‘But why?’ asks Evie, taking her glass from Claude. ‘I thought about it quite a lot last winter. Then, when spring arrived, I began to have second thoughts and then Ben needed a place to catch his breath so I rather put it on hold, but you’re quite right. It can be rather gloomy here and, now I’m on my own again and getting old, I’m beginning to think about it seriously.’
This is indeed carrying the war into the enemy’s camp and for once Ange is silenced. Evie feels she might explode with suppressed mirth and she can see that Claude feels the same.
‘But you love it here,’ says Ange rather feebly. She glances at Charlie who looks away, still feeling uncomfortable by her earlier remark.
‘I do,’ agrees Evie. ‘But maybe it’s time for a change. Come and help me with the supper, Claude.’
And she turns away, still fizzing with a sense of triumph and amusement.
Mikey piles up the cartons from the Chinese takeaway and puts them in the bin. Dad’s slumped in front of the telly, channel-hopping. He’s in one of his moods this evening and Mikey’s being careful, just like Mum taught him to be.
‘Daddy can’t help his moods,’ she used to tell him. ‘It’s just the way he is. He loves you, don’t ever forget that, but we just have to stay very calm and not let it upset us.’
It’s hard, though, tiptoeing around him, especially now Mum’s not here. Mikey puts the plates in the little dishwasher. He gets a bit frightened, sometimes, and a bit tired making sure that Dad doesn’t lose it or have one of his real downers.
‘Life’s shit,’ he says when he’s having a downer. His face goes all grim, like a light’s gone out behind his eyes, and Mikey’s heart always races with anxiety. ‘Really shit. I never had a proper chance. It was terrible, Mikey, having a mother in a wheelchair, in pain all the time. God, Mikey, you can’t imagine how she suffered and she was so brave.’
He never knows what to say, so he just nods and tries to look sympathetic. Now he switches on the dishwasher, trying to concentrate on good things: being here in Dartmouth and meeting that woman, Evelyn Fortescue. He liked her; she was really cool. He hasn’t told Dad about her. He doesn’t quite know why but something tells him to keep quiet. Probably because she was Grampy’s friend. Dad can be a bit funny about Grampy, like he’s jealous of him; angry with him. It’s Grandma he adored – and Mum.
Mikey struggles against a black wave of misery: he feels terribly alone. He wishes he could be back at school with some of his mates, or with his aunt Liz in Taunton, or perhaps see Evelyn Fortescue again. She was nice and normal.
‘Want some coffee?’ he calls through the doorway.
Dad’s still slumped there, spaced out, like he’s not seeing what’s on the screen. He looks round, seems to come to, nods.
‘Yeah. Thanks, Mikey.’
Mikey sighs, fills the kettle and switches it on. He must be strong for Mum. That terrible cancer had eaten her up and done for her so quickly.
‘Aunt Liz will look out for you,’ she told him, gripping his hand, her face all ravaged. She looked a hundred. ‘Take care of Dad. Liz will be there.’
But Aunt Liz lives in Taunton and isn’t there most of the time, and he must do the best he can. The trouble is, Dad is his own worst enemy. He can be such fun, but then somebody says something that he takes against and that’s the end of it. He’s seized by a terrible rage, he shouts and shakes, but when it’s over he weeps with remorse and swears it won’t happen again.
Mikey peeps in at him. Dad’s having a little swig at the water bottle. He does it quite often and Mikey’s frightened that there’s something really wrong with Dad; that he might have throat cancer or something. Dad says it’s to do with the medication he takes for his depression, his happy pills, which makes his throat dry. He wishes Dad would have another check-up with the doctor but he gets surly when it’s mentioned.
Mikey cranes sideways so he can see the little slice of the church tower out of the window. He’ll go on Sunday to see if they have a choir. Singing lifts him, carries him away from all his troubles. He loves school and the choir and his mates. He’s really, really grateful that he’s got a scholarship so that they won’t have to worry about fees, even when his voice breaks and he gets older. Anyway, Mum took out some kind of insurance for school fees when he was just a baby. She said she did it because of Dad not being able to go to Winchester, though he passed the entrance exam, because Grampy couldn’t afford the fees and that Dad never got over it; that it was the root of all his problems and that it was Grampy’s fault, though Mikey can’t quite see why. Not everyone can afford expensive school fees.
The kettle boils and he makes coffee in a mug, carries it through and puts it on the little table. Dad’s asleep, head tipped sideways, snoring. He’s still there when Mikey goes to bed.
Jason wakes suddenly, heart pounding, staring round him. His throat is rough and sore from snoring and his head aches. The television is switched off and there’s no sign of Mikey. Jason groans, hauls himself upright, peers at his watch. Christ! It’s a quarter to bloody three. Mikey must have gone to bed long since. Well, no harm done.
He gets up, goes into the kitchen and fills a glass with tap water, gulping it back. His throat is on fire and he fills the glass again and drinks the water down. He leans against the sink, his eyes closed, trying to stop the panic that churns his gut. He can hear Helena telling him to breathe and he tries to do it, hauling air in through his nose, willing down the fear.
‘Try to rationalize it,’ she says to him. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’
He thinks about it, what it is that’s nagging at the back of his mind, and then remembers: Evelyn bloody Drake sitting on a bench outside the pub with Mikey. He’d really had to control himself; restrain his wild desire to run forward and simply grab her and drag her away from his son.
He remembers now that he went into the pub to have a leak, and then a very quick shot of whisky at the bar on the way back – well, you can’t just use the loo without buying a drink – and then he’d come out and there she was, cool as you like, sitting there talking to Mikey. He nearly lost it but something held him back. For one thing, the place was heaving with people and even he could see that it would be asking for trouble to slap her about a bit in front of a crowd. For another, there was Mikey. He needs to keep Mikey on side; needs to show him that it’s she who is the root of all their troubles. Her affair with his father that caused darling Mama so much pain, her refusal to help in the slightest way with the school fees, even though by then she was rolling in it, all thanks to his father’s own research and all the help he’d given her.
‘She owes you,’ Mama said, way back then, staring at his father. Her face was so brittle, so white, it looked like it might shatter into pieces. ‘She owes us all. She nearly destroyed our marriage and without you she’d be nothing. You must write to her again but for God’s sake make your point. Don’t pussyfoot about this time. Jay’s whole future is at stake here.’
He’d been just outside the door, watching and listening; he was good at that, making himself small, invisible, listening to the rows, the arguments.
‘It wasn’t like that,’ his father replied wearily. ‘You know it wasn’t. My affair with Evie never threatened our marriage and she didn’t steal my research. You’re being utterly irrational.’
But she’d given him no peace. Jason smiles to himself. You had to admit that darling Mama never gave up: she was implacable. His father had written to Evelyn Drake again but the answer was still ‘no’. Even now he can remember the wrenching shock when Mama told him that he couldn’t go to Winchester; that he must go to the local grammar school.
He got over it, of course – or he thought he had until he saw Evelyn Drake in the Royal Castle. He can see now that all the little failures and disappointments lead directly back to her refusal to help: the bullying at school, his low self-esteem, which affects his interpersonal skills, the terrible depression. Watching her in the bar at the Royal Castle,
and then earlier outside the pub, his hatred for her crystallized into a desire to do something violent: to make her pay for ruining his life. She has success, money, an international reputation, whilst he has so little in comparison: no wife, no job, a little flat that he might lose at any time. He’d like to break her neck – but not tonight.
Jason runs the cold tap, laves his face with cold water, dries it on some kitchen towel and creeps quietly up the stairs to bed.
CHAPTER NINE
CHARLIE GETS UP early the next morning, sliding out of bed, picking up his towelling robe, which he pulls on as he goes quietly downstairs. He makes himself a cup of coffee and then unlocks the kitchen door and climbs up through the garden. On the top terrace he puts his mug on the table and stands looking out to sea. His love for this place always comes as a little shock; each time he visits he promises himself he will visit Dartmouth more often and then, once he’s back in London, his life resumes its usual shape and the memory fades. He’s glad that Benj was here to welcome them; it seemed even more like a homecoming, and he realizes that this is the first time he’s stayed in the Merchant’s House since his father died. Last time there were tenants here and he stayed with Evie – and they had great fun.
‘I just can’t quite see how you can be so besotted with her,’ Ange said once, a long time ago. ‘After all, she was your father’s mistress. Don’t you feel disloyal to your mother, being so affectionate to her?’
He’d loved his mother, valued her advice, sought her good opinion and was grateful for everything she’d done for him. Yet alongside his love ran a current of anxiety lest he should disappoint her, let her down, incur that cool emotional withdrawal of which she was capable each time he challenged her authority. Evie was so much easier to be with; ready to joke, treat him as an equal, give him space.
‘Well, of course she is,’ cried Ange, when he tried to explain this to her. ‘She has no responsibility for you. She doesn’t care. Your mother loved you. She wanted the best for you.’
Charlie didn’t disagree, but after that he avoided conversations about Evie. He knew that his father had known Evie for some time before his mother’s death – that they’d had a relationship – but deep down he couldn’t quite condemn TDF. The temptation to be able to relax, to be free from his mother’s watchfulness, must have been overwhelming. Yet he can see that, like his father before him, he benefits from the same kind of relentless power that drives Ange in pursuit of the best for her family.
The town is waking up to regatta, preparing for the fête: the guardship lies at her mooring. Charlie wipes the dew from the chair with the hem of his towelling robe and sits down at the table. His father loved it up here, sitting watching the river, joshing with Claude – who called this top terrace the poop deck – and with Evie. He made the steps through the garden more accessible, levelling them so that they were easier to climb. During the last five years, after he retired and rarely went to London, he and Evie lived here at the Merchant’s House and Evie kept the boathouse for visiting friends and family and for working, though she’d begun to do less of that.
It’s odd, thinks Charlie, that there are no real memories of his mother here. Like Ange, she preferred to be in London or to jet off to some luxurious hotel and sunshine. Self-catering in the damp West Country didn’t appeal to her.
‘Terribly dull, darling,’ she’d say. ‘I simply don’t know what people do all day. It’s rather fun for an occasional weekend, but two days are about my limit, I’m afraid.’
He’d come down in the summer holidays with his father and Benj, just for two weeks. He and Benj would go out into the town, play with the local children, go swimming at the nearby beaches, sail on the river. They still have friends in the town, working in the tourist industry: one owns a chandlery, another a small restaurant.
‘I suppose I ought to let the old place,’ his father would say, standing in the drawing-room, gazing from the window, ‘but I can’t quite bring myself to do it. It’s good to know that I can come down here when the mood takes me; remembrance of things past and all that.’
Other people used the house for holidays; friends and relations were glad to take the opportunity to spend time there. Claude brought his family once or twice. Marianne’s older sister and her family spent Easter at the Merchant’s House for a few years when the children were small. Then TDF married Evie and began spending more and more time in Dartmouth, until he finally passed the reins to Charlie and moved down permanently.
‘Do you mind?’ Charlie asked Evie once. ‘Leaving your boathouse and living here?’
‘I haven’t really left it,’ she answered. ‘I still work there. This is a beautiful house, and I adore the garden, it’s just that I can’t quite think of it as mine. It belongs to your family so I feel very slightly like a guest in it.’
He could see what she meant. Because it was fully furnished, fully equipped, there was no point in changing things. Evie had no opportunity to imprint her own personality except in very small ways, nor did she attempt it. He accepted her implication that once his father died it would be left to him, and so she had no true sense of belonging, yet he was upset that she felt that way and tried to assure her that it was her home.
She gave him a hug. ‘Thanks, Charlie. It’s fine, honestly. I’m very happy here.’
Nobody guessed for a moment that TDF would leave the house to her.
Charlie leans back in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table. What he can’t understand is why his father didn’t warn him: explain why, for the first time in five generations, the Merchant’s House should be left away from the rest of the estate. Although he won’t enter into Ange’s discussions about it, he too is puzzled as to why it wasn’t simply left in trust for Evie’s lifetime so as to keep it in the family. He feels oddly hurt that his father didn’t take him into his confidence and explain his reasons.
The top terrace is warm in the early morning sunshine; Charlie can smell the lavender. He breathes deeply, expels anxiety, and decides that he will walk into the town after breakfast. Part of him hopes that Ange won’t want to come with him. He finishes his coffee, wanders back down the steps and into the kitchen. Ben is there, yawning over a fresh-made cafetiere.
‘Morning,’ he says. ‘Is Ange up?’
Charlie shakes his head. ‘I’ll take her some coffee. She might like a bit of a lie-in.’
Ben’s raised eyebrows suggest that this is unlikely; that Ange is more likely to be down organizing breakfast. Charlie shrugs, takes a mug of coffee and goes upstairs. Ange is sitting up in bed, checking her iPhone, tapping out a text. She gestures with her head towards the bedside table and continues tapping. He sets the coffee down.
‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘You can shower first. I brought croissants with me but I doubt Ben will have thought about lunch so I shall go and forage. Thank God there’s a Marks and Spencer’s in the town now. Don’t be long.’
It’s mid-morning by the time Charlie closes the front door behind him, crosses the road, and strides down Bayard’s Hill. He pauses outside the Dartmouth Arms, wanders over to stand at the wall and look across to Kingswear. The river is full of small craft, some of which jostle round the guardship like goslings paddling around a stately grey goose.
He turns away, heading for the Embankment, enjoying being alone: knowing that he is a local amongst the crowds of holidaymakers and visitors. There is music blaring from stalls, echoing from the funfair; an atmosphere of carnival, of gaiety. He remembers how, when his girls were younger, they loved regatta; clinging to his hands lest they should be separated by the crowds, screaming in the bumper car and on the big wheel, begging for ice creams. Now, at thirteen and fifteen, they are frighteningly sophisticated, plugged into iPods, endlessly texting, preferring to be with their friends down at Polzeath than with their parents. He misses them; misses their small warm hands holding his, their dependency, the way they used to laugh at his jokes.
A woman is coming towards him, holding a l
ittle girl by the hand, laughing down at her. The child looks up with a trusting, happy smile, giving a little skip of anticipation as if at some promised treat, and just for a moment Charlie experiences a sharp pang of loss; a longing for times past. Then, as he watches them, the woman glances at him and her face opens into an expression of pleasure, of recognition. Even the child seems to know who he is – and, as they move towards him through the throng of people, he finds himself smiling back at them, his heart beating more quickly as if something momentous is happening.
The woman – she is beautiful, warm, vivid with the joy of simply being here – cries out: ‘Hello. Isn’t this great? We came in on the Park and Ride.’
And, despite the fact that he has no idea who she is, he knows nothing will ever be quite the same again.
Even as she calls out to him, Jemima is suddenly filled with disquiet. The man who now approaches them is so like Ben – his height and grace, his dark hair and smiling brown eyes – and yet it isn’t Ben. Not quite. She stares at him, her smile fading a little, feeling a bit crazy.
At her side, Maisie jumps with excitement, swinging on her hand, as if she remembers the man from Stokeley Farm Shop, and shouts, ‘Hello!’
Jemima stares at him; and as he stretches out his hand, and she automatically takes it in her own, she knows that nothing will ever be quite the same again. They stand still, the crowds surging and barging around them and the music playing, linked, staring at each other.
Jemima gathers her wits, smiles quickly, and lets go of his hand.
‘This is crazy,’ she says. ‘I actually thought for a moment that you were Ben Fortescue but you’re not.’ A tiny hesitation. ‘Are you?’
The question makes him laugh, and she laughs with him, and the tension flows out of the situation.
‘I really wish I were,’ he says. ‘I’m his cousin, Charlie.’
‘Gosh,’ she says. ‘Well, at least I’m not quite crazy. That was totally surreal. I’m Jemima Spencer and this is Maisie. Her mum has to work so she’s staying with me for the weekend.’
Summer on the River Page 9
