Sea Glass Summer

by Dorothy Cannell

  Her mother’s dulcet laughter drifted with them into the dining room, its long, oval walnut table set with Royal Worcester china, Georgian silver and crystal worthy of the bottle of excellent vintage champagne Charles held ready to uncork. Against a backdrop of watered silk walls and draperies, lunch began with vichyssoise, prepared and served by the irreplaceable Mrs Broom. Understandably Gwen’s father stared at his bowl in perplexity after his first spoonful. In his world view soup was meant to be served hot. And if he said little during the course of the meal and had to be asked twice to pass the salt and pepper, that was also not surprising given the flow of conversation around him. He had always enjoyed sitting back and listening.

  The voices rose and fell, fueled by an energy that seemed on the surface as light and effervescent as the champagne that continued to flow. But beneath the bubbling merriment, the laugher, quips and repartee of a celebratory occasion, lay something more troubling. Initially Gwen assumed that this palpable undercurrent emanated only from within herself as she strove to speak neither too little nor too often to John Garwood.

  But as the meal progressed through poached salmon, saffron rice and green salad to the finale of a crème caramel dessert, even her self-absorption could not prevent her noticing that Charles was too determinedly the perfect host, that Rowena’s witticisms seemed a little fevered, that even her mother appeared overly eager to ‘make the party go.’ In the midst of this artificially elevated atmosphere her father’s silences loomed, not as a rock against which to lean as in days gone by, but one that was slipping beneath the waters stirred by turbulence, presaging a storm that would reduce all their lives to wreckage.

  What dark nonsense! Claptrap! That would have been Great-Aunt Harriet’s word. But Gwen could not shake the belief that John Garwood (must not yet allow herself to think of him only by his first name) remained the one person in the room who had himself completely in hand. For the barest moment she allowed herself to look directly across the table at him. He was speaking to her father, waiting attentively for a response, and there was such a look of gentleness on his strong, dark face that she was overwhelmed by a wave of tenderness such as she had never experienced except for her child. Never, ever for Charles. To be physically attracted to a man other than her husband was bad enough, but to feel herself falling in love with this twice forbidden stranger was intolerable, corrupt.

  To delude herself that he was not unknown . . . that in some incredible way his face, his voice were as belovedly familiar as waking to the morning sun, was weakness. The thought raced through her mind like a rat in a maze: I must never see him again. Such was her panic that the impossibility of such a resolve did not strike her. She would dedicate herself to being the perfect wife, offer to travel with Charles on some of his work trips. Equally important was that Rowena should never guess her sister’s inward betrayal; nothing must be allowed to further dishonor that bond. Out of the past came a memory. Rowena touching her cheek and saying lightly, ‘Sweet Gwen! The world is your very own private garden, so naturally you should get to pick the prize blooms.’ Words to boost the self-confidence of the less visible younger sister, readily laughed aside. Untrue then and unquestionably so now. Gwen did not figure in John Garwood’s thoughts beyond a willingness to welcome her as a sister-in-law. She had to, must, believe that to be the case with every ounce of strength she had. This infantile sense of their being destined to come together for each to be whole was a one-sided fantasy. The best scenario would be if Rowena and her bridegroom returned to live permanently in New Zealand.

  The rest of the day passed at an agonizingly slow pace. Coffee in the living room. Sonny coming in afterwards to join them, circling his grandparents, eager to tell them a story about Mrs Broom’s cat getting lost for a day and a half and being found shut up in the attic. The rest of those present were reduced to moving shadows on a faded screen, because only by shutting her mind could Gwen get through the hours until nightfall. Pressing on her was the need to talk to Rowena about the wedding, ask what was planned, demonstrate interest and enthusiasm while hoping against hope that she wouldn’t be asked to be a bridesmaid. But on her first attempt her sister did not remain still long enough to say more than it was all up in the air. Much depended on how soon John would have to start his next job, likely not to be in Australia this time, but one never knew. His company had a way of changing its mind; he was a pawn really, not a knight or a king.

  Half an hour later, Gwen tried again. ‘Tell me at least, will it be a church wedding?’

  Rowena took a moment to turn her head. ‘Are those tears in your eyes? Such a sentimental little darling! Didn’t I always try to discourage you from reading Dickens? He’s so incorrigibly weepy. No, I think John and I will skip the church. Can’t you just hear Great-Aunt Harriet pounding on the floor with her stick while proclaiming on the unsuitability of my gliding down the aisle in white? And I suppose it would be a trifle unseemly. No,’ squeeze of the hand, ‘you wouldn’t think that way. Unlike me, you never did have unkind thoughts. Sorry, must away. Mom’s beckoning. She really shouldn’t worry so much about Dad. Look at him laughing now with Sonny. You and I will get together in the next few weeks and talk trousseau to your heart’s delight. For now why don’t you go and pound out something bridal on the piano? Perhaps that holy-minded thing you and Charles had at your wedding? Handel, wasn’t it? I’m sure John would love to hear you play. He can be frightfully high-brow himself. It adds to his inescapable appeal.’

  The last thing Gwen wanted was to make herself the centerpiece of the afternoon but Charles, having overheard the suggestion, urged her to play. When she said she’d just as soon not, he’d whispered irritably that the piano wasn’t there taking up half the room on the basis of its ornamental value. She didn’t want John Garwood thinking she considered herself a brilliant pianist, and was relieved when Sonny came to join her on the bench, but Charles ordered him back to the sofa. Her heart sank. And yet, that afternoon the piano was waiting for her as it had never done before. She sat, eyes closed, hands feeling for the keys, as if they were fingers known only to her, longing for her touch, responsive to her every half-formed thought, taking her to a place deep inside the music. Not Handel, the choice for her wedding. Chopin, transitioning into Mendelssohn, then Mozart. Their music, theirs alone. All else, all others, left behind. For he, John Garwood, was there with her. She knew with absolute certainty that he had followed her into this momentary heaven. She could feel his heart beating in tune with her own.

  Then a disturbance, dragging her upward to the surface: something heavy falling, the sound echoing until it became a pounding like fists on a door. And somewhere a dog was barking distantly. Still she could not get her eyes to open. She was fuzzily aware of having slumped forward, pushing the piano bench backward; also that the commotion had been caused by Sonny having elbowed a vase, and in the process of trying to straighten it, had knocked over the table on which it stood. She had to go to him, tell him that it didn’t matter, that she loved him . . . would always . . . Suddenly, startlingly, she was awake. That living room of nearly fifty years ago, and those gathered within it, gone. She was seated back in the book room on Ridge Farm Rise, her neck stiff and cramped from being tilted at an awkward angle. Someone was banging on the door with increasing urgency.

  ‘Who, what . . .?’ She ran the short distance to the hall, Jumbo moving aside to allow her clearage. Her hands fumbled with the front door knob as panic squeezed her heart with a tight fist.

  ‘Gwen . . . Gwen!’ an outdoor voice called.

  Moments passing . . . passing . . . and then the face of Madge Baldwin staring wild-eyed at her from the doorstep. ‘Oh, I thought you’d never come. I’ve been banging for five minutes. It’s Charles.’

  ‘Tell me!’ The words clawed their way up her throat.

  ‘He’s taken the car. When I drove it into the garage he came out through the mud room. He asked for the keys and when I said no, he grabbed them from me and there was nothing I co
uld do to stop him. Please don’t look like that! Maybe it will be all right – he got the engine started without any problem. I know it would have been better if he hadn’t, that would have bought time, but he wasn’t weaving as he went down the road. At least the rain has stopped. Let’s think positive, Gwen.’

  ‘The police.’

  ‘You think you should phone them?’

  ‘I have to think. I don’t want him frightened, but I can’t stand by and wait for him to cause an accident. Listen! There’s a car coming. Oh, please, God, let it be him!’ While Madge remained rooted to the step, Gwen hurried distractedly down the path to stand peering up and down the road. A car that was not hers drew up alongside the curb. The driver’s-side window slid down and a man’s head appeared.

  ‘Problem? Struck me you look panicky?’ It was a rumbling English voice, somehow the more reassuring because it was bluntly matter of fact. ‘Need help?’

  Gwen drew her first full breath since waking up. ‘It’s my son,’ she said steadily. ‘Charles Norris. He shouldn’t be driving and he’s taken the car.’ And then she heard herself add with the irrelevance of such moments: ‘He was named after his father. To family and friends he’s always been Sonny.’

  Three

  Nine-year-old Oliver Cully woke at 5 a.m., two hours earlier than usual on Saturday morning to a pale, clear sky. The sun was already up, but who cared about seeing the sun today? He knew it was wrong to think that way when God had put it in the sky, but his heart had hardened towards the Almighty over the past few days and he had already gone off Him some since Grandpa got sick. Oliver usually got up at seven. On school days this allowed him plenty of time to be ready for the bus that arrived at 8.15 a.m. On ordinary, happy weekends he wasn’t about to waste precious minutes lying in bed. Even so, five would normally have been a bit too early for a Saturday. But today was to be anything but ordinary.

  This morning was the last he’d spend in this house with Grandpa, the person he loved best in this world. Two people he’d never met were coming to take him to live with them. He knew of them as Uncle Gerard and Aunt Elizabeth. Grandpa had always referred to them that way, although not often because all he really knew of them was that Gerard had been Oliver’s father’s older brother and that he and Elizabeth lived in New York City.

  The furniture in Oliver’s bedroom was old, but his bed was painted red and the side tables, dresser and chest a dark blue. It had been that way since he was six. Grandpa had let him pick the colors and the curtains and comforter with cowboys on them. They had done the painting together. And Grandpa had let him use the big brush half the time. On top of the chest were several photos of Oliver’s Mom and Dad, one with them holding him as a baby and another when he was two and holding his teddy bear. Oliver still took it under the covers at night. He never fell asleep without saying goodnight to Mom and Dad’s smiling faces. But, Grandpa explained, they would be right there anyway while he slept. Those photos and Teddy were now in one of the cases he would take with him that morning.

  Oliver dangled a leg before climbing disconsolately out of bed. How could you be expected to like people who’d never bothered about you ever before, apart from very occasionally sending a letter? Hah! He’d overheard Twyla saying to Grandpa when one came last year that it sounded so much like those mass mailings she was surprised it didn’t start out: ‘Dear Distant Friends.’ Twyla had lived with them for nearly two years now. She was Grandpa’s nurse. Why couldn’t he stay with her? He loved Twyla. Not as much as Grandpa, of course, but a lot. Those other two were only taking him to their place because Grandpa had to go into a nursing home. It was called Pleasant Meadows, which sounded to Oliver a silly name, because how could there be anything pleasant about it? People went to nursing homes to wait to die. He was glad he’d given God a piece of his mind last night.

  There was only one small, good thing about the future. Those two strangers wouldn’t be taking him miles and miles away to New York immediately; that wouldn’t happen until the fall. For now he would only be dragged as far as Sea Glass, which as Twyla kept saying was only down the road. He would be able to go and see Grandpa often before the big move. That’s if Gerard and Elizabeth would drive him to Pleasant Meadows, Oliver thought darkly. He would never even think of them as Aunt and Uncle, unless they asked him not to call them that and he could have his secret revenge. After Grandpa wrote to them last week to explain the situation, Gerard had telephoned to say that he and Elizabeth had decided to spend the summer in Sea Glass at an old house that had been in the Cully family for a long time. Something about a break-in and feeling they should be there to prevent others from getting the same idea.

  Stupid, when they’d be leaving again at the end of summer; that’s what Oliver’s best friend Brian Armitage had said. And stupid for Gerard and Elizabeth to come for him before summer vacation started, which wouldn’t be for almost four more weeks. Even though Grandpa needed to go into the nursing home before then, Oliver could have stayed on at home with Twyla until school was out. Why were they so keen to take him right now? Brian said he had overheard his parents, Mandy and Reggie Armitage, talking and they thought the only reason could be that Gerard and Elizabeth wanted to immediately get their hands on the social security benefit checks Oliver received once a month because he was an orphan. That would make them very greedy because they were already very rich. Oliver thought Mr and Mrs Armitage were pretty darn smart.

  He wasn’t sure how he knew Gerard and Elizabeth had lots of money; it was just one of those things he’d grown up knowing. His parents had only had the money Dad earned working at the Ferry Landing Bank. Brian said rich people always wanted to grab at every last penny even if they risked breaking their necks to get at it. That piece of wisdom hadn’t come from his parents but from his Aunt Nellie. She was actually his great-great-aunt and ninety years old. Brian was sure she would one day get into the Guinness Book of World Records for living longer than anyone had ever done. He was very proud of her because she still had her whole mind, even if none of her teeth. He also liked her because she said a lot of interesting things. ‘Actually’ was currently Oliver’s most frequently tossed-in word; the previous one had been ‘positively.’

  Grandpa said words were something to hold in your hands like rainbow-colored drops of rain. One he and Oliver used to like to say together was ‘ventriloquism.’ Just on its own, because it tried so hard to catch on your tongue. Twyla liked words too. That was one of the things that made it seem like she’d always been meant to be with them. ‘They’re like people,’ was her take on words. ‘Choose carefully what ones you want to make your friends.’

  Oliver trudged to the bathroom in the manner of a French aristocrat approaching the guillotine. He and Grandpa had watched a black and white film called A Tale of Two Cities. It had been very sad, but in a good sort of way because the hero had been very brave while waiting for his head to be sliced off, saying it was the best thing he’d ever done; only he said it in a poem sort of way that Grandpa already knew by heart. Oliver, brushing his teeth with his head bowed over the basin, was far from nobly resigned to believing that going to live with Gerard and Elizabeth was the best thing. But the thought flickered pathetically that there was still a reason to be a hero, because to act miserable would worry Grandpa.

  ‘OK,’ he told his round-cheeked, sandy-haired reflection in the mirror haughtily, ‘I already know that, but if they decide they don’t like me and say I’ll have to live with Twyla, or even Brian’s parents, I don’t think Grandpa would mind a bit. He’s only sending me to them because Gerard was Dad’s brother and he thinks it’s the right thing to do. How can I get out of living with them without behaving in a way that would upset Grandpa?’ That would take consultation with Brian, who had already expressed a wish to blast Gerard and Elizabeth to Mars or Venus, whichever was the farthest away. What Brian wasn’t as keen on was visiting the Cully Mansion because it looked real creepy from the outside. His Aunt Nellie, who lived quite close to it, had
made him take a look and he was sure he’d seen a ghost glide past one of the top windows.

  Returning to his bedroom, Oliver slowly got himself dressed in his almost new jeans and the green cotton sweater Twyla had given him for Christmas. On any other morning he would have dragged on his clothes so he could race down to breakfast.

  Grandpa believed that getting ready for the day included sitting down to a proper breakfast at the kitchen table. He said breakfast was the most important meal of the day. Bacon or sausage and eggs, juice and toast or English muffins with strawberry or raspberry jam. Never grape jelly. Oliver thought grape jelly was yuck. Grandpa said Oliver’s mother hadn’t liked it either, so Granny Olive had stopped making it. She had died a couple of years after his parents were killed in that plane crash. He only remembered that he’d loved her and felt safe when she held him. The narrow two-story house in Ferry Landing could have been a sad, empty place. But Grandpa hadn’t let that happen when Granny Olive died. He hadn’t let it happen even after getting the diagnosis from his doctor that explained what Grandpa called the ‘trembles.’

  He had continued to manage fairly well for a while, and Oliver had done his best to help out. Grandpa had told him he was the best potato peeler ever, and that was saying something because Granny Olive had been something to see with a paring knife. Twyla believed boys should know how to cook and not go thinking it was a girl’s job. It had been a great day when Twyla arrived. She’d said straight off that she didn’t mind a bit doing the cleaning and cooking the meals as well as being Grandpa’s nurse. Twyla was black. Oliver had never met a black person before. She said if people wanted to call her African American that was OK too; it made not a speck of difference to her. It was what was in people’s hearts that counted. ‘Don’t you go letting anyone decide who you are,’ she’d told Oliver when he’d let on about being bullied by two boys at school. ‘Seems to me, lamb baby, those children don’t know the Golden Rule.’