‘Thank God you’re safe,’ he said. ‘What happened? Puncture? Or just no lights?’
‘A huge split in the tyre and a ruined inner tube,’ the Anderson boy said. ‘We tried to ring you twice . . .’ member the call where no one spoke? It was one-way transmission, we could hear Mrs Delamere but she couldn’t hear us.’
Peter, with his arms still about their shoulders, stiffened. ‘You rang? You actually telephoned? But my wife said nothing about a call.’
‘She couldn’t hear us, there was something wrong with the line,’ Tess said, speaking for the first time. ‘It wasn’t her fault, Daddy, but it wasn’t ours, either. I say, could you drive home now and ring Lady Salter? Andy isn’t sure whether she’ll be worried or cross, but whichever . . .’
‘I’ll push the bikes, you two go home in the car,’ Ned said, emerging from the front passenger seat. ‘I’m fresh, you’re fair worn out. Go on, nippers, get in the motor.’
‘Ned, you’re an angel!’ ‘Ned you’re a sport!’ came simultaneously from two pairs of lips, and then Peter watched indulgently as his daughter and her friend tumbled into the back seat. Once, Tess might have got in the front . . . what a
nice
child she was! He was proud of her, and in future he meant to show it. Marianne would just have to put up with it. For the first time he acknowledged that his wife was jealous of his child and, also for the first time, resolved to conquer it.
There was a reckoning, of course there was, they both knew there would be, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as either had feared and, in fact, it actually enabled Tess to talk to her father with a frankness which had been impossible ever since his marriage.
‘Why did you fib about it, pet?’ he said next day, sitting on the end of her bed at an early hour of the morning, whilst Marianne was still trying to get herself into a getting-up mood. ‘Lying really isn’t like you, so why did you spin that rigmarole about plums and the Hall and Lady Salter?’
‘Because I couldn’t risk Marianne telling you we meant to go to the seaside; you’ve never liked the coast much, have you? And Marianne, of course, agrees to anything if it seems like Lady Salter’s idea,’ Tess said frankly. ‘But it was daft; I see that now.’
‘What makes you think I don’t like the coast?’ Peter said cautiously. He had always steered clear of discussing the seaside with Tess ever since she’d told him about her dream. ‘As a matter of fact, I was once very fond of the seaside.’
‘Were you, Daddy? But you never take us there,’ Tess pointed out. ‘And you kept telling me my dream was just a dream. But I’m still having it, Daddy, and I don’t think it’s only a dream. It’s too real for that.’
‘Yes . . . but a dream’s no reason for taking off without telling anyone where you were going,’ Peter pointed out. ‘What were you trying to prove?’
‘Nothing, we just wanted to go. Andy’s never swum in the sea, and it is different, isn’t it? It – it holds you up much better than the water in the Broad.’
‘True.’ Peter hesitated, looking into his daughter’s small, open face. If he simply skated round it he knew that she would not try to force his confidence, but she was twelve years old, he could not go on lying to her for ever, there was no sense in it. ‘Look, sweetheart, it’s a long and rather a sad story which I decided years ago not to tell you until you were grown up. But I can see that if I don’t it’ll lead to trouble. So . . . come down to the kitchen with me and help me make the breakfast and I’ll tell you why I think you dream about the sea.’
‘Right,’ Tess said. She jumped out of bed, put on her school dressing-gown and thundered, barefoot, down the stairs in front of him. In the kitchen she got eggs out of the pantry, bacon out of the meat-safe, and began to slice the big brown loaf.
‘I’ll do brekker, you talk,’ she said briskly. ‘Start at the beginning, Daddy, because I’d like to get things clear. It’s – it’s my mother, isn’t it? Something to do with her?’
Peter nodded and began to lay the table, speaking as he did so.
‘Yes, it is something to do with your mother. I’ve always let you believe that she died soon after you were born, but in fact you were almost three when she died. And she didn’t die of a fever, though she had been very ill. She – she was drowned.’
‘Drowned?’
‘That’s right. We were living down at Walcott at that time, because property was cheaper there, though it meant I had a long journey in to the city each day to work. But it was worth it, to live somewhere so pleasant. We rented a tiny bungalow, rather inconvenient and dark, but we were happy there, the three of us.’
‘You lived at
Walcott?
But Daddy, didn’t you say . . .’
‘Look, don’t interrupt, love, or I’ll never get through,’ Peter said gently. He turned from the table and began to put slices of bread under the grill. ‘As I said, we were living at Walcott but I was working in the city, in the same offices that I work in now, and one day I had a telephone call at work, asking me to go back to Walcott straight away; there had been an accident, the caller said. I rushed back, in a terrible state as you can imagine, and found – oh Tess, love, I found that your mother had drowned after a boating accident.’
‘Oh Daddy, poor Mummy! Poor you, too. And – and where was I?’
‘You? Oh, you were with a neighbour. And next day I packed you off to stay with Uncle Phil and Auntie May. You weren’t neglected darling, truly, but there was so much to cope with in Walcott . . . it wouldn’t have been fair to keep you with me.’
‘I don’t remember any of it, after the beach,’ Tess murmured after a pause. ‘A boating accident?’
‘Yes, a boating accident. A squall, the boat overturned . . . please, darling, I can’t bear to think about it, not even after all these years.’
‘I’m sorry. It must have been awful, of course. But Daddy, why didn’t you tell me? Especially after I’d explained about the dream.’
‘It was a bad time,’ Peter said. He pulled out the grill-pan and turned the toast before it needed turning, then pushed it back under the heat once more. ‘There was an inquest . . . they weren’t absolutely sure, at first, what had happened, you see. Unfortunately the boat didn’t come ashore for quite a while and there was no one around to say just what went wrong. After a shock like that I hated the Walcott bungalow and didn’t want to clap eyes on it ever again, so you and I moved out and stayed with Phil and May until I bought the Old House. And then I thought about it and decided that you were young enough to put it right out of your mind, provided no one talked about it. People in Barton knew nothing; to them we were just a widower and his child, they didn’t connect us with the drowning down on the coast. So I simply never mentioned it to you.’
‘I see,’ Tess said slowly. ‘But if the seaside made you think of what happened to my mother, why choose the Broads? Why not live inland?’
‘Because I’ve always lived near the water and I didn’t want to move away from it altogether,’ Peter said truthfully. ‘I lived at Horning until I was about five, then we moved to a house down by the river at Brundall. Uncle Phil and I were always boating, swimming, fishing. You knew that, didn’t you?’
‘Vaguely,’ Tess said. ‘So my dream’s real, then?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Peter said. ‘You might have been on the beach, you might have seen something . . . darling, it takes a good hour to get from the city to Walcott when you’re in an old banger, like I was. And they didn’t contact me immediately, they had to find the number and so on. I was horrified when you first told me about that wretched dream. I’d done my damnedest to keep it all from you but apparently it wasn’t going to work.’
‘But
why,
Daddy?’ Tess almost shouted. ‘Why? You’re still not telling me the whole of it, are you?’
Peter stared at her. She was beginning to look heartwrenchingly like Leonora, he saw, she even had the same mannerisms. Many a time he had seen Leonora standing just as Tess was standing now, hands behind her back, pointed chin well up, mouth firm, whilst the eyes pleaded for understanding.
‘Right,’ Peter said, suddenly making up his mind. He owed it to her, having lived a lie for so long, to tell her at least a part of the truth. ‘Right. There was a – a rumour that the boat had sunk too quickly because it had been neglected. But it was just foolish talk, love. The sort of talk that’s best forgotten.’
‘But wouldn’t my mother have known if the boat wasn’t safe?’ Tess asked. ‘I don’t understand, Daddy.’
‘Leonora loved going on the water, she really knew very little about boats. She didn’t swim well, either. So you see I don’t know if she would have noticed had the boat been leaking or unsafe in some way. I’m convinced that her death was a horrible accident, but at the time there
was
talk. Folk blamed me, or her, and I didn’t want you hurt by it. I didn’t want to stir up all that. Darling, can you understand?’
Tess was mixing eggs in a blue bowl, gently adding milk, then slowly whisking the mixture with her fork. She said nothing, her eyes on her work, but Peter thought he saw a slow tear form and overflow. He put out a hand and rubbed her cheek gently.
‘Poor love!’
‘Why did they blame you? You weren’t even there,’ Tess said, her voice no more than a whisper. ‘I don’t understand, Daddy.’
‘They said that it was I who should have kept the boat in good condition, made sure it was seaworthy,’ Peter said gently. ‘I’d been around boats all my life, whereas Leonora was new to it. But I promise you, sweetheart, that the boat was safe as houses. I often went fishing in it and always cleaned it down and kept it watertight. So when the talk started, I was hurt and astonished at what people were saying; I was very young and I took things to heart, even wondered whether I’d been careful enough. So you can see why I didn’t want you to hear about it.’
‘I can see . . . but Daddy, how dared anyone say such things! As if you’d not be careful as careful!’ Tess said, her cheeks pink, her eyes sparkling with wrath. ‘Why, I know you’d never have a boat that wasn’t seaworthy, and so does anyone who knows you!’
‘It was only gossip,’ Peter said again. ‘I knew the boat was sound so I was sure then and I’m sure now that it was a freak accident which killed Leonora.’
It hurt, dreadging up such memories, and Peter found he was dreading that the child might want more detail, might expect him to reveal the stuff of supposition which he had kept to himself now for years and years. What had happened, out there on that rough and stormy sea? Why had Leonora left her little daughter alone and gone out, in rough weather, in the cockleshell craft? No one would ever know precisely how she had died, there was no proof, one way or the other, of accident or design – how could there be?
As if she could read his thoughts, Tess said: ‘If the boat was sound, then my mother must have done something to tip it over – isn’t that right?’
‘That’s it, darling. In fact an old fellow on the shore said he saw her stand up for a moment. It made me wonder if she’d lost an oar, and was trying to get it back. She was a sensible girl, she wouldn’t have done something as dangerous as that without a good reason.’
‘Oh. Right. So if she lost an oar . . . but when the boat came ashore, surely that would have stopped the rumours that it wasn’t sound?’
Peter sighed. ‘Unfortunately, when the boat eventually came ashore, it was in bits. There was a terrible storm that night, our poor little craft didn’t stand a chance. But of course stupid folk simply said it had broken apart because it had been tampered with.’
‘I see,’ Tess said. ‘Tampered with! They couldn’t have thought you . . .’
‘No, they didn’t think I’d tampered with it,’ Peter said hastily. ‘I was only accused of carelessness, and of course no one ever said even that to my face. But that was enough. I wanted to get away from Walcott and the horror of it. I wanted to start life afresh.’
‘Yes, I would have wanted it, too,’ Tess said earnestly. ‘Daddy, I’m so sorry I asked you to talk about it. I won’t ever ask you again . . . except I would like to know about the boy.’
‘The boy? What boy?’ Peter got out plates, fetched butter from the cool box, buttered four rounds of toast. ‘Andy, d’you mean?’
‘Oh Daddy . . . no, the one who brought me up off the beach, the one in my dream!’
‘I suppose he was just some kid who happened to be playing on the beach at the time,’ Peter said slowly. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t ask any questions when I arrived, I just hugged you and thanked God Leonora hadn’t taken you with her. You often did play with the children next door, you see, so I took it for granted that was what had happened on the day in question. But if your dream is a – a memory, then I suppose the boy could be real, too.’
‘I’m sure he is,’ Tess said eagerly. ‘If I knew who he was perhaps I could meet him! He could tell me . . . things.’
‘I’ve told you all I can, darling,’ Peter said, unable to keep the reproach out of his tone. ‘It hurts me to talk about those days, but it is your right to know. Only – now that you do know, can we keep it just between ourselves? It’s past, it’s more painful than you could possibly understand, and now there’s Marianne, Cherie . . .’
‘It’s all right, Daddy,’ Tess said quickly. ‘I won’t ask you about any of it ever again. Not now I know.’
‘Thank you, darling. And now let’s change the subject, shall we? Are you going to make enough scrambled egg for both of us, or would you prefer fried?’
Eating his breakfast, trying to listen and answer sensibly when Tess talked, Peter found himself hoping devoutly that his daughter would be content with what he had told her. He had tried hard not to lie, but he could not bear the child to suffer as he had suffered. All the whisperings, the conjecture, the awful, painful doubts, came back whenever Leonora’s death was mentioned. What
had
happened exactly, out there on the rough and windy sea? A lot had been said, people who should have known better had drawn conclusions, but he hadn’t believed any of it. He hadn’t wanted to believe, and he most certainly didn’t want Tess thinking that her mother had cared so little for her that she had deliberately jumped into the sea and drowned herself. It wasn’t true, he knew it wasn’t true, but children had vivid imaginations and God knew what she might make of it if he had said too much.