At Home With The Templetons (40 page)

Stop writing to us. We’ve nothing to say to you and we can never forgive you.

Gracie was still by the front door, crying and holding the letter, when her mother arrived home an hour later.

Whitby, Yorkshire, England 2009

Gracie sat on the edge of the bed in her cheap B&B, her laptop on the bed beside her as she practised her presentation for the fifth time that morning. She glanced at the bedside clock. Nine twenty-five a.m. Thirty-five minutes until her interview.

She’d been up since five, finally giving up on sleep after her nerves and the scratchy sheets made anything other than a few hours’ rest impossible. Once dawn arrived she dressed in jeans and sweatshirt and went for a fast, bracing walk along the cliff path, detouring back deliberately to stand underneath the Captain Cook statue that looked over the harbour to the stark ruins of Whitby Abbey. ‘Please help me get this job,’ she said quietly and self-consciously, surreptitiously touching the base of the statue for luck. Doing that didn’t seem like enough of a ritual so she circled the statue three times, then touched it again. ‘Please, please, please help me get this job,’ she said.

A month earlier, she’d come home late one evening, physically exhausted from working a double waitressing shift at the busy Greek restaurant near her flat in Kensal Green. She’d supported herself with her waitressing for the past two years, in between trying for other ‘proper’ jobs, as her sister Charlotte liked to call them. Tired but too mentally alert to sleep yet, she’d logged on to a job website. Less than a minute later, she’d seen the ad for an assistant curator position at the award-winning Captain Cook Memorial Museum in Whitby, Yorkshire. She read it twice, hardly believing how perfect it was - not just a perfect job but the job for which she was the perfect candidate, surely. The right age too, at twenty-seven, neither too young nor too old. Her fervent application letter had led to today’s panel interview in the town of Whitby itself. She’d been asked to make a ten-minute presentation on all she knew about Captain Cook and what skills she would bring to the position.

She had to get it. She wouldn’t get it. She might get it. Her thoughts went round and round, cancelling each other out. She practised her presentation again. She’d begin with a brief history of Cook to display her knowledge and passion, move

on to ideas for future exhibits and end on what she hoped would be a deciding factor - the fact one of her own ancestors had learnt to sail with Cook. Should she mention the fact James Cook’s mother had also been called Grace? It had to be a good luck omen.

The digital clock clicked over to nine thirty a.m. Time to leave. One last check in the mirror. She hoped she’d chosen the right outfit: a crisp white shirt, a knee-length blue linen skirt, vintage shoes with a small heel. Her still almost white-blonde hair was cut into a short crop. Hoping she looked the perfect combination of studious and modern, she took a breath, picked up her belongings and pulled the door shut behind her.

She’d walked down Whitby’s steep paths and across the harbour to the museum the evening before to get her bearings. All the guides to successful job-hunting recommended a reconnaissance trip beforehand. She’d been disconcerted by the sight of Goths everywhere - in the street, in coffee shops, walking into pubs and restaurants, until her landlady informed her that Whitby wasn’t just the birthplace of Captain Cook but also the Goth centre of the UK, home to a twice-yearly Goth festival, on account of its Dracula connections. Brain Stoker had written some of the novel while staying there, featuring the Whitby beach in the opening chapters. Another time Gracie would have asked a dozen questions. Not this time. She was too concerned details of Dracula would mix up with facts about Captain Cook in her head, making a muddle of her presentation the next day. She’d excused herself and gone to her room as early as possible instead.

Her mobile rang just as she was in sight of the museum, ten minutes before her interview was due to begin. Her oldest sister’s name appeared on the caller ID. Gracie hesitated for just a moment before answering. As usual, Charlotte launched straight into the purpose of her call.

‘What on earth does she want this time, Gracie? Have you rung her back yet? I honestly think I preferred it when she was a lunatic drunk, not this new improved let’s-make-amends-over and-over-again version. I’m going to say no, whatever it is, and you have to as well, okay?’

‘Charlotte ‘

‘No, Gracie. It’s the Easter Bunny. Where are you? I thought you unemployed people lay around in your pyjamas all day long. Why didn’t you answer your home phone?’

‘I’m not unemployed. I’m a waitress. And I’m not home. I’m in Whitby.’

‘Where?’

‘Yorkshire. I’ve got a job interview in-‘ she checked her watch, ‘seven minutes.’

‘Another job interview? Another job? Gracie, are you going for some sort of record?’

‘I can’t talk now. I’m trying to compose myself.’

‘Forget that job. Come and work for me. God knows I’ve asked you often enough.’

‘I don’t want to work for you or be a nanny. I want to work in the Captain Cook Museum here in Whitby.’

Two passersby looked surprised by her fervour.

Charlotte ignored it. ‘So you haven’t heard Hope’s voicemail yet? She said on her message to me that she was ringing everyone today. I haven’t tried Audrey or Spencer yet, mind you. Spencer’s probably propping up the bar in some Irish pub and I can never work out what time it is for Audrey in New Zealand. You’re sure Hope hasn’t left a message on your phone?’

‘I’m not home, I told you, and she hasn’t got my new mobile number yet. Charlotte, I have to go. Wish me luck, would you?’ ‘With what? Oh, that job. No, I don’t want you to get some stupid job with Captain Cook. I want to you to come and work for me. I hope you make a mess of the interview.’ At Gracie’s anguished wail, she laughed. ‘Of course I wish you luck. You’ll be brilliant. And ring me back as soon as you get out. We have to get to the bottom of this Hope business. United we stand, divided we fall, remember.’

Gracie pushed the mobile into the bottom of her bag. It was three minutes to ten. She hesitated, then reached into her bag again, searching for the silver whistle, holding it for just a few seconds, trying to calm her nerves. It worked. It always did. Straightening her shoulders, she walked across to the museum.

Fifteen minutes later, in front of the panel of three, she knew the interview wasn’t going well. She hadn’t even got to her presentation yet.

‘You don’t seem to stay long in any job, Ms Templeton, do you?’ one of the interviewers asked, glancing down at her CV ‘You’ve had what, twelve jobs in the past eight years? Stayed at each of them for an average of six months? How can we be sure this position would be any different?’

‘Because I really want this job,’ she said passionately.

‘So you didn’t really want the job as …’ the man looked at her CV again, ‘a theatre administrator in Brighton? Community festival organiser in Stoke Newington? Nursing assistant in Reading?’

It was an awful kind of This is Your Life, hearing him list her failures like that. She made a last-ditch effort, racing through her laptop presentation about Captain Cook’s life, ending on the highlight that her greatgreat-great uncle on her grandmother’s side had actually sailed with Cook.

‘Really?’ one of the interviewers said, looking interested for the first time. ‘What was his name?’

Gracie’s mind went blank. Had she ever known his name? Had her father ever known his name? She felt the colour rising in her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t remember.’

‘We’ve got records of the names of Cook’s fellow sailors on those early ships if you’d like to look through them?’

Gracie suddenly had a horrible feeling her father had made that story up. She started to talk, to try to cover her embarrassment. ‘I might have it wrong. It might have been on my grandfather’s side. My greatgreat-grandfather. He was from Yorkshire, I think. Or Scotland, perhaps. I haven’t really studied my family tree lately.

It was my father’s great interest. He told me all the stories when I was a child. We used to live in Australia, you see, which was founded by Captain Cook ‘

‘Oh, really?’ one of the interviewers said drily.

She couldn’t seem to stop talking now. ‘My father inherited a beautiful colonial house. We lived there for three years, running it as a kind of museum. That’s when I first got interested in history, and so I thought this job could be perfect. History and Cook together.’ Her voice trailed off. She knew from their expressions that they either didn’t believe her or weren’t really listening any more.

The woman who showed her out from the museum ten minutes later was kind. ‘I’m sorry you weren’t successful today, Gracie,’ she said. ‘It’s just that we’ve had a few too many people coming and going lately and we need to be sure the new person stays for a few years. And I’m afraid your track record just doesn’t give us that confidence.’

‘But I would have stayed, I’m sure of it.’

The woman didn’t seem convinced. ‘Have you ever thought about counselling?’

Gracie nodded. ‘I tried it for five months, but that didn’t work out either.’

‘I’m not suggesting you be a counsellor, Gracie. I think it might help you to see one.’

On the train back to London, Gracie thought about the woman’s words. It wasn’t the first time counselling had been mentioned to her. Her mother, her sisters, even short-lived work colleagues had made everything from gentle to blunt suggestions that she could benefit from what her mother called ‘professional help’. ‘The accident was a traumatic experience, Gracie,’ Eleanor said. ‘There’s no reason why you should bounce back from it or be ashamed that it is still impacting on you. Look what a difference it made to Audrey to get professional advice.’

Gracie tried to make light of it. ‘You’re trying to marry me off as well?’

Her mother smiled. ‘No, darling, I’m not. I’m trying to make life better for you.’

‘My problems finding a job aren’t connected with the accident.’

They both knew she wasn’t telling the truth. In the eight years since that night in Italy, she’d found it hard to settle to anything for very long. She hadn’t just tried many different jobs, she’d moved from flat to flat in different parts of London, living on her own, living in share houses, moving back home, out again. She’d even tried to return to university again, without success. No matter how hard she tried, each new venture didn’t last long. Something had changed inside her. Everything had changed.

If she’d ever been stopped in the street and asked why, she knew the accident was the answer. Everything before then had seemed light-hearted, fun, promising, optimistic. Not bathed in

a constant happy glow, of course. She’d been a witness to the slow disintegration of her parents’ marriage, after all. But before Italy, she’d felt optimistic about so many things. She’d believed that the world was a good, fair place, full of possibilities and adventure.

Most of all, she’d known that what she felt for Tom, and he felt for her, wasn’t just the flush of first love. It mattered. It was serious. The fact their relationship had developed so quickly, so naturally, was fate, not luck, wasn’t it?

Yet that was where her thinking came unstuck each time. If she believed fate had brought them together, she also had to believe fate had torn them apart. Or could she have somehow avoided it happening? What if she and Tom had picked a different place in Europe to meet Spencer, if she had chosen a different restaurant that night, somehow changed all the steps it took for the three of them to be exactly where they were that night, in that exact spot when Spencer pulled at her plait, at the exact moment that the truck appeared over the hill? Would everything be different now? Or had fate decided from the moment she and Tom met as children at Templeton Hall that it would end in disaster, physically for him, emotionally for her?

Gracie bit down on her lip to try and stop her thoughts going any further. She’d learnt by experience that the only way to do that was by distracting herself. She tried now, turning up her iPod, taking out a magazine, staring out the train window at the passing scenery when the magazine didn’t help. None of it worked. Too many memories of that night, of the days afterward, the years afterward, were now in the carriage with her. They were always with her.

‘You need to work through it,’ people kept telling her. ‘Talk about it.’

She knew she did. But there were only two people in the world who could understand how she was feeling. Tom, most of all. Yet despite every possible approach, every wish and hope, he had never contacted her again. That’s what hurt so much, as much as the guilt she still felt about the accident, every single day. His silence. As for Spencer … Since that night in Italy, she and Spencer had spoken about the accident only once, two years afterwards. They’d fought, not talked. They’d been at their mother’s for dinner. Spencer had just returned from his latest jaunt, once again funded by Hope. After Victor had died suddenly six months previously, Spencer had moved back in with his aunt. ‘She needs my company and support,’ he’d said in one of his rare emails to his sisters. ‘You need a free place to live now you’ve lost that courier job, more like it,’ Charlotte had emailed back. Charlotte also had plenty to say when Spencer emailed to gloat about the big backpacking trip through South America he was about to take, again at Hope’s expense. ‘It’s a thank you gift,’ he’d said. ‘Hope said she couldn’t have coped with her grief for Victor if I hadn’t been around.’ ‘She’s had enough and is paying to get you out of her sight for a few months, you mean,’ Charlotte replied.

Spencer had seemed so carefree, Gracie recalled, his blond

curls long and tousled, his skin tanned. He looked sixteen, not nearly twenty. He greeted her cheerily, asked only in passing if she was working yet - she wasn’t - before going to the fridge, helping himself to a beer, flicking through the latest batch of postcards that had arrived from his father, and then taking a seat at the dining table, sure of his place again, sure of his charm.