Funny how things can change in a moment. Suddenly, there was the whisper of a management position coming up in Tylers, and the word was if she went for it they’d snap her up, no question. At least then she might be able to keep on the property ladder, even if it took all her savings and mortgaged her to full-time accountancy for the next twenty years. After all, it’s what other people did. What her friends were doing. She had been living too long in a dream world of her own. It was time to wake up. And be grateful she still had the prospect of full-time work at all.
She looked round as Rhiannon joined her.
‘I was wondering what you think Mair would prefer? I’ve made things easy, so that we can eat inside or out.’
‘She looks really settled,’ replied Carys, glad to return to immediate practicalities. ‘It seems a shame to move her, if that’s okay with you.’
‘Perfect. We’ve had so few fine evenings this summer, it seems a crime to waste them. Everything’s ready. You go and join your mam, Carys. I’ll just go and put the kettle on.’
‘I’ll help you,’ said Carys, on impulse.
‘Oh, you don’t have to. You’re a guest. Enjoy the sunshine.’
‘But I’d like to.’
‘Of course,’ said Rhiannon, smiling as Hodge emerged triumphant from the water, to shake himself in a rainbow of spray. ‘In which case, you’ll be very welcome.’
They turned to make their way up the short flight of steps to the terrace, passed by a soaking wet and highly excitable Hodge, who seemed to have already got the scent of dinner in the air.
‘Where’s your squeaky?’ demanded Rhiannon. Hodge paused; ear alert, eyes bright and intelligent. ‘Squeaky?’ Hodge blinked, expectantly, as if the object of his obsession was about to appear at any minute. ‘Well I haven’t got it.’ She pointed. ‘Go on, Hodge: go and fetch your squeaky. Fetch!’
Hodge shot off, back towards the lake.
‘It hardly seems to have changed in here at all,’ said Carys, as she followed Rhiannon into the kitchen.
‘Poor old Eden. Nothing much changes, I’m afraid, only age and dilapidation.’
‘I rather like it like this.’
‘To be truthful, so do I.’ Rhiannon opened the fridge door and reached inside. ‘But Huw is right: things can’t stay the same way forever.’
‘No,’ murmured Carys. With Rhiannon occupied in bringing out plates of sandwiches covered in cling film, Carys found herself free to look around with more open curiosity.
She’d been wrong. The kitchen had changed. Or maybe it was just that her adult, home-owning eyes noticed the damp patch on the ceiling, the broken door to the unit next to the fridge and the peeling of paint at the corners of the ceiling.
It had never been a neat room. Too much the centre of busy lives to ever be that when the boys lived there. Carys had loved its overflowing qualities, so very different from Mam’s scrupulously clean and tidy kitchen, with everything washed up and tidied away out of sight as soon as it had been finished with.
In Plas Eden’s kitchen, there were always piles of opened letters and junk mail flung into a glass dish on the sideboard, as if the household were far too busy to deal with them straight away; along with half finished sketches of Rhiannon’s, and Nainie’s hot water bottles.
And the shoes! Carys smiled to herself. They’d thinned out now, of course, but there were still a stash of wellies by the patio door of the sunroom, surrounded by miscellaneous sandals, the odd trowel or two, and a perilously stacked pile of terracotta plant pots, with a slouch to rival the Leaning Tower of Pisa, all ready for action.
This part of Plas Eden had always been a place of things happening. It had been full of noise, from Nainie’s TV to Rhiannon’s cassette player – liable to send out anything from Bach to Dire Straights to Joni Mitchell, with a Welsh folksy bit of Dafydd Ewan and the odd panpipe or so, depending on her mood.
Now the house was silent, as if all the life had oozed out through its pores and left just a shell behind.
‘It’s never easy,’ remarked Rhiannon, a little sadly, arranging plates of cucumber sandwiches alongside salmon, cheese and pickle and the slightly more exotic selection of brie and avocado, and chicken with wild rocket. ‘Change, that is.’
Carys began placing bowls of olives and small, fragrant tomatoes straight from the courtyard on a faded wooden tray with well-worn handles. ‘No.’
Rhiannon lifted a homemade cake from out of its tin, releasing the sweet sharpness of lemons into the air. ‘Change happens, throughout our lives, whether we like it or not. But I think that’s the hardest lesson, when you first begin to realise that things can’t always be as you might choose.’
Carys paused, her hand on the cheese board with its array of camembert and stilton interspersed with round Welsh cheddars, each in their waxy rinds of green and dark orange, set amidst the Mediterranean sunshine of black grapes. ‘Do you ever regret it?’ she asked, abruptly. ‘Leaving London and coming here, I mean.’
Rhiannon paused. A look of pain passed briefly over her face.
‘I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me. I should never have asked.’
‘No, you’re okay. It’s perfectly natural. You just caught me a little by surprise, that’s all.’ Rhiannon gave a wry smile. ‘It’s something that’s been occupying my mind rather a lot recently.’
‘You mean, with Plas Eden…?’ Carys left the question hanging in the air.
‘Yes.’ Rhiannon rearranged cups and saucers on a tray, even though they had been perfectly neat in the first place. ‘To be honest,’ she said at last, ‘when I was first here, I’d have put Eden on the market myself, given the chance.’
‘Really?’ Carys felt her eyes widen.
Rhiannon’s gaze was far away. ‘Life seemed so short, at that age. There was so much I wanted to do. A career. Marriage. Children.’
‘Marriage.’ Carys looked at her. How self-absorbed children are, she thought. Even more when they are teenagers. Rhiannon had always been Rhiannon. Even now, it had never crossed her mind that Rhiannon had once had a life that had nothing to do with Eden.
A memory stirred. She had come down from the old nursery one snowy afternoon, on a mission to get supplies for the video cassette marathon of the Star Wars trilogy, given to Huw for Christmas that year. She had found Rhiannon, sitting in the dusk, her hands that were never still resting silently in front of her. She hadn’t stayed, she remembered. She hadn’t even let Rhiannon know she was there. She had run back to the safety of the ice-cold rebel planet of Hoth empty-handed, glad to find David and Huw too absorbed in Luke Skywalker’s light sabre to notice her failure. But the sadness had remained with her: a forlorn sadness, more frightening than tears, that finally, after all these years, made sense.
‘There was someone,’ she said. Rhiannon looked up, slightly startled. ‘Sorry,’ said Carys. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘That’s okay.’ A faint smile appeared on Rhiannon’s face. ‘There never was much that could be hidden from you, Carys, bach.’
‘Yes, there was,’ muttered Carys. ‘There still is, come to that,’ she added under her breath.
‘And of course you’re right,’ said Rhiannon. ‘There was someone. One of my tutors at art college in London, as it happens. He’d won a major prize for his work that year and had the offer of going to work in New York. Fame and fortune beckoned. He’d just asked me to go with him, when the news came through about Paul and Marianne.’
‘Oh,’ said Carys. A vision of Joe, his face filled with hurt and disappointment floated in front of her eyes. And hadn’t he, with his offer of the holiday cottage in the country, at least tried to compromise? ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, don’t be.’ Rhiannon looked up. ‘It took me years, but after a while I realised going with him would have been the worst mistake of my life.’
‘The worst?’
‘Oh yes.’ Rhiannon’s voice was certain. ‘It was the right time for Jason. Not for me. He was much older than m
e, you see. He knew exactly what he wanted and he’d worked for years to get there. I think I knew at the time – even though I’d never have admitted it to myself – that I would always have lived in his shadow.’ She gave the faintest of smiles. ‘He’s semi-retired now, but still hugely successful. And onto his fifth wife.’
‘Ouch,’ said Carys, without thinking.
‘Quite.’
There was a moment’s silence.
‘Funny thing is,’ said Rhiannon at last, ‘I think maybe even Jason can see it now.’
‘Oh?’
‘Not that I’ve spoken to him. But he sent a message through the publishers of that book I illustrated, giving me details of an artist-in-residence post in an American college. Apparently they’re keen on having someone from the UK. The publishers forwarded another email from him a few days ago, asking if I’d put in my application yet and offering to give me a letter of recommendation, if I applied.’
‘Wow.’ Carys was impressed. ‘And he’s mega-famous? That’s amazing.’
‘I suppose it is,’ said Rhiannon.
Carys frowned at her. ‘People would kill for contacts like that. Which means you’ve got to apply.’
‘It would mean leaving here.’
‘Oh.’ Carys hesitated. ‘But if Plas Eden is being sold, anyhow …’
‘I know.’ Rhiannon turned away to fiddle with something in the sink. ‘It just feels a big step, that’s all.’
Rhiannon was still hoping David would stick it out, find a way through and keep Plas Eden, thought Carys. She probably hadn’t told David about the application at all.
‘How long is it for?’ she asked.
Rhiannon turned back, a collection of newly washed teaspoons in her hand. ‘Six months. Initially, that is. Part of the brief is to set up a permanent exchange with a college over here. So it could mean a lot of travelling.’
‘But it doesn’t have to be forever. Something like that could lead to all sorts of things. It would give you so many openings. So many choices. Even if you only do it for a year, or even a couple of years. Any decision about Eden might take months, years even. You can’t miss an opportunity like that.’
Rhiannon smiled. ‘It is tempting. And, to be honest, I suppose I feel ready for it now. When I was younger, I thought that life was so short.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes it is, in one way. And especially if you are a woman and desperately trying to cram in everything before you are forty-five and suddenly become invisible, as if you don’t matter any more.’ She grimaced. ‘It wasn’t until I hit forty myself that I realised it doesn’t have to be that way. Life doesn’t just stop when you have children, or when they grow up. As far as I can see, many women nowadays only start their careers later in life, when their responsibilities are at least lessened.’
‘I suppose,’ said Carys, slightly dubiously. That seemed an awful long time to wait, from where she was sitting.
‘And if you think about it, these days I might be only halfway through my life. That’s a long time. To be honest, I was exceedingly boring when I was twenty: self-obsessed, arrogant, and about as shallow as can be. Although I say it myself, I’m much more interesting now. And freer.’ She gave a mischievous grin. ‘It doesn’t half sort the men from the boys, having a fifty-something face, I can tell you. The boys – whatever age they are – try to pretend you don’t exist, because really you scare them witless. So you can forget about them, for starters.’
Carys eyed her, not entirely sure if she was being serious or not. ‘And the men?’
‘The men.’ Rhiannon smiled. ‘Real men never see just youth or age. They see the human being that was always there.’ Her eyes ran fondly round the old kitchen. ‘I learnt so much, being here in Eden. If I’m honest, I had a bit of a talent, and little else, when I came here. All the experiences I’ve had in my life, these are the things that give me real passion for my work. So it was no longer about my ego, and being admired and famous. I suppose you could say this is where my painting really began.’ Her eyes focused as they rested on the shadow of the doorframe, and she straightened up, abruptly. Carys turned instinctively in the same direction.
‘David!’ A look of pure pleasure had come over Rhiannon’s face. ‘You made it, after all.’
‘I managed to get the next train,’ muttered David, sounding more than a little embarrassed. Almost like a man who had changed his mind at the last minute and wasn’t about to confess it. ‘I came in through the garden. Angela said you were in here. I thought you might like some help.’
‘We’re fine,’ replied Rhiannon. ‘Although you can certainly help to carry things out, if you like.’
‘Okay,’ he said, stepping into the kitchen. ‘Hi, Carys.’
Her eyes met his, briefly. They were as blue and clear as she remembered, with that tinge of brown around each iris that always sent her stomach into full kamikaze dive. Time, she discovered, had not changed the kamikaze part. Not one little bit.
‘Hi.’ Her mind had gone blank. Her insides had just squelched themselves into tight knots. Frantically, Carys searched around for something to say. Something calm, cool, collected and polite. It was all she could do to breathe.
David reached hastily for the nearest tray of sandwiches. ‘I’ll take this one, shall I?’
‘That’ll be great,’ smiled Rhiannon, as if she hadn’t in the least noticed the abrupt silence hanging in the air. ‘Smells as if the flans are cooked,’ she added to Carys, as David vanished as fast as his damaged leg could take him. ‘I’ve kept to the mostly unadventurous, I’m afraid. I thought your mam might prefer it that way.’
‘Thanks,’ muttered Carys, retrieving plates from the draining board to give her face a chance to cool down a little and her heart rate time to get back to something near normal. ‘I’ll make another pot of tea, shall I?’
Okay; so they could get through tea and the showing of photographs, and then go home, and it would all be over and done with. She would never have to venture within the grounds of Plas Eden, or speak to a Meredith, ever again. And the past could remain where it belonged: buried forever, without trace.
Chapter Eleven
The meal on the terrace was, in the end, an unexpectedly cheerful affair.
Getting out and about, Carys could see, was doing Mam no end of good, despite her slight panic beforehand, and her tendency to drop off to sleep at any significant lull in the conversation. But in between, her eyes had regained much of their old brightness. Even her mind seemed to be recovering from its institutionalised dependence on others and was up and running again.
‘Maybe I could try and come to the café,’ she admitted, as they finally reached the stage of cake and leisurely cheese and biscuits. ‘And bring the photographs. Although I expect they’ve got lots of them already.’
‘Not like yours,’ Gwynfor assured her, eyebrows on alert. ‘There aren’t many of Eden itself. At least, not of the servants. There are plenty of the family, of course.’
‘Really?’ said Carys, looking up from the crumbs of cake she was chasing absently round her plate. She didn’t remember photographs from the time she came regularly to Eden. But then, when you came to think about it, you wouldn’t. Not with the past, hanging there in each silent corner of the room. Not when it was still so raw and painful. Photographs, in those days, were the last thing that were needed. She carefully avoided David’s eyes. Which, since he had spent the last hour or so carefully avoiding hers, was no big deal.
‘Well, not plenty, exactly. But a few,’ Gwynfor corrected himself. He smiled encouragingly at Mair. ‘Although I have to say – present company excepted – I find those of the servants considerably more interesting.’
‘Oh!’ Mam looked slightly bemused at this. ‘Well, I suppose there were some characters in Pont-ar-Eden, in those days.’
‘And not just in those days,’ smiled Gwynfor, eying her over his thin-framed reading glasses, in true professor style.
Laughter we
nt up around the table. Hodge, who was sitting at Carys’ feet, on the principle of having tried everyone else for the odd sandwich or three that might go missing in action under the table, looked up in alarm. Human laughter and human tears, being almost indistinguishable at times, always unnerved him slightly. And especially when there was more than one human in need of his comfort and general sympathy, which left a dog uncertain of where to start.
‘You’re okay, Hodge,’ said Carys, spotting his dilemma, and massaging the nearest ear. Hodge forgot the comforting and went on full cheese-morsel alert. Things were looking up at last.
‘Leave Carys alone, greedy,’ David said, who seemed to have become aware of this performance, despite not looking in their direction. ‘You know the rules: no food from the table.’
Hodge gave a deep sigh and settled down again. Not too far from Carys’ chair. Just in case. Carys found herself smiling at his antics. She looked up, just in time to discover David watching her.
‘Labrador,’ he remarked, as if to cover the fact of him looking at all. ‘Stomachs-R-Us.’
Carys laughed. ‘I remember.’
‘Ah, yes. Nainie and her labradors,’ he replied, with just the faintest of smiles. His eyes held hers for a moment, then looked away.
She looked older. A woman with defined cheekbones and a wide, expressive mouth, rather than the gentle, round-faced girl he remembered. It was a lived-in face; one browned by sun and weather and moulded over the years by experiences he had not been there to share, and would probably never hear of. She was older and sadder, with unmistakeable lines of strain at the corner of her eyes. But she was still Carys.
David discovered the old hurt, that he had managed to keep up as a barrier from even thinking about her over the years, had eased a little. ‘May I see these photographs?’ he asked.
‘Of course you can.’ Carys pulled out the plastic folder, where it had been placed out of harm’s way on a bench along the house wall. ‘There are others at home.’
Including the one of the woman and child. It still sat, in a folder all of its own, amongst her socks in her bedroom at Willow Cottage. She hadn’t even shown it to Mam, yet. The more she looked at it, the more there was about the woman’s face that unnerved her, with its lines of a life of fierce emotion, and mouth that – even in a smile – was a line of utter determination.
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