The Distant Hours (50 page)

The details thereafter Saffy hadn’t heard, nor had she wanted to. She was the second daughter of an old-fashioned man, a spinster in her middle years: the masculine world of property and finance neither interested nor concerned her. She wanted only to free the weakened butterfly and get away from the tower, to leave the stale air and stifling memories behind her. She hadn’t been inside the little room for over twenty years, she intended never to set foot inside again, ever. And as she hurried down and away, she’d tried to elude the cloud of memories that pressed upon her as she went.

For they’d been close once, she and Daddy, a long time ago, but the love had spoiled. Juniper was the better writer and Percy the better daughter, which left very little room for Saffy in their father’s affections. There had only been the one brief, glorious moment in which Saffy’s usefulness had outshone that of her sisters. After the Great War when Daddy had returned to them, all bruised and broken, it was she who had been able to bring him back, to give him the very thing he needed most. And it had been seductive, the force of his fondness, the evenings spent in hiding, where no one else could find them . . .

Suddenly there was bedlam and Saffy’s eyes snapped open. Someone was shouting. She was in the tub but the water was icy, the light had disappeared through the open window leaving dusk in its place. Saffy realized that she’d slipped into a doze. She was fortunate that was all the slipping she’d done. But who was shouting? She sat up, straining to hear. Nothing, and she wondered whether she’d imagined the noise.

Then it came again. And the din of a bell. The old man in the tower, off on one of his rants. Well, let Percy see to him. They deserved each other.

With a shiver, Saffy peeled back the cold flannel and stood, sending the water buckling back and forth. She stepped, dripping, onto the mat. There were voices downstairs now, she could hear them. Meredith, Juniper – and Percy, too; they were all there, all of them in the yellow parlour together. Waiting for their dinner, she supposed, and she would fetch it for them as she always did.

Saffy tugged her dressing gown from the hook on the door, fought with the sleeves and fastened it over her cool, wet skin, then she started down the hallway, her wet footsteps echoing along the flagstones. Nursing her little secret close.

‘You wanted something, Daddy?’ Percy pushed open the heavy door to the tower room. It took her a moment to spot him, tucked in the alcove by the fireplace, beneath the Goya print; and, when she did, he looked frightened to see her and she knew immediately that he’d suffered another of his delusions. Which meant that when she went downstairs she’d more than likely find his daily medicine sitting on the hall table where she’d left it that morning. It was her own fault for having expected too much, and she cursed herself for not having thought to check on him as soon as she’d arrived home from the church.

She softened her voice, spoke to him the way she imagined she might to a child, had she ever had the chance to know one well enough to love them: ‘There now. Everything’s all right. Would you like to sit down? Come along, I’ll help you get settled here by the window. It’s a lovely evening.’

He nodded jerkily, started towards her outstretched arm, and she knew that the delusion had ended. She knew, too, that it hadn’t been a bad one because he’d managed to recover himself sufficiently to say, ‘I thought I told you to wear a hairpiece.’

He had, many times now, and Percy had dutifully purchased one (not an easy thing to do in a time of war), only to leave the wretched thing lying like a severed fox’s tail on her bedside table. There was a crocheted blanket draped over the arm of the chair, a small, brightly coloured thing that Lucy had made for him some years ago, and Percy straightened it over his knees when he sat down, saying, ‘I’m sorry, Daddy. I forgot. I heard the bell and I didn’t want to leave you waiting.’

‘You look like a man. Is that what you want? People to treat you like a man?’

‘No, Daddy.’ Percy’s fingertips went to the nape of her neck, centred on the little velvety coil that dipped lower than the rest of her hairline. He’d meant nothing by it and she wasn’t offended, only a little startled by the suggestion. She sneaked a sideways glance at the glass-fronted bookcase, caught her image rippling in the dimpled surface; a rather severe-looking woman, sharp angles, a very straight spine, but a pair of not ungenerous breasts, a definite curve at the hips, a face that wasn’t primped with lipstick and powder but which she didn’t think was manly. Which she hoped was not.

Daddy, meanwhile, had turned his head to look out across the night-draped fields, blissfully unaware of the line of thinking he had sparked. ‘All of this,’ he said without shifting his gaze. ‘All of this.’

She leaned against the side of the chair, rested an elbow on its top. He didn’t need to say more. She understood as no one else the way he felt as he looked out across the fields of his ancestors.

‘Did you read Juniper’s story, Daddy?’ It was one of the few topics that could be relied upon to brighten his spirits, and Percy deployed it carefully, hoping she might thereby pull him back from the edges of the black mood she knew was still hovering.

He waved his hand in the direction of his pipe kit and Percy handed it to him. Rolled herself a cigarette as he was feeding tobacco into the bowl. ‘She’s a talent. There’s no doubt about it.’

Percy smiled. ‘She gets it from you.’

‘We must be careful with her. The creative mind needs freedom. It must wander at its own pace and in its own patterns. It’s a difficult thing to explain, Persephone, to someone whose mind works along more stolid lines, but it is
imperative
that she be freed from practicalities, from distractions, from anything that might steal her talent away.’ He grabbed at Percy’s skirt. ‘She hasn’t got a fellow chasing her, has she?’

‘No, Daddy.’

‘A girl like Juniper needs protection,’ he continued, setting his chin. ‘To be kept somewhere safe. Here at Milderhurst, within the castle.’

‘Of course she will stay here.’

‘It’s up to you to make sure. To take care of both your sisters.’ And he launched into his familiar spiel about legacy and responsibility and inheritance.

Percy waited a time, finished smoking her cigarette, and only when he was reaching the end, said, ‘I’ll take you to the lavatory before I go, shall I, Daddy?’

‘Go?’

‘I’ve a meeting this evening, in the village—’

‘Always rushing off.’ Displeasure pulled at his bottom lip and Percy had a very clear picture of what he might have looked like as a boy. A spoiled child accustomed to having things as he wished.

‘Come along now, Daddy.’ She walked the old man to the lavatory and reached for her tobacco tin as she waited in the cooling corridor. Patting her pocket and remembered she’d left it in the tower room. Daddy would be a time, so she hurried back to fetch it.

She found the tin on his desk. And that’s where she also found the parcel. A package from Mr Banks but with no stamp affixed. Meaning it had been delivered personally.

Percy’s heart beat faster. Saffy had not mentioned a visitor. Was it possible Mr Banks had come from Folkestone, sneaked into the castle and made his way up to the tower, without announcing himself to Saffy? Anything was possible, she supposed, but it was surely unlikely. What reason would he have for doing such a thing?

Percy stood for a moment, undecided, fingering the envelope as heat collected along the back of her neck and beneath her arms so that her blouse stuck.

With a glance over her shoulder, even though she knew herself to be alone, she unsealed it and shimmied the folded papers from inside. A will. The date was today’s; she straightened the letter and skimmed it for meaning. Experienced the strange, oppressive gravity of having her worst suspicions confirmed.

She pressed the fingers of one hand against her forehead. That such a thing should have been allowed to happen. Yet here it was; in black and white, and blue where Daddy had slashed his agreement. She read the document again, more closely, checking it for loopholes, for a missing page, for anything that might suggest she’d misunderstood, read too quickly.

She hadn’t.

Oh Christ, she hadn’t.

1992

Herbert lent me his car to drive to Milderhurst, and as soon as I was off the motorway I wound down the window and let the breeze buffet my cheeks. The countryside had changed in the months between my visits. Summer had come and gone, and autumn was now in its final days. Enormous dried leaves lay in golden piles by the side of the road, and as I slipped deeper and deeper into the weald of Kent, great tree branches reached across the road to meet at its centre. Every time the wind blew, a fresh layer was shed; lost skin, an ended season.

There was a note waiting for me when I arrived at the farmhouse.

A little cramped was putting it midly, but I’ve always had a thing for small, dark spaces and I set about immediately making an artful arrangement of Adam Gilbert’s interview transcripts, my copy of
Raymond Blythe’s Milderhurst
and the
Mud Man
, and assorted notebooks and pens; then I sat down, running the fingers of each hand along the table’s smooth edge. A small sigh of satisfaction escaped as I leaned my chin on my hands. It was that first-day-of-school feeling, but a hundred times better. The four days stretched ahead and I felt infused with enthusiasm and possibility.

I noticed the telephone then, an old-fashioned Bakelite affair, and was possessed by an unfamiliar urge. It was being back at Milderhurst, of course; in the very same location where my mum had found herself.

The phone rang and rang and just as I was about to hang up, she answered, somewhat breathlessly. There was a moment’s pause after I said hello.

‘Oh, Edie, sorry. I was looking for your father. He got it into his head to – . Is everything all right?’ Her tone had sharpened like a pencil.

‘Everything’s fine, Mum. I just wanted to let you know that I’d arrived.’

‘Oh.’ A pause as she caught her breath. I’d surprised her: the safe-arrival phone call was not a part of our usual routine; it hadn’t been for around a decade, since I convinced her that if the government trusted me to vote, perhaps it was time she trusted me to take the tube without calling in my successful journey. ‘Well. Good. Thank you. That’s very kind of you to let me know. Your father will be pleased to hear it. He misses you; he’s been moping since you left.’ Another pause, a longer one this time in which I could almost hear her thinking, and then, all in a rush: ‘You’re there then? Milderhurst? How – how is it? How does it look?’

‘It looks glorious, Mum. Autumn’s turning everything to gold.’

‘I remember. I remember how it looked in autumn. The way the woods stayed green for a time but the outer tips burned red.’

‘There’s orange, too,’ I said. ‘And the leaves are everywhere. Seriously, everywhere, like a thick carpet covering the ground.’

‘I remember that. The wind comes in off the sea and they fall like rain. Is it windy, Edie?’

‘Not yet, but it’s forecast to come in blustery during the week.’

‘You wait. The leaves fall like snow then. They crunch beneath your feet when you run across them. I remember.’

And her last two words were soft, somehow fragile, and I don’t know where it came from but I was overwhelmed by a rush of feeling, and I heard myself say, ‘You know, Mum – I finish here on the fourth. You should think about driving down for the day.’

‘Oh, Edie, oh no. Your father couldn’t—’

‘
You
should come.’

‘By myself?’

‘We could get lunch somewhere nice, just the two of us. Go for a walk around the village.’ The suggestion was met with the eerie whistling of the telephone line. I lowered my voice. ‘We don’t have to go near the castle, not if you don’t want to.’

Silence, and I thought for a moment she was gone, then a small noise and I knew that she hadn’t. I realized, as it continued, that she was crying, very lightly, against the phone.

I wasn’t due up at the castle to meet with the Sisters Blythe until the following day, but the weather was predicted to turn and it seemed wasteful to spend a clear afternoon sitting at my desk. Judith Waterman had suggested that the article include my own sense of the place so I decided to go for a walk. Once again, Mrs Bird had left a fruit basket on the bedside table and I selected an apple and a banana, then tossed a notebook and pen into my tote. I was surveying the room, about to leave, when Mum’s journal caught my eye, sitting small and quiet to one side of the desk. ‘Come on then, Mum,’ I said, snatching it up. ‘Let’s take you back to the castle.’

When I was a child, on the rare occasions that Mum wasn’t going to be waiting for me at home after school, I caught the bus instead to my dad’s office in Hammersmith. There I was supposed to find a patch of carpet – a desk, if I was lucky – in one of the junior partners’ rooms, a place to do my homework, or decorate my school diary, or practise signing the surname of my most recent boy-crush; anything really, so long as I stayed off the telephone and didn’t get in the way of industry.