Eloise (29 page)

‘Hello, Jack. What brings you here so early? Is something going on?’

‘No, no. I couldn’t sleep, and drove down here on the off chance that someone was awake. Fortunately, Cathy was up
and in the kitchen. She very kindly offered to make me a cup of tea.’

Chris looked quizzically at me. ‘Really? Well, that’s a first. Cath rarely surfaces much before noon.’

‘Chris, you know that’s not true.’

He smiled. ‘Well, you’re not exactly an early bird. But it’s good to see you, Jack. Cathy and I are leaving Cornwall with the kids tomorrow. So this is probably the last time we’ll see you before you go back to Australia. When are you going back, anyway?’

Jack didn’t respond to Chris’s slightly hostile tone.

‘I’m not quite sure yet. I want to make sure Arthur’s happily settled with Juliana. It’s going to be a big change for him, going to college in England, and he may change his mind, in which case I’ll take him back home with me. So I’ll probably still be around when you guys next come to Cornwall.’

‘We won’t be coming back, Jack.’ Chris said with utter calm. ‘I’m selling this place.’

Jack looked at me in consternation.

‘But why? I thought Cathy loved it here?’

‘I do,’ I said quickly.

‘Then why sell?’

It was Chris who answered.

‘Because it’s not good for Cathy’s health. I would have thought you’d already gathered that. When Ted said the
other day that she sees ghosts and holds séances, he was absolutely right. It’s not normal, and it only happens in Cornwall. So I’m getting her out of here, back to London where she can forget all this nonsense about Eloise.’

I was mortified. Chris was doing it again, humiliating me before someone who was almost a stranger. It was as if the last couple of days, his renewed affection, had never happened. Why was he talking like this? Did he see Jack as some sort of threat?

I couldn’t bear to look at either of them. Mumbling something about clearing up the mess that Ted had left, I walked up to my little writing house. The door still hung crazily from its hinges, and the chaos inside rocked me even more than the day before. Still shaking after Chris’s contemptuous dismissal of me to Jack, I thought making a start on cleaning it up would keep my mind off my misery. Anyway, if Chris really was so intent on abandoning the cottage this week, and I had no reason to doubt it, I couldn’t let any prospective buyer look at the mess Ted had made of my life. Because that’s what it felt like. A violent intrusion into my most private space.

People are always going on about how men need a shed to retreat to. But I think the same goes for women, too. I don’t think you get much privacy as a middle-aged married woman. You share your bedroom, your bathroom. You share
your living space, your deepest thoughts and anxieties with your family. And that’s what you want, of course, that total identification with your life as a wife and mother. That whole Mother-ship thing, the feeling of being the fount of care, love and wisdom, the only person who will defend your family to the death, is as seductive as it is exhausting. But this, my little cabin, was totally mine. I didn’t really like even Chris visiting it. Just like Virginia Woolf, everyone needs a room of one’s own.

I found a couple of bin liners and started to pick up the rubbish. I began with the bed, carefully remaking it so it looked like my sanctuary again. Chucking the torn books and papers into the sturdy bags was easy, but upsetting. To me, books were deeply personal. But, I thought, I would replace them, each and every one. And then I thought, what’s the point? We were going to leave Cornwall tomorrow. What was I doing? Trying to tidy my life up so that newcomers wouldn’t glimpse how much this place meant to me?

I bent down. I’d seen something white underneath the desk. I fished out two tiny scraps of paper. They were tickets to the Daphne du Maurier Festival in Fowey the previous year. They were for a theatrical production. I looked at them, puzzled, until I remembered that I’d found them in the pocket of Eloise’s leather jacket. She had lent it to me last summer when I was shivering on her lovely sea terrace on a
day that turned unexpectedly cold. As I looked at them, I recalled her happy face, her laughter as she told me the play had been terrible, the generosity with which she draped the coat over my shoulders, and I burst into tears.

That’s how Jack found me, curled up on the bed, sobbing.

‘Don’t cry, Cathy. I’m sure Chris didn’t mean to upset you like that. In fact, he apologised to me after you’d gone. Said he was just feeling tired and grumpy.’

I didn’t buy that. He hadn’t taken the trouble to come to the cabin to apologise to me. I shook my head.

‘It’s OK. I’m not crying about him. It’s the whole mess – Eloise, moving away from Cornwall.’

‘I think his decision to take you away from here is mostly an impetuous response to the strain you’ve both been under. I don’t think he really means it. Once he gets back to London, I’m sure he’ll reconsider. You two have spent so much time here with the kids. He won’t want to spoil those memories.’

His words comforted me, even though I didn’t believe them. Then Jack said, smiling, ‘But I’m surprised that you’re taking this lying down. You’re a strong woman. Why should Chris make all the decisions? If you don’t want to sell the cottage, then don’t. He can’t force you. I assume it’s in both your names?’

‘Yes, but you see, Jack, I’m not a strong woman. Not
strong at all. I’m – what’s the word Chris uses? Fragile, that’s it. As in mentally unstable.’

‘I don’t think you are,’ he said gently.

‘Honestly, I am. I’ve had a breakdown, and now, as Chris told you, I’m seeing ghosts. Well, just one ghost. Eloise. Anyway, it’s all academic. If I refuse to leave, Chris will simply leave me. He’s already done it once. And I couldn’t bear to split the family up. It would break the children’s hearts.’

A shadow fell across the doorway. It was Chris. He coughed. I wondered if he’d heard what I’d said. But, thank God, he looked crestfallen rather than cross. So maybe he had overheard me, but it didn’t look as if he was going to take me to task.

‘Cathy,’ he said in a subdued voice. ‘Sorry for speaking that way. Didn’t mean it. As usual I got things wrong. Sorry.’

As always, I forgave him. He was my crosspatch, my own sulky husband. But I loved him. I knew I always would.

We went back into the house. The children were up, and we ate toast and cereal for breakfast. The atmosphere was relaxed and happy. Chris stopped talking about our departure next day, and Jack regaled the kids with stories of Oz. How they spent all day on the beach at weekends, cooking barbies and drinking beer. Tom said he wanted to move to Australia, it sounded so good. There was a lively debate about which was best – Britain or Australia. And then the phone rang. It was Father Pete. He sounded agitated.

‘Cathy, I’m sorry to intrude. But I’m worried about Ted. I just bumped into him, and there’s something very wrong.’

‘OK, Pete. Tell me what’s happened.’

He told me he’d been driving past Lantic Bay when he’d seen Ted’s car in the cliff Car Park, and a minute or two later he watched as Ted and the two little girls walked across the top of the cliff. He stopped his car, opened the door and shouted hello. He said that Ted ignored him at first, but finally stopped and turned to face him. He looked sullen, Pete said, and the girls were subdued. He asked them where they were going. Ted looked at him as if he was mad.

‘To the beach, of course. What else do you do with bloody kids in Cornwall?’

‘But the thing is, Cathy, they had no beach stuff with them. No buckets or spades, no shrimping nets, no towels. They looked terribly forlorn, especially the girls. Anyway, they walked on, past the footpath down to Lantic Bay, and I was so sure things weren’t right that I followed them. At a distance. They didn’t see me. But suddenly Ted took them down the path that leads to Watchman’s Cove. That’s a terribly desolate, isolated beach. There are warnings about riptides along there, and tourists avoid it like the plague. It’s incredibly inaccessible, even for experienced climbers, and those girls are – what? Four or five? Anyway, I stayed up on the road for a good ten minutes, and I couldn’t see them at
all. I thought maybe I was being silly, but you know, Cathy, I’m a priest. I’m used to talking to people, used to sensing what lies beneath their words. Ted was not himself. In fact he sounded slightly deranged, and the little girls looked so frightened.’ He paused. ‘When I got back to the Rectory, I couldn’t get them out of my head. And Watchman’s Cove – well, it can be a death trap, because the tide comes in so fast. So I looked for the Tide Times.’

I knew instantly what he meant. The small yellow booklet which was the essential little bible everyone in Cornwall kept by their door.

‘The tide’s coming in fast. High tide’s in an hour and a half. If they’re still at Watchman’s Cove they’ll soon be cut off.’

‘But Ted knows Watchman’s well. He’d know better than to take the girls down there when the tide’s coming in. Maybe he didn’t realise, but as soon as he got down there he’d see how dangerous it was. Perhaps they’ve already left to go home.’

‘I’ll call his mobile to check,’ Pete said.

‘OK,’ I replied. ‘But you know the signal’s so erratic round here. You call his cellphone and I’ll ring the landline at their house. Ring me back as soon as you’ve heard.’

The phone at Ted and Eloise’s lovely home rang out for ages. Nothing.

Chris sounded impatient. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Father Pete saw Ted and the girls heading down to Watchman’s Cove—’

‘Well, that sounds good,’ said Chris. ‘He’s taking them out for a jaunt.’

‘No, Chris. He’s not. Father Pete said Ted sounded strange and they had no beach gear with them and who’d take two little girls to Watchman’s Cove when the tide’s coming in?’

I grabbed our own copy of the Tide Times, peering at the tables that affected our stretch of coast. I thrust it at Chris, who still seemed unconcerned.

‘Cathy, you’re being ridiculous. Ted’s probably misread the tide times. When he finds that it’s coming in, he’ll just take the girls back home to Fowey.’

Just then our landline rang. It was Father Pete.

‘I can’t get through to Ted, Cathy. Of course the signal’s terrible, but I really think I should go to his house in Fowey. Just in case he’s realised how bad the tide is, and taken the girls back home.’

‘OK, Pete. Keep in touch.’

I was thinking hard. Why take the girls to Watchman’s Cove? It was hideously difficult to get down to, and even worse climbing the steep, rugged path to get back up to the road. And there were always flags warning about how fast the tide came in; it was definitely not a tourist destination. And
not a place for small children either. Tiny and rocky, its only distinction was the odd little cave in the cliff wall. It had two chambers, one on top of the other. Chris used to say it resembled an unshelled peanut, inclining to the right at 45 degrees. Teenagers sometimes hung out in it as a dare, scrambling out at the last minute as the sea began to seep into the lower chamber. They loved the risk, because, if you left it too late, you wouldn’t get out at all. The cave, both chambers of it, was completely flooded at high tide. Hence the sign warning against entering the deceptively friendly little cavern unless the tide was out. At any other time, the place was a death trap.

‘What can we do?’ I asked Chris, trying to keep my voice calm.

‘What do you want me to do?’ asked Chris in a sulky tone. ‘Make a fool of myself by calling the Coastguard out on a wild goose chase? When Ted may be already on his way home?’

‘He’s not, Chris. He’s not. I just know.’

Chris erupted.

‘Oh, here we go again. Is Eloise talking to you now? I keep telling you I’ve had enough and I mean it. You’re being ridiculous. You’ve got this mad melodrama lodged inside your head and you’re never going to let it go. Well, sod you, Cathy, I’m going for a walk.’

He stalked out of the door. Leaving me again, I thought bitterly. Just when I needed him most.

Jack was still there, watchful and calm.

‘I believe we need to go to Watchman’s Cove.’

I looked at him gratefully.

‘Thanks, Jack. I do too. Let’s go.’

We left my kids behind. They protested, but I didn’t want them anywhere near another disastrous encounter with Ted. Oh my God, I thought, surely he wouldn’t really harm those poor little girls?

On the way to Lantic Bay, I started to panic. We pulled into the car park at the top of the hill, and got out. Jack touched my arm and pointed.

‘Look,’ he said. It was Ted’s car, almost hidden behind a strip of gorse. So they were still here. But where?

We took the footpath leading to Lantic Bay, then turned onto the steep and precarious track which led down to Watchman’s Cove. It was hard going, and to make it worse, we were trying to hurry. When we reached a stile about halfway down, I stopped to catch my breath. From here we could see the rocky little beach. We could also see something else. The tide was perilously high.

I was horrified. If Ted and the girls were indeed down there, they were in great danger. What was going on? Ted
had lived in Cornwall long enough to know about these sneaky little hidey-holes. Fun for boy scouts, maybe, properly supervised. But for two little girls and a flaky father? Ted knew what he was doing. And it seemed to me to be recklessly terrifying.

Jack shook his head as he watched the encroaching tide.

‘That guy is sick,’ he said under his breath.

‘But why, why would Ted want to harm his own children?’ I asked him.

‘Because, Cathy, they’re not his. Actually, I think they’re mine.’