Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon (36 page)

‘Yes, I remember.’

He looked regretful. ‘When I saw that it was all about
her
, it made me realize all over again what she’d done to you and your parents, how it wasn’t something you could get over. I had another try. But she wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t make a phone call. She was afraid of going back.’

‘But why? Afraid of what?’

‘Of even thinking about her old life. It was like a box she didn’t want to open.’

‘Couldn’t you have—?’

‘Insisted? I tried, Anna, believe me. She threatened to run away again. Said she’d done it once and she’d do it again. I believed her. And I couldn’t risk that, couldn’t force her. It would have to be her own decision.’

Anna nodded slowly, knowing how Rose could be.

‘I haven’t told you – she changed her name,’ Michael said. ‘She called herself Rosalind, Rosalind Owen. I don’t know why she chose Owen. She’s Rosalind Sullivan now. But she’s Rose to me, always has been.’

‘Is it that easy, then, to change your name? What about papers?’

‘She applied for a new copy of her adoption paper, saying the old one was lost. That’s the equivalent of a birth certificate, so once she’d got that she could get a passport, register for tax, et cetera.’

‘Rose always said she’d never get married,’ Anna remembered. ‘Marriage was too dull and conventional for her.’

Michael smiled. ‘Well, we did, soon after our first son was born.’

‘You’ve got a child?’

‘Two boys, fifteen and eleven.’

Anna’s head swam with this new piece of information. How many more shocks were waiting for her? How many more family members, relatives she’d been unaware of? She imagined them clustering round her like shadows, unseen till now. The thought flashed through her mind that Michael could be lying; that Rose was dead after all, and had been for twenty years. Raising both elbows to the table she rested her forehead on both hands for a moment, then rubbed her eyes.

‘What I don’t understand is’ – she looked at him blearily – ‘is why, if you kept your promise for twenty years, you’re breaking it now by telling me all this?’

‘Because Rose said I could.’

‘She knows about me?’

Michael nodded. ‘I told her, the day you phoned. I think we’ve had enough of secrets.’

‘Why’s she ready to let it all out, after so long?’

‘You can ask her that yourself.’

‘Are we going to your house? Is she at home?’

‘Yes – is that OK?’

‘Well, I …’ The words crumbled in Anna’s throat. ‘I can’t take it in, that it’s going to happen. Today.’

‘I know. Of course you can’t.’ Michael looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got to get another train. There’s one due in ten minutes.’

‘To where?’

‘Penzance. We live in Cornwall, a few miles from Land’s End.’

‘Land’s End! So she kept going, then. Heading west as far as she could without taking to the sea.’

She wasn’t sure why this came out flippantly, but Michael nodded and said, ‘It’ll mean staying till tomorrow. Are you OK with that? There’s no way you could come to the house and still get back to London tonight.’

‘I haven’t seen Rose for twenty years,’ Anna told him. ‘I think I can spare one night.’

Michael’s small Peugeot was in the car park at Penzance station. Fastening her seat belt, Anna wanted to protest that she wasn’t ready, she needed more time; she felt sick at the thought of meeting Rose within the next hour. The car climbed a steep lane away from the town, with views over the harbour and across to St Michael’s Mount, its causeway part covered by the sea. Soon the coastline was lost to view, hidden behind high banks each side of the single-track lanes. Dusk was falling; when the car crested another low hill, the sea spread out again in front, calm, deepest blue, with dark cloud streaking the horizon. A lane led steeply down to a settlement, too small to be called a village: a cluster of cottages in a cove, with cliffs on either side. In the fading light Anna saw low pines and ragged palms, a small stone quay with tethered yachts and dinghies. Reflected lights shimmered on the water. She had the sense of arriving somewhere she’d been before, as if the place had been waiting.

Now Michael seemed nervous too as he backed the car into a space behind a garden fence.

‘OK?’

He gave her a sidelong glance before getting out; she nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The person she was about to meet wouldn’t be Rose, but someone else. This would turn out to be a dream, the kind that segues into a different story altogether.

She followed him to the front of a white-painted cottage. A paling fence enclosed a tiny front garden, all stones, adorned with pieces of driftwood, netting and fishing floats. A pot of daffodils stood by the door. Anna thought of the Norfolk holiday: Blakeney, the holiday cottage, and her vision of the contented family who belonged there.

‘We’re here!’ Michael called, opening the front door, which led straight into a small sitting room, furnished in shades of red, maroon and brown, with many cushions and throws. There was a reassuring smell of cooking and woodsmoke. The first person to appear, clumping down a spiral staircase, was a small dark-haired boy introduced by Michael as Euan; his face broke into an open smile when he saw Anna, quite without curiosity, as if she were a neighbour who’d called in. Anna wondered how much he knew about his mother’s past. She could identify with that, Michael’s revelations having shown her how little she knew about her own mother.

‘Mum’s in the boathouse,’ Euan told his father.

‘It’s where she paints,’ Michael explained. He gestured to Anna to come outside, and round the side of a low wooden building that fronted the quay. A board displayed a large mosaic fish, made of bits of broken china and mirror, and the sign
SANDPIPERS GALLERY. IF CLOSED KNOCK AT COVE COTTAGE.
In the interior, lit by an angled lamp at one end, Anna saw walls hung with paintings and sketches; she had a quick impression of seascapes, birds and studies of wild flowers.

But her attention was on the woman who sat inside at an easel, her back to them. As the door opened she stood, put down her paintbrush and wiped her hands on her jeans. She looked first at Michael, then at Anna, with a wary half-smile.

‘Hello,’ Anna said uncertainly. ‘Rose.’

Chapter Twenty-four

Later, Anna thought that it could hardly have been any different, that first meeting. They couldn’t have hugged ecstatically, with squeals and gasps of ‘God, I’ve missed you!’ The knowledge stood between them that Rose could, at any time over the last twenty years, have picked up a phone and dialled their parents’ number; could have sent them a letter, a postcard, a message via Michael. Anna’s main feeling, at the moment when Rose stepped towards her, was of bewilderment. She stood rigid, unsure what her face was doing. For a moment Rose moved as if to kiss her, but stopped awkwardly. They stood facing each other.

Rose in her late thirties still had a girlish figure but her face was weathered, with the beginnings of lines around her eyes. Her hair was long, as it had always been, held back in a loose plait (Anna found it impossible to picture her with a short ragged crop, as Michael had described), and she wore frayed jeans, plimsolls and a smocky garment of multicoloured weave, with a pendant of turquoise sea-glass on a thong.

Anna felt a ludicrous impulse to ignore this woman who seemed to be Rose, and instead to move around the small gallery studying the paintings, or to bend and stroke the cat which she now noticed on a cushioned chair near Rose’s easel – a grey long-haired cat that looked at her unblinking. What on earth to say? If she opened her mouth, twenty years’ worth of recriminations and self-pity would scramble to get out.

It was Michael who spoke first. Anna feared that he’d offer to leave them alone together; after several hours in his company, she was more at ease with him than with Rose.

‘Let’s go indoors,’ he said, and Rose nodded, and went around the gallery turning off lights and an electric heater. ‘Come on, Fossil,’ she said to the cat, which chirruped a reply and jumped down from its chair to rub against her legs. Rose’s voice was deeper and less plaintive than Anna remembered.

They went into the house, where the boy Euan was now sprawled on the sofa with some kind of gadget in his hands, pressing keys with his thumbs. Seeing Anna’s bag by the door, Michael said that he must phone the nearby guesthouse, there being only two bedrooms here. While he did so, Rose said, ‘Take a seat, Anna,’ and went through to a narrow kitchen. Anna looked at Euan, studying his neat features, straight dark hair and intent expression; trying to decide if he most resembled Rose or Michael, she concluded that he was not greatly like either. After a few moments Rose returned, carrying a tray loaded with glasses, a bottle of white wine and a can of soft drink. Their eyes met briefly as Rose set down the tray on a low table of roughly shaped wood.

What were they going to talk about, with Euan here? Michael said into the phone, ‘Yes, ten-thirty latest,’ and rang off; he turned to face the two women, rubbing his hands together in the manner of an awkward host hoping his guests will get on together.

Rose poured wine. ‘I’ve got you a Sprite, Euan,’ she said; the boy answered, ‘Thanks,’ his eyes on the small screen in front of him. When she’d poured wine and handed it round, Rose sat on a cushioned stool; Michael, on an upright chair by a writing desk, looked from Rose to Anna, holding his glass as if about to formulate a toast of some kind, thought better of it and raised it to his lips without speaking.

‘It’s a lovely cottage,’ Anna remarked, for want of something to say.

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ said Rose. ‘It suits us perfectly, even though Michael has to do all that travelling back and forth. I fell in love with it at first sight. And there’s my studio. I could never live anywhere else.’

‘And your other son?’ Anna asked. ‘Is he around?’

‘Oh, Finn’s off on a sailing weekend. He loves sailing, always has. You probably won’t see him. How long can you stay?’

‘Only till tomorrow.’ Anna thought of the train journey back, of work on Monday morning: so remote from Rose’s settled life. Having been with her for barely fifteen minutes she knew already that Rose wasn’t going to protest,
Oh, but that’s hardly any time at all! Can’t you stay longer?
Rose nodded, and sipped her wine. ‘You won’t meet Finn then. You’ll have to get the train by about three, and he won’t be back till after dark. He’s gone over to Scilly with some friends.’

‘And you? Do you go sailing?’

‘Only now and then. Michael does. Maybe he could take you out tomorrow morning.’

Anna felt a strong temptation to get up and grab Rose by both shoulders and shake her; so composed, so pleased with her life, with her family; ready to be hospitable to Anna, but only as she might treat a passing visitor in whom she had little interest. Michael, who seemed aware of every nuance, said, ‘It’s you Anna’s come to see, Rosy. Why don’t I go and put the oven on, and you two can stay here and chat. You’ – he addressed the boy – ‘come and give me a hand?’

This
You
seemed to Anna a strangely perfunctory way of speaking to his son until she realized that of course it was
Eu
– a shortening of Euan. The boy got slowly to his feet, turning off his gadget with a tinkly sound, and Michael ushered him into the kitchen, closing the door behind them. Rose bent to stroke the cat, which lay purring at her feet, rolling over and showing the pale fur of its underside. ‘You’re a lovely boy,’ she murmured. ‘Oh, a beautiful boy.’

‘What shall I tell Mum and Dad?’ Anna said bluntly.

Rose looked at her properly for the first time, then quickly away, as if her eyes were hurt by too bright a light. ‘You’ll have to tell them, I suppose.’

‘Well, course I will!’ Anna tried to hide her impatience. ‘You don’t seriously think I could pretend not to have seen you, not to know you’re alive? Rose, have you any idea what it’s been like for them? For me, as well?’

On Rose’s face she saw the expression she had noticed before, when Michael and Euan had been in the room; a look of shutting herself peaceably into some inner place. Knowing it was completely the wrong tactic, Anna couldn’t stop herself from blurting, ‘You’re a mother now. How would you feel if one of your boys vanished without a word? Sailed off and never came back?’

‘But I’m not your mother’s daughter, Anna,’ Rose said. ‘Still! She – and Dad – adopted you, brought you up. Don’t you owe them anything?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Rose said, almost irritably. She got up, stirred the ashy logs with a poker and added fresh ones from the basket, kneeling on the rug, and staying there. ‘You can tell them I’m here. Maybe they might come and visit.’

‘Don’t you think you should make the effort to visit
them
?’

Rose seemed startled by this; she turned, her eyes widening in alarm, and for the first time Anna saw a glimpse of the sister she had known. ‘Oh no. I never leave Cornwall. Never go far from here.’

Later, when Michael drove her up the lane to the guesthouse, Anna asked him about this.

‘No, Rose rarely goes farther than Penzance. There’s a group of local artists that exhibit together, and two or three times a year we go over to Scilly on the boat, to deliver paintings to a gallery there. She hates crowds, hates big towns. Penzance is more than enough for her, driving the boys to school and doing the shopping. She has panic attacks – maybe you know that. She struggles to breathe.’

‘I remember a couple of times at school. But it sounds like she’s got worse.’

‘Well, it’s not so bad now, as long as she stays in her routine and the places she knows. She goes to a meditation class – that seems to help. And her painting, of course. She needs that. The odd thing is that she’s quite happy for visitors to come into the studio, even ask questions. It’s as if her artist role gives her a front, a persona. When we first lived in Bristol was when the attacks were at their worst. That’s why I could never push her. I was always afraid she’d run away, or do something drastic.’

‘But now – now she must feel secure, surely? I mean, the worst has happened in a way – I’ve turned up, she’s been discovered – but it’s not really going to affect her much, is it?’