The Sea Garden (2 page)

All the young cadets knew Al and Johnnie Trehearne. For centuries the Trehearnes had been sailors, traders, merchantmen, and Dickie and his sons followed in the tradition by joining the Royal Navy. When he was knighted, Dickie threw a wonderful party that spilled out of the house and into the sea garden. It lasted until the early dawn. Kate sighs, remembering: such an evening it had been. Leaning forward to catch another glimpse of the house, she sees the shadows from her past: young officers in uniform, girls in long dresses. She feels the sharp twisting pain of nostalgia; names echo like a roll call and she murmurs them under her breath: Al and Johnnie Trehearne, Mike Penhaligon, Freddy Grenvile …

*   *   *

On that Saturday of the party, all those years ago, she travelled up to Plymouth on this same railway line from Penzance, feeling shy; even awkward. She'd hesitated about accepting the invitation.

‘Don't start dithering,' Cass had warned her. ‘I know Mark's not invited but that's because he's not part of the Trehearnes' in-crowd. So what? You're not engaged to him yet. Good grief, you only met him a few weeks ago. Come and enjoy yourself. They always need extra girls and it's a really big party. Dickie Trehearne's just been promoted to Flag rank and knighted, and he's invited loads of young officers. You'll adore Johnnie Trehearne. You met him at the Summer Ball. Remember? Well, anyway, Tom and I are going and I know you'll just love it down there on the Tamar.'

Beautiful, blonde, naughty – Cass was her closest friend. Five years together at boarding school on the north Somerset coast had created a strong bond, and both girls were determined that the friendship would survive beyond school. Now Cass had met a young naval officer, Tom Wivenhoe, and was falling in love with him, she was determined that Kate should be part of the naval scene, too. It was because of Cass that Kate had been invited to the Summer Ball at Dartmouth a few weeks earlier – and now to the Trehearnes' party.

As she made that summertime journey from St Just, Kate wondered if Cass was already regretting introducing her to Mark. Tom and Mark were in the same house at the Royal Naval College, they both had ambitions to become submariners, but they weren't very close friends. Mark was reserved, quiet, a bit of a loner; Tom was extrovert, noisy, loved a crowd. It was sheer luck for Kate that Mark's prospective partner had twisted her ankle and Tom – egged on by Cass – persuaded Mark that Cass had a very pretty friend who would be happy to take the poor girl's place at short notice.

The Royal Naval College, set high above the river, the ball gowns, the uniforms, the Royal Marines' Band playing on the quarterdeck at sunset: the Summer Ball had been the most romantic, exciting party Kate had ever been at; she couldn't imagine anything being more glorious. She'd fallen in love at once; with Dartmouth, the river, the navy – and with the tall, handsome Mark, who seemed the embodiment of all these glories.

Perhaps Cass had a point, thought Kate. She and Mark had exchanged telephone numbers and addresses, and a meeting was being planned, but she was still free to go to a party. She was in no way committed to him and it would be crazy to turn down such an opportunity. Mark might even be impressed that she'd been invited to such a popular senior officer's party. Cass was right: it would be fun and she'd regret it if she didn't go.

Yet as she got down from the train, hoping her linen shift dress wasn't too crushed and clutching her overnight case, she was seized again by anxiety. She would know nobody but Cass – and Tom, just a bit but not very well yet – and she would be hopelessly out of her depth. She wished she hadn't come, even contemplated hopping back into the safety of the train, and then two young men appeared out of the bustle of holiday crowds on the platform.

‘Kate,' called one of them, a fair-haired, rather stocky young man with a warm smile. ‘It is Kate, isn't it? We met at the Summer Ball. Johnnie Trehearne.' She remembered him at once and with huge relief took his outstretched hand. ‘And this is my cousin, Fred Grenvile.' He turned to his taller companion. ‘You said you'd met Kate at the ball, Fred.'

‘You were with Mark Webster,' said Fred, shaking her hand in his turn, giving her an appreciative grin. ‘We all agreed that he didn't deserve you.'

She laughed, suddenly feeling delightfully confident, and he took her bag and they all went out into the station car park, where a Hillman Imp waited.

‘My mother's car,' Johnnie said rather regretfully, patting the dented nearside bumper tenderly. ‘But she's very generous with it. Al pranged it last week and I have to say she was very good about it. But then Al can do no wrong. Did you meet my big brother, Al?'

He opened the passenger door and Kate slid in; sitting in the sun-warmed seat, she wondered if she'd met Al. There had been so many young men, alike in their uniforms, full of vitality and confidence.

‘Doesn't matter if you didn't,' said Fred, climbing in behind her, leaning forward. ‘You'll have your chance in a minute. He wanted to come to meet you but Johnnie and I won the toss.'

Instinctively Kate knew that this wasn't true, that these two young ones had been detailed off to meet a fairly unimportant guest coming by train, and her heart was warmed by his courtesy.

‘I'm glad,' she said. ‘I remember you and Johnnie but I don't remember Al.'

‘A-ha,' crowed Fred triumphantly, hitting Johnnie's shoulder. ‘We've scored, Johnnie, my boy. She remembers us but she doesn't remember Al. It's a first. You must be sure to tell him, Kate, when you meet him. You will, won't you? I can't wait to see his face.'

Kate glanced at Johnnie as he drove out of the car park and saw that he was smiling too, and she was filled with an irrational and overwhelming affection for these two; for Johnnie and Fred.

*   *   *

The train rattles off the bridge and Kate sits back reluctantly in her seat. The man sitting opposite is watching her rather anxiously. He raises his newspaper a little higher, screening himself, and Kate is left to her memories: the ghosts of her youth and that first party at the Trehearnes' house on the Tamar.

*   *   *

As the forty-foot yawl
Alice
sails through the busy waters towards the two bridges Sophie, sitting in the cockpit, glances up to watch the train rumbling off the bridge. Two children are standing at a carriage window, waving, and quickly, instinctively, Sophie waves back. Johnnie Trehearne, standing at the helm, smiles.

‘Friends of yours?' he asks idly.

She laughs. ‘Don't you remember doing that when you were little? Waving at trains and lorry drivers and passing cars? It was always such a thrill if anyone waved back.'

‘If you say so,' he says agreeably.

They're heading upriver under power, avoiding a little group of racing Laser dinghies and a couple of Sunday sailors who take their boats out only at the weekend or at holiday time. Johnnie feels the sense of contentment that he always has out on the river or at sea. That moment when the anchor is hauled up, the mooring is dropped, or as the distance widens between boat and quayside, is when he is happiest. Perhaps, having spent his young years in the shadow of his older brother – glamorous, brilliant Al – it was his own way, back then, of experiencing independence and pride in his abilities. As a child, being alone in the dinghy – skimming over the water, testing his skills against the wind and the tide – expanded his self-esteem and confidence in a way that was never possible if Al was near.

Today, as they motor up with the tide, Sophie's presence adds to his contentment. She is housekeeper, gardener, chief cook and bottle-washer, companion and ally. A close friend of his younger daughter, Sophie has been with them since both girls left university, and now, twenty years on, she is as dear to him as any other member of his family.

‘One of Johnnie's lame ducks': this is how his mother referred to her in those early years, when he insisted that Sophie must be paid a salary for all the work she did. Yet Johnnie knows how much they owe to Sophie who has seen them through deaths and births and daily joys and traumas, with her own off-beat common sense and philanthropic cheerfulness. She came to them to recover from an abortion and a broken relationship, and simply stayed on. It's a bonus that she loves sailing and is a very competent sailor. After his darling Meg died, and when his girls and their families moved abroad – Louisa to Geneva, Sarah to Germany – he would have been very lonely without Sophie.

Johnnie wonders if even Sophie knows just how much he misses his girls and their children. He knows he's lucky that they return at regular intervals to invade the house, sail his boats, and have parties in the sea garden. And here again, he knows that part of their readiness to travel from Geneva and Germany is due to the fact that Sophie is here to plan and organize, and make things comfortable and easy for them. They often bring friends and their children, and they continue to celebrate birthdays and Christmases together here on the Tamar. His throat constricts a little as he thinks of his sweet, loving Meg; how much she has missed, and how happy her pretty, clever daughters and their boisterous, fun-loving children would have made her.

The tide is sweeping in, carrying them up the wide reaches of the river where the gulls abandon their feeding grounds and the tawny rustling marshes are threaded and crisscrossed with blue rivulets as the water pours into deep muddy channels.

Sophie glances at her watch. ‘We'll be in good time for lunch,' she says. ‘Rowena will be pleased.' And a quick humorous glance goes between them, acknowledging the tyranny of the older generation.

Johnnie's mother – Rowena, Lady T, the granny-monster, depending on who speaks – continues to live with him. Frail, dominant, ungrateful, she is still a presence to be reckoned with, but he loves her – as far as she allows any show of emotion – much as he has always done.

The house, with its spare elegant lines, can be seen clearly now, set amongst lawns and shrubberies that slope to the sea garden and the river. The sea garden, created by one of Johnnie's ancestors, is built on the foundations of a quay. Its grassy spaces curl out into the river, bounded by lavender hedges and, on the seaward edge, by a stone balustrade. Guarding it, gazing downriver towards the sea, stands the imposing figurehead of Circe, taken from an old sailing ship.

Between Circe and The Spaniards, the pub on the western bank of the Tamar in Cargreen, stretches an imaginary line. This is the finishing line for many a race during childhood days: Al and Mike in the Heron, he and Fred in
The Sieve.
Johnnie suddenly remembers that particularly glorious day when, for the first and last time, he and Fred crossed the line ahead of the Heron, and briefly he is a boy again, laughing with Fred as they paddle
The Sieve
into the boathouse.

*   *   *

In the end it was Al who gave
The Sieve
its name. Fred discovered the boat – an old National 12 lying neglected behind a shed in Cargreen – while he was helping in the garden to earn extra pocket money. Its owner had gone to war in 1942, never to return, and his widow was only too pleased to allow Fred to take the boat away for nothing. He consulted with Johnnie, who asked his father for permission to put the National 12 in their boathouse so that he and Fred could rebuild it.

It was clear that his father was delighted with their initiative. He drove them round the head of the river to Cargreen, loaded the boat onto his trailer, brought it back and installed it in the boathouse.

It took more than a year to restore her. The boys earned money where they could, saved their pennies, bought the timber and other things they needed, and spent all their spare time working on her. They loved their boat and as they worked on her they tried out names for her: nothing seemed quite right.

‘
Avocet?
'

‘Boring.'

‘
Queen of the Tamar?
'

‘Pretentious.'

‘
Al's Doom?
'

‘You must be kidding.'

One afternoon at tea-time, after a few hours' work in the boathouse, Johnnie and Fred wandered up to the sea garden. Al was there with Mike, and Johnnie called out: ‘She'll be ready to launch tomorrow. We'll be taking you on any time now.'

His father strolled to meet them, carrying his teacup, smiling at the two younger boys.

‘Good work,' he said approvingly. ‘We'll do the job properly and Mother shall break a bottle of champagne against the bow in the approved manner.'

Johnnie beamed at him, thrilled at the prospect of an official launch to honour the hard work he and Fred had put in. He knew that his father did not quite approve of the way that Al commandeered the Heron so that nobody else got a look-in, but this fellow feeling was unspoken between them, not to be acknowledged. Yet Johnnie was comforted by their complicity.

‘And after the launch we'll do sea trials,' said Fred, unable to contain his excitement. ‘Just to check her out.'

‘Don't forget to have the coastguard on standby.' Al's voice was amused, not quite jeering. He lounged on the grass near his mother, confident of her approval, and she smiled at his remark. Mike leaned against the balustrade, grinning. ‘A couple of Jumblies,' Al continued more contemptuously, encouraged by his mother's partisanship, ‘going to sea in a sieve.'

And the name stuck.

‘We beat the old
Sieve
again today, Mother.'

‘How many times now has
The Sieve
capsized, Freddy? Shouldn't it be in
The Guinness Book of Records?
'

So Al and Mike teased and mocked the two younger boys and continue to win their races. This was usually because they were more focused, more determined – they were competitive even with each other – whilst Johnnie and Fred were content simply to enjoy themselves.