The House on the Strand (19 page)

"How extremely plausible," she said. "I can't think why the Professor doesn't have a teach-in here, with you as his chief assistant. Why don't you suggest it? I'd be in the way, of course, and would make myself scarce. But he'd probably like to keep the boys."

"Oh, for God's sake," I said, opening the door to the dining-room, "you're behaving like every well-worn joke about wives I've ever heard. The simplest thing to do will be to ring up Magnus first thing tomorrow morning and tell him you're filing a divorce suit because you suspect me of wanting to meet-up with some scrubber at Land's End. He'll howl his head off."

I went into the dining-room and sat down at the table. The gravy was beginning to congeal, but no matter. I filled a tankard with beer to wash down the beef and two veg before tackling apple tart. Mrs. Collins, tactfully silent, brought in coffee and stood it on the hot-plate, then disappeared. The boys, at a loose end, were kicking the gravel on the path in front of the house. I got up, and called to them from the window. "I'll take you swimming later," I shouted. They brightened visibly, and came running up the steps to the porch. "Later," I said. "Let me have my coffee first, and see what Vita wants to do." Their faces fell. Mom would be a nonstarter, and possibly throw cold water on the plan. "Don't Worry," I said. "I promise I'll take you."

Then I went into the library. Vita was lying on the sofa, her eyes closed. I knelt beside her, and kissed her. "Stop being bloody-minded," I said. "There's only one girl in this world for me, and you know it. I'm not going to take you upstairs to prove it because I've told the boys I'd take them swimming, and you don't want to spoil their day for them, do you?"

She opened one eye. "You've succeeded in spoiling mine," she said.

"Balls!" I told her. "And what about my lost weekend with that floozie? Shall I tell you what I'd planned to do with her? A strip-tease show at Newquay. Now shut up." I kissed her again with vigour. Response was negligible, but she did not push me away.

"I wish I understood you," she said.

"Thank God you don't," I said. "Husbands loathe wives who understand them. It makes for monotony. Come and swim. There's a perfectly good empty beach below the cliffs. It's blazing hot, and it isn't going to rain."

She opened both eyes. "What were you actually doing this morning while we were in church?" she asked.

"Mooching about in a derelict quarry," I told her, "less than a mile from the village. It has connections with the old Priory, and Magnus and I happen to be interested in the site. Then I couldn't start the car, which I'd parked rather awkwardly in a ditch."

"It's news to me that your Professor is an historian as well as a scientist," she said.

"Good news, don't you think? Makes a change from all those embryos in bottles. I encourage it."

"You encourage him in everything," she said, "that's why he makes use of you."

"I'm adaptable by nature, always have been. Come on, those boys are itching to be off. Go and make yourself beautiful in a bikini, but put something over it, or you'll startle the cows."

"Cows?" she almost shrieked. "I'm not going in any field with cows, thank you very much."

"They're tame ones," I said, "fed on a certain sort of grass so that they can't move out of a slow amble. Cornwall's famous for them." I think she believed me. Whether she believed my story about the quarry was another matter. She was pacified, for the moment. Let it rest.

We spent a long, lazy afternoon on the beach. Everybody swam, and afterwards, while the boys scrambled about in pools hunting for non-existent prawns, Vita and I stretched ourselves full-length on a spit of yellow sand, letting it trickle through our fingers. Peace reigned.

"Have you thought about the future at all?" she asked suddenly.

"The future?" I repeated. In point of fact, I was staring across the bay wondering if Bodrugan had made it that night with a rising tide, after he and Isolda had said goodbye. He had mentioned Chapel Point. In old days, Commander Lane had taken us sailing across the bay from Fowey to Mevagissey, and had pointed out Chapel Point jutting out on the port side before we entered Mevagissey harbour. Bodrugan's house must have lain somewhere close at hand. Perhaps the name existed still. I could find it on the road map if it was still there.

"Yes", I said, "I have. If it's fine tomorrow we'll go sailing. You couldn't possibly be seasick if it's as calm as it is today. We'll sail right across the bay and anchor off that headland over there. Take lunch, and go ashore."

"Very nice," she agreed, "but I didn't mean the immediate future. I meant the long-term one."

"Oh, that," I said. "No, darling, frankly I have not. So much to do getting settled in here. Don't let's be premature."

"That's all very well," she said, "but Joe can't wait for ever. I think he was hoping to hear from you fairly soon."

"I know that. But I've got to be absolutely sure. It's all right for you, it's your country. It isn't mine. Pulling up roots won't be easy."

"You've pulled them up already, chucking that London job. To be blunt, you have no roots. So there's no argument," she said. She was right, for all practical purposes.

"You'll have to do something," she went on, "whether it's in England or the States. And to turn down Joe's offer when no one has offered you anything comparable in this country seems utterly crazy. I admit I'm prejudiced," she added, putting her hand in mine, "and would adore to settle back home. But only if you want it too."

I did not want it, that was the crux. Nor did I want a similar job, literary agency or publishing, in London. It was the end of the road, the end, temporarily, of a particular moment in time, my time. And I could not plan ahead, not yet.

"Don't go on about it now, darling," I said. "Let's take each moment as it comes. Today, tomorrow... I'll think constructively about the whole thing soon, I promise you."

She sighed, and let go of my hand, reaching in the pocket of her towelling wrap for a cigarette. "As you say," she said, the upward inflexion on the say proclaiming her origins on the western Atlantic seaboard. "But don't blame me if you find yourself left high and dry by brother Joe."

The boys came running across the beach with various trophies to show us, star-fish, mussels, and an oversize, long-dead crab that stank to heaven. The moment of truth had passed. It was time to gather up our things and face the trek uphill back to Kilmarth. As I brought up the rear I looked over my shoulder across the bay. The coast was clearly defined, and the white houses on the edge of Chapel Point, some eight miles distant, were caught by the western sun.

In such a night

Otto methinks mounted Bodrugan walls,

And sighed his soul towards the Treesmill creek

Where Isold lay that night..

But did she? Surely she must have followed the children later, after Otto sailed. But where to? Bockenod, where her husband's brother, the self-important Sir John, lived? Too far. Something was missing. She had mentioned another name. Treg something. I must look on the map. The trouble was that every other farmhouse in Cornwall began with Tre. It had not been Trevenna, Treverran or Trenadlyn. So where was it that Isolda and her two children had lain their heads that night?

"I don't see myself doing this often," complained Vita. "My heaven, what a hill! It's like the ski slopes in Vermont. Let me take your arm." The thing was, they had crossed the water-splash below the mill and taken a track to the right. And then I had not seen them any more, because of that car coming up behind me. They could have gone in any direction. And Roger was on foot. When the tide came in the ford would be fully covered. I tried to remember if there was a boat beneath the blacksmith's forge to ferry him back.

"After all this exercise and air I ought to sleep tonight," said Vita.

"Yes," I replied.

There had been a boat. High and dry on the edge of the creek. At high water this would be used for carrying passengers to and fro between the blacksmith's forge and Treesmill.

"You couldn't care less, could you," she asked, "what sort of a night I have, and whether I'm dead on my feet right now?" I stopped and stared at her. "I'm sorry, darling," I said, "of course I care. Why revert suddenly to that business of a sleepless night?"

"You were miles away in thought—I can always tell," she said.

"Four miles at the most," I told her. "If you really want to know, I was thinking about a couple of children riding ponies I saw this morning. I wondered where they were going."

"Ponies?" We continued walking, Vita a dead weight on my arm. "Well, that's the most sensible thought you've had yet," she said. "The boys love riding. Maybe the ponies were let out on hire?"

"I doubt it," I said. "I imagine they came from some farm."

"Well, you could always make enquiries. Nice-looking children?"

"Enchanting. Two little girls, and a youngish woman who looked as if she might be their nurse, and a couple of men."

"All riding ponies?"

"One man was walking, holding the children's bridles."

"Then it must be a riding-school," she said. Do find out. "It would make something for the boys to do other than swimming or sailing."

"Yes," I said.

How convenient it would be if I could summon Roger from the past and bid him saddle two of the Kilmarth ponies for Teddy and Micky, then send them off with Robbie for a gallop on Par sands! Roger would handle Vita to perfection. Her slightest whim obeyed. Juice of henbane whistled up from Brother Jean at the Priory to induce a restful night, and if that failed... I smiled.

"What's the joke?"

"No joke." I pointed to the fading foxgloves, a purple mass thrusting tall stems through the hedge encircling the paddocks below Kilmarth. "If you have a heart attack, no problem. Digitalis comes from foxgloves. You've only to say the word and I'll crush the seeds."

"Thanks a lot. No doubt your Professor's laboratory is full of them, along with other poisonous seeds and goodness knows what sinister mixtures."

How right she was. An error, though, to let her dwell on Magnus. "Here we are," I said. "Through that gate and into the garden. I'll mix you a long, cool drink, and the boys as well. Then I'll cope with the supper."

"Plenty of cold beef and salad."

Let cheerfulness prevail. Memories of my mis-spent morning fade into an urge to please. Attentive husband, smiling stepfather; keep the whole thing going to bedtime and beyond.

As it turned out, beyond took care of itself. The swim, the long climb and the soporific Cornish air had done their trick. Vita, yawning her head off at a television play, was in bed by ten, and fast asleep when I crept in stealthily beside her an hour later. Tomorrow would be fine, judging by the sky, and we would sail to Chapel Point. Bodrugan existed still. I had found it on the road-map after supper.

There was just enough breeze to take us out of Fowey harbour. Our skipper, Tom, a stalwart fellow with a ready smile, busied himself with the sails, aided or hindered by the boys, while I stationed myself at the tiller. I knew just enough about it not to bring the boat up into the wind and set the sails flapping, but neither Vita nor the boys knew this, and were suitably impressed by my air of efficiency. Soon we had mackerel lines astern, the boys hauling them in with shouts of excitement as soon as they felt the slightest tug, caused by the ripple of tide or a piece of weed, while Vita stretched herself at my side. Her jeans became her—like all Americans, she had a stunning figure—and so did her scarlet sweater.

"This is heaven," she said, snuggling close and leaning her head against my shoulder. "So clever of you to arrange it, I give you full marks for once. The water couldn't be smoother."

The trouble was, it didn't stay heaven for long. I remembered of old, after passing the Cannis buoy and the Gribbin Head, a westerly wind met the tide with a smacking force, increasing the boat's speed—always a joy to the helmsman with his heart in his job, like Commander Lane—but causing the craft to heel over, so that the passenger sitting on the leeward side found himself within a few inches of the sea. In this case the passenger was Vita.

"Hadn't you better let the man steer?" she said nervously, after the boat had curtseyed three times like a rocking-horse—my fault, too close to the wind—then lay firmiy on her side with the lea rail awash.

"Not a bit of it," I said cheerfully. "Crawl under the boom and sit on the weather side."

She groped to her feet, and caught her head an almighty tonk on the boom. As I bent to help her unravel a rope from her ankle, which took my eye off my work as helmsman, I shipped a short sea across the bows, thus drenching the whole party, myself included.

"A drop of salt water hurts nobody," I shouted, but the boys, clinging to the weather rail, were not so sure, and with their mother made a dive for the shelter of the small cabin, which, lacking headroom, forced them to crouch like hunchbacks on the tiny locker seat, where they rose and fell with every curtsey of the over-lively craft.

"Nice fresh breeze," said our skipper Tom, grinning all over his face. "We'll be at Mevagissey in no time at all."

I bared my teeth in imitation of his confidence, but the three white faces upturned to me in the cockpit lacked enthusiasm, and I had the impression that none of them shared the skipper's opinion about the breeze.

He offered me a cigarette, but it proved an error after three puffs, and I let it fall over the side when he was not looking, while he proceeded to light up a particularly noxious pipe. Some of the smoke found its way down to the cabin and circled there in rings.

The lady would feel the motion less if she sat in the cockpit, suggested Tom, and the lads as well.

I looked at the boys. The boat was steady enough now, but penned in the dark cabin they felt every thump, and an ominous yawn appeared on Micky's face. Vita, her eyes glazed, appeared hypnotised by Tom's oilskin, which was hanging on a hook by the cabin door, swaying to and fro with the boat's motion like a hanging man.

Tom and I exchanged glances, seized by a sudden freemasonry, and while he took over the tiller and knocked out his pipe I pulled the family up into the cockpit, where Vita and her youngest were promptly sick.