Summer on the River Read online

  Of course, she never dreamed that Tommy would leave the house to Evie.

  Now, as if she is casting off the problem – or running away from it – Evie picks up her bag and goes out again. She crosses the paved area, which her neighbour has made delightful with terracotta pots full of bedding plants, and climbs the flight of steps to the road above. She will go down to the Embankment, watch the boats and the people, maybe have something to eat in the Royal Castle Hotel. This evening she doesn’t want to be alone. Tomorrow Claude will be back: Tommy’s oldest, dearest friend. Boys together at boarding school, holidays at the Merchant’s House with the aunts, jaunts in London – throughout their lives their friendship remained strong, surviving marriage, babies, distance. Claude has been a widower for nearly four years and now he spends a great deal of time with Evie in Dartmouth. A retired naval commander, he likes to be here in the town, remembering his days as a cadet at the Britannia Royal Naval College, watching the new young intake out on the river.

  Evie feels a special affection for Claude. He was the only one of Tommy’s friends who knew about their affair. He never judged, never criticized, welcoming her warmly into the relationship he shared with his oldest friend.

  ‘He doesn’t get on very well with Marianne,’ was all Tommy said. ‘I’d like you to be friends.’

  And so they are; and tomorrow morning she will go to fetch him from the train at Totnes. Claude is always here for regatta.

  She wanders along the Embankment where visitors linger by the river, then turns into the town, past the Boat Float where small boats are moored. She crosses the road and pushes open the door of the Royal Castle Hotel. It’s quiet in the long, low bar with its large oak beams, rather too early for visitors or locals, and she is able to bag her favourite table by the window. She leaves her jacket on the chair and goes to the bar to order some supper and a glass of Pinot Grigio. A group of cheerful, noisy people come crowding in and she smiles at them as she squeezes by, carrying her wine back to her table.

  Evie relaxes in her chair, gazing out at the Boat Float, wondering how often she has sat here with cups of coffee or glasses of wine and thought about the current novel.

  ‘Do you get lonely?’ Tommy would ask just occasionally, his arms tightly around her, his voice anxious lest she should say ‘Yes’, and accuse him of leaving her alone, of using her.

  She’d laugh, mocking his fear. ‘With my head full of all my people?’ she’d ask. ‘Are you joking?’

  And it was partly true: fragments of conversation, threads of plots, odd connections crisscrossing the relationships of the characters, continually jostled her thoughts.

  Here, in the Royal Castle, she’s watched people eating, drinking, laughing, talking; she’s observed expressions, gestures, body language, and while she’s making mental notes she’s also conscious of long-gone generations inhabiting this old medieval port, from which merchant-venturers sailed out to find their fortunes and where the Pilgrim Fathers anchored for a while on their way to America.

  As she sips her wine, she gradually becomes aware that this time it is she who is under observation: someone is watching her. An odd sensation, like a light current of cold air, seems to brush against her skin. She glances round quite casually and sees a thin, fair man in the far corner at the table by the door. He is watching her with a cool stare, his face inscrutable but certainly not friendly. She has grown used to a certain amount of attention. People recognize her from the photographs on the dust covers of her books, from literary festivals, from local television – she often encounters a ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ glance – but what is not familiar is this sense of hostility; of active dislike.

  She looks back at him, tries a little friendly smile, but the inimical stare doesn’t change and she turns again to look out of the window. Oddly, she feels unsettled. People are friendly in this small town, locals and visitors alike, and she is unnerved. She wonders if he might be a descendant of one the great West Country families that she has written about and that has appeared in an unfavourable light.

  Her supper arrives and the jolly group of people come to sit at the tables near by, shielding her from her observer. She eats quickly, prey to foolish fears. Supposing he should follow her when she leaves? Perhaps she should return to the Merchant’s House and find company with Ben? But when she’s finished her supper, and glances into the corner with a nicely simulated mix of friendly indifference, she sees that the watcher is gone.

  Her relief is shot through with fantastic and fearful ideas – she is, after all, a novelist – which she thrusts impatiently aside. However, she doesn’t stroll around the Boat Float or along the Embankment but walks straight home, through Fairfax Place to Southtown, glancing from time to time behind her.

  Once inside the boathouse, she laughs at her fears. Nevertheless she is glad that Claude will be here in the morning.

  CHAPTER TWO

  EVERYTHING LOOKS DIFFERENT from the train. Secret places far from roads and villages; glimpses of other worlds. Scrubby trees crowding round a dark pool, their feet in the brackish oily water, and a heron standing watchful in the reeds. Swans, breast to breast with their pale elegant reflections, drifting across flooded lowland. An unexpected rectangle of allotments, productive and untidy, and a brightly painted narrowboat called Bess moored alongside a canal path. And now, in the distance, there are the round small hills of Devon and neat little fields – emerald green, corn gold, dusty pink – looking like crumpled rugs laid out to dry in the sun.

  Claude loves this train journey to the west, so familiar from his childhood, still retaining its sense of magic and promise. Going to Dartmouth for school holidays with TDF, returning to the Naval College from leave, travelling down from Hampshire annually for regatta, he feels that this journey marks the stages in his life. He’d loved TDF, and envied him. He was everything Claude was not: tall, good-looking, socially at ease, popular. Claude was a short, chunky, red-headed boy who looked – in his own eyes – as if he’d been taken apart and reassembled in a hurry and who, as he grew older, felt defensive in the presence of girls. Yet he never resented TDF for all these gifts with which he was endowed. The darling fellow had drawn Claude into his magic circle. He’d sprinkled the glitter of his own popularity over his friend and lent him grace. Claude misses him but is grateful for Evie, who made TDF so happy.

  As the train leaves Exeter Claude leans forward ready to gaze out at the estuary, where boats rest on the shining mud and egrets strut long-legged behind the receding tide; and then he turns to look inland, to the parkland of Powderham Castle, to glimpse the shadowy shapes of deer grazing in the dappled shade of the trees.

  He settles back in his seat as the train travels onwards to Dawlish and Teignmouth. If he’s honest, he never liked Marianne much, though he tried not to show it. She was too organized, too sensible. TDF guessed, of course, and saw to it that the Merchant’s House was where he and Claude would meet for an occasional weekend when Marianne was busy with her endless social engagements or her plans for Charlie’s advancement. Claude’s own wife, Jilly – generous, warm-hearted, used to the separations and vagaries of naval life – was perfectly content to see him off to Dartmouth for an occasional run ashore with TDF, though even she didn’t know about Evie. To be honest, Claude had enjoyed his position of privilege; the only one taken into their confidence. Despite the huge success of the television series and her books, Evie kept a very low profile and they both welcomed him as the one friend with whom they could share the happiness of their unusual relationship. He liked her at once; she was amusing, laid-back, independent. He could see the point of Evie. Even after she and TDF were married, Claude remained special to them. Jilly, busy with her family, had been surprised and interested that TDF should remarry – and especially the well-known writer – and delighted that Claude should retain his friendship with his childhood friend, but was much more focused on their new grandson and her garden. When their son-in-law got a teaching post in Winchester,
and their daughter was expecting their third child, it was Jilly who suggested that the growing family should move into the main house whilst she and Claude took up residence in the annexe. It had always been the plan but now, Jilly said, the time was right and so the move was made. Five years later Jilly was dead and, as Claude combats his grief and loneliness, he is glad and grateful to be close to his family whilst retaining a measure of independence. Nevertheless, these trips to Dartmouth are a treat. Here he sheds his responsibilities as father and grandfather and is simply Claude.

  The train passes above a smooth sandy beach where a dog runs, scattering the gulls that perch on the rotting wooden groins that stride out into the sea; it dives through rocky tunnels formed by red sandstone, stops at Newton Abbot, then heads off again towards Totnes.

  Claude stands up, lifts down his bag, makes his way along the carriage. He never brings the car to Dartmouth. Parking is difficult and, anyway, he enjoys the train journey, always taken very early – and always first class. This is a very special perk he allows himself as part of the treat. Evie keeps her own car in the garage that belongs to the Merchant’s House and with it, tucked well out of the way, is Claude’s small motorbike. He loves his little red and white Peugeot scooter. He uses it to potter round the town or for sorties out along the coast. Sometimes Evie will come with him, clinging on like a monkey, roaring with laughter as he negotiates the steep hills and narrow bends through Strete and Stoke Fleming. They’ll stop at the beach café at Strete Gate, enjoying the surprised glances when he takes off his helmet and reveals his grey hair. He likes to whizz along Torcross Line on their way to Stokeley Farm Shop for a cream tea, and then back again to Slapton Ley to park up and go for a walk.

  As the train slows down he peers through the window to look for Evie. He catches sight of her waiting by the gate. She’s in her usual rig: jeans, a loose shirt with the sleeves rolled up, deck shoes. Her thick greying fair hair, slightly curly and rumpled, is clipped back at the temples and she is deeply tanned. She looks more like a sailor than a writer – and nothing like her sixty-odd years.

  He smiles and raises a hand, though he knows she can’t see him, and he’s suddenly filled with the usual mix of emotions – of relaxation and anticipation; of peace and excitement; of homecoming.

  They climb into Evie’s small car and drive out of the station yard, up the hill and away to Dartmouth.

  ‘So how’s the family?’ asks Evie.

  ‘The kids have friends staying,’ he answers, ‘with small children and babies of their own so that the place is filled with young. Lovely, great fun and all that, but very nice to get away from for a bit of peace and quiet.’

  ‘Well, Dartmouth is filling up,’ warns Evie. ‘But at least we have a bird’s-eye view without having to leave the house.’

  ‘You could rent the Merchant’s House out for regatta. You’d get a small fortune for it.’

  ‘But Ben is staying there,’ she protests, ‘and now Charlie’s talking of coming down. Ange wants to bring some friends, apparently.’

  He stares out of the car window. ‘Still treats it like her own, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Well, in a way it is, isn’t it?’

  ‘You mean she expects you to leave it to them?’

  ‘Well, after all, who else would I leave it to? I have no family of my own. Even so, it’s not quite that simple …’

  He is aware of tension and he backs off. He was slightly puzzled when TDF left the house to Evie, given the strong family tradition and given that Evie was very well off in her own right, but he hasn’t spared it much thought.

  ‘How’s Ben?’ he asks. ‘What’s this about his marriage breaking up?’

  ‘It appears that Kirsty has grown tired of living in a small garden flat without the prospect of ever moving up and on. But, much more to the point, on one of her visits to Scotland to see her parents she met up with an ex-boyfriend and is now seriously involved with him.’

  ‘Good grief,’ says Claude. ‘So it’s really over?’

  Evie shrugs. ‘The flat in London is up for sale and she’s going back to Edinburgh as soon as it’s sold.’

  ‘Well, that’s sad news. What about Laura?’

  ‘Darling Laura got a First, which was terrific. I told you, didn’t I? Ben is so proud. She came down to see us all a few weeks ago and then went off backpacking with some friends.’

  ‘And how has she taken all this?’

  ‘When she came down to stay she and Ben had a long session. You can see that she’s gutted but she’s trying to be very sensible about it. We all had supper together.’

  ‘I’m glad Ben’s here in Dartmouth. At least he’s got some moral support.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to blame Kirsty – I think he must have seen it coming for quite a while now – but the ex-boyfriend was a bit of a shock. Ben has that optimistic, easy-going Fortescue streak but even he’s having to face that it’s really over.’

  ‘Ben’s always worked hard. I’m glad he stuck to his art and his photography,’ says Claude. ‘He’s very talented and he’s made a good living at it.’

  ‘Mmm. Not ever quite good enough for Kirsty.’

  ‘Does Charlie know?’

  ‘I’m sure he does. Ben’s probably looking forward to talking it over with him.’

  ‘Will they be coming by car?’

  Cars always cause problems during regatta. The funfair will take up the whole of Mayor’s Avenue car park, the ‘No parking in the town’ signs will be posted beside the entrances to all the approach roads, and Park and Ride is the only means of getting into the town. Garages and driveways, or any space where a car can be squeezed in, will be at a premium. Evie has a friend who lets her use her driveway when Charlie comes down for regatta, but this year there’s Ben’s car, too.

  ‘Ange wouldn’t dream of coming on the train,’ says Evie. ‘Charlie does sometimes when he’s on his own but not with Ange. You know that.’

  ‘But then Ben hasn’t been living there before, has he? How does he feel about them turning up? After all, the house is yours and you’re letting Ben use it. Does Ange still feel they have the divine right to stay whenever they want to and turn your car out of the garage?’

  ‘Well, she does actually. She rather insisted that our old bedroom with the en suite should always be kept for them and the other one across the landing for the girls or for guests.’

  ‘That’s a bit rich, isn’t it?’

  Evie shrugs, turning off the main road at Halwell. ‘Ben is very happy up on the second floor. He’s got fantastic views and there’s the little hobbies room next door to his bedroom where he keeps his computer and all his artist’s materials. He’s been making some lovely greetings cards, which he’s had a bit of success with locally, and he has his photographic work, of course. He can muck in with us if he feels de trop occasionally, but I don’t think Charlie will allow that to happen.’

  Claude snorts. ‘I still think she’s out of order.’

  Evie looks sideways at him. ‘That’s because you don’t like Ange. We’ll sort it somehow. We’ve got nearly another week yet.’

  They travel through the familiar countryside for a while in companionable silence. He’s always found it easy to be quiet with Evie; no necessity for banal chatter. He knows that she will drive him through the town though it isn’t her usual route to the boathouse. It’s become a custom, on his arrival, to drive down College Way, along the Embankment, turning right into Oxford Street and up to Southtown, so that he can experience a true sense of homecoming. Memories crowd in: crab-fishing off the Embankment with TDF during school holidays; out on the river as a new cadet with his oppos in a picket boat; the final Passing-out Parade and Summer Ball as a midshipman – more than fifty years ago, he reminds himself – full of pride, with Jilly in her pretty ball gown.

  In the town, busy as a hive of bees, there are already signs of the preparation for regatta. Bunting is strung across the streets and a few houses are draped with huge Union f
lags. Evie drives slowly so that Claude can see the small boats out on the river, visitors wandering happily along the Embankment in the sunshine, children fishing watched by noisy vigilant gulls. There is an empty parking space almost opposite the Merchant’s House and Evie darts into it with a whoop of triumph.

  Claude climbs out and stands, leaning on the wall, gazing down-river and out to sea. The lower ferry edges out from the slip at Kingswear, nudged by the tug hooting to warn the other river traffic, performing its graceful turn midstream as it meets its fellow coming out from Bayard’s Cove so that they seem to be executing a slow, elegant dance.

  ‘Coffee?’ Evie suggests, as she opens the hatchback.

  This is another little custom. They will have coffee and pains au chocolat in the boathouse – on the balcony if the weather allows – and then he will go for a walk around the town on his own. Because of his early start he’s always hungry when he arrives. He takes his bag from the car and slams the door.

  ‘It’s good to be back,’ he says.

  He roams about while Evie makes the coffee. His room isn’t very big but he’s used to cabins, wardrooms, living on warships, and it’s quite comfortable enough for him. Evie has had the third bedroom converted into an en suite and small dressing room off her own room, so he is able to use the bathroom without any anxiety. He unpacks quickly, tidies everything away into the appropriate spaces; he travels light.

  Back in the kitchen Claude is drawn to the great glass doors open to the sunlight and the river. He steps out on to the balcony. It is as if he is in the prow of a boat sailing down-river amongst the smaller craft: a fleet of little dinghies with brown sails; the blue-painted passenger ferry – the old pilot boat Achieve – ploughing out to the Castle; one of the College yachts, Martlet, heading out to sea.