figures in a dismal landscape, no, nor those fetching but trivial book jackets you do for WH Smith. Nor touching up flower paintings in Rossetti’s workshop.’
‘The jackets and the flowers make me money.’
‘Of course, and even an artist must live, if only on eggs and soup. I daresay you could make an excellent career out of nothing but the book jackets; they have a charm which is, you don’t need me to tell you, quite lacking in your paintings.’
His words had stung Polly. No artist himself, he chose to find his company among artists, and was renowned for having an eye and an unerring instinct for putting his finger on the weakness in any artist’s work. And Polly, honest with herself, had to admit that her art was never going to please her or anyone else unless it changed dramatically.
Her friend, Fanny Powys, happy in her own work of silkscreen printing, had tried to cheer Polly up.
‘Oliver doesn’t bother to make his sharp remarks about painters he doesn’t think have any talent. If he’s polite, you know that artist’s a no-hoper.’
And Fanny should know, for it was at the private view of an exhibition of her prints that she had introduced Oliver to Polly. Polly, her attention entirely on a vigorous design taken from the whorls of oyster shells, had paid scant notice to the tall man who remained standing beside her.
‘It’s a matter of patterns,’ he said. ‘That’s what makes Fanny’s work different from most of her kind.’
And Polly had found herself drawn into a lively discussion about silkscreen printing, which led to wider topics of contemporary art. Polly was amazed that Oliver, who was, he had at once told her, not an artist, should have such an eye, such a quick appreciation of what artists such as Fanny were about.
‘I grew up surrounded by paintings and works of art,’ he explained. ‘My father is a collector, and very knowledgeable. He’s always been interested in the artists of the day as much as in past masters, and so I follow in his footsteps.’
Polly disagreed with Oliver about the work of several painters, and the argument was continued over supper at Bertorelli’s, the restaurant that was to become their favourite eating place.
Polly had taken an immediate liking to Oliver. ‘We are snip and snap,’ she explained to Fanny. ‘Oh, it’s not sex, although I suppose … No, it really isn’t. Affinity, that’s the word.’
‘A strange affinity,’ Fanny said drily. ‘Polly Smith and the Hon. Oliver.’
‘Hon.?’
‘His father’s a lord. Didn’t he tell you?’
Polly pondered on this piece of information. Did it make a difference? No, Oliver was Oliver. Of course he had another life, far removed from the impecunious day-to-day existence of artists like herself. Yet he was, in his way, one of them. ‘He’s a friend,’ she told Fanny. ‘We like one another’s company. Our minds are in harmony. That’s enough for me, his being an Hon. is neither here nor there.’
A man in a dark coat said, ‘Excuse me,’ in affronted tones, as though Polly were standing there with the express intention of keeping him from his tobacco, and she moved out of the way, back into the full force of the wind and the rain.
She made up her mind. She would go back to Highgate, and consult Ma about the passport photograph. Maybe she could suggest who could sign it for her.
Dora was at her piano; even on her busiest days, she never did less than two hours’ practice. In the kitchen, Mrs Babbit, the char, was singing loudly to herself as she turned out a cupboard.
‘How can you play with that noise going on?’ Polly said, as she always did.
‘Focus,’ said Dora, as she always did. Polly, somewhat hesitantly, because she didn’t want to sound accusatory, explained her problem.
‘I never thought of that.’
‘If I’m illegitimate, which I am, then that’s a fact, and there’s no point denying it,’ Polly said.
‘And no need to go broadcasting it from the rooftops, either. I’ve protected you from that all these years.’
‘And it wouldn’t be good for you if word got around. I don’t live here any more, but you do. I’ve been racking my brains, but I simply don’t know these professional kind of people, except the vicar here, and Miss Murgatroyd.’
‘It’ll have to be Dr Parker,’ Dora said. ‘He knows you aren’t my daughter, and he’ll sign it for you.’
‘You told him?’
‘When Ted and I were still hoping for children. He’s never said a word to anyone all these years, he won’t say a word now. Go along right away, and you may catch him before he sets off on his rounds.’
Polly arrived at the doctor’s house just as he was putting his medical bag into his black Wolseley. As she called out to him, he looked up with the long-suffering expression of a doctor trying to get away, but he smiled when he saw who it was.
‘I thought you were another patient.’
‘Well, I am, I suppose, but I’m not ill. I’m never ill.’
‘So what can I do for you?’
‘It’s a photograph, for a passport. It needs a signature. I thought … Ma said …’
Dr Parker was suddenly alert, and he drew his bushy brows together. ‘Passport, eh? So Dora’s had to come clean at last, I suppose.’
‘Yes.’
He ran his eyes down the form. ‘I’ve done this often enough before.’ He opened the car door. ‘Can’t do this standing in the rain.’
The car smelled musty and leathery. Comforting, somehow. He rested the photo on the steering wheel and took a fat black fountain pen out of his inside pocket. He unscrewed the cap and turned the photo over. ‘Read out the exact words, Polly, and then you can tell me who you are.’
‘Polyhymnia Tomkins, I’m afraid.’
‘Good God. Let’s hope I can spell Polyhymnia.’
‘P-O,’ began Polly.
‘It’s all right, I can remember enough of my classical education to cope with that. One of the muses, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Tomkins was Dora’s maiden name. You’re her sister’s child.’ And then, catching sight of the bleak look on Polly’s face. ‘Cheer up, young lady. As a doctor, I could tell you, if I didn’t know how to keep my mouth shut, how many people even in this small part of London aren’t quite what or who they think or say they are.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Daughters who are actually granddaughters, sons who were born a year after their named fathers went away to the war, married couples who never went before a priest or a registrar. Your secret’s perfectly safe with me, Polly. Besides, you’ll soon be Mrs Harrington,
