The Kissing Gate

by Susan Sallis

  Jannie had protested vigorously into the phone. ‘You’ve already stayed weeks longer than planned. I don’t get it.’ The connection was brilliant; he could have been standing right next to her.

  ‘You haven’t got all the loose ends to tie up like I have, Jan. Just believe me, I need him at the moment and he needs me. He really does. He’s doing this painting. He started it right after Nine Eleven, when Mack visited him. It’s of Mum and Davie and Dad. It – it’s wonderful. It’s for the Trust. He keeps asking me things about Dad. He’s got photographs but he says he needs to know his inside as well as his outside. He wanted to know Dad’s favourite joke. And all the little details of how he managed his tin legs. I played him the recording of our message. Then I had to describe the legs and he painted them, stacked against the wheelchair like they so often were. And they are absolutely spot-on! And Mum – Mum is so beautiful. It’s as if I’m seeing her for the first time. I’ve told him about the gates of glory and the kissing gates along the cliff path. He closes his eyes and puts his fingertips on the canvas as if he can feel their faces like a blind man …’

  Jannie couldn’t hear him so well then because her sinuses were blocked with tears. She wanted to ask who the heck Davie was; later she was glad she could not talk through the tears because she remembered Ned telling her about Davina. The stepmother he never knew.

  At last she managed to whisper, ‘I feel so guilty because you and Gussie have to go through all this and here I am … falling in love. I must be so shallow, Ned!’

  ‘Bollocks!’ he said robustly, sounding like Awful Uncle Rory. ‘You’re the normal one. And I always thought you were just a spoiled brat!’ Then he said quietly, ‘Are you really falling in love, Jan?’

  That was the second time he had called her Jan. She must be growing up at last. Gussie was now Gus and Jannie was Jan.

  She whispered back, ‘I am.’

  ‘Can’t you take him to meet Gussie?’

  ‘No. We have to slow down.’

  ‘Oh dear. Now I know it’s serious. When – ever – has Jannie Briscoe been able to slow down?’

  ‘Anyway, Gussie and me, we need time together. She was so quiet and withdrawn when she popped in on her way home. Did you know that the chap Zannah Scaife pushed into the river—’

  ‘I thought he fell in all by himself!’

  ‘That’s the official version. The real story is that he was engaged to Gussie for about five minutes yonks ago and he was after her. So Zannah tried to kill him and then had second thoughts and rescued him. I think it’s all a bit much for Gussie. It’s not her, is it?’

  ‘No. It’s not her. Did you make it all up, Jan?’

  ‘Of course not. Well, some of it. I sort of joined it up so that it made sense. I remember Gussie being engaged and then not being engaged and I always wondered about it. And if he broke her heart, then it would be natural for her mother to try to kill him, wouldn’t it?’

  There was a long pause, which was very wasteful as this was a transatlantic call so Jannie started to fill it with a description of Robert Hanniford.

  Ned interrupted her. ‘Did he succeed? Did he break her heart?’

  Jannie stopped talking and frowned, thinking back. ‘I don’t think so. But it put her off men for good. Something awful must have happened. I’ll ask Aunt Ro about it. And listen, if you’re not back home for the summer, we’re officially not speaking. OK?’

  Ned said easily, ‘OK.’

  So Jannie arrived on the main-line platform at St Erth the week of Good Friday and hurried over the bridge to the branch line where the local train to St Ives was already waiting. She was hunched over with the weight of her backpack and made for the first open door, where she dropped some of the bags she was carrying and had to scrabble around frantically.

  ‘May I help you, madam?’

  It was Gussie, first of all holding the door open and then gathering three plastic bags at once with her long arms. Someone with a green flag bundled them on to the train. They were laughing, trying to hug.

  Jannie collapsed on to a seat. ‘Oh my God! I’m home! Gussie, you shouldn’t have come to meet me. I was going to have a taxi and arrive on the harbour in real style and now you’ll insist we walk.’

  ‘I will indeed.’ Gussie sat in the opposite seat and put the sundry bags around their feet. ‘I’ve got the trolley at the station and we can stroll down Tregenna Hill and look in the shops.’

  ‘With the infamous trolley?’ Jannie groaned. ‘I know I thought it was great when Ned made it because I could ride on it. But now … we’ll have to use the road and the cars very much resent it. I think we should skid down Skidden Hill and do the shops later.’

  ‘All right,’ Gussie said placidly. ‘In that case, you can have a ride on it. As a special treat.’

  But in the event the two of them were needed to hold the trolley back, and by the time they reached the harbour and met a taxi coming up, even Gussie had to admit the trolley had had its day.

  ‘Perhaps Ned could narrow it down a bit,’ she panted as they shoved it along Lambeth Walk, avoiding the prams and dogs and people with difficulty.

  Jannie cocked a sarcastic eyebrow. ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Or you could bring less luggage,’ Gussie came back.

  ‘Not possible.’ They both panted with laughter.

  The big cellar kitchen looked just as it had at New Year. Jannie dropped her stuff at the foot of the stairs and walked around feeling the edge of the table, touching the mugs on the open shelves, inhaling the unmistakable smell of mackerel in the oven. Gussie fetched bread from the crock and began cutting and buttering it.

  She said, ‘I thought, an early supper. It will help to orientate you. I found food did that for me – in France and when I came back last month. Then we can sit by the range and chat or even have a walk. It won’t be dark till sevenish. What d’you think?’

  ‘Lovely. We can do both. Talk and walk. And we can start on the project.’

  ‘Project? What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m into projects. They have them all the time at Hartley. Motivation, that sort of thing. We might need motivating again. So we’re going to find all the kissing gates we can. I’m going to list them and mark them on the map. And when I bring Robert down in the summer, we’re going to use them. For kissing.’

  Gussie laughed but raised her brows as she brought hot plates from the side oven. ‘A statement of intent? A way of gently introducing the fact that you have “found someone”?’ She rolled her eyes dramatically. ‘There’s just a hint of defiance in your voice.’

  ‘Gussie, stop right there. You have known about Robert since I first met him, so don’t pretend it’s a shock way of putting you in the picture.’

  ‘Oh, darling, I’m teasing. You’ve always been upfront. I love it and Ned loves it. We know exactly where we are with our baby sister. And I like the idea of the project very much.’ She took a roasting tin of sizzling mackerel from the main oven, pushed it on to the table and looked quizzically at Jannie. ‘The gates of glory, yes?’

  ‘Yes, Gussie. They’re going to crop up in all kinds of ways. But we can start with the kissing gates. Ordinary. So Mum and Dad.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been playing the tape every day. And its ordinariness is what makes it so extraordinary.’

  ‘Oh, Gussie.’ Jannie’s eyes flooded in the old way and she squashed the tears away angrily with her flattened hands. ‘I know just what you mean. But … was it really awful in France?’

  ‘No. At first it was so odd and strange I couldn’t believe I was there. And then, subtly, it changed.’ She pushed the bread-and-butter plate to her sister. ‘Jannie, I learned to love my mother again.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘When she left us, all I could see were her faults. And I saw them again, immediately I arrived. And then … oh, I don’t know … I had to find a way to take them on board – love her the way she was.’ She started to laugh. ‘When she did that final furious mother thing, protecting me from Andrew, it was
just comic. I mean, I’d actually looked into his eyes and seen that he was scared stiff of me. I knew about him. I could have ruined his image – he was all image, no reality – so I was free already. But she didn’t know that. She revenged me.’ She started to laugh. ‘It was so typical, Jannie. I’ll tell you more bit by bit, but you still won’t really understand it because I don’t myself. But it happened. I told Rosemary all about it and she seemed to get it. Not sure. Our Aunt Ro is so – so complicated. After all that has happened I think she still loves Rory. By the way, Rory has gone over to stay with Zannah for a while. I might spend time with her this summer.’ She paused then said, ‘She’s got a brain tumour.’

  Jannie, halfway through her mackerel already, stopped eating and stared. ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Quite. Will you want that slice of bread and butter?’

  ‘Yes. And another. I’ll get some. This is delicious.’ She got up and fetched the bread. ‘I don’t know what to say, Gus, I really don’t. All this was happening and I was falling in love. And Ned is sitting with his father waiting for him to die. Are we going our separate ways?’

  ‘Not sure. I don’t think so. But perhaps.’

  Jannie, used to instant reassurance from her older sister, stopped buttering bread and said again, ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Sit down and finish your supper,’ Gussie said. ‘I’ll do the same. Then I think we’ll go for that walk.’

  They strolled the length of the harbour and took the footpath that ran alongside the railway line to Carbis Bay. They found a kissing gate leading up to one of the big hotels.

  ‘That can’t be even associated with a glory gate,’ Jannie said, wrinkling her nose. ‘It’s much too – too civilized. We’ll have to get out on the moors somewhere.’

  ‘It would have to be somewhere Dad could manage,’ Gussie reminded her. ‘And he could certainly manage this one. They’ve surfaced the path and there are street lights even!’

  ‘Hmm. There weren’t many places Dad couldn’t manage. But I get your point. I see it in my head as right out on the moors somewhere. Above Zennor perhaps. Or further down, towards Pendeen and Botallack.’

  ‘And not obvious,’ Gussie agreed, nodding slowly. ‘Somewhere they found.’ She stopped and looked at her sister. ‘Darling, are we kidding ourselves?’

  ‘No!’ Jannie was emphatic. ‘I can remember them so well. Mum going down on her haunches to reach Dad. They would laugh a lot and then suddenly stop laughing. Oh my God, Gussie, is that how they felt when they jumped?’

  They hung on to the gate and then each other. It was Jannie who recovered first. She held her breath on a sob and ran her hand down Gussie’s single plait.

  ‘Come on, big Sis. Let’s go home. We’ll phone Ned, clear up the mackerel plates and go to bed.’

  Gussie took the tissue Jannie was pressing on her and drew back.

  ‘It was a good idea, but if we’re going to end up like this every time—’

  ‘It is a good idea! And if we end up having a good cry, then so be it. Perhaps we haven’t cried enough so far.’

  Gussie put a hand on the blond hair so unlike her own. She smiled wryly. ‘Are you going to end up the wise old woman of the family?’

  ‘I always have been, and the rest of you just didn’t see it. That’s why I had to keep yelling all the time!’

  They turned and walked back the way they had come. They held hands as they did so often.

  They did not go on with the ‘project’ until the Saturday. The sun shone brilliantly on the Thursday and Old Mrs Beck, still doubled up with her winter arthritis, wanted to sit on the Friendship bench below Zion Court and talk to anyone who felt similarly. She wore her coal-scuttle hat and a black shawl over a high-neck blouse. The girls helped to settle her and took down cups of tea at regular intervals. When there was room they sat with her and she would tell them the news.

  ‘And I en’t making it up like you always do, our Gussie!’ she said, poking Gussie’s arm quite painfully with her gnarled fingers. ‘Just had a lady from America telling me her granddaddy was a tin miner and emigrated when Wheal Alice closed down. She was mighty proud of being what she called a third-generation American. But she hadn’t seen our Ned. Makes you wonder whether she were making it all up like you did, young lady!’ She cawed a laugh, echoed joyously by Jannie.

  When she was tired and wanted to go back to Old Beck and the warmth of their cottage, she had to be almost carried up the steps. She stood at the top getting her breath. ‘I do remember your parents pulling me up here many a time. Your dad would have me on one arm and his stick on the other. Marvellous, he were. You’d never know there was anything wrong with him. Unless you did know, o’ course!’ She cackled again and then added soberly, ‘Poor little Rosemary Briscoe. Couldn’t be blamed really. She was only four. Just showing her baby brother the view. That’s all it was.’ She started to plod forward again. ‘Never the same since.’ The girls exchanged startled glances over her head.

  Old Beck was sitting dourly by the radio and looked up as they came in.

  ‘Well, my maid …’ he waited till they settled his wife into her chair, ‘I reckon ’tis time for us to go.’ Jannie stifled a giggle and was glad she did when he spoke with very real grief in his voice. ‘The old queen be dead. The wireless is full of it.’ He nodded at the ancient radio sitting on the dresser.

  ‘Well …’ Old Mrs Beck nodded. ‘She were twenty-one when I were born so she’s done well. And she’s back with her Bertie.’ She looked up at the two concerned faces above her. ‘She had to wait a long time to see him again – just you remember that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have minded waiting for you, my maid,’ Old Beck maundered. ‘Like you waited for me when I was fishing up north.’

  ‘You sound like you been drinking more than just tea!’ his wife snapped back unsentimentally. ‘Just push that kettle over on to the range and fetch the bread and that pot of jam the vicar’s wife brought us. Don’t just sit there!’

  The girls beat a hasty retreat. They had been spring cleaning most of the day and planned a late swim before their meal. Now they wanted to switch on the television and hear about the Queen Mother. Questions about Aunt Rosemary were forgotten.

  On Easter Sunday they went to church. Father Martin was so delighted to see them that they were embarrassed. They had managed two services at Christmas and had tried to describe for him what he called ‘the New York experience’. Gussie had mentioned the coincidence of both services referring to the gates of glory. He’d nodded and replied, ‘Well, of course, there are certain phrases that are repeated. For some people this makes the liturgy less important; for others it offers great significance.’

  They had walked back home alongside Thaddeus Stevens and his dog, and Ned had muttered dismissively, ‘Idiot. He could wet blanket a wet blanket!’

  Thaddeus had suddenly piped up, ‘’E do mean well, my ’andsome. Lissen ’ard to ’is words. ’E do mean well.’

  On Easter Sunday the girls found themselves with Thaddeus again. The weather had deteriorated since the previous day when Old Bessie Beck had sat on the Friendship bench in the sunshine.

  ‘Not quite so nice, today,’ Gussie said, smiling at him. ‘Your dog decided to stay indoors?’

  Thaddeus cleared his throat. ‘Naw. ’E died yesty. Went off with the Queen Mother, I reckon.’ He stopped to let a push-chair go by. The girls stopped too, shocked. ‘I thought of going to that-there dog rescue place, Helston way. Still got Jock’s feeding bowl. All his stuff really. Pity to waste it.’

  Jannie said, ‘We’ll drive you. They might be closed tomorrow – bank holiday and everything. Shall we go on Tuesday?’

  The old man looked astonished. ‘’Tis mightily kind of you. But, no, I can’t make up my mind ahead of itself. I ’ave to wake up and think this is the day for taking on another dog. The consequences have to settle themselves inside me. I en’t a live wire like you, January Briscoe. I ’as to think and I ’as to feel.’ He started moving on
. ‘I ’ope you understand and won’t take me unkindly. And I thank you greatly for your offer.’

  They watched him go and they turned left and took the Academy Steps towards Barnoon. As they tugged themselves up by the handrail, Gussie called over her shoulder, ‘D’you remember at Christmas he told Ned to listen to Father Martin’s words? My goodness, Jan, I listened to what Thaddeus was saying and I heard so much. Did you?’

  Jannie was busy holding back tears for Thaddeus and his dog. She stopped climbing and held on to the rail with both hands, panting loudly. She forced herself to say sturdily, ‘Yes, but if he lives life as he said, then what on earth is he going to have for his Easter dinner?’

  Gussie stopped too and turned to look down on her young sister. She smiled lovingly. ‘Oh, Jannie Briscoe, I hear what you are saying! You know very well he goes to his son’s every Sunday!’

  Jannie said, ‘Clever clogs. Get going. If we’re going to pay homage at the Clodgy kissing gate and get back before the chicken is burned to a cinder, we need to put a move on!’

  So the girls strode out along the cliff path and found the gate that led away from the sea towards the road to Zennor, Gurnard’s Head and eventually Cape Cornwall, Sennen Cove and Land’s End.

  The gate and its pathway were thick with shoulder-high ferns. This was a way rarely used by walkers. The ferns blocked the glorious coastal views and the path emerged very prosaically at a bus stop. Jannie took her notebook from her bag and carefully noted this second gate.

  ‘Another one that is much too obvious and well kept,’ she commented. ‘Dad would have wanted a view. He loved feeling himself part of the landscape. That’s where you get it from, Gus.’

  ‘Get what?’

  ‘Your peculiar staring. Dad did that all the time.’ Then in case that sounded too slushy she said, ‘Shall we wait for the next bus? My feet are killing me.’