The Shell Seekers

by Rosamunde Pilcher

  “Not often. It was a long way to drive, and then such a long walk from the farmhouse where we left the car. And in those days there was no cliff path. So we used to have to fight our way through gorse and brambles and bracken before we finally reached this spot. And then we always had to be certain that it was low tide so that Sophie and I could swim.”

  “Didn’t your father swim?”

  “No. He said he was too old. He used to sit up here with his broad-brimmed hat, and his easel, and his little folding stool, and paint or draw. Having, of course, opened a bottle of wine, poured himself a glass, lighted up a cigar, and generally made himself comfortable.”

  “What about winter? Did you ever come in winter-time?”

  “Never. We were in London. Or Paris, or Florence. Porthkerris and Carn Cottage belonged to the summer.”

  “How perfect.”

  “No less perfect than your father’s divine house in Ibiza.”

  “I suppose so. Everything’s relative, isn’t it?” Antonia rolled sideways, propping her chin in her hand. “How about you, Danus? Where did you go for your summers?”

  “I hoped nobody would ask that.”

  “Oh, come on. Tell us.”

  “North Berwick. My parents took a house every summer there; they played golf while my brother and sister and I sat on the frigid beach with our nannie and built sand-castles in the howling wind.”

  Penelope frowned. “Your brother? I didn’t know you had a brother. I thought it was just your sister and yourself.”

  “Yes, I had a brother, Ian. He was the eldest of the three of us. He died of meningitis when he was fourteen.”

  “Oh, my dear, what a tragedy.”

  “Yes. Yes, it was. My mother and father never really got over it. He was the golden boy, bright and good-looking, and a natural games player—the son that every parent dreams of having. To me, he was a sort of god, because he knew how to do everything. When he was old enough, he played golf, too, and so, eventually, did my sister, but I was always hopeless and not even particularly interested. I used to go off on my own, on my bike, and look for birds. I found that infinitely more entertaining than struggling with the complexities of golf.”

  “North Berwick doesn’t sound a very nice place to go,” Antonia remarked. “Didn’t you ever go anywhere else?”

  Danus laughed. “Yes, of course. My great friend at school was called Roddy McCrae. His parents owned a croft, right up in the north of Sutherland, near Tongue. As well, they had fishing rights on the Naver, and Roddy’s father taught me how to cast. When I outgrew North Berwick, I spent most of my holidays with them.”

  “What’s a croft?” Antonia asked.

  “A but and ben. A two-roomed stone farmhouse. Dead basic. No plumbing, no electricity, no telephone. The end of the line, the back of beyond, out of touch with the world. It was great.”

  A silence fell. It occurred to Penelope that this was perhaps only the second time she had heard Danus talk about himself. She felt sad for him. To lose a much-loved older brother at such a tender age must have been a traumatic experience. To feel, perhaps, that he could never quite match up to that brother was worse. She waited, thinking that maybe, having broken the ice of his reserve and actually confided, he might wish to continue. But he did not. Instead, he stirred himself, stretched, and then pulled himself to his feet. “The tide is out,” he told Antonia. “The rock pool is waiting for us. Do you feel brave enough to swim?”

  * * *

  They had gone, scrambling over the cliff’s rim to take the precipitous path that led down to the rocks. The pool waited still as glass, glittering and brilliantly blue. Penelope, waiting to watch them reappear, thought of her father. Remembered him with his wide-brimmed hat and his easel and his wine and his contented, concentrated solitude. One of the frustrations of her life had been the fact that she had not inherited his talent. She was not a painter, she could not even draw, but his influence had been enormously strong, and she had lived with this so long that, quite naturally, she was able to observe any prospect with his acute, all-seeing artist’s eye. All was exactly as it had always been, except for the winding green ribbon of the cliff path, trodden by walkers, which dipped and climbed through the green young bracken, following the convolutions of the coast.

  She gazed at the sea, trying to decide how, if she were Papa, she would endeavour to paint it. For, although it was blue, it was a blue made up of a thousand different hues. Over sand, shallow and translucent, it was jade-green, streaked with aquamarine. Over rocks and seaweed, it darkened to indigo. Far out, where a small fishing boat bucketed its way across the waves, it became a deep Prussian blue. There was little wind, but the ocean lived and breathed; swelled in from distant depths, formed waves. The sunlight, shining through these as they curved to break, transformed them to moving sculptures of green glass. And, finally, all was drowned in light, that unique suffused brilliance that had first brought the painters to Cornwall, and had driven the French Impressionists into a passion of creativity.

  A perfect composition. All that was needed were human figures to provide proportion and vitality. They appeared. Far below and minimized by distance, Antonia and Danus made their slow way across the rocks towards the pool. She watched their progress. Danus carried the bathing towels. When at last they reached the flat rock that overhung the pool, he dropped them and walked to the edge of the rock. He flexed and dived, making scarcely a splash as he cleaved the water. Antonia followed. Swimming, they broke the surface of the pool into sunlit splinters. She heard their raised voices, their laughter. Other voices, other worlds. It was good and nothing good is ever lost. Richard’s voice. He looks like Richard.

  She had never swum with Richard, for theirs had been a wartime, winter love affair, but now, watching Danus and Antonia, she felt again, with a physical intensity that was beyond mere recall, that numbing shock of cold water. Remembered the exhilaration, the sense of well-being, as clearly as if her own body were still young, untouched by sickness or the passing years. And there were other pleasures, other delights. The sweet contact of hands, arms, lips, bodies. The peace of passion spent, the joy of waking to sleepy kisses and reasonless laughter.…

  Long ago, when she was very small, Papa had introduced her to the fascinating delights of a geometrical compass and a sharp pencil. She had taught herself to draw patterns, flower heads, petals and curves, but nothing had given her so much pleasure as simply describing, on a sheet of clean white paper, a circle. So fine, so precise. The pencil moving, drawing the line behind it, and finishing up, with marvellous finality, exactly where it had begun.

  A ring was the accepted sign of infinity, eternity. If her own life was that carefully described pencil line, she knew all at once that the two ends were drawing close together. I have come full circle, she told herself, and wondered what had happened to all the years. It was a question which, from time to time, caused her some anxiety and left her fretting with a dreadful sense of waste. But now, it seemed, the question had become irrelevant, and so the answer, whatever it was, was no longer of any importance.

  * * *

  “Olivia.”

  “Mumma! What a lovely surprise.”

  “I realized I’d never wished you a happy Easter. I am sorry, but perhaps it’s not too late. And I wasn’t sure if I would catch you; I thought you might still be away.”

  “No. I just got back this evening. I’ve been in the Isle of Wight.”

  “Who were you staying with?”

  “The Blakisons. Do you remember Charlotte? She used to be Food Editor on Venus, and then she left to start a family.”

  “Was it fun?”

  “Divine. It always is staying with them. A huge house-party. And all done with no visible effort whatsoever.”

  “Was that nice American there with you?”

  “Nice American? Oh, you mean Hank. No, he’s back in the States.”

  “I thought he was such a specially dear person.”

  “Yes he was.
He is. He’s going to get in touch again the next time he comes over to London. But, Mumma, tell me all about you. How are things going?”

  “We’re having a wonderful time. Living in the lap of luxury.”

  “About time too, after all these years. I had a long letter from Antonia. She sounded ecstatically happy.”

  “She and Danus have been out all day. They took the car over to the south coast to see some young man with a nursery garden. They’re probably back by now.”

  “How’s Danus behaving himself?”

  “He’s been an enormous success.”

  “Do you still like him as much?”

  “Just as much. If anything, more. But I’ve never known a man so reserved. Perhaps its something to do with being Scottish.”

  “Has he told you why he doesn’t drink or drive?”

  “No.”

  “He’s probably a reformed alcoholic.”

  “If he is, it’s his own business.”

  “Tell me what you’ve been doing. Have you seen Doris?”

  “Of course. And she’s blooming. Lively as ever. And on Saturday, we spent the day out on the cliffs at Penjizal. And yesterday morning, we were all very dutiful and went to church.”

  “Nice service?”

  “Lovely. The Porthkerris church is particularly beautiful, and of course it was stuffed with flowers, and the pews filled with people in astonishing hats, and the music and the singing quite exceptional. We had a rather boring visiting Bishop preaching to us, but the music made up for even the tedium of his sermon. And then at the end, a full procession, and we all surged to our feet and sang ‘For All The Saints Who From Their Labours Rest.’ Coming home, Antonia and I decided it was quite one of our favourite hymns.”

  Olivia laughed. “Oh, Mumma. That, coming from you! I didn’t even know you had a favourite hymn.”

  “Darling, I’m not quite an atheist. I just can’t help being slightly sceptical. And Easter is always particularly disturbing, with the Resurrection and the promise of afterlife. I can never quite bring myself to believe it. And although I would adore to see Sophie and Papa, there are dozens of other people I can very well do without ever seeing again. And just imagine the crush! Just like being invited to the most enormous, boring cocktail party, where you spend your whole time looking for the amusing people you really want to see.”

  “How about The Shell Seekers? Have you seen it?”

  “It looks wonderful. Utterly at home. As though it had been there all its life.”

  “You don’t regret giving it away?”

  “Not for a moment.”

  “And what are you doing right now?”

  “I’ve had a bath, and I’m lying on my bed, reading The Sun Also Rises, and ringing you up. After that I shall call Noel and Nancy, and then I shall dress for dinner. It’s always so dreadfully grand, and there’s a man in the restaurant tinkling away at a grand piano. Just like the Savoy.”

  “How terribly smart. What are you wearing?”

  “My caftan. It’s fairly threadbare, but if you half-close your eyes, the holes don’t show.”

  “You’ll look fantastic. When are you coming home?”

  “Wednesday. We’ll be back at Podmore’s Thatch on Wednesday evening.”

  “I’ll call you there.”

  “Do that, my darling. God bless you.”

  “’Bye, Mumma.”

  She dialled Noel’s number and waited for a moment or two, listening to the phone ringing out, but there was no reply. She put down the receiver. He was probably still off somewhere, in the country, on one of his long and social weekends. She picked up the instrument once more and called Nancy.

  “The old Vicarage.”

  “George.”

  “Yes.”

  “Penelope here. Happy Easter!”

  “Thank you,” said George, but he did not return her greeting.

  “Is Nancy around?”

  “Yes, she’s somewhere. Do you want to speak to her?”

  (Why else should I be ringing, you silly man?) “If I could.”

  “Hold on, and I’ll fetch her.”

  She waited. It was pleasant to lie there, relaxed and warm, propped by massive pillows, but Nancy took so long to come to the phone that she became impatient. What could the girl be doing? To pass the time, she picked up her book, and had even read a paragraph or two before, at last: “Hello.”

  She laid down the book. “Nancy. Where were you? At the bottom of the garden?”

  “No.”

  “Did you have a good Easter?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing in particular.”

  “Did you have visitors?”

  “No.”

  Her voice was frigid. This was Nancy at her most disagreeable, her most offended. What could have happened now? “Nancy, what’s wrong?”

  “Why should anything be wrong?”

  “I have no idea, but it obviously is.” Silence. “Nancy, I think you’d better tell me.”

  “I just feel … a little hurt and upset. That’s all.”

  “What about?”

  “What about? You ask me, as if you don’t know perfectly well what about.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you, if I knew.”

  “Wouldn’t you be hurt if you were me? I hear nothing from you for weeks. Nothing. And then when I ring Podmore’s Thatch to ask you and Antonia to come and spend Easter with us, I find that you’ve gone. Gone to Cornwall, taking her and that gardener with you, and all without a word to either George or myself.”

  So that was it. “To be honest, Nancy, I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

  “It’s not a question of being interested. It’s a question of concern. Just taking off like that, without a word to anyone; anything could happen, and we wouldn’t know where you were.”

  “Olivia knew.”

  “Oh, Olivia. Yes, of course she knew, and great satisfaction it gave her as well, being able to put me in the picture. I find it astonishing that you find it necessary to tell her what you’re up to, and yet not a word to me.” She was now in full flood. “Everything that happens, I seem to hear about second-hand, through Olivia. Everything you do. Everything you decide. Getting that gardener to work for you. Having Antonia to live with you, when I’d spent weeks of time and a good deal of hard cash putting advertisements into the newspaper for a housekeeper. Then selling the panels, and giving away The Shell Seekers. Without a word of consultation with George and myself. It’s impossible to understand. I am, after all, your eldest child. If you owe me nothing else, you could consider my feelings. And then disappearing off to Cornwall like that, with Antonia and the gardener in tow. A pair of strangers. And yet when I suggested Melanie and Rupert should come, you refused to countenance the idea. Your own grandchildren! But you take a pair of strangers. About whom none of us know anything at all. They’re taking advantage of you, Mother. You surely can see that. Think you’re a soft touch, no doubt, though I couldn’t have believed that you could be so blind. It’s all so hurtful … so thoughtless…”

  “Nancy…”

  “… if this is how you behaved towards poor Daddy, it’s no wonder he left you. It’s enough to make anyone feel rejected and unwanted. Granny Keeling always said that you were the most unfeeling woman she’d ever known. We’ve tried to be responsible for you, George and I, but you don’t make it easy for us. Going off, without a word … spending all that money. We all know what staying at The Sands will cost you … and giving The Shell Seekers away … when you know how much we all need … so hurtful…”

  Stored resentments boiled over. Nancy, by now almost incoherent, at last ran out of steam. For the first time, Penelope was able to get a word in edgewise.

  “Have you finished?” she asked politely. Nancy made no answer. “May I speak now?”

  “If you wish.”

  “I rang you up to wish you all a Happy Easter. Not to have a row. But if you want o
ne, you can have one. In selling the panels, I simply did what you and Noel have been urging me to do for months. I got a hundred thousand pounds for them, as Olivia probably told you, and for the first time in my life, I decided to spend a little of it on myself. You know I’d been planning to come back to Porthkerris, because I asked you to come with me. I asked Noel, and I asked Olivia too. You all had excuses. You none of you wanted to come.”

  “Mother, I gave you my reasons.…”

  “Excuses,” Penelope repeated. “I had no intention of coming on my own. I wanted cheerful company, to share my pleasure. So Antonia and Danus have come with me. I am not yet so senile that I cannot choose my own friends. And as for The Shell Seekers, that picture was mine. Don’t ever forget that. Papa gave it to me as a wedding present, and now, with it hanging in the Art Gallery at Porthkerris, I feel I’ve simply handed it back to him. To him, and the thousands of ordinary people who will now be able to go and look at it, and perhaps know some of the comfort and pleasure that it’s always given me.”

  “You can have no idea of its worth.”

  “I have a great deal more idea than you have ever had. You’ve lived with The Shell Seekers all your life, and scarcely looked at it.”

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  “No, I know you didn’t.”

  “It’s…” Nancy groped for words. “It’s as though you actually wanted to hurt us … as though you disliked us…”

  “Oh, Nancy.”

  “… and why is it always Olivia you tell things too, and never me?”

  “Perhaps because you seem to find it so hard to understand anything I ever do.”

  “How can I understand when you behave in such an extraordinary way, never taking me into your confidence … treating me like a fool.… It was always Olivia. You always loved Olivia. When we were children, it was always Olivia, so clever and so funny. You never tried to understand me … if it hadn’t been for Granny Keeling…”