‘Yes?’
‘Did you invite me here to visit you?’
‘Saskia, my dear, you are always welcome to stay here.’
‘I mean specifically, this year, at this time?’
‘Not specifically, no.’
‘My father said you asked me to come with my bicycle.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Alessandra. ‘When your father called me and said that you wanted to visit me before going to university, I suggested that you bring your bicycle. There are some very good cycling routes around the coast.’
Saskia spoke briskly. ‘Actually, Daddy says that you particularly wanted me to visit you just now.’
Alessandra blinked. ‘Did he? Did I? I’m sorry. I thought he said, I mean . . .’
Her great-aunt’s confusion made Saskia feel juvenile and stupid. She’d upset Alessandra, and for what? Why did it seem important to her that the distinction was made?
Alessandra was watching her anxiously, but recovered herself enough to speak more calmly. ‘Does it matter? It was probably a combination of both. I often wrote to ask you all to spend the summer; it was a standing invitation, that’s what he probably meant.’
‘You wrote? When?’
‘Late June, just before your summer holidays, every year.’
Every year!
That’s not what her father had said at all. Maybe he was right and Alessandra was losing it – well, getting mixed up at any rate.
‘But you know you are welcome,’ Alessandra went on. ‘At any time, Saskia. Always. Always.’
Alessandra wrote every year?
Her father had implied that they hadn’t been in touch for ages. Saskia decided that she would speak to her mother next time she phoned home. And she’d try to do it from a call box in the village. It would be easier than talking with her great-aunt in the house. She would prefer privacy to discuss with her mother her summers here as a child. It was troubling her that her memories of this place seemed shadowed in some way. She had memories of lots of things from when she was small – buying new shoes, birthday parties – why not any from here, especially if they had visited more than once? Had she blocked any thoughts of her times at Cliff House because she believed that Alessandra had fallen out with her father and had never asked them to return? But then why hadn’t she recalled even doing that? Was it an inherited family failing? Was she copying a behaviour pattern from her father, who would dismiss a thing if he couldn’t deal with – put it aside, act as if it hadn’t happened, and be genuinely surprised when faced with it?
With an effort Saskia pulled her mind away from the subject. One of the reasons she had agreed to visit her great-aunt was to escape the tensions within her own home. There was no point in travelling all this way and then spending her time brooding over her parents’ behaviour. She thought about Ben’s offer to give him a call. It would be good to get out with different company, perhaps see more of the countryside. But in any case, tomorrow or the next day she’d make some excuse to go into Fhindhaven and she’d phone home from there.
It was the end of the week before Saskia eventually walked into Fhindhaven.
On the afternoon of the day her father phoned, the weather changed and a storm came in with frightening speed. Saskia stood with Alessandra at the drawing-room windows and watched huge breaking waves running into the cove. The sea dashed against the cliff face, surging high into the many fissures and clefts and then swirling back, foam hissing between the rocks. Great clouds banked on the eastern horizon and the wind shifted round.
‘It will be like this for today and tomorrow,’ said Alessandra. ‘You might not want to go out. It’s not so pretty on the beach when there’s a gale blowing.’
Saskia gazed out to where sea met sky on a vivid colourist canvas of overlapping purples and greys. ‘Not pretty,’ she agreed. ‘Beautiful.’
For the two days the storm lasted Saskia borrowed a hat and gloves from Alessandra and walked each morning on the beach and along the top road to the cliffs overlooking Fhindhaven. She returned to the house by lunch time, breathless and ravenous. In the afternoons they catalogued the photographs together, old and new, and on Thursday night they laid a fire in the drawing room, and made toast by the hearth. Saskia licked hot butter from her fingers and watched the open flames as her aunt went to make a pot of tea.
This time the memory came complete; the scene playing out in Saskia’s head from beginning to end.
Alessandra was singing her a lullaby. Sitting by this very fire with Saskia on her knee, telling her a bedtime story. Saskia squeezed her eyes closed. How old had she been? Four? Five? Saskia remembered her great-aunt’s way of speaking. The tales of the north, told in a lilting tongue. Saskia in thrall to the sounds, and the natural power of the story. She hadn’t known the meaning of every word Alessandra used, yet only occasionally had she interrupted . . .
‘Aunt Alessandra, what’s a silkie?’
And Alessandra answers, without interrupting the flow of her story, weaving the explanation into the narrative.
‘My child, it’s the spirit of the sea. It sometimes takes the form of a seal, though you can always tell in some way if it is not a true seal. The old ones say that the silkies look after the souls of the poor drowned fishermen. They say the silkies catch their bodies as they slide beneath the waves and gently, gently, lower them onto the floor of the ocean. And there the silkies watch over them so that they can rest in peace.’
‘Is that what happened to my grandfather? Daddy says his daddy got lost at sea. Did the silkies find him?’
Her great-aunt whispers, ‘I hope so. I believe so.’ Alessandra bends and kisses Saskia’s forehead. ‘Hush now, my little quine . . . may hosts of angels lull you to your sleep.’
Saskia opened her eyes. Alessandra had returned. She stood with her eyes on Saskia’s face. The fire stretched her shadow on the ceiling. Saskia knew without asking that their thoughts were synchronized.
‘The stories you told me . . . Where did they come from?’
‘From my mother, and her mother, I expect . . . and so on.’
Saskia knew now that when she was a child her great-aunt had always spoken to her in a different way. As though they shared a secret from her parents, as though Alessandra was, like her at the time, not a grown-up. And now . . .? And now Saskia was excluded. She was too old to be part of that bonding, the shared secrets of children. It should have amused her or annoyed her, but it didn’t. It made her sad. Maybe her great-aunt was right. The reason her parents stopped bringing her to Cliff House was merely because she had grown out of coming here.
By Friday the weather had cleared and Saskia did not need to make an excuse to visit Fhindhaven. Alessandra needed some groceries and was grateful when Saskia offered to shop for her. Coming out of the shop Saskia put her purchases into her rucksack and went to find a call box.
It was her father who answered the phone and when she asked to speak to her mother he said, ‘Your mother’s gone off for a few days with a couple of artist friends for a so-called painting trip.’
‘In that case,’ Saskia spoke firmly, ‘there’s something you could help me get straight.’ She was determined that this time she would not have her question sidestepped. ‘Dad, Great-aunt Alessandra says that she did not invite me specifically this year, but that she did write to invite us to stay every year for the last ten years or so.’
‘Oh, no. No—’
‘She doesn’t seem the type to lie, Dad.’
‘Getting old then, losing her mind.’
Saskia hesitated, not wanting to contradict her father twice in as many seconds but knowing that Alessandra had been definite about writing letters of invitation every year.
‘She’s not senile.’
‘Well something like that,’ he said irritably.
Saskia found that she was speaking to her father the way that her mother did. Trying to pin him to the truth of a situation when he did not appear himself to know that he was being evasive.
/> ‘Did she not write? Not at all? Apart from the letter you showed me?’
‘There was another letter, I think.’
‘Just one?’
‘What?’
‘Only one? Did she send only one other letter asking us to visit?’
‘There may have more, over the years.’
‘Two more? Three? How many?’
‘Why are you pursuing this? Does it matter?’
Alessandra had said the same thing. Saskia thought, Why does it matter to me? Why was it important?
‘It’s just that she is insisting on . . .’ Saskia searched for a way to please him, to appeal to his own interests. She heard herself lapse into her little girl’s voice, almost lisping, and was embarrassed to do it. ‘Daddy, I just want to get things clear in my head. She likes talking about the past a lot, and how we played together on the beach when I was small. I thought you wanted me to get to know her better.’
He responded at once. ‘Sorry, pet. I do want you to be friendly with her. Break the ice a bit. I’ve got a major project coming off and I was thinking of asking her to invest some money in it. Actually I’d be doing her a bit of a favour. It’s a good investment – she’d stand to make a big profit.’
‘Well then,’ Saskia persisted; ‘about these letters?’
He tutted. ‘Is she going on about them? Yes, yes, she did write letters every year asking us to come back and stay for the summer, but well, you were growing up, tired of that kind of holiday. We all wanted to go abroad where the weather is more settled, get a bit of sun rather than being stuck in that big old house.’
Saskia held the receiver away from her ear.
He had lied to her.
She could hear his voice, blustering, and then gaining strength as he returned to the subject of his new business venture. Saskia had a vague recollection of this particular project, a leisure complex in southern France. It had cropped up in the more recent rows between him and her mother.
‘So, you see, it’s really good that Alessandra kept writing to me every year. It meant I knew that she would welcome a visit from you at any time. And you’re old enough now to go there on your own so it has worked in very well. She always had a soft spot for you. I’ll phone you next week to see if she’s ready to talk to me about an investment. You’ll be kind and pleasant to her, won’t you?’
Saskia mumbled an agreement and then hung up the phone.
Why had her father not told her that Alessandra had written every year to invite them to visit her?
Because if she had known about Alessandra’s invitation she might have wanted to spend her summer holidays here.
And, up until now, he had not really wanted her to visit Cliff House. Was it because of his own aversion to the sea? Or more to do with Alessandra and her strange ways? Her dad had said that his aunt was odd. How odd? Odd enough for the family not to continue to visit when she was growing up? Alessandra admitted that she had been unwell for years. She spoke of being prescribed tablets. It must be some kind of sedative that she took. Saskia tried to remember the girl, Jane, who had sleepwalked when she was at school. She had gone into therapy. They had found that some trauma had disturbed her. It had all come to light on a school trip to France. Saskia smiled as she recalled how Jane had tried to take advantage of the situation. In the end the party leader had made it plain that sleepwalking into the boys’ bedrooms was not acceptable.
Saskia left the call box and wandered along the main street. For whatever reason she had been kept away in the past, she was glad she was here now. Despite her great-aunt’s strangeness she found that she quite liked her. Alessandra’s direct way of looking, her stillness, the manner in which she spoke of this place, the villages, the sea; the way Alessandra’s voice became lighter, less flat when she did so, the old words creeping in.
Saskia bought herself a can of juice and went to sit on the harbour wall. Walking on the beach on the other side was someone she recognized. It was Ben.
‘Ben!’ called Saskia.
Ben looked round. ‘Hello,’ he shouted back, and waved her over.
Saskia dropped onto the sand and walked to meet him. He was holding a container in one hand and a small fishing net in the other.
‘What have you got there?’ Saskia peered into his container.
‘Copepod Calanus.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Plankton samples.’
‘Is it to do with the seal virus?’
‘Not exactly. It’s work that was ongoing before. But it may come in useful. There’s worldwide investigations being done on marine single-cell organisms. They’re known to drift with the currents of the ocean, but different types of plankton have distinct areas where they are able to live. They are extremely sensitive to climate conditions. Keeping an eye on what they are up to gives us indicators as to future biological implications.’ He stopped. ‘Sorry, I do tend to go on a bit.’
‘No, no,’ said Saskia. ‘I’d like to know more. Really, please finish what you were saying.’
‘Well, basically there is a type of plankton usually only found to the southwest of Britain and the European seas, and another species is found in the North Sea and the Atlantic. But now it looks as if their boundaries are shifting. And as plankton is the basis of marine life it might have a huge impact on the fisheries for the future.’
‘You mean the actual fish stocks?’
‘Yes, and on the way we fish. Fishing methods have become more and more aggressive. The boats scoop up all forms of life; it can be very destructive. Young fish need to feed in order to grow. For instance, trawling by bottom dragging can destroy spawning grounds. We have to ensure that species are not wiped out.’
‘What about Neil’s argument that humans have to live even at the expense of the fish?’
‘Look,’ said Ben; ‘are you finished with that drink?’
There was some juice left in the can but Saskia had had enough. She nodded.
‘Can I throw it away?’ he asked her.
‘Sure.’
Ben took the can from her hand and tossed it onto the beach. ‘There you go,’ he said.
‘Why did you do that?’ Saskia gasped.
‘Why not?’ Ben asked in mock innocence.
‘It’s outrageous.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t be annoying.’ Saskia laughed. ‘You know why. Lots of reasons. It’s ugly to look at. It’s a pollutant. It’s not environmentally friendly. You should tidy your rubbish away.’
‘But why?’ asked Ben. ‘Being tidy doesn’t benefit me. In fact it’s an inconvenience.’ He walked over and picked up the can. ‘I’ve got to make an extra effort to find a place to dispose of this properly. Why should I bother?’
‘If we don’t recycle the world will run out of resources.’
‘But not while I’m around.’
‘It’s for the future,’ said Saskia.
‘My future is tomorrow,’ said Ben. ‘It makes absolutely no difference to my quality of life whether that can is on the beach or in the bin.’
‘You’re depressing me,’ said Saskia.
‘I don’t want to do that,’ said Ben, smiling. ‘How are you occupying your time anyway?’
‘I’ve been helping my aunt catalogue her research materials. It’s actually quite interesting. One of the things she’s been doing is to take up-to-date photographs of all the old fishing villages and match them with old photographs of the same place.’
‘Is she on the staff of the Heritage Centre?’ asked Ben.
‘Not full time. It’s more like volunteer work.’
Ben looked directly at Saskia. ‘We need volunteers for the summer . . . if you’re looking to fill up any more of your time.’
‘I’m only here for a little while to visit my aunt,’ said Saskia, suddenly realizing that she had only intended to stay a maximum of two weeks at Cliff House, and one week was already gone.
‘Pity.’
Saskia slid a glance in his direct
ion. Had he meant anything special by that reply? Was it a pity that there would be one less volunteer because they needed help with the seals, or did he think it a pity that she in particular didn’t volunteer? Ben bought her ice cream and then offered her a lift back to Cliff House as he was on his way to the fish market at Peterhead.
‘More research?’ asked Saskia.
‘Partly. But also because I love being there. I like talking to the fishermen and the harbour master. They know the conditions at sea better than any satellite monitoring system.’ Ben glanced at Saskia. ‘You might find that interesting too. Though it’s better to go in the early morning when they begin to sell the fish and you can watch the boats coming in from a night at sea.’
‘How early?’ asked Saskia.
‘Very early,’ said Ben, ‘but it’s worth it. I’ve been loads of times but I still get a buzz, especially when the fish auction begins.’
‘I’d love to see that,’ said Saskia.
‘Right,’ said Ben, grinning at her. ‘That’s it settled then. I’ll pick you up at half past four tomorrow morning.’
That evening as she made dinner for herself and Alessandra, Saskia thought about her phone conversation with her father. She wanted to tell her great-aunt that she had been right and her father wrong about the circumstances of the invitation to visit Cliff House. But she’d feel awkward doing that, letting Alessandra know that she’d phoned home from the village to discuss it with her father.
And there were still things she wanted to sort out in her head about the time her family had spent here when she was small. Her vague and disjointed recollections needed clarifying, but she decided she would ask those questions of her mother. She was aware that her father had mixed emotions about the sea, mainly to do with his upbringing in his own mother’s little cottage in Yarmouth. Saskia knew this part of her father’s story. She’d heard it often. It was a flashpoint between her parents.
Her mother always cast it up to him. ‘Call yourself a property developer? If only you’d held onto that property when your mother died. Those holiday cottages are fetching a fortune nowadays. We could have sold it or let it.’
Saskia's Journey Page 7
