Page 8

Paris

Train stations are overwhelming. Even the one in St Ives fills me with fear.

Everything at the Gare de Lyon is amplified.

So many people, all rushing. Noises, colours and smells.

My head is swimming. The train to Venice leaves in an hour.

Winifred speaks to the porter in French.

Slowly I translate, but by then we are walking to a platform.

Steam belches from the engines, filling the air with the bitter scent of coke.

I want to become invisible. In Cornwall that isn’t possible because everyone, and all they do, is known. But here in Paris, aside from Winifred Nicholson, no one knows me.

‘Are you sure you’ll be fine on your own in Venice?’ she asks.

‘Yes,’ I lie. I’m unsure of everything right now and have been for months, maybe longer. Things came to a crisis a few weeks ago.

‘Well, your mother was.’ She sends me a sideways glance.

‘She did return pregnant with you.’ She pauses, looking around.

‘I always thought her marriage to your father in Venice was so romantic.’ She takes my hand in hers.

‘I know you miss her, and so do I, but I also know she would be so proud of you.’

Even now, having read all her journals, I can’t accept that my mother was like me.

In Venice she found my father, and somehow the city transformed Rebecca Arthur from a freak into a wife and mother.

I hope whatever magic she discovered there still exists, or I might never be able to go home.

My stepmother’s words – deviant and pervert – still echo in my ears.

But as hard as it was hearing those words from her, it was far harder to hear them from my closest friend, Nellie.

I went to her for support, but she just made fun of how I’d felt all those years ago when she’d practised kissing on me.

That had been life-altering. Her recent words brought all that self-loathing to the surface, reminding me I wasn’t like other girls.

They like boys. I am unnatural, a freak.

I have always sensed that I’m different.

First, I’m tall, and second, I have red hair.

It is impossible to be invisible when I look like this.

Then, for whatever unknown reason, my parents gave me the name Bathsheba and called me Ba or Baba.

The times I was taunted at school with Baba Black Sheep, or more correctly, Baba Ginger Sheep.

With that name, I was never going to blend in.

How could I as the only child of two upper-class artists in a local school in St Ives?

But I also didn’t fit in with my cousin who had gone to boarding school, as my parents had.

Now I’m a person of no place. I always thought Cornwall was my home, that I could be happy there, but Nellie corrected me in no uncertain terms. Unless I wanted to live in relative seclusion in Lamorna like the other lesbian artists, Cornwall wasn’t the place for me.

In her words, St Ives was for normal folk, and I couldn’t expect that people would understand.

I’m not normal, but Nellie is. She married three years ago and has two children.

The gap between us has never been wider.

‘Right, I’ll leave you here.’ Winifred lets go of my hand. ‘The porter has taken your bags and is putting them on the train.’ She points to them. ‘Write to me. Go to the Biennale and tell me how my paintings look.’

‘Of course,’ I say, trying to imagine having my own work on display at the Venice Biennale.

‘Things have a way of working out,’ she says as she gives me a hug.

She is separated from her husband, who is currently living with Barbara Hepworth, the sculptor.

If that is ‘working out’, I’m not certain I want that either.

‘It seems hard to believe,’ she nudges me into the queue, ‘but things do happen for the best.’

Feeling like a child of ten rather than a woman of twenty, I retrieve my passport from my bag and watch Winifred walk through the crowds.

Only when she is out of sight do I pay attention to the people in front of me.

Passengers are boarding the midnight-blue carriages.

The guards’ uniforms are very smart. This will be nothing like my trip to London or the one here.

My grandfather insisted I travel first class.

He wouldn’t hear of me making the journey any other way, despite the fact that I insisted I had my own money.

He smiled and said, ‘Allow me to help, Bathsheba, humour an old man.’ He was so like my mother in his kindness that I couldn’t deny him this.

Yet as I look at the woman in front of me, I wish I had.

My trousers and jacket are more functional than fashionable.

The woman wears a Chanel dress and coat.

Last week Winifred showed me all the smart places in Paris and encouraged me to sketch what I saw, to record everything.

It would be good to do that right now to pass the time.

The curve of the woman’s neck is visible below her bobbed hair, which is the colour of coal.

Even in the smoky atmosphere it glistens with her every move.

The man beside her fusses with his jacket and the papers in his hand.

He is handsome and they make a beautiful pair, but there is something about his eyes.

They are out of proportion, too small, ruining the balance of his face.

It does make him a more interesting subject, though.

In a portrait I would emphasise the jut of his chin, and his hands, which have very short fingers.

He marches up to the chef de train , who is having an animated discussion with another man. ‘Is there a problem?’ His voice disappoints me. It has no musicality to it. It is brisk and rude.

‘ Sì, sì. I need to be on this train tonight, for I must be in Milano tomorrow to meet Il Duce, as he has poetry for me to read.’ The Italian waves his hands, shaping out his problem. His rotund shape is wrapped in a belted grey tweed jacket. His appearance is fussy, but his eyes are kind.

‘Poetry? Mussolini writes poetry?’ The man leans closer.

The woman with him turns away with a look of distaste on her face.

She is the most exquisite beauty. Her skin is pale and unmarked.

Her cheekbones are high and more notable for her fringe, which also highlights her huge eyes.

My fingers touch the sketchpad in my bag.

As soon as I reach my compartment, I will draw this woman, particularly the line of her neck, which is wrapped in pearls.

I take a deep breath and catch the scent of rose and vanilla.

‘We have no room for an additional guest, as I have said repeatedly, Monsieur Rossi.’ The train captain waves his hand. ‘Now I must attend to Monsieur and Madame Forster, and the woman behind them, I believe, is Mademoiselle Kernow.’

Mr Forster turns and assesses me from my uncovered head to my sensible shoes. I’m dismissed as I have been many times. Mostly it stirs anger, but this time I don’t care. He is ridiculous in his tweed travelling suit and fussy moustache.

‘Surely she can wait until tomorrow,’ he says.

‘Darling, that is so rude. If anyone should give up their berth, you should offer ours. One more night in Paris will not matter to our arrival in Venice, surely. The poetry competition is not for weeks.’ Her voice is of the upper classes.

She smiles at me in what seems to be an offer of friendship, or at least understanding.

‘Monsieur Rossi, these people have tickets, you do not,’ the train captain says. ‘There is nothing I can do.’

Mr Forster’s face goes puce as he looks from the captain to me.

He sees me as less than him, less than the Italian man without a ticket.

This is not a new experience for me. But he knows nothing of who I am .

. . I could be the Queen of Sheba, after all.

I swallow my mirth. It is best to face this with humour if I can. It will make everything easier.

‘There are no berths available?’ he presses on, in spite of what the train captain has already said. He wins for persistence.

‘There are no available berths because I cannot put a man in with Mademoiselle Kernow,’ the train captain explains slowly.

So yet again I’m the problem, and so is my sex.

Mr Forster looks from me to the Italian. I have a valid ticket and he doesn’t. Mrs Forster studies me, and a slow smile spreads across her face.

‘Darling, I know it’s not what we planned.’ She touches her husband’s sleeve. ‘But what if I share with Miss Kernow, if she doesn’t mind, and you share our compartment with Signor Rossi? It is only one night.’

Mr Forster sends me a dismissive glance. ‘But darling . . .’ His voice trails away.

‘Oh, Signora Forster, you would make me and Il Duce so happy.’

Mr Forster draws a deep breath and pulls his shoulders back. ‘If it would make Il Duce happy, and it is for the sake of poetry, then needs must.’

‘ Bien. ’ The train captain looks at me. ‘Mademoiselle Kernow, will you accept Madame Forster in your cabin?’

‘Yes.’ I shrug. As she said, it is one night.

He nods and begins to sort the paperwork. Mrs Forster extends her gloved hand towards me. ‘Thank you, that is kind. I’m Katherine Forster.’

‘Sheba Kernow.’ I take her hand.

Her eyes meet mine and linger. Warning tingles run along my skin.

‘Sheba? As in Bathsheba?’ She still holds my hand.

‘Yes,’ I manage to say.

‘How wonderfully biblical.’ Her eyes gleam. ‘Are you from Cornwall?’

I nod, for my voice has disappeared altogether.

‘I’ve visited the Isles of Scilly,’ she says.

‘A beautiful place, I’m told.’

‘You’ve never been?’ Her large eyes open wider, and I’m close enough to pick out the sap green and lemon yellow in the ultramarine.

‘I haven’t.’ On a clear day I have peered out from Land’s End to the horizon, imagining the islands beyond just visible. ‘I’m from St Ives.’

Mrs Forster looks down at my hand in hers. ‘You’re an artist?’

‘Yes.’ I don’t need to ask how she knows.

There is cadmium red under my fingernails, though the rest of me is as tidy as can be.

I checked my face before leaving Winifred’s apartment, making sure there wasn’t the normal telltale smudge of charcoal on my cheeks or paint in my hair.

Travelling on the Simplon Express meant that I needed to be respectable.

I even packed an evening dress, but it is for Venice and my desire to go to the opera at La Fenice.

In her diaries, my mother spoke of it with such detail and passion, it was almost as high on my list of things to see as the Gallerie dell’Accademia.

The diaries are safely in my bag. They are the closest thing to having my mother with me.

Her untimely death three years ago made me so much more than motherless.

After I hand over my ticket and passport, the sleeping car attendant appears and beckons for Mrs Forster and me to follow. Mr Forster is engaged in conversation with Signor Rossi and doesn’t notice his wife’s departure.

We walk down the platform towards the rear of the train.

‘This is excellent. We won’t have to listen to the engine,’ Mrs Forster says as she slips her arm through mine and pulls me to her side. ‘It will be like being back at school. Girls together and chats into the night.’

I laugh awkwardly. This is not what I expected.

Already my plan of staring out of the window at the changing scenery is fading away.

It is clear that Mrs Forster’s school was very different from mine.

Mine was one room of forty children. Far from a boarding school, although I recall that fraught conversation between my parents years ago.

‘We must send Baba away to school,’ my mother said.

‘No, she will only be like you. It would encourage it with all those girls.’

My mother laughed. ‘Is that a problem?’

‘She may not be as lucky as you,’ my father said.

I heard them kiss.

‘She could go to the one in Penzance and still be close.’

‘No, it would be a waste. She has no need for that type of education.’

For years I never understood what my father had meant. Now my eyes are wide open. My mother loved women as I do. What I wouldn’t give to be able to talk to her about this. How did she fall in love with a man?