A rather horrid idea occurs to Ange. Supposing Evie has already given them to Ben? Ange is rather surprised at the strength of her anger. It really upsets her to think of Evie disposing of any of the family belongings. She has to control a desire to rush downstairs and up through the garden to confront Evie with the question of the whereabouts of the cartoons. Ange takes a deep breath, willing herself to be calm. There might be a perfectly rational answer and she doesn’t want to look a fool. She knows that Charlie isn’t totally on her side in these matters and she must proceed carefully. Charlie is so laid-back, so easy-going. He has no idea of the dangers of allowing the affection between Ben and Evie to grow even stronger. Evie loves both Charlie and Ben – after all, they are the nearest she’ll get to sons of her own – but it is necessary for Charlie to continue to hold his own place in Evie’s affections. Ange is dismayed by the way Ben has settled in, the easy coming and going between the two households, and she wishes that she and Charlie were staying longer. In a thousand tiny ways she is able to make sure that Ben knows his status as a temporary lodger; she is able to keep him on the back foot by establishing her and Charlie’s rights in the house.
As she makes her way slowly down the stairs she plays with the idea of suggesting to Charlie that he might stay on here in Dartmouth rather than accompanying her to Polzeath. He wouldn’t object to that. Holidays with his mother-in-law and two rebellious teenage girls aren’t exactly his idea of relaxation, but it’s difficult to know exactly how to put the suggestion to him. She can hardly explain that its purpose is subtly to maintain and underline his future role as the owner of the Merchant’s House. And how and when is she to bring up the matter of the cartoons?
As she reaches the hall her mobile phone begins to ring. She runs back upstairs to her bedroom and fishes the phone out of her bag.
‘Mummy. Hi. Everything OK?’
She listens whilst her mother tells her that Millie has twisted her ankle and hurt her wrist in a rather nasty fall and that she’s making rather a fuss about it, though she’s perfectly all right really. When Ange can get a word in, she tells her mother that she will come down first thing in the morning; that Charlie can stay on with Ben for a bit longer, and should she have a quick word with the girls?
Millie is grumpy and whiny – ‘it’s simply so unfair’ – and Alice is out on the beach with the gang, so Ange promises to set off after breakfast and then she goes downstairs and out into the garden.
Charlie watches her approach up through the garden with a faintly sinking heart. He feels he is caught between his loyalty to her and to Benj, and it’s very uncomfortable. At the same time, he still hasn’t recovered from his meeting with Jemima, which had the same effect as drinking several glasses of champagne. He can see that Claude has his eye on him but he doesn’t fear Claude: the old boy is on his side – up to a point, anyway.
Charlie braces himself to prepare for Ange: another little snub to Evie, perhaps, or a barbed remark to Benj? But Ange is smiling an almost rueful, conciliatory smile. It indicates a kind of amused irritation that somehow involves an explanation or change of plan in which he will be involved and expected to comply.
‘A bit of a drama,’ she says, as she reaches the terrace and sinks down on to a chair. ‘Millie’s managed to twist her ankle. No, no,’ she nods reassuringly at Charlie, ‘she’s fine, really, but I’ve promised to get off to Polzeath first thing after breakfast.’
His second reaction, after his relief that Millie is OK, is disappointment that he definitely won’t be seeing Jemima again. The tiny hope that they might meet accidentally in the town tomorrow is crushed and he is surprised at the depth of his feelings. He watches Ange accepting a cup of tea from Benj and tries to get a grip on his emotions.
‘Actually,’ Ange is saying, almost casually, ‘I’m wondering, Charlie, if it isn’t best if you stay here. After all, there won’t be much you can do, and Millie will probably be in a strop so it might be best if Granny and I manage it together. You’ll probably be bored stiff and you’ve hardly had any time here. I can pick you up on our way back next weekend.’
Charlie’s own delight and relief at her suggestion are mixed with an awareness of the reaction of the others around the table. It is clear to him that this magnanimity, Ange’s recognition that he might like to spend time with Benj and Evie and Claude, is rather out of character and he can feel them all registering it in their different ways. He guesses at her ulterior motive but the prospect of a week in Dartmouth is too good an opportunity to turn down and he seizes it, although with carefully suppressed eagerness.
‘Well, it’s certainly a bit of a shame to dash off when we’ve only just got here but won’t poor old Millie think it’s a bit heartless if I don’t come too?’
‘Oh, no.’ Ange shrugs off any need to consider Millie’s wounded feelings. ‘She’s not ill, after all. She’s just cross and feeling sorry for herself. And Alice won’t mind. After all, they’ve been home for the last six weeks so it’s not as if you haven’t seen anything of them. I just feel that playing nursemaid isn’t your scene and you might as well be enjoying yourself here.’
‘Well, if you’re sure …’ he pretends reluctance a little longer. ‘Yes, it would be fun to spend a bit of time exploring the old haunts.’
The joy fizzes up in him again – he can drive out to Torcross, maybe see her walking the dog – and sinks a little as he remembers that he won’t have a car. Claude is watching him, his eyes crinkling a little, as if the old bugger knows just what he’s thinking, and Charlie grins back at him. He simply can’t help himself.
‘Oh, by the way,’ Ange is saying, leaning across the table towards Evie, ‘I was looking for a book – that old edition of The Wind in the Willows – to read last night, just for old times’ sake, and I see that those lovely cartoons have gone from the little dressing-room.’
Charlie feels his insides curl and shrivel. How he hates these confrontations, these veiled accusations. Ange hasn’t been looking for a book; she’s been prying. He is aware of tension around the table. Claude is very wary; he watches Evie who sits up straight, chin lifted, her smile fading. Only Benj seems unconcerned and faintly curious.
‘The cartoons?’ he asks. ‘Great-great-grandfather’s drawings?’
‘Yes,’ Ange says, turning to him quickly. ‘Have you got them?’
‘I have them,’ says Evie calmly. ‘They’re in my study over in the boathouse.’
‘Oh?’ Ange manages to make it a question. ‘They’ve always hung in the little dressing-room. All the children loved them. It was a kind of tradition, wasn’t it, Charlie? That’s what your mother told me. My girls love them.’
Charlie feels hot with embarrassment and anger. ‘Rather a waste, though,’ he says, attempting a casual note, ‘seeing that there aren’t any young to use the dressing-room any more.’
‘But there will be,’ Ange persists, though she pretends to be jolly; light-hearted, almost amused at the prospect of grandchildren. ‘Our girls will have children one day, and Laura. Family traditions are so important.’ She gives a little artificial laugh. ‘But then I’m very hot in the matter of inheritance. You need to be scrupulously fair.’
To his amazement, Evie begins to laugh. ‘You’re absolutely right, Ange,’ she says. ‘You do, indeed.’
Charlie sees that Ange looks taken aback and Claude quickly puts out a hand as if to restrain Evie, who smiles at him.
It’s Benj who saves the day by standing up and saying: ‘So how about a fresh pot?’
Charlie gets up too and says: ‘I’ll refill the milk jug,’ and, filled with relief, follows him down through the garden.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ONCE ANGE HAS gone, driving away up the hill, Charlie closes the garage door and strolls across the road to lean on the wall. It’s still early and the town is not yet in full regatta mood. He looks down at the steep granite staircases below, through narrow alleys that topple down towards the river and disappear between high
stone walls where clumps of feverfew and valerian precariously cling to crumbling mortar.
Just for this moment he feels utterly at peace. He envies old Benj living here, able to do this whenever he chooses, free to wander into the town and along the Embankment: to have coffee with Evie in the boathouse or tea in the garden, and to be utterly free to pursue Jemima Spencer. This prospect should be filling him with anxiety, jealousy, but it doesn’t. He suspects that his cousin has no desire to embark on another complicated relationship just yet or he would have made a push to see her again. And it’s interesting that Jemima hasn’t made a move either, despite having Benj’s mobile number.
Charlie turns his back on the river, rests his elbows on the wall and gazes up at the Merchant’s House: at its cool, clean lines and elegant façade. It’s nice to think of old Benj living in it, that it’s part of the family again. He found it really odd when the tenants were in, and he’d be staying with Evie, not to be able to fling open the front door and just walk into his own house.
Of course, it belongs to Evie now, but Evie is part of the family. He thinks about Evie’s role: she’s certainly not like a stepmother, nor is she like an aunt or some older relative. In an odd way, the crucial root of his relationship with Evie is a similar kind of sensation that triggered his response to Jemima: a sense of recognition, of knowing and belonging. It’s as if he knew them both way back and then – after some kind of separation and in different ways – they’ve come back into his life.
Charlie shakes his head; it’s all quite crazy. He levers himself upright, hears footsteps below and peers over the wall. Claude is climbing up, pausing to take a breath, and coming on again.
‘Hi,’ Charlie calls down to him. ‘Where are you off to so early in the morning?’
‘Alf’s,’ says Claude, reaching the pavement and pretending that he isn’t breathing heavily. ‘I fancy a nice old-fashioned full English breakfast and Evie hasn’t surfaced yet. Want to join me?’
‘Love to,’ says Charlie promptly. ‘No sign of Benj yet, either. I was just seeing Ange off.’
‘Ah,’ says Claude. ‘Week of freedom, eh?’
Charlie grins at him. ‘You said it. And what a way to start it! I haven’t had one of Alf’s breakfasts for years. Just think what I’m missing! God, I feel like a kid again.’
‘My heart bleeds for you,’ says Claude. ‘All those tiresome visits to foreign vineyards, wretched wine-tastings, boring dinners with rich clients, when you could be living here in Dartmouth, having breakfast at Alf’s whenever you feel like it. You poor deprived boy. Come on. The treat’s on me and afterwards, if you’re good, I’ll take you for a ride on the big dipper and then buy you an ice cream.’
‘But we could be really quick,’ Maisie is pleading, perched at the kitchen table, holding up Princess Poppy as if to aid her request. ‘And then we’d still be in time to meet Mummy at Dartington.’
Jemima stacks the dishwasher, fighting the desire to agree; to dash into Dartmouth for an hour to let Maisie experience the joys of regatta again whilst hoping to bump into Charlie before he goes off to Cornwall.
‘We can’t manage it on the bus,’ she explains. ‘There just isn’t enough time to get there and back again and then drive to Dartington. I’ve promised to meet Mummy in Cranks by one o’clock. She’s coming straight on after her shift. We’d have to take the car to the Park and Ride and I can’t leave Otto in a hot car for a couple of hours.’
‘But Otto could stay here,’ wheedles Maisie. ‘He wouldn’t really mind. He’ll be asleep for most of the time anyway.’
Jemima knows that this is true. Otto’s already had a good walk, and will be perfectly happy stretched out in his basket, but she still fights the proposition simply because she wants to agree to it so much.
‘I probably wouldn’t be back until three o’clock,’ she begins reluctantly, but Maisie senses victory is imminent, slides off her chair and comes to hug her.
‘Pleeeze, Jemima,’ she begs. ‘Maybe you’ll win something this time.’
‘OK,’ says Jemima. ‘But we shan’t be able to stay very long. Let’s clean those teeth and get you packed up.’
Maisie cheers and runs out and up the stairs whilst Jemima follows more slowly, determined not to change her clothes or make any great effort with her appearance. She’s wearing one of her favourite long skirts, made of pale turquoise floral cotton, with a loose white cotton over-shirt. Her hair is loosely tied back with a long narrow scarf. Yesterday she was wearing jeans, her hair bundled into a knot, and very little make-up. She wondered if he’d noticed.
She oversees the teeth-cleaning, checks Maisie’s room, and packs her small case whilst discussing which toys or books she wants to carry in her little rucksack. Back downstairs, Jemima fills Otto’s water bowl and tells him to stay when he prepares to climb out of his bed to come with them. He watches reproachfully but with resignation for a moment, then settles down again, and finally they are ready to go.
When Evie comes out of her bedroom she knows at once that Claude is not there. His bedroom door is slightly ajar and even before she arrives in the kitchen she guesses that he’s gone out to Alf’s for breakfast: one of his holiday treats. It’s odd how different a house feels when there are other people around: the sense of presence, of other life. She fills the kettle, switches it on and goes to slide open the doors to the balcony. The sunshine pours in and she stands at the rail, her eyes closed, her face turned towards its warmth as she listens to the river sounds. She still feels on edge after Ange’s attack about the cartoons.
‘I thought for a minute you were going to blurt it all out,’ Claude said when they got back to the boathouse.
‘I nearly did,’ she admitted, ‘except that it would have been very unfair to Ben and Charlie. But gosh! I longed to see her expression if I’d taken her up on the question of inheritance.’
‘It was only then,’ he said, ‘that I realized I’ve never asked you whether the contents of the house were left to you with the building itself.’
‘Well, they were actually. By the time TDF and I were married, and living there, Marianne had long since taken anything really valuable to London. The cartoons hardly came into that class. They were just a bit of charming family history, along with a few small pieces of old china. But now, legally, they belong to me. I keep them in my study simply because I wanted to be on the safe side. It’s typical that Ange should settle on the one thing that could actually be a threat to her.’
‘Thank God she’s off tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I can’t see her dropping it, can you?’
No, thinks Evie, now. I can’t see her dropping it.
It occurs to her that two of the cartoons have remained unframed ever since Tommy used their frames for the small etchings he gave her. This was when he’d first discovered those long-hidden pieces of paper – and then taken all the cartoons apart – but he’d refused to replace those two cartoons in their original frames and had put them into plastic folders until other frames could be found; but they never were.
Maybe now is the time to find new frames for her etchings and restore the two cartoons to the originals. Ange is certain to want to see them; and maybe they should all be rehung in the little dressing-room. Whatever the decision, Evie knows that an important crossroads has been reached.
She turns, leaning back against the rail, looking up at the Merchant’s House washed with morning sunshine, and she thinks of Tommy.
What shall I do? she asks him silently. What’s the plan?
That was one of their phrases: Tommy always had a plan, a project, a new idea. The cartoons are vivid in her mind and, alongside them, the etchings he’d chosen and framed for her. She remembers how he watched as she unwrapped them on her birthday: intent, almost as if he were willing her to discover something very special. They were beautiful and very simple: a dipper balancing on a stone midriver, and a wren perching on a holly branch.
That was the last birthday she had with him. She always opened her
presents at tea-time up on the top terrace if the weather allowed. It was a hot July afternoon, tea had been carried up, and the table was strewn with cards and presents. She always kept Tommy’s until last.
‘They’re beautiful,’ she said. ‘How amazing that you should find my two favourite birds. I love them. But I still wonder if you should have used these frames.’
Knowing now what they both did, about the cartoons and the secret they’d hidden for so long, she felt slightly anxious about the frames.
‘I wanted you to have them today,’ he said, ‘but the time might come when you want to change them, find new frames, and put the cartoons back. You’ll know when it’s right.’
It’s as if she can smell the lavender again, taste hot tea in the thin china cup: she remembers the warmth of his hug, the scent of his aftershave.
OK, she says to him, still silently. I’ll get them reframed. Find new ones for the etchings. That’s the plan, then.
Suddenly she feels calmer, as if this is the right decision, the next step. She makes coffee and toast and carries it out to the balcony. A skiff shoots downstream, the rowers bent low to their oars; a white ketch motors out to the sea; a cormorant flies upriver, skimming the surface of the water, black wings outstretched.
Evie watches the little scene beyond her balcony, thinking of Tommy; missing him. Later she will go out, wander round, enjoy regatta. She wonders if she will see Mikey again, or Jason. It would be wonderful if some kind of reconciliation could be effected. She would like it so much if she and Mikey could be friends.
Jemima spots her among the crowds on the Embankment and waves. Evie’s face lights up with recognition and they all meet together with delight.
‘I was hoping we’d see each other again,’ says Evie, and Jemima feels a warmth at the older woman’s genuine pleasure. ‘I wanted to invite you to see my boathouse but it seemed a bit pushy when we’d only met so briefly.’
Summer on the River Page 12
