Secrets of the Tides

by Hannah Richell

  ‘Just putting the world to rights,’ said Bill smoothly.

  ‘Oh.’ Dora looked disappointed. ‘Should I go and get some more trees then?’

  ‘I’d be happy for your help, I surely would,’ smiled Bill, ‘but tell me, isn’t that your father I can hear calling for you up at the house?’

  Cassie turned her head and sure enough she heard their dad’s bellows from the top of the garden.

  ‘Beach time!’ shouted Dora. She took off up the hill at a sprint, calling out her goodbyes over her shoulder.

  Cassie gave Bill an apologetic look. ‘Sorry about that, Dad’s promised us a trip to the beach.’

  Bill laughed. ‘I understand; my bonfire is no competition for that. But we’ll see you both at the house sometime? Drop by whenever you want. My Betty would love to see you.’

  ‘We’ll be there.’

  ‘Good-oh.’

  Cassie waved and then turned on her heel, heading off up the hill to her waiting father.

  There were other familiar faces too; faces from their old life in London. In May, Violet Avery came to stay. Violet was Helen’s oldest friend. The two women were like chalk and cheese, but they had been friends since their earliest schooldays – Violet loved to tell the girls how their mother had stuck up for her against the school bully in the playground one day, kicking him in the shins after he’d called Violet a roly-poly-pudding – and Cassie and Dora adored her.

  She was fascinating too, so different to their mother, with her bright red lipstick, throaty smoker’s laugh and un-missable, jiggling cleavage. She drove up to Clifftops in her ancient yellow 2CV, sending a spray of gravel flying as she came to a jerking halt by the front door.

  ‘Cooeee,’ she cried, wobbling up the steps on vertiginous high heels clutching a large spray of yellow roses and a bottle of gin. ‘What’s a girl got to do to get a drink around these parts?’

  Cassie and Dora had spied her from the living room window and rushed at her with delight.

  ‘You came!’ squealed Dora.

  ‘Of course I came. You didn’t think you’d get rid of me that easily, did you? Easy, girls,’ she urged as they pulled at her excitedly, ‘these shoes aren’t really made for walking . . . or hugging.’

  ‘Your hair’s yellow!’ exclaimed Dora.

  ‘Yes, do you like it? I decided to see if blondes really do have more fun.’ Violet fluffed at her hair and winked in Cassie’s direction. ‘The jury’s still out. Here, Dora, you take the flowers. Cassie, you take this.’ She pressed the large bottle of gin into Cassie’s hands. ‘It’s for your parents, mind. Now,’ she said, looking up at the house, ‘I think you girls had better show me around your castle.’

  Dora led her by the hand through the front door while Cassie followed, clutching the bottle to her chest as she scrutinised and then tried to mimic the alluring sway of Violet’s hips.

  They monopolised her for a good hour before Helen sent them packing, promising tea in front of the television if they went outside to play for a bit. Dora raced off immediately, but Cassie, reluctant to leave the beguiling inner sanctum of the adult world, backed out of the kitchen and lingered surreptitiously by the open door, listening to the clink of ice in glasses and the women’s fascinating private conversation.

  ‘So,’ commenced Violet in hushed undertones, ‘tell me everything.’

  Helen gave a slight snort. ‘What is there to tell? You can see how things are here. Sleepy doesn’t even begin to describe it.’

  ‘It seems perfectly idyllic to me. This house is too much. There are women the world over who would kill for what you’ve got, Helen . . . a lovely husband, great kids, a country pile.’ Cassie could hear Violet’s silver bangles jangle as she gesticulated.

  ‘I know,’ sighed Helen. ‘I feel like an ungrateful cow but it’s just so deadly here. I feel trapped. Frankly, I’m terrified I’m turning into my mother-in-law.’

  ‘Fat chance! When you start baking cakes and going for blue rinses, then you’ll be in trouble. Until then I think you’re pretty safe.’

  Helen laughed. ‘It’s good to see you, V.’

  ‘And you.’ The two women clinked glasses and silence filled the room as they drank.

  ‘I’m just so bored,’ sighed Helen eventually. ‘It’s all right for Richard. He still has his job, and the move here is all about him really – him and his overblown sense of duty to this house and what he perceives as his parents’ great, enduring legacy. God forbid we should disappoint Alfred and Daphne and sell this place!’

  ‘He’s still grieving, Helen,’ Violet said softly.

  ‘Oh I know I sound terribly selfish, I feel for him, I really do, but we’re his family now. I always told him I couldn’t do cutesy country domesticity. Yet here I am. I’m trying to be supportive but I just can’t help wondering where my life has gone.’

  ‘Ha!’ snorted Violet. ‘Old-life-old-schmife. Start a new one. Become a lady of leisure; God knows I’d envy you that. What I wouldn’t give to leave behind those four a.m. starts at the flower markets each week.’

  ‘But you love your job!’ exclaimed Helen indignantly. ‘If someone suddenly took your shop away you would miss it, trust me.’

  ‘Well . . . maybe, but this isn’t about me, is it? This is about you, and what you need is to embrace the changes. I don’t know, why don’t you become a lady who shops and lunches? Join the PTA. Start a book group. Learn to cook.’

  ‘Hey, I can cook!’ Helen was indignant.

  ‘And I’m Mother Teresa.’

  Cassie smothered a giggle. Only Violet could get away with that. Privately they all agreed that Helen’s enthusiasm for cooking far exceeded her skill in the kitchen. They had all waded through her roasts like old boots, catastrophic cakes and indefinable piles of gloop supposedly masquerading as puddings. It was just that none of them had the heart to burst Helen’s bubble, none of them except Violet.

  ‘Why not get another teaching job?’ Violet continued. ‘What is it they say: they always need good teachers?’

  ‘Hmmm . . .’ said Helen noncommittally. ‘I’m not sure that holds true for Classics lecturers.’

  ‘Oh stop feeling sorry for yourself!’ Violet admonished.

  Cassie heard the sound of more ice cubes clinking into glasses and the fizz of tonic being poured. ‘The fact of the matter is you can do anything you like here. You’re young, talented and not half bad looking. Get a job. Take up knitting. Have another baby. Just take control, OK? You’ll feel much better if you do something!’

  It was then that Cassie knew that Violet had had too much to drink. Her mum wasn’t young, and she certainly wasn’t going to start knitting or popping out more babies – just the thought of it made Cassie feel a little queasy.

  ‘Richard’s a good man,’ said Violet, suddenly wistful. ‘Don’t take him for granted, Helen. Believe me, it’s no fun out there on your own. Just last weekend I went out with this one guy, Roger, and you’ll never guess what he did – on our first date, before we’d even finished our prawn cocktail . . .’

  Cassie could tell Violet was gearing up for a long and emotional outpouring and decided that she’d probably heard enough. She backed silently away from the open door and headed off to practise walking around in Violet’s outrageously high heels.

  It was the painting that eventually brought about a change in Helen. She carried it home one Saturday afternoon, after a shopping trip into town, staggering into the house with two bags of groceries and a huge, rectangular parcel wrapped in brown paper.

  ‘What’s that, Mum?’ Cassie asked, poking at it with her foot.

  ‘That, my girl, is art – beautiful, soul-enlightening art.’

  ‘Can I look?’

  ‘Of course. You can all look. We’ll have a grand unveiling this evening.’ Helen handled the parcel carefully, caressing its string ties and brown paper reverently. It was the happiest Cassie had seen her since the move.

  ‘Is it for the house?’

  ‘Yes.’ T
here was a fire burning in Helen’s green eyes. ‘It’s just what this old place needs. Run along now, Cass, will you? I’ve got some things to take care of.’

  Just before dinner Helen summoned them all to the living room.

  ‘Ta dah!’ she revealed, ushering them into the room with girlish excitement. They filed in one by one and took in their surroundings. The room was utterly transformed from how they had known it. Cassie, Richard and Dora stood in stunned silence while Helen waited behind them, shifting her weight from foot to foot in anticipation. ‘Well, what do you think?’ she asked.

  Helen had been busy since she’d returned from town. A lot of the old furniture that had filled the room had been shifted to the edges or removed completely. Daphne’s beautiful Persian rug had been rolled up and stored in one corner. Gone were the ornaments, the antique clocks and the dusty old barometer permanently stuck on ‘stormy’. The faded chintz sofas remained, but had been repositioned in a horseshoe shape facing the fireplace, while side tables and their elegant lamps had been removed completely. The room was a stark, pared-down version of its former incarnation; the only real focal point, as Helen had clearly intended, was the enormous new painting that now hung on the wall opposite and held them all in its thrall.

  ‘Isn’t it breathtaking?’ Helen asked again, this time turning to Richard.

  Cassie eyed the picture with suspicion and felt Dora sidle up next to her as Richard cleared his throat.

  ‘He’s a genius, isn’t he?’ Helen gushed.

  ‘Who, exactly?’ Richard asked, confused.

  ‘Tobias Grey. He’s a local artist. I went to his gallery in Bridport and just fell in love with this painting. I had to have it. I knew it would transform this room.’

  Cassie turned back to the painting and tried to take it all in. It was a Dorset seascape painted in thick oils. The ocean lay in a threatening splash across the canvas, viscous whorls of paint layered inky blue upon green to create an expanse of seething water, dark and forbidding. A pebbled shore, nothing more than a thin strip of land the colour of pale bone ran across the bottom of the painting while rocks and weather-beaten cliff tops towered off to one side. And above it all, from the depths of the storm-filled sky, fell a lone shard of light tracing silver upon a small patch of water. It was the only glimmer of light in the otherwise brooding landscape. Cassie shivered.

  ‘It’s part of a collection called Dreams of Drowning. Isn’t it incredible?’ Helen continued.

  Richard cleared his throat again. ‘It’s . . . er . . . rather gloomy.’

  ‘That’s the point!’ Helen cried, clearly exasperated. ‘It makes you feel something. That single shaft of light dancing across the water, isn’t it beautiful?’ It seemed she didn’t want an answer for she carried on breathlessly. ‘He was telling me it represents the raw brutality of nature.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Cassie heard herself say.

  ‘Oh rubbish. Don’t any of you appreciate great art?’ Helen cried.

  ‘It’s big; really big. It looks expensive,’ Richard added.

  ‘Oh I see,’ scowled Helen. ‘That’s what you’re worried about, is it? The money?’

  ‘Well, no, but . . . how much did it cost?’

  ‘I thought you said “whatever it takes to make me happy”?’

  ‘Yes.’ Richard agreed. ‘I did say that.’ Cassie noted her father was speaking in his patient voice, the one he used when he was trying to help her with her maths homework. ‘But we can’t just go around spending money on lavish new paintings. What was wrong with the watercolour that was over the fireplace before?’

  ‘Richard, do you really want me to answer that?’ Helen asked, a distinct chill to her voice. ‘You might be happy to live in your mother’s house, but I’m not. It’s time to change things.’

  ‘And we will,’ Richard tried again, ‘with time, and together. I know I suggested you treat the house like a project, but I’d still like to be consulted. I’d like to pick out some things with you. But all this . . .’ he flung his arms out to indicate the transformed room, ‘it’s so fast.’

  ‘Richard, it’s been weeks. We can’t live in a mausoleum for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘I don’t expect us to live in a mausoleum.’

  ‘But you would like me to check with you every time I shift a chair, every time I move a photo frame?’

  ‘You’re being ridiculous now.’ Richard sighed, aware that he was fighting a losing battle. He looked up at the painting again and outwardly flinched. ‘It’s just so dark . . . and . . .’ he struggled to find the right word, ‘depressing.’

  ‘Well I can’t take it back. The artist gave me a special price. He knocked two hundred pounds off . . .’

  Richard’s eyes widened. ‘Two hundred pounds off? How much did it cost in the first place?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Three hundred?’ Richard asked, confused.

  ‘No, three thousand.’ There was a pause. ‘What?’ Helen asked. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘Helen, we just don’t have that kind of money to throw around.’

  ‘Rubbish! What about the money your parents left you?’

  ‘It’s not a bottomless pit, love. There’s inheritance tax and the upkeep of this place to think about. The damp-proof course is going to need work, and the boiler is on its last legs.’ Richard ran his hands through his hair and sighed. ‘We’re not rolling in money. It’s all tied up in this old place and the estate. We have to be careful.’ He looked round, suddenly aware of two sets of ears flapping madly, and then turned back to Helen with a meaningful look. ‘Girls, why don’t you run outside and play.’

  ‘What about tea?’ Dora asked. ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Have some toast,’ Helen snapped. ‘I’ll come and make something in a bit.’

  Cassie shrugged her shoulders and trooped across to the door. ‘Come on, Dora. I’ll make cheese on toast.’

  The two girls shuffled out of the living room, trying to ignore the sound of raised voices as the door swung shut behind them. They both knew dark storm clouds had swept in off the horizon again.

  DORA

  Present Day

  Feeling like an unannounced guest, Dora knocks tentatively at the front door. She is greeted by resounding silence. Realising her mother must be in the garden, she makes her way round to the side of the house, lets herself through a wooden gate and then makes for the terrace, all the way trying to shake the feeling that she is somehow trespassing.

  From a distance Clifftops had exuded its usual picture-book appeal, but as Dora enters the garden she notices things are a little different. It’s still lovely. The trees in the orchard are laden with late spring blossom and the garden rustles and stirs in the warmth; but there are little things that give the property an unkempt feel. There’s a wheelbarrow that’s been left to rust by the manure pile; the lawn is overgrown and littered with scruffy tufts of daisies and dandelions; piles of leaves, the remnants of last autumn, are clumped around the terrace and Dora notices a dripping gutter and paint peeling from the window frames. Individually they are all small over-sights, nothing that an efficient handyman couldn’t put right in a few days, but collectively they make the house feel tired and a little shabby. It’s not how she remembers the old place.

  ‘Hello there, you’re just in time for tea.’

  Dora jumps at the sound of a voice. ‘Hello, Mum, gosh, you startled me!’

  Helen appears from behind a trellis of clematis and walks towards Dora, carefully removing her gardening gloves and straightening her shirt before embracing her. Their hug is stiff and awkward and Dora notices her mother’s lips only just graze her cheek.

  Helen pulls back and regards her through narrowed eyes. ‘You look tired,’ she says finally.

  Dora realises she’s fiddling with the hair that has blown loose from her ponytail and jams her hands back into her pockets. ‘A bit, yeah.’

  ‘How was the drive?’

  ‘Fine, t
hanks. You’re looking well, Mum. And the garden is . . . blooming.’ Dora winces. She’s more nervous than even she realised.

  ‘Yes,’ agrees Helen, surveying the garden with concern. ‘It’s certainly a handful for me on my own now.’ The two women stand side by side for a moment, silently regarding the enormity of Helen’s responsibilities. ‘Well, come on inside. I’ll put the kettle on.’

  Dora follows her mother into the shade of the house, taking the chance to study Helen as she walks in front. She hasn’t changed much. She is a stylish woman, not yet fifty and trim in cotton trousers and a sage-green shirt. Dora notices a fresh peppering of grey in her thick, dark bob, a few more lines around her jade-green eyes, but she is still beautiful.

  Helen lays her gardening gloves on the counter and moves to fill the kettle. ‘I’m out of tea leaves, I’m afraid. I didn’t make it to the shops this morning. Do you mind a bag?’ She holds up a box of expensive-looking Earl Grey tea bags.

  Dora gives a little smile. She usually drinks what Dan refers to as ‘builder’s brew’: one bag of own-brand left to stew for ten minutes. ‘That’s fine, thank you,’ she says. ‘So,’ she adds, eager to keep the conversation flowing, ‘how is village life treating you?’

  ‘Oh, not too bad. We’ve been having a wonderful spring, lovely and warm. The locals have been in a tizzy about the village shop closing down – petitions and all sorts. And of course preparations have begun for the event of the year.’

  Dora looks up at her mum questioningly.

  ‘You know,’ Helen continues, ‘the annual village flower show? The local spinsters are elbow-deep in a flurry of cake baking and flower arranging. They say it’s going to be very competitive this year, particularly in the jams and fruit cake categories.’ Sarcasm drips from her mother’s voice and Dora can’t help but smile. Helen has never been one for the politics and gossip of village life. It’s nothing short of ironic that her mother should be the one left living in the old house, like Daphne Tide reincarnated.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Helen continues, ‘did you hear that dear Bill Dryden passed away a few months ago? Pancreatic cancer. You remember him, don’t you? He used to manage the estate here. His wife Betty was distraught, poor thing.’ Helen pours boiling water into a teapot and arranges mismatching china on a tray. Dora watches, filled with a sudden sadness. She recalls in a flash Bill’s big, strong arms swinging her round and round until her giggles had turned to dizzy protests and he’d put her down. It has been years since she has seen him but the memories are still fresh. ‘Such a good man,’ Helen continues, rattling teacups and digging silver spoons out of the overflowing cutlery drawer. ‘He was so dedicated to his job here and wonderful with you kids. They held a lovely service for him. The church was packed.’