The Hidden Years (17 page)

Thank God for Sage: without her… She closed her
eyes and leaned back in her seat, physically and men-tally exhausted,
longing only for escape, for peace of mind, and knowing how little
chance she had of attaining either.

'Did you manage to get through everything in Liz's files
on the proposed motorway?' They were having tea, produced by Jenny, who
stood sternly over them until it was safely poured, ignoring their
protests that they weren't hungry. Even
in absentia
Liz's habits still ruled the household. Perhaps all of them in their
separate ways were clinging to those habits, in an instinctive need to
believe that in keeping them alive they were keeping Liz herself alive,
Sage thought.

'Mmm…' she answered, responding to Camilla's
question, her forehead furrowing. She had read them, but nothing in
them had given her any clue as to how her mother had hoped to prevent
the construction of the new motorway. Far from it.

'You don't think we'll be able to stop them, do you?'
Camilla guessed astutely.

'It's too soon to say, but it doesn't look very hopeful.
If the road was being constructed near a site of particular
archaeological significance, or special natural beauty, then we'd have
something to work on, but as far as I can see—'

'Gran would have found a way,' Camilla told her, almost
belligerently. 'But then I suppose you don't really care anyway, do
you? I mean, you don't care about Cottingdean…'

'Camilla!' Faye objected, flushing a little. 'That's most
unfair and untrue…'

'No, she's right,' Sage said as calmly as she could,
replacing her teacup in its saucer. 'I don't feel the same way about
Cottingdean as the rest of you. It's a beautiful house, but it is only
a house—not a sacred trust. But it isn't just the house
that's at risk; it's the village as well, people's livelihoods. Without
the mill there'd be no industry here to keep people in jobs; without
jobs the village would soon start to disintegrate—but I don't
expect that the planners in Whitehall will be inclined to put the needs
of a handful of villagers above those of road-hungry motorists.'

'Gran has offered them another site on the other side of
the water meadows…' .

'Yes, on land which is marshy and unstable, and which will
require a good deal of expensive drainage and foundation work on it
before it can be used, as well as adding countless millions of pounds
to the cost.'

'I don't know why you're going to the meeting, when it's
obvious that you don't care—'

'That's enough, Camilla,' Faye reproved.

'I
do
care, Cam. I just don't know
how Mother planned to persuade the authorities to reroute the
road… I've no idea what she had in mind, and I can't find
out from what I've read in the files. I've no doubt she had some plan
of action in view, but whatever it is only she knows… The
best I can hope for is to use delaying tactics and to hope that somehow
or other a miracle will occur enabling Mother to take over before it's
too late.'

Since all of them knew just how much of a miracle would be
needed for that, the three of them fell silent.

She wasn't looking forward to the evening's meeting, Sage
acknowledged later as she went upstairs to change. She was not
accomplished at using guile—she was too blunt, too tactless.
She did not have her mother's gifts of subtle persuasion and coercion.
She had no experience of dealing with officialdom, nor a taste for it
either. She remembered that David had once tried to teach her to play
chess and how he had chided her in that gentle, loving way he had had
for her impatience and lack of logic, her inability to think forwards
and to plan coolly and mathematically. No, the skills of the negotiator
were not among her gifts, but for tonight she must somehow find,
somehow adopt at least a facsimile of her mother's mantle.

She recognised with wry amusement how much she was already
changing, how much she was already tempering her own beliefs and
attitudes—even her mode of dress.

Tonight she was automatically rejecting the nonchalant
casualness of the clothes she bought impulsively and sometimes
disastrously, falling in love with the richness of their fabric, the
skill of their cut or simply the beauty of their colour and then so
often finding once she got them home that she had nothing with which to
wear them.

Not for her the carefully planned and organised wardrobe,
the cool efficiency of clothes chosen to project a certain
image…

But tonight she would need the armouring of that kind of
image, and as she rifled through her wardrobe she recognised ruefully
that the best she could manage was a cream silk shirt worn with a fine
wool crepe coffee-coloured skirt designed by Alaia. If it clung rather
more intimately to her body than anything her mother might have chosen
to wear, then hopefully that fact would be concealed by the table
behind which she was bound to be seated.

An elegant Chanel-style knitted jacket in the same cream
as the shirt would add a touch of authority to the outfit, she decided,
taking it off its hanger and glancing at her watch.

Seven o'clock…time she was on her way. She
thought fleetingly of the diaries, acknowledging something she had
deliberately been pushing to the back of her mind all day.

At the same time as she was eager to read more, to
discover more about this stranger who was her mother, she was also
reluctant to do so, afraid almost… Of what? Of finding out
that her mother was human and fallible, and in doing so finding out
that she herself was no longer able to hold on to her anger and
resentment? Why should she want to hang on to them?

Perhaps because they added weight and justification to her
refusal to allow her mother into any part of her life, her
determination to sever the emotional ties between them and to keep them
severed—to continue to punish her mother. But for what? For
failing to love her as she had loved David? For destroying her
happiness— for allowing Scott to be taken from her? Or was
she simply still inside an angry, resentful child, kicking at her
mother's door, demanding that her attention and her love be given
exclusively to her…?

Exclusively… She frowned at her reflection in
the mirror. Had she wanted that? Had she wanted her mother to love her
exclusively…? Surely not. She had always known that love
must be shared. Or had she? Had she perhaps always inwardly resented
having to share her mother with anyone else, refusing to acknowledge
her right to love others, just as she had refused to acknowledge
Scott's right to share his for her with his father, to feel that he
owed his father a loyalty, a duty that went before even his love for
her?

They had quarrelled about that, and bitterly, Scott
insisting that before they could marry he had to return to Australia
and explain the situation to his father. He had wanted her to go with
him but she had refused. Why should she subject herself to his father's
inspection when they both knew that he would reject her? Why couldn't
Scott see that there was no need for them to bow to his father's will,
that they could make a comfortable life for themselves away from his
father's vast acres, that they did not need either his father or her
mother?

'But can't you see,' he had asked her, 'they need us?'

She had lost her temper then… They had
quarrelled angrily, almost violently on her part. When Scott had slowed
down the car, she had reached for the door, surely never really
intending to open it and jump out; but in the heat of the
moment… her unforgivable, relentless temper had driven her
so hard. Ridden her so hard.

Anyway, now she would never know what she might or might
not have done, because Scott had reached across her to grab the
door-handle and in doing so had failed to see the oncoming car.

Ironically it had been his arm across her body that had
protected her from greater injury and prevented him from saving
himself, so that he took the full brunt of the collision, so that he
suffered the fate which should by rights have been hers…

Oh, God, she couldn't start thinking about that
now… Not now. Hadn't she paid enough, suffered enough,
endured enough guilt to wash away even the blackest sin?

Downstairs the grandfather clock chimed the quarter-hour.
Thankfully she abandoned the painful introspection of her thoughts and
hurried downstairs.

'We've put you next to the man from the construction
company,' Anne Henderson told Sage once their mutual introductions were
over. 'I don't seem to have a note of his name… Our
secretary's little boy has been rushed into hospital for an emergency
appendix operation… quite the worst possible time for
something like that to happen but what can you do…?
Fortunately I do have records of the names of the two people from the
Ministry. They're a Mr Stephen Simmonds and a Ms Helen Ordman. They're
all due to arrive together. I hope they won't be late. The meeting's
due to start at seven forty-five.'

The village hall had been a gift to the village from her
mother, or rather from the mill. It was originally an old barn which
had been in danger of falling down, and her mother had had it rescued
and remodelled to provide the villagers with a meeting place and
somewhere to hold village jumble sales and dances.

Meticulous in everything she undertook, her mother had
seen to it that the half-gallery of the original building had been
retained, and whenever a dance was held the band was usually placed up
on this gallery. Tonight it was empty, the stairs leading to it closed
off. Glancing round the familiar beamed interior, Sage reflected that a
stranger entering it would never guess that behind the traditional
wattle and daub lay a modern purpose-built kitchen area, or that one
third of the floor space could be elevated to provide a good-sized
stage, much prized by the local drama group. Her mother had thought of
everything; even the chairs now placed in neat rows were specially
made, in solid wood, with comfortable, practical seats.

'People are starting to arrive already,' Anne Henderson
told her. 'The vicar's wife rang to warn me that the vicar might be a
few minutes late. He's on the committee as well. Your mother had hoped
to persuade our local MP to join us tonight, but I haven't heard
anything from him.'

The other committee members were a local solicitor and a
local GP, both of whom had very strong views about the proposed road,
and both of whom were extremely articulate.

They would need to be to make up for her deficiencies in
that direction, Sage reflected, as they came in and she was introduced
to them.

For tonight at least the most she could hope for was to
act as a figurehead, representing her mother's stand against the new
road, rather than contributing any viable arguments to the proceedings.

Her role was rather like that of a regimental standard:
there simply to show that the regiment's strength existed, rather than
to take any part in the fight. She was there simply as a representative
of her mother…a focal point.

The hall was beginning to fill up, and from the look on
the faces of the people coming in it was obvious that they were taking
the threat to their rural peace very seriously indeed. Feelings were
going to run high, but whenever had emotion been enough to batter down
logic? If it had, why had she not been the victor in so many arguments
rather than the vanquished?

There was a flurry of activity over by the door and Anne
Henderson excused herself, saying, 'I think that must be the
opposition. I'd better go over and introduce myself.'

Sage watched them walk in: A man and a woman: the woman a
slender elegant brunette in her early twenties who had dressed in the
kind of suit which the glossy magazines and upmarket newspapers were
continually pushing as a working wardrobe for the modern woman. Yes,
Sage thought drily, provided she could afford to buy the simple and so
expensive designer garments they lauded. And this woman, despite the
businesslike clothes she was wearing, came across to Sage not as a
dedicated career type, but as a sensual, almost predatory female who to
Sage's eyes had dressed herself not so much with the meeting in mind,
but for a man. The plain silk shirt that was seemingly so carelessly
unfastened just enough to hint at a provocative tempting cleavage. The
flannel skirt, short and straight to reveal slender silk-clad legs, the
hair and make-up, both elegant and discreet, but both very definitely
sensual rather than businesslike. A woman, of course, could recognise
such things immediately—men were rather different, and Sage
wondered in amusement what on earth it was about the rather
nondescript, jeans-and-windcheater-clad man at her side that had
aroused such predatory instincts.

At first sight he seemed ordinary enough: average height,
mid-brown hair, wearing, rather surprisingly for a Ministry man, the
kind of casual clothes that made him seem more like one of the
villagers than anything else. He was talking earnestly to his companion
as Anne shepherded them towards the raised stage.

Sage stood up as they reached her, shaking hands with both
of them and introducing herself. She could see the younger woman
assessing her, and hid her own amusement. She really had nothing to
worry about— Sage was not in the least interested in her
quarry.

The man from the Ministry attempted to take the next seat
to her own, but Anne stopped him, informing him, 'I thought we'd let
the chairman of the construction company sit there…'

'Oh, yes, I ought to have mentioned,' his companion
chipped in, 'I'm afraid he's going to be a few minutes late. He
suggested that we start without him, as he's attending the meeting
primarily to answer people's questions about the actual effect of the
construction of the road.'

'Isn't that rather premature?' Sage heard herself
intervening coolly. Helen Ordman looked coldly at her and waited. 'You
are rather presuming that the road will go ahead, which is by no means
certain as yet.'