I Do Not Sleep (34 page)

Joey’s casket lay in front of the altar at Talland church. The ancient building was packed, but I was too focused with grief and pride to look at anything but the coffin, only half aware of the crowds of people who had flocked here to say a final farewell to my son. I was, though, deeply conscious of Adam, Danny and Lola by my side. We’d left Edie in the care of the deeply kind owners of the Talland Bay Hotel, playing happily among the elves and fairies, scrambling up to sit on the giant snail and the winged horse.

I listened to the prayers and hymns with rapt attention, but taking little in. All I knew was that I was at an event too momentous even to describe. I focused on the coffin before me, and what it contained. I stroked the soft silk pouch on my lap, feeling the small objects inside, Joey’s watch and his signet ring. The pouch was where I kept all my most precious things: the hospital identity bracelets both my babies wore when they were born; tiny, fluffy locks of hair clipped from their heads when they were only weeks old; the first milk teeth they had lost, hidden away by the maternal tooth fairy so she could treasure them for ever more.

As we left the church to lay Joey in his freshly dug grave, I was overcome by the memory of the graveyard dream I had had in the night garden at Coombe. Just as in my vision, the priest led the procession, Joey’s casket carried by Adam, Danny, Ben and Wren. I watched in wonderment, remembering how in my prescient fantasy I’d seen Len, whom I’d never met at that point; the man and woman holding hands with the grown girl with red hair.

The moonlit memories of that strange night filled my head with gauze; hazy thoughts as I watched the actual funeral of my son. This was real; what I’d seen while I slept in the garden of our rented farmhouse was a haunted dream, but extraordinarily emotionally accurate. All the tremulous signs I’d seen engulfing the principal figures of my vision had come to pass.

Len, now but not then dead, surrounded by twinkling golden rays which touched his face as if to cheer him up. Josie and Tony, holding onto flame-haired Hope, about to succumb to the fate that had dogged her all her life, but nevertheless caressed by the same teasing, playful shimmering dots, bidding her welcome to the light.

I forced myself to come back, to watch the ceremony unfolding before me. I had no further need of visions. This was my son’s burial; this was truly the end, and yet I had my child at last. Here in Talland churchyard, Joey at last existed for me. I had his body to bury. I would have his headstone to mark his passing; a place to sit and talk with my poor dead boy.

I threw my single red rose tenderly into Joey’s grave, and stood back to watch his friends cast their white ones after mine. Only two days’ notice, yet so many of those who knew and loved him at school and university had come to his funeral to witness his burial at last, to see him found and loved, and laid into sacred ground.

I looked fondly at all of them; but all I could think about was the children who played among them; always, always, the children.

Chapter Fifty-Three

We held the wake at the Talland Bay Hotel; wine and sandwiches for the throngs who had come to say goodbye to our son.

After a while we drifted down from the terrace to the sweeping lawn leading down to the bay. We stood at the cliff edge, Adam, Danny and I, watching the sea, the sea I should hate for its claim on my son, but whose beauty I would always love. The sight of the ocean, gleaming with otherworldly promise, filled me with tenderness for my lost boy. Lola joined us, Edie riding on her hip. We formed a small family circle, our arms wrapped loosely round each other; we wept and prayed for Joey, and then, together, raised our glasses of red wine to the sea. We toasted our beloved Joe and his everlasting memory.

Behind us came Ben’s gentle voice. We turned; beside him stood a young woman. I remembered her too from my graveyard vision, but I had no idea who she was. Ben took her hand, looked at all of us, and said, quite formally: ‘I’d like you all to meet Rowan.’

She smiled at us, small, dark, sweet and unmistakably Cornish. She looked shy, but spoke quite steadily in a quiet determined voice. ‘I’m sorry, I know you are all very sad. So am I, but at least I know now what happened to Joey. Ben said you’ve got something for me, I think.’

Astonished, I looked at this sweet-faced girl. ‘Rowan?’ I asked. She nodded. I took the silk pouch of precious things from my bag. I put my hand inside and brushed through the contents until I touched what I needed.

‘Joey wrote a note,’ I said. ‘He said I was to give his signet ring to Rowan. That’s you?’

‘Yes, that’s me.’

I held out the initialled ring. She took it, and slid it onto her wedding finger.

Ben spoke, almost proudly. ‘Joey and Rowan met in Polperro the summer before he died. It was a complete love-match. Before I idiotically told Joe how I felt about him, he’d already told me he wanted to marry Rowan. He was planning to bring her home to meet you as soon as our holiday ended.’

‘But why didn’t you say? Why didn’t you find us?’ I asked, unable to grasp this sudden turn of events.

Rowan looked nervous. She glanced up at Ben, who nodded encouragingly. ‘Go on, Rowan, tell them,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. They’re good people. Tell them why you didn’t want to find them.’

‘It was difficult,’ she said in her soft Cornish accent. ‘You see, I have no one in the world. I was brought up in care. I was working as a hotel chambermaid when I met Joey, living at the hotel, the only home I had. We were so happy we had found each other. He was wonderful to me; he said he would take me with him when he went back to university. He said his parents would love me. He told me he wanted to marry me. I thought I was in a dream. I was so excited to meet his family. And then… they found his boat, but no trace of him. I never saw him again. I thought I’d die of grief.’

‘But, Rowan,’ I said again. ‘Why didn’t you get in touch with us? Why didn’t you tell us? We could have helped you.’

‘I didn’t think you’d believe me,’ she said softly. ‘I never knew my parents. My mother gave me up at birth. Until Joey, I’d never trusted anyone. I just moved from foster home to foster home. I had nobody to vouch for me. I thought you’d think I was lying; that I was an opportunist.’

‘Opportunist?’ asked Adam, puzzled. ‘But how could you be?’

Ben looked at me. ‘You remember I told you I’d moved to Cornwall because I’d fallen in love with someone?’ he asked.

I nodded. ‘So it was Rowan?’ I asked.

He smiled. ‘No, Molly. Hardly. My sexuality hasn’t changed. No, I love Rowan as a friend, but it was someone else I moved to Cornwall for.’

He looked behind him towards the top of the meadow. Wren was standing at the edge of the terrace, watching us. Ben nodded and waved at him. Suddenly a small boy whirled down the slope, whooping and shrieking as he ran. He reached Ben and Rowan and hurled himself at them. Rowan shushed him and he stood giggling at us, his eyes alight with mischief.

‘Molly and Adam,’ said Ben in the same formal way he had introduced Rowan. ‘I want you to meet Joseph. He’s four years old and an absolute terror.’

I stared at this excited, full-of-life child. I knew exactly what I was looking at: his dark hair, his shining brown eyes, his nose, his mouth; God, his mouth.

I saw my boy, my son; I saw my grandson.

I looked at Adam. He, too, looked amazed but overjoyed. Like me, he recognised this child; he knew immediately the man who had fathered him. He was looking at the son of the lost boy we loved so much.

I looked at Edie, who was wriggling with impatience to get down from Lola’s hip and meet this strange new playmate. I looked at Adam, and then at Danny. Both of them stood in shocked astonishment, their faces wreathed in delighted happiness.

‘No one knows,’ said Ben. ‘Here, he’s just another kid.’

The boy clocked Edie, and started to tickle her bare feet. She crowed with laughter.

‘I’ve looked after Rowan and Joseph ever since he was born,’ said Ben. He looked away at the sea. ‘I wanted to make amends. I… I hoped Joey would know somehow, would understand what I was doing.

‘I know I should have let you know about the baby. Rowan didn’t want me to – she thought you wouldn’t believe her. I don’t blame her though; I blame myself. I was too scared to talk to you again, to bring it all back. I felt so guilty about Joey… in the end, it was easier just to block it out. I thought if I looked after the baby it might somehow be enough.’

Ben looked at the little boy. Joseph, still hanging on to Edie’s little toe, glanced at each of us in turn, his eyes sparkling with curiosity.

‘Introduce yourself, Joseph,’ said his mother. ‘Introduce yourself to your family.’

He straightened up and marched towards us, his small face now serious. He held out his hand, shook Adam’s first and then mine. And then, looking deep into my eyes, he said with all the polite formality of a well-mannered young man four times his age:

‘How do you do? My name is Joseph Gabriel Tremain.’

Acknowledgements

Everyone says writing a second novel is tough, and how right they are. For their fortitude in putting up with my hesitations, and their constant encouragement, I would like to thank the following vital people:

First, my editor at Sphere, Cath Burke, who despite producing a far more important creation of her own, her first baby, Felix, while I was writing, nevertheless found the time and energy to talk me through this book.

Second, huge thanks to my Agent, Luigi Bonomi, for, among many other helpful suggestions, encouraging and supporting my belief in the title of this book, from the immensely moving bereavement poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye. And for all the laughs Luigi and I had at the Emirates Literary Festival in Dubai with his witty wife, Alison.

Thirdly, many thanks to the wonderful team at Sphere who have been so kind and helpful while I struggled to produce this second book: Rebecca, Thalia and Kirsteen.

I’m so grateful to all of you – Cath, Luigi, Alison, Rebecca, Thalia and Kirsteen; your support, warmth and, above all, senses of humour and proportion, have been essential in stopping me tearing my hair out on more than one occasion.

Two very special thanks are due. Firstly to our first grandchild, Ivy Florence, who was born on October 16th 2012, just days after my first novel,
Eloise
, was published, and who throughout this second book has been the gorgeous, chubby and chatty inspiration for Molly’s granddaughter Edie.

And, as always, enormous love and thanks to my husband, Richard, who has spent many a patient hour giving me feedback and ideas. We may no longer work together on the telly, but are still adroitly enmeshed behind the scenes.

Many, many thanks, and as Bella Emberg use to say at the end of Morecambe and Wise: ‘I love you all’.

Author Note

I’ve obviously taken some artistic liberties with Looe Island in Cornwall – once, many centuries ago, known more romantically as the Island of St Michael of Lammana. In Celtic times, the name Lammana was derived from the Cornish word ‘Lan’, meaning a Celtic religious enclosure and, ‘managh’, meaning ‘monk’; so Lammana roughly translates as ‘a holy place where monks dwell’. I am indebted for this knowledge and many other invaluable facts about the island’s history to Mike Dunn, whose fascinating little book
The Looe Island Story, An illustrated History of St George’s Island
helped me enormously with the island’s past and in particular with its rich religious significance and smuggling history. ‘St George’s Island’ is yet another name for this intriguing little place, first surfacing in 1579, a fact again documented by Mike Dunn.

I am also indebted to two more beguiling booklets by Rose Mullins:
The Inn on the Moor, A History of Jamaica Inn
and
White Witches, a study of Charmers
. Rose Mullins is an enticing chronicler of old Cornish legends, lore and people. I thoroughly recommend you read her little books if you are as entranced by the powerful mystery of Cornwall as I am.

And finally I would like to pay tribute to the legendary Atkins sisters, Babs and Evelyn, two brave and intrepid women from the comfortable and safe Epsom Downs in the Home Counties who bought the island in 1964. They fell in love with it, despite the extraordinary challenges they faced in bringing a small measure of civilisation to this windswept, storm-tossed place, on which they were often stranded for weeks at a time by the raging seas. Their life there is chronicled in Evelyn Atkins’s entrancing book,
We Bought an Island
. I can’t recommend it enough, both for the vividness in which she writes about island life, and for the wonderful way it shows just what these suburban sisters from Surrey were capable of. Talk about the empowerment of women! These two strong ladies were, without knowing or boasting about it, the embodiment of the burgeoning early Women’s Liberation movement.

They also loved a good party with their neighbours in Looe, and their legendary recipe for homemade Elderflower ‘Champagne’ is included at the back of Mike Dunn’s book,
The Looe Island Story
. It’s delicious, so thanks, Mike, and cheers.