There he is, Abelard Ozanne himself.Tottering along on the other side of the road. Where does he go to, nowadays?To whom does he speak? Peter moves towards him; clears his throat.
– morning!
– aye.
– Mr Ozanne, isn’t it?
Abelard Ozanne fixes him with a rheumy stare. Different expressions flit across his face, but none of them settle. He doesn’t seem in a hurry to acknowledge the name. Perhaps it isn’t him, after all. Peter has only the vaguest idea, yet he feels sure that it is.
– lovely spot.
– aye.
– this your house?
– it wouldn’t be.
– you’re Mr Ozanne, aren’t you?
Again the enigmatic look, the face working slowly, a rumination.The salivary mouth puckers in and out but delivers no reply. Peter tries another approach.
– d’you know who lives here?
– eh?
– you know who lives here?
The old man regards the house as though he has never seen it before.
– folks ask that. Ah don’t know.
– nice spot.
– ah. Would be.
– there was a young lad around here last night, was there?
Silence, and more saliva.
– all right, then. Bye, Mr Ozanne.
– goodbye to ye.
_____
– Susan?
– Peter?
– I’m in a phone box again. Not so far away this time, though.You all right?
– yes, fine. I heard you were over.
– oh? Who said?
– my mum.
– all the details, too?
– she said you arrived Friday, at the airport. One of her spies probably saw you.
Peter crinkles up his face into a smile.
– reckon we could dodge them long enough to have tea together? Would you like to?
– we could try.
– when are you free?
– do you want to make it at the weekend, and bring the boys?
– I thought we might go in the week, while they’re still at school. Do you have a free morning?
– Thursday?
– Thursday’s fine.Where?
– in town?
– spies everywhere. I know just the place.
eleven
Christmas with all those people being nice to her would be more than she could stand.All that carolling going on in the church. Brenda packs her bags. Not that anything fits her any more; she doesn’t look when she passes the mirror. He’s engulfed her, distorted her. The rage is as fresh as ever, but now it is further down.This thing is the cause of it. He’ll know about it, you may be sure. He’d have come back for her, otherwise.
Another two months; it seems like forever.
– I’m ready.
– come on, then.
It seems all wrong to Peter, taking her by bus.Taking his pregnant wife away by bus from her home and children. How could he tell Patrick: when you come home from school your mum is going to be gone. But how else?Take the boy with them on the bus? Danny, at least, is still living with the Corbins.The doctor says there’s no danger, no physical harm done, but the lad seems fixed to his bed.
They stand under the dripping elms, waiting for the number eleven. Hoping that nobody will come by. At least it’s mid morning, and Mrs Pickery won’t be on the bus. Her eyes would pop clean out of her head.
They’ll go to the adoption agency now, after they’ve dropped off Brenda’s things.That is their agreement. He’ll take her back to the flat, and she’ll keep the appointment.
He looks down at the ends of his shoes. He feels that he is the one to blame for her fate, though he is not sure how or why. Even if she changed her mind now, it wouldn’t do any good, and he hasn’t asked her to.
They are not unseen.The bus stop is just visible from the upstairs window at the Corbins’.
_____
Susan Pickery parks outside the Cross Keys Café on Thursday morning and glances up into the mirror. She’s got an anxious look on her face. He made it sound like fun on the phone, but now it seems a fraction underhand. Oh, but there’s no harm – it’s only a cup of tea. Her mother knows nothing about it, Susan is reasonably sure.
There’s his bicycle up against the hedge. She hangs back, fiddling with her keys.
Peter sits at a table, from where he can see the door, though not the car park. He felt fine about this on Monday; it had seemed to be an ordinary, nice idea. He’d been overwrought that morning. He should never have suggested this café. He’s just going around in circles.The woman behind the counter looks as if she remembers him.
Brenda was so dazzling on that day when they met here, and sort of terrible. She sat right there. He left her in town just yesterday, after all those questions they had asked – about whether they live as husband and wife and everything. She, stony-faced through it all. Now here he is, carrying on, the very next day. Not carrying on exactly; it’s only a cup of tea.
– hello.
– hello.
– you’ve grown a beard.
– ah!Yes.
– you look different.
– you look... the same.
They smile. She does look the same. A little more solid, maybe; just a touch. She smells of soap.
– shall I order?
– just tea, please.
He goes to the counter, looking the woman very straight in the eye as he orders tea for two. He remembers Hilda Pickery’s spies, and laughs to himself.
– shall I pour?
– please.
– do you still take sugar?
– just the one, thank you.
– how’s Danny?
– you heard? I suppose you did. He’s up out of bed now, since yesterday. Patrick and I went over but he wouldn’t look at us, not really. I told him that we might go away for Christmas and he started wailing again – I’ve never heard anything like it. I thought it might brighten him up a bit.
– going for Christmas?
– that’s the idea.We’ve plenty of cousins over there, and second cousins – boys of the same age.They’ve planned a family reunion over the NewYear.
– a new beginning, in a way?
– well, just to see how it goes, yes.
– oh.
_____
At this very moment, Susan’s father is issuing out for his morning walk. The Swan will be opening shortly. He cranes back his head and then nods to himself with satisfaction. He knew it.Them curtains have moved. He knew he’d heard something yesterday from next door and Hilda said how could he hear anything, what with him being so deaf. That one’s back, then. Now we’ll see if what they say is true...
Brenda waits until his brown cap has vanished around the corner and then puts on her coat. Good job she kept this old thing.The buttons still meet, and she can move them an inch or so; it’ll probably last right through. It’s only round the middle she is showing, the rest of her isn’t any bigger.Thinner, if anything. Her ankles are trim; she’ll pass. If it were summer – well, that would be another story.
She takes up her bag and her purse and leaves the flat. She’ll pop in to Jackie at the shoe shop and that’ll get the ball rolling.The boys’ll know by tonight that she’s back
– the bars in town carry the news as efficiently as the church in the country. She could do with having a laugh again. She’ll get in a bottle or two, when she goes on to Chandra’s. Look at all those lights down by the square.
She feels better already.
_____
Susan stirs her tea. Mortified, she knows that her disappointment must be written all over her face. He hasn’t come back for good, he’s just fetching his children.
– Susan?
– yes?
– thought you were dreaming for a minute. I wanted to say – well, sorry, like, for asking you to come over that time. It was wrong of me.
– no! Oh no.
So he
even wishes he’d never asked her. What a fool she was; she lost her chance, sure enough.
– it wasn’t fair of me, I realised afterwards. I couldn’t expect you to drop everything, could I? And what would people have thought?
– I didn’t look at it like that. It wasn’t that...
– ... it’s a mistake I make when I get worried – I panic and I don’t think things through. So that’s why I want to ask now, while I’m here – not in a phone box for once...
– ask?
– ... if you’d come over? If we stayed there, that is. I mean come for a proper holiday when you’ve got the time. Think about it.
twelve
Every soul pulls with the tide and hears, on some level, the waves that break out there in the dark. In The Navigator, Brenda is having a quick half with Willy le Cras. She’ll walk him home in a while, or maybe it will be the other way around. He gazes mistily into the phantas-magoric world between the optics. Brenda winks at Henry.There’s a temporary girl behind the bar; her job is kept for her, when she’s ready.
A little further on from the bar in which they sit, the road turns into a leafy street of fine residential homes. Brenda and Willy will pass the end of this street in about twenty minutes and never give it a thought. In a tall white house there’s a fire-lit sitting room where Dr de Garis sits with his wife, hand in hand on the sofa. He has poured a sherry for them both with which to celebrate the news. They’ve been on the waiting list for so long; the nursery upstairs has been prepared for so many months, and now – at last.
_____
Peter draws the curtains closed. Friday evening. The house feels different with just the two of them, Patrick and himself. He’s never known just two in the house before. Last night he slept, as he will tonight, where his wife had been sleeping before him. He allows himself this last and unexpected pleasure, hugging the sheets and pillows to his face while his rational mind reverses along the tracks of his love.
He opens the flue in the Aga a notch. Patrick lifts his head for a moment and grins over his book.They’ve done a lot today. It was good to be up on the roof, showing the boy how to handle the slates.The hen house is swept out; the wire all cleaned and rolled up. The drains are done. He’s cancelled the phone repairs; no point in that.
There’s a knock at the door.
– I’ll get it.
– good lad.
– Dad, it’s Mr Corbin.
– evening, John. Come and sit yourself down.
– evening.
– can I get you something?
– no, no. I just wanted a word.
– shall you go for your bath, Patrick?
– hm? Oh, okay.
– how’s Danny? Time he came home, now.
– he’s well enough. That’s what I want to talk about. Deborah agreed with me. Her idea, in fact.You’re expecting to take the boys away next week, isn’t it. Young Danny isn’t keen on the idea.
– I know.
– but you can’t wait around – the flights will be full. Fact is, the boy wants to stay with us, and we’re willing. If you are.
Peter shifts in his chair.
– not that we want to push ourselves in where it’s not our business – but it could be like a holiday for the lad, at our place.
– has he said anything?
– not in plain words, but in his own way.
– I was wondering how to persuade him away, to be honest. If he truly seems... you can manage the extra one for Christmas?
– you know we can.
– he’s a handful, sometimes.
– we know.
– ah, you should! I’ll pay his keep...
– we can arrange something.
– but I feel like, like I’ll be leaving him again. Seems the last thing he needs.
– he’s determined to get himself left, more like.
_____
The flights are booked, the bills are paid. Over the lid of the well Peter pours a thin layer of cement. Easy enough to break when John needs water for his cows, but safe in any weather from inquisitive children.
He leaves the house ready for his sister.There are logs in the woodpile, the floors are swept, the spare key lodged under the brick. Each practical thought is a leave-taking.
It is Patrick’s first ride all the way into town by bicycle, on a crisp December morning with his father.The world spreads out and gets bigger. He can compass the miles with his wheels, conquer the island and step off from there, further and further. Peter pedals slowly, watching the boy ahead of him, mindful of the traffic. He left a message at the bakery for Brenda, telling her that they were coming.They can hardly exchange Christmas presents, can they? But at least they can say goodbye.
At the door of Number 5, they stand and wait.They knock, and stand and wait. Just a minute, says Peter. He crosses to the bakery where they assure him that yes, they gave her the message; they spoke to her personally. He knocks once more.Through the net curtains, the Pickerys watch.
Peter takes the Christmas card out of his pocket and seals it because of the fifty pounds inside and pushes it through the letter box. He puts an arm over his son’s shoulder and pulls him gently away.
thirteen
She doesn’t want to know, and they have agreed to her wishes. She doesn’t know that it’s a baby girl wrapped up in a towel and taken from the room. She sleeps.
The infant is weighed and checked and the Nursing Home later dials the number of the de Garis house. In her dressing gown Helen de Garis lifts the telephone receiver. It’s a girl, it’s a girl, she tells her husband.They embrace.They’ve already chosen names for the child they are adopting, and the name they have chosen for a girl is Sarah.
Big Low Tide Page 11
