The Sea Garden

 

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Prologue

Tavistock

Tamar

Tavistock

Tamar

Tavistock

Tamar

Tavistock

Tamar

Tavistock

Tamar

Tavistock

Tamar

Also by Marcia Willett

Copyright

 

To Regina Hartig

PROLOGUE

Summer

Journeys: all her life she's loved journeys. She climbs onto the train, squeezes her way past other travellers, checking her ticket against the labels on the seats, and swings her small case onto the luggage rack. The middle-aged couple in the opposite seats smile at her as she slides in next to the window, and she smiles back but hopes they won't want to talk to her – not just yet. First she needs to settle into the feel of the journey, waiting for the sudden jolt as the train starts to move, experiencing the sensation that the station, the whole of the city, is slipping away behind her.

As Jess looks out at the people on the platform she remembers riding in the back of the car as a small child, in her little seat, heading out to the seaside and, years later, when she was fetched from boarding school for an exeat or the holidays, being allowed to sit beside the driver – usually Mum, because Daddy was away with his regiment. That childish sense of excitement at the prospect of travelling is just as fresh today.

Outside the window a girl in her early teens is saying goodbye to her parents: her small sweet face shows a mixture of excitement and vulnerability. She is pretending a bravado she does not quite feel: yes, she tells them, she has her ticket; yes, she has her mobile. She displays them again with an exaggerated show of patient resignation that does not for a moment deceive her parents. Her father leans to hug her and Jess sees his expression of love and anxiety, and she is suddenly filled with a familiar sense of desolation.

It is eight years since her own father was killed on deployment in Bosnia but the loss is just as great: she still misses that particular kind of loving anxiety that her lucky friends take for granted. She misses his humour, his directness, the deep-down certainty that he was on her side.

‘Your mum is such a strong woman,' people tell her. ‘So brave.' And yes, Mum is both strong and brave but, when she married her diplomat lover a year later and moved to Brussels, Jess knew that the first part of her own life was finished: childhood was over. Then started the years of catching the Eurostar to Brussels; of spending holidays at the smart flat near the EU buildings which, even now, doesn't feel remotely like home. Her mother is involved in entertaining, international politics, new friends; it's a world away from the army and married quarters. Slowly Jess has learned that she must forge her own way. She worked hard at school to get a place at Bristol University to study botany, made new friends; but she missed the underpinning security of her father's love, of a sense of support, of family.

Now that she is older she realizes that part of the joy of travelling these days is because journeys allow her to postpone decisions and free her from anxiety about the future. Just for this time she can put life on hold and exist wholly in the moment.

At last the train is pulling out of Temple Meads, gathering speed, and Jess holds her breath; her happy anticipation returns. She feels as if she is embarking on her most important journey so far: leaving university, heading for London and an unrevealed future.

The couple sitting opposite are already unpacking food – cartons and packages and Tupperware boxes – as if they fear they might die of starvation between Bristol and London. Now that she looks at them more closely she sees a resemblance between them: the pouched cheeks and round, solid bodies remind her of Tweedledee and Tweedledum. They spread the feast out on the table between them and the woman looks questioningly at Jess as if she is considering offering her sustenance.

Jess feels much too excited to be hungry. She wants to say: ‘I've won an award. A really important one. The David Porteous' Botanical Painting Award for Young Artists. I'm going to London to collect it. Isn't it amazing?'

But she doesn't say it lest they think she's boasting – or a bit mad. Instead she stares out of the window and wonders how well she's done in her finals and what kind of degree she might get. The Award – she can't control a little bounce in her seat at the thought of it – comes with a cheque for ten thousand pounds.

Everyone – even her mother and stepfather – is really impressed with this. She regards it as a breathing space, a chance to see whether she might now pursue a career as an artist rather than her former plan to teach. Her stepfather, however, is still of the opinion that she should get straight on with her teacher training. ‘You can paint in your spare time,' he tells her, as if her painting is just a hobby, something she can do on the side. When she tries to explain her passion for it he reminds her how Anthony Trollope wrote all his books after a hard day's work at the Post Office. Her stepfather is prosy and didactic, and she wants to scream at him. Her mother always looks anxious but rather stern at these times of confrontation, which happen more frequently since Jess left school, and Jess knows that she will not be on her side.

‘I think you should listen to him, Jess,' she says, irritated by the possibility of argument and the disruption of carefully managed peace in this very controlled environment. ‘He hasn't got where he is today…'

And Jess listens politely to him – reminded inevitably of the character in that Reggie Perrin TV programme: ‘Am I right or am I right!' – and then does her own thing anyway. In this case she's considering taking a year out to build on this amazing achievement.

Even the sight of Tweedledum and Tweedledee munching their way steadily through sandwiches, pies and chocolate snacks doesn't spoil her absolute joy in this moment. Her thoughts rest anxiously upon the new dress packed in the bag on the rack above her head – is it suitable for a presentation? – and on the telephone conversation she had with Kate Porteous, David Porteous' widow. Kate sounded friendly, enthusiastic about the Award, looking forward to meeting her, and Jess is grateful for the phone call.

‘Let's meet up before the presentation,' Kate suggested. ‘Why don't we? Or will you be too busy with your family?'

‘No,' Jess answered, slightly embarrassed. She has no close family on hand to offer support or encouragement or share her joy: no siblings or cousins; her only surviving grandparent lives in Australia. And she doesn't want to go into details about Mum being too busy with some diplomatic function to be able to get over for the presentation. ‘But two friends from uni will be at the ceremony.'

‘Great. Look, I'll give you my address. David's daughter kept his studio and she lets me use it when I'm in London. I was his second wife, you see. When are you planning to travel? I'm coming up from Cornwall the day before…'

They talked for a little longer and so the arrangement was made. Jess would meet Kate at David's studio – his actual studio, where he'd done most of his work – and then they'd go out for supper and talk about what life was like with the great artist. It is the icing on the cake. Jess bites her lip to prevent herself from grinning madly with sheer pleasure at the prospect of it all.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee are now slaking their joint thirsts with fizzy drinks in cans; squeezed together, they perspire and shift uncomfortably. Jess sits back in her corner and watches the countryside sliding past beyond the window. The journey has begun.

*   *   *

At much the same time, Kate's train from Cornwall passes across the Bolitho Viaduct, and she sees a young woman and two small boys in the field below. They are standing in a row, staring upwards, waving furiously at the train. Seized by an impulse, she leans forward and waves back. The small boys jump about, waving with both hands, and she hopes they have seen her and redoubles her efforts.

She sinks back in her seat, aware of the quizzical glance of the man opposite. He takes a newspaper from his briefcase and she is relieved. She doesn't want to get into a conversation, to explain her actions. Instead her mind turns to the past, towards picnics and outings when her twin boys were small: treks over Dartmoor, afternoons on the beach. In these memories it is always just the three of them: she and Guy and Giles. Even in the pre-divorce memories Mark is rarely with them. His submarine would have been at sea, showing the flag abroad. Then after the divorce, years later, when Guy and Giles were at university, there was David with whom she shared fifteen happy years between her house on the edge of Tavistock and David's studio in London. She met artists, photographers, actors, enjoyed first nights, private exhibitions, studio parties: it was a world away from the navy and married quarters.

And now Guy and Giles are married with children of their own, and David is dead – and she is on her way to London to meet Jess Penhaligon, who has won his Botanical Painting Award.

‘Not related to the actress?' asked Kate, to whom the name sounds familiar, and Jess, sounding puzzled, said no, there were no actresses in the family so far as she knew.

It's rather sad, thinks Kate, that Jess has no family coming to the ceremony. It was clear that she didn't want to talk about this, although when Kate said she was travelling up from Cornwall Jess said: ‘Cornwall? My father's family came from Cornwall. My grandfather was in the navy. Do you live there?'

Kate explained that, after David died, she'd sold the house in Tavistock and had been renting a friend's cottage on the north coast of Cornwall for the last three years. They talked about what it was like to be married to an artist, and how difficult it was to make a living, and Jess said proudly – though rather shyly – that she had a new ambition: to be acknowledged by the Society of Botanical Artists. Kate smiles to herself as the train speeds towards Plymouth. It is a huge aspiration, but Jess might just make it.

As the man opposite turns the pages of his newspaper, and the refreshment trolley comes clattering along, something that Jess has said niggles at the back of Kate's mind. It keeps niggling whilst she asks for coffee and thinks about the cottage she's buying in Tavistock. She has been persuaded that she should get back into the market while the prices are low, and she knows it's sensible, but she's not certain she wants the responsibility of buying to let, and she can't decide whether she wants to move back to Tavistock. She likes living on the north coast, on the sea's doorstep, and within walking distance of the writer Bruno Trevannion – landlord, friend, lover.

Her friendship with Bruno has been very important during these last few years, since David died and Guy moved to Canada with his little family to work with his father in his boatyard. She misses Guy and Gemma and their young boys, worried that their relationship – already shaky when they moved – might have grown worse with Gemma so far from home and depending on two such undemonstrative men for company. Her own marriage foundered on Mark's lack of warmth, his detached indifference and bitter tongue, and though Guy is not exactly like his father there are enough similarities for Kate to fear that history might repeat itself.

She sips the coffee, thinks about Jess again. As the train rumbles its way slowly across Brunel's iron bridge Kate gazes down towards the Hamoaze, where little sails flit to and fro and the ferry plies between Torpoint and Devonport. Turning to look the other way, beyond the road bridge, she sees the familiar imposing façade of Johnnie Trehearne's manor house, set on the banks of the Tamar, and suddenly she makes the connection with the niggling thought in the back of her mind and Jess Penhaligon. Kate remembers Jess saying, ‘My father's family came from Cornwall. My grandfather was in the navy,' and she wonders if Jess's grandparents might be Mike and Juliet Penhaligon. Forty years ago Mike was a submariner, like Mark, and a favourite with the Trehearnes. Old Dickie Trehearne was Flag Officer Submarines, back then, and the parties at the elegant old house above the Tamar were legendary.