The Silent Tide (51 page)

‘As I say’ Jacqueline went on, ‘the weather had been dreadful all day. I lay awake for what seemed like hours, listening to the wind buffeting the house, rattling the windows. In the end I must have sleppt, for when I next woke it was getting light. The wind had lessened, but there were other sounds, animal cries, and I got up to look out. I'll never forget the sight that met my eyes. Half the garden and the marshes beyond were underwater. One of the donkeys was braying, but I couldn't see it. I put on my dressing gown and went to wake Hugh, who got dressed and went out to see if he could rescue the wretched beast. He shouted up to say the scullery was flooded so I came down, too. I turned on the kitchen tap to fill the kettle and the water came out foul and salty, then Hugh came back to say that the poor beasts were marooned on the muck heap but that the water was retreating.

'At seven o'clock, we switched on the wireless. It was only then we learned something of the extent of the tragedy that was unfolding and Hugh went to the garage in a panic to see if he could start the car up. He could, and set off at once. I did not see him again until the evening.'

Lorna made a little noise of despair, but Jacqueline carried on. Her eyes were closed again and Emily was of the impression that she was reliving that day nearly sixty years ago.

'When he returned, he had an awful wild look about him. His shoes were encrusted with mud, and his clothes were in a dreadful state. It took me quite some while to calm him down enough to find out what had happened.

'The town, he said, had virtually become an island. The sea had come up over the marshes and, although the worst was over, everywhere was impassable. The main road was flooded and they were turning vehicles back all over the place just to get emergency services through. It was complete chaos, he said. No one knew what was going on or what to do about it. There were awful stories circulating about all the poor people who'd been drowned or were missing or whose homes had been washed away, but no proper information-and since no one was being let through, it was impossible to find out.

'It wasn't until the afternoon that he managed to hitch a lift on a tractor and found the hall where the survivors had been taken. Then he went to the hospital-oh, I don't like to think what he saw there-but there was no sign of her anywhere. The lane down to the house was completely cut off and the buildings all destroyed. He could tell by the way people looked at him that there wasn't much hope and there was simply nothing he could do. It was getting dark so he thought he'd better come home and go back again in the morning.'

There was complete silence in the room. Jacqueline opened her eyes, but she looked distant, still lost in the past.

'He was distraught. There was nothing I could do to comfort him. He kept saying over and over again that it was his fault. If only he'd gone to fetch her the night before, if only he hadn't listened to me. I tried to reason with him, but it was no good, no good at all.

'He went back again in the morning. I begged to go with him, but he simply wouldn't let me near him. It was the most terrible day, waiting for news. And there was none. The search for survivors had become a search for bodies. There were ever so many people missing or unaccounted for, and every day the paper had news of some who'd died and others who'd been found safely staying with relatives, unaware that they'd been feared drowned. But we knew Isabel had remained in the house that night and as time dragged on I simply hoped that they'd find her soon so that we could put her to rest. They never did, though. There were others, too, who were lost and who were never found. The sea can be terribly cruel.

'I tried my best to support Hugh through this and we grew closer. The following year
The Silent Tide
was published and he and I were married'

Jacqueline leaned back in her chair, her story finished. All that could be heard in the room was the clock ticking on the mantlepiece.

She told it movingly, Emily thought, and clearly believed her version of events, but it was a version of the truth, just as Isabel's was. There were parts she'd understandably skated over, such as how intimate her relationship with Hugh had been while Isabel was alive; Emily felt that Isabel had been right in her suspicions, but it was hardly possible to ask Jacqueline that one. Did she know what Penelope had told Isabel, that had made Isabel remain at the beach house so long? Possibly she did now, but presumably, she didn't then, and it certainly hadn't stopped her believing still that Isabel was selfish and had abandoned her husband and daughter. The tides of resentment had washed away her ability to reason about Isabel.

Emily wondered what other secrets remained untold. It would be a hard task negotiating with the old lady about presenting Isabel's side of the story. She would just have to do her best.

Emily

So much had happened in a single year, Emily reflected two weeks later. After all the upheavals of recent months, it was her turn to fill crates with books and scripts, to empty her desk drawers. Her filing cabinet, her lamp and her computer were festooned with fluorescent labels telling the removal men where they were to go. Everything was coated in a layer of fine dust from an ancient Jiffy bag that had exploded during the packing.

‘You won’t know what to do with all the space in your new place,’ Sarah said as she helped Emily drag the heavy bag to the door to join two others for collection.

Emily wasn’t moving very far, just to the other side of the floor – to George’s old office, in fact. An office of her own – she still couldn’t believe it – and it was nice to hear, too, that George had recently secured a job at her old firm.

Shortly after her visit to Suffolk, Gillian had taken Emily out for the much-feared lunch, and over a glass of wine had offered her a new job in the department. They were starting up a new imprint, fiction and non-fiction, and she wanted Emily to run it. It took Emily ten seconds to decide she’d accept, but she forced herself to be cool, to ask a lot of questions and ascertain the salary before she told Gillian her decision. She was already sketching out ideas in her head.

‘Everybody’s impressed by the projects you’ve taken on,’ Gillian told her, and named several of her new authors. ‘The buzz is building about Tobias’s novel, and Joel Richards looks as though he’ll be a real star. Are you happy to go on working with him? It’s no shame if you’d rather hand him on to someone else.’

After recovering from this second shock, Emily saw that Gillian was trying to be helpful. Why was she so surprised that her boss knew that she’d become close to Joel? She coloured up.

‘I’ve been there myself,’ Gillian confided, and Emily suddenly glimpsed a different view of this striking, stern and powerful woman. Perhaps Gillian had a soft centre, after all.

The series
The Silent Tide
was being broadcast at a prime time over Christmas. An edition of the novel with a huge picture of Zara and her co-star Jasper on the front was piled on bookshops’ front tables. Publication of
Catching the Tide: A Life of Hugh Morton
had been brought forward to the spring. The publicity machine was already starting up.

Since it was a Friday today, and the move would take place over the weekend, Emily couldn’t go home till everything was packed up. And she had work to finish.

At seven o’clock she was still there, all on her own, everyone gone home. It was dark outside. She finished writing a last email, switched off the computer and found a place in a crate for one last file. Beyond the window, the square was busy text-indent: 0; margin-left: ’ w,’ he said with people and traffic, and she watched for a while, struck by a memory. It had been a year ago that she’d sat here looking out into the night as she waited for Matthew. That was the night that she’d found the copy of
Coming Home
in her pigeonhole, the book that had started the search for Isabel.

Coming Home
had been given back to Lydia and the old Morton files returned to the archive, no longer needed. In the end, Jacqueline, astonishingly, had agreed that the chapters about Isabel might be expanded. Joel had quoted selectively from Isabel’s memoir, though not the more jealous assertions about Jacqueline – those would be left for some biographer in the far future to make of what they would. Hugh’s papers were to be archived at Duke’s College – Joel had arranged this for Jacqueline. Lorna had insisted on keeping Isabel’s memoir for the moment, but eventually it would join the archive, too.

Emily had felt close to Isabel this past year, reading her words, learning about her life; had been moved that she died so young, and in such awful circumstances. Sometimes she wondered what might have happened if she’d been reunited with Hugh. It was, of course, impossible to say.

Lorna had recently been in touch. She was coming to London to stay with her cousin – Lydia’s daughter Cassie – and she’d asked to meet Emily for lunch on Monday. There was talk of wanting to show her something. All very mysterious, but Emily was free so of course she’d said yes.

Watching from the window, she caught herself scanning the people passing, as though looking for someone in particular, but she was expecting no one. It dawned on her finally that it was Matthew. She was looking for Matthew. How pointless. She turned away, remembering now the anxiety of anticipation, how annoying it had been that he was late so often, but she couldn’t help recalling, too, how beautifully he read his poetry, the soft lilt of his voice, spell-binding, musical. She thought of his passion for his writing, remembered so many things about him: the gentle touch of his fingers, the clean soapy scent of him . . . and a deep sense of loss washed over her. He would have finished his studies now, she supposed. He'd have done well-Tobias always spoke highly of him. She sometimes wondered if she should get in touch, but then she'd recall seeing him that time with the girl in the white shirt and wasn't sure she should.

She should stop being maudlin and go. One last check that the shelves were empty, then she restacked a precarious-looking heap of papers in one of the crates and swept up some paperclips from the desk. A new life would begin for her on Monday. She switched off the lamp then, thinking that she might as well be helpful, crouched down to unplug it from the wall.

The back of the desk, where it met the partition, had a wooden modesty panel to hide one's legs if positioned in the middle of the room-and beneath the panel a triangle of paper peeped out. She should have checked before whether anything had fallen down there. Forgetting the plug, she got up to pull the desk out an inch or two. Then she checked underneath once more. Several items caught behind teh panel had now fallen to the floor-nothing interesting: a stained teaspoon, some curled-up scrap paer and what looked like a piece of white card, the size of a small postcard. She reached in and gathered all of this up. The bit of card was thicker than she'd first thought and was actually an envelope. It bore her name on it in a flowing script.

She frowned as she lifted the flap, wondering how long it had been there. Inside was a handmade card, pretty, with cut-out hearts-a Valentine's card, she realised with surprise. She opened it up to see handwriting she knew-no name of course. For a moment, she was so amazed that she couldn't make sense of the words. She switched on the light again to examine it properly. Yes, it was definitely a Valentine's card. There was a folded piece of paper, too. The writing on the card was Matthew's.

'I hope you love the flowers,' he had written. 'They speak for themselves. My letter says the rest.'

Red roses. She'd never found out who gave them to her. She hadn't suspected Matthew for a single minute; he'd never given her flowers, ever, had been contemptuous of Valentine's Day. But this card had come with the roses. Red roses, for true love. A tender pain stabbed cruelly through her. Her hands shook as she unfolded the letter.

My very dearest Em,

I write in great humility to tell you now that now that I've had time to think about it, I realise that I've made an awful mistake in finishing things between us. Em, I am simply not happy without you. I miss you all the time. I miss everything about you, even your views about poetry and when you get antsy about the mess in my kitchen. I have no expectations-I simply don't deserve to-but if you'd at leat agree to meet up, perhaps we could talk.

With hope and Love, Little Bird

Yours ever,

Matthew.

She felt a great relief. Matthew had tried to get in touch with her. He did love her. But then peace was replaced by horror. It was too late, the letter had been written back in February, nine months ago! She'd had no idea who'd delivered the flowers to her desk, but the envelope had obviously not been secured to the cellophane properly. It had slipped away and fallen behind the desk. And now it was November. All that lost time. How shattering to think of Matthew waiting and hoping, never knowing why she hadn't called. How he must hate her now. Or have forgotten her altogether. She'd seen him with that girl. It was all too late. She covered her face with her hands.

For a long time she sat there, thinking of reasons and consequences, the quirkiness of fate, the way huge events could turn on small coincidences. In the end the answer came to her.

She must follow her heart.

She wasted no time. She bought a card in Oxford Street on the way home, a reproduction of a beautiful Elizabethan youth reading. The right choice was vital, even more so than what she wrote in it. She must make no assumptions. She could only honestly tell of the lost card, her despair that he'd never had an answer. She supposed, she wrote, that it was too late, but if there was any chance of meeting up, she'd like to do so very much. She dropped the card into the box on Saturday, then, too late, wondered if maybe he'd changed his address, but after a moment's panic, she reasoned it was likely to reach him eventually. The rest of Saturday crept by, then Sunday at her parents'. Maybe on Monday he'd receive it.