by Susan Sallis
Zannah smiled delightedly. ‘I wasn’t all bad then?’
‘No.’ Gussie had no answering smile. ‘That’s what made it so … peculiar … when you left. Mind you, for ages I thought you’d come back. And I was not sure that would be a good thing.’
Why was she talking like this? She wanted to eat her cheese, close her eyes, block everything inside her head.
Zannah’s smile went too. ‘Why? You were happier without me?’
‘Daddy was. He didn’t enjoy the rows like you did.’
‘Didn’t they ever have rows? Him and Kate?’
‘No. Sorry, but they were perfect together.’ She should not say that; it was hurtful, deliberately hurtful. Her mother was silent for a long time. When she spoke at last her voice was different. Bitter?
‘This is the truth game, is it? So might I point out that they felt bound to get married because she was pregnant?’
Gussie had to go on. ‘If it’s the truth game, then you know Daddy would not have allowed that to happen. They were in love, Zannah. You have to believe it.’
Zannah was silent for so long, Gussie began to regret the whole thing. She said tentatively, ‘I was very cautious about Kate at first but as time went on – especially when Jannie arrived – I grew to love her. I really loved her, Zannah. I still loved you but I loved her too. Can you get your head round that?’
Zannah almost barked a laugh. ‘Not really, I suppose. I’ve always thought it was a marriage of convenience – he needed a live-in carer and she needed a family background for the boy—’
‘Edward. We call him Ned.’
‘That’s it. Ned. I remember him. You looked after him now and then.’
‘I taught him what you had taught me. Rock climbing, pool fishing, mussel picking.’
‘Jumping off cliffs into the sea?’
‘Nothing dangerous.’ Gussie spoke quickly and Zannah looked up, suddenly aware.
‘A-a-agh.’ She stared at her daughter with narrowed eyes. ‘Ned jumped. Hurt himself? Kate was furious; Mark, too, after losing his own legs. There was a row. What happened? Did you run away?’
‘I just told you. I did not show Ned that special jump. He hasn’t got a head for heights. I’d never have done that.’
‘Something to do with that jump. And you’re not going to tell me about it.’
‘I’ve forgotten all about it and—’
‘No, you haven’t forgotten. It would help you, Gus. It’s something to do with our jump. Something to do with me.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. You had been gone nearly twenty years!’
‘So. You were … twenty-six? Twenty-five? Your father told me you were engaged then and the man was a rotter; that you were back home for a while getting over it. Only you didn’t. Obviously, you didn’t.’
‘I did! That was the point! I had forgotten and then your painting reminded me of some of Grampa’s stuff in the Scaife studio … and now—’ She gestured behind her. There were tears pricking her eyes. ‘This!’
‘He disapproved. He was a tight-arse, for God’s sake, not worth tuppence if he couldn’t appreciate my father’s work! Couldn’t you see that?’
Gussie was openly crying now. ‘It wasn’t like that!’ She was nearly shouting. ‘I was pregnant and he wanted me to have an abortion and I didn’t, and he was so angry and said I was ruining his life, and I told him he could walk away and never see me again and no one would know who the father was, and he pushed me off the cliff. He tried to kill me, Zannah! And I thought he had, but of course, in spite of the twenty years I remembered the overhang was concealing that cave and I swam into it and clambered up and away from the waves, and when the tide went out I climbed back up.’ She looked at her mother piteously. ‘But I lost the baby, Zannah. I lost it there. In the cave. No one knows about it. He killed my baby.’
Zannah stared, shocked. It was the kind of melodrama that appealed to her. But not when it concerned her daughter.
She gathered Gussie to herself and rocked her for a long time. Then she whispered, ‘Let’s go back, darling. Don’t button yourself up any more. I need to understand this and you have to talk about it for both our sakes.’ She stroked the damp face. ‘Is that all right?’
And after a few seconds, Gussie nodded.
Twelve
THE COLD WAS beginning to seep up through the rocks. It seemed to Gussie that her mother was unnecessarily anxious to get back down to the farmhouse and ‘talk’. Typical Zannah: avid curiosity but small attention span. And then, as she stood up, Gussie realized that her muscles had stiffened, the inner trembling was still there and, in spite of the sunshine, the short day had lost its sparkle.
She watched numbly as Zannah humped herself into the harness of the backpack and urged them both into the meadowland. Her blunt statement – accusation – whatever it had been – hung in the air. Truthful? If it was truthful then Andrew Bellamy was evil. And he wasn’t evil. Or was he?
She knew she could no longer tuck away that terrible time and pretend it had never happened. She had said those words to her mother and they had released a torrent of memory as strong as the torrent of the River Brussac. Even as they had climbed towards it she had felt her body responding to the landscape and had known at some level of consciousness that this would happen.
In a way it was a relief. Kate and Mark had been away when she introduced Andrew to her birthplace. They had never met him. When she eventually crawled back up the cliff and reached Zion Cottage, he had long gone. He had not even called the rescue services. No one had known she was missing. It was a blessing. She told herself that it was a blessing over and over again. Yet, when it became obvious that she was not dead, he did not get in touch. She could not believe it for months: he could have had a daughter or a son. He never tried to find out. How he must have hated her. When she heard he was in St Ives and had actually asked about her, she was terrified. Was it possible – it could not be, yet it might be – that after more than four long years he was going to try to kill her again?
By the time they got into the kitchen her skin was hot, yet inside she was still shivering. She seemed unable to do the simplest things. Zannah pulled off her boots and pushed her into a chair next to the range, made tea and held the cup to her mouth until she sipped it. Then she took the cup into her own hands and watched as Zannah started to make toast. She made an effort to pull herself together.
‘There’s soup in the fridge … I’ll get it …’
‘I know, darling. I’ve put it on the hob – d’you see? Smells lovely. We’ll have it with hot buttered toast – instant nourishment – and then you are going to talk. Are you warm now? Here are your slippers.’
Gussie realized that her feet were propped almost inside the open side oven, the slippers right inside it. She managed a quivering smile as she bent down to put them on. She thought of the poor bedraggled creature who had let herself back into Zion Cottage that night in June. She could have done with her mother then, and yet had wanted no one to see her utter degradation.
She managed a square of toast and a mug of soup, and did indeed feel instantly better.
‘I shouldn’t have told you,’ she said. ‘Now you’re going to get all het up. It’s over, Zannah. And it made me what I am, I suppose. I grew up that night. I thought I was doing so well, moderately successful, wonderfully in love. I discovered …’ She choked and then went on tritely, ‘I was wrong.’
There was a silence. Zannah was watching her, probably getting all the wrong messages.
Gussie said desperately, ‘Listen, I probably was wrong. Quite wrong. He lurched – it was a shock, after all – he obviously hated the thought of being a father and I had imagined he would be pleased!’ She forced a laugh. ‘What an idiot! He probably almost fell over with the shock and knocked me over the edge! Imagine hearing that sort of news on a headland!’
Zannah closed her eyes. ‘If the tide hadn’t been in, Gus, you would have been killed instantly.’
�
��I suppose so. But it must have looked pretty hopeless anyway. You know how it boils around those rocks. And if, by the time he looked over the edge, I had dived into the cave, he must have thought …’ She dropped her head. ‘The tide had ebbed by midnight. As I climbed back up, I put two and two together. He hadn’t raised any sort of alarm. No one knew he was there. I wasn’t surprised to get back home and find he had gone. It was for the best, of course. I went to bed with three hot-water bottles and just waited until I felt better. Mrs Beck was the only one who asked about him and all she said was that she thought I was bringing my young man down for the week. I told her that we had broken up and she said there were plenty more fish in the sea.’ She managed a smile at her mother and Zannah grinned back.
Gussie said, ‘D’you know, I feel better! I should have told you ages ago instead of letting it fester away inside me.’
‘It’s like a boil. And you’ve popped it. So there is a relief, but there’s poison too. Come on, Gus. Drink your tea and talk.’
‘I’ve said it all. That’s it. I have never had anything more to do with Albion UK since then. I took on a project for Tregannon House, funded by Natural Earth – Daddy made a little sculpture garden there. Kept to the budget with his help, of course. I knew it was good. It led to something for another of the big Penwith houses. I began to see how important it was to keep what had been laid down a hundred years ago and work from there. I learned about growing pineapples next to compost, for the heat. And you had already got me interested in grapes. There’s a very sheltered valley on the south of the peninsula where I’ve got a tiny bananerie going. I thought everything was pretty good until that day last September when Dad and Mum were killed. And even then I did not realize that the enormity of it made it less … personal. And there were the three of us – always the three of us. We have been in a limbo – self-induced. And we know we can’t stay there, which is terrifying in itself. Jannie is moving on already. She has fallen in love and that is a great healer as well as a great destroyer.’ She stopped at her mother’s cry of distress and shook her head. ‘Yes, you’re right. I must not generalize, of course.’ She focused on her mother and said, ‘I think it is the very randomness of everything that makes me tired.’
‘Meaning?’
‘We were going on fine and then Nine Eleven happened. Random. Then I thought I might be able to work from Zion Cottage and keep the place going for all three of us – like Kate did. And then Ned wanted to see his father – his birth father – and Jannie somehow became strong and then met this teacher chap … all random.’
‘Maybe not so random. We’re never going to understand it, Gus. And we’re allowed our own way – isn’t that what free will means? I’m having fun with my free will – I’m not looking for meanings any more. Waste of time. Now and then you get to a place when you can look back and see a meaning. That’s a treat. Other times, not a lot makes sense unless you make it so.’
‘Oh, Ma,’ Gus smiled without so much as a tremor, ‘you always had such energy and drive, and it’s still there!’
‘And you’ve got it too. Don’t close it off, sweetie. Just because of one bad experience – two bad experiences.’ She looked suspicious. ‘More than two?’
‘No. Two will do.’ She thought of the time when Zannah had left. But that had not been such a bad experience. Zannah had somehow laid a foundation for the random. Even at eight years old Gussie had known that.
She said suddenly, ‘It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been warned. There was a mature student at college. I slept with him twice, then he took up with my best friend. I felt an idiot then but after he’d done the rounds – only five women in our year group, but all five fell for him – I didn’t feel so bad. We laughed about it. About him. It was wounded pride then.’
‘Probably the same with this Bellamy chap.’
‘No. We were colleagues, then friends. We became lovers much later when he said he wanted to be my life mentor.’ She thought her mother groaned. She went on quickly, ‘He was good for me, my career rocketed. We had so much in common. We did everything together. It sounds so silly, but he washed my hair, did my nails …’
‘He took you over? Body and soul?’
‘I suppose so.’ Gussie sipped yet another cup of hot tea. ‘But I encouraged it – I wanted it. I thought it worked both ways. It did work both ways. I shopped for him. He was hopeless with clothes, terribly formal. He loved it that my background was what he called “arty-farty”! He wanted to be an art collector and I could tell him who to look out for … you know.’ It all sounded so weak now. But Zannah nodded. She knew only too well.
Gussie said, ‘I didn’t tell him about the baby at first. I wanted to be sure. We were sharing everything and this was the ultimate. When Kate rang to say she and Daddy were taking Jannie away for the spring bank holiday week and the week after, I asked them if I could bring a friend down to the cottage for a few days. It was the perfect place to tell him. I thought – I thought … Anyway, he was angry. So angry. As if it was my fault. He wanted – demanded – I had an abortion. When I said no he asked me what right I had to keep a child that was unwanted. He said I was a schemer. Irresponsible. He brought up private things … oh God!’ She put her cup down with a clatter and covered her face with her hands.
Zannah got up and held her close.
After a while Zannah said matter-of-factly, ‘And then he pushed you off a cliff into the Atlantic Ocean and left you for dead. Must have been a nasty shock when he discovered otherwise. Expected the arm of the law on his shoulder at any moment, I would think.’ She crouched and moved her daughter’s hands so that she could look her in the eye. ‘Oh, Gus, you should have reported him immediately. He is not fit to roam this earth unscathed.’
Gussie started to cry and, once started, she could not stop.
Once again Gussie felt she was convalescing from one of her feverish colds. Zannah refused to take on her nurse role again and insisted on a daily walk. They visited friends.
‘Not the kind who come to the gîtes and think I’m a bit of a genius!’ Zannah said to Gussie. ‘My real friends here are French, very practical. Mostly growers. Others, mixed farming. Traditional. You’ll love them. We won’t see them all – of course not, darling – just the ones who are within walking distance. The Rivières – they rent my vineyard. And Madame Monsoon – she was a poet and now she grows herbs and posts them off all over the world.’
So they paid their calls and Gussie found herself enjoying the company of her mother’s neighbours, grateful they were near at hand for her. She knew that her mother would have liked to continue their ‘talks’. Occasionally she exploded unexpectedly with a vitriolic, ‘If I could get my hands on that man, I would kill him!’ but Gussie never took the bait. She told herself she had got it all out of her system. It would not worry her again.
Then, suddenly, Zannah was saying, ‘I can’t believe it’s your last day! We’ve done nothing, absolutely nothing. That bloody painting took up too much time!’
Gussie reminded her of their walks and the way her mother had ‘nursed’ her.
Zannah waved a dismissive hand. ‘Yes, that was the mother thing, I suppose.’ She looked pleased. ‘But in the middle you had to take over, poor darling.’
‘I got to know the house that way. I can picture you here now.’
‘What? Naked on my scaffolding?’
Gussie primmed her mouth. ‘Yes. And making a snowman.’
Zannah nodded. ‘And dancing. Thank you for that, Gus.’
‘My pleasure.’ Not strictly true, but it was what her mother wanted to hear.
Zannah sighed. ‘Listen, what shall we do today? Would you like to go into Nice? Yes, let’s do that. I’ll buy you something memorable. A designer outfit. Or a watch. Yes, jewellery. And we’ll have lunch.’
Gussie would have much preferred to walk to the village for some fresh bread from the boulangerie, pick watercress from the brook beyond the barn and make soup, but she smiled agreement.
‘Back before dark, Zannah. I have to pack and I’m going to have another try to ring Ned.’
Zannah frowned. ‘I don’t like you going back to an empty house. Zion Cottage is such a dump.’
‘Zannah! At least admit you had some happy times there!’
‘Sorry, sweetie. But I was never there on my own. Not like you will be.’
‘I’m staying with Rosemary just to break the journey.’
Zannah made a face. ‘Oh, well, even Zion Cottage in midwinter will be bliss after that, I suppose!’
Gussie eyed her humorously and after a while they both laughed.
Zannah took the four-wheel drive to Nice. It was hair-raising.
‘You’re an even worse driver than Rory Trewyn!’ Gussie gasped as they scraped past a tractor on the very edge of the Middle Corniche.
Zannah beamed. ‘Thank you, darling. Be sure to tell him that; it will infuriate him!’ But she admitted to being tired. ‘I don’t drive far these days. You can have a go on the way back.’
They eventually ended up in the diamond boutique just behind the Promenade des Anglais. Zannah had set her heart on giving Gussie a traditional watch. ‘You missed out on your twenty-first watch. I’ve still got mine from my father.’ She pushed up her sleeve and revealed an exquisite cocktail watch. ‘I won’t influence you – I’ll look around the front of the display area.’
She drifted off and Gussie was left with an assiduous assistant and an array of watches that meant nothing to her. She allowed herself to be taken over, admiring the various models, knowing that she would never wear any of them because the watch she already had was the last present Grandma Briscoe had given her. It was practical, unobtrusive yet easily read.
The assistant suddenly understood this and suggested in her charming English that Gussie might like their silver locket watches as a piece of jewellery. She presented one of them on a black velvet stand and Gussie was struck by its slightly old-fashioned look. Might there be any future occasions when this could be worn? And would Zannah approve?
