The Sea Gate

by Jane Johnson

  But if we had been married and if he had come with me to Mum’s funeral, I would have felt more armoured against the world, including Evie’s sniping, which in the bigger picture is such a small thing.

  The bigger picture looms at me again, and I push it to the back of my mind, and tap our home number in the Contacts list. The ringback tone goes on and on. I can imagine the phone sounding out in the lounge of our London maisonette, echoing off the walls, the mismatched furniture, the blank TV screen, the half-drawn curtains. I let it ring on in case Eddie’s in another room, but I know he’s not there. I cut the call and try his mobile and for a moment my heart rises as I hear his hello, then falls as I realize it’s just his voicemail message. He must be in the studio, cracking on with the last pieces for the exhibition. It’s an exciting opportunity for him, and he really deserves a break, that crucial bit of luck all artists need.

  When I go back in I am relieved to find no one in the lounge, though the furniture appears to have acquired coloured stickers: white ones on the sofa, the armchair, the coffee table, the bookcase; a red one on the television and the Georgian mirror that was Granny Jo’s. I frown. Somewhere overhead the joists creak: James up in the attic, rummaging for anything saleable amongst the detritus of our mother’s stored hopes and faded dreams.

  Forcing myself to my task, I discard the catalogues and junk mail into a bin bag and stack up the official-looking letters. I have got through over half of the pile before I come upon a pale blue envelope addressed in an emphatic hand to Mrs Geneviève Young.

  I slit it open. Inside are two folded sheets of Basildon Bond, covered in erratic handwriting.

  Dearest Jenny

  Someone who knows Mum well, then, to use that rare, affectionate shortening.

  I must ask you to come down RIGHT AWAY.

  This is so savagely underlined that the pen’s nib has gone right through the paper.

  They are talking about putting me away, the devils, in one of those establishments so erroneously referred to as ‘care homes’. But I DO NOT want to go. I may be ninety-odd, and I dare say there are some who would place the emphasis on ‘odd’, but I am not losing my marbles! Chynalls is my home. My BELOVED home. I was born in this house and I am determined to die in it! THEY WILL HAVE TO CARRY ME OUT OF HERE FEET FIRST!

  It is a frightful nuisance not to be able to get up the stairs. The deterioration of the flesh is a grim business. Trips to the privy are getting to be as bad as Polar treks. I always hated the cold. Hot countries hold far greater appeal. I walked in the Sahara Desert once…

  Who is this person? I turn to the last page to find a florid signature beneath the words Your cousin, Olivia Kitto, the K looping as madly as an inky Elizabethan capital. The name jolts a distant memory – a long-ago family holiday redolent of seaweed and saltwater. Rock pools and shrimping nets, the rub of a sandy towel on my thighs. The letterhead reads: Chynalls, Porth Enys, Cornwall. No postcode, as if the house is in Narnia, not part of the modern world at all.

  Batty old biddy. I can hear Dad’s voice. Queer old bird.

  Did we visit her? Yes, I remember it now, that long-ago Cornish visit. A hazy image of an enormous house, a smell that stings the nose, a strange sense of apprehension…

  I need your help in getting Chynalls in order so that I can stay in my own house. Social Services say I must have a proper bathroom. Proper bathroom!! Who are they to determine what is proper and what is not? Ridiculous RED TAPE! I’m perfectly fine with a lick and a spit. I lived through a war, I told them. We didn’t have hot baths and power showers then. A fig for all their HEALTH & SAFETY! And they had the gall to complain about Gabriel, too! My only companion for all these years! Dirty and unhygienic, they called him.

  Chynalls was beautiful once, and I suppose I was too. Both of us are rather decrepit now. There’s not much you can do to get me lickity spit but, Jenny dear, I need your help to get the house shipshape. Humilitas occidit superbiam and all that, but I am forced to throw myself on your mercy, since you are my only living relatives, you and your little girl, charming manners, name escapes me. I CAN TRUST NO ONE ELSE! They circle like vultures. If you come down we shall see them off! We must keep them AT BAY. When you arrive I will tell you all. You can stay in the upstairs rooms: they are COMPLETELY PRISTINE!

  The capital letters, underlinings and incomprehensible Latin are alarming, but I begin to feel sorry for her: an elderly woman, beset by illness and infirmity and the complex manoeuvrings of social services. It must have been hard for her to overcome her pride enough to cry out for help.

  ‘What’s that?’

  James appears, burdened by a large cardboard box. I fold the letter away. ‘Oh, nothing, a note from some old biddy.’ Daddy’s word.

  I watch him put the box down and his shirt rides up out of his trousers. Red chinos: who wears red canvas trousers in their thirties? Husbands of Tory councillors, I suppose.

  ‘What have you found?’ I ask.

  ‘Usual rubbish. Did you know she even kept those hideous old dining room curtains from the old house, the ones with the giant poppies on them?’

  I do know. Mum was constantly promising them to me, when you and Eddie buy a place of your own. Another lump forms in my throat. ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘Some personal papers. I suppose we ought to go through them to make sure there’s nothing important before the house clearance people come in.’

  ‘House clearance? But we haven’t even discussed…’

  My brother shrugs. ‘It’s the only practical solution, Becks. I mean, we have our lives elsewhere: us down in Surrey and you in London. We can’t keep running up and down to Warwick, and life moves on, you know. There will be a ton of admin to do, and you know that’s not your forte… That’s exactly why Mum asked me and Evie to deal with everything.’

  So Mum had specifically invited Evie to come here, into her inner sanctum. My sinuses burn and I blink and blink. Tears slide out of the corners of my eyes and spill, scalding.

  ‘Oh God, you see? Mum knew you wouldn’t cope with it. “Let Rebecca choose any of the jewellery or paintings she wants to keep,” she said. “And then get rid of the rest. I know there’s nothing worth keeping.”’

  Nothing worth keeping. So Mum knew all along she was living a half-life among the decaying fragments of our broken family life. All that pain and betrayal, cruelty and sadness. I feel my heart may crack open.

  James is still talking, individual words leaping out of a blur of sound.

  ‘… counterpart lease… grant of representation… insurance documents…’

  I brush my hand across my cheeks, wiping the tears away, and make an effort to concentrate.

  ‘… make a stab at the probate value of the estate and get all the forms filled in. Just check through this lot and see if there’s anything we need to keep.’

  And he’s off again, to check on Evie and her progress through the bedrooms.

  I go back to Olivia Kitto’s letter. Such a lovely name. I didn’t know we had Kittos in the family: a proper Cornish cousin. Poor old woman, beset by officious nitpickers in her hour of need, reaching out to my mother – too late. I scan the first page but there’s no date on it, and the postmark on the envelope is smudged. I wonder how long it’s been sitting here. Weeks, maybe? Perhaps she’s already in a home, or worse, passed away. But what if she’s not? What if she’s trapped in hospital waiting for her last living relative to rescue her?

  A mad thought strikes me. Perhaps I could step into Mum’s shoes and prove I am not completely useless. I could nip down to Cornwall to find out what needs to be done, see if I can help in any way. And let Olivia know that Mum is dead, poor old dear. I need something positive to focus on, and the universe has provided. It’s a gift, isn’t it? A gift to both Olivia and to me, both of us beset and bereaved.

  Filled with new energy, I burn through the rest of the mountain of post, filling a bag with rubbish, and placing the remaining official letters into a neat pile. In a heap
of correspondence beside Mum’s armchair I find more letters from our Cornish cousin. I am just sifting through these when James and Evie reappear, James with more full bin bags, Evie with a cardboard box. James deposits the bags in the hall, then comes back in, rubbing his hands on his trousers. ‘We’d better get cracking,’ he says.

  ‘The town planner and her husband are coming for dinner tonight,’ Evie says brightly over the top of the box. ‘I was going to put them off, but sometimes it’s good to have practical things to focus on, don’t you think?’

  I am so gobsmacked I can’t find any words. I just look at my twin in disbelief. To give him some credit, he looks abashed. ‘Sorry, Becks. Life goes on, eh?’

  I swallow, and nod. Getting to my feet, I add the pile of official correspondence to the cardboard box.

  ‘Can I give you a lift to the station?’ James asks.

  I shake my head. ‘I’ll hang on here for a bit.’

  Evie leans forward to give me an air kiss and I can smell her perfume – something musky and expensive, tainted by the lingering trace of rubber gloves. ‘I left your mother’s jewellery box on the bed,’ she says, nodding back towards the bedroom. ‘It’s all cheap costume stuff but you may want to keep something out of sentimental value. Oh and,’ she hands the box to James then reaches into her handbag and gives me the roll of red stickers. ‘You may want to put these on the paintings you don’t want the clearance chaps to take.’ She pulls away. ‘And you know, dear, you shouldn’t smoke…’ A meaningful pause.

  I stare hotly at the sticky labels, then at James.

  ‘Take care of yourself, sis,’ he says, then shoulders his way out of the narrow door, and just like that they are gone. I can almost feel the apartment sigh in relief, its violations at an end.

  I go into Mum’s room. It shows little trace of Evie’s depredations, but when I open the wardrobe doors, there is nothing left inside but the smell of camphor and a couple of dozen empty hangers. The jewellery box lies on the floral duvet covering the bed where Mum has not lain for two months. There is nothing left of her, nothing left but absence itself. Disconsolately, I open the box and gaze at the meagre contents: strands of coloured beads, a coral necklace with a broken clasp, an old cameo brooch, some rings. I remember Mum wearing this one: a dress ring with a long green stone set in silver. When I pick it up I am suddenly assailed by her perfume. Je Reviens by Worth. I will return. Except she won’t, not ever. I remember her wearing this ring so clearly, holding her hand out to admire it. ‘Who cares if it’s not valuable?’ she said. ‘It could have come out of a cracker and I’d still love it. You should never wear jewellery you don’t love.’

  Oh, Mum. I put it away: a keepsake.

  Going to her bedroom window, I press my hand against the pane, my breath making a bloom on the glass, just in time to see James’s Lexus disappear at the junction. My splayed fingers look like a plea for help and the little winking stone in my ‘engagement’ ring seems to mock me.

  I call Eddie’s number one more time, and one more time I get his voicemail. ‘Hi there, it’s me, Becks,’ I tell the message recorder. ‘Look, it’s a bit complicated, and I’ll explain properly when we speak, but I’m going to Cornwall for a few days. It’s a family thing. It’ll give you time to finish the final preparations for the show.’ I pause. ‘Eddie? I wish you’d been able to come with me.’ I tap the red phone icon and stare at the screen. I wish I hadn’t said the last bit. It sounds whiny, needy; weak.

  Am I making a foolish, even dangerous, mistake? Or is this the chance to do something for someone worse off than me? Though perhaps she isn’t worse off than me. After all, this cousin, this Olivia Kitto, is ancient and I’ve barely lived at all.

  No self-pity, you’re stronger than you think, darling.

  Sometimes it’s as if Mum’s voice is right there inside my head.

  You know, my engagement ring really is hideous. I’ve never even liked it, let alone loved it. I lick my finger, tug and twist, and force it over swollen, reddening flesh until at last it comes off. It lies in my palm, two curlicues of cheap nine-carat gold joined by a single zircon. Thirty quid, from a cheap jewellery chain that no longer exists, bought because… I can’t even remember exactly why. The only way Eddie and I could book a hotel room? An empty gesture? A joke? Certainly, it wasn’t meant to be a proper engagement ring, binding two hearts together for all time, though I so wanted it to be, so there it has been all this time, a small and tawdry lie.

  Without it, my hand looks naked, the skin pale.

  But I feel unshackled.

  2

  ‘ARE YOU SURE THIS IS THE PLACE?’ I LOOK UP AT THE house, indistinct against a wooded hill. Grey granite, grey trees merging into a grey, grey sky.

  The taxi driver mutters something. I am too strung out after the journey, which has taken the best part of eight hours, including two changes and a lot of running up and down station stairs with my luggage, on the fraying edge of missing every train, to ask him to repeat himself. I have spent much of the journey trying to convince myself that my decision is a good one, but it seemed increasingly unlikely as the train crawled through the longest county in the country, making every mile count.

  ‘Fifteen seventy-five,’ the driver says, possibly again, and not even with a ‘please’. Unbelievable! We have come only three miles.

  I hand over a precious twenty-pound note and defiantly take all the change. The driver huffs out of the car, pops the boot, and wrestles my case out onto the side of the road where it promptly falls over. Without setting it upright, or offering a word of farewell, he gets back into the car, slams the door, performs an angry five-point turn and drives off down the unmade road, leaving a swirling cloud of dust in his wake.

  The gate below the house bears no name: I don’t even know if this is the right place. The house regards me from brooding blank windows.

  I get my phone out to let Eddie know I’ve arrived. There is, of course, no signal. The sense that I am making a monumental mistake begins to mount up. What do I know about helping an elderly lady? I’ve made such a mess of my own life, it is sheer hubris to think I can take on someone else’s problems. But it seems there is no immediate choice than to go up to the house and say hello, tell her the sad news. And maybe then I can call for a taxi and flee.

  Tugging my case, I step through the gate and forge a path through the vegetation. Clusters of bright orange flowers flame above shanks of pale, bladed leaves; brambles snake out to snag my coat. Somewhere in the midst of all this I can smell lavender.

  At last, huffing from the effort, I reach a shanty of a porch whose indeterminate shade of paint has flaked back to silvered wood. The corpses of long-dead insects twist in thick corner webs. Dusty shelves sit to either side of the structure, stacked with bric-a-brac. Panels of stained glass flank an old-fashioned doorbell which, nervously, I ring. The bell makes a tired ratcheting noise as if I have set off some dysfunctional mechanical on the other side. The sound is met only by a watchful silence as if the house is holding its breath, waiting for me to give up and go away. Then a harsh voice shrieks, ‘Bugger off, arsehole!’

  Shocked, I take a step backwards, and trip over my suitcase. I lunge for the porch frame to steady myself, but fall backwards anyway. A loud splintering sound is followed by a long moment of imminence, as if some key part of the world hangs in the balance, then the whole rickety structure comes down with a groan, showering me in shards of rotten wood and glass. Rolling sideways, I manage to get out of the way just before the porch’s pitched roof lands like a miniature pyramid amid the carnage.

  Sitting up, I register that I have a sore tailbone and a grazed palm. My right ankle throbs. I test it, circling my foot. Not broken. I stare up at the house, at the naked patch of granite that has been sheltered by the porch for, no doubt, centuries, through the rise and fall of kings and queens and two world wars, and feel sick.

  Despite the noise, the door remains closed and no face appears at the dark windows, and after a
time it becomes clear no one is coming out.

  My belongings have sprung out of my suitcase and strewn themselves down the steps: a spill of knickers, make-up and spare clothes mingling with escaped letters and notebooks. And then the sky turns black, and rain comes pelting down, soaking everything in an instant.

  I stumble down the steps, half blinded by weather, swearing in frustration, and quickly gather the letters before they can be ruined or fly off into the storm. So intent am I, that I do not hear footsteps until a pair of feet comes into view, clad in a pair of huge, scuffed brogues tied with mismatched laces.

  Pushing wet hair out of my eyes, I stare up into a face as wrinkled as an old russet apple, haloed by a misshapen golf umbrella with two or three broken struts hanging down.

  ‘Mind the stingers, bird,’ this person says and holds out something black and green.

  My most fancy knickers, a strand of stinging nettle tangled in the leg opening. Grasping the nettle is something I have consistently failed to do in my life and now is no exception. I burst into tears.

  ‘Ah, don’t take on.’ The umbrella-holder stuffs the underwear into a pocket and extends a large hand. ‘The Lord sends such travails to try our faith.’

  I force a grin. ‘I’m fine, really.’

  ‘That’s splann. Upsadaisy.’

  A hand snakes under my armpit. Shocked by this unwanted intimacy, I shoot to my feet, cradling the broken suitcase, clothes lolling out of it like intestines from a slit belly. ‘I’m sorry about the porch,’ I say.

  The person stoops to pick up the basket. ‘It were only held together by spider-thread and memories.’

  Is this Olivia Kitto? She, or he, certainly looks old enough. But if it is Cousin Olivia, then who shouted the obscenity?

  It’s as if the embrogued person has read my thoughts. ‘I’m Jeremiah Sparrow. Folk call me Jem,’ he says, covering me with the broken umbrella, though it is far too late for this courtly gesture. ‘And who are you? She never been one for welcoming strangers.’