Flying High

‘Oh, but I insist that you let me run you home. It’s the very least I can do after your kindness. I believe you live quite close to me,’ she went on, as he gratefully slid into the passenger seat. She had seen him one day in a ramshackle Citroën Dyane coming out of the drive of a rather nasty-looking little bungalow.

‘And you live … ?’

‘Vine Cottage; I don’t know whether you know it?’

‘Ah yes, I think I’ve passed it in the car. Is there actually a vine?’

‘Yes, quite an old one at the back of the house. Are you at all interested in gardening?’

‘Love it,’ said Teddy Redfern, who occasionally, in a wild spurt of energy, would go out to his garden and attack the lawn for ten minutes or so before collapsing into a deckchair with his heart pounding. ‘I’m afraid mine’s a bit neglected at the moment but I’ve got great plans for it. You must come round one day and advise me.’

‘Oh, I adore telling other people what to do with their gardens,’ she said effusively. ‘But isn’t your wife fond of gardening?’

‘I live on my own. Was married for a time but it didn’t work out; just one of those things, I suppose. My fault. I’m not an easy man to live with – put it down to the artistic temperament!’

He went on to tell her about his days at the Slade in the 1960s when he had been ‘a bit of a terror’ then gave her an account of his teaching career. He was naturally obliged to leave out all the most interesting bits but made up for this by enlarging on his reasons for ‘opting out’.

‘… had enough of the rat-race. I made up my mind I was going to devote myself to my own work, sink or swim. I’m simply not cut out for a regular nine-to-four-thirty job. Nowadays I can stay in bed till noon then work all night if I feel like it.’

How Bohemian he was! thought Mrs Oliphant, remembering her own husband setting off at the same hour each morning with briefcase and bowler hat. One could see how the artistic temperament would be difficult to live with but at the same time quite fascinating.

‘Perhaps you’d like to pop in and have a cup of tea with me as it’s on the way,’ she said, as they neared Vine Cottage. ‘Unless of course you’re in a frightful hurry?’

But Teddy Redfern was in no particular hurry and thought it would be interesting to see the cottage. As he followed Mrs Oliphant through the front door he was instantly struck by the unnatural tidiness of the place, then by the elegance and quiet good taste evident in the drawing room. His feet sank into a soft, pale carpet; the chairs were covered in blue-and-white flowered chintz; a few good pieces of porcelain were displayed here and there. On a low table with the colour and sheen of a new horse-chestnut stood an elaborate flower arrangement of mauve and white lilac, fat white peonies and purple irises. He felt large and ill at ease, fearful of bumping into some valuable piece of furniture or marking the carpet with his shoes.

Mrs Oliphant led him out to the neat little kitchen so that he could wash the traces of oil from his hands.

‘I think it might be pleasant to have our tea outside, don’t you? It’s such a beautiful afternoon. Why don’t you go out to my little courtyard and relax, and I’ll bring the tray in a minute.’

The courtyard was delightful with its tubs of double petunias and trailing lobelia. Behind him the vine climbed almost to the roof of the cottage, its leaves a tender pale green against the faded coral of the brickwork. He sat down on a white wrought-iron chair and gazed down Mrs Oliphant’s garden.

‘You don’t do all this yourself, do you?’ he asked, as she set the tray down on the table.

‘No, I must confess I have a man in to do the heavy work. But I think beautiful, peaceful surroundings are so important for one’s well-being, don’t you?’

This was an idea that had never occurred to Teddy Redfern. It was odd, he thought, that no yellow or orange or scarlet flowers seemed to grow in Mrs Oliphant’s garden, and he remarked on the fact.

‘But how frightfully clever of you to notice! To tell you the truth, I find those colours strike a jarring note – I love blues and mauves, and white of course, and all those heavenly things with silvery leaves. One tries to keep the effect muted.’

‘And do you get many grapes from the vine?’

‘Yes, certainly. More than I know what to do with. You must have some in the autumn.’

‘Maybe if you decide to come to my class again we could use them for some still-life work.’

‘Yes, what a splendid idea! I’m sure I shall want to carry on with the class – one feels one still has such a great deal to learn. I’m finding drawing from the figure a tremendous challenge. I think we were all a little apprehensive before today; one half-expected to be confronted by a nude!’ She gave a musical laugh.

‘Oh, we shall get to the nudes,’ said Teddy Redfern with confidence. ‘Oh, yes – the nudes are all lined up. Or nude, I should say; only one of the models will be doing it. We have to pay them more, you see.’

‘Yes, I suppose one would have to … It won’t be the young man who posed for us today, then?’

‘Mick? Oh, no. The female figure – that’s the usual drill. I shan’t be inflicting any naked male bodies on you, ha, ha!’

That was rather a relief, thought Mrs Oliphant, after she had driven Teddy Redfern home. It wasn’t that one would be shocked or embarrassed; more that one might feel obscurely uncomfortable, possibly on behalf of the unclothed male model, so heavily outnumbered.

The next week Mick posed for them again. He sat on a hard wooden chair with his arms and legs crossed, and his body seemed to be all planes and angles, difficult to reproduce on the paper.

After the class she saw Teddy Redfern getting into his little red Citroën and felt slightly disappointed that there was no longer any need to offer him a lift.

The following week a new model appeared. To Mrs Oliphant and her contemporaries she seemed hardly more than a child, though one realized of course that she must have been in her early twenties. Her dark hair was cropped short like a boy’s and her skin was as firm and shiny as a nectarine. In spite of the plumpness of her figure she was wearing black cycling shorts and an orange T-shirt that was really no more than a vest. Her black canvas shoes were dusty and her nail polish chipped.

How unattractive girls nowadays made themselves look! thought Mrs Oliphant, narrowing her eyes a little as she started to sketch the ripe curves that only too clearly needed the support of a good brassière. And how very unflattering those tight shorts were, made from some slightly shiny synthetic material … Teddy Redfern had introduced her as ‘Lynne’, and at half-time sat on the edge of his table chatting to her and laughing a lot.

On the afternoon that Lynne came into the art room wearing a gaudily patterned short kimono a frisson of excitement ran through the class, for obviously they were about to tackle The Nude.

She really looked very little better without her clothes, thought Mrs Oliphant as, after discarding the kimono, the girl settled herself on an old chaise longue. She lay in such a position as to make it clear that she was not in the least self-conscious about the size of her hips. Today Teddy Redfern fetched her a cup of tea in the break, and though she shrugged herself back into the lurid kimono she did not bother to tie its belt. He sat beside her on the chaise longue and once again did a lot of laughing.

No doubt he was as detached as any doctor or nurse, the ladies reminded themselves, for after all the human body was merely a piece of machinery. Nevertheless, one did feel that it might have been more suitable not to have given the model that jolly slap on the behind just as she was about to start disrobing, or to have whispered whatever it was that made her giggle so uncontrollably.

After the class Mrs Oliphant walked to her car with Mrs Prentice, a nice woman of her own age, and they discussed Teddy Redfern’s behaviour in hushed voices.

‘Of course, one never knows with divorced men,’ said Mrs Prentice sensibly. ‘One shouldn’t be surprised if they go off the rails.’

‘Off the rails?’ repeated Mrs Oliphant in a high, alarmed tone. ‘Oh, but surely, my dear, there couldn’t be anything like that! Goodness knows, one isn’t a prude, but the girl is young enough to be his daughter. No, I think he was just being a little bit foolish in the way that middle-aged men so often are …’

Certainly Teddy Redfern was not foolish on any subsequent occasion that Lynne posed in the nude; indeed his manner towards her seemed offhand and almost brusque. Twice he complimented Mrs Oliphant on her work. A new model came and sat for them; an elderly man with a face full of unusual lumps and bumps like a potato. Teddy Redfern pinned Mrs Oliphant’s drawing of the potato-like head on the art room wall.

At their final class Mick posed for them again. The ladies had brought strawberries and cream to eat at half-time; Teddy Redfern had provided a couple of bottles of wine; a party atmosphere prevailed. Under the influence of this Mick became quite chatty and got out photographs of his girlfriend and baby daughter. At the end of the afternoon Mrs Oliphant walked out to the car park with Teddy Redfern.

‘Will you be coming to the class again next term?’ he asked.

‘Well, naturally one would love to if it can be arranged. But I’m not quite sure what my commitments will be; I’ve promised an old friend that I’ll go to Italian classes with her.’

‘Oh, do come, Anthea,’ he said, looking at her with his warm, brandy-coloured eyes. ‘I can’t manage without my star pupil. We’ll be doing still life in the autumn; I seem to remember you were rather good at that.’

‘Still life …’ she echoed, seeing in her mind’s eye a bunch of dark purple grapes lying in a pottery dish, perhaps beside a slim green wine bottle. ‘Yes, I do feel that’s very much me.’

‘Jolly good!’ he said, like an enthusiastic schoolboy. ‘I’ll expect to see you in September. You will come, now won’t you?’

Yes, thought Mrs Oliphant, she would go, even if it clashed with the Italian class and she had to disappoint Marjorie. There were times when one had to be a little selfish, otherwise people would take advantage of one’s good nature. Almost gaily she waved, as Teddy Redfern drove away from the centre still calling out, ‘Don’t let me down!’ from his car window.

Mrs Oliphant spent the month of August visiting her married daughter in Canada. They did a great deal of touring about and the weather was very hot and, although of course one absolutely adored one’s grandchildren, there was no getting away from the fact that toddlers were most frightfully exhausting.

It was delightful to be back in the peace of one’s own charming little cottage, to rediscover the joys of solitude and the sheer bliss of pottering around one’s garden. It was not until she had been home for a week that she chanced to pick up the new Adult Education Prospectus from the library.

Yes, there it was: Discovering Drawing: Edward Redfern. For beginners or the more advanced. Drawing can simply record information, but it can also express dynamic emotion. Students will be encouraged to develop their skills in a free and original way, using a variety of techniques. It really did sound quite exciting put like that, and she began to look forward to the new term.

One day in the second week of September she discovered that the grapes were ripe enough to eat. She could not remember having picked them as early as this in previous years; it had been an exceptional summer. She toyed with the idea of taking a bunch along to her first drawing class, then the happy thought struck her that there was really no need to wait for this. She knew where Teddy Redfern lived and could perfectly well call round with the grapes she had promised him. Perhaps she could advise him on his garden at the same time.

Mrs Oliphant arranged several of the ripe bunches artistically in a shoe box lined with crumpled pale-green paper napkins – almost as if one were taking them to church for a Harvest Thanksgiving service, she told herself mockingly. But one did like things to look elegant; even a simple gift should reflect one’s personality. For similar reasons she dressed with care in a lilac cotton skirt and top that she had bought in Canada. It was still warm enough not to need a cardigan.

Teddy Redfern’s bungalow, seen close to, was even nastier than she had imagined and the poor man’s garden certainly was neglected! The hedges had simply been allowed to run riot and the last of the privet blossom gave out a warm, sickly scent; a lawnmower stood abandoned on the half-cut patch of grass; the flowerbeds were dry and choked with weeds. A large, untidy clump of red-hot pokers almost blocked the path that led to the front door.

Stepping delicately past these red-hot pokers, Mrs Oliphant rang the doorbell, then stood listening with her head on one side. She became aware of music playing somewhere inside – the sort of music with a heavy, pounding bass that somehow she would not have expected a man of Teddy Redfern’s age to have liked. She rang the bell again but this time without much confidence.

His little red car was standing on the drive so he must be at home. Perhaps he was working in the back garden. She made her way round the side of the house, hardly noticing that the music had stopped. As she came to an open window she found herself looking into an incredibly disordered living room and was about to hurry past when she was arrested by the sound of voices. They seemed to come from a sofa covered in hideous mustard-yellow velveteen which stood with its back to the window.

‘Have a heart, sweetie – I’m not a superman.’

‘That’s not what you told me half an hour ago …’

It was at this point that Mrs Oliphant caught sight of the black cycling shorts and orange vest which lay next to a whisky bottle on the carpet. She lifted her eyes and saw a plump but shapely leg rise into the air, the toes curling and uncurling. There was the sound of a slap then a giggle, followed by Teddy Redfern’s unmistakable laugh.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Just let me change the tape first.’

The next moment Mrs Oliphant stepped back in horror as he got up from the sofa and crossed the room, revealing more of the naked male body than she ever wished to encounter again. It was clear that he had not been ‘drawing from the figure’, though he could have been expressing dynamic emotion in a free and original way, using a variety of techniques.

Her heart thudding, she tiptoed swiftly back to the front of the bungalow. Would it be best to take the grapes home with her? But then, looking at their firm, shiny plumpness, she felt a sudden distaste for them. Quietly she laid the box on the front doorstep and hurried out of the gate.

It wasn’t that one was shocked, she told herself, standing in her cool, gracious drawing room a little later. If one had thought about it, one would naturally have assumed that he must have some sort of ‘love life’, to use the rather ridiculous modern expression. It was simply that one didn’t expect that kind of thing to be going on in the middle of the afternoon, in broad daylight, and not even in his bedroom.

Absently she rearranged a spray of Michaelmas daisies in the vase that stood on the low table. With sprigs of purple hebe and a few creamy-white roses the effect was exquisite.

It was strange that she had not noticed the reddish tinge in Mr Redfern’s hair before today; she had never cared for ginger men – just one of those little irrational foibles. Of course, one had always realized that he was not quite a gentleman …

She gazed out of the window at her charming garden, a restful, soothing vista of greens and blues and silver and white. It might be agreeable to take a tray of tea out to the courtyard, she thought.

Sitting there, sipping Earl Grey tea from a fragile, bone china cup, she turned once more to the Adult Education Prospectus. Watercolour Flower Painting; how delightful that sounded! The tutor was a Bridget Coombe-Stevens, and students were encouraged to bring their own plant and flower material.

There was nothing more ageing than to get into a rut and one really had a duty to oneself to ensure that this did not happen. And of course this class had the added advantage of not clashing with Italian, and so one would be able to keep one’s promise to poor Marjorie …

BERLIN STORY

Philip Sealey

Philip Sealey currently teaches English at the European School in Munich. He has travelled widely and written two novels and the libretto for an opera. At present he is working on a third book set, like this short story, in Berlin after the Wall.

BERLIN STORY

Es war einmal – once upon a time.

The wood was dark and the thin ribbon of sky above their heads was already speckled with the first stars.

She was four and he was six and every few paces she had to break into a run in order to keep up with him. Her basket, filled with the berries they had been gathering, hung heavily in her small hand and she longed to abandon it somewhere. Her brother Hans had nothing to carry.

‘Why do you always go so fast?’ she called crossly after him.

‘It’s getting dark!’ he shouted back over his shoulder.

‘But we’ll be home soon, won’t we? You promised we’d only be gone an hour.’

In the middle of the path, he stopped and turned to face her. She looked at his wide, frightened eyes and, in her mind, saw the forest stretching away endlessly behind him.

‘I don’t know the way any more,’ he said.

When Greta Maier opened her eyes, the sunlight was already filtering through the gaps in the half-drawn blinds. She lay still, listening to the faint voices she could hear from downstairs. Children’s voices. How strange that, on this of all days, the old dream – or was it a memory? – should return to haunt her. But not only the dream. The three words also that, like an incantation, seemed to float in the air around her, as though she had spoken them aloud in her sleep.

Es war einmal.

But perhaps, she thought suddenly, the words contained a message for her. For when she looked back over her long life, it seemed that everything she could remember, the century’s swirling tides that she had been forced to sail upon, had now no more substance than a dream. And this city – in which so much of it had come to pass, in which more than eighty years had slipped like fine sand through her fingers – was not its history, especially its most recent past, as unreal as the events of a fairytale? And for each character, in every fairytale she had ever read, whether the ending was happy or sad, there was always a final page and one last, conclusive full stop.

There was a knock at the door. Too abrupt, too authoritative by far, for children.

‘Mother.’

But, of course, it was only Hannah.

‘Yes?’ How faint her own voice sounded.

Her daughter knocked again. ‘Mother, are you awake yet?’

Frau Maier raised her head from the pillow and cleared her throat. She must be still half-asleep.

‘I’m just about to get up.’

‘Can I come in?’

‘Of course.’

The door opened and Hannah came into the room. She was wearing an apron over the new dress the old lady knew she had bought especially for today. She was smiling, though her face looked strained. She bent down beside the bed and kissed her mother on the forehead.

‘Happy birthday, Mother. I wish you all the health and happiness you could desire for another year.’

‘Thank you, dear.’

Frau Maier reached out and hugged her daughter. ‘Are the children being difficult downstairs?’

‘You should know what it’s like. There’s so much to do and the little ones always seem to be under your feet. Lukas and Maria have baked you some currant bread. It tastes delicious. They insisted on using the old bread oven though, which meant having to light a fire. Miroslav had to chop up that old chair in the cellar for wood. You don’t mind, do you?’

Her mother shook her head. ‘I doubt if it was much good for anything else.’ She hoped it wasn’t the one she thought it was, but then was there any longer a point in hoarding these things from her past? The house was full of everything it had been possible to save from two world wars and their aftermaths. Each small ornament, photograph, or piece of furniture meant something to her, but perhaps the time had come to stop clinging on to all this debris. Maybe the oven, that had remained so long unlit, was the best place for many other things that seemed, on this morning of her ninetieth birthday, to have suddenly lost their meaning.

Hannah went back downstairs, closing the door behind her, and Frau Maier began to get up. She poured some water into the china bowl on the stand beside her bed and washed. The modern bathroom, that had been fitted at Hannah’s insistence when she moved back to live with her mother after her husband’s death, held no attractions for her. She washed, and lived, as she had always done. She took out a simple, dark-coloured dress, that she seemed to remember wearing for her eightieth birthday, and stood in front of the wardrobe mirror. Did she look any different from the last time she had worn it? The material seemed to hang more loosely from the shoulders, perhaps, her hair looked a little thinner, but other than that the only real difference she thought she could detect was a certain transparency of the skin, as if it might be possible soon to see the pale bones, like underwater coral, that had lain concealed for all these years beneath the surface.

She fastened a single strand of pearls around her neck and continued to stare at the reflection. A shadow crossed the glass and she realized that someone else had entered the room and was now standing behind her. He was dressed in uniform and his fair hair had been combed so meticulously it might have been parted with a razor.

‘You look so young tonight,’ he said, beginning to stroke the dark waves of hair that fell to her shoulders. She watched him in the mirror as he gently twisted her hair around one hand.

‘How long have we known each other?’ he asked suddenly.

She smiled, recalling that afternoon in the café on the Ku’damm when she had spilt coffee over him; the incident had lost her the job as a waitress, but gained her a husband.

‘Almost four years,’ she said.

‘And yet you’re still a mystery to me.’ He pulled her hair a little harder so that she was forced to bend her neck back towards him. ‘Look at your face, Greta,’ he said. ‘You’re not a peasant girl from the Tannenberg forest at all, are you? Your ancestors weren’t Prussian!’

Greta looked into his eyes, unsure as to whether he was being serious or simply teasing her. Still holding her hair, he pulled her head back against his chest, whilst his free hand began to caress her throat.

‘Your hair’s too dark, my love; your cheekbones too high. Some of my friends have commented on it.’

Suddenly growing frightened, she tried to break away from him, but he held her too tightly. He contained her struggles and bent his head so that he could kiss her neck. She felt his lips brush the skin below her ear. He was pressing her whole body back against him and she relaxed, as he released her hair. She tried to turn her head so that she could kiss him, but he wouldn’t let her. He held his mouth away from hers and moved his hands so that they rested over her small breasts. He squeezed her, forcing her body back against him so that she could feel the hardness of his uniform’s buttons through the thin material of her dress.

‘You scared me,’ she said very softly.

‘I didn’t mean to,’ he answered, still kissing her neck. ‘It was just that when I came into the room and saw you there, you looked almost like someone I didn’t know. Perhaps as your mother might once have looked.’ He paused. ‘I’m so sorry I never met her.’