The Shell Seekers

by Rosamunde Pilcher

  “I’m not tired. I’m used to it. I do it two or three times a day.”

  He took her arm, lacing his fingers with hers, and they set off once more. He said, “I’m going to be fairly occupied during the next ten days, but when the opportunity presents itself, perhaps I can drop in and see you all. Have another game of backgammon.”

  “Any time,” she told him. “Just appear. Papa would love to see you. And there’s always some sort of a meal on the table, even if it’s only soup and bread.”

  “That’s kind.”

  “Not kind at all. You’re the kind one. I haven’t had such a lovely evening for years.… I’d forgotten how it felt, being taken out for dinner.”

  “And after four years of Service life, I’d forgotten what it felt to be anywhere except a Mess, with a lot of other men who do nothing but talk shop. So perhaps we’re doing each other a good turn.”

  They came to the wall, the tall gate. She stopped and turned to him.

  “Do you want to come in for a cup of coffee or anything?”

  “No. I’ll get back. I’ve got an early start.”

  “As I said, Richard. Come any time.”

  “I will,” he said. He put his hands on her shoulders and stooped to kiss her cheek. “Good night.”

  She went in through the gate, through the garden, into the sleeping house. In her bedroom, at her dressing-table, she halted, gazing at the dark-eyed girl who stood there, framed in the long mirror. She loosened the knot of the shawl, let it fall to the floor at her feet. Slowly, one by one, she began to undo the buttons of the daisy-patterned red dress, but then abandoned the buttons and, instead leaned forward to inspect her face, to put up a hand and touch, with tentative fingers, the cheek he had kissed. She found herself blushing, saw the rosy glow suffuse her face. Laughing at herself, she undressed, turned off the lights, drew back the curtains, and got into bed; to lie wide-eyed, watching the dark sky beyond the open window, hearing the murmur of the sea, feeling the beat of her own heart; to go over, in her mind, every single word that he had spoken during the course of the evening.

  * * *

  Richard Lomax was true to his promise. Over the next few weeks he came and went, and his random appearances, unexpected and unannounced, soon became totally taken for granted by the occupants of Carn Cottage. Lawrence, inclined to be despondent at the start of another long, house-bound winter, cheered up the moment he heard Richard’s voice. Doris had already made up her mind that he was lovely, and the fact that he was always willing to play football with her sons, or help them mend their bicycles, did nothing to quench her enthusiasm. Ronald and Clark, at first a little in awe of such a splendid figure, soon lost all inhibitions, called him by his Christian name, and asked endless questions as to how many battles he had been in, if he had ever parachuted from an aeroplane, and how many Germans he had slain. Ernie liked him because he was unpretentious, prepared to get his hands dirty and, unasked, sawed, split, and stacked a monumental pile of logs. Even Nancy finally thawed, and one evening, when Doris was out and Penelope occupied in the kitchen, allowed Richard to take her upstairs and give her a bath.

  For Penelope, it was an extraordinary time—a time of reawakening, as though, for longer than she cared to remember, she had been only half alive. Now, day by day, her inner vision cleared, and her perceptions were sharpened by a new awareness. One manifestation of this was the sudden significance of popular songs. There was a wireless in the kitchen at Carn Cottage which, because Doris enjoyed its company, was seldom turned off. Sitting on a corner of the dresser, it relayed Workers’ Playtime, read news bulletins, talked and sang to itself, for all the world like some lunatic relation, heard but not heeded. But one morning, as Penelope scraped carrots at the sink, Judy Garland came on.

  It seems we stood and talked like this before

  We looked at each other in the same way then,

  But I can’t remember where or when.

  The clothes you’re wearing are the clothes you wore,

  The smile you are smiling you were smiling then …

  Doris burst in. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Um?”

  “Standing there at the sink with a knife in one hand and a carrot in the other; gazing out the window. Feeling all right, are you?”

  There were other, less banal, instances of this sharpening sensitivity. The most ordinary of prospects caused her to stop and stare. The last of the leaves dropped from the trees, and the bare branches made lace against pale skies. Sun after rain turned cobbled streets blue as fish scales, dazzling to the eye. Autumn winds, whipping the bay to a scud of white-caps, brought with them, not cold, but a surging sense of vitality. She was filled with physical energy, tackling tasks she had put off for months, cleaning silver, labouring in the garden, and at weekends rounding up the children and taking them for massive walks, up onto the moor, down to the cliffs beyond the North Beach. Best of all, perhaps strangest of all, when days passed and Richard did not come, she suffered no anxious speculation. She knew that, sooner or later, he would be there, bringing with him that same aura of ease and familiarity that had struck her so instantly on the occasion of his first visit. And when he did appear, it was like a marvellous bonus, a gift of joy.

  Trying to analyse, to find a reason, for her own tranquil acceptance of the situation, she discovered that there was nothing ephemeral about either her relationship with Richard Lomax, nor the rare new quality of her days. On the contrary, she was aware only of a sort of timelessness, as though it was all part of a plan, a predestined design, conceived the day she was born. What was happening to her had been meant to happen, was going to go on happening. Without any recognizable beginning, it did not seem possible that it could ever have an end.

  * * *

  “… there was a day, in the middle of every summer, called Open Day. All the artists buffed up their studios … and some of them needed a good deal of buffing … and set out their work and their finished canvases, and the general public went around, from one studio to another, inspecting, and sometimes buying. Of course, some of the visitors simply did the rounds out of curiosity … rather like nosing around other people’s houses … but a lot of bona fide buyers came as well. Like I said, some of the studios were fairly grubby and basic, even in those days, but Sophie always gave Papa’s a tremendous spring clean, and filled it with flowers, and gave the visitors shortbread biscuits and glasses of wine. She said a little refreshment helped the sales along.…”

  It was now the end of October, a Sunday, and early in the afternoon. During his sporadic visits to Carn Cottage, Richard had reiterated, more than once, his desire to see Lawrence Stern’s studio, but somehow a suitable opportunity had never arisen. Today, however, he was, for once, free, and Penelope, impulsively abandoning other plans, had offered to take him. Now, they were on their way, walking as usual, the big old key heavy in the pocket of her cardigan.

  The weather was cool and fresh, a west wind blowing gusts of sunshine and shadow across the sea, the low clouds forming and dispersing to reveal glimpses of an egg shell-blue sky. The harbour road was almost deserted, the few summer tourists having long departed. All shops were shut, and the locals, being Sabbath-observing Methodists, were keeping themselves to themselves, sleeping off Sunday dinners, or perhaps pottering in hidden gardens.

  “Are there any of your father’s pictures still in the studio?”

  “Heavens no. Well, maybe the odd half-finished sketch or canvas. Nothing more. When he was working he was grateful to be able to sell everything he produced, sometimes letting them go scarcely before the paint was dry. It was our living, you see. All except The Shell Seekers. That was never even exhibited. For some reason it was a very personal picture. He would never consider selling it.” They had turned off the harbour road and were now climbing up into the baffling warren of narrow streets and alleys that lay beyond. “I came this way the day war was declared to fetch Papa and take him home for lunch. When the church clock struck
eleven, all the gulls, perched on the tower, took off, and flew up into the sky.” They rounded the last corner and the North Beach was revealed, and, as always, the force of the wind came as a shock, causing them to hesitate for a second, catching their breath, before continuing down the twisting lane that led to the studio.

  Penelope fitted the key in the heavy door and turned it. The door swung open and she led the way inside and was at once assailed by shame, for it was months since she had been down here, and the huge airy room presented an instant impression of disarray and neglect. The air felt cold and yet stuffy; all smelled of turpentine, wood-smoke, tar, and damp. The cold clear northern light, which flooded in through the tall windows, picked out in cruel detail the general dilapidation and muddle.

  Behind her, Richard closed the door. She said bluntly, “It looks dreadful. And it’s damp.” She crossed the floor, unlatched the window and, with some difficulty, forced it open. Like a flood of icy water, the wind poured in. She saw the deserted beach, the tide far out, the line of white rollers misted in spume.

  He came to join her. He said, with some satisfaction, “The Shell Seekers.”

  “Of course. It was painted from this window.” She turned back to survey the scene. “Sophie would have a fit if she could see Papa’s studio looking like this.”

  The floor, and indeed every horizontal surface, was coated with a film of sand. A table was stacked with a pile of dog-eared magazines, an unemptied ashtray, a forgotten bathing towel. The velvet curtain which draped the model’s chair was faded and dusty, and a pile of cinders lay on the hearth in front of the old pot-bellied stove. Beyond this, two divans were set in the angle of the wall, spread with striped blankets and scattered with cushions, but the cushions sagged and a marauding mouse had been at one of them, eaten a hole in the corner and left a trail of stuffing.

  Scarcely knowing where to start, Penelope set about trying to improve the situation. She found an old paper sack and into this emptied the leaking cushion and the contents of the ashtray, and set all aside to be later dumped into the nearest dustbin. She snatched the other cushions from the divans, flung them to the floor, stripped off the blankets and took them to the open window, to be shaken vigorously out into the cold fresh air. Mouse-droppings and bits of fluff were whisked away by the wind. Once the blankets and the cushions, plumped up, had been replaced, things immediately began to look marginally better.

  Meanwhile Richard, apparently unbothered by the disorder, was prowling, taking all in, fascinated by the clues and clutter of another man’s lifetime, the memorabilia and objets trouvés which stood all about. Shells and sea pebbles and scraps of driftwood, collected and preserved for their colour and form; photographs thumbtacked to the walls; the plaster cast of a hand; a pottery jug filled with sea-birds’ feathers and dried grasses, fragile as dust. Lawrence’s easels and stacks of old canvases and sketch-books; the trays of dried out paint-tubes; the old palettes and jars of brushes, stained with the vermilion and ochre and cobalt and burnt sienna that he had loved to use.

  “How long is it since your father worked?”

  “Oh, years.”

  “And yet this is all still here.”

  “He would never throw anything away, and I haven’t the heart to.”

  In front of the pot-bellied stove, he paused.

  “Why don’t we light the fire? Wouldn’t that help to dry the place up?”

  “It might. But I haven’t any matches.”

  “I have.” He squatted, gingerly to open the doors of the stove and stir the ashes with the stub end of a poker. “And there’s some newspaper here, and a bit of kindling and some driftwood.”

  “What if a jackdaw’s made a nest in the chimney?”

  “If he has, we’ll soon know.” Straightening, he took off his green beret, tossed it aside, unbuttoned his battledress jacket. Rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, he set to work.

  While Richard cleared out dead ashes and twisted scraps of newspaper into spills, Penelope unearthed, from behind a stack of surf-boards, a broom and began to sweep the sand from tables and floors. She found a sheet of cardboard, collected the sand onto this, and emptied it out of the window. The beach was no longer deserted. In the distance, out of nowhere, a pair of tiny figures had appeared. A man and a woman with a dog. The man threw a stick for the dog and it ran into the surf to retrieve it. She shivered. The air was cold. She half-shut the window and latched it and, with no more to be accomplished, went to curl up in the corner of the divan, just as, when she was a child, at the sleepy end of a long sunlit day of swimming and play, she had snuggled next to Sophie to be read a book or told a story.

  Now she watched Richard, and there was the same safe and peaceful feeling. Somehow he had coaxed and cajoled the beginning of a fire. Twigs snapped and crackled. A flame flickered. He fed in, cautiously, a bit of wood. She smiled, for he seemed to her as intent as a schoolboy building a camp-fire. He looked up and caught the smile.

  “Were you ever a Boy Scout?” she asked him.

  “Yes. I even learned to tie knots and make a stretcher out of two poles and a raincoat.”

  He stacked on a log or two and the tarry wood spluttered and flared. He closed the doors of the stove, adjusted the draught, and stood up, wiping his hands on the seat of his trousers.

  “That’s it.”

  “If we had some tea and some milk, we could boil a kettle and have a hot cup of tea.”

  “That’s about as good as saying if we had some bacon, we could have bacon and eggs, if we had some eggs.” He pulled up a stool and sat facing her. There was a streak of soot on his right cheek but she didn’t’ tell him about it. “Is that what you used to do? Make tea down here?”

  “Yes, after surfing. The very thing, when you were all cold and shivery. And there were always gingerbread biscuits to dunk in the tea. Some years, if there’d been bad storms during the winter, the sand came up to the window, in great banks. But other years, it was like it is today, with a twenty-foot drop, and we had to climb down to the beach by a rope ladder.” She rearranged her legs, settled more comfortably into the cushions. “Nothing like nostalgia. I’m like an old person, aren’t I? I seem to talk all the time about the way things used to be. You must find it very boring.”

  “I don’t find it boring at all. But sometimes I get the impression that your life ended the day war broke out. And that’s wrong, because you’re very young.”

  “I’m twenty-four. Just,” she amended.

  He smiled. “When was your birthday?”

  “Last month. You weren’t there.”

  “September.” For a moment he considered this and then nodded, in a satisfied way. “Yes. That’s right. That fits.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Do you ever read Louis MacNeice?”

  “I never heard of him.”

  “An Irish poet. The best. I shall now introduce you to him, reciting from memory, and probably embarrassing you most dreadfully.”

  “I don’t embarrass easily.”

  He laughed. Without preamble, he began:

  “September has come, it is hers

  Whose vitality leaps in the autumn,

  Whose nature prefers

  Trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace.

  So I give her this month and the next

  Though the whole of my year should be hers who has rendered already

  So many of its days intolerable or perplexed

  But so many more so happy.

  Who has left a scent on my life, and left my walls

  Dancing over and over with her shadow

  Whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls

  And all of London littered with remembered kisses.”

  A love poem. Unexpectedly, a love poem. She was not embarrassed but found herself deeply moved. The words, spoken in Richard’s quiet voice, aroused a flurry of emotions, but sadness too. All of London littered with remembered kisses. She thought back to Ambrose and the night they had
gone to the theatre, and out to dine and then back to Oakley Street, but the memories were flat and colourless and did nothing to stir her senses as the words of the poem had done. All of which was, to say the least of it, depressing.

  “Penelope.”

  “Um…?”

  “Why do you never talk about your husband?”

  She looked up sharply, for a dreadful instant wondering if she had been actually thinking aloud.

  “Do you want me to talk about him?”

  “Not particularly. But it would be natural. I’ve known you all … what is it … nearly two months now, and in all that time you’ve never voluntarily spoken of him nor mentioned his name. Your father’s the same. Each time we get remotely near the subject, the conversation is changed.”

  “The reason for that is simple. Ambrose bores him. Ambrose bored Sophie too. They had nothing in common. Nothing to say to each other.”

  “And you?”

  She knew that she had to be honest, not only with Richard but with herself. “I don’t talk about him because it’s something I’m not very proud of. I don’t come out of it very well.”

  “Whatever that means, you don’t imagine I would think any the less of you?”

  “Oh, Richard, I have no idea what you would think.”

  “Try me.”

  She shrugged, at a loss for words. “I married him.”

  “Did you love him?”

  Once more she strove for truth. “I don’t know. But he was good-looking and kind, and the first real friend I made after I joined up and was sent to Whale Island. I’d never had a…” She hesitated, searching for the right word, but what was there to say except boy-friend? “I’d never had a boy-friend before, never had any sort of a relationship with a man of my own age. He was good company, and he liked me, and it was new and it was different.”

  “Was that all?” He appeared totally nonplussed, as well he might, after this garbled explanation.

  “No. There was another reason. I was pregnant with Nancy.” She arranged her face into a bright smile. “Does that shock you?”