Homecomings Read online

  Hugo raises his eyebrows. ‘I thought the reason we were having lunch here is because we weren’t going to bother about supper?’

  ‘Oh, just do it,’ says the older man impatiently. ‘Send her a text.’

  Hugo shrugs cheerfully, pulls out his phone and Ned sits back in his chair. The group of mothers and children is leaving. They mill about, parents calling instructions, and one small boy shoulders forward ahead of the rest, impatient to be outside. Ned looks at the small determined face, the black hair and dark brown eyes, and is once again pierced by the feeling of recognition. He looks again for the woman he noticed earlier, who is hurrying to catch up with the little boy, calling after him to wait for her.

  Ned leans forward to draw Hugo’s attention to her but before he can speak the whole party has swept out of The Chough and he’s too late.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DOSSIE CLOSES THE door behind her and stands listening to the sound of silence. No Pa shouting from his den to ask how the day went; no Mo in the kitchen pushing the kettle on to the Aga ready for a welcoming cup of tea or coffee; no Wolfie skittering out into the hall barking a welcome; no Jonno struggling up from his basket, tail wagging. This coming in to the overwhelming sense of absence is the hardest thing: nobody now with whom to share her day, her small successes or frustrations. After Pa’s death from his second stroke, and then during the last year of Mo’s illness, the bed-and-breakfast business that they’d continued to run so gallantly gradually diminished and, though Dossie’s own business continues to flourish, there is a pointlessness to life with which she must wrestle on a daily basis.

  It was to Mo and Pa that Dossie returned when her husband, Mike, was killed in a motor-racing accident, leaving her with their small son, Clem. They had looked after him whilst she organized lunches, dinners, cooked special-occasion feasts in other people’s kitchens and finally managed to get her business up and running. Mo and Pa had contacts and friends right across the peninsula who were very ready to help the young widowed daughter of their two old friends. And in return, years later, she was able to help them to keep their rather eccentric bed-and-breakfast business running as they grew older and less able. She misses those visitors who, over the years, became friends, bringing their dogs and occasionally, as the years passed, grandchildren. And, on top of all this, Dossie misses the familiar daily contact with Clem and her grandson, Jakey.

  She crosses the hall, goes into the kitchen, instinctively glancing away from the dogs’ empty baskets. It was almost as if a malign history were repeating itself when Clem’s young wife died having their baby. When Jakey was four, Clem decided to return to Cornwall from London and, once again, the family rallied round to support them whilst Clem pursued his vocation, his theological training, and was ordained. Now, six years on, he is chaplain to the Anglican community in the beautiful old retreat house of Chi-Meur, twenty miles away on the coast.

  During that time Dossie had grown used to being on call to babysit, to provide food in an emergency, and simply to spend precious time with her son and grandson. She was so happy when Tilly came into their lives: pretty, funny, clever Tilly, who looks after all the IT at Chi-Meur and who has brought a whole new dimension to Clem’s life; and to Jakey’s, too. They live in the cottage at the end of Chi-Meur’s drive and the three of them, plus a retriever called Bells, are a happy little unit. Though they stay closely in touch with her, Dossie knows she must now step back. She must be tactful and give them space.

  It’s odd, this sense of desolation each time she returns home. The huge effort required to prepare some food and sit eating it solemnly, all alone. Food is the source of life; it should be shared, be a celebration. Mo and Pa had been the most splendid of hosts, giving to their guests not only good food but an atmosphere of warmth and fun in which to enjoy it whilst making them feel special. After years of travelling the world with Pa’s job at Rio Tinto Zinc as a mining engineer, they found it impossible simply to retire to a quiet life and their B and B-ers gave them a purpose. This pretty, gracious Georgian house, with its elegant sash windows and perfect proportions, was an ideal setting for the venture and Dossie can’t imagine living anywhere else.

  As she opens the fridge and stares disconsolately at its contents, a text message pings in and she shuts the door and takes her phone from her bag. She sees that the text is from Hugo and immediately she is washed through with a sense of warmth, of relief, and even gratitude. She has grown so fond of Hugo and Ned in their big old house down at the harbour’s edge in the small fishing village near Polzeath. They have welcomed her into their world, which is almost as eccentric as the world she shared with Mo and Pa. She reads the text and foolishly wants to weep.

  Come to supper. We both need you. xx

  But she doesn’t weep. Instead she laughs and taps out a reply.

  You mean that your freezer is empty. I can take a hint. xx

  She agrees a time with Hugo and goes back to the fridge. Oddly, this small connection has lifted her spirits and given her the courage to go on again.

  ‘You need another dog,’ Hugo told her, after Wolfie died. ‘I know it was difficult when Mo was ill and you were trying to do everything, but it’s different now.’

  She imagined that he was on the edge of saying, ‘You don’t even have to worry about Clem and Jakey now, either,’ but restrained himself. Or maybe she was just feeling oversensitive. It is hard no longer to be the one Jakey and Clem turn to if there is a problem or something to celebrate.

  ‘Get over it,’ she mutters, taking the makings of a sandwich from the fridge. ‘Get a life. Get a dog.’

  Meanwhile she’ll think of some special pudding that she can take to contribute to the supper: she has something to look forward to and the bad moment is past.

  Later, as she drives between St Endellion and Polzeath, Dossie thinks about having another dog; of trying to manage a puppy or whether it should be a rescue dog. Either would almost certainly bring problems, yet it would be so good to have a companion again. As she turns westward towards Polzeath, however, a different problem presses in: whether or not she should sell the house. It’s not easy when Adam telephones and asks if she’s considering putting The Court on the market yet. Her brother, Adam, works for a big London estate agency that specializes in selling country properties.

  ‘Now is the perfect time of year to sell,’ he said during the last conversation. ‘It’s too big for you on your own, Doss. It’ll cost a bomb to keep it up and running.’

  Since Mo died, Dossie has worked hard to rebuild her relationship with her brother.

  ‘So you scooped the pool, Doss,’ he said to her bleakly after their father’s funeral. ‘Pa warned me just before he died that he was leaving The Court to you because of all that you’d done for them, but I didn’t quite believe he would actually do it. Not that you don’t deserve it.’

  She didn’t tell Adam that she’d pleaded with Pa to change his will but their father remained adamant.

  ‘We’ve helped Adam from time to time,’ Pa said. ‘It’s not our fault his marriage fell apart and he lost half of everything. You made it possible for Mo and me to stay in our home, Dossie, when we were old, to run our business and to surround ourselves with our friends. We couldn’t have done it without you and we had so much fun. This has been your home for most of your life apart from when you were with Mike. Don’t forget that.’

  Once Pa died, Adam changed. Slowly he grew less defensive, easier to be with, as if some challenge, some expectation, had been removed; as if he no longer had anything to prove. Later again, during his visits while Mo was ill, there was a kind of reconciliation, an acceptance at last on each side. Dossie can imagine how hard a blow it was to Adam to be disinherited but she is beginning to hope that she might be able to heal that resentment. She knows, though, that he’s right about selling The Court. But how could she bear it and where would she go?

  As she drives, surrounded by the cool, blue, infinite sky-spaces that indicate proximity to the
sea, she is prey to a sense of panic. She is reminded of the loneliness of those years after Mike was killed. How he’d loved speed! Motorbikes, Formula One, speedboats. He took so many risks that it was hardly surprising that his life ended so tragically. But even back then, desolate though she was, she had small Clem. He was her reason to carry on, to survive, to continue to create a home and a life – and this became a pattern. Until now.

  She drives down into the village, past the harbour, and parks her little Golf on the hard area beside Ned’s Volvo. As she climbs out her spirits are beginning to rise. Quite apart from the fact that Hugo and Ned have become such good chums, her own sense of pride won’t allow her to whinge and whine and pull sad faces in front of them. She opens the hatchback, reaches in for the basket containing the pudding, and takes a deep breath. The massive front door is unlocked as usual and she shouts as she comes into the long hallway. There is a responding shout and the sound of barking, and she smiles with amusement, happiness, and a tinge of sadness at the old familiar response to a homecoming.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘BREAD-AND-BUTTER PUDDING,’ SAYS Hugo appreciatively. ‘You know all our weaknesses, Dossie.’

  Dossie raises her eyebrows. ‘I seriously doubt that.’ She rolls her eyes and winks at Hugo. ‘I bet Ned has all sorts of secrets he’s not letting on about.’

  Ned can’t help but smile. He loves the way that Dossie slightly flirts with him and teases him. It makes him feel young again, viable, alive. And he does indeed have secrets that he has no intention of revealing – and the guilt that goes with them.

  ‘And what about me?’ demands Hugo, spooning the pudding on to plates. ‘What about my secrets?’

  ‘I think,’ says Dossie, finding forks and spoons and then sitting down again at the table, ‘that your secret is that you’re a frustrated concert pianist.’

  Ned watches Hugo’s face with interest as a variety of expressions flit across it: surprise, a little frown, a downward turn of the lips in a tiny facial shrug.

  ‘You might be right,’ he concedes. ‘What makes you say so?’

  Dossie looks at him thoughtfully. ‘I think it’s the way your face changes when you prepare to play. You become detached. It’s as if you are about to enter into another world, which you actually prefer to this one.’

  Ned is slightly taken aback by Dossie’s perspicacity. There was a time when he hoped that Hugo would make his playing his career when he was in his last years at school. It was sad that Hugo’s father had never recognized his son’s talent or taken it seriously. If his mother had still been alive it might have been different.

  ‘Anyway,’ Dossie is saying, ‘payment for the pudding is that you play for us after supper. And don’t ask me what. You know how ignorant I am and you only do it to show me up.’

  Hugo is laughing now. ‘OK. But you’re going to have to start taking it on board and learn. I might play you some Debussy.’

  ‘Awesome,’ says Dossie, who sometimes talks like her grandson, Jakey. ‘Shall I like it?’

  ‘It’ll be joyous,’ Hugo says solemnly. ‘Simply joyous.’

  Ned watches them, amused, as they burst out laughing. They like to do this: to quote lines from TV shows or films that they both seem to know.

  How wonderful, he thinks, if they were to fall in love.

  They make such an attractive pair: Hugo with his dark curly hair, so kind and warm-hearted, and Dossie, so ashy-fair, so funny, and vital. They are both generous, life enhancing, nurturers.

  But this was always my problem, thinks Ned wryly. I was always much too ready to fall in love. Too romantic. Too susceptible. How terrible it is to be so old on the outside and still so young on the inside. He thinks of John Donne’s poem:

  I am two fools, I know,

  For loving, and for saying so …

  But he knows that Hugo is not that kind of fool and Ned senses that although Hugo might be very attracted to Dossie, they are already moving beyond that fragile, magical moment of falling in love. Their friendship is easy, uncomplicated, and Ned is so grateful to be a part of it that he is happy simply to enjoy his pudding and look forward to hearing Hugo play.

  Hugo spoons up some cream and mentally reviews what he might play to Dossie. He’s rather enjoying his role as entertainer, of musician, though he suspects that she is not quite as ignorant as she claims.

  ‘So what do you like?’ he asked her on a previous occasion. ‘What music do you listen to when you’re driving? Or do you listen to the radio?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I like to listen to music. At the moment I’m really into Jamie Cullum, Nina Simone … You know?’ She smiles at him. ‘All that jazz?’

  He shakes his head, pretending disapproval. ‘My cousin Jamie loves that stuff,’ he told her.

  Now, as he finishes the pudding and pushes his plate aside, Hugo remembers that he’d also been rather grateful that Jamie wasn’t around to play for Dossie. Jazz piano is Jamie’s speciality. It’s the story of his life: his cousin was always ahead; a year older, taller, more glamorous. He was head chorister, when they were both in the choir at Wells Cathedral School, and Jamie was always the one who got the girl when they were teenagers and, as if that weren’t enough, he became an RAF pilot. They tease each other, mock each other, exasperate each other, yet between them is an unbreakable bond of love and trust forged long ago as small boys at boarding school.

  Hugo frowns. He can still remember the loneliness and the fear of those first awful weeks at school; his mother only recently dead, his barrister father busy and detached. It was Jamie who rescued him; his big, clever, popular cousin who protected him, drew him onwards, encouraged his passion for music. Very few people understood the hard work, the professionalism, the dedication and comradeship required to be a chorister.

  Hugo dismisses his memories and reaches for the pad of paper that lives on the kitchen table.

  ‘So,’ he says, ‘what wonderful food shall we ask Dossie for this time?’

  Ned makes suggestions and watches Dossie, who is stroking Brioc. The dog leans his head against her knees and she bends over him, smoothing his coat and murmuring words of love. Ned can see her longing, her loneliness, and he wishes he could help her. It is clear from the way she makes such a fuss of Mort and Brioc how much she misses having a dog of her own.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he suggests, ‘you should take Brioc home with you. On loan, as it were.’

  She raises her head to smile at him, though it is not one of her usual smiles, and she makes a little face of longing.

  ‘A kind of rent-a-dog, d’you mean? What a fantastic idea. Only he’d miss you all too much. And you’d miss him.’

  ‘We’d have Mort,’ says Ned. ‘Wouldn’t we, Mort?’

  Mort, stretched out under the table, beats his tail upon the floor.

  ‘Just don’t tempt me,’ warns Dossie, ‘or I might take you up on it.’

  ‘He’d probably enjoy a break,’ says Hugo, still compiling his list. ‘Travelling all over the county. Meeting lots of lovely people. Eating wonderful food. Being top dog with Dossie. What’s not to like?’

  ‘Sounds like you might enjoy it yourself,’ suggests Ned slyly, and they all burst out laughing. ‘Well, if you won’t take me up on that, Dossie, I shall have to start a new campaign. A “Find a Dog for Dossie” campaign.’

  ‘Don’t think I haven’t thought about it,’ says Dossie. ‘It’s just not that easy. I’m not sure I could cope with a puppy, and rescue dogs often bring all kinds of problems. And that’s apart from the fact of growing to love it and going through all the agonies of losing it again.’

  Ned can hear the emotion in her voice and Hugo glances up sympathetically. Dossie’s head is bent over Brioc’s and the two men exchange glances.

  ‘It’s time for your recital,’ Ned says lightly. ‘Finished the shopping list for Dossie?’

  Hugo nods. ‘All done. Come on, then. I shall play Mozart’s D minor Fantasia and if you clap loudly enough you’ll
be allowed to have coffee afterwards.’

  As Dossie follows them upstairs to the drawing-room, where the baby grand piano is, she sends up a tiny prayer of thanksgiving for the friendship of these two men. Their affection and kindness, the laughter and sharing, is like a shield and a buckler against her loneliness and sense of loss. She still has good friends, Janna and the Sisters at the Retreat House; she has Clem and Tilly and Jakey, but these two men are very special to her. They have come new to her at a very particular time in her life and she knows that she is just as important to them as they are to her.

  The room, which is the whole width of the house, faces west with a view beyond the harbour and seaward to The Mouls. As the sun tips down towards the horizon it is as if the sea catches its light, bursts into flame, and blazes with fire. Dossie stands at the window, arms folded across her breast, watching the sunset as Ned settles into an armchair and Hugo adjusts his position on the piano stool until he is comfortable. As he begins the long slow arpeggios that set the sombre tone of the opening, Dossie is overcome by a stillness of spirit. She doesn’t know the piece he is playing, though she recognizes the mournful little tune that follows the introduction, yet the mercurial shifts of mood in the music mirror her own state of mind. Since Mo and Pa died, and Clem married Tilly, she seems to spend her whole time on an emotional roller coaster: tears, joy, grief, laughter, all follow in quick succession. When Hugo launches into the merry little passage at the end, the combined delight of the music and the sunset takes her breath away.

  She turns as Hugo plays the last chords with a theatrical flourish, and she and Ned give him enthusiastic applause. He grins at her but remains seated. For a moment he hesitates, eyes turned downward, then lifts his hands to the keys again. He begins to play a slow and steady introduction that leads into a tune so exquisite that to Dossie it is as if a fist squeezes her heart and she can barely breathe. The music is so beautiful it is unbearable. As she watches him she sees the expression she spoke of earlier: of intense concentration, of complete immersion in the music and another world. He repeats the tune with his left hand whilst his right hand creates a shimmering accompaniment. His broad hands move confidently over the keys, his eyes are closed, and there is something so particularly impressive about him, so sexy, that, just for this moment, she thinks that she could almost fall in love with this other, detached, assured Hugo. She turns back to the window, disturbed by her feelings. And now the music changes. The composer is saying something that cannot be defined in words. The tune returns, embellished, intense, reinforced, reaches a climax and then subsides to a sad, resigned little statement that is repeated twice before Hugo brings the piece to a close with a last bright high chord and lifts his fingers from the piano.