by Liz Fenwick
‘No. I don’t think so.’ She sighed. ‘He was the best of us.’
‘Did you work with him?’ Gran’s eyes flew open and her glance darted about the room before resting on Lottie again. She picked up another faded snap. In it her head was thrown back in laughter and on either side of her were young men. One Lottie recognised as Allan, looking rakish in a Breton top. The other man was dressed similarly but his look was more intense. He wore a bandana around his neck reminiscent of an old movie star. Was it David Niven or Cary Grant that she had seen in similar attire? She couldn’t recall.
‘Tom Martin.’ Gran pointed.
‘You look so young.’
‘I was nineteen.’
‘Who did you meet first – Tom or Allan?’
‘Tom.’ She looked out to the sea and groaned.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘No.’ She closed her eyes and in seconds she was asleep. Lottie gathered up the photos, taking time to look at each one. She paused, holding one of her mother in a tutu with a beaming smile on her face. It was so clearly her and yet so different. But aside from age, Lottie was hard-pressed to decide just what was different. Maybe it was the all-encompassing grin.
The sound of her mother’s footsteps alerted Lottie to her imminent arrival.
‘Your coffee’s there.’ Lottie pointed to the table. ‘What happened?’ she whispered.
Her mother glanced at Lottie and Gran. ‘She fell asleep.’
Lottie raised an eyebrow. Still keeping her voice low, she said, ‘So your latest interview technique is to throw things?’
‘I didn’t exactly throw things.’ Her mother walked to the window, collecting her coffee on the way.
Lottie went to her. ‘You once told me that sugar works better than vinegar.’
‘Did I?’
Lottie nodded.
‘I don’t remember.’
She gave her a disbelieving look.
‘Well, in some places it does.’
‘And with your dying mother it might too.’ She turned and looked back at Gran. From here she could see Gran still had a photo clutched in her left hand.
‘I don’t want to be here.’ Her mother’s shoulders dropped.
Lottie rolled her eyes. ‘I wouldn’t have known.’
‘It hurts and . . .’ Her mother glanced at Carrickowel.
‘And what?’ She reached out and put a hand on her mother’s shoulder.
She looked back at Gran then to Lottie. ‘And nothing.’
‘Mum.’
Her mother walked to the bed and pulled the Polaroid photograph from Gran’s fingers. ‘Christ.’
‘What?’ Lottie dashed to her side. The picture was a black and white shot of her mother clutching a book. She froze. The diary. She stole a glance at her mother.
‘My diary.’ She shook her head. ‘I’d forgotten it.’
‘Well, that’s good you recognise it.’ Lottie tried smiling.
‘Hardly worth remembering. Not important. Just “Dear Diary” stuff.’
Lottie released the breath she was holding. She clearly didn’t recall what she’d written.
‘Ah, yes, you still have all your diaries from school until now.’ Lottie pictured the white cabinets under the bookcases in her mother’s study. Once Lottie had dared look in them and was told to respect her privacy. God knows what she would think if she knew that Lottie had her childhood diary, hadn’t given it to her immediately, and had read it.
‘Yes, but not this one. It was my first.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Eight.’ She paced, looking at the picture. ‘Tom Martin had given it to me the weekend my father died. The last time I was here.’ She looked at Lottie. ‘No, that’s not true. The last time was in 2008.’
It always circled back to 2008. Sometimes Lottie was deluded enough to think she could move beyond that summer. Beyond the lies she had told. But looking at her mother now, it was as if 2008 formed a wall Lottie couldn’t climb, no matter how hard she tried, despite having been the perfect university student and having worked hard at her career. No, she would perpetually be the eighteen-year-old who lied to her mother and dire consequences resulted ultimately from the lie.
Lottie couldn’t forgive herself for what had happened to John. But she had hoped that her mother might have tried. Of course because of who her mother was, her name had been dragged into the whole terrible situation. Lottie could never let go of her guilt. It was just a damn good thing her mother didn’t know about the latest jewel in her fool’s crown. Paul was the bloody Koh-i-Noor.
30
Joan
4 August 1962, 8.15 a.m.
As I walk down to the beach, my thoughts linger on waking up to the sound of ‘Happy Birthday’ playing in my dreams until I’d realized that it had been Diana on the piano. I’d groaned, Allan had laughed, and now I smile just thinking about it. I’d wished him happy birthday and he’d asked, ‘Did you drink too much last night?’
As the gulls cry, happily trailing a fishing boat, I stop to think again about Allan this morning. I’d watched him run his hands through his hair while the early rays of the sun caught the tanned skin of his abdomen. Desire rolled through me then and I’d held out a hand. A slow smile had crossed his face as he took it and gave me his cigarette. Chords crashed on the piano below. I winced.
He’d pulled away and grabbed his dressing gown, saying, ‘I think I had better see to Diana before the rest of the house is awoken by her attempts at Mozart.’
‘Shame.’ I pushed myself up, not trying to hide my disappointment.
‘Yes.’ He leaned down and brushed the thin strap of my nightdress aside, so it slipped down revealing my breast. He kissed my collarbone and then worked his way down to my nipple. I gasped, and Diana switched to Beethoven’s Fifth, not her best.
He’d stood with a half-smile lingering on his lips. ‘Tonight.’
‘Yes.’ I’d whispered as he left me wanting, aching and hoping that tonight we could put the past behind us and begin again.
Now I shake off the desire and let the sound of the waves soothe me. Squinting into the distance, I can’t see a cloud in the sky. Today will be fine. Allan needn’t be told that George Russell is my new handler and not Tom. The fewer people who know, the better. Victor is too important to risk and even if I know Allan isn’t a threat, I won’t jeopardise the operation. My small role is nothing in one sense, but essential in another.
The tide is out, and I search for sea-life as I head to the water. Yesterday morning a seal had watched me from the rocks. But this morning I am alone, and I need the solitude. My eyes burn and my thoughts are fuzzy. That is what lack of sleep will do to you, as I know only too well. However a swim will refresh me. It’s one of the things I love most about being at Boskenna. The beach is forever available for swimming or walking or simply staring.
Ever since I can remember, this stretch of sand has loomed large in my thoughts. When we were in India and Indonesia I looked forward to the cool easterly breeze and the cold water of the Cornish sea. Much to my mother’s despair, I would swim on all days of the year unless the sea was unsafe. It mattered not if the heavens were pouring down or the air had more than a nip in it. The practice had become ingrained during the war years when I was here and they were in India. I’d been sent home to be safe, but I’d been free, free from the formal life. Boskenna gave me freedom and my mother was never able to take it away again. She had been jealous until her dying day, but by then all types of jealousy and, of course, all types of gin cocktails had taken their toll. I was not like her in any way. I’d made sure of that.
The water circles around my ankles. I run in until I am up to my waist and I dive, holding my breath, trying not to gasp as the cold water wraps around me. I open my eyes as my chest tightens further. Holding still, I let my body numb before surfacing with my lungs begging for air, then I float. Every atom of flesh is alive and tingling. A bit like this morning when Allan touched me. We are coming out of the darkne
ss of grief. Things are beginning to feel good, to feel right again.
The sky is blue, Cornish blue. Not the murky colour of a Moscow sky that seems permanently washed out to me. Slowly, I rotate my arms over my head and backstroke across the bay. My ears beneath the water hear the deep rumble of a distant engine. Maybe a fishing boat heading out. It doesn’t matter. All that is important is today going to plan. I can do everything asked of me, even with the lack of sleep. The social side is automatic. I have learned that almost from birth. Deception is surprisingly easy, too. I have taken to it like I had to water. One moment simply a secretary then the next, a minor operative. I know my advantages. People think I’m too beautiful to have a brain. That I’ve been to finishing school rather than university tells the world my worth.
My father believed that university would be wasted on me. I tense as the anger runs through me. I should be thankful now. He doesn’t know what I do. I made that a condition of doing the work. He would stop it, even now when he has no right to say anything about my life, he would try. He lives to control. He would be horrified that the life he provided for me has made me into a suitable spy. Foreign languages surrounded me during my childhood and I learn them with ease. And, of course, the whole culture of being seen not heard. For him that included women as well as children.
Flipping over, I begin the crawl with renewed force. As I breathe, I catch a glimpse of Allan and Diana walking along the beach. Diana waves wildly and I signal that I see them. Even at this distance her grin is visible. She loves it here. This is where she calls home. We all do. I turn around and above them I catch sight of the house. It dominates the view, despite the cluster of old fisherman’s cottages and newer homes that have sprung up where my mother sold off some of the land. Thanks to Allan, I haven’t had to do that to keep Boskenna. His brother inherited their family estate, but he had received a large inheritance from his grandmother and that pays for Boskenna’s upkeep.
Maybe after the Moscow assignment we should think about giving up the Foreign Office. I laugh and take in a mouth full of salt-water. Both Allan and I would be bored to tears. We thrive on the pressure in a place like Moscow, but I know that once Victor is finished they will move us on. From what Tom has said, that might be sooner rather than later.
Kicking harder, I am certain no one suspects me, the wife of the political attaché. Between ballet classes, piano lessons, art lessons and school runs, I roam the city freely. No one is aware I speak Russian. I’m not sure if Allan even knows how fluent I am. By reading novels in Russian I am able to keep building my vocabulary. No one seems to notice them in the apartment. There are only a few and I’ve said I bought them because of the covers.
Changing to the breaststroke, I watch Diana and Allan leave the beach via the steps to the coastal path and not up to the garden. I frown. Where are they off to? Sometimes I despair that he doesn’t think of our guests. But that’s what I do so well so that he doesn’t have to, and in Moscow he has so little time with Diana. I swim to the shore and up on the path I see Allan is talking to the Venns. They glance down and wave. I respond but do not smile as I see the woman put her hand on Allan’s arm. Towel clutched in my hand, I walk up to the house. There are things that need to be done.
31
Lottie
4 August 2018, 8.30 a.m.
Lottie waved to the man bringing supplies to the little beach café. Later in the day she would go for an ice cream. Gramps had always lured her off the beach that way as a child. She would have stayed in the sea until nightfall if she’d had her choice. A few eager families were already setting up on the beach, despite the light mist that still hung in the air. Below it was murky but above at Boskenna it was vividly sharp.
She dropped her towel on the sand revealing her bikini and picked her way out to the sea, making sure to drag her feet to alert any lurking weever fish. Before long, her toes were numb and she was up to her knees. She saw old Jacob on the rocks, fishing. She could recall very few mornings when Jacob or another person wasn’t fishing on the beach. Once the village had many fishermen but now it was just Jacob, and the old cottages were gone. Things move on and Lottie was at one of those stages of change.
Taking a shallow dive, Lottie floated underwater letting her body acclimatise to the shock of the cold. Gran had taught her that years ago, when her instinct had been to fight and kick. Now her body rose to the surface and she existed between the sea and the mist. It felt as if her problems were far away, but she knew they were waiting, and she couldn’t push them aside forever.
She began to swim, enjoying a slow breaststroke across the bay. Swimming had become her sanity. In the water she left her awkward self behind. But that and all her problems returned as she left the sea. Looking up, Boskenna was just breaking through the mist. It looked like a palace set in a bank of clouds.
A searing pain sprang from the side of her foot. She swore and limped further up the beach. Weever fish. This was the last thing that she needed. She examined the side of her heel. There was a small dot, but she could see no sign of a spine. That was good news. Gritting her teeth, she made her way to the café. They took one look at her and put the kettle on. She needed to get this in hot water fast.
While she was waiting at a table outside, she squeezed her heel as best she could to push any poison out. She couldn’t look at the blood.
‘Here you go.’ The man brought out an old washing-up tub and she could see the steam rising. ‘See if you can tolerate that temperature.’
She braced herself and submerged her foot. It was hot, but she could take it. Having done this before when she’d stepped directly on top of a weever, she knew she was lucky. Although with the pain radiating up her leg, it could be debated. Just when she was needed to help out, she would be hobbling. All because she’d wanted a swim to clear her mind. Selfish, her mother would be sure to point out.
A steaming cup was placed down beside her. ‘I thought you might need this.’ The woman smiled and said, ‘You’re Lottie, aren’t you?’
She narrowed her glance trying to figure out who this was. ‘Yes, and you’re . . .’
‘Tegan. Alex’s cousin.’ She pushed her hair back and Lottie admired her bracelet, remembering. Tegan was just ten the last time she had seen her, and Lottie had made that bracelet for her birthday. She could hardly believe she still had it.
‘I’ve given Alex a ring as I think you’ll need a hand getting up to the house.’
Lottie looked down at the steam rising from the bowl. ‘That’s great.’
‘No problem, and I’m sorry to hear your gran is so poorly.’
Lottie smiled at her and looked up. Alex was making his way towards her. She didn’t need rescuing, but it would be churlish not to be grateful.
‘The wicked weever strikes again.’ He smiled and kissed his cousin’s cheek. ‘Thanks Tegan.’ He squatted down by the tub. ‘May I?’
‘Yes . . .’ She flinched, waiting. His fingers gently lifted her foot out of the water. Pleasure and pain mixed as he rolled the foot over in his hand until he saw the puncture.
‘Not too bad. I don’t see a spine.’ He looked up. ‘Brace yourself.’
She tightened all her muscles as she waited. He was going to squeeze her heel more. Digging her nails into her palm, she felt the pain but also his fingers on her skin. She was breathless when he rested her foot back on the side of the bowl, blood trickling down.
He went into the café and came back with clean water and soap. With great care he cleaned the puncture mark. Then he rinsed it again. Her foot throbbed and her leg tingled with his touch.
Taking the two paracetamol tablets he handed her, she washed them down with the tea. He placed her foot on her towel while he cleared the bowl and the soap. She began to shake and held the sweet tea with two hands.
‘Right, let’s see if you can move.’
She put the cup down and took his hand to help her upright. She swayed, and his other hand wrapped around her back. ‘Lean on me.’<
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She wanted to cry out but held it in as she hopped along, relying on Alex’s strength until they reached the gate leading into the garden.
‘The steps are a bit slippery. I think it would be easier if I carried you.’
Before she could say no, he had thrown her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. Winded – and more than a bit indignant – Lottie prayed that no one would see this. When they reached the top of the steps, she waited to be put down, but he continued striding across the lawn.
‘You know you can put me down now?’ She focused on the passing grass so that she didn’t study his legs.
‘Easier this way.’
‘It might be, but I’d prefer to be upright.’
He stopped. ‘Fine.’ He bent slightly and let her slide down his body. She put a hand out and steadied herself on his arm.
‘Thank you.’
‘No problem, but best to buy yourself some surf shoes if you are sticking around.’ He raised an eyebrow. It was a question really. She was about to reply but stopped. Rather than speak, she nodded. Any answer would provoke more questions.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ He looked up from her foot and a slow smile appeared on his mouth. Her breath caught. Stop, she lectured her racing heart. He was history. For all she knew, Alex had someone in his life. But his smile had had that effect on her from the moment she first saw him, when he and his mother had moved back to Porthpean. He was such an angry soul then, but Gramps had taken him in hand.
‘Can you walk without help?’
She took a few steps and wobbled. ‘No.’
He put his arm around her and she moved forward. More than aware that her bikini offered her no protection from the feel of his arm against her skin. She shouldn’t react this way, but her body wanted him right now just as much as it had years ago.
In the hallway they stopped. Her mother was touching the hydrangeas Lottie had put there last night. They reminded her of Allan Trewin’s grave and the flowers there. Her mother must have been thinking the same thing.
‘What the hell has happened to you?’
