The Sea Garden Read online

  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.

  ‘Are you serious?’ he demands. ‘Don’t you care if their marriage breaks up?’

  Cass sighs inwardly. ‘I’d care very much indeed if I could believe that they still
love each other. I’m just not sure that they do. In which case I’d rather Gemma and the twins were here.’

  ‘You never liked Guy, did you?’ Tom perches on the end of the little deal table where the laundry basket sits.

  ‘Not much,’ answers Cass. ‘No. He’s too much like Mark, and I saw how it was with Kate and Mark. I didn’t want that for Gemma. If it had been Giles I’d have been much happier. Giles is much more … human. Gemma needs love like plants need the sun, and Guy is such a cold fish.’

  ‘But Gemma loves him,’ Tom insists. ‘She wouldn’t have gone to Canada otherwise. It was a perfect moment to leave him if she’d wanted to but she didn’t.’

  Cass folds the shirt and selects a long cord skirt. She turns it inside out and draws it over the ironing board. ‘I know she didn’t, but I wonder how much of that was to do with guilt. She’d had an affair and had been caught out, risked everything for a foolish moment of passion. We’ve been there, haven’t we? We can’t condemn her for it. I certainly can’t.’

  Tom heaves a huge, rather self-pitying sigh: he hates these kinds of discussions. They force him to confront his own weaknesses and failures; to remember his own infidelities and, much worse than all these, the death of Charlotte, who adored him. The reminder that, just briefly, he was prepared to put her at risk for the sake of a lustful moment of physical madness still has the power to reduce him to tears. He turns away, sticks his hands in his pockets and stares out of the window.

  ‘We were both equally to blame,’ Cass says, knowing what he is thinking. ‘I remember Kate saying back then, that kind of passion is like a terrible illness that destroys all sense of past or future. Only the present matters, burning you up so that you’re prepared to consign duties and responsibilities and even your loved ones to the flames. And when the fever passes it’s too late. The damage has been done.’

  And Charlotte was our scapegoat, bearing the weight of our confusion and passion; riding her pony out, too overwhelmed by her own fear and vulnerability to take sensible judgements. He doesn’t say the words aloud, fearing another shouting match; instead he says, ‘Have you told Kate how you feel? That you don’t mind if Gemma and Guy divorce?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t,’ Cass says irritably. ‘Kate and I hardly know what to say to each other at the moment. It’s a wretched situation. She blames Gemma and I blame Guy, but deep down we know it’s much more complex than that.’

  She pushes the iron along the skirt’s seam, steam hissing, remembering Kate’s love and support through those dreadful months after Charlotte’s death. She hates the Tom Tiddler’s ground that stretches between them since Gemma came home; each publicly defending her own child whilst privately acknowledging the other’s dilemma. It seems impossible that they should be unable to have a normal conversation without resentment creeping in or sharp words being spoken: impossible that she and Kate, after all these years, should be in such a position. While Gemma remained in Canada it was possible to skirt the issue; small skirmishes but quick retreats back into the warmth and constancy of their long relationship. Now, with Gemma and the twins here, it is as if the lines of battle need to be more clearly defined.

  Cass shakes out the skirt. She knows that it is unfair to put all the blame on Guy. She and Gemma are too alike for her to ignore that trait that leads Gemma to flirt, to regard the occasional sexual encounter as unimportant as a session at the gym or a game of tennis. She does blame him, however, for taking Gemma and the twins to Canada – to Mark.

  ‘I never liked Mark,’ she says, ‘and he never liked me. Gemma doesn’t like him either. I can’t imagine why Kate ever married him. I know Guy isn’t such a cold fish but I’m afraid that, as he gets older, he might turn into Mark – if you see what I mean. I hate going out there and having him there in the background looking so smug and vindictive. It must be hell for Kate when she goes out to visit them. Even worse now that he’s married again, not that Kate cares about that. I think she’s relieved, actually. She feels a bit less guilty for walking out on him.’

  Tom whistles a little tune just under his breath. ‘What you really hate is Mark having the satisfaction of thinking that he’s won. That’s why you want them back, isn’t it?’

  ‘Partly.’ Cass lays the skirt beside the shirts. ‘Mostly because I miss them so much and I know that Gemma isn’t happy there. Nor, by the sound of it, is Guy. Anyway, she’s made up her mind and it wasn’t anything to do with us. We didn’t influence her and I’m not going to beat myself up if Guy doesn’t come back.’ She switches off the iron. ‘Shall we have some lunch? Oliver said he’d grab something on the way back from South Brent.’

  She goes out, passing him without a glance, and after a moment he follows her downstairs.

  * * *

  Kate packs a few things into an overnight bag. She doesn’t need much; after all, she’s going home, isn’t she? A different home in a very different setting, but home just the same. She straightens up and looks around her bedroom, at the familiar belongings. It’s odd and unsettling to have two homes but this one at least belongs to her. The cottage at the end of the row in St Meriadoc is Bruno’s, though it feels – and looks – like home. She’s confused by the concept of having two homes; it’s already beginning to feel divisive. She misses the sound of the sea, the tall, bleak cliffs – but it’s good to wander out into the town or to drive up onto the moor, to know that the twins are only a few miles away at school.

  So why not simply keep both cottages and go between the two of them? After all, she managed to move and live happily between the house in Whitchurch and David’s house and studio in London. But that was different: the truth is that the house in London was never truly home to her. Perhaps David felt the same about the house in Whitchurch but the marriage worked nevertheless. Married late, each with grown-up children, they’d both been glad of the space they’d given each other. She’d retained responsibility for her house and David for his so that their children had been almost unaffected by their parents’ marriage. Nobody had been required to make choices or give anything up. David was an artist; his workplace was sacrosanct but beyond that he was very flexible. Bruno is like him in that respect.

  Kate takes the bag and goes downstairs, checks that the kitchen is tidy, plugs switched off, and wanders through to the sitting-room. She’s thinking of Gemma and Guy and the twins now, of Cass and Tom, of Bruno; oh, the different kinds of love: love for one’s children, for friends, for a lover. Her heart is divided amongst them all and she longs for a solution that answers their needs and her own.

  The danger is, she thinks, that when we love we demand too much, we grow possessive because our hearts are searching for perfect love. Perhaps no human person is capable of it; perhaps only God can offer it, but still we long for it … and the words of St Augustine’s prayer come into her mind: ‘O Lord, You have made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless till they rest in You.’

  True intimacy, she decides, requires both closeness and distance … like dancing. But how difficult it is to know when to move closer and when to draw back. Sometimes we invade the other person’s space, become too needy, and sometimes we hold ourselves apart, fearing to make demands, but giving the impression that we are unwilling to commit.

  We double-guess each other, thinks Kate, Bruno and I. How dangerous that is. Privately, secretly, I set him little tests but, since he doesn’t know the questions, how can he hope to pass? Perhaps he’s doing the same to me.

  She is glad that she’s made this decision to go to St Meriadoc; to be proactive rather than waiting, always waiting, to see if Jess needs her, or Gemma or Cass. She telephoned Bruno to tell him – she didn’t have to but decided she would – and to ask outright if she could come to supper.

  ‘Then,’ she said, ‘I shan’t have to worry about serious shopping. I’ve got some basic stuff…’

  And he was so pleased.

  ‘I’ve got a cassoulet on the go,’ he said. ‘Great. Will you go to the cottage first? OK
then. Just come over when you’re ready.’

  Oh, the foolish relief; the ridiculous happiness at his reaction.

  I wonder, thinks Kate, if I shall ever grow up.

  She has one last thing to do: she will make a call to Oliver and then she will be free to go.

  * * *

  Oliver has a pint and a sandwich at the pub in Cornwood and then heads up onto the moor. He drives quite slowly, listening to his Norma Winstone CD, stopping for a string of horses who come clattering out of Tinpark Riding School, clip smartly along the lane and then disappear onto Ridding Down, the rider at the rear raising her hand to him as he idles along patiently behind them. At Cadover Bridge a woman is throwing a ball for two Labradors who plunge into the river, leaping and splashing, their wet sleek black coats glistening in the sunshine. When he reaches Lynch Common he pulls the car off the road to check his mobile. There is a voice message from Kate.

  ‘I’m going down to St Meriadoc for a few days,’ she says. ‘I feel edgy, and anyway I want to collect a few things. I wonder if you’d like to use the cottage while I’m away? I think it might do us all good to have a break from one another and you might like a bolt hole yourself. Let me know. Cass has got the spare key for emergencies.’

  He sits in the warm November sunshine, looking across Burrator reservoir towards Sheepstor, thinking about it. His instincts tell him that something crucial is about to happen between Guy and Gemma, and he needs to be at hand for it. At the same time the prospect of a break from his parents is tempting. He presses buttons and Kate answers at once.

  ‘I’m on my way back,’ he says. ‘Just picked up your message. I think it’s a very good idea. Thanks.’