The Swallow and the Hummingbird (31 page)

‘Of course she did. She was swaying over the edge, seconds from death. If it hadn’t been for Harry Weaver she would have perished. Broken on the rocks. Imagine what a horrid sight that would have been.’

‘She’s a level-headed girl. I’m sure it was a terrible mistake.’

Reverend Hammond stepped back as the door opened with a tinkle. He frowned as there was no one there. Then his eyes fell to the ground where they caught sight of a large black cat slinking in like a silky breeze. He shuddered, remembering Mrs Megalith. Miss Hogmier’s face contorted with fear.

‘Don’t breathe a word,’ she hissed to the shaken Reverend. ‘The Elvestree witch has spies all over the village and we’re all under surveillance.’ Elwyn Hammond left as fast as he could, forgetting altogether to post his parcel.

Rita awoke to the sound of her mother at her bedroom door. ‘Darling, Max’s here for you.’ She blinked in the stream of sunlight that fell onto her bed through the gap in the curtains, momentarily uplifted by the enthusiasm of so bright a morning. Then she remembered George’s letter and sank once more into depression.

‘What does he want?’ she groaned, rubbing her eyes that were still sore from crying.

‘He’s cycled all the way over. He says he wants to take you for a walk.’

Rita would have preferred to stay in bed. Sleep was the only way to forget. But she reluctantly dragged herself to her feet and into the bathroom. She didn’t sense the contrived nature of Max’s visit. Mrs Megalith had suggested he go. No one wanted her to walk out on the cliffs alone. Max had been only too happy to oblige and had bicycled over at once. Little did Mrs Megalith know that it served his own secret purpose to spend time with Rita. Besides, having lost his heart to her, he felt he was more qualified than anyone else to give her guidance.

Rita shrank back when she saw her bloated, yellowed complexion in the mirror. She looked grotesque. Splashing her face with water didn’t do much to alleviate the problem, but at least it woke her up. She ran a brush through her knotted hair, wincing at the pain before giving up the struggle. She tied it back, unwittingly accentuating the unhappiness that drew in her cheeks and forced out her bones, then threw on some clothes, not really caring how she looked. What was the point now that George no longer wanted her?

When she saw Max waiting for her in the kitchen, ruddy-cheeked from the cold, bracing wind and smiling at her sympathetically, she felt her spirits stir a little. She let her mother bustle about, handing her a cup of tea and encouraging her to eat the porridge she had made especially for her. ‘Put some honey on it dear, it’s fresh from Elvestree and will do you good.’ She watched her daughter with the scrutiny of an owl until she had taken her first, unenthusiastic mouthful.

‘I thought you would like to walk up the beach on a day like this,’ Max said. ‘I spotted a couple of spoonbills in the estuary this morning,’ he added, knowing this would cheer her up.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, they were sweeping up insects and small fish with their bills, making the odd grunting noise in appreciation. Primrose says they are rare in these parts.’

‘But there’s something rather magical about Elvestree,’ said Hannah, watching her daughter take another spoonful of porridge and feeling heartened. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if penguins started arriving all the way from the Galapagos.’

Rita and Max set out toward the cliffs. The resplendence of the morning was infectious and Rita found that, in spite of her unhappiness, the sunshine and blue skies soothed her hurt. She didn’t fear the cliffs after the events of the day before. On the contrary, she was still drawn to them for they harboured the shadows of the past. They walked along the top and Max made sure that he walked on the outside. Rita found this amusing but pretended she hadn’t noticed. She did, however, cast her eyes down to the rocks and beach below and imagine what her fate might have been had Harry Weaver not arrived in the nick of time to pull her back.

They walked down the grassy path to the beach and sat on the rocks in the shelter of the cliffs to watch the birds and listen to the soothing sound of the sea. Rita toyed with the little dove pendant that George had sent her the month before.

‘Part of me wants to throw this into the sea,’ she said sadly. ‘But I just can’t let it go yet.’ Max pulled a shell off a rock and turned it over in his hands.

‘It’s hard to write someone out of your life when they’ve been such a big part of it.’

‘George
was
my life,’ she replied with emphasis. ‘I can’t quite believe it’s happened. But the leaden feeling inside reminds me that I’m not imagining it.’

‘It will get better.’

‘I know.’ She lifted her chin and let the icy wind caress her features. ‘I feel as if he’s died, but there’s no funeral or body to mourn.’ Max stared out to sea and smelt that familiar scent of his childhood reach him once again from the thawing corners of his heart.

‘But George will come back one day. He is not dead. You will have the opportunity to talk to him about it. One day when the wound is no longer raw.’

‘I think I would have coped better if he had died in the war. Death isn’t rejection.’

‘It can be worse than rejection,’ Max argued in a quiet voice. He threw the shell onto the sand and began to pick at another. ‘They go without taking you with them.’ Rita looked at him quizzically, then realized suddenly that he was no longer talking about her.

‘But that gets better too, doesn’t it?’ she said in a soft voice. Max looked at her.

‘Time makes everything better. That is one thing that experience has taught me. Some day you will have to take off that pendant. Keep it in a box, safely tucked away where it won’t stare out at you all the time to remind you of what you have lost. Believe me, it works. Only when you have healed can you reminisce with nostalgia and without pain.’

‘Megagran says that I have to talk about it,’ she said, tucking the pendant back into her jersey.

‘She’s right. That makes you feel better too. But don’t expect it to work overnight.’

‘You rarely talk about your family.’

‘You know Ruth and I had a little sister?’

‘No, I didn’t know.’

‘Lydia. I don’t remember her much. She was only a baby. I can still smell her, though. I can smell her bedroom. A soft, warm smell, like hot milk.’

‘Did she . . .?’

‘Yes, she died too. In the camps.’ He cast his eyes to the sand and focused on a small crustacean that was wriggling its way across a shallow pool of water. ‘I’m lucky to have Ruth.’

‘Do you talk about it with her?’ Rita asked, without realizing that the tragedy of Max’s family was taking her out of herself.

‘No. She’s afraid to remember.’ He lifted his eyes and looked at her. ‘I talk to you.’ Rita smiled.

‘We can help each other,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘It can be our secret project.’

‘I’d like to go back one day.’

‘To Vienna?’

‘Yes. To the theatre my father built. I dream about it sometimes. It seems so big in my dreams and yet, I know that my memory of it is distorted because I was just a small boy. It was beautiful, though. Full of golden lights and rich crimson velvet. Like the palace of a king. One day when I’m rich I’ll buy it back.’

‘Maybe you’ll marry an actress like your mother and she’ll sing in it.’

‘Maybe,’ he replied with a chuckle, but he was imagining taking Rita.

A flock of gulls flew overhead and Rita and Max shaded their eyes with their hands to watch them. Bathed in sunlight they swooped and glided, playing games with the wind that only they knew. Then they landed on the sand in a gaggle to search for food. The sight of those birds lifted their spirits, reassuring them both that while people change some things never do.

Chapter 20

Harry was mortified. He had taken advantage of a young girl without having thought through the consequences. It made no difference that she had the sexual experience of a much older woman, she was only nineteen and he was a middle-aged divorcé who should know better. Tormented by his own foolishness he withdrew like a tortoise into its shell, hoping that the problem would go away if he didn’t confront it.

Maddie left his house delirious with happiness. Harry loved her. They’d marry and live happily ever after. He’d write his books, she’d edit them and raise their children and they’d make love in the afternoons in their cosy cottage in Bray Cove. But she was to be disappointed, for Harry didn’t telephone her and when she telephoned him that evening he was distant and could barely manage more than a mumble.

‘This afternoon was lovely,’ she breathed down the line. Harry’s gulp was audible. ‘Why don’t I come over tomorrow and make you lunch, then we can spend all afternoon together,’ she whispered in case her parents happened to overhear her.

‘Well, I really ought to get on with this book. I have a deadline, after all,’ he muttered. Harry seemed to have developed a stammer. A sensitive woman would have understood the frantic back-pedalling and retreated with dignity, but Maddie didn’t notice.

‘I can help. You were grateful for my advice today. I’ll cook you lunch while you write, then I’ll read what you’ve written and tell you what I think.’

‘That’s really sweet of you . . .’ he began.

‘Good, I’ll see you tomorrow. I can’t wait, darling Harry.’ When she hung up Harry was left bewildered. What was he going to do?

That night he lay uneasily in his bed. He had been weak and irresponsible and would have to pay the consequences tomorrow and tell Maddie that it had been a mistake. He muttered imaginary conversations into the darkness then, when those failed, tried to convince himself that his attraction to her had no substance, that it was no more than a sexual attraction he could easily live without. His thoughts drifted to his ex-wife and the error of judgement he had made there. He was no good with women. He didn’t understand them. He couldn’t risk failing again. Rolling over onto his side, he contemplated himself miserably. He was in his late thirties, divorced, balding, struggling to write a decent book, penniless and unlucky, what did he have to offer a young girl like Maddie? What on earth did she see in him? His attraction to her was obvious, but surely some sprite was playing a wicked trick with her eyes.

The following day Maddie walked over to Bray Cove in dazzling white sunshine. A light sprinkling of frost covered the ground and turned the world an icy blue. The beauty of the countryside was breathtaking and Maddie, who was usually far too self-obsessed to notice her surroundings, gazed about her in wonder. She pictured Harry’s diffident grin, and smiled tenderly at the thought of his gentle face and kind, sensitive eyes. How surprised her family were going to be when they discovered that she had fallen in love with Harry Weaver of all people. He wasn’t rich, he wasn’t glamorous, he wasn’t even handsome like George, but she loved him and after having made love with him she cherished him all the more. That was another Harry altogether; her own secret Harry.

When she arrived at Bray Cove she let herself in and bounded through the hall to the sitting room. Harry was grey-faced and anxious, stooped over his typewriter having written little more than a sentence that morning. Maddie smiled broadly and threw her arms around his neck, kissing his face with a loud smack.

‘How’s my darling lover today?’ she said, pressing her lips to him again. She felt his unyielding body and drew away. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

Harry sighed heavily and raised his eyes to where she now stood before him. He hesitated and caught his breath as the luminous beauty of her face held him momentarily in a hypnotic trance. He inhaled the feminine scent of her body and felt the hair on the back of his neck bristle with nervousness. Silently scolding himself for his weakness, he tore his eyes away and resumed as planned.

‘Maddie, what we did yesterday was wrong.’ Maddie froze. She shook her head and frowned. Then she tried to smile but her lips only quivered for a moment before opening in panic. Harry continued. ‘It was lovely . . . you were lovely,’ he stammered. ‘But it isn’t right.’

‘What isn’t right?’ Her voice was a high-pitched wail.

‘You’re young . . .’

‘Young?’ she repeated, extending her arms like the wings of a fearsome condor. ‘Young? That’s not what you thought yesterday when you made love to me on the kitchen table.’

‘I shouldn’t have.’

‘A bit late for regrets, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t regret, I mean, not like that. It was lovely . . . it’s just that . . .’

‘Was sex all you wanted? Now you’ve had me you don’t want me any more?’

‘No, it’s not like that at all.’

Maddie placed her hands on her hips as her face began to match her hair. Harry only thought she looked more ravishing, which made his task almost impossible. He longed to kiss her again and taste the salt on her skin, but he knew he mustn’t, though at this precise moment his arguments for restraint suddenly seemed negligible.

‘I don’t believe you, Harry!’ she cried in fury. ‘I thought you were different. I thought you were special but you’re not. You’re pathetic and weak and I deserve better!’

Before Harry could protest she marched out of his house and out of his life, leaving him more confused than ever.

As winter slowly thawed into spring, the ice on the birdbath in Hannah’s garden thinned until it no longer needed breaking at dawn and Rita’s crushed spirit slowly began to heal. Max put off his move to the city, his career could wait. Rita, he felt, couldn’t. They walked out along the cliffs, up and down the beach, and picnicked on the sand reading poetry together, their laughter carried on the wind with the carefree chatter of gulls. Rita kept the little cave she had shared with George a secret. She couldn’t bear to visit it. The memories within it still breathed with too much life. Max listened as she talked about George and sometimes, especially at sunset when he lost his reserve in the melting day, he would tell her about his childhood.

Rita resumed her sculpting lessons with Faye, and the family friendship that Faye had feared in danger of ruin was restored to something of its former strength. Trees had been right, but he didn’t gloat or say ‘I told you so’ for he had moved on from what he believed to have been nothing more than a tiny pothole along the path of life. Only Humphrey still felt aggrieved but he kept his resentment to himself.