The Sea Garden (27 page)

There was a complete silence. She could see that Ma was trying hard not to burst out laughing at the expression on Pa's face. He looked baffled, clearly wishing he could backtrack a bit now he knew that Johnnie viewed the scheme in such a positive light. She could see that he'd boxed himself into a corner – his irritation at the way she'd set about their problems was colouring his opinion of everything she did – but she wanted him to be pleased that Guy was coming home and that they'd be together.

‘Guy would be able to explain it better than I can,' she said quickly, trying to let him off the hook. ‘When he tells you about it you'll probably see it a bit differently. Have a look at these brochures we got in London and then you might get a clearer idea of it.'

She couldn't help remembering what Ollie told her in the pub about Charlotte, and their parents' grief and remorse, and suddenly she felt a huge need for Pa and Ma's complete approval and encouragement; longed to be able to make up just a little for the tragedy and for causing them such anxiety.

She'd watched them set off together this morning for old Lady T's funeral, looking suitably smartly sombre, and she'd borrowed Ma's car to come into Tavistock so that she could sit here alone, allowing herself the joy of thinking of Guy coming home and them both starting out on this exciting new venture. There would be difficulties, of course, and times when Guy would be stressed and silent and she'd have to jolly him along, but at least they'd be in it together.

‘Don't say anything to the boys yet,' he warned her. ‘Just in case it takes a bit longer than we think. I've got to explain to Dad and it's only fair to work out a month's notice. I can't leave him in the lurch. Try to think of where we could live. We'll have to rent. Have a look around Bere Alston. That would be ideal.'

Gemma sighs with impatience at the prospect of another month without him and glances round her. At the next table a good-looking man in his mid-thirties is sitting working at his laptop, his expression intent and preoccupied; beyond him, in the corner, two middle-aged women seem to be having some kind of business meeting with mobile phones at the ready and notes spread over the table. An exhausted-looking girl, with a baby in a pushchair, is trying to persuade her noisy toddler that he wants to sit quietly and drink his milkshake instead of running about disturbing everyone.

Gemma finishes her latte and gathers her belongings together. The man at the next table glances up and catches her eye. There is that brief moment, the tiny flicker of recognition, in which each acknowledges that the other is an attractive person and accepts that this quick assessing glance might lead to something more; something fun and exciting.

Usually Gemma would allow herself to smile a little, wait for some casual comment to skewer the moment so that a light flirtation might be allowed to develop. Instead she thinks of Pa, and of Charlotte, and she picks up her bag and goes quickly out into the street.

*   *   *

Sitting at the back of the church, Kate feels the ghosts jostling again at her elbow. She knows that Jess is very on edge and they've agreed to slip in and sit right at the back and leave immediately afterwards.

‘We don't have to go back to the house, do we?' Jess asked, clearly agitated, and Kate reassured her that she is very happy to keep a low profile.

‘After all,' she told her, ‘I didn't know the Trehearnes all that well and you've only just met them. It's Tom who is the real connection with the past.'

So here they are, sitting right at the back, watching people filing in with suitably solemn faces, including Cass and Tom, who are now sitting well forward. Kate stares at their backs while other similar scenes unroll on the screen of her mind: Charlotte's funeral, and David's. Even as she remembers, she is aware of the tension of the girl sitting beside her and the way she glances intently at everyone who passes them.

Kate thinks about the photograph and wonders why it is so important. Natural, one might think, to be interested in your grandfather's youth, but Jess never knew her grandfather.

‘He and Daddy really fell out big time,' she said. ‘They simply didn't get on and that's why Daddy came back to England. He'd always wanted to join the army anyway, but I felt that it must have been very hard on Granny. We went back once or twice when I was a baby and a little girl but I can hardly remember it. Then, after Daddy died, Mum and I went out to Australia to visit some of her relations and we saw Granny again then. She was great fun but a bit kind of remote. Perhaps she couldn't bear to think about Daddy dying so young. Of course Mike had died by then, too, but she didn't want to talk about either of them.'

Kate finds it interesting that sometimes Jess calls Juliet ‘Granny' but always refers to her grandfather as ‘Mike'. Remembering the conversation they'd had about the photograph, Kate nudges Jess's arm.

‘Stephen Mortlake,' she murmurs, and Jess looks up swiftly at the grey-haired man who follows his wife into a pew and sits down, looking around him. Cass, glancing back, sees him and gives him the tiniest of smiles.

Briefly Kate sees the ghosts of the young Cass and Stephen superimposed upon the black backs of the congregation – and then there is a little commotion and bustle and Rowena is with them, being borne towards the altar followed by the family, and Kate stands with Jess beside her and opens her service sheet.

*   *   *

‘I hate funerals,' Jess says, as they drive back to Tavistock. She leans forward, hugging her knees, not far from tears.

‘That's because you were so young when someone really important to you died,' says Kate. ‘It's a shock at that age to have to face the fact that we are not immortal.'

She wonders if this is true. She actually has no problems with funerals, hoping that whoever has died is now in a happier, more peaceful place. It's weddings she hates. Happy girls dressed in silly expensive clothes advancing towards nervous, hopeful men in uncomfortable suits, all believing that they are entering the world of Happy Ever After and making promises they cannot hope to keep.

‘Don't do it,' she wants to shout. ‘It's all a myth.'

She doesn't say this to Jess.

‘It's terrible,' she says instead, ‘to be made aware of the awful finality of death when you're only thirteen.'

To her horror, Jess begins to weep. She draws her feet up onto the edge of the seat, wraps her arms around her knees and hides her face in them. Sobs shake her body, and Kate wonders whether she should stop the car or whether it is better to drive on. Instinctively she carries on; she will take Jess up on to the moor in the hope that its immense majesty and sense of infinity will soothe and heal her as it has healed her, Kate, in the past. They hurry through the town, out onto the Princetown road and pass Mount House School. At the cattle grid Kate turns left onto the little track beneath Cox Tor and reverses the car into a small unused quarry.

In the back of the car, Flossie begins to whine eagerly. Jess raises her head; her face is blotched and red and her eyes are swollen. She stares around her.

‘Come on,' says Kate. ‘Let's take Flossie for a walk up to the tor.'

Jess's eyebrows shoot up; she almost manages a smile. ‘In these shoes?'

Kate looks down at herself, forgetting that they are more smartly dressed than usual.

‘I've got some walking shoes under the seat,' she says, ‘and gumboots in the back. We're about the same size. It'll do our heads good to look right out. It never fails to give a sense of perspective.'

They change their shoes, scramble up the side of the quarry, and set off towards the tor.

‘Sorry about that,' mutters Jess. ‘It takes me unawares. Silly, isn't it? Not at the funeral itself – I was OK with that – but afterwards I just suddenly thought about him, how he was, and I just couldn't bear it. I still miss him just as much as ever. And now…'

‘Now?' prompts Kate gently when Jess falls silent.

Jess shakes her head; she crosses her arms, hugging herself, and stops to look around her. Flossie has raced ahead, scrambling among the scree and the ancient hut circles, following a trail. Kate stops too. She looks out to the west, towards Cornwall and the sheltered, magical valley of St Meriadoc, and Bruno in his strange stone house on the cliff.

Jess has scrambled higher now and is looking away to the south, far beyond the granite jumble of Pew Tor and the slate roofs of Horrabridge, where a narrow shining ribbon snakes inland from the sea.

‘Is that the Tamar?' she calls, gesturing with her arm. ‘That river?'

Kate climbs up to join her and they stand together looking towards Plymouth.

‘Yes, that's the Tamar,' says Kate. She watches the girl's face with its oddly wistful expression. ‘You know, I think you've lost your heart to that river.'

Just for a moment Kate thinks that Jess is going to confide in her, to tell her the real secret, but instead she smiles and gives a little nod.

‘I think I have,' she says.

TAMAR

After the funeral it seems as if everything goes into mourning for Rowena. The long spell of fine autumn weather changes: Atlantic fronts sweep in from the west, bruise-coloured clouds piling and toppling into downpours of rain. Rivers run high and fast, burst their banks, and smash small ancient bridges. In waterside communities, cottages are flooded and shops and cafés are under water; the local news is filled evening after evening with woeful stories of damaged stock and ruined carpets. Westerlies of gale force propensities sink small boats and fell trees, which crush cars beneath their flailing boughs.

Then, suddenly, all is quiet again. The storms race away to the east and a waning moon, cast about with a shawl of stars, rises in the clear night sky. The temperature drops, hoar frost whitens bare twigs and fallen leaves, and puddles creak and splinter underfoot as ice begins to form. Unprecedented low temperatures for early December are forecast and there are hints of a white Christmas.

In the drawing-room, Johnnie switches off the television and looks at Sophie, who is sitting in a big armchair with her legs tucked beneath her, writing a letter. Her fine fair hair falls forward across her cheeks and she frowns slightly as she writes. He settles himself more comfortably in the corner of the sofa, reaching a hand to Popps, who is curled beside him. Popps is missing Rowena and is trading on it by demanding more attention and extra treats. Sophie is allowing her to get away with it because she feels that, in ministering to Popps, Johnnie is allowing himself his own form of grieving.

‘She's missing Mother, poor old Popps. How she loved this little dog, didn't she, Sophes? She had such a soft spot for the dogs.' And he'd give Popps another little treat and stroke her head and murmur to her.

‘Snow's forecast,' says Johnnie. ‘Going to be another cold night. Black ice warning.' He chuckles. ‘How Mother hated that expression. Black ice. “What does it
mean?
” she'd say. “How ridiculous!”' And he chuckles again with affection.

Sophie nods. The house seems oddly empty without Rowena's stringent, critical presence, and she is glad that Oliver will be over tomorrow – and Jess is coming back, too.

‘I wonder if it'll be a bit cold out in the sail loft for Jess,' Johnnie says, as if he reads Sophie's mind. ‘Should she be in the house, d'you think?'

‘I did mention it.' Sophie puts aside her letter. ‘Especially after she's had that wretched cold since the funeral, but she really wants to be out there. I think she needs to be, somehow.'

Johnnie looks puzzled and Sophie casts about for some reason that Johnnie might be able to accept. She believes that Jess is coming to terms with something personal, something private, and that the sail loft is a good place for her to be while she's doing it.

‘Her work,' she says. ‘You know what creative people are like. They need their own space. She's trying to get a portfolio together while she's here. The sail loft must be a perfect place for that, wouldn't you say?'

‘Yes, of course.' Johnnie agrees. ‘I hadn't thought of that aspect of it. And she can come inside if the weather gets colder. Old Fred's back this week, too.'

He looks thoughtful and Sophie frowns.

‘I still think it was rather odd of him, just taking off like that,' she says.

‘He said something about meeting up with an old friend.' Johnnie shrugs evasively. ‘You know Fred. Fairly typical.'

‘I suppose so. Oh, and Oliver's coming over tomorrow.'

‘Good.' Johnnie sits forward. ‘I want to talk to him about this scheme of Guy's. Oliver's emailed me a few things. I really think it could work.'

‘I hope so,' she says. ‘It may well be a great thing for all of us. It's something we can all be a part of, isn't it? You, me and Fred. Even Will, when he's around.'

‘It would bring new life in,' Johnnie says. ‘People coming and going and all sorts of offshoots like the RYA courses, which Fred and I are qualified to run, and skippering the boats on the day-runs. We could all take a turn at that. Lots to talk about, of course, but I feel very positive about it. I can't wait for Fred to come back so we can tell him about it.'

Sophie laughs. ‘He'll be in his element. And it'll be so nice for Guy to have you both encouraging him. So long as the figures stack up.'

‘Oliver's looking into all of that,' says Johnnie. ‘He's got a head on his shoulders, that fellow. No wonder he's made a packet.'

Sophie feels a little thrill of pride. ‘I haven't actually discussed it with him,' she says, unable to resist talking about him but not quite knowing what to say. ‘He's an odd mix, isn't he?'

‘Well, he's certainly sharp when it comes to business. He seems such a laid-back kind of chap as a rule and then you realize that under that amusing veneer is quite a tough nut.'