Coming Home (162 page)

Waking was a bit like floating upwards out of a deep, dark pool of water. Black to begin with, and then lightening to indigo, and then azure, and then breaking surface into dazzling light. He opened his eyes and was astonished to find that it was still dark; the sky beyond the window a night sky, pricked with stars. From downstairs, from the well of the hall, he heard the gentle chimes of the grandfather clock, softly striking seven o'clock. He could not remember when he had last slept so long, so soundly, so totally undisturbed. No dreams, no nightmares, no waking in the small hours with a scream on his lips. The sheets were smooth and unrumpled, sure sign that he had scarcely moved, and the whole length of his body felt at peace, relaxed and cool.

He thought back to yesterday, trying to fathom the reason for this unfamiliar blissful state, and recalled a day of ordered tranquillity, a great deal of exercise, and an enormous amount of fresh air. In the evening, after darkness had fallen, he and Judith had played Picquet together, and there had been a Brahms concert to listen to on the wireless. When it was time for bed, Phyllis had made him a mug of hot milk and honey, laced with a teaspoonful of whisky. Perhaps this magic potion had knocked him out, but he knew that, far more likely, it was the extraordinary, timeless, healing quality of Lavinia Boscawen's old house. A sanctuary. He could think of no other word.

So rested, he realised that his limbs were filled with an unfamiliar and long-forgotten energy. He could lie no longer. He got up, went over to the open window and leaned out, with his elbows on the sill, and smelt the cold air and the tang of the sea, and heard the soughing of the wind in the Monterey pines at the foot of the garden. By eight o'clock, the sun would be rising. He was assailed by his old dreams of water, deep and cold and clean, waves breaking on a shore; the sound they made, creaming over rocks.

He thought of the new day that lay ahead. The sun, slipping up over the rim of the horizon, and the first rays of dawn streaking the twilit skies with pink, and that light reflected in the lead-grey, shifting sea. And he was once again obsessed by the old desire to set it all down, translate it into his own language. To capture, with pencil and brush-strokes and washes of colour, the layers of fading darkness and prisms of light. And he was so grateful for this resurgence of his own creative instinct that he found himself trembling in a sort of ecstasy.

Or perhaps it was the cold. He stepped back from the window and closed it. On the dressing-table were neatly stacked the drawing-book and the pencils and paints and sable brushes that Judith had bought for him. He looked at them, and told them,
later. Not just now. When there is light in the sky, and shadows, and the glitter of rain on grass, then we shall get to work.
He stripped off his pyjamas and swiftly dressed. His cords, thick shirt, the heavy polo-necked sweater, his leather jacket. Carrying his shoes (like any corridor-creeper with romantic aspirations), he opened his bedroom door, closed it gently behind him, and made his way down the stairs. Quietly, the old clock tocked the seconds away. He went through the kitchen, put on his shoes and tied the laces. Then, slip the bolts of the back door, and out into the cold.

It was too far to walk. He remembered, from the old days, the length of the Nancherrow drive, and he was impatient to be there. So he opened up the heavy door of the garage, where roosted, parked fore and aft, the two elderly cars. And Judith's bicycle. He took hold of the handlebars of this and wheeled it out onto the gravel. It had a front lamp, which he switched on, but was short of a rear. No matter. At this hour, there would be little about on the country road.

The bicycle, having been originally purchased for a fourteen-year-old girl, was far too small for him, but that didn't matter either. He swung his leg over the saddle and set off, spinning down the hill and through Rosemullion with his bony knees sticking out sideways. Over the bridge, and he was forced to dismount again, in order to push it up the steep hill. At the Nancherrow gates, he mounted once more and pedalled down the dark, tree-lined road, lurching and ratting along a rutted driveway that once had been immaculately Tarmacadamed. High above him, the empty branches of the elms and beeches tossed their heads in the wind, making weird creaking noises, and from time to time a rabbit scuttled across the wavering beam of light from the little headlamp.

Out of the trees, and the house loomed, a pale bulk. Over the front door, light shone from behind a curtained window. The Colonel's bathroom. Gus imagined him standing at his mirror, shaving himself with his old-fashioned cut-throat. The wheels of the bicycle rattled over the gravel, and he feared that the bathroom curtain would be twitched aside, and the Colonel would peer down to spy the sinister, lurking figure. But this did not happen. By the front door, he left the bicycle, propped against the wall. He switched off the headlamp, cautiously made his way around to the front of the house, and finally stepped onto the grass.

The sky was lightening. Beyond the leafless trees, beneath a long smudge of charcoal cloud, the sun was edging up out of the sea, blood-red and smoothly rounded, and the lower half of the cloud already tinged with pink. The stars were fading. There was the smell of moss and damp earth in the air, and all was clean and newly washed, pristine and pure. He went down the slope of the lawns and so joined the path that plunged down through the woods. He heard the stream, the tumble and splash of water. Following it, he crossed the small wooden bridge and ducked his head beneath the tunnel of the gunnera. By the time he got to the quarry it was light enough to see the steps cut in its side, and to cross the rocky floor between the thickets of bramble and gorse. Over the gate and onto the road, and then the stone wall and the stile, and he was on the top of the cliff.

There he paused, because this was why he had come. The tide was out, and the beach of the cove, a grey sickle of sand, was rimmed by a dark circle of seaweed and tide-wrack. The sun was up now, and the first long shadows lay across the turfy cliff-top. And he remembered the day, that August afternoon, the summer before the war, when he had met Edward's sister for the first time, and she had brought him down to the cove. They had sat, sheltered from the wind, and it had felt like being with a person whom he had known for the whole of his life. And when it was time to go, and she had stood and turned to watch the sea, he had recognised her as his girl on the cliff, the Laura Knight picture that was one of his most precious possessions.

He looked for that particular rock, where once he and Loveday had been together. And it was then that he saw them, and screwed up his eyes in disbelief against the dazzle of the new sun. She sat with her back to him, crouched against the rock, the dog pressed close against her side, her outflung arm around his neck. For a second he thought that he had gone mad again, was not yet recovered, was suffering from some self-induced hallucination. But then, instinctively, sensing his presence, Tiger raised his head, sniffed the air, heaved himself to his feet and came lumbering up over the grassy, boulder-strewn cliff-top to deal with the intruder. He barked, his warning bark.
Who are you? Keep off!
And then his old eyes saw Gus, and he didn't bark any more, but came on, tail thumping, ears flat, as fast as his arthriticky legs would carry him, all the while making pleased noises in the back of his throat.

He reached Gus's side, and Gus stooped to fondle his head, saw the grey muzzle and the weight of Tiger's years. ‘Hello, Tiger. Hello, old boy.’

And then he straightened, and looked, and she was standing there with her hands in her pockets, her back to the sea. The woollen muffler had slipped back off her head, and he saw her dark curls, lit from behind by the sun, like an aureole.

Loveday. Nothing had changed. Nothing. He felt the lump swell in his throat, simply because he had found her again, and she was still there. And it felt almost as though she had known he would come, and had been waiting for him.

He heard her call his name. ‘Gus,’ and the wind caught the word, and sent it flying inland, over the winter fields. ‘Oh,
Gus.
’ And she was running up the slope towards him and he went to meet her.

Saturday morning, and Jeremy Wells overslept. This was probably because he hadn't got to sleep until the early hours of the morning, having drunk three cups of coffee after dinner, and enjoyed an excellent glass of brandy with the Colonel. So, had lain wide-eyed, his brain racing, listening to the rising wind and the rattling of the window-pane, and turning on the light every now and then to check the time. In the end, he'd left the light on and read for an hour or two, but it had all been a bit unsatisfactory.

And he overslept. Not by much, but breakfast at eight-thirty was a Nancherrow rule, and he didn't get downstairs until a quarter to nine. In the dining-room he found Diana, the Colonel, and Mary Millyway, by now onto toast and marmalade and second cups of coffee or tea.

He apologised. ‘I am sorry. I never woke up.’

‘Oh, darling, it doesn't matter a bit. Nettlebed's done breakfast this morning, so it's boiled eggs. I think we've eaten all our bacon ration.’ She was opening her mail, her place surrounded by half-read letters and torn envelopes.

‘What's happened to Mrs Nettlebed?’

‘She's having the morning off. She's got the most terrible varicose veins, poor pet. Perhaps you could have a look at them. We're trying to persuade her to have them seen to, but she's terrified of an operation. Says she doesn't want The Knife. I must say I can see her point. Heavens, here's an invitation to a drinks party. In Falmouth. Why do people think one is going to use up one's entire petrol-ration for a measly glass of sherry?’

This was not a question that demanded an answer. The Colonel was deep in
The Times.
Passing him on the way to the sideboard, Jeremy laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Good morning, sir.’

‘Oh, Jeremy. Hello there. Good morning. Sleep well?’

‘Not particularly. A combination of black coffee and a howling gale.’

Mary joined him at the sideboard. ‘It's dropped a bit, but it's still blowing.’ She took the cover from the coffee-pot and felt it with her hands. ‘This seems a bit cold to me. I'll go and make you a fresh pot.’

‘You don't have to, Mary. I can drink tea.’

‘But you always were a coffee person. I know that. Shan't be a mo.’ And she went from the room.

Jeremy took his boiled egg from the padded basket shaped like a hen, poured a cup of strong tea because he could always move on to coffee later, and went to sit at the table. The Colonel, without words, silently handed him a neatly folded
Western Morning News.
Diana was deep in her mail. At Nancherrow, conversation at breakfast had never been encouraged. Jeremy took up his spoon and neatly sliced the top off his egg.