The Day of the Storm (6 page)

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I was in London by the early afternoon, but the dark day had lost its shape and meaning, and I could not think what I was meant to do with what remained of it. In the end I got a taxi and went to Walton Street to seek out Stephen Forbes.

I found him upstairs, going through a box of books out of an old house which had just been sold up. There was no one else with him, and as I appeared at the top of the stairs he stood up and came towards me, thinking that I was a potential customer. When he saw that I was not, his manner changed.

“Rebecca! You're back.”

I stood there, with my hands in my coat pockets.

“Yes. I got in about two.” He watched me, his face a question. I said, “My mother died, early yesterday morning. I was just in time. I had an evening with her, and we talked and talked.”

“I see,” said Stephen. “I'm glad you saw her.” He cleared some books from the edge of a table, and leaned against it, folding his arms and eyeing me through his spectacles. He said, “What are you going to do now?”

“I don't know.”

“You look exhausted. Why not take a few days off?”

I said again, “I don't know.”

He frowned. “What don't you know?”

“I don't know what to do.”

“What's the problem?”

“Stephen, have you ever heard of an artist called Grenville Bayliss?”

“Heavens, yes. Why?”

“He's my grandfather.”

Stephen's face was a study. “Good Lord. When did you find that out?”

“My mother told me. I'd never heard of him,” I had to admit.

“You should have.”

“Is he well known?”

“He was, twenty years ago when I was a boy. There was a Grenville Bayliss over the dining-room fireplace in my father's old house in Oxford. Part of my growing up, one might say. A grey stormy sea and a fishing boat with a brown sail. Used to make me feel seasick to look at it. He specialized in seascapes.”

“He was a sailor. I mean, he'd been in the Royal Navy.”

“That follows.”

I waited for him to go on, but he was silent. I said at last, “What am I to do, Stephen?”

“What do you want to do, Rebecca?”

“I never had a family.”

“Is it so important?”

“Suddenly it is.”

“Then go and see him. Is there any reason not to?”

“I'm frightened.”

“Of what?”

“I don't know. Of being snubbed, I suppose. Or ignored.”

“Were there dreadful family rows?”

“Yes. And cuttings off. And never darken my door again. You know the sort of thing.”

“Did your mother suggest that you went?”

“No. Not in so many words. But she said there were some things that belonged to her. She thought I should have them.”

“What sort of things?”

I told him. “I know it's nothing very much. Perhaps not even worth making the journey for. But I'd like to have something that belonged to her. Besides—” I tried to turn it into a joke—“they might help to fill up some of the blank spaces in the new flat.”

“I think collecting your possessions should be a secondary reason for going to Cornwall. Your first should be making friends with Grenville Bayliss.”

“Supposing he doesn't want to make friends?”

“Then no harm has been done. Except possibly a little bruising to your pride, but that won't kill you.”

“You're rail-roading me into this,” I told him.

“If you didn't want my advice, then why did you come to see me?”

He had a point. “I don't know,” I admitted.

He laughed. “You don't know much, do you?” and when at last I smiled back, he said, “Look. Today's Thursday. Go home and get some sleep. And if tomorrow's too soon, then go down to Cornwall on Sunday or Monday. Just go. See how the land lies, see how the old boy is. It may take a few days, but that doesn't matter. Don't come back to London until you've done all you can. And if you can get hold of your own bits and pieces, well and good, but remember that they're of secondary importance.”

“Yes. I'll remember.”

He stood up. “Then push off,” he said. “I've got enough to do without wasting my time running a private Tell Auntie column on your account.”

“Can I come back to work when all this is over?”

“You better had. I can't manage without you.”

“Goodbye then,” I said.

“Au revoir,” said Stephen, and as if on an afterthought, leaned forward to give me a clumsy kiss. “And Good Luck!”

I had already spent enough money on taxis, so, still carrying my case, I walked up to the bus stop and waited until one came, and lurched my way back to Fulham. Gazing, unseeing, out of the window at the grey, crowded streets, I tried to make some plans. I would go to Cornwall, as Stephen suggested, on Monday. At this time of year it shouldn't be difficult to get a seat on the train or find somewhere to stay when I finally got to Porthkerris. And Maggie would keep an eye on my flat.

Thinking of the flat made me remember the chairs I had bought before I had gone to Ibiza. That day seemed a lifetime ago. But if I did not claim them then they would be sold as the disagreeable young man had threatened. With this in mind, I got off the bus a few stops before my own so that I could call into the shop and pay for the chairs and thus be certain that they would be waiting for me when I returned.

I had steeled myself to do business once more with the young man in the blue denims, but as I let myself in and the bell rang with the opening and the closing of the door, I saw with some relief that it was not he who stood up from behind the desk at the back of the shop, but another man, older, with grey hair and a dark beard.

He came forward, taking off a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, as I thankfully put down my suitcase.

“Good afternoon.”

“Oh, good afternoon. I came about some chairs I bought last Monday. Cherrywood, balloon-back ones.”

“Oh, yes, I know.”

“One of them had to be repaired.”

“It's been done. Do you want to take them with you?”

“No. I've got a suitcase. I can't carry them. And I'm going away for a few days. But I thought if I paid for them now, perhaps you'd keep them until I got back.”

“Yes, of course.” He had a charming, deep voice, and when he smiled his rather saturnine face lit up.

I began to open my bag. “Will it be all right if I write you a cheque? I've got a Bankers Card.”

“That's all right … would you like to use my desk? And here's a pen.”

I began to write. “Who shall I make it out to?”

“To me. Tristram Nolan.”

I was gratified to know that it was he who owned this pleasant shop and not my mannerless, cowboy friend. I wrote the cheque and crossed it, and handed it to him. He stood, head down, reading it, and took so long that I thought I must have forgotten something.

“Have I put the date?”

“Yes, that's perfect.” He looked up. “It's just your name. Bayliss. It's not very common.”

“No. No it's not.”

“Are you any relation to Grenville Bayliss?”

Having his name flung at me, just now, was extraordinary and yet not extraordinary at all, in the same way that a name, or a relevant item of news, will spring at you, unbidden, from a page of close print.

I said, “Yes, I am.” And then because there was no reason why he shouldn't know, “He's my grandfather.”

“Extraordinary,” he said.

I was puzzled. “Why?”

“I'll show you.” He laid my cheque down on his desk and went to pull out from behind a drop-leafed sofa table a large, sturdy oil painting in a gilt frame. He held it up, balancing one corner on his desk, and I saw that it was by my grandfather. His signature was in the corner, and the date below it, 1932.

“I've only just bought it. It needs cleaning, of course, but I think it's very charming.”

I stepped closer to inspect it, and saw sand dunes in an evening light, and two young boys, naked, bent over a collection of shells. The work was perhaps old-fashioned, but the composition charming—the colouring delicate and yet somehow robust—as though the boys, vulnerable in their nakedness, were still tough, and creatures to be reckoned with.

“He was good, wasn't he?” I said, and could not hide the note of pride in my voice.

“Yes. A marvellous colourist.” He put the picture back. “Do you know him well?”

“I don't know him at all. I've never met him.”

He said nothing, simply stood, waiting for me to enlarge on this odd statement. To fill the silence I went on. “But I've decided that perhaps it's time I did. In fact, I'm going to Cornwall on Monday.”

“But that's splendid. The roads will be empty at this time of the year, and it's a lovely drive.”

“I'm going by train. I haven't got a car.”

“It will still be a pleasant journey. I hope the sun shines for you.”

“Thank you very much.”

We moved back to the door. He opened it, I picked up my suitcase. “You'll look after my chairs for me?”

“Of course. Goodbye. And have a good time in Cornwall.”

3

But the sun did not shine for me. Monday dawned grey and depressing as ever and my faint hopes that the weather would improve as the train rocketed westwards soon died, for the sky darkened with every mile and the wind got up and the day finally dissolved into pouring rain. There was nothing to be seen from the streaming windows; only the blurred shapes of hills and farmsteads, and every now and then the clustered roofs of a village flashed by, or we raced through the half-empty station of some small anonymous town.

By Plymouth, I comforted myself, it would be different. We would cross the Saltash Bridge and find ourselves in another country, another climate, where there would be pink-washed cottages and palm trees and thin winter sunshine. But of course all that happened was that the rain fell even more relentlessly; as I stared out at flooded fields and leafless wind-torn trees, my hopes finally died and I began to be discouraged.

It was nearly a quarter to five by the time we reached the junction which was the end of my journey, and the dark afternoon had sunk, already, into twilight. As the train slowed down alongside the platform, I saw an incongruous palm tree, silhouetted like a broken umbrella against the streaming sky, and the falling rain shimmered and danced in front of the lighted sign which said “St Abbotts, change for Porthkerris.” The train finally stopped. I shouldered my rucksack and opened the heavy door which was instantly torn out of my grasp by the wind. The sudden impact of strong cold air, driven inland, over the dark sea, made me gasp, and with some idea of making haste I picked up my bag and jumped out on to the platform. I followed the general exodus of travellers up and over the wooden bridge to the station building on the far side. Most of the other passengers seemed to have friends to meet them, or else walked through the ticket office in a purposeful fashion, as though knowing that a car was waiting for them on the far side. Blindly, I followed them, feeling very new and strange but hoping that they would lead me to a taxi. But when I came out into the station yard, there were no taxis. I stood about, hopeful of being offered a lift, but too shy to ask for one, until the tail light of the last car, inevitably, disappeared up the hill in the direction of the main road and I was forced to return to the ticket office for help and advice.

I found a porter, stacking hen coops in a smelly parcels office.

“I'm sorry, but I have to get to Porthkerris. Would there be a taxi?”

He shook his head slowly, without hope, and then said, brightening slightly, “There's a bus. Runs every hour.” He glanced up at the slow-ticking clock high on the wall. “But you've just missed one, so you'll 'ave to wait some time.”

“Can't I ring up for a taxi?”

“Isn't much call for taxis at this time of the year.”

I let my heavy rucksack slip to the floor and we gazed at each other, both defeated by the enormity of the problem. My wet feet were slowly congealing. As we stood there, there came, above the noise of the storm, the sound of a car, driven very fast down the hill from the road.

I said, raising my voice slightly in order to make my point, “I must get a taxi. Where could I telephone?”

“There's a box just out there…”

I turned to go in search of it, trailing my rucksack behind me, and as I did so I heard the car stop outside in the yard; a door slammed, footsteps ran, and the next moment a man appeared, banging the door open and shut against the icy wind. He shook himself like a dog before crossing the floor and disappearing through the open door of the Parcels Office.

I heard him say, “Hallo, Ernie. I think there's a parcel here for me. From London.”

“'Ullo, Mr Gardner. That's a dirty night.”

“Filthy. The road's awash. That looks like it … that one over there. Yes, that's it. Want me to sign for it?”

“Oh, yes, you'll 'ave to sign. 'Ere we are…”

I imagined the slip of paper, smoothed on a table top, the stub of a pencil taken from behind Ernie's ear. And for the life of me I could not remember where I had heard that voice before, nor why I knew it so well.

“That's great. Thanks very much.”

“You're welcome.”

The telephone, the taxi, forgotten for the moment, I watched the door, waiting for him to reappear. When he did, carrying a large box stuck with red
GLASS
labels, I saw the long legs, the blue denims drenched in mud to the knee, and a black oilskin, beaded and running with rivulets of water. He was bare-headed, his black hair plastered to his skull, and he saw me for the first time and stopped dead, holding the parcel in front of him like an offering. In his dark eyes was first a flicker of puzzlement, and then recognition. He began to smile. He said, “Good God!”