Another Life

by Sara MacDonald

  He stopped. Gabby’s face seemed to shrink. Her eyes were huge as she listened to him in shock. Nell had come in the scullery door and was taking her boots off when Charlie’s beer bottle hit the corner of the kitchen wall. She stood frozen, unable to believe Charlie’s words.

  Gabby gripped the edge of the work surface. So this is how he feels. This is how he has always felt. Here it is out in the open at last.

  ‘Yes, I was grateful to Nell for taking me in, I loved her from the very first moment. I was happy here, but I would have been grateful to anyone or for anything in the beginning.

  ‘My mother used to bring drunken men back from the pub or the club. They used to come to my room, so I slept in the bathroom with the door locked, but one broke the door down … I was fifteen. My mother did not believe me. Then I came daffodil picking and Nell looked after me, and then you came home and you were Nell and Ted’s son so I trusted you, thought you must be safe. But you did exactly the same as the man did to me in the bathroom, so I knew it must be me, I was a bad person who asked for it.

  ‘You said you were drunk and you were sorry and you married me, and I was grateful all over again. I tried to be everything a wife should be and I used to pretend you loved me and we were fine and it was fine, all the time, except in bed. You take. You don’t love. You take without a word. Never a word. I have lived with you for twenty-four years and you have never spoken a word of love. It has always felt like rape, not by a stranger, but by someone I know well.

  ‘You are angry because I was going to leave you for someone who loved me beyond anything. He’s gone, but I will never ever regret knowing what love is. Real, painful, truthful love and respect for what I am. What I am.

  ‘I’m glad you said what you said, Charlie, because we both know the truth of it now. I’m sad for you, sad, because you don’t know what love is and that is a tragedy … I may have come from nothing, but I have loved you and Josh and Nell as much as I ever can …’

  Gabby moved slowly out of the room and pulled herself up the stairs. She lay carefully on Josh’s bed. She felt as if she might break in half. She would go as soon as she got her strength back.

  Charlie was horrified at his words, that had come spouting and pouring venomously out into the light of day. Why did he say what he had never consciously thought? What had he just done?

  He jumped as Nell came slowly into the room. She was white and shocked and looked at him as if he was a stranger. Charlie knew she must have heard. He moved for the door without speaking.

  Nell said, ‘Remember as you go about your work, the words that you have just used to the mother of your son. You think Gabby broke up this marriage. Take a long look at yourself, Charlie. You wonder what Josh will think about Gabby leaving. I wonder what Josh would think if he could have heard what you have just said. I thank God he didn’t. Gabby owes us nothing. We owe her everything. She has given everything of herself she had to give. She has given me more happiness and friendship than I had a right to. Every single day of the last twenty-four years I have given thanks that she walked down the lane of our farm. I have never told her, but I’m going to tell her now.’

  Nell made for the stairs. ‘I don’t think the puzzle is that Gabby is leaving you after twenty-odd years, but how she stayed so long. Charlie, have you ever taken responsibility for the wicked and dishonourable thing you did? Did you think by marrying Gabby it absolved you from any acceptance or memory of it?’

  Charlie was silent. He walked to the door, crossed the yard and hoisted himself into his Land Rover, then rattled down the lane towards the pheasant pens. Words could never be unsaid. You could never backtrack and press erase. He saw her face again. Those shocked eyes. He swallowed hard and wiped at his eyes with his hand. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  Nell sat heavily on Josh’s bed. Gabby was still breathing very hard, harsh little breaths. Nell did not say a word. She picked up Gabby’s hand and placed it firmly between her own and held it there. Gabby’s eyes were focused somewhere bleak and cold and unimaginable. A place that a Canadian had been able to banish altogether. Nell was afraid suddenly for this beloved girl who determinedly and bravely put it all behind her. Who tried so hard to be the perfect wife and mother. Charlie had just tried to wipe it all away in a second.

  Nell cried softly, hardly knowing she did so, and Gabby looked up, came back from the place she’d been and touched Nell’s face.

  ‘Nell, don’t cry. Oh, don’t cry. I’m all right. Really, I’m all right.’

  Chapter 70

  Elan said one morning, ‘Gabby, darling, I think we must start to be a little practical. It’s been worrying me. You still have things in Mark’s London house. I think we ought to go and get them. It’s possible you have no legal right to be there. Did he own the house?’

  ‘He rented it from an English aunt but she died at the beginning of the year and left it to him. Elan, I was going to go back there for a while. I know you must have had enough of me …’

  ‘Put that thought out of your head, Gabby. I just think if Mark’s family turned up …’

  ‘They won’t, Elan. They didn’t know about the London house. Mark wanted peace and a place to work, uninterrupted.’

  ‘All the same, I do think you should be aware that when his affairs are wound up, the house will come into it. I expect he has an English solicitor who will be involved in the disposal of it.’

  Gabby stared at him, aghast. Soon I will not even have the space we occupied. Mark has a wife and family and solicitors and wills and paperwork to be dealt with, and a funeral I knew nothing about and a place to rest I will never see.

  ‘I’m sorry, child. I know I’m being horribly realistic.’

  Gabby thought of Mark’s message on the answer-phone, their personal things, his desk, hers. The sheets were still on the bed. His clothes still lay in the drawers and wardrobe. She was not ready to dismantle that life they shared. She was not ready.

  ‘I will go up. I will remove my personal things. But not yet, Elan.’

  ‘I’ll drive you up when you feel ready,’ Elan said, unwilling to let the business with the house go. Bad enough your husband dying suddenly without finding out he had an English mistress.

  ‘Gabs, forgive me nagging, but … I think you should go and see Nell and Charlie. You owe it to them, don’t you think?’

  He watched Gabby grow even paler. ‘I’ve been. I saw Charlie. It was awful, Elan.’

  ‘Child, I’m sorry. What about Nell?’

  ‘Nell is … Nell. Not a word of condemnation, but, oh, she is so sad …’

  Gabby looked out at the cold winter sea. ‘It’s bloody, hurting people when you can’t make it all right. Elan, both Mark and I were not leaving our families easily or without regret, we were leaving because we loved each other so much we could not live without each other …’

  ‘I know, child. I know.’

  Elan watched the tears collect and roll silently down her cheeks. She was so broken and he could do nothing but watch and be practical. Throughout her married life he had looked on while she had waited on Charlie, spoilt Josh, and worried and cared for Nell. All her life she had been the biddable, self-effacing wife, fitting in with everyone else, trying not to take up too much space in their world. A world she had been allowed to enter with such evident relief.

  ‘Have you thought at all about what you might do, Gabby?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Only that I will go back to London. Lucinda wrote to me. There is work if I want it.’

  ‘That’s good. You know you can use my London flat for as long as you like. Now I wouldn’t offer that to everyone!’

  Gabby gave him a watery smile and got up from the table. She knew she must be depressing to live with.

  ‘Thanks, Elan. I’m going to walk into St Piran. John has something to show me.’

  ‘Is it to do with your figurehead?’

  ‘I think so. He wouldn’t tell me over the phone.’

  ‘You can take my car, darling.’
>
  ‘Thanks, Elan, but Shadow and I will walk, won’t we, girl?’

  Gabby bent and pulled the dog’s long ears and looked into her intelligent face.

  ‘Come on, I’m not going to leave you. We’ll walk together. A good long walk.’

  Elan smiled. Clever Nell.

  John led the way into his study where stacks of books, papers and bound documents made the going treacherous.

  ‘I will start from the beginning, Gabrielle. There has been an ongoing dispute between the Church Commission and the county council for months about an area of land just beyond the bottom of the vicarage garden. You can see it from this window, an almost perfect semicircle. The Church Commission insist the land was bought with the house and has been consecrated at some point. The council are equally insistent it is common ground and want to build on that field and the one behind it.

  ‘We … the church, that is, have earmarked it for a further graveyard and are fighting them. This has meant going through all the old deeds relating to the house …’ he swept his arms over his study floor, ‘… which my solicitor held, because, Gabrielle, I bought the vicarage from the Church in 1991 when my parents died and left me a little money …

  ‘My dear girl, some of these documents make fascinating reading. It is all here because one family, the Magors, Gabrielle, the Magors, kept it for generations as a holiday home and handed it down. It has been neglected and modernized, bits pulled down, rooms put up … But that isn’t all … Come over to my desk. Look what I unexpectedly found …’

  John was hardly pausing for breath and his excitement was catching.

  ‘Isabella Magor bought this house from her husband Richard Magor in 1867! I looked up the census for that year and Isabella was in this house!’

  Gabby stared at John. ‘You’re joking?’

  ‘No, I’m not! She left it to her son, Thomas Magor. Look at the brackets, Gabrielle.’

  There it was: (Thomas Magor, later known as Thomas Welland for the purpose of this document.)

  Gabby looked down at the document in astonishment. She heard Mark’s voice. There is a little trail and sometimes, if you are lucky, it all comes together, all the threads begin to tie up to give us a glimpse of a life.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, John Bradbury said, ‘Wouldn’t Mark have loved this clue sitting here under our very noses?’

  ‘Oh, he would have been so thrilled. Look, John, in Isabella’s day it was called the Summer House.’

  Isabella’s Summer House. Was this where she ran? Was this her refuge?

  ‘Is there more, John?’

  ‘Not yet. But it should all be here, somewhere, who the house was handed down to. The records are not in order, though, so it is a time-consuming job. I’m hoping we can find out when she died and when the deeds were made over to her son. Then we might find where she is buried. All the documents relating to the house seem to have been kept. Peter is helping me to go through them and I wondered if you might be interested in helping me too, Gabrielle? It is sad Mark is not here, my dear girl …’

  Gabby swallowed and said quickly, ‘John, this is so strange … Of course I’ll help. I’d love to.’ Here was something to do, something to hold on to, part of the life they shared.

  ‘Come with me, there is something else I want to show you.’

  John led the way outside and round the house towards the stables.

  ‘It was turned into a vicarage just after the war. Thomas Magor’s descendants must have sold it to the church. There are many additions. Once it was a square little Cornish teapot house. This small wing was for servants I suppose. I turned it into a little cottage flat and I rent it for sixpence to clergy and those too poor to afford a holiday. I wondered, if it is not an imposition, whether you would like to stay while you help me go through all the deeds?’

  Gabby stared at the little stone-walled house with Virginia creeper climbing over the sides and up the roof. It faced south into a cobbled courtyard and Gabby suddenly felt strange, as if she had seen the house somewhere before.

  ‘Would you like to see inside?’ John asked, and his voice seemed to come from a long way away.

  ‘I’d love to.’

  Inside, John had modernized it beautifully. A small ground floor flat with a wood-burning stove, light curtains and polished floors. There were pictures on the walls and ornaments dotted around. It did not look like a rented place, but a home someone had just walked out of. She could feel the age of the place, the stillness, as if the air had stopped moving and the house waited in a silence that seemed to wrap itself around her.

  ‘I’d love to stay here. I’d love to.’ She was unable to hide her excitement. ‘It’s a beautiful little cottage, John.’

  ‘Well, I thought, why shouldn’t the poor have lovely things around? So far no one has trashed this place, just loved being in it for a while.’

  Shadow had refused to go into the house and stood at the door, growling under her breath.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Shadow,’ Gabby said. ‘John, would Shadow be able to come with me, or is that too much to ask?’

  John stroked the dog. ‘Ordinarily I don’t allow dogs. But I know Shadow is impeccably behaved, aren’t you, girl? So yes, Gabby. Come whenever you like. If you need a lift with your things – I know you haven’t a car – just ring me.’

  ‘John, you’re being very kind, thank you.’ Gabby smiled wryly. ‘You’ll be helping Elan out. I know I’ve been gloomy company.’

  ‘My dear girl … we are your friends. How about letting us be just that while you heal?’

  Gabby was touched. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Forgive me, it is too soon to say this, I know. But do you think there is any chance of salvaging your marriage? I’ve known you both for such a long time. Sometimes long relationships need a wake-up call.’

  ‘No, John, I’m afraid not. I fell in love with someone else.’

  Gabby left the vicarage and crossed the road and walked straight up the cliff path. She stopped for a minute and looked to her left down at St Piran’s quay and the ruins of the old shipyards which now housed speedboats, yachts under repair and a small chandlery and car park. Some little shops dotted the quay, selling touristy beach ware and fishing nets. All shut now the season had ended.

  She turned to walk back to Elan along the coastal path. In winter the coves and harbour on this coast were particularly dangerous; huge waves crashed over the quay and the road leading to it. Visitors were warned not to walk along the quay at high tide and Gabby knew it had been the scene of a few suicides.

  She looked down at a rough sea rolling in on huge waves and crashing against the rocks with a sound like thunder. It made her feel small and insignificant.

  I can wallow or I can go forward.

  Mark is dead. He is dead and the life she had envisaged had vanished. She would never get over his death, but she could live the working life she would have led with him. Leaving this, Cornwall, her friends, for a life in London made her quail, but she knew it had to be done. For Charlie and for herself.

  Both Lucinda and Elan had offered her a base from which to start. Gabby trembled as she looked out on a familiar landscape that had been the greater part of her life. Suddenly, she could not think beyond the terror of the bleak reality of London alone without Mark. A whole long life without him.

  Her brief spark of optimism faded. She walked fast, her face up to the wind, salt and gusty, grabbing her breath as she hurried.

  Elan smiled at her excitement about Isabella and was relieved. Good, John had given Gabby something else to think about. He looked down at her gaunt little face. Thought how bleak and lonely the future must look to her.

  ‘Take small steps and don’t look too far ahead, darling. Nell and I will always be here,’ he said gently. ‘Stay at the vicarage for a while. Do your research. It connects you to Mark, doesn’t it? Little clues to something he started.’

  Gabby went to hug him and he felt the thinness of her small bones.r />
  ‘You always know the right thing to say, Elan.’

  The following day, Gabby and Shadow drove with Elan and the minimum of possessions and moved into the Summer House. A tiny place of her own. To be still for a while, to heal. A place where Isabella once lived.

  Chapter 71

  The sparrows woke Isabella each morning. They came to catch the small flies under the eaves. She lay and watched them as they noisily bobbed about the window. They were so busy and cheerful they made her smile.

  She had chosen the little room Lisette used as a sewing room to have her baby. She had noticed how private and warm it was, for the pale winter sun entered the windows which looked out on the courtyard and the unused stables beyond.

  Isabella had had a cough for weeks. It was partly to do with the weather, for as soon as they moved here the mists descended. The damp penetrated all and the vicious winds chapped her face and froze her hands. She had forgotten how Godforsaken and bitter a winter could be.

  Isabella’s contentment lay in the knowledge that winter would not last. Spring would come and with it, God willing, her baby. The mists would lift and the months pass to the day when Tom would send for her and their child and they would sail for their new life together. She would be warm again and the damp would cease to penetrate her bones.

  Daniel Vyvyan began to visit her, with Charlotte at first and then he occasionally rode over on his own when he had business with Ben Welland. It was hard for them both to begin with. Isabella had hung on to bitterness and hurt for so long, and Daniel had had so little to do with Isabella as an adult that he hardly knew what to say to her. But each time it grew easier.

  Isabella saw how old he was getting. His thin shoulders protruded from his jacket and she felt the stab of tenderness she used sometimes to feel as a child. He sent food from the house and fruit. He made sure she always had logs for the fire and worried about her constant cough. Isabella began to learn there were many ways of loving for those who found words difficult.