The Sea Garden (15 page)

Yet she feels the significance of Jess's readiness to feel at home here; her easiness with Johnnie and now with Will. Already she is part of the family. The girl's vitality makes her, Rowena, feel young again; the spirits of the past press in around her: officers with their girls, Juliet and Mike – and Al. If she closes her eyes she can see him: dark brown eyes, black hair, strong, athletic. Dickie, Johnnie and Will are all cut from the same genetic cloth: blond, blue-green eyes, not much above average height. Al and she were alike. They'd chuckle together at the same jokes, he encouraged her to be outrageous, whispering in her ear and egging her on.

She smiles, eyes still closed, feeling him near.

‘Mother,' he says. ‘Mother…' and she feels his breath on her cheek as he touches her arm.

She gasps, eyes flying wide open, her knuckles against her mouth, as Johnnie bends anxiously over her.

‘Mother,' he says again anxiously. ‘You were asleep. Sorry to wake you, only tea's ready and we have to get Will back. Are you all right?'

‘Of course I am,' she says crossly, her heart still crashing in her side, furious at his foolishly concerned expression, resentful that he isn't Al. ‘And I wasn't asleep. Why are you creeping about? What? Oh, wait, I haven't got my ears in.'

She fumbles impatiently on her table for her hearing aids and snaps at him again when he attempts to help her. Feeling ill, but refusing to show it, she goes downstairs with him to have tea with her great-grandson before he returns to school.

‘Jess is coming with us,' Will tells her gleefully. ‘I'm going to show her my dormitory.'

She smiles at him, and at Jess, and her heart aches with hope – and disappointment. The photograph session must be postponed after all.

‘That's very nice,' she says to him; she's very fond of the little fellow. ‘Boiled eggs,' she says to Jess. ‘It's a tradition. The boys always had boiled eggs and soldiers for tea at the end of an exeat and now we do the same for Will.'

‘So did I,' says Jess. ‘So it must have been a tradition in my family, too.'

‘And,' says Will, leading the way into the kitchen, ‘Jess is coming to watch me play rugby.'

‘Is she?' Rowena smiles at Jess. ‘So it sounds as if you won't be leaving us just yet?'

‘Not quite yet, if it's all right with you.' Jess looks slightly embarrassed. ‘I'd love to stay for a few more days.'

‘Well, you've certainly got to be here for the reunion supper,' says Sophie firmly. ‘Johnnie says Freddy must come over for it, and he's trying to think of anyone else apart from Kate and Tom and Cass and the Mortlakes who will remember Mike and Juliet.'

Rowena sips her tea and watches Will eating his egg: she wonders, for the first time, how Jess might react to the bombshell that could be waiting to explode.

*   *   *

‘You could invite Oliver,' Jess says when Sophie says that she needs an extra man for the reunion supper party. ‘Cass and Tom's son. Do you know him?

‘Oliver?' Sophie frowns, shakes her head. ‘Rings a bell but I don't remember him.'

‘I think he'd be great at a party,' Jess says. She feels that it would be good to have Oliver there; he is
her
friend, someone apart from all these people who know each other and share a history. She really likes Tom and Cass, and Kate, of course, but she's beginning to feel very slightly overwhelmed by the thought of being the focal point at the reunion supper. She is certain that Oliver will take the pressure off somehow.

Sophie is watching her curiously. ‘Oliver,' she repeats. ‘Good. We'll invite him too. Anyway, it'll be rather nice for you to have somebody of your own age around.'

‘Oh, but he isn't,' Jess says quickly, anxious lest Sophie should leap to the wrong conclusions. ‘He's not that young, he's more your age,' and flushes furiously. ‘Not old,' she adds quickly, whilst Sophie bursts out laughing. ‘I didn't mean that. Oh hell.'

‘Forget it,' says Sophie, amused. ‘I shall look forward to meeting him.'

Presently she seeks Johnnie out in the Growlery: his little den, which is lined with his Patrick O'Brian and C. S. Forester books, and an astonishingly vast collection of sailing manuals. He sits on a small folding chair, frowning at the computer screen.

‘Is this a bad moment?' she asks, head round the door.

‘Mmm? No,' he mutters. ‘What is it?'

‘Oliver Wivenhoe. Have I ever met him?'

He turns on his chair to look at her. ‘Oliver? He's the older son, isn't he? A rather clever sort of fellow, if I remember. Went to Cambridge and got a First. You might have met him when you first arrived but I've only seen him once or twice since he went to university. He lives upcountry. Why?'

‘It seems that Jess has met him and is rather taken with him. She'd like to invite him to the reunion thrash. Is that OK?'

‘Why not? Sounds a good idea.' He turns back to the screen, stares at it grumpily.

‘Writer's block?' she asks sympathetically.

‘Ridiculous idea, this book,' he says. ‘Writing the family history. I mean, what's the point?'

‘It's fascinating,' she tells him. ‘Your merchant forebears and those wonderful ships and the Tamar when it was a real working river. There must be hundreds of photographs you can use. Rowena's got stacks of them. She's having a session with Jess in the morning-room, actually. Come and have some coffee in the kitchen.'

He saves the document and turns round in relief. ‘I think I will,' he says.

*   *   *

When Jess woke that morning she had the strangest sensation that there were other people with her in the sail loft. She pulled on a long woollen cardigan and thick socks over her pyjamas, and went out onto the gallery-landing and down into the big room, staring about her in amazement. Thick clouds of white mist curled and lapped at the windows; the light was eerie and cold. The sail loft felt isolated, cut off, and she shivered and hurried into the small kitchen to fill the kettle and switch it on.

Even as she did so she was aware again of a presence; the echo of a light footstep on the shining wooden boards, muffled laughter suddenly quenched. She turned her head, listening, but she wasn't frightened; she was filled with an odd kind of joyfulness as she made her tea and carried it to the balcony window. She didn't slide it open but stood, sipping her tea, watching the mist drifting above the river.

As the sun rose higher so the cloud was diffused with golden light, thinning and shredding, and she could see shadowy black shapes: the boats riding ghostlike at their moorings. The mist became patchy, tangled in the trees across the valley, blowing like smoke above the chimneys of Cargreen. The sun grew stronger and Jess slid open the window and stepped onto the balcony, drawing her cardigan more closely around her. She could hear the faint splash of oars and saw a rowing boat slipping across the river, approaching a boat at anchor in the deep-water channel. The dinghy disappeared behind the hull of the bigger yacht and then she saw the figure of a man aboard, busy, clambering over the deck. She heard the puttering of an engine and the boat began to move away from its mooring, the man at the helm. As he drew level with the sail loft he raised a hand to her and she waved back, watching the boat disappearing downriver with the tide, leaving the dinghy bobbing in its wake at the buoy.

*   *   *

By the time Jess joins Rowena in the morning-room, the mist has vanished and the room is full of sunshine. Photographs, carefully sorted, lie on the polished surface of the mahogany table, and Jess leans forward to look at them. As she reaches to pick one up Rowena moves quickly, forestalling her.

‘This one first,' she says. ‘I've put them into a kind of order,' and Jess sits back obediently and waits to be shown.

After the first few photographs she begins to realize that the older woman is deliberately leading up to something. These are snapshots taken of parties, dances, gatherings, where no particular person is the subject of the photo. All are black and white, slightly grainy, but the mood is clear: these are happy times. There are several shots of the sea garden
en fête,
with Circe presiding; a benevolent and beautiful hostess.

The next selection is more personal: several young officers in uniform posing slightly self-consciously for the camera but still too small for identification, though Rowena names them, and Jess peers to look at the slightly blurred, youthful faces.

‘But this one,' Rowena says, ‘is clearer,' and she offers a large, more official photograph and sits back waiting for Jess's reaction.

The bride is beautiful, with flowers in her long shining hair. She wears a simple white dress with a high boned-lace collar and long lace sleeves. She gazes at the camera with a kind of pleased surprise. The groom, in full dress uniform, proud and confident, stands protectively beside her with his hand on the hilt of his sword.

‘You haven't see this before?' asks Rowena.

Jess shakes her head, unable to speak: the likeness is almost shocking.

‘Juliet sent it to me after the wedding. You can see now why you've had such a reaction from us all. It's as if Juliet has come back to us.'

Still Jess stares at the photograph, at Juliet and Mike.

‘It's such a pity that it's black and white,' Rowena is saying, ‘but colour was almost unheard of back then in the sixties. And then there's this one that might interest you.'

She places a large photograph on the table and Jess takes it up, still preoccupied by the picture of Juliet. She stares at the small group in a close-up photograph taken on an official occasion by a professional but in an unguarded moment. The six young men are relaxed, simply smiling into the camera. And this time the shock is even greater. She recognizes Mike at once from the wedding photograph, but another face – one she knows most intimately – transfixes her. Some sixth sense warns her that this is what Rowena is waiting for; it is towards this moment she has been leading. Jess glances up at her and sees the older woman's tension, her eagerness, but still she can't control her shock.

‘Who is this?' she asks faintly, putting the photograph on the table, pointing at one of the young faces.

Rowena takes a deep, deep breath. Her whole body relaxes and she cannot disguise her joy.

‘That's Al,' she says. ‘My son.'

Her heart hammers so fast that she can barely breathe. She leans back in her chair gasping for breath, and Jess leaps up and races to the door, calling for Sophie, for Johnnie.

They come running and bend over Rowena, looking for her medication, and under cover of all the activity, Jess takes the two photographs and slips them beneath the silver tray on the sideboard. Quickly she sweeps the other photographs together, muddling them, stacking them into large brown envelopes and folders, leaving others in piles, and then she stands back, waiting, biting her lips.

‘Is she OK?' she asks anxiously.

Rowena lies in the chair, waiting for the medication to take effect. Even in her exhaustion, she looks triumphant, as if a great point has been gained.

‘We need to get her to bed,' Sophie is saying to Johnnie.

‘Give her a minute,' he answers.

At last, between them, they half carry Rowena to the little lift, which has been installed in what was once a pantry, and, with Sophie crouching beside her, she is carried to the next floor. Johnnie runs up the stairs to meet them on the landing.

Jess waits at the morning-room door and, as soon as he is out of sight, she takes the photographs from beneath the silver tray. Quickly she darts out through the back hall and across the lawn, skirting the shrubbery, to the sail loft. In her bedroom she hauls her rucksack from beneath the bed and only then does she pause to look again at one of the photographs. She scrutinizes it carefully: the likeness to her father is there in the lift of the chin, the set of the eyes – and the smile, especially the smile. There are tears in her eyes as she looks at the young happy face. It is such a strong likeness to the man she remembers, yet it was taken more than twenty years before he was born. She tucks the photograph quickly into her rucksack and hurries back to the house before she is missed.

TAVISTOCK

‘The reunion thrash has been postponed,' says Tom, tracking Cass down to the small laundry room where she is ironing. ‘That was Johnnie on the phone. Lady T's had another bad angina attack and she's been ordered bedrest.'

‘Poor old thing.' Cass sets down the iron and carefully folds one of Oliver's shirts. ‘Not to be taken lightly at her age. Is Jess still with them?'

Tom nods, trying to quell an uprush of irritation: why should Cass iron Oliver's shirts? Why can't he iron his own shirts?

‘I'm perfectly happy to do some ironing for Ollie,' says Cass, correctly interpreting Tom's frown. ‘He's driving Gemma to South Brent so that she can spend a few days with Debbie Plummer. You remember Debbie? They worked together at the dental practice. Gemma phoned her earlier for a chat and Debbie invited her over. Lovely for Gemma to see darling Debbie, and good for all of us to have a breathing space now that the twins have started at Mount House. So is the party postponed indefinitely or have we got another date?'

‘Not yet. They're waiting to see how Lady T gets on. So, still no news from Guy then?'

Cass selects another shirt: Tom's shirt. ‘If there is, Gemma isn't telling me. I think that's why she was so glad to get away. Now the twins are at school I think she's finding it much more stressful, just sitting here waiting.'

‘It's madness,' Tom says angrily. ‘I've always said so. Simply walking out with the children. He'll call her bluff, I know he will.'

‘And would that be so bad?'

He stares at her, shocked. The iron glides to and fro over the crisp striped cotton; the familiar, comforting smell of hot damp cloth fills the little room.