The Garden House Read online

  For a brief moment she wonders whether to share the moment with Will, to text him, but she rejects it almost immediately: she doesn’t feel she knows him well enough. When he comes down will be soon enough. The prospect of Will arriving tomorrow distracts her from thoughts of the bookshop. It seems slightly surreal that he will be there with her at the Pig Pen.

  ‘So what’s Will like?’ Pa asked her once, not long after the marriage. ‘What sort of fellow is he?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve only seen him a couple of times. I don’t think he likes the situation any more than we do. Freddie and he are polite and he hardly notices me. He’s just finished training as a pilot.’

  ‘Standoffish, then?’

  She thought about it. ‘No, he’s always polite. It’s more like he’s totally detached from it all.’

  ‘Perhaps he needs time to adjust,’ Pa said.

  But Will hadn’t adjusted – if anything he became more detached – and now El wonders how she will deal with this stranger who is so cool and remote. Yet she remembers his kindness at Pa’s funeral when she glimpsed another side to him. She thinks about his text, and she feels glad that he’s offered to help her. As she finishes her tea, El wonders if she’ll introduce him to Angus, to Cass and Tom; draw Will into her small circle of friends. It’s a new beginning and it’s up to her to make it work.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Are you still going on this madcap trip to Devon then?’

  For a moment Will pauses. It has been another long night and the lure of heading home with Chris and getting some sleep is strong. But then, he has made a promise, told El he would be driving down to Devon.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he answers. ‘I should be there in two and a bit hours if I don’t get lost.’

  Chris snorts. ‘Well, I hope you’ve got the sat nav set up. I’m not sure I’d trust your navigation at this time of the morning.’

  Will nods. ‘Programmed it on my phone this morning. I should arrive about seven if I’m lucky.’

  It doesn’t take long to check in at the crew room, talk to Ops and file the flight reports. Will and Chris say their farewells to the cabin crew and walk together out to the staff car park. Normally they share a lift from their house if they are flying together, but this time they have come in separately.

  They reach Chris’s battered Mini first and as he fishes his keys out of his nav bag he says: ‘Well, take care, Will. Stay awake. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Will grins. ‘See you then,’ he answers, as he walks on towards the corner of the car park.

  The black car gleams under the overhead lights and, as he presses the button on his keys and the indicators flick, he takes a moment to appreciate its lines. To the untrained eye it is like any other large saloon, but to the enthusiast it is an understated achievement, quiet power and quality. The Phaeton is his pride, joy … and money sink. Bought to celebrate his command – and to irritate his stepmother – it is the perfect vehicle for a new captain.

  Walking up to the car he activates the electric boot and hoists his flight bag into the cavernous interior next to his overnight bag. Then he presses the button to close the lid while he pulls off his jacket and tie and opens the driver’s door. He hears the unmistakable sound of Chris’s Mini misfiring as it pulls out of its parking slot with a cheery toot of the horn. Will raises his arm in salute and then climbs into the driver’s seat and shuts the door.

  Within the car there is the silence of quality. It is like a flight deck in here, silent and expectant, like an airliner waiting. He reaches down to the gear lever control panel and presses the start button. The car comes alive, a symphony of reds and blues and silvers. As the engine starts there is a faint rumble and then almost inaudible quiet, unnatural calmness in a car capable of such power. He enjoys the moment, allowing the engine to warm a little before he takes the solid automatic lever in his left hand and shifts the car into drive.

  He eases out of the parking slot and down towards the exit. Even at 4 a.m. the roads are busy with traffic leaving and arriving at the airport. He turns right around the roundabout on to the A38 southbound and drives past the threshold of Runway 27. Soon he is leaving the bustle of the car parks on the south side of the airfield behind him. The unfamiliar sign ahead says ‘M5 South 15 miles’ and for the first time he permits himself to wonder why he is heading for Devon, for the Pig Pen and for El. Then with an impatient flick of the wrist he turns on the audio system and calls up the first loaded CD. He hits play and allows the opening riff of ‘Layla’ to propel him south into the darkness.

  An hour later, Will glares balefully at the analogue clock in the centre of the cherry wood dashboard. It is not yet six o’clock, and it has just occurred to him that, at his current rate of progress, he will be arriving at the Pig Pen well before sunrise. Again he wonders at the impulse that is driving him south towards Devon. It is not as if he and El are close. He can’t remember the last time that they communicated, apart from her father’s funeral. But he knows about loss, about grief – Martin’s funeral has reminded him of the bleak loneliness after his own mother died, has reawakened his battened-down misery – and he could not help but respond to the honesty in El’s text. Nevertheless he can’t imagine her being pleased to find her stepbrother – how he hates that word – banging on her door before seven in the morning.

  So now what? He could stay here in these sterile services, drinking coffee for an hour, but at the thought of it Will snorts out loud. ‘Not bloody likely.’

  He looks again at the map display on his phone. The blue line that takes him to the farm shows that he will arrive in fifty-one minutes, but there are two other options available to him: the A38 to Plymouth and a route over Dartmoor.

  A snippet of conversation slips into conscious thought: ‘Pa and I loved the moor. I suppose that’s why he moved there…’

  The moor. Around him he can see that, at last, it is beginning to get light. The few stars that, up to now, have been challenging the bright white lights of the service area have begun to dim and wink out. He looks at the clock again. Sunrise will be at about seven thirty at this time of year.

  He decides. OK, then it’s up on to the moor, find somewhere to watch the sunrise and then down to El’s for breakfast … if she eats breakfast. On this gloomy thought he taps the screen to activate the route through Two Bridges and then presses the start button. With the engine running he snaps the buckle home on his seat belt and, reaching to the console, he chucks Christian’s Kylie CD in the glove compartment and sets a new CD on the auto changer before he eases the big car out of the parking bay.

  Passing the lights of the petrol station and the green traffic light at the exit to the services, he rolls down the hill towards the motorway junction. A few seconds later he is powering up the slip road, back on to the M5.

  It is not far to the A30 junction, and sweeping round the sharp right-hand bend on to the dual carriageway he gives the car its head and surges on towards the west. The car is in its natural element now, treating both hills and descents with elegant equanimity. Will is enjoying the drive, dawn is beginning to reveal the hills rising ahead and to the left of the road, and soon he is approaching the Whiddon Down junction and taking the road towards Moretonhampstead. He needs the powerful full beam on the headlights now as he follows the winding road.

  As he approaches a sharp left junction the sat nav instructs him to enter a narrow lane ahead. Almost immediately he regrets the instinct to follow blindly instructions from a computer. The lane is extremely narrow for such a large car. Gingerly he presses on, half considering finding a place to turn round and go back, but fortunately, at this hour, he is not meeting any other traffic. The lane begins a long, steady and confusing descent. Surely he should be climbing up to the moor, not rolling down into a valley? And then his route becomes positively alarming. Ahead of him there is a narrow stone chicane. As he eases up to it he realizes that he will have inches to spare either side o
f his vehicle. He retracts the wing mirrors and passes the obstruction gingerly. Immediately, the reason for the chicane is obvious: it protects an ancient, very narrow stone bridge with high stone walls that crosses the river in the bottom of the valley.

  ‘Well I got through the entrance, I ought to be able to get through this,’ he mutters.

  Holding his breath, as if by doing so he will make the car narrower, he eases over the bridge, keeping as close as he can to the right-hand wall, half expecting to hear the scrape of metal on stone. It is not easy in the semi-darkness. Beyond, there is an exit chicane that has to be navigated before the road begins to climb again. His heart is racing, his palms clammy. This is not the place to bring a luxury saloon.

  The narrow lane continues interminably and he has to negotiate several turns and junctions, trusting and cursing the sat nav at the same time. Eventually he gives up, stops and has a closer look at the route he is following. He can see that there are still a couple of miles until he reaches the main B road across the moor. Cursing himself for a fool again, he stows his phone in its cradle and eases on up the narrow lane.

  At last he is leaving the network of small stone-walled fields he has been traversing and is climbing up into the light and on to the moor. Yet more problems: every fifty feet or so there are sheep on the road. They seem oblivious to the approaching black predator until he makes the car growl by selecting neutral and revving the engine. Startled, they move off into the scrubland, but progress is slow until he reaches the junction and turns with relief out of the lane and on to a proper road. He laughs aloud at his foolish little adventure as he allows the car to accelerate at last.

  It is getting light. The whole landscape is being revealed to him. Behind, the countryside stretches back towards Exeter and the dawn, whilst ahead the moor obscures the view. He presses on, looking for that point on the road when he will reach the summit and begin his descent towards the west.

  And here it is. Two ‘40’ signs, designating the speed limit, are painted on the road. As he crests the rise the landscape opens up before him, stretching away into darker lands ahead. The road is straight, descending. He slows a little, looking for a place to stop. Ahead in the dawn light he can see a line of stones that lead to a small car park on his left. As he approaches, his eye is drawn momentarily to a stone pillar beyond the markers, but then he has to swing wide to turn left into the tarmac entrance. He pulls up on the gravel and sits a moment before turning off the engine.

  All is silent. He opens the driver’s door and climbs out, stretching in the cold breeze. He reaches into the car and grabs his jacket, shuts the door and drapes the jacket about his shoulders. With the practised instinct of the city dweller he locks the doors and then steps up on to the low turf bank in front of the car.

  From his vantage point he is looking at a gentle hill capped at its highest point with an outcrop of rock. To his right a long low valley stretches out to the south-west, towards his destination. In the far distance he can just see the beginnings of farmlands and dark woods. To his left, towards the light, is the road descending from its summit, and there, close to him, is the stone pillar. He walks towards it, through a marked exit from the car park and down a narrow path etched into the ground by footfall. He crosses a gully on a white stone slab, and walks on, towards the grey pillar across the grass growing between tufts of windswept scrub.

  As he approaches, he can see that the stone is not a natural addition to this landscape, nor is it a pillar. It is a cross, hewn from a single piece of granite. It is beaten and weathered by the elements. The arms, very short, are invisible from the wrong angle, disproportionate with the main trunk. It is primitive, elemental, simple. The dawn’s light shows a covering of yellow lichen that seems to invite the sun to rise, to shine upon it.

  Will stands staring at the cross, ignoring the chill morning air. The light grows, the sun will rise soon. From where he stands it seems that the trunk of the cross is bent, curving a little to the left then a little to the right, so that it appears contorted, agonized, as if the stone mason has carved suffering into the granite. Unbidden memories of his mother are summoned from the locked spaces in his mind: her stoicism in the face of the cancer that destroyed her; the tremor, the weakness in her voice the last time she spoke to him.

  ‘No tears, Billy. Promise me, no tears.’

  At twelve years old he wasn’t ready to make that promise, to accept that burden. He wanted to scream out his fear, but he obeyed, complied, tried to control his anguish.

  After her death no one ever called him Billy again. He wouldn’t permit it, couldn’t stand the intimacy, the reminder. He never cried in public, not even in front of his father, who tried to help him but was having difficulty in managing his own suffering.

  Will moves closer to the stone. Putting his hand on the rough granite he acknowledges the pain and loss that dwell deep within him. Slowly the light grows stronger, he feels a faint warmth caressing his back and, momentarily, it seems as if he is being held and protected.

  He turns, leaning back against the cross, facing the rising sun as it lifts above the hill. Before him the moor seems to be quaking, dissolving in the brightness of golden light. He shuts his eyes against the dazzle. Bathed in the gentle warmth, encompassed by the glow, he laughs softly, dispelling the gloom.

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ he says.

  Half an hour later Will drives through the open gate into the small courtyard of the Pig Pen. He shuts off the engine and sits looking at the little house still decorated by the last of the year’s climbing roses. He ought to be nervous, to be unsure, but somehow those feelings have been left on the moor, by the cross. He climbs out of the car, pulls off his jacket and, slinging it over his shoulder, strolls up to the door, and knocks.

  * * *

  El is waiting for him. She was up early, feeling apprehensive about this meeting with someone who isn’t a brother, a friend or a colleague. To have invited him here for twenty-four hours now seems a crazy thing to have done and she is nervous. As she showered and dressed – deciding to be casual, leggings and a loose shirt – she wished, not for the first time, that she was thin and elegant and had silky smooth hair, rather than being rather solid and round-faced with very thick brown curly hair. Staring at herself in the glass as she wound her hair into a rope and pinned it up, El made a face at her reflection and turned away. If Will is gay, it couldn’t matter less.

  No platitude had been spared throughout her teenage years as her mother underlined El’s own dissatisfaction by assuring her, in various terms, that beauty was only skin deep.

  Now, hearing Will’s knock, she comes to the head of the stairs and shouts to him: ‘Come in, Will.’

  She goes down a few steps to meet him as he stands in the hall, gazing round before he looks up at her.

  ‘It’s an upside-down house,’ she explains. ‘Come on up.’

  She backs up before him as he climbs the stairs, smiling at him, wondering how she should greet him. His surprise at the huge space, however, drives away any embarrassment.

  ‘Wow!’ he exclaims. ‘I wasn’t expecting this.’

  She laughs. ‘What were you expecting. Troughs and sties?’

  He laughs, too. ‘Not exactly. But this is really good.’

  El is relieved by this quick easing into familiarity. She watches him as he looks around and up at the huge beams and suddenly her anxiety dissipates and she feels calm.

  ‘Have you had breakfast?’ she asks. ‘I haven’t had mine yet.’

  ‘Only coffee,’ he answers. ‘Thanks. Yes, please. Whatever’s going.’

  As she makes toast and scrambles eggs, he wanders round, sliding open the door on to the terrace and going outside, peering from the window over the kitchen sink, commenting on the wood-burning stove.

  ‘The floor was strengthened to bear its weight,’ El tells him as she sets things out on the central oak table. ‘It’s a bit of a fag bringing logs up, but worth it.’

  He picks up a lon
g wooden pole and examines it.

  ‘It’s to let down the blinds.’ She indicates the big Velux windows. ‘It can be a bit bleak when it’s dark and raining so Pa had blinds fitted.’

  Will sets the pole back in the corner and comes to the table with a more serious expression. Somehow, by mentioning Pa, it’s as if she’s reminded him why he’s here and a slight constraint creeps into the former cheerfulness. El sits opposite him and pushes the coffee pot towards him.

  ‘Did you have a good journey down?’ she asks randomly. ‘Which way did you come?’

  Will pours himself some coffee. ‘I came over the moor. It was … quite an experience.’

  There’s a note in his voice that makes El glance at him. He sounds as if he’s been affected by his journey but she doesn’t feel able to ask him directly what it might be.

  ‘It’s an amazing place,’ she says lightly. ‘Especially at sunrise. Or at sunset.’

  ‘I believe you,’ he answers. ‘I’d love to see some more of it.’

  ‘Well, that’s easily achieved. I shall take you on a guided tour.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ he says, eating his breakfast with evident relish. ‘If there’s time.’

  Once again she’s reminded of the real object of his visit, but the prospect of showing him some of her favourite places, perhaps taking him for a pub lunch, is surprisingly attractive.

  ‘I think there will be,’ she answers. ‘It’s going to be another fine day so we could go for an explore, perhaps have lunch somewhere, then we’ll have the rest of the day to sort out Pa’s things.’

  He looks at her directly then, as if assessing her mental state, and she smiles at him as if to reassure him that she’s fine with it. He nods.