Summer in February by Jonathan Smith

do something,
     Alfred, please don’t tell everyone you can do it, it’s so paltry, if you want to know what it reminds me of, it reminds me
     of the village louts in Yorkshire, they were the sort who claimed they could hit flying birds with their catapults.’
    Alfred pushed angrily away. She followed. He swivelled back towards Laura.
    ‘Look, I
can
do it, I just don’t
want
to.’
    ‘That’s
exactly
what bragging little boys say, when they’re about nine or ten.’
    ‘Little boys do, do they?’
    ‘Yes, bragging little boys, and a lot of men promise a lot of things too, and I’m disappointed that you are one of them, so
     I think, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going.’
    ‘What, back to Harold?’
    ‘Yes, he’s not very well.’
    ‘He’s never very well.’
    Laura moved her nose close to his.
    ‘Don’t be rude about Harold, that’s the third time tonight, I won’t have it.’
    ‘It’s a fact, statement of fact, Harold, your husband, is never very well.’
    ‘And to drag him along to an evening like this would have made him worse, so I’ll go back now.’
    Gilbert put his drink on the windowsill.
    ‘I’ll walk up the hill with you, Laura, it really is a filthy night.’
    ‘Oh,
all
right,’ Alfred said, ‘I’ll do it.’
    Laura, as was her way, whooped and kissed Alfred, and in doing so she threw some punch over Gilbert.
    ‘I knew you would, I
knew
it, I was just saying to Gilbert you were a man and not a mouse.’
    She had been saying no such thing and she pressed Gilbert’s arm to acknowledge her lie before clapping her hands. To get the
     attention of the whole room she clapped her hands again, and kept clapping.
    ‘Quiet, everyone.
Qui-et
please! Right, there is to be a very special event, so find a seat on the floor, please, wherever you can, any spot will
     do, but mind the bookcase, it fell over last week, yes, squeeze up … yes, sit on each other’s knees if you like … not so fast,
     Joey! I
want you
to turn down one of the lamps. And Gilbert, my dear, would you do the other, thanks!’
    ‘Look, Laura,’ Alfred said, ‘it’s my bloody studio, not yours.’
    ‘Not strictly speaking, you’re only renting it, and we do surely need a little less light, for atmosphere, yes? You agree?
     Just a bit lower, Joey, would you, yes that’s it, like Gilbert’s, yes, stop! Now isn’t that … Vermeer? Isn’t that Frans Hals?’
    ‘Do shut up, Laura,’ Alfred said with a storm in his eyes, ‘you know damn all about Frans Hals.’
    ‘And wouldn’t Rembrandt relish this scene? Oh he
would
!’
    After Joey’s feeding, the fire was now beginning to pick up again. The flames and the lamps in their globes threw three flickering
     pools of light. For the first time in the evening the sound of the rain on the studio roof was becoming clear. The wind hustled
     round the cornices.
    Gilbert, unable to find a spot to sit, leant back against the front door; on which move, the cold draught coming underneath
     made his clinging wet socks feel still colder. In a further sudden assault the rain drenched the window to his right.
    ‘Silence!’ Laura boomed.
    They listened to the rain.
    ‘No, it’s not quiet enough yet,’ Laura said bossily. ‘I’m going to throw this piece of lemon on the fire’ (she held the slice
     up) ‘and when I hear it
hiss
– then I shall call upon … Him. Let us listen for the hiss.’
    And she lowered herself dramatically, eyes popping, to the floor, kneeling at Alfred’s feet. Was this really Laura Knight
     kneeling at the feet of Alfred Munnings? Gilbert had never seen a grown woman change as much as Laura had this last month.
     Since A.J.’s arrival in Lamorna she seemed to have lost all semblance of self-control.
    All eyes were now on Alfred Munnings. And for the first time Gilbert studied him very closely: his sharp, intelligent face,
     sharp in bone structure and in expression, the kind of face a shepherd has; Gilbert sometimes encountered such faces