The Swallow and the Hummingbird (44 page)

‘Only in the shop,’ said Susan, acknowledging the old woman with forced politeness.

‘Well, you haven’t met me,’ interjected Reverend Hammond, extending his large, sweaty hand. Susan shook it reluctantly.

‘What a charming service,’ she said, desperate to distract Miss Hogmier from their previous meeting.

‘Thank you, Susan. How very nice of you to say so. I’ve been a vicar for a good many years now so I’ve had some practice. But it’s always nice to hear that one is doing a good job. I knew George as a little boy. How time flies. How long have I been a vicar, June?’ he asked Miss Hogmier.

The old woman squinted and frowned. ‘My mind’s failing me,’ she complained gruffly. ‘Forty years, Elwyn? Not only am I losing the mobility in my fingers and the agility of my joints but I’m now losing my mind as well.’

‘You’ve run the shop since I can remember,’ said George, endeavouring to humour her.

‘That I have,’ she replied, lifting her chin and displaying three long black whiskers. ‘There’s not a customer I don’t know by name. Frognal Point is full of good people. Most appreciate what I do for them.’ She fixed Susan with a hard stare.

‘Well, it’s been very nice talking to you,’ said George, stepping away. ‘We really should be getting back for lunch.’ But Miss Hogmier grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and leaned towards him. Susan held her breath.

‘What of Rita?’ she insisted. ‘When she saw your wife she dropped all her shopping. Poor unhappy girl, what a state she was in. She lives alone, see. I know what it’s like. No one to look after me either. Who’d have thought she’d end up on the shelf! Thought it was mine exclusively!’

George took Susan’s hand. ‘Oh it is, Miss Hogmier. Rita’s far too generous-spirited to knock you off it.’

His smile was so charming that Miss Hogmier didn’t know whether to be offended or flattered. She did, however, look disappointed and chewed on her dentures in dissatisfaction.

‘Darling, I was going to tell you,’ said Susan as they walked down the little path to the green where the children were playing with Freddie, Daisy and Elsbeth.

‘It’s of no consequence. Gossiping old vampire!’ They both laughed. But George felt as if Miss Hogmier had just gutted him.

Chapter 29

That night George crept out of bed, leaving Susan sleeping soundly, and tiptoed down the stairs, avoiding the squeaky floorboards. He took his father’s old coat from its peg and put it on. It still smelt of Trees, that musty smell of dust and farmyard and his own unique scent. He grabbed his cigarettes and lighter from the kitchen table, then wandered out onto the terrace. To his surprise he saw the small figure of his mother sitting huddled in the dark on one of the damp garden chairs, her hands wrapped around a steaming cup of hot milk. Her fingers shone white in the phosphorescent light of the moon. When he appeared in the doorway she looked up, but she was not surprised to see him. How often they had met on that terrace in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, tormented by dreams.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked as he sat down on the chair beside her.

He leaned forward and sighed heavily. ‘Tell me about Rita,’ he asked, placing the cigarette between his lips and flicking his lighter.

‘I thought it would make you feel guilty.’

‘I appreciate that,’ he replied. ‘But I want to know. I still care about her, Ma.’ He exhaled like a gentle dragon. He cared more than he dared admit to anyone.

‘She has never got over you, George. I’m afraid that’s the sad truth.’ He stared out across the garden, which was strewn with leaves that caught the light and rustled in the breeze.

‘Susan saw her in the village shop. She was so upset she dropped her shopping. So Miss Hogmier says.’

‘Don’t believe everything that old gossip tells you,’ his mother said acerbically.

‘But she does live alone?’

‘Well, she has her dog.’

‘Where?’

‘The other side of Bray Cove. She works in the library.’

‘Still?’ George was shocked that Rita had allowed her life to stagnate.

‘Yes, she runs it now. Actually, she doesn’t mope around, George, she’s very active organizing events there. She’s met some fascinating authors, all through Max who seems to know everyone. He’s done so well for himself. To think he arrived in this country with nothing. He made it big in radio and then became a television producer. He’s a very talented man and Frognal Point’s finest export.’

George felt a prickle of jealousy. Little Max had grown up. ‘Is he married?’

‘No. Of course he’s always in the papers with a pretty girl on his arm, but he’s yet to settle down. These refugees are damaged souls, George,’ she said thinking of Thadeus. ‘They need a very special sort of woman. I hope he finds happiness, he deserves to. He does an enormous amount for others.’

George was anxious to steer the conversation back to Rita. ‘Does she still sculpt?’

‘Yes, she does. And she’s rather good. I never thought she had that much talent, but unhappiness can do wonders for one’s creativity.’ Faye should know: her best works had been inspired by Thadeus or Trees – since his death.

‘Why wasn’t she at church? She never used to miss it.’

Faye took a sip of her milk. ‘I suppose she doesn’t want to see you,’ she replied after a while.

‘You really think so?’ He stared at her with a wounded look in his eyes.

‘Perhaps if you were on your own . . . but it’s natural that she wouldn’t want to see you and Susan together. Remember, she’s hurt.’

‘Still? After all these years?’ He shook his head in disbelief. Never did he expect her to hold onto him for so long. He felt the incision made by Miss Hogmier slice even deeper, then a shameful satisfaction that in spite of the years that had passed, she still belonged to him.

Faye put a hand on his arm and flinched suddenly, for the familiar feel of Trees’ sheepskin coat caused an unexpected pang of regret. ‘Leave her,’ she advised softly. ‘It’s better that way.’

‘I have no choice,’ he groaned. But he didn’t mean it.

‘Why are you out here?’ he asked. ‘Are you missing Pa?’

‘You’re wearing his coat,’ she said, stroking it. ‘I haven’t thrown anything away. If there’s anything you want you know you can choose.’

‘It’s too soon. It wouldn’t feel right. Can I look after his walnuts though?’

‘Of course you can. I’d like to but I don’t know how.’

‘He loved those trees.’

‘It was one of his beloved trees that killed him. You know, I miss his company. You don’t really appreciate someone until they’re gone. Often we’d go for days without really speaking and yet he was a warm presence around the house. I never felt alone, just lonely. Does that make sense?’

‘Not really,’ he replied. She wanted to tell him about Thadeus, how he satisfied the part of her that Trees neglected.

‘Sometimes I thought your father loved those silly trees more than he loved me. Can you imagine being jealous of a crop of walnut trees? It seems ludicrous now.’

‘No it doesn’t,’ he said. Suddenly the image of her riding her bicycle out of the farm in the middle of the night rose up again in his mind and he longed to ask her about it. But he held back, it didn’t seem fair to intrude unless she volunteered.

‘Towards the end we moved around the place like a couple of shadows, barely communicating at all. Now I wish I had made more of an effort to reach him.’

‘No regrets, Ma. He knew you loved him.’

‘I hope he did. If I had been there when he was struck perhaps I could have told him.’

‘Where exactly were you?’ He could feel the anxiety surround her like a thick miasma. She hesitated, scratched her neck and put down her cup on the garden table in front of her chair. The ground suddenly felt less solid beneath his feet.

‘I had been making a sculpture for an old man in the village.’ There was a long pause while George put all the pieces of this mysterious puzzle together.

‘What is his name?’

Faye barely dared breathe. She knew he knew. ‘Thadeus Walizhewski.’

He nodded in recognition of the name, although like most others in the village, he had never met him. ‘And you’re in love with him?’

Still his mother didn’t move. ‘Yes,’ she replied in a whisper.

Now everything made sense. The solidity of his parents’ marriage had been an illusion. As a child the fabric of his parents’ marriage had never been questioned; now, as a man, he saw the holes in the weave only too well. But he didn’t blame his mother for finding love elsewhere. Who was he to pass judgement? He was as flawed as she was. She had loved Trees
and
Thadeus. George was beginning to understand that it was possible to love two people at the same time for entirely different reasons and in completely different ways. He loved Susan and yet, now he was back in Frognal Point a part of his heart that had been asleep for a very long time was beginning to stir.

A couple of weeks went by. George took over the running of the farm, which kept him busy for so much had changed since the war. He strode around in a blue boiler suit, his hands and hair covered in dust, a far cry from riding out across the plains with the gauchos. He steered the Land Rover around the farm tracks, surveying the fields with Cyril, reacquainting himself with the estate that was his inheritance. Nothing was too menial for him. He drove the tractor, swept floors, mended broken machinery, fed the animals and remembered how he had worked alongside his father as a young man. He wished he had been around when he had bought the new Massey Ferguson combine harvester. ‘His pride and joy,’ Cyril told him, stroking the green metal flank as if it were an obedient animal. ‘Chomps through the corn doing the work of a dozen men. There was always a smile on Mr Trees’ face when he was at the wheel of this beauty!’

The children started at the same school as Maddie’s children and didn’t seem to miss the sunny plains of Córdoba. But Susan did. Barely a day went by when she didn’t remember. She felt out of place in Frognal Point. The hostility she had felt at church had followed her back to Lower Farm and, however much Faye and Alice endeavoured to welcome her, she still felt as if she were watching them all through an impenetrable pane of glass. She wasn’t suited to the damp, the coastal winds and sea. She hated sailing – the rocking of the boat made her nauseous – and she detested the cold. Picnics on the beach had lost their charm. Sand not only blew into the food but seemed to penetrate her clothes and chafe her skin. She missed Agatha and Jose Antonio whose warmth had enveloped her with the hot Argentine sun.

Finally their furniture arrived from Buenos Aires and they moved into the farm cottage. Perhaps, Susan thought, if I have my own nest to feather, I’ll feel that I belong. So, with a heavy sense of
déjà vu
she scrubbed floors, painted walls and sewed curtains with Alice’s sewing machine. She didn’t have time to speculate about Rita. No one mentioned her name, out of tact, and Susan never saw her again in the village. She swept the shadows under pieces of furniture and the rugs that she laid out on the floor, transforming the cottage into a warm and elegant home.

One evening, when Susan took the children to meet Mrs Megalith, George stole the opportunity to walk the cliffs alone and smoke a cigarette in the cave that had become a symbol of everything he had once loved and let go. It was a magnificent evening. The sun was setting, dyeing the sky and fields below a rich, flamingo pink. The sea swelled like molten copper, the waves in the distance catching the light and glimmering like stars. With wistful nostalgia he walked towards the rocks where once he had carried Rita. They had been so full of joy and optimism then, blissfully unaware that their romance would die with the summer. That part of his life had been closed down. A chapter finished, collecting dust, forgotten. Perhaps one day he would teach his children about birds, perhaps Charlie would watch them and yearn to fly as he did. Or perhaps they would love different things, things they would make their own. He couldn’t expect them to live his life.

He leapt across the sand that lay between the rocks and the opening of the cave, now flooded with a few inches of water. The sight of the opening had always held such excitement for him; now it seemed neglected, overgrown, sad. Inside it was dark and cold and empty. Once it had smelt of Rita even when he had come on his own. In those days he had felt her presence so strongly, as if her body warmth had vibrated off the very walls, as if the cave itself had breathed with life. Now it was distant and angry and he felt decidedly unwelcome. Whatever spirits had occupied the place had packed up and gone.

He wanted to go to see Rita. To talk about the past, say he was sorry, tell her that he had never meant to hurt her. He loved and respected Susan. She understood him and was his equal in every sense. But at the same time there was a longing for the boy he had once been and for Rita, who had been a part of that boy.

He swept his eyes over the walls, remembering intimate moments that he hadn’t thought of in over fifteen years. He had deliberately shut them out. Now images fell about him, too many at once, and he blinked in an attempt to make sense of them. He remembered how she tasted when they kissed, the soft innocence of her skin when he ran his hands up her leg, and the sound of her laugh when she threw her neck back, exposing her pale throat for him to tease with his lips. He smelt the sweet scent of violets that she had made her own with the marshy fragrance of the sea, and his soul ached with a deep, insistent yearning.

Suddenly his attention was drawn to a shiny object, half-buried in sand, pushed up against the very back of the cave at high tide. He stood up and walked over, curious, brushed off the sand and picked it up. He recognized it at once. The little dove pendant he had bought Rita on board the
Fortuna
.

He walked slowly back up the beach, the pendant burning the pocket of his trousers. He touched it thoughtfully, reflecting on its significance. Why should he care? Why should the memory of Rita haunt him so? He had chosen to break off their engagement, to marry Susan, to start a new life the other side of the world. He had never regretted those decisions. But now he was back, he missed her.