Page 19 of Under a Dancing Star

This is going to be interesting, I think, as I close my eyes and drink.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

My lessons aren’t set to begin until next week, so I endeavour to make the most of it. I go on solitary rambles through the hills in the early mornings, returning dusty and delighted by what I’ve seen, ready to fall on my lunch and then tumble wearily back on to my bed as the hottest part of the day burns itself out.

The heat is a shock to my system: the way it makes my body feel languorous and heavy; the way it takes charge, shaping my days like this. It’s like a living, breathing thing whose temperament needs to be considered at all times.

I spend the afternoons reading my book under the shade of a particularly friendly ilex tree, or being driven by my uncle to the nearest village to wander through the market, marvelling at the dusty orange buildings jumbled together, at the produce laid out like gifts on display, dipping my fingers into sacks of almonds, cool as pebbles, or inhaling the scent of sharp, golden lemons.

In the evenings we all come together again, and revel in the cooler temperatures, eating and drinking and listening to records on the gramophone. The ever-changing roster of artists moving through the villa is difficult to keep up with, but only Klaus, Ursula and Ben are staying in the grounds and it’s them who I gravitate towards.

Like Ben’s painting, Klaus’s contain shapes and colours that are unlike anything I’ve seen before. They’re certainly a world away from the paintings we had in Langton Hall before they were all sold. Klaus and Ben’s work is abstract, they tell me – they’re interested in modernity, energy, movement. I don’t really understand the art they are creating, but I understand the restless feeling they describe.

Ursula is a playwright and poet. She talks about a man called Brecht who seems to be something of a mentor to her. I have not heard of him, but when she mentions the man the others look almost reverent, and from the way they talk I gather this is a great honour. His name has a kind of solid weightiness about it.

In their midst I feel my own ignorance about the arts very keenly and I listen, trying to take it in, enjoying as ever the experience of learning about something new. And I must admit this is a very different thing to learning from the books in Langton Hall’s draughty library. Aside from anything else, our library is hopelessly out of date (apart from my own interventions when it comes to the science books), and the ideas and opinions I hear around my uncle’s dinner table feel almost frighteningly new.

“But why is it,” I ask them one night as we sit lingering over the remnants of another delicious meal, “that you’re painting like this, writing like this, now?”

There’s a pause as they consider the question.

“I suppose it’s partly because of the war,” Ben says, swirling his drink around in his glass, staring into it with a frown as though there’s an answer there. “Afterwards there was what they called the ‘return to order’, a sort of need for familiarity after all that trauma, all that…” He trails off uncomfortably. We’re all too young to remember much of the war, but still it hangs over us, over everyone.

“Return to order,” I repeat thoughtfully.

Ben nods. “So, more familiar, you know.” He places his glass down on the table and his hands move animatedly as he talks. “More objective, I suppose. Safer to keep things at a distance.”

“But now” – Klaus picks up the thread of Ben’s conversation – “artists like Matisse and Picasso are embracing the abstract again. It’s as though there’s been a falling away of tradition, making space for something new and different, something vital, completely of this moment…”

“Yes, yes,” Ben agrees. “Focussing on today, not shackled to the past.”

“It’s like the metamorphosis of the mayfly,” I say thoughtfully. “They spend their whole lives in the water preparing for a single day of dancing in the sun.” Everyone looks at me with interest, so I expand. “The Latin name is Ephemeroptera,” I say. “It’s from the Greek, epi and hemera, meaning to live for a day.”

“Ephemeral,” Ursula’s smoky voice joins in. “Something fleeting.”

“Exactly,” I say.

I have always dismissed painting and writing as being quite frivolous compared to the thrill of scientific discovery, which could change lives. But somehow, listening to these people talk with passion and excitement, I wonder whether I have been missing out on something after all.

“I never expected that I could find art so interesting,” I say.

“There’s not much in this world that is more of interest if you ask me.” Ben lounges back in his chair with an air of satisfied certainty.

“Well, science,” I point out.

“Science?” Ben’s eyes glitter in the candlelight. “Cold, impersonal, fact gathering.” His tone is dismissive.

“Biology is the study of life.” I lean forward, gripping the arms of my chair. “It’s about finding our place in the universe, unravelling the mysteries of nature. How could something so intricate and beautiful possibly be cold?” I ask. “Science examines what it means to be alive.”

For a moment my words hang in the air, and Ursula exhales a slow stream of cigarette smoke, a glimmer of something that looks like respect in her eyes.

I’m surprised by her response, by them all – how curious they are and the attentive way that they listen. In England my scientific interest is treated as something unsuitable, unfeminine, to be squashed down and kept private, not shared or debated. Here it feels, suddenly, as though my knowledge is valued. It leaves me feeling a little giddy.

The conversation moves on, but I glance up and catch Ben still staring at me as though I’m a crossword puzzle he can’t quite crack.

The following morning, Filomena awakens me with a surprise. She arrives at my bedroom door, a wide straw hat on her head, dragging a large trunk behind her.

“What’s this?” I ask, stepping back to let her in. She dumps the trunk on the bed without ceremony.