Homecomings Read online

  He walks quickly, wielding his stick expertly, whilst Brioc races ahead and then turns and runs back as if to encourage Jamie onwards. Just for this moment he feels free, enabled; that he can look forward hopefully. His bitterness and anxiety dissolve in this wild, rocky landscape, and for the first time since he was disabled by this illness, grounded, frustrated, his spirits are lifted. It will be life-changing to have no structure to his life: no routine, no responsibilities. He still wonders how he will manage to feel viable, to make something worthwhile of his future, but he feels just a little more positive about it now.

  Brioc is back with a stone, which he lays at Jamie’s feet. Jamie picks it up and hurls it as far as he can, laughing to see Brioc racing away after it. The exertion causes a wave of dizziness, and he has to pause, leaning on his stick, until his balance realigns. He walks on slowly; the instability recedes as the world brightens and the horizon becomes more distinct. As he walks, the sun rises to the east above the stony skyline and washes the world in its light. All is well again.

  By the time he and Brioc arrive back at the house on the quay Prune is up, sitting at the kitchen table with Mort at her feet and eating some kind of health-giving cereal. She’s wearing pyjamas covered by an old, loose-fitting cardigan, and sheepskin slippers. With her hair pulled back and her smooth skin she looks about twelve.

  Jamie thinks: I might have had a daughter like this – and his heart twists in an odd sense of painful longing.

  ‘Looks tasty.’ He nods towards the cereal. ‘What is it? Chicken food?’

  She grins back at him. ‘Granola. It’s very good. I suppose you’ll be going for the full English?’

  ‘If I’m lucky.’ He pushes the kettle on to the hotplate. ‘No point offering you coffee, I suppose?’

  ‘None at all.’ Prune shakes her head. She raises her mug. ‘I’m having redbush.’

  He rolls his eyes, reaches down a mug from the dresser, peers into the cupboard. Brioc has finished drinking and now pushes his cold wet muzzle into Prune’s lap.

  ‘Aaargh!’ she exclaims. ‘Awful dog. That’s cold. Where did you go? Along the cliff?’

  Jamie nods. ‘It’s a bit of a hike up through the village and out on to the moor so we took the easy option.’

  He makes coffee and sits down at the table. It’s good to do this: to sit here with Prune, at ease, refreshed by his walk with Brioc, and to feel no stress.

  ‘So tell me about Ben,’ he says casually. ‘He must have come to The Chough since I was there last.’

  He sees the flush of colour run up under her cheeks and is amused and touched all at once. How exciting to be so young, and in love.

  ‘He’s the bar manager,’ she says, proudly. ‘He lives in. You have to if you’re the bar manager. He really wants to go into IT. You know? Websites and stuff? But he needs to earn some money first.’

  Jamie drinks his coffee, listening to her, caressing Brioc’s head, which now rests against his knee.

  ‘It’s the place to be,’ he agrees. ‘IT is where it’s at. Go for it, Ben.’

  Prune beams at him. ‘He’s going on a course in Newquay in September.’

  ‘That’s good,’ he says. ‘Newquay’s not too far away,’ and he smiles a little as he watches her look rather shy again.

  The door opens and Hugo comes in wearing an ancient dressing gown. Jamie begins to laugh.

  ‘Good grief,’ he says. ‘Don’t I recognize that old thing? Weren’t you wearing it at school?’

  ‘Do you have a problem with that?’ demands Hugo. ‘I found it when I moved down and it’s come in jolly useful.’

  ‘I told you,’ says Prune. ‘It’s like a student’s grot here. My dear old APs would be horrified. And they think you’re so respectable.’

  Jamie winces. It occurs to him that Prune’s ‘Aged Parents’ are probably the same age as he is.

  ‘Nonsense,’ says Hugo. ‘They know perfectly well that we’re nothing of the sort. I shall make Uncle Ned’s coffee and take it up to him and then we’ll have breakfast.’ He raises his eyebrows at Jamie. ‘I suppose you want the full works?’

  Jamie sees Prune’s eyes expectantly upon him and he knows that he cannot disappoint her.

  ‘Of course,’ he says – and she snorts and rolls her eyes.

  ‘Told you so,’ she says. ‘You are just so predictable.’

  ‘So are you,’ he counters. ‘Granola. Redbush. Knitted cabbage. What does Ben think about it?’

  Prune purses her lips. ‘I’m working on him,’ she says.

  ‘I bet you are, the poor bugger,’ says Jamie with so much feeling that Prune begins to laugh.

  ‘It’s difficult,’ she admits, ‘with him working in a pub, to keep him on the straight and narrow. But at least he’s given up smoking.’

  ‘Well, that is an achievement,’ agrees Jamie. ‘I’m looking forward to meeting him.’

  Prune gives him a candid look. ‘It’ll be a bit daunting to meet all three of you properly so you must be nice.’

  Jamie raises his eyebrows. ‘Nice? Nice? Oh, yes. I think I remember nice. I’ll give it my best shot.’

  Prune sighs; gets up. ‘I can see I’m wasting my breath.’

  ‘We shall be good practice for him,’ Jamie says encouragingly. ‘After all, it might come to a point where he has to meet your parents and your three brothers. If he can get past us it’ll be a walk in the park for him.’

  ‘What’ll be a walk in the park?’ asks Hugo, coming back in.

  ‘Nothing,’ answers Prune quickly. ‘I’m going to have a shower.’

  She puts her bowl and mug into the dishwasher, gives Mort and Brioc valedictory pats and goes out.

  ‘So what do you think of our Prune?’ Hugo goes to the fridge and begins to assemble the makings of breakfast. ‘We count her a definite asset to the household.’

  ‘I agree,’ says Jamie, ‘and I can’t wait to meet Ben. I think poor Prune is nervous at the prospect.’

  ‘Daniel in the lions’ den?’ suggests Hugo. ‘But he knows me and Ned from The Chough.’

  ‘Not quite the same, though, is it? Meeting you socially in your own home. Three against one.’

  ‘I think it’s a good idea to invite Dossie. Rather as though we’re having a little party and it’s not just all about Ben. Perhaps Adam might be down and he could come as well.’

  ‘Hang on,’ says Jamie. ‘Who’s Adam?’

  ‘Dossie’s brother. I think you’ll like him. Yes, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll have a little party.’

  ‘Sounds like fun.’ Jamie stands up and makes his way carefully across the kitchen, one hand always in contact with a surface, to pour himself more coffee. These days his efforts to retain equilibrium are on the verge of becoming subconscious, unnoticeable. His homecoming has been one of warmth, of reassurance, and rather than the bleakness of an ending there seems to be the promise of a new beginning.

  Breakfast is over by the time Rose arrives, but only just. To mask her pleasure at the sight of Jamie after such a long time, she rolls her eyes, sighs as if in disbelief to see them all still sitting round the table.

  ‘Lucky for some people,’ she says, resigned, ‘hanging about all morning with nothing to do. Some of us have to work.’

  Hugo laughs but Jamie pushes back his chair and stands up, holding his arms out to her.

  ‘Morning, Rose,’ he says. ‘Prickly as ever, are we?’

  She returns his hug, gives him a quick peck on the cheek, hiding her delight at his greeting, not quite knowing what to say. Hugo has warned her about what’s happened and she guesses that the last thing Jamie will want is a long face and sympathy.

  ‘And I expect you’re as untidy as ever,’ she counters. ‘Well, you know the rules. Anything left on the bedroom floor goes in the rubbish.’

  ‘Rose doesn’t take prisoners,’ Ned reminds him, smiling.

  ‘Don’t worry, Rose,’ Hugo says. ‘We’re going out so you’ll have a bit of peace and quiet. We were just argu
ing for and against the merits of Padstow or Polzeath. I want to go to Padstow and Jamie is for Polzeath.’

  ‘No change there then,’ she answers briskly. ‘Can’t remember a time when you two weren’t arguing about something.’

  ‘Now I know I’m home,’ remarks Jamie to no one in particular.

  There is a tiny silence and then the sudden pushing back of chairs, of bustle and movement. Rose meets Jamie’s eyes and feels that tiny jolt of recognition; as if she is looking at Jack thirty-five years on. She nods at Jamie, as if to show that she knows all that has happened to him, and he smiles back at her, acknowledging everything she has not said to him.

  Once they’ve all gone, she puts the necessary cleaning materials into a bucket and carries them all upstairs. It was Margaret who bought a second vacuum cleaner to be kept on the first floor, to save Rose carrying it up two flights of stairs. It was the kind of thing Margaret thought about. It wouldn’t have occurred to Lady T in a thousand years.

  Ned’s room is the tidiest, probably because of all those years away at sea on a submarine. Rose begins the usual routine of dusting, polishing. She pauses to look at the photographs he keeps on the mahogany chest: of Jack as a child with Margaret, and as a young man in naval uniform, proud parents on either side. Rose picks up a photograph of Margaret and looks closely at it. Margaret is dressed quite formally, dark hair tidy; she looks smart, attractive, just as Ned liked to see her. Rose recognizes the scarf that is tied around Margaret’s throat. It’s a silk scarf that Ned brought back after six weeks away at sea. They had a run ashore at Naples and he bought the scarf there. It’s a pale green silk, covered with splashy red flowers, and Margaret was wearing it the day Rose overheard her talking to Toby McIntyre in the kitchen. Even now she can remember the words Margaret used, and the way her fingers twisted the ends of the scarf tied around her neck.

  ‘I can’t believe that you knew and you never told me, Toby. You just let me go on as usual and all the while everyone knew that he’s been unfaithful to me. Pitying me. Smiling behind their hands.’

  ‘Not everyone. Be fair, Mags. It’s not that simple …’ Toby was mumbling, both elbows on the table, his fair curly head in his hands.

  Rose could just glimpse him through the half-open door. She’d seen him before, at drinks parties or a dinner party, when she’d been called in to help Lady T and the Admiral.

  Margaret closed her eyes, screwing them up as if she were in pain. Her hands twisted and twisted the scarf. It was odd, thought Rose, that she should look so different, much more attractive, with her face so alive with anger and hurt, and her hair all anyhow where she’d dragged her hands through it.

  ‘I know he’s a flirt but I never thought he would actually do anything. I trusted him,’ she said. ‘God, what a fool I’ve been.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ Toby was insisting. ‘I keep telling you, Mags. It’s not important to him. It’s … une bagatelle.’

  Margaret opened her eyes, lifted her chin and stared at him. ‘Because saying it in French makes it more civilized? More acceptable?’

  ‘No,’ he cried. ‘No, Mags. I’m just saying these things mean nothing to Ned.’

  ‘And you can’t see that that makes it even worse?’

  ‘Oh God.’

  Toby buried his face in his hands again and she stretched her own hand across the table to him.

  ‘Sorry, Tobes,’ she said. ‘This isn’t your problem and I’ve no right to shout at you. It’s just that this letter from this bloody woman …’

  Rose stepped back then, warily, silently, shocked by Margaret’s language, her passion. It was so unlike her that Rose didn’t know what to do, where to go. Hesitating, she could still hear their voices.

  ‘Will you confront him?’

  ‘No. No, I shan’t. He’ll never know that I know. Oh, I know he’s silly with women, that flirtatious kind of thing, but I didn’t believe he’d do more than that.’

  ‘I’m sorry …’

  ‘What for? I shouldn’t have asked you to come over but it was a shock. I just needed to know the truth from someone I could trust. After all, we’ve been friends even before either of us knew Ned.’

  ‘You know I’ll do anything I can.’

  ‘I know. Look, you’d better go. Ned’s parents will be back soon. I’m going home next week. Jack’s got some leave.’

  ‘I’m going back, too. Look, why don’t we have lunch …?’

  Rose could hear chairs being pushed back and she made a swift, silent retreat up the stairs. But, later, when she went down again, the scarf was lying on the kitchen table. Margaret never wore it again. Rose found it shoved to the back of a drawer in the bedroom upstairs. A year later, Jack was killed.

  Now, as she stares at the photograph she remembers how, when Ned asked if she’d like anything of Margaret’s to remember her by, Rose asked for the scarf.

  ‘The one you bought her in Naples,’ she reminded him, and watched as a variety of expressions flitted over his face: surprise, confusion, shame.

  ‘Of course,’ he muttered, discomfited. ‘I’m not sure where it might be. I haven’t seen it for years.’

  ‘I know where it is,’ she assured him. ‘She kept it here.’

  He nodded, frowning, slightly put out, but Rose didn’t mind. She took the scarf from where she’d laid it, wrapped in tissue paper in a drawer, many years ago and showed it to him. Ned stared at it.

  ‘I’m sure she’d like you to have it,’ he said at last.

  Rose puts the photograph back on the mahogany chest. She likes to wear the scarf from time to time to remember how things were: the scene in the kitchen with Toby. It was then that Margaret began to change. Not because Jack died. Death is one thing, betrayal quite another.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  EMILIA DRIVES IN the narrow lanes, amused as she always is by the odd names on the fingerposts: Pityme, Splatt, Stoptide. She has driven Lucy and Dan to Newquay airport and now she is alone again. In London this would be no problem – there’s always someone to meet up with – but here in north Cornwall she wonders how she will manage.

  ‘I’ll be back next week, Mum,’ Lucy said. ‘Once I’ve sorted these few things out I’ll dash over for a couple of days. You’ll be OK, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course I will. Stop fussing.’ Emilia shook her head at Lucy’s anxiety. ‘What could go wrong?’

  ‘I know. I’m being silly. But let me know if you have a problem.’

  With promises and reassurances Emilia saw them off and now here she is driving into Rock, parking against the seawall opposite the cottage, and climbing out of the car. She lets herself in and stands in the tiny hall. When she first saw the cottage, Lucy showing her round full of pride and excitement, Emilia was aware of an atmosphere, a miasma that seemed to cling about the sitting-room, drifting on the stairs: a negative vibe of discontent, resentment, old grievances.

  Despite telling herself that this was nonsense the sensation remained, although Lucy and Tom seemed to be unaware of it. The next time she visited Rock it was as if the presence of the little family had vanquished it: Lucy’s delight at owning this little cottage, Tom’s pragmatic confidence, Danny’s enthusiasm and vitality, had somehow expunged the atmosphere. Just now and again Emilia caught a whiff of it, of bitterness and anger, but it was fleeting and she wondered who had been the previous occupant.

  ‘It was owned by several generations, the agent said,’ Lucy told her. ‘Grandmother, then daughter, then granddaughter. The granddaughter was offered a job in New York – I think he said that she was an investment banker – and she decided to sell. It’s so rare for any properties to come on the market here. We’re just so lucky.’

  In the sitting-room is a little drop-leaf table by the window where Emilia can eat while the kitchen is being dismantled. She puts her bag on it and gazes out of the window across the estuary to Padstow. Perhaps she’ll catch the ferry and go across for lunch – or maybe she’ll drive to Wadebridge and go to th
e café where Lucy says she met Hugo. Slowly, now that she is alone, Emilia allows herself to think about Hugo. Unexpectedly, as she calls up the past, she seems to hear again the ‘Widmung’ and her heart beats a little faster. She remembers hearing it for the first time at a lunchtime piano recital given by one of the university students, and even now she can remember how much she was moved by it. Hugo was so sweet, finding a recording of it, playing it to her in his room – and then Jamie came walking in. She was sitting on the floor, amongst a pile of cushions, and she rose to her feet as if she were drawn up by strings. She sees again the brown eyes and black hair, and his expression of dawning dismay that he’d interrupted what might have become an intimate scene. She was aware of Hugo’s disappointment, and felt a fleeting sympathy, but it was as nothing compared to the first shock of seeing Jamie.

  So this is it, she thought. This is what they all write about and sing about. This sense of recognition, lust, helplessness, longing.

  Then Hugo was introducing them, persuading Jamie to stay and have some wine, and as she shook hands with him, looking into those brown eyes, she knew that he was feeling exactly the same way. Poor Hugo didn’t stand a chance. There was a glamour about Jamie, not only because of his good looks and charisma, but also because he was going to join the RAF, to become a pilot; a glamour that she was used to in her mother’s company: that head-turning sense of being special, different.

  Emilia hugs herself tight, remembering. Her mother fell in love with Jamie at once – ‘Gorgeous, darling’ – but her father was more cautious: ‘How will you manage as a service wife, sweetie? He’ll be away a lot. Please do think carefully.’ But Emilia could see and hear only Jamie.

  As she stares unseeingly at the ferry plying across the river, she tries to pinpoint a moment, find a reason for abandoning him. Of course, it’s not so simple: it’s rarely one obvious thing. After those two years of balls and parties, of weekends and fun, after the excitement of the courtship and the wedding, with the guard of honour drawn up outside the church door, then real life began on the RAF base at Lyneham. It hadn’t occurred to her that she would simply become one of the many pilots’ wives, living in dreary married quarters. Here she was neither special nor glamorous. She didn’t fit with these other women, who were either training to be nurses or were career wives, thinking only of their husbands’ promotions, who disapproved of her wearing jeans. When Jamie came home from missions he didn’t want to make decisions – he spent his whole life making split-second decisions – or to be worried about the dreariness of the furniture and curtains. This was her responsibility. That’s when she should have started to look for a little house off the base where they could make a home and start a family – Jamie so wanted children. Instead she fled to London at every opportunity, to the flat on the King’s Road.