Come early September her father ordered his cherished Morris 6 to be serviced, polished and refuelled and drove her up to London in what he noted was record time. Nine and a half hours. It would have been even quicker if it hadn’t been for the thick fog that had rolled over Dartmoor and a puncture on the A38.
Adela had waved him off to his club, where he would spend the night before the return journey the following day, and set about her new life with enthusiasm.
Her new flat, off Marylebone High Street, was small but clean and her flatmates were fun. There was Elsie, who was Irish and smoked, and Kina, who tied her hair with bright cotton scarves and wore boy’s jeans. She was from Jamaica and was the most exotic person Adela had ever met.
Together they shared everything, including Kina’s fashion sense. Within days Adela’s pretty dresses and gloves, were taken off their hangers and bundled into Adela’s suitcase under her single bed. Now Adela hunted the jumble sales and bric-a-brac stalls for overgrown jumpers and men’s shirts which she knotted at the waist and loose canvas trousers. For a brief moment she tried smoking too but she really couldn’t get on with it so took, instead, to drinking halves of bitter when she met fellow students in the pub.
The first year flew by and, returning to Cornwall the following summer, she was surprised by how much she had missed it.
Her mother wanted to know all the London gossip. She had none. Had she been to Harrods? No. At which restaurants had she dined? Again, none.
Had she met any nice boys as she would be delighted to invite them to tea? No, but if I do I shall let them know.
Why did she wear such shabby clothes? I like them.
Wouldn’t she like to get her hair styled? It’s fine as it is.
It was towards the end of August that Adela took herself up to the golden fields of swaying corn in order to paint the local men who were getting her father’s harvest in.
Her mother had hung string bags of bread, cheese and pasties on her handlebars and in her panniers she had placed bottles of cider to give the men a snack. When Adela had arrived, the men, stripped to their vests, had cheered and stopped work to enjoy their break. She knew most of them by sight, if not by name, as they had been getting the harvest in for as many years as she could remember.
Perching on whatever they could find, the bolder amongst them asked about her new life in London. She told them about the London pubs she visited and the life-drawing classes where the models were naked.
There was one boy, wide-shouldered and sunburnt with very blue eyes and very white teeth who lay on his shirt and listened but didn’t look at her or join in.
She had never seen him before.
When the snack was done and both thirsts and appetites quenched, Old John, her father’s stockman, called the men back to their labours.
The new boy thanked her for the food and drink and introduced himself as Bill. His hand was rough and strong in hers as she shook it. ‘Will you be here tomorrow?’ he had asked. ‘I’m not sure,’ she replied.
He smiled as he put his cap on and picked up his pitch fork. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he said and strode back up the field.
‘Who’s that new boy helping with the harvest?’ she asked her father over dinner that night.
‘Aha,’ smiled her father. ‘No need to ask you which one. All the girls are after him.’
Adela looked at the asparagus on her plate and stabbed it. ‘I was just wondering.’
Her father gave a sly look to her mother and said innocently, ‘He’s a good chap, actually. I know his father. Nice man but awfully worried for the boy. He doesn’t want to join the family firm. He’s down in St Ives, working with some pottery chap. Pity.’
Adela couldn’t help but bristle. ‘Pity? Because he prefers art to business?’
Her mother leant over and touched Adela’s hand. ‘No dear, your father is mischief-making. The boy – William, I think his name is?’ She looked at her husband who nodded. ‘William, is a super chap, although a bit of a leftie.’
Adela couldn’t help but laugh. ‘We are all a bit “leftie” now, you know.’
‘We are not!’ Her father banged the table.
‘Well, I am,’ said Adela calmly.
Her mother gasped and clutched her throat. ‘Oh darling, is that why you dress like a man?’
Adela shook her head smiling. ‘No, Mother, I dress like this because it’s comfortable and practical and all my friends do the same.’
Her father took a mouthful of pork pie and mumbled, ‘I told you we shouldn’t have let her go to London.’
Her mother ignored him. ‘But, Adela, dear, if you want a husband you must at least try to look pretty.’
‘I’m not sure I want a husband.’
‘But, dear …’ Her mother was putting two and two together and making six. ‘Do you not like men?’
Adela put her knife and fork neatly on her plate and said nothing.
‘I mean,’ her mother continued, ‘it could be just a phase you’re going through. I remember at boarding school there were girls who got quite friendly but they got over it in the end.’
‘Mother, stop, you are embarrassing Father, me and yourself.’
‘Your father’s a farmer, he knows all about these things.’ She turned to her husband. ‘Don’t you, dear?’
Her father finished his wine and stood up. ‘I’m going to let the dogs out.’
‘Mother, you are terrible,’ said Adela watching her father go. ‘Now let’s clear the table.’
The next day, Adela went back to the fields and was pleased when William waved at her and was one of the first to get a glass of lemonade and slice of cheese. ‘Hello again,’ he said. ‘Are you painting today?’
Adela was putting out the bread and cheese and a few apples on to a linen cloth for the lads. ‘It’s so lovely up here, I thought I would.’
‘May I see it when you’re done?’
‘It depends.’ She smiled. ‘I hear you’re a potter?’
He took an apple and rubbed it on his trousers. ‘My father has been talking to yours, I suppose?’
Adela smiled wryly.
‘I’m an apprentice,’ said Bill, ‘down in St Ives?’
‘Ah, Bernard Leach country.’
‘I’m impressed.’ He took a chunk out of his apple. ‘Nobody here seems to have heard of him.’
‘I’m studying art at the Slade.’
‘Yes, I heard. Your father has been talking to mine.’
Adela laughed and Bill looked at her closely. ‘That explains it.’
‘Explains what?’
‘The way you look.’
She looked down at her crumpled linen smock and rolled up trousers, and said defiantly, ‘What’s wrong with the way I look?’
‘Nothing.’ He grinned. ‘I like it. You look like the type of girl who wouldn’t mind getting caught in rainstorm, or pushing a car out of a ditch.
‘Oh,’ she said disconsolately.
‘It’s a compliment, believe me.’
‘Didn’t sound like one.’
She looked down at her scruffy sandals and brown, unshaved ankles. Self-consciously