Chloe (35 page)

T
he room is small and narrow. A riot of pink flowers papers the walls up to the picture rail before rampaging over the ceiling, with a brief interlude for a cornice the colour of strawberry ice-cream. The curtains are also floral and very pink, but of a different hue and pattern to the wallpaper. The lampshades and bedlinen, in shades of anaemic raspberry and limp fuchsia, are strewn with flowers too. There is a tapestry picture of a bouquet but it is crooked. A china posy, whose petals are for the most part chipped, teeters on the window-sill. The carpet is swirled with eddies of cerise, blotches of salmon and streaks of a colour close to raw bacon. Pink, pink, to make the boys
wince
!

The room is filled, gorged, with flowers yet none are real or even remotely like true flora. Some have uniform, rounded petals, but are certainly not impatiens; others have petals perfect for love-me-love-me-not plucking, but are definitely not daisies; some look vaguely like pansies but oversize thorns curtail the illusion. Most inappropriate, most unbecoming. The overall impression of the room neither evokes summer, nor the countryside, nor even an overstocked florist. Its enduring effect, rather, is to bestow on its inhabitant a headache of ponderous proportions.

Pink, pink. Chloë shuts her eyes tight against the barrage and the confusion and the botanical inaccuracies of her surroundings. Her heavy head, aching from a long journey and further pained by these pretend posies and all this pinkness, rests gingerly against a bedstead of padded velvet the colour of well-chewed bubble gum. She is fully clothed and though her brown jeans and bottle-green jumper clash with the room, she is too tired to rectify it, too tired to change. And anyway, she does not own one piece of clothing that is remotely pink. (‘Pink,' Jocelyn had warned her at a very young age, ‘would be the ultimate insult to your intelligence – and to your hair!')

Chloë lies stiffly on the bed, with hands loosely clasped beneath her breasts; she is very pale and her hair, a little lank and damson dark today, accentuates her wanness. She could very well be an alabaster effigy in a chantry chapel of some lesser cathedral, save for her chunky, lace-up boots which tap and twitch every now and then.

It had been a long, tiring journey to the pink room, traversing England on an intrepid train called the
Cornish Scot
. Knowing both races to be fiercely patriotic, Chloë denounced the name a contradiction in terms. Surely, you were either Scottish or Cornish; Land's End or John O' Groat's, one extreme or the other, north or south, top of the land or base of it – and she should know, she was stuck on a train bumbling along its length. As the train moseyed from Lancaster to Crewe, she rued her own lack of identity.

Could I not be Scottish, with my red hair and passable accent?

Sorry Chloë, you've had the misfortune not to be born one.

Should I search for the place first? And then something to do. Or should I find my
métier –
and then a suitable location to practise it?

Can't tell you that.

With the Midlands uninspiringly upon her and the train glued to the track two minutes out of Birmingham New Street, she knew she had no desire to be a Brummy. Cheltenham Spa, however, looked rather promising; she could teach young ladies. Taunton even more so; she could set up a cider works. By Newton Abbot she was asleep; awake with a cricked neck at Bodmin and feeling quite beastly. Her legs desperately needed a stretch but her queasiness forced her to stay as still as possible. She fixed her gaze out of the window without really observing the landscape, her temple juddering against the pane every now and then. Raining. Just great.

Chloë opens her left eye but the flowers appear to be closing in on her so she shuts them out again. Fraser appears in her mind's eye, his open, boyish face creased into the smile which wrinkles his nose and makes his eyes water. So clear. So lovely. Brother mine. He's slipping, he's fading fast and if Chloë tries to force him to stay his face changes into that of a total stranger.

Who are you? Where am I? Jasper! Peregrine!

They sashay across and decorate the blank screen on the inside of her eyelids. They say it's time to go, see you later, write soon. Clasping each other theatrically, they waltz out of sight. Good-night, ladies, good-night. Sweet ladies, good-night, good-night!

Come back!

Chloë unbuckles her eyelashes enough to enable the tears caught in the corners to ease and ooze out. A pink blur confronts and nauseates her. She returns to the dark purple safety of shut eye and waits for company. No one comes. She calls for Carl but he is so long ago, now too far away; a different country then, a different country now. She cannot recall the colour of his eyes and is thus denied the armature around which she might have constructed a reasonable likeness. It dawns on her that she most probably will never see him again, certainly not in the flesh and maybe not in her mind's eye either. She will never forget him though, she remembers all about him. Remembers him well.

She wonders whether to summon Ronan instead. Though his startling eyes are certainly unforgettable, ice-piercing icy blue, Chloë finds that she does not wish to grant them too much space in her memory. She files Ronan away from the forefront, to a mental drawer labelled ‘Antrim: Summer'.

‘A man in each season,' she says aloud, the pastel profusion bedecking the ceiling causing her eyes to spiral involuntarily, ‘and yet no man for all seasons.' She sits up and regards her hands as they are easier to contemplate than the shortcomings of her romantic history so far. She takes her fingers to her nose and finds they smell faintly of toast, which is strange as she has not eaten toast. A packet of crisps and an apple, while she read a report in the paper proclaiming that the former contains more vitamin C than the latter. Nothing, then, since this meagre snack on the platform at St Erth waiting for the local shuttle to take her to St Ives. The Bay View Guest House, St Ives. She shuffles over to the window and pushes it open. It is almost dark but she knows anyway that she would not be able to see the sea, and the only bay in view is this bay window which faces the road and a petrol station. She curses and throws her blackest look around the room.

‘Jocelyn said “See you there”,' she growls under her breath. ‘But in a room with a monopoly on pink kitsch? I hardly think so!' Angry tears, hot and oily, sting her cheeks. ‘I don't understand!'

She will leave tomorrow. Just leave. Jocelyn has been dead for almost a year and, though she is remembered often and fondly, she did
not
appear in Wales, or in Ireland. She did not visit Chloë in her supposedly beloved Scotland, so surely she is even less likely to surface here. Too artificial, far too pink.

The next morning, Chloë gathered her jacket and her wits about her and left the room with a spiteful smirk at the ceramic sign on the door which was decorated with small flowers pretending to be forget-me-nots and inscribed ‘The Pink Parlour'. She snatched the key from the lock. Jocelyn would not be seen dead in a pink parlour. Certainly she would not be resurrecting herself in one.

The pleasant autumn morning and the gifts of St Ives soon soothed her sulk and she browsed the cobbled streets and dipped into craft shops. As a perverse protest at their interior decorating, Chloë had churlishly refused the guest house's breakfast and took instead a full cream tea at elevenses time at a café with a bona fide bay view. A stroll along the length of Carbis Bay, all but deserted, truly unwound her and the brisk breeze fortified her. She skimmed stones for a while and turned her face full on to the sun's gentle autumnal embrace. She found herself smiling without effort. What a beach! Wasn't Cornwall meant to be overcrowded? Commercialized and spoilt? Perhaps she would not leave today, maybe not even tomorrow, perhaps she'd be a tourist for a week or two. Maybe hire a bicycle and visit tin mines, visit the Tate; stay long enough and do just enough to warrant postcards to Wales and Ireland, to Scotland and London. Whatever would they think of her otherwise!

Though Chloë thought it odd that Jocelyn should send her to such a place as the Bay View Guest House, she thought it far stranger that no one there seemed to know her godmother. Jocelyn had sent a letter and a cheque some eighteen months before, the landlord explained before apologizing that rising costs and the council tax meant the cheque would now only stretch to seven days and not the ten Jocelyn had requested. This suited Chloë, who prophesied all that pink turning her slightly mad if she stayed more than a week anyway.

Then what?
she wondered as she filled her pockets with pebbles perfect for skimming. As she skimmed in earnest to beat her previous score of five, she wondered why Jocelyn had sent her to a place to which she seemingly had no connection, and why for only ten days? She scanned the horizon and scoured her memory but could find no instance of Jocelyn talking about Cornwall and could remember no friends of hers who were Cornish. Gin Trap, Gus, Fraser senior – it was obvious why Chloë had been sent to them. But Cornwall? The Bay View Guest House? It was a mystery and, as Chloë crouched at the water's edge and drew her fingertips across the spume, she realized she could not possibly leave until she had made sense of it. And even if and when she solved it, she still could not leave until she knew to where it was she intended to go. Gwent, Antrim and Drumfyn were vivid in her mind's eye and strongly placed in her heart. They were there for her. Yet none beckoned.

‘You'd need to be awfully rugged to live in the lie of the Black Hill,' Jasper had said on a rare phone call from Chloë towards the end of her stay in Scotland. ‘I shudder at the consequences of a life of pitchforks and bridles and interminable winters on your slender hands and fair complexion.'

‘And I rather think you're too foreign to ever feel at home amongst the shamrocks,' connived Peregrine, on another receiver. Their voices spoke of desperately serious expressions.

‘Scotland?' she asked tentatively. She could practically hear them shaking their heads.

‘You're English,' rued Jasper in a whisper, ‘Ing-
lish
!'

‘Sassenach!' growled Peregrine. ‘The Scots would never have you!'

‘Or if they did,' warned Jasper, terror edging his words and no doubt streaming across his face, ‘it would be with haggis and Irn Bru for their tea!'

Chloë's demeanour was utterly restored by a lazy day spent within the call of the ocean; a sense of calm and capability returning with the evening tide. Where sky met sea was hazed by the smudge of the slumbering sun and a whisper of its fading warmth kissed Chloë's face with a promise to return. Well-being coursed through her veins; strengthening trust in Jocelyn's reasons, and gratitude for her generosity, were reinstated. Chloë was traversing Jocelyn's kingdom and she knew that something far greater than another's sovereignty united it. She'd find out what. When Jocelyn was ready for her to. Maybe Jocelyn
was
here, perhaps she just had to be found.

When Chloë returned to the guest house, the Pink Parlour was no longer an affront, just twee and not really to her taste. After a relaxing bath (although it was some trek to the end of the corridor and up to the next landing), she lounged on the bed, swaddled by a vast towel that was luxurious if thoroughly pink. Only Mr and Mrs Andrews could witness how violently her hair clashed with it, but they hardly looked refined themselves, lodged as they were against the frame of the floral tapestry.

I
t was all very well deciding to allow herself a fortnight as a tourist, but Chloë gave up after a week. Her prepaid time at the Bay View Guest House was finished and the bottom of Jocelyn's purse was now visible. Though she enjoyed exploring and visiting and treating herself to cream teas, she also knew full well that she wanted to feel useful. Admittedly, she'd been worked to the bone by Gus but had made up for it with a relatively leisurely stay with Fraser. Though still unsure of the reason for Cornwall, Chloë could now afford neither the time nor the money just waiting for its purpose to transpire. She contemplated how she had been gainfully employed in Wales, in Ireland, in Scotland too but only because the people there had been instructed to oversee her welfare. On pain of death, no less; for who could refuse a dying woman's behest? In all three countries and the people therein, the bond with Jocelyn had been a unifying factor; reciprocal and fundamental. Cornwall, however, seemed to have no link to Jocelyn. Had she ever even been here? Did she not know anyone?

Did she just think I'd need a holiday?

And now I've had one, what on earth am I going to do?

Get up, get a grip and get a job?

Mr and Mrs Andrews expounded the merits of paid labour, saying her finances and her spirit would both benefit. It came as some surprise to Chloë that she landed a job effortlessly, and was even able to pick and choose. There was one going in Penzance, in a ceramics gallery owned by a woman called something-or-other Saxby, but the bustle of the town and the somewhat supercilious attitude of the gallery's proprietor made waitressing at a wholefood café with friendly staff and a sea view in St Ives far more attractive. She stayed on an extra week at the Bay View Guest House and though they offered her a larger room for the duration, she assured them she was quite settled in the Pink Parlour. They gave her a discounted rate and little extras like sandwiches or cocoa late at night; seeming to care for her welfare, despite not knowing Jocelyn. The reduced rate still consumed too large a percentage of her salary but Chloë would never have thought how to counter that, had the landlord not presented an idea, quite literally, on a plate.

‘Why not rent a room, dear?' he said, with a burr to his words as delicious as the toast he proffered. ‘Plenty going at this time of year. A nice
peed a dare
for you near the sea!'