‘It’s a great week for your first visit to Dartmouth. Regatta week.’
Mikey lets out a great sigh. ‘I just love it. I can’t wait to see the fireworks and the Red Arrows. I want to stay. I want to live here for ever.’
‘But you have to go back to school?’
He nods, makes a face.
‘Do you still live in Bristol?’
‘We’ve got a flat in Tyndall’s Park Road,’ he tells her. ‘We lived in Grampy’s house for a while after he died but then we had to sell it and get something smaller.’
‘Where do you go to school?’
She wonders if she’s being too inquisitive but he answers readily.
‘I’m at Wells Cathedral School. I’m a chorister.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ she says warmly, and he smiles at her enthusiasm.
‘It’s OK,’ he says nonchalantly.
Silence falls between them. He glances anxiously behind him again, and she gets up reluctantly. ‘I must go. Good to meet you, Mikey. See you around.’
She walks quickly away, up the hill to Southtown and down the steps to the boathouse where Claude is reading on the balcony, waiting for Charlie and Ange to arrive.
Driving into Dartmouth past the old Pottery, through Warfleet down to the Merchant’s House, Charlie struggles with a growing sense of unease. Ange’s friends have cried off the visit to regatta – some family crisis, apparently – and Charlie is beginning to wonder if indeed there was ever any intention of their coming. After all, Ange has never been down for regatta without friends in tow – she sees no point in it – and he suspects that Ange wants to see for herself just how well Ben is dug in at the Merchant’s House without it being too obvious.
‘Evie will never get him out if she’s not careful,’ she said when she heard of Evie’s gesture. ‘I think it’s very unwise of her.’
‘You make him sound like a squatter,’ Charlie said, quite lightly. He didn’t want to make a big deal of it; he’s still coming to terms with the fact that his father didn’t leave the house to him. ‘Ben’s not some ne’er-do-well looking for an easy option. He’s always got work and he’s very well known in his field.’
Ange shrugged this aside. Until the Merchant’s House had been left to Evie she’d been quite fond of Ben; leaving the magazines that published his work on show around the house, boasting about his latest shoot if it were at a grand enough house. Now she’s nervous: Evie is very fond of Ben, his marriage is breaking up, and he has his foot in the door. Ange has a strong sense of ownership and, in her view, the Merchant’s House belongs to Charlie and his family, not to Evie – and certainly not to Ben.
All the way from London, Ange has been making little comments that reflect her anxiety and irritation.
‘I don’t know what your father was thinking about. He could have simply put the house into some kind of trust for Evie to use in her lifetime if she needed it, though I can’t see why she should. She’s got her own house. She must have influenced him in some way.’
‘Rubbish,’ he says irritably. He doesn’t believe that Evie influenced his father but this constant need to defend TDF’s rather hurtful decision and pretend that he doesn’t mind is beginning to wear him down. ‘That’s not at all Evie’s style. Why shouldn’t he leave her the house? She was his wife.’
‘His second wife,’ she corrects him quickly. ‘Not the same at all. We have the girls to think about. It’s breaking with family tradition. I’m just saying that it’s unwise of Evie to give Ben any ideas about it.’
‘Well, at least he loves the place,’ Charlie says. ‘Which is more than you do. Even the girls prefer to stay with your mother down at Polzeath than come to Dartmouth.’
‘That’s because their school-friends are there in the summer,’ she answers. ‘It will be different when they’re older. Anyway, that’s not the point.’
He doesn’t ask what the point is: he’s weary of skating around the problem. Personally, he’s delighted that old Benj is staying at the Merchant’s House; better than tenants wrecking the place or a succession of holidaymakers coming and going. And it’s nice for Evie to have him just across the road.
‘I suppose Claude will be here,’ Angie says, resigned, as they drive down into Southtown. ‘An extraordinary relationship, I always think. He and Evie behave like a couple of undergraduates, dashing about on that silly scooter. Your father was just as bad once Marianne died.’
Charlie resists the urge to defend Evie and Claude; he simply hasn’t got the energy. Lately, however, he’s become more and more sympathetic to his father’s marital disloyalty. Having someone like Evie to spend time with, to relax with, must have been utter heaven. He loves Ange – and he totally respects her drive and ambition and devotion to the family business – but, oh goodness, what he wouldn’t give for a few weeks of behaving like an undergraduate again.
He peers ahead. ‘Great,’ he says. ‘Benj has opened the garage door. I can reverse in.’
‘No,’ Ange says at once. ‘No you can’t. It makes it much more difficult to unload the car. Drive straight in.’
‘But reversing out on to this road is very tricky,’ he argues. ‘Much better to back in.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she says. ‘There’s hardly any traffic down this road during regatta. Just do it, Charlie.’
And so he does, but he experiences an almost overwhelming desire to perform some violent action: crash his hand down on the horn, drive the car into the back wall of the garage, something to stop the frustration of being obedient to Ange’s relentless will.
Instead he switches off the engine, gets out and tries the interconnecting door to the house. It opens and he goes into the hall and shouts, ‘We’re here,’ and Benj comes out of the kitchen and they stand and grin at each other as if they are children again. Charlie remembers that his cousin’s marriage has come apart, that he’s homeless, and he holds out his arms to him.
‘Good to see you, Benj,’ he says, and they hug, while Ange’s voice, raised in irritation, can be heard from the garage.
‘Hi. Where are you? Is anyone going to come and help me with this luggage?’
Ben is surprised and touched at the warmth of Charlie’s greeting. He senses some stress here, and he can make a pretty good guess at what’s causing it. Ange appears at the door; her quite pretty face is marred by an almost habitual harassed frown. It is the expression of someone who needs to be in control; to be watchful lest her instructions are misunderstood or, worse, disobeyed.
How awful it must be, thinks Ben, to be Ange. Pretty awful for poor old Charlie, too.
‘Can nobody hear me?’ she cries. ‘Oh, there you are.’
He raises his hand in greeting. ‘Hi, Ange,’ he says, but she’s already turned away with a quick wave of her hand, instructions still trailing behind her.
Charlie shrugs, follows her out to help, and Ben waits at the door wondering how to play this rather odd scene. It seems strange to be welcoming Charlie and Ange to the Merchant’s House.
‘Shall I take that up for you?’ he asks, as Ange reappears with a large holdall. ‘You’re in the room on the left at the top of the stairs.’
‘I know where our bedroom is, thank you, Ben,’ she says brightly. ‘I can manage.’
He watches her small figure stomping up the stairs; her bottom is rather too big in her unflatteringly loose linen trousers and her back view is not particularly attractive. He feels another wash of sympathy for Charlie, who has now appeared with two suitcases. Ben raises his eyebrows at the amount of luggage and Charlie shakes his head defensively.
‘I know. I know. Don’t worry. We’ve only come for the weekend, honestly. God, what a journey.’
‘Want a drink?’ he asks.
‘Don’t tempt me,’ says Charlie. ‘It’s too early.’
‘Is it? The sun must be over the yardarm somewhere. It wouldn’t have worried you once.’
‘Shut up and put the kettle on. Ange will appreciate a cup of tea.�
��
He turns away, begins to climb the stairs, and Ben goes into the kitchen. The kitchen and the breakfast room, divided only by a graceful arch, occupy most of the ground floor since the sitting-room was converted into a garage. Ben likes this mix of space and cosiness. The kitchen’s sash window looks into the garden; the breakfast room’s windows look out on the street. In common with most of these houses, the drawing-room is on the first floor so as to take advantage of the views of the river but Ben likes this long, light room with its high ceilings, deep skirting boards and beautiful timber floor. This is where he spends most of his time when he isn’t working. In recent years the house has been used only for holidays and the original Regency furniture has been replaced with more durable pieces. The long, rather battered, refectory table is very useful to work at, to read at – as well as to eat at – and Ben has been busy tidying up. There is a sofa along one wall and built-in bookshelves on either side of the window, and now he glances through the arch into the breakfast room to satisfy himself that it is as tidy as Ange will expect it to be.
When she does appear, however, she says, ‘Oh, I thought we’d have tea in the drawing-room,’ and, ‘Have you got any Earl Grey?’ which makes him feel like a rather inadequate footman. But Charlie says, ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, we don’t want to cart it upstairs. In fact I might go out into the garden. I need some fresh air.’
With relief Ben follows him outside, leaving Ange to agonize over Earl Grey or a fruit tea, and Charlie says: ‘This probably sounds really crass, Benj, given what you’ve been through, but just at the moment I rather envy you.’
As soon as they’ve gone Ange slips back upstairs. A quick glance around the drawing-room shows that there is very little change: some books and magazines on the floor by an armchair but not much else. The spare bedrooms are clearly unused, the beds stripped, cupboards bare, and the little dressing-room that leads off one of the rooms is empty, but in the two rooms up on the second floor the reality of Ben’s occupation is very clear. The bedroom is untidy, the bed unmade: quilt rumpled, pillows piled up, clothes tossed over chairs. The study is now a workroom filled with photographic equipment, painting equipment, piles of paper, card; there is barely room to walk.
Her worst fears are realized as she stares in through the doorway: Ben is clearly very much at home. Her mind darts to and fro: a sharp needle flying in and out of the tough fabric of her anxiety. She wonders what the tax implications are regarding Ben working here and whether Evie has thought about it.
Through a window she can see Ben and Charlie sitting at the table at the top of the garden with their mugs of tea. Ben is talking, gesticulating, and suddenly Charlie throws back his head and roars with laughter. She watches them for a moment, resenting their camaraderie, fearing it – Charlie can be so foolishly soft-hearted, it still irritates her to hear him using that childish name for Ben – and then she slips back downstairs. She reboils the kettle, puts a teabag into a mug and all the while there is something nagging at the back of her mind; something different, something she’s missed. Her instinct tells her that it’s important but, before she can go back for another check around, Ben appears.
‘We wondered if you were OK?’ he asks. ‘And I remembered that Evie brought some stuff over. Cakes and things.’
The kettle boils and Ange makes her tea. ‘Not for me, thanks,’ she says. ‘This will do me fine.’
He smiles at her, steps aside so that she is obliged to precede him outside, and she has no alternative but to climb up through the garden to join Charlie. And all the time that they are talking, drinking tea, her thoughts are doubling to and fro, trying to remember what it is that she has missed.
Now that the moment is upon her, Evie is rather regretting inviting Charlie, Ange and Ben to supper. She is still fearful about how Ange will be reacting to Ben’s presence in the Merchant’s House. She says so to Claude.
‘I knew you’d feel like that,’ says Claude rather gloomily. He’s wondering how he’s going to cope with seeing Charlie now he has inside information. He feels uneasy, hoping he can carry it off, and he wonders how Evie has coped with it for the last two years.
‘I suppose it was silly of me,’ she says. ‘But what could I do? Dartmouth will be packed and they’ll be tired after the journey. I had to offer. I was half hoping Ben might phone and say they weren’t coming. I half expected Ange to cry off. She’ll have brought provisions. She always does.’
‘It’s odd,’ he says. ‘The prospect of seeing them. Now that I know about Charlie, I mean.’
‘I can imagine how you’re feeling. I was the same. I’ve got slightly used to it now but it’s unsettling knowing things about people that they don’t know themselves. You keep wondering how they’d react if you told them. I’m sorry, Claude, it’s unfair to involve you, but I just needed someone else to know.’
‘I still think it was wrong of TDF to leave you with it. It was his decision to make, not yours.’
Before she can answer there’s a knock on the door, which opens, and Charlie shouts, ‘Hi. Are you there, Evie?’ and comes into the big room where she and Claude are sitting at the table.
‘Charlie.’ She gets up and goes to hug him, moved as always by his resemblance to her darling Tommy. She hates it that Claude is judging his old friend so harshly, though it’s difficult to defend Tommy: it was his property, his son, his decision. However, she can remember his distress, his desire to make amends without causing too much destruction, her own readiness to relieve him of some of the stress without quite knowing how. Nevertheless, Claude’s ready sympathy and understanding have eased her anxiety a little and she is grateful to him.
As she hugs Charlie she tries to imagine telling him the truth – that all he has should by rights belong to Ben – and she simply can’t envisage having the courage. Instead she smiles up at him with genuine pleasure at seeing him and stands back to watch him embrace Claude.
‘It’s great to be here,’ he’s saying. ‘And thanks, Evie, for letting us use the garage. I see you’ve managed to get a space outside, but it’s a real problem during regatta, isn’t it?’
‘Ben and I are coxing and boxing with the space,’ she answers. ‘My old friend lets me use her driveway for one of the cars so if I have to go out Ben moves his car down here to keep the space. It’s not ideal but it’s only for a few days while you’re here.’
Charlie strolls to the balcony and wanders out, staring down-river, hands in his jeans pockets. Claude watches him. It might be TDF standing there: long, lean legs, broad shoulders, dark head slightly bent. How wonderful it must be to be tall and elegant; to be able to attract women without even trying. He remembers how he used to envy TDF his grace, and Charlie and Ben have inherited those same qualities. They have no idea what it’s like to be short and stocky and unremarkable, with gingery hair that curls like a tonsure around a prematurely bald head.
Charlie is turning back now, his face peaceful, and Claude wonders how he would react if he were to tell him the truth; imagines that calm expression changing to disbelief and shock.
‘I should get down more often,’ Charlie says. ‘I forget how good it is here. It’s a different world after London.’
‘Not at regatta,’ says Evie. ‘The town is heaving and the noise is unbelievable. The funfair, pop music belting out from each stall …’
‘Not to mention the smell of beefburgers,’ says Claude.
‘Even so,’ says Charlie. ‘We’re going down to Polzeath on Monday to meet up with the girls for a week but perhaps I’ll come down on my own after the holidays and spend some time with old Benj. He’s looking good.’
‘That’s a brilliant idea,’ says Evie. ‘He’s managing very well but I’m sure it would do him good. Are they coming over for supper?’
‘Yes. He and Ange will be over soon. I just wanted to have a few minutes on my own with you.’
‘Checking us out,’ asks Evie, amused, ‘before we put on our party faces?’
‘
Something like that,’ he answers. He sits down again at the table. ‘I’m still hoping that you’re going to tell me that you’re writing again, Evie. It’s been much too long.’
She shakes her head. ‘I’ve told you. I’ve finished with all that.’
‘The Civil War, yes,’ he says. ‘I can see that. But there are other things to write about.’
Claude listens to the familiar argument, agreeing with Charlie but saying nothing.
It isn’t long before Evie says, ‘Enough, Charlie. I’m not writing another book. It’s finished. Done with. Now, tell me about the girls. It’s ages since I saw them.’
As she and Claude prepare the supper – Claude is very handy in the kitchen – Evie concentrates on the coming evening, on Ange’s attitude to Ben and how it will affect them all.
And here they are: Ben and Ange coming in together. Ange greets them, an air-kiss near both cheeks, and Claude offers them a drink, talks about regatta, how they might wander round the town tomorrow and enjoy the fun.
‘I always forget,’ Ange says, walking to the big windows, ‘how early you lose the sun here. It’s quite gloomy, isn’t it, even on such a bright evening?’
There is a tiny silence and Evie can’t help but chuckle to herself: it’s so Ange, this kind of remark. A little put-down, an implied criticism, that slightly wrong-foots people and fractures the jolly atmosphere.
Ben and Charlie are silent; they look embarrassed, Claude looks cross. Evie steps in. She smiles at Ben, gives him a tiny wink.
‘It is, Ange,’ she says, ‘and, you know, it’s something you really notice as you grow older. The sun and light become so important. I’ve been seriously considering letting out the boathouse or even selling it and moving across the road. It’s so much higher, gets more sunshine, and I wouldn’t have to climb up all those steps to the road each time I go out. Of course, that’s if Ben thinks he could cope with me.’
Ben has turned aside to hide his grin but Ange is completely taken aback.
‘Well,’ she says, after a moment, ‘if you want my opinion I’ve never heard anything so foolish.’
Summer on the River Page 8
