The Swallow and the Hummingbird (45 page)

Mrs Megalith had been surprised to receive a telephone call from Susan. She hadn’t a good telephone manner, but she had a melodious voice and her accent gave her an air of sophistication that jarred with the simplicity of their small Devon village. Mrs Megalith was curious.

When they arrived Mrs Megalith was in a pair of boots and coat walking in the leaves in the garden. Susan had rung the bell several times then, when no one answered, she had walked around to the back of the house. To her surprise the garden was a large, exotic aviary. Birds in flight, their graceful wings catching the amber light as they seemed to dance on the last of the sunbeams, birds on the ground pecking at the leaves, hopping across the grass, chattering gaily to one another. The evening light slowly dimmed, setting the trees in a vibrant pink glow and turning the leaves a deep and extraordinary red. Even Charlie and Ava stood transfixed at the otherworldly sight.

‘She really is a witch,’ hissed Charlie to his sister.

‘Shhh!’ his mother chided, afraid that the old woman might hear and take offence. ‘Papa was only joking,’ she added hopefully. Charlie rolled his eyes.

When Mrs Megalith greeted them all three jumped like startled sheep.

‘Ah, Susan. Isn’t it a wonderful sight!’ she exclaimed, hobbling towards them with the help of her walking stick. ‘Love this time of day! So exhilarating watching the little feathered fellows settling down for the night.’ They didn’t appear to be doing much settling, Susan thought, but smiled and extended her hand.

‘It’s so nice to meet you at last,’ she replied. ‘These are my children, Charlie and Ava.’

‘I do love it when things go according to plan,’ said Mrs Megalith in a deep, fruity voice. She patted Charlie’s head and Ava’s eyes widened at the sight of the crystals that shone on her wrinkled old fingers. ‘What a handsome fellow we made!’ Susan laughed at Charlie’s look of terror. He remained absolutely still until she removed her hand, then ran his fingers through his hair in case she had put something in it.

‘You have a beautiful garden,’ said Susan truthfully. ‘What a stunning view of the estuary.’

‘I’m very blessed and at my ripe old age one counts one’s blessings and appreciates them. How are you settling in?’ Mrs Megalith started hobbling towards the house. Ava and Charlie, so used to running wild, now walked slowly behind her like a pageboy and bridesmaid at a wedding. ‘If it’s any consolation, I’m an outsider myself and I’ve lived here all my life.’

‘We’re doing our best. The children have started school and have made friends, with your great-grandchildren in particular,’ Susan replied. Mrs Megalith raised her eyebrows and wondered what Rita would think of that. ‘It’ll take time to adjust, especially for George. We were very happy in Argentina, but he belongs here, after all.’

‘He was a very colourful young man as I recall,’ said Mrs Megalith, opening the back door into the conservatory. Exotic plants hung from pots and a vine of grapes weaved up the walls and spread out like the roots of a tree on the ceiling. They followed her through the conservatory, down a corridor and into the drawing room where a large fire blazed beneath a mantelpiece of photographs.

Susan was at once drawn to the pictures. All framed or placed one on top of the other, they were mostly of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. ‘You have a big family,’ she commented, eyeing a picture of Antoinette and realizing at once what she had meant when she had said that she wasn’t quite related to George but almost had been before Susan had married him.

‘Like a rabbit’s friends and relations, I can barely keep up with them. You haven’t met Max, have you?’ Mrs Megalith asked, her eyes suddenly turning a paler shade of blue. Susan shook her head. ‘Now, he’s exceptional. Not only handsome but gifted too. Terribly gifted.’ Susan let the old woman ramble on while she seized upon a photograph of Rita. With her long, wild hair and soft golden eyes she looked carefree and happy. She wondered whether, if it hadn’t been for George,
she
would have allowed herself to go to pieces over John Haddon?

‘I don’t suppose you’ve met my granddaughter?’ Mrs Megalith asked, indicating with a wave of her hand that the children sit down. ‘I can’t cope with hoverers,’ she said irritably, shaking her chins at them. ‘They make me dizzy, so either settle or go and play with the cats in the hall, they don’t get much ragging around from me, I can tell you.’ Charlie and Ava left the room in silence.

‘I met her briefly in the shop but we weren’t introduced,’ Susan replied carefully.

‘Be thankful she didn’t scratch your eyes out,’ Mrs Megalith said with a snort.

Susan perched stiffly on the fireguard. ‘I don’t think our paths will cross again and why should they? I married the man she loved.’

‘Dear girl, I think she believes she still loves him. However, if she took the time to see him she’d probably realize that she loves an entirely different man. People change and I’m sure George is no longer the George she grew up with. Reality is sometimes harsh, but Rita doesn’t live there. Actually, she baffles me and I’m psychic.’

‘You’re right. George is a very different man now,’ said Susan tightly.

‘They were inseparable as children.’ Mrs Megalith didn’t realize that Susan would have preferred not to talk about Rita. ‘But George was damaged by the war and dear Rita was simply another casualty. Hitler has an awful lot to answer for. Max is an entirely different story. His tragedy is the tragedy of Europe. So many innocent lives. George believes he suffered, but he didn’t lose his family in the concentration camps like Max did.’

‘Everyone’s suffering is relative, Mrs Megalith. George lost his friends and saw some terrible things. It’s haunted him ever since.’ Susan didn’t like the old woman’s insinuations.

‘And he’s fortunate to have found happiness with you.’

‘I understand him.’

‘Of course you do, my dear.’ Mrs Megalith’s fingers toyed with the moonstone about her neck. ‘After all, he’s not that complicated, is he?’

At that moment Charlie and Ava wandered into the room. They were both grinning and nudging each other. ‘Are you a witch?’ Charlie asked with a smirk.

Susan was horrified. ‘Charlie, really!’ she scolded in embarrassment.

Mrs Megalith looked at him steadily. ‘Yes, I am,’ she said with an entirely straight face. Ava shrank back.

‘Do you cast spells?’ he asked. Susan tried to intervene, but Mrs Megalith waved her hand at her. She hadn’t had so much fun in years.

‘I do.’

‘What kind?’

Mrs Megalith leaned forward and whispered darkly. ‘You remember all those birds in the garden?’ Charlie nodded. ‘They were once outspoken little boys like you.’ Mrs Megalith turned to Susan with a grin. ‘You can tell that husband of yours that if he spreads such nonsense he must take responsibility for it.’

Charlie insisted all the way home that he hadn’t believed her. Ava teased him and called him gullible and various other names from school that Susan hadn’t heard before, while she drove in silence, unable to take her mind off Rita. Her rosy face lingered in Susan’s mind, reminding her that, as much as she tried to fit in to this coastal community, she could not. She had discovered another side to the man she thought she knew. The side that loved the same things that Rita loved. The side that belonged in Frognal Point. The side that she didn’t fit into. Like an odd piece of a jigsaw puzzle, she was simply the wrong shape.

That night she was tidying up the bedroom. George was in the bath, singing the songs Jose Antonio had sung with the gauchos at
Las Dos Vizcachas
. When she folded his trousers she heard something rattle in his pocket and pulled out the pendant. She had never seen it before. To her fury her heart began to pound. She berated herself for feeling so insecure. If she had found it in the Argentine she would have thought nothing of it. Regaining her composure she strode into the bathroom. George’s face was covered in shaving cream. He looked up at her expectantly. She held out the pendant and let it swing in front of his eyes. ‘What is this?’ she asked, trying to control the tremor in her voice.

‘I found it in a cave on the beach,’ he replied innocently.

‘Really?’

‘It was sticking out of the sand. I thought you might like it.’

She looked at it and lifted her chin. The suspicion still lingered. ‘How sweet of you, darling. Some poor girl must have lost it.’ She studied it more carefully. ‘It’s a dove, much more appropriate for a young girl, don’t you think? A girl who loves birds.’ She cast him a frosty glance. ‘I’ll give it to Ava.’ She walked out and placed it on her dressing table, wondering if she had overreacted.

George dragged the razor down his face. Suddenly he flinched as the blade nicked the skin of his chin. He sat quite still and watched as the blood dropped into the bath water.

Chapter 30

The weeks went by and winter set in, bringing with it icy fog and sharp winds. Ava wore her pendant with pride after Susan bought her a smaller chain to hang it on. George admired it then never mentioned it again and Susan scolded herself for having jumped to the wrong conclusions. The children broke up for the holidays and spent much of their time with Maddie’s children playing on the farm and building camps in the woods. Much to Susan’s surprise she and Maddie became friends. Maddie didn’t resent her like the rest of the community in spite of the fact that, out of everyone, she had the most cause. It seemed inconsequential to her that she should befriend the woman who stole the man her sister loved. They never discussed Rita. After a while Susan stopped thinking about her. She discovered that she and Maddie had a lot in common. As well as their children and Frognal Point, Maddie shared Susan’s forthright nature and sophistication, though from where she had acquired it not even her mother knew. Neither enjoyed the seaside activities so beloved by Rita and George, preferring to sit over cups of tea talking in the cosy comfort of their sitting rooms. They laughed together and stood as allies sharing stories about the ghoulish Miss Hogmier and eccentric Mrs Megalith. They both found Reverend Hammond tiresome and exchanged looks during his sermons when his mind wandered and he began to repeat himself.

George, however, was unable to forget about Rita. He noticed her absence every week in church and caught himself looking out for her when he walked on the cliffs or climbed the rocks with his children. In his mind she grew out of all proportion and Frognal Point became increasingly incomplete without her. He didn’t notice the coolness that began to permeate his marriage. Susan withdrew more and more into the lives of her children while he scanned the beach for his past.

Then, the weekend before Christmas the two families were out on the cliffs when finally he saw her. It was a bitterly cold afternoon. The sun had melted the frost and was doing its best to creep under the trees to burn off the light covering of snow that had fallen during the night. He had run on ahead with Charlie, having made a kite that was proving hard to control as it danced and dived on the wind. Charlie was delighted and shouted back at his mother to make sure that she was watching. Susan broke off her conversation with Harry and Maddie to shout back every now and then but soon they were too far away, a pair of tiny figurines silhouetted against the sky.

Finally, as they approached the cove near the secret cave, George lost his grip of the string. He watched helplessly as the kite flew into the air in triumph, only to turn and dive suddenly over the edge to catch on the rocks directly below. Charlie followed his father to the verge where they both lay on their stomachs and peered over. George stretched as far as he could but the little kite remained just beyond his reach. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We’d better wait until Harry gets here, perhaps he can help.’ At that moment his eyes were distracted by a movement down on the beach. He caught his breath and blinked to focus. She was far away in the distance but he was in no doubt that it was Rita.

He stood up. ‘Charlie, why don’t you run back and tell them we’ve lost the kite,’ he suggested. Charlie set off without hesitation, leaving George alone to watch his old love walk slowly in his direction, followed by a bouncing yellow dog. As she got bigger he could make out her long hair that blew about beneath a woolly hat pulled low over her forehead. She wore a beige coat and Wellington boots and had stuffed her hands into her pockets.

Battered about by the wind and the sudden cascade of memories, he stood high above their beach knowing that in a few moments she would raise her eyes and see him watching her. He wanted to run down the little path as he had done in his youth and talk to her but Susan and the others were now approaching, spurred on by an overexcited Charlie. He put his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. Overwhelmed by sadness he gazed helplessly as Rita’s features came into focus. Her face was impassive. Her nose was red and her skin as pale as the white throat of a tern. To George her tragedy endowed her with a beauty that in reality she did not possess and his heart lurched for what might have been. Inadvertently he romanticized her, casting her in a timeless spell that would have surely broken had he the chance to speak to her. But he did not and the spell remained complete.

Rita raised her eyes as he had expected and stopped walking. She stood quite still. Only her hair continued to dance about on the wind regardless of the sight that froze the blood in her veins. Silence seemed to descend upon the small cove where memories now merged into a surreal moment beyond the limits of time. The dog ran up and down the beach, barking at the waves that rolled onto the sand and the birds that scrounged for food. Then Rita raised her hand and her movement shattered the enchantment.

George turned to see Susan and the others now only a few feet away.

‘Now where’s that silly kite?’ Susan asked. ‘It doesn’t matter, darling. We can buy another one.’ Then she looked over the edge. At first she saw the kite lying sheltered on the rocks, its tail twisting and curling like a long snake. Then her attention was drawn to the woman standing on the beach staring up at them. It seemed a long moment before she put her hand back in her pocket and continued to walk. She didn’t look up again but kept her eyes fixed in front of her, determined not to give the American woman the satisfaction of seeing her pain. Susan recognized Rita immediately but pretended she hadn’t noticed her. ‘I think if you and Harry hold onto Charlie’s ankles you might just reach it,’ she suggested casually, but she felt as if she had been punched in the stomach.