffed shirts trying to divert
the President into their polite, diplomatic channels. He could sense them saying under their breaths, ‘No, Munnings, you are
right, it is not for
you
, the second son of a Suffolk miller, to criticise
us
.’
This only incensed him further. Oh,
wasn’t
it! If they thought for one moment they could stop him going on with his plan they couldn’t be more wrong. In for a penny,
in for a pound, the President said to himself.
‘But, BUT I find myself a President of a body of men who are what I’d call shilly-shallying.’
He stressed ‘shilly’ and he stressed ‘shally’, and on ‘shilly-shallying’ a sizeable number of wobbly chins hit the table.
There was a sideways flickering of half-pickled eyes, a communal rolling of eyeballs. There was a fearful sense running around
the room that he was going to do it, and what was more he was going to do it with millions listening on the wireless. Damn
right he was. I told you I would, Laura.
He watched a white, manicured hand reach out in silence for the port.
Shilly-shallying. Monty, for one, liked that. Far too many soldiers, Monty always said, shilly-shallied. Winston, for another,
liked it. Far too many politicians, Winston said,
and ‘so-called statesmen’ shilly-shallied. In the expanding silence the President once more glared round the room, not focusing
his eye on any particular place, merely allowing the accusation to sink in and hurt. The shilly-shalliers knew who they were,
and
he
knew who they were, and he was going to blow them to pieces.
‘They!’
His voice rose.
‘They feel that there is something in this so-called MODERN ART.’
When he said the fatal words ‘Modern Art’ there was a gasp, an audible gulp. Yes, Reynard the Fox was now out into the open
and running. Now it was clear the hunt was on. Suddenly – it also happened sometimes when he was painting – suddenly he felt
an extraordinary power, a quick pump of adrenalin, as if he was going full tilt along the Cornish coast or full split across
the flat Norfolk fields, whip in hand and cap askew, full tilt and fearless at a wide-open ditch. There wasn’t any point shying
away, you had to go for the jump.
His voice rose to a sharper, more competitive level.
‘Well, I myself would rather have – ah’ – if he was going to blaspheme he realised he had better be civilised, he really should
do the decent thing and turn and bow slightly to the Archbishop of Canterbury – ‘ah, excuse me, my Lord Archbishop – I would
rather have a damned bad failure, a bad dusty old picture where somebody had tried to do something, to set down something
what they have seen and felt, than all this affected juggling, this following of … well, shall we call it the School of
Paris
?’
That Paris crack, the way he put such contempt into ‘
Paris
’, just came out, he was enjoying himself so much. He was loving it. So he put his hands on his hips, exactly as Charlie Chaplin
did in
The Great Dictator
,
and pretended to scour the tables for any offending French diplomats.
‘I hope the French ambassador is not here tonight.’
It has to be said he timed that aside rather well. In response, there was warm laughter, with-him laughter, and the aside
went down best of all with Winston, whose shoulders were going up and down. Good old Winnie, the President smiled, never a
great one for effete frogs and their new-fangled fashions. He looked at them all, and went strongly on.
‘Not so long ago, I spoke in this very room to the students, the boys and girls, and they were receiving all sorts of gratuities
from the Government. For what?
For what
?’
No one answered. No one dared.
‘To learn art. And to become what? Not artists. Well now, I said to those students, “If you paint a tree, for God’s sake try
and paint it to look like a tree, and if you paint a sky, try and make it look like a sky.”’ Winston, as sure as eggs were
eggs, was enjoying every word of all this: the President could feel his warm approval, there was absolutely no need to check.
Had they not discussed the textures of trees and the skyishness of skies often enough in recent months?
