Postcards from the Past (14 page)

They agree a date and Dom puts the phone down. He feels stronger again; as if a burden has been lifted from his shoulders. He looks at the postcard and puts it in his pocket. It no longer has the power to enrage him but he doesn’t want Tilly to see it, nor Billa nor Ed.

He turns his mind deliberately to positive things; he thinks about Harry’s visit and is filled with anticipation. He must check his room, make up his bed. Knowing Harry, he might simply turn up at any time – and it will be so good to see him again. The bad moment has passed but the question remains: what does Tris want?

CHAPTER TWELVE

Sarah puts the sleeping George in his cot, looks down at him for a moment and then goes out and down the steep, narrow stairs. She likes the little cottage, where they came in such haste when the plans for the rented house they’d organized fell through, and where she’s spent so many family holidays. It’s familiar, cosy, and it’s a good place to be, just for now, with a new baby, and Ben very happy at the nursery school at Padstow.

At the bottom of the stairs, in the comfortable rather shabby sitting-room, Sarah hesitates. She would like to collapse on to the sofa, read a book, sleep, but there is a pile of ironing to be done. Resolutely she brings the ironing board from its cupboard under the stairs and sets it up in the kitchen, pours water into the back of the iron and turns the dial to ‘steam’. She fetches the laundry basket from the tiny utility room and begins to sort through the tangled assortment of clothes. At one level this act of self-discipline boosts her sense of pride, but at another she suspects that it might be more sensible to lie on the sofa and rest. She is so tired, and George won’t sleep for very long, and then she’ll have the school run and Ben, weary and demanding after his day at nursery school. He’s been playing up just lately, jealous of her attention to George and inclined to whine.

‘When’s Daddy coming home? I want Daddy to read to me … bath me … play trains…’

The iron steams and hisses as she pushes it wearily over creased and crumpled cotton. Her back aches from carrying George, who screams every time she lays him down, and she longs to burst into tears and scream back at him. The trouble is, everyone expects her to be strong, to lead, to cope, and just lately she feels that she might suddenly explode, smash things, get in the car and drive and drive.

The knock at the door is the last straw: she cannot manage even speaking to anyone at the moment. She puts the iron carefully on the stand, goes into the hall and opens the door.

Clem stands there. ‘Hi,’ he says. ‘If it’s a bad moment just say so.’

Sarah is filled with conflicting emotions. Clem is probably the one person in the world she can cope with just at this moment. He will ask nothing of her; he will bring his own brand of comfort and courage into her little world. But she feels exhausted. She’s so tired that she might not be able to live up to her own standard of bravery. She has always been strong in front of Clem – the tough naval wife and loving mother – and today she might just not be able to manage that level of control. She doesn’t want to lose face in front of Clem. She likes and admires him – and slightly fancies him – and she’d hate it if he were to lose his good opinion of her.

‘You look tired,’ he says, concerned. ‘Don’t worry. It’s nothing special. Just thought I’d see if you were OK. I can’t stay long, anyway, Jakey will be home from school soon.’

As he makes to go she is seized with disappointment.

‘No, no,’ she says quickly. ‘Well, I am tired but it would be good just to talk to another adult for a change. Ben and George are wearing me down at the moment.’

He follows her into the kitchen. ‘I know the feeling,’ he says sympathetically. ‘There was a period of my life when Jakey was small that I seemed to be able to communicate only at the level of a three-year-old.’

She turns quickly, to agree with him, and her unguarded movement jolts the ironing board and the iron topples from its stand. She gives a little scream and, quick as a flash, Clem seizes the flex before the iron hits the slate floor. He hauls it up, stands it on the draining board and switches it off. Though nothing has happened and everything is safe, Sarah is suddenly overcome with foolish panic; she feels weak and trembly.

‘Hey,’ says Clem, concerned. ‘It’s OK. No problem. All over now.’

She manages a smile. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘It’s just…’

He takes her upper arm in a strong grip. ‘Sit down,’ he says. ‘You look exhausted. Come on, sit here.’ He pushes her down on to the sofa. ‘Can I get you something? Tea?’

She shakes her head; his grasp makes her feel odd – feminine and rather helpless – and she is sorry when he lets go of her arm. She smiles waveringly up at him. He’s very attractive, and part of the attraction is that he really does understand. He’s brought Jakey up, he’s had to try to be both mother and father, and he knows how lonely and exhausting it is in a way that Dave can never begin to contemplate.

‘Sorry,’ she says, deciding that perhaps a little feminine weakness is just as appealing as strength and courage. ‘You caught me at a low moment. The boys are a bit demanding just now.’

‘When’s Dave back?’

‘Oh, a couple of weeks yet.’ She shrugs, allows a measure of indifference to creep into her voice, so that he can see that she doesn’t expect Dave to be a great deal of help. She gives a little, light laugh. ‘He can be almost as demanding as the boys when he’s just back from sea.’

Clem raises an eyebrow, amused. ‘I expect he can be,’ he says.

Sarah feels confused, embarrassed. She wonders if Clem thinks she’s hinting at Dave’s sexual appetites, and she can feel herself getting hot, her face burning, but she can’t laugh it off as she might have done on other visits. Today she is too wound up, too tense, and his friendship – respect? affection? – is too important to her. That silly incident with the iron has upset her out of all proportion.

‘At least,’ he is saying quite calmly, ‘you’ll have another adult to talk to. That’s what I used to miss. Oh, there were people at the office, of course, but when I got home and the nanny had gone it was just me and Jakey.’

‘That’s just it,’ she says quickly, regaining her composure. ‘It’s that long desert between getting home from school and bath-time. Sometimes those few hours feel like weeks.’

‘And it must be harder with two.’

‘Yes. Yes, it is.’ She is eager to develop the theme, to build on this empathy, to elicit sympathy and admiration. ‘Ben sees that George gets attention because he’s a baby and so he’s regressed a bit so as to vie with him.’

‘Yes, I can see that would be rather wearing,’ Clem agrees, and she smiles bravely; he’s so kind, so sweet, so attractive …

‘I expect Tilly is a comfort, isn’t she?’

Sarah’s smile wavers just a little. ‘Tilly?’

He shrugs, glances away, as if slightly embarrassed. ‘You seem to be very good friends as well as working together. She was telling me. You know, about being at school together, and how she loves Ben and George.’

Sarah’s smile vanishes. She sees now that he has come simply to talk about Tilly; he is yet another of her conquests. She tries to control a bitter uprush of jealous bile but spiteful words spill out before she can stop them.

‘Tilly hasn’t a clue,’ she says. ‘She’s very sweet but pretty hopeless when it comes to children. In fact, she’s pretty hopeless with anything domestic.’

This time his raised eyebrows are not accompanied by amusement; he simply looks surprised. Sarah is convinced that he also looks disappointed, not at Tilly’s inadequacies but in her own disloyalty at disclosing them. Before she can defend herself, George begins to cry and she, too, would like to scream with frustration.

Clem raises his hands, makes a sympathetic face. ‘I’ll head off,’ he says.

Sarah senses his relief, his readiness to escape, and can only nod in agreement. He lets himself out and she gets up, takes a few deep breaths, and goes upstairs to George.

*   *   *

Outside the door Clem also takes a few deep breaths. He was getting a bit out of his depth there, he tells himself. Poor Sarah’s clearly exhausted. It’s time Dave came home.

He walks away, into the village and down the hill towards the vicarage. His pastoral relationship with Sarah and Dave has slowly morphed into friendship: they are his age, they have small children, and it is good to share with them at this easy level. They get on very well and he’s had some good times with them. Lately, Sarah’s looked after Jakey for an hour or two after school when there have been late meetings.

Perhaps, he thinks, it was unwise to mention Tilly, though he can’t quite see why. After all, the two girls are good friends; they work together. Certainly Sarah was very nervy just now for such a down-to-earth, capable girl. But there might be several reasons for that. The trouble is, Tilly is under his skin: there’s something about her. Sarah’s tart response surprised him: it was almost as if she were jealous of his interest in Tilly. With some younger women he’s cautious; careful that his visits are seen to be purely pastoral, but Sarah has never been remotely vulnerable or needy, those dangerous qualities that can turn very quickly into emotional minefields. And, anyway, she’s very happy with Dave, who’s a great guy. It must simply have been a bad moment; she’s probably overtired and missing Dave.

Clem looks at his watch and glances behind him. The school bus is almost due and Jakey will be home. Immediately he remembers Sarah’s words: ‘Tilly hasn’t a clue … when it comes to children or anything domestic.’

His thoughts about Tilly are confused. She is pretty, witty, fun. He is strongly drawn towards her but all his instinctive caution is holding him back. He remembers how, after Madeleine died and he returned to London with Jakey, he’d picked up again with old friends, girls who were quite content with a simple physical relationship – to begin with, anyway. He soon realized that a young man with a small son triggered emotional responses from women, and these relationships became more complicated. For himself, emotional muddles and casual fumblings had never been his way and it was with relief that he moved to the Lodge at the convent; it was almost like taking a vow of celibacy. He could immerse himself in the hard work in the grounds and the house, whilst looking after Jakey, and nothing else was demanded from him except the growing desire to pursue his original vocation.

Now, as he thinks about Tilly, it’s as if he’s woken from a dream in which his private feelings have been kept deep frozen and this thawing process is very painful. He is confused, anxious – but he can’t wait to see her again.

He lets himself into the vicarage just as the school bus pulls up. The modern vicarage is a sixties-build bungalow on a small plot. He misses the stone Lodge, with all its character, but the bungalow is yards from the beach and is very easy to keep clean. Several of Jakey’s school friends live in the village, so there are very useful baby-sitting options close at hand, and he loves being able to ride to the beach on his bicycle unsupervised whilst Clem works in the small garden and strolls out from time to time to keep an eye on him without spoiling Jakey’s sense of independence.

The bus has turned and chugs away, back up the hill, and now Clem can hear the children, their cries as piercing as the seagulls that scream above their heads. He opens the front door and waits for Jakey to part from his friends and appear through the wrought-iron gateway. He sees him come in; a small blond boy with his Spiderman rucksack slung over one arm, his face alight with some joke he’s just shared with one of his friends, and Clem’s heart expands with love and pride and fear.

He thinks about introducing Jakey to Tilly, how the relationship between them would begin, and he is seized with such terror and doubt that his new-found confidence is utterly destroyed. How could he take such a chance? Why should a girl like Tilly be interested in a curate with a very low salary and a seven-year-old boy?

‘Daddy,’ shouts Jakey, seeing him in the doorway. ‘Guess what? I got a gold star for spelling.’

He dumps his bag inside the door, begins to root about inside it, and pulls out a small certificate, which says that Jakey Pardoe has got ten out of ten for his spelling test. He holds it up triumphantly, beaming. One of his front teeth is missing. Clem looks down at him and doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

‘Well done,’ he says. ‘I knew all that hard work would pay off. That definitely deserves a piece of cake. Come on. Let’s see what’s going.’

Jakey kick-boxes his way round the hall, making ‘wham’ and ‘pow’ noises at his imaginary assailant and then follows Clem into the kitchen.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The taxi driver turns his cab in the gateway, raises a hand to Harry and drives away down the lane. Harry watches him go and then turns back to survey the old stone cottage with relief and affection. Standing here in the sunshine he feels as if he has come home. This cottage, which was once two dwellings but has been made one, the familiar scrawl of the granite tor against the sky, the broken outline of a ruined engine house, the bleached wintry woods along the stream, all these seem to be knitted into his heart.

Despite the fact that Dom’s old Volvo is parked by the outbuildings, Harry senses that there is nobody at home. For one thing, Bessie would be barking by now to announce his arrival. But he doesn’t mind. He likes to arrive unannounced; to take them all by surprise. This is probably because he always has such a wholehearted welcome and he thoroughly enjoys the expressions of delight, the cries of pleasure.

‘They spoil you,’ his sisters say, rather sourly, but he doesn’t mind that either. Back in Jo’burg he is the youngest of the family, just one amongst his siblings and their cousins and numerous aunts and uncles. He knows he’s lucky to have such a big, successful family – clever lawyers and wealthy bankers – but here is where he feels truly at home, most valued.

‘You’re a Cornishman,’ his mother said to him, reluctant but resigned, a few years ago when he was about to go to Oxford to read Geology. ‘You’re a little St Enedoc,’ and she’d told him the whole story about his grandfather and Billa and Ed. It was as if she’d given him a present; his whole world had turned and slid gently into its appointed place. Then he understood why this odd stone cottage, the old butter factory and the wild north Cornish coast meant so much to him; then he no longer felt rather lonely and out of joint. He didn’t feel envious any more of his blonde sisters and their cousins; he looked like Dom, like Ed. He was a Cornishman; a St Enedoc.