Heartstones (19 page)

A creak from the door made Phoebe turn to see Theo silhouetted against the light.

‘Is that you, Phoebe Brennan?’

‘Who else would it be?’ Phoebe felt unable to hide the irritation in her voice.

She quickly said goodnight to Rory. He looked concerned, reluctant to leave her.
I’m all right
, Phoebe mouthed and after a few moments he began slowly running up the lane, looking back at her, his arm raised in a farewell.

‘Was that the teacher you were holding hands with just then?’ Theo moved away from the door to let her past with the box.

‘He just walked me home because I didn’t take the car with me, and it was dark, and Katrina has given me this heavy box of food.’

‘No need for explanations,’ said Theo, his back already turned to her, his broad shoulders bending down to look in the kiln. ‘Your life here is your own. Don’t let me stop you inviting your boyfriends back, though if you have designs on Rory O’Brian let me tell you …’

‘Stop! I’m letting you work here but that doesn’t give you the right to interfere with my life, and anyway I have no designs on Rory O’Brian or anyone else.’

Theo looked at her in silence for a few seconds and then turned away. She had one foot on the stairs when she saw him lift something out of the kiln. She stopped, staring at the pot he held in his gloved hands. Phoebe placed the box at her feet and moved towards the kiln as though sucked towards its warmth and contents. She immediately forgot Theo’s infuriating words as she gazed into the shimmering chamber; huge jade-green bowls stood beneath turquoise vases dripping with scarlet glaze and on the highest shelf a line of mottled pale blue jugs looked as delicate as thrush’s eggs.

‘They’re gorgeous,’ Phoebe breathed.

‘Yes,’ Theo’s voice was a whisper of relief. ‘The kiln gods have been kind to me this time.’ Carefully he lifted out another pot, a rounded vase – deep crimson glaze seeming to pour down its spherical sides, merging into an opaque turquoise blue. Theo examined it, cradling it in his gloved hands as though it were a newborn baby.

‘Can I see?’ asked Phoebe.

‘Don’t touch,’ he warned. ‘It’s still very hot.’

‘It’s like volcanic lava flowing down the sides.’

‘That’s from the copper in the glaze, it turns deep red when the kiln reaches its highest temperature and takes on this viscous quality. It doesn’t always work – sometimes it can just remain a sludgy grey line on the rim.’

‘That must be heartbreaking.’

‘Pottery can be a very cruel business.’

‘The shape is beautiful.’

‘It’s based on an ancient Korean moon jar; they were thought to have been made to represent fertility and feminine beauty. I have to throw them in two halves and fuse them together to make the shape as round as possible.’

‘What makes the gorgeous blues and greens?’ asked Phoebe longing to touch the opalescent surfaces of the jugs and bowls.

‘Iron oxide. They’re called celadon glazes, invented in ancient China thousands of years ago. In the West they called it celadon after one of Ovid’s characters in
Metamorphosis
.’ He looked up at her. ‘If I remember rightly Phoebe appears in
Metamorphosis,
doesn’t she?’

Phoebe laughed, ‘Oh yes, the virgin dripping in blood – hardly a pleasant image to be associated with. Nola loved that when she found out about it in her school Latin lessons. My parents told me that they chose the name because it means radiant in ancient Greek, I’d rather think of that.’

‘Radiant.’ His eyes seemed to examine her face, as though seeing her for the first time.

Phoebe looked away.

‘Is the celadon glaze the same as the glaze my grandmother used?’ she asked after a few moments silence.

He nodded and picked up a bowl the colour of shallow sea. ‘She taught me how to use it and really I’ve just been developing her glaze recipe ever since. But now I wonder if its time I started doing something new, developed a different glaze or style of decoration, or whether I ought to just give up altogether.’

Phoebe let her eyes wander admiringly over the contents of the kiln. ‘You couldn’t really stop making them could you?’

Theo didn’t answer but took off the heavy kiln gloves he’d been wearing. He put them slowly on the long workbench, side by side, as though it were important that they were left neatly together.

‘It’s late. I’ve a meeting with the estate agent in the morning.’

‘About putting the Castle on the market?’

Theo nodded. ‘But don’t say anything to anyone. I don’t want it to be common knowledge yet.’

‘I wish you didn’t have to, or I wish that I could afford to buy it from you; I’d let you and Honey stay living there of course.’

Theo smiled. ‘I’m assuming you don’t have the odd million Euro squirreled away somewhere.’

‘I’ll check in my purse, but unless I have an unclaimed lottery ticket in my pocket I think the answer’s “No”.’

Theo picked up his coat and shrugged it on. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said about Honey,’ he said. ‘About how she needs a father who isn’t miserable and drunk all the time. I think you’re right.’

Phoebe looked at his piercing eyes. Underneath the grief and anger and alcohol he was a handsome man. She tried to work out how old he must be, maybe one or two years older than Nola – late thirties, surely not much more. She smiled at him.

‘Good,’ she said.

‘You know the bottle of Jameson’s you saw in the cupboard?’

‘I told you I hardly noticed it.’

‘It’s gone now,’ he interrupted. ‘I chucked it away this afternoon.’

‘The whole bottle?’

‘Well, if I’m honest it was the last third – but that’s it now, I won’t be drinking any more. It’s time to move on with my life, with Honey’s too.’

Theo started doing up the buttons of the jacket.

Phoebe took a deep breath. She decided that now was as good a time as any. ‘I’ve noticed that Honey has difficulties with her reading and spelling. I wondered if you’d agree to my helping her. I’ve spoken to Rory, I mean Mr O’Brian, and he’s willing to let me look at some of her school books and tell me what he’s been doing in class with her.’

Theo stopped doing up the buttons. ‘Why didn’t Mr O’Brian come to talk to me first if he had concerns about her school work?’

‘Honey told me herself that she found reading and writing hard, and I noticed her spelling was quite unusual – I wondered if she might be dyslexic.’

‘Dyslexic? Honey?’ Theo’s face darkened. ‘And did Mr O’Brian agree with your no-doubt expert diagnosis?’

‘I don’t think he agreed with me at first, but …’

‘There’s nothing wrong with Honey that a better teacher couldn’t deal with. That’s the problem with these village schools, they don’t get enough good staff.’

‘I’m sure Mr O’Brian is a good teacher, but I think Honey needs …’

‘The sooner I get Honey out of this bloody place the better.’ Theo headed for the door. As he opened it he turned around to face Phoebe again. ‘I can assure you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with my daughter, so please don’t discuss her with your teacher friend any further.’ Phoebe waited for the entire building to collapse as Theo slammed the door.

‘Arsehole!’ Phoebe shouted, surprising herself. Picking up the box of food she climbed the stairs and decided that she’d never met anyone so short-tempered; even Nola in the very depths of post-natal exhaustion and mastitis hadn’t been quite so quick to fly off the handle.

Once in bed she picked up her grandmother’s diary in an effort to stop Theo Casson’s angry words whirling around her head. It didn’t take long; in minutes she almost felt she was Anna Brennan, back in 1940s Carraigmore.

December 23rd

Each day seems endless; I find it hard to be bothered to get out of bed. Gordon has ruled out influenza but thinks I have a chill and doesn’t seem to mind that it is two days since I came down to share a meal with him.

December 24th

I dragged myself downstairs today and did my best to eat burnt pork chops and grey potatoes in the dining room.

Gordon went out to see a patient after lunch and brought home a tiny, twisted Christmas tree. He placed it on the drawing room windowsill, produced a box of fairy lights and ancient baubles from the sideboard, and asked me if I would like to put on the decorations.

‘It may cheer you up,’ he said and walked away. For ages I stood beside the tree, staring sightlessly at its spindly branches and thinking of Michael. I noticed my reflection in the darkening window; I touched my lips and remembered his kiss.

I heard the door open and Della’s reflection came to stand beside my own. She picked up the string of lights and began to untangle them.

After a short while she said, ‘It’s no wonder you’ve been ill. I saw you going out that Saturday when the rain was lashing down.’ She started winding the lights around the crooked tree. I thought she would say more but she was obviously waiting for my reaction. A few more minutes passed; she finished with the lights and together we started attaching the glass balls and spirals to the branches. She had a slyness to her smile I didn’t like.

‘The only other person about that day was that new teacher from the school, I saw him riding his bike towards the beach.’ Again I offered no response, though I could feel my heart beating so loud I felt sure that Della would hear it. ‘I saw you go down the path not long after, was it the boathouse you were going to?’

I felt my cheeks flush.

‘I saw you together another time too,’ she went on. ‘Going up on the cliff. It was ages before you came back down.’

I caught her wrist in my hand and accused her of being Dr Brennan’s spy, I told her she should be ashamed of herself, I told her to tell Dr Brennan to hire a private detective instead of using a girl barely out of school, to do his dirty work. I didn’t know I could ever sound so vicious.

Della looked as though she might burst into tears, the bold young woman was suddenly a child again.

‘It wasn’t Dr Brennan that asked me to watch you,’ she snivelled. ‘I just like to see where you go, to know what you do when you go out in the day.’

I asked her to tell me exactly what she had seen.

‘Nothing.’ I told her I didn’t believe her. ‘Just you and the new teacher,’ she admitted. ‘walking on the beach and when you went out in the rain that day I followed you, just a little way, and I saw you going into the boathouse and that’s all I’ve seen. I promise.’

I stared at her warily: shocked at her duplicity, shocked that someone could have been watching us. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I won’t tell a living soul.’

I told her he was just a friend and made her promise to keep what she had seen to herself.

‘I won’t do anything to spoil it for you, Mrs Brennan,’ Della said and pushed the plug into the electric socket. Instantly the tree was transformed into a sparkling pyramid; in the window I saw the Christmas lights reflected in her big, grey eyes.

‘I think it’s like a story from the films,’ she whispered.

December 25th

I never imagined that Christmas day could be so dull. I think of Christmas at the Castle and the weeks of preparations leading up to it; at least two shopping trips to Dublin, Mother would have new gowns sent from London, a hamper from Fortnum’s, and champagne from Berry’s. Christmas dinner would be endless: soup and salmon, pâtés and tureens, and then an enormous turkey, and Mrs O’Leary’s wonderful plum pudding. There was always a crowd. Present-opening lasted for hours and there were special presents from Father to find, hidden in a Christmas tree so tall it towered half way up the stairwell. And there was always darling Uncle Charles.

When I was a little girl the arrival of Uncle Charles seemed as though Father Christmas himself had come to join us for the holiday. I remember that just when I would give up hope of him ever coming, he would suddenly burst into the house, fresh from the last Christmas Eve ferry, always with a new car and a new girl on his arm. We loved his card tricks and the way he knew all the latest tunes to play on the piano. Once he brought a very pretty girl with him who taught me how to tap dance, Mother didn’t like her at all.

It was quieter during the war, no Uncle Charles, of course, and many of the county sons away, but still the Castle seemed to come alive at Christmas.

Christmas here could not have been more different. We had our usual breakfast followed by church, then sherry at the Nutalls’ and then ham sandwiches for lunch. Gordon told me we would eat with Mrs Smythe and Della in the evening, a special Christmas tradition he informed me, as though it would be a treat.

The turkey was very dry and there was no bread sauce. Gordon poured us each a glass of claret and I remembered Michael’s hand on mine at the dinner party and thought of him far away on his Galway farm. Was he enjoying his Christmas Day? I wondered about his parents and his five older brothers, as well as the aunt who he told me lives with them because she lost her sight to measles as a child. I imagined a lively Christmas table in the farmhouse kitchen, with much laughter and joking from all those boys around it. I imagined a plump and pink-cheeked mother wielding serving spoons and warmed plates as she tried to keep all her boisterous offspring in order, and a jovial father enjoying his pipe and his sons’ tomfoolery, and the aunt smiling at the sound of high jinks, and the smells emerging from the range.

I realised Gordon had asked me a question; he repeated it, ‘Would you like to go to the meet tomorrow?’

‘The meet?’ I stared at him bewildered. How could there be a meet without my father as the Master of the Hunt?

Gordon coughed a little awkwardly as though he realised what I had been thinking. ‘Mr Nuttall has taken on the position of Master until a suitable landowner can be found.’

I took a sip of wine. I couldn’t imagine the hunt without my father on Elgar or my mother on her favourite grey mare or George and Richard looking handsome on their stallions. I suddenly wondered where the horses were.

‘We’ll go down and take a look,’ declared Gordon. ‘It will do you good, Anna; it’s been days since you’ve been out.’

During this conversation Mrs Smythe had disappeared into the kitchen. She reappeared bearing a large cut-glass bowl and a supercilious smile.