Authors: Rachel Hore
Lana ate stoically, looking around her at the other diners. At one point, like a small animal alert to danger, she froze in mid-mouthful, her gaze focused on something outside. But whatever the danger was, it passed and she continued to eat. She was a reserved child, Mel decided, but one with a strong interior life. It was delightful, for instance, to see Lana’s free hand dancing a pattern on the edge of the table as though she were hearing a violin in her head.
Lana stopped and looked up at her and said gravely, ‘I thought I saw my daddy just now, but it was someone else.’
‘Have you been looking for him all the time?’ Mel said quietly.
Lana nodded and took another bite. Then she said, ‘Mummy shouldn’t be so frightened. I want to be here and live with her, but I’d like to stay with him sometimes, too.’
‘Does your mother know that?’
‘I have told her. I told her again last night.’
‘It’s very difficult, isn’t it,’ Mel said carefully, ‘when grown-ups don’t get on. You know it’s not because of you, don’t you?’
Lana nodded. ‘I know all that,’ she said with the air of a woman of the world. ‘But she’s making it not fair for me.’
‘She looks after you very well, doesn’t she? It’s because she loves you, she wants to protect you.’
Lana sighed and put down her pasty. ‘But there isn’t anything to protect me
from
. Daddy’s okay. He was just frightened that she would go away. And she did, so he was right, wasn’t he?’
‘I fear it isn’t quite as simple as that.’ If you love someone, set them free. Maybe that’s where Greg had gone wrong. He had trapped pretty Irina, like a terrified little bird, and thought he could keep her in his cage.
‘That’s what grown-ups always say. As if I’m stupid.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mel, holding her hands up, palms outward. ‘I don’t think you’re stupid at all.’ Lana was, in fact, alarmingly discerning. ‘I’m really not on anyone’s side, you know, just trying to understand.’
Lana looked solemn, pulled off a piece of crust, discarding it on the plate and said, ‘You like Patrick, don’t you?’
What would this child come up with next? ‘Yes – yes, I do, very much.’
‘I think Mum liked Patrick for a bit.’
Mel stared at Lana. ‘Did she? Really?’
‘Yes, she kept talking about him and inviting him to supper, but he didn’t invite her back or anything, and once she cried on the phone to him, so I suppose he didn’t like her enough.’
‘He’s always very kind to your mother,’ said Mel, her mind working overtime. This revelation might explain some of Irina’s prickliness towards her and Patrick. ‘I’m sure he’s her friend.’
It didn’t feel right to let this conversation go any further. ‘Have you finished? Yes?’ She consulted her watch. ‘We’ve got two hours before we can go and find Patrick to drive us home. Shall we go down to the sea-front? We can buy an ice cream on the way.’
In the car on the way home, Mel rang Irina’s mobile but found it out of network range, so she tried the hotel switchboard. Matt answered immediately.
‘We’re on our way back with Lana,’ Mel said. ‘How’s your mother?’
‘A little better, thanks, now she’s in hospital. It’s a mild heart-attack, a bit of a warning really. They’re keeping her in for a few days. My aunt’s with her and I’m going back again later. Sorry, what?’
There was some muttering in the background, then Irina came on the line.
‘Mel, thank you for having Lana. We are managing without Carrie, but something happened. Greg came.’
‘Really? What did you do?’
‘It was okay. Matt was here. I made Greg speak in front of him.’ She sighed and added, ‘I told Greg he could see Lana. Is it all right if he comes tomorrow morning to Merryn? I don’t want us to be alone, you see. Can you be around?’
‘Well, I suppose so, Irina, if you think that’s the right thing.’
When they arrived back at the Hall, Patrick picked up the hanset in the kitchen to see if there were any messages. He listened intently, and Mel saw him frown and scribble something down on an old envelope, which he put in his pocket.
Mel only realised this afterwards, but Patrick was quiet, self-absorbed that evening. While Mel and Lana played Monopoly with an ancient set Mel found in a cupboard, he went off to his study in the old estate office.
‘Sorry I’ve kept her up so late ,’ she told Irina, who rang the doorbell at half-past nine, ‘but she wanted to see you, and we lost track of the time. Goodness, you look exhausted.’
‘I am. Hello, darling ,’ she said to Lana, giving her a hug. They sat in the drawing room while Irina drank tea and told them about her day, how hard they had all worked. Mel waited for her to mention Greg, but she didn’t. Finally, she said, ‘Come on, angel, tidy up the game now, it’s time for bed,’ and accompanied Lana upstairs, where, Mel imagined , she would explain to the girl that she would finally be seeing her father the next day, the first time for three years.
Patrick must still be working . Mel turned the lights off and sat for a while looking out onto the garden as it fell into darkness. The distant sky swirled with wispy cloud like the surface of a milky coffee . A bat darted at the window, swerving away at the last second , but making her jump. The stars were huge tonight. Strange to think how they had looked down on this garden nearly a hundred years ago, how Pearl would have gazed at them as Mel did now, how they would be here staring down , long after Mel and Patrick were dust.
How long would it be before she was gone from here –talking about it to Patrick tonight. No, best get Irina’s meeting with Greg out of the way first. Perhaps talk to him about it tomorrow night then.
She squinted at her watch in the semi-darkness and yawned, then walked into the hall and down the corridor to his study. Patrick was sitting on the floor there surrounded by great piles of paper, sorted roughly into piles. The whole room was a jumble of open boxes and files.
‘Just trying to make order out of chaos,’ he said, looking up, frowning. ‘But I keep finding other things that need doing. Look, here’s the quote for the buildings insurance.’
‘It’s awfully late,’ she said, leaning against his desk and nudging the computer mouse around with one finger.
‘With you in a moment,’ he said, distracted, returning to his sorting.
The screensaver cleared and Patrick’s Inbox was on display. Out of the list of names, one jumped out at her. It appeared three, no four times. Arabella Blake. Patrick had received four messages from Bella. Once the shock faded, Mel glanced at Patrick, but he was looking at the old envelope he had pulled out of his pocket. She moved away from the computer, alarmed that Patrick would notice her snooping.
But Bella was there, between them.
‘By the way,’ said Patrick, trying to sound nonchalant but failing miserably, ‘there’s a slightly tricky situation.’
‘Oh?’ Like a stone, dropped into the silence.
‘There was a phone message earlier. From Bella.’ He rushed on. ‘She’s in this neck of the woods for a few days, staying with some friends near St Ives. Wants to call in. I’ve suggested tomorrow. After all, I won’t be able to go into work, will I? The tree surgeon is coming and we’ve got this Greg business. Thought you might like to meet her.’
‘Oh,’ said Mel. ‘Did you? Right.’
‘After all, you’d have to meet her sometime, since she’s an old friend.’ Their eyes locked but it was Patrick who looked away first.
Mel awoke late the next morning with the feeling that something was badly wrong. The bed beside her was already empty. Scum had formed on the cup of tea that waited on the bedside table. The room was stuffy and her head ached.
A roar and a series of crashing noises vibrated through the house. She hauled herself out of bed and slipped across the landing to the window of Patrick’s old room. The tree surgeon’s lorries were arriving, trailers, shredders and all. This truly was to be an industrial job.
Wearily, she returned to sit down again on the side of the bed, sipped her tea, put it down again with a
moue
of distaste and contemplated the day ahead. Noise and bother all day and for days to come, someone else’s marital drama to witness and, worst of all, an underlying dread that filled her throat and stomach: the arrival of Bella.
Once again, anxieties began to chase their tails around her head. What did Bella want? How could she just be ‘in the area’ in remote West Cornwall? Why had Patrick taken several hours to tell Mel she was coming, and what were all those emails doing in his Inbox? She wished she could have read them. Or perhaps that would have been worse. Ignorance is bliss, she told herself firmly.
Yeah
, said her brother William’s cynical voice in her head,
and the truth will set you free
.
When she arrived downstairs after a hurried shower, Patrick was busy making a trayful of tea for the lads outside, Irina was sitting at the table, morose and smoking furiously, while Lana trailed in and out, whingeing, ‘When’s he coming?’ Then, ‘Oh, I want my violin here, Mum, can’t we go and get it?’ And, ‘I can’t remember what he looks like. Why haven’t you got a photo?’
Mel caught Patrick’s eye as he came back from delivering the tea. He looked utterly fed up, and just glowered at her. She glowered back. How could he? How dare he? It dawned on her that he was wearing his smartest cords and that his shirt was neatly ironed. Gulping down a couple of paracetamol she had found in the bathroom, she picked up the fresh cup of tea Patrick had passed her wordlessly, and said, ‘I’ll be working down at the cottage this morning. Call me when Greg comes, Irina, if you need me.’ She gave Patrick a beseeching look, to which he seemed oblivious, and stomped out, banging the scullery door behind her.
At that moment, the bangs and crashes gloriously ceased. They’re taking their tea break, of course, she remembered. She hoped it would be the first of many, if they were going to be making that racket. When she reached the cottage, instead of unlocking the door and going inside, she stood sipping her tea, looking out over the peaceful garden. The ginger cat stalked past and off towards the rhododendrons.
How dear this place had become. Her own flowerbed was blooming now with poppies and mayweed, though she’d neglected it recently. Beyond, Patrick had nearly finished rescuing the summerhouse from its pall of green. They had both ripped away great banks of bramble and the green, sour-smelling ivy that rampaged everywhere in these parts, uncovering the sandy path that led round the ghostly concrete-edged rectangle that had once been the pond. Patrick was still digging out the silt.
The atmosphere was different now. The garden was awakening, throwing off its blanket. The muffled sound was gone. Instead it was full of birdsong. An agonising thought struck her: soon it wouldn’t need her any more. The time was coming when she would have to leave, and who knew, she thought sadly, thinking of Bella and of Patrick’s moodiness, whether she would ever return.
As the screech of a mechanical saw rose once more into the morning air, Mel rubbed her stiff neck. She set her empty cup on the doorstep and dug in her jeans pocket for her door key. But as she wiggled it into the lock, there came a grinding of metal on metal and the roar of an ancient engine as Jim the gardener’s rickety van bounced up the lane.
‘Mornin’,’ Jim said, getting out, tipping his battered hat and shambling round to release the tailgate and drag out the lawnmower. ‘Still on yur ’olidays, I see.’
‘What? Oh, not holidays, I’m working,’ said Mel, ‘if I can think for the noise.’ They stood and listened to the sawing and the crashing of falling branches then, in a brief silence, she thought to ask, ‘What did you mean the other week when you said something about “her” being in the garden? Who was her?’
A puzzled look crossed his face. ‘Did I say that?’ Then his expression cleared. ‘When I was a young ’un, I played hur, I told you.’ Mel nodded. ‘Well, there was once or twice I saw her.’
‘Who?’ repeated Mel.
‘The woman in the garden. I never do see her again, but sometimes I feel she’s hur watching.’
‘Watching? Like a ghost, you mean?’
He shrugged. ‘Dunno, could be. This is Cornwall. Sometimes things be how they be and it’s no use askin’ a packet o’ questions.’ He turned away.
As he fiddled with the mower and yanked fruitlessly at the starting cord, there was a sudden violent twittering and screeching. Both of them looked up. The cat had reappeared, batting at something that skittered about the grass. Feathers floated into the air. The white blackbird.
‘Get away, get out of it.
Ssssssttt
.’ Mel ran at the cat, which turned and streaked off up the garden. She crouched down to inspect the injured bird as the old man came up to stand beside her.
The bird tried to fly off, but staggered around in a circle, one wing trailing. The man bent down stiffly and scooped it up in his hands, cradling it in such a way that it couldn’t peck him, manipulating the broken wing. He made soothing noises and stroked the small body until its quivering lessened.
‘Bluddy cat,’ he said.
‘Do you know whose it is?’ asked Mel, putting out a finger to stroke the bird’s head. Its pink eyes were half-closed and she was curious to see the yellowish blotches on its beak.
‘Ay, it’s mine. Or not mine – more like
I
belong to
it
. A stray, found me out. I feed it but it’s never at home. Often comes hur, I reckon.’
‘Can you put a bell round its neck?’ she sighed. ‘It’s always killing birds and mice.’
‘Ay, it’s a good mouser,’ the old man said, nodding glumly. ‘I’ll say that for it. Look, if you’ve got a box I’ll take him home, this ’un. Soon fix his wing like new, poor begger.’
Trying to work was torture, what with the mounting heat, the noise of the saws and the dark whirl of her thoughts, and yet writing up the next chapter she had mapped out seemed the only thing to keep Mel tenured to sanity that morning.
There was no summons to the house. The only phone call was from Rowena, asking her to confirm some details about next term’s teaching. The woman said something about teaching a course unit herself, but Mel didn’t ask her about it. She was too caught up in what was happening here and now, and forgot about Rowena as soon as she put down the phone.