Homecomings Read online

  Emilia gives a little shiver, wraps her arms across her breast, and then turns with a start as someone shouts her name. Dan is running across the sand with Lucy following a short way behind him.

  ‘Granny,’ he shouts. ‘We couldn’t find you.’ He flings himself at her knees and she bends to pick him up and swing him round. He laughs down at her, his dark brown eyes merry, and her heart is constricted with love and anxiety – and something else that she doesn’t quite recognize yet.

  ‘We thought you’d run away,’ laughs Lucy, panting up behind him, ‘but you didn’t leave a note so we decided to try the beach. Are you OK?’

  ‘Absolutely fine,’ declares Emilia. ‘Couldn’t resist coming out to smell the ozone, but I’m dying for coffee. Didn’t want to wake you up earlier.’

  ‘Dan hasn’t had anything yet either,’ says Lucy. ‘Come on. Let’s go home and have some breakfast.’

  She glances sideways at her mother as they cross the lane and go back into the cottage. Mum’s been just a tad odd since she arrived in Cornwall: kind of distracted, preoccupied. She’s been a bit like it since Granny died, selling the house and moving back to the flat off the King’s Road, almost as if she’s hoping to resurrect old times. Of course she’s missing all of them: Dad, Granny and Gramps, but Mum seems quite capable of containing grief or sadness. Dad’s death hadn’t come as a shock. He’d been drinking heavily and his liver was shot to pieces. Lucy’s really sad that he never met Tom, or saw Dan. He was a loving, neglectful, fun kind of father and she still misses his silly jokes, his childlike love of attention, of admiration. Yet both her parents sometimes seemed like strangers: disorganized, hedonistic, devil-may-care. For herself, she likes order, continuity, security. Perhaps it is the result of her chaotic upbringing.

  ‘Your mum’s an odd one,’ Tom once said. ‘It’s as if she’s acting a part. She knows how a bereaved person ought to behave and that’s how she does it, but I’m not sure she really feels anything. She should have been an actress like her mother.’

  Lucy remembers how she protested, shocked by his observation, yet at the same time she recognized that there was a spark of truth in what he was saying. Just lately her mother behaves as if she’s not quite sure what her role is any more. For so long she was a part of the crazy media circus that surrounded Granny, Dad and, at one remove, Gramps, but now she seems slightly lost. Lucy believes that she’s moved back into Granny’s flat in the hope that it will restore her sense of belonging: to keep her connected to the world she knows and loves best.

  Of course it was rather a pity that Tom was offered the job in Geneva, which took them away from London just after Granny died. Though, as Lucy points out, it really isn’t that far – only a quick hop on to a plane – but she knows it’s not the same as Mum being closer at hand, being more involved in what Dan is doing. Deep down, however, Lucy knows that her mother is more interested in going to first nights and end-of-run parties than being maternal. Sometimes she feels resentful and hurt about this but most of the time she accepts it. It is as it is. Her own upbringing was bohemian, but full of love from different quarters, and her own career in marketing is important to her, so she can’t really sit in judgement.

  Even so, she can sense this slight change in her mother’s behaviour and she hopes that these next few weeks here at the cottage might settle her down a bit.

  ‘You’re sure you’ll be all right, Mum?’ she asks, as she swings Dan into his high chair and goes to the fridge to get him some milk. ‘You really don’t mind being here on your own?’

  ‘Of course not. But you must leave proper instructions about everything. I’m not taking any responsibility if the cooker’s not the one you ordered or the units are the wrong colour.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Everyone’s been briefed and I shall be in touch with them all the time. I’m sorry to leave you with the chaos but I have to go back for this meeting and to check things at home. We’ll be here again soon and if there’s a real emergency one of us will come straight over.’

  ‘It’s not a problem,’ her mother says placidly. ‘It’ll be a wonderful excuse for eating out all the time.’

  Lucy laughs. ‘I believe you. I bet the minute we’re gone you’ll invite all your mates down from London and have barbecues and picnics. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Danny? Perhaps I ought to leave you with Granny.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Dan, beaming at them, banging his cup on the tray. ‘Stay with Granny.’

  ‘What d’you say to that then, Mum?’

  ‘Not on your life,’ comes the prompt answer. ‘Not without a working kitchen. Actually, not even with a working kitchen. No, no. I’m a hedonist. I shall eat out and thoroughly enjoy myself.’

  ‘And maybe,’ Lucy says teasingly, ‘you’ll meet up with that guy you knew. Hugo, isn’t it? You obviously made an impression on him, back in the day.’

  And there again is that odd, fleeting expression on her mother’s face: wariness, speculation. Then Dan drops his cup on the floor and screams, and Lucy is distracted.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  DOSSIE DRIVES ACROSS New Bridge, glancing down at the River Camel where little boats swing at their moorings as the tide makes, on past Wadebridge and then she heads out on the road to Padstow. She’s looking forward to seeing Janna, her old friend and ally, to talk over Adam’s visit. Janna cares for the few remaining elderly Sisters at Chi-Meur, and her take on life is always direct and often amusing.

  Dossie drives through the lanes that lead to Peneglos, turns in past the Lodge House where Clem, Tilly and Jakey live, and slows down. They’ll all be at work or at school at this time of the day but it’s worth a quick knock on the door. There’s no answer so she gets back into the car and sets off again along the drive. She passes in front of the old house with its stone-mullioned windows and stout oaken door, and round to the Coach House, which was converted for the use of the Sisters when the convent became a retreat house. Janna has her own quarters at the end of the Coach House, with its own entrance through a little courtyard. This way she is able to retain her independence and privacy, which are very important to her. Despite her devotion to the Sisters, Dossie knows that Janna still likes popping over to Padstow to see her old mates, to have a beer with them. She is a wild, free spirit and six years at Chi-Meur hasn’t changed that.

  Janna is in the courtyard, watering the pots and tubs that are filled with flowers and herbs: tall red and yellow tulips, gold-brown wallflowers, silken-faced pansies, chives, thyme. She waves as Dossie climbs out of the car.

  ‘How gorgeous,’ cries Dossie. ‘It’s looking so pretty. We can have our coffee out here. I’ve brought cakes.’

  She hugs Janna, who is dressed in layered Indian cotton garments of scarlet and indigo, curly hair tied up with a scarf, and still looks like the traveller who arrived, walking along the cliffs and into Chi-Meur, all those years ago.

  ‘Blown in on a westerly,’ said Sister Emily, smiling with delight, ‘and what a wonderful day for us it was.’

  Dossie follows Janna inside. The room is not large but it has a kitchen corner with a breakfast bar, a small wood-burning stove and a comfortable sofa covered with a piece of plum-coloured velvet. A door gives access into the rest of the Coach House. Dossie knows that Janna likes this compact space; she is happy here. The little courtyard is her special joy. This, plus the view from her bedroom window, which looks beyond the cliffs to the sea, gives her a necessary sense of freedom.

  ‘So how was Adam?’ asks Janna, going straight to the point as she makes coffee. ‘Did he persuade you to sell up and split the proceeds?’

  ‘No,’ answers Dossie slowly. ‘It was really odd. Nothing like I was expecting. We had several long talks about how it was for him as a child, how unhappy he was at school and how bitterly hurt he was that Mo and Pa didn’t seem to notice or care.’

  She reaches for one of Janna’s pretty hand-painted plates and sets out the little cakes. She still can’t quite come to terms with Adam’s volte-fa
ce: this unexpected Adam, who is amusing, thoughtful, even kind. Janna is watching her curiously and Dossie shakes her head, shrugs.

  ‘I know. It’s weird. I was utterly dreading it. Well, I told you that. And then he was different. He said it was because there was no expectation any more. Nobody questioning him about why he wasn’t achieving more, doing better. I had no idea that it was so awful for him. I mean, I know Pa could be difficult and tough, but I just didn’t realize what a negative effect it had on Adam, or that he was so miserable at school. Pa didn’t have much time for people who whined about life being tough. He’d say that it was character building. I think the six years between me and Adam probably didn’t help back then. I was a teenager by the time he was beginning prep school so I was probably totally self-absorbed. It’s just so tragic because I know they loved him so much. I mean, how can that happen? I remember talking about it to Mo once and saying it must be to do with genetics, and that Adam was just completely different from the rest of us, but now I’m beginning to wonder … God, it would break my heart if Clem didn’t know how much I love him. Or Jakey.’

  ‘No fear of that, my lover,’ says Janna, picking up the tray and carrying it out into the courtyard. ‘Jakey was over here yesterday with that old dog of theirs and telling me about the tea party you all had together. Seems to me like he definitely reckons Adam. They played football out in the lane.’

  Dossie follows her and sits at the wooden table. She smiles at the thought of Jakey and his black Labrador, Bells, visiting Janna. Jakey has loved Janna since he was a little boy of four. Back then Dossie wished that Clem and Janna would fall in love but now she knows it would never have worked. They remain very good friends, though, and Tilly has been welcomed into that relationship. Dossie is always very glad to know that Clem’s marriage has had no negative effect on his earlier friendship with Janna.

  ‘We were lucky to find Bells,’ Dossie says. ‘Yes, it was a great tea party. Tilly was brilliant. How I love that girl.’

  She sips her coffee and looks around at the pretty courtyard, breathing in the heavenly scent of the wallflowers. She loves it here. Janna, the wanderer, the traveller, has been able to create a place of peace and security, to make her visitors feel special, and Dossie is grateful for her friendship.

  Janna watches her; sees her relax. She knows how hard Dossie is working to create this new relationship with her son and grandson, to make Tilly feel welcomed and loved, and to allow them the space they need to grow together. It must be difficult not to drive over to the Lodge on an impulse with some special treat, not to look after Jakey while Clem works, not to organize birthdays and be available; to step back from that central space in their lives, which has been hers for the last ten years. Especially now that her parents have died and she is alone.

  It would be good, Janna thinks, if Adam were able to fill some of the emptiness that Dossie is now finding in her life.

  ‘So when’s he coming back again, then?’ she asks. ‘I’ve never met this brother of yours. You must bring him over.’

  She can see that Dossie is thinking about it, with pleasure and surprise that this might now be a possibility.

  ‘I’d like to,’ she says. ‘I’ll bring him over for coffee and we’ll have a moment.’

  Janna smiles: Dossie and her moments. Coffee moments, cake moments, moments of love and laughter.

  ‘The amazing thing,’ Dossie says, ‘is that he’s got some leave due and he says he’ll come down for it. I could hardly believe it. I actually think he wouldn’t have asked but it got mentioned when we were having lunch with Hugo and Ned.’

  ‘Aha,’ says Janna. ‘Hugo and Ned. Thought they’d be cropping up before too long.’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ says Dossie, laughing. ‘I told you. They’re just mates.’

  Janna thinks back to Dossie’s last disastrous love affair with a man who allowed her to believe his wife was dead. The discovery of the truth was a terrible shock and Janna was full of rage on Dossie’s behalf. Dossie was devastated. At least there is no sign of that madness – the joy and irrepressible happiness that falling in love brings – when she talks about Ned and Hugo.

  ‘You could bring them to tea, too,’ offers Janna slyly. ‘Just so I could give them the once-over.’

  ‘I might just do that,’ says Dossie. She glances around her. ‘They have a courtyard rather like this but they haven’t got your green fingers.’ She pushes the plate of cakes towards Janna. ‘So how are the Sisters? Are they behaving themselves?’

  Janna chuckles. ‘Do they ever? It’s a terrible hard thing to keep them on the straight and narrow. Especially Sister Emily.’

  ‘No change there then,’ says Dossie.

  She stretches and leans back in her chair, closing her eyes in the sunshine. Janna sees that she looks peaceful, that some of the strain of the last year has left her face. As she watches her, Janna really hopes that things might just stay quietly like this for a while, with no alarms, no changes, no expectations: just this peaceful moment in the sun extending out calmly into their lives. Dossie stretches again, sits up, reaches for another cake, turns and grins at her.

  ‘Do you ever get the feeling,’ she asks happily, hopefully, biting into her cake with relish, ‘that something really good is about to happen?’

  Janna’s heart quails a little. Her hopes begin to vanish. She recognizes that look and generally it means trouble.

  Prune stands up and glances around her. She senses some kind of change: a shiver of wind, a cloud hiding the sun. She’s just finished planting out beans brought on in the glasshouse. The soil has warmed up during these last few weeks and it’s ideal now for outdoor sowing. It’s also the right time for the Chelsea Crop – named for the Chelsea Flower Show – for chopping back half of certain perennials to prolong flower. So far she’s only attempted some goldenrod but she’s pleased with the day’s work.

  Prune gazes over the gardens, inhaling the scent of the yellow luteum, instinctively huddling against a gust of wind that stirs the rhododendron leaves, so that they clap together, and whirls the blossom to the ground. In the west, clouds are beginning to stack, giant pillows of grey and white. She thinks about Ben, wishing they had more independence. Ben lives in at the pub, and she knows that he’s still very slightly shy at the thought of meeting Ned and Hugo on their home ground. Slowly, satisfactorily, their relationship is developing and somehow she must persuade him, try to break the ice, so that he can come back to hers and they can spend time together.

  Prune closes up the glasshouses, walks through the gardens, and collects her bicycle from the estate office. She cycles away, down the drive and along the lane that runs beneath the high granite walls of the estate. The wind is rising, buffeting her as she pedals, and she feels the first few drops of rain. It’s chill now, but she pauses for a moment on the quay to watch the cloud towers forming and toppling along the horizon. She still feels that sense of change in the air: it’s unsettling, challenging. The tide is out and the boats lie stranded on the mud, no life beneath their hulls, mooring ropes slack. Another flurry of rain, a stronger blast of wind, and she hurries to put her bicycle into the little shed and let herself into the house.

  She calls out, ‘I’m back.’ Mort barks and she hears Hugo’s voice reassuring him. It’s good to be home.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  JAMIE DRIVES HIS MGB out of RAF Brize Norton and heads south for the A361. He has planned this moment: his last Dining-In in the Mess, his last Happy Hour to say farewell to his friends, his last meeting with his squadron commander. He’s closed up his cottage and packed his bag, and now he’s driving south-west to Cornwall.

  Until this moment he’s always had a sense of purpose: his life was organized, planned, controlled, certain. Now the only true security left to him is Ned and Hugo. His instinct is to go home to them. He’s measured out his life in homecomings. A successful career is one, with the same number of take-offs as landings. Well, he’s certainly
achieved that. He can still remember his first flights in the Bulldog at Bristol University Air Squadron and the calm voice of his instructor saying, ‘You see those trees, Tremayne? The runway’s on the other side of them so be a good chap and put the power on.’ He recalls the exhilaration of his first solo, his instructor saying, as they rolled down the taxiway, ‘Stop here, Jamie. I’m hopping out. Go and do a circuit on your own,’ and that terrifying, glorious feeling of setting off into the sky with nobody sitting there beside him. Back then, each time he had a good day it was such an extraordinary feeling that he could believe he was invincible, a living embodiment of pure joy.

  He passes through Broughton Poggs, heading south towards Swindon, and by the time he joins the M4 at Junction 15 he’s listening to Dire Straits, eleven minutes into ‘Telegraph Road’, and he’s ready to motor. As he accelerates on to the motorway he reflects that at least he is still able to drive, though it is hedged about with fear. He is always aware, ready for the hint of giddiness that foreshadows a vertigo attack, and he’s learned to recognize the first signs in good time. He needs to watch his speed. It’s so easy to find he’s doing eighty without realizing it, and especially to this particular track. He’s chosen it to give him a boost. ‘Telegraph Road’ was a favourite of his and Hugo’s in the eighties and it reminds him of those days when they were young, and full of hope and confidence.

  Perhaps it is because of their shared past that he and Hugo remain close. They share so many memories: jokes, school, the loss of parents, the break-up of relationships. He envied Hugo his bohemian life in London. His cousin has so many friends; people gravitate towards Hugo, love him, pour out their troubles, make him godfather to their children.

  Jamie glances at the clock and decides that he’ll stop at the Gordano services for a snack and a breather. He intended to text Hugo with a rough ETA but he was too anxious to get going, to be on his way, to remember to do it. Not that it really matters. He’ll let Hugo and Ned know as he nears Cornwall. They are aware that these days he makes regular stops, doesn’t push himself. He made it sound quite casual.