She explains their backgrounds, how kind they’ve been to her, and tries to ignore his speculative, teasing half-smile and raised eyebrows.
‘They sound nice,’ he agrees, grinning provocatively at her across the table, as she puts the mugs down with a plate of lemon drizzle cake. ‘And both of them unattached, you said?’
‘If I were you,’ she advises him, ‘I’d shut up. Or you might not get any cake.’
Adam laughs. ‘I’ll take the hint and look forward to meeting them.’
Dossie sits opposite him, delighted by this new sense of comradeship between them, bemused and grateful for this moment.
‘But you still haven’t answered my question,’ he says, cutting two slices of cake and pushing her plate towards her.
‘What question?’
‘If you were to have another dog, which breed would you choose?’
Adam watches Dossie trying to decide. He knows that he’s wrong-footed her, though not deliberately, by his reactions. She was expecting him to be antagonistic, prickly, defensive. After all, it’s been his modus vivendi for most of his life: his protective armour to cover his sense of insecurity; his sense of aloneness. He can’t quite get to grips with this new feeling of freedom, of the beginnings of a release from the persona that has been so much a part of him. It’s strange to sit here in the kitchen alone with Dossie, without the old familiar tension gripping him whilst he waits for some kind of interrogation from his father. ‘Your maths report is very poor.’ ‘Pity you didn’t make the first fifteen.’ ‘You won’t get to a good university with those grades.’ The only time he really pleased them was when he married Maryanne – he’d been so proud of her, confident of their approval – only for him to have it all fall around his feet. ‘Divorce? But why? She’s such a lovely girl …’ As usual, it was all his fault. He never told them that though she was a delightful, bubbly extrovert she was also extremely high maintenance and rather spoiled, and that when he tried to curb the spending there would be rows. It would have felt disloyal, as if he were making excuses, and so naturally he was the scapegoat when the marriage fell apart. Yet everyone loved Mo and Pa; everyone said what wonderful people they were.
Echoes of the past are all around him, anxiety clutches at his gut, but then Dossie asks, ‘I can’t decide on the breed but do you think I could manage a puppy?’ and the memories fade as he stares at her across the table, wrenching himself back to the present, focusing on her again.
‘I can’t see why not,’ he says. He wonders, now that his sense of rejection, of failure, has receded a little, just how hard would it be for Dossie to leave The Court, to start again somewhere new.
‘The question really is,’ he goes on, ‘whether or not you can afford to stay on here. Whether you’d like a smaller modern place that is easy and cheap to run or to stay here and sink slowly into decaying grandeur.’
‘Oh, definitely decaying grandeur. That’s a no-brainer,’ she answers promptly, and they both laugh.
He raises his coffee cup to her. ‘Decaying grandeur it is.’
She watches him curiously. ‘You know, I really thought I was going to have a fight on my hands.’
He quirks his eyebrows, makes a face. ‘Your decision, Doss. The Court’s yours to do as you please with, keep or sell.’
‘I know that. Even so.’ She pauses. ‘Look, it wasn’t anything to do with me, you know, Mo’s and Pa’s decision. They thought it was a way of paying me back for making it possible for them to stay on long after they’d have had to give up.’
He knows that she’s trying to make him feel better about it, to show him a reason for disinheriting him that will be palatable to him. He is seized with all the old antagonism, the helplessness and futility of his attempts to please his parents, the bitterness and insecurity – and yet perhaps the grip is now not quite so strong. He’s been the outsider for so long that it’s almost impossible to imagine that he might belong again and be part of what’s left of his family.
‘Look,’ he says quite gently. ‘I was never a part of the life that went on here. Nobody asked my opinion about anything. I never really fitted in anywhere.’ He searches for some kind of way forward and suddenly, instinctively, he knows what it might be.
‘Let’s forget all that, Doss,’ he says. ‘It is what it is. Tell me about Jakey. I can hardly believe he’ll be going to big school in the autumn. How’s he doing?’
He watches as her anxious expression fades and changes into pleasure, pride in her grandson.
‘He’s doing well,’ she says. ‘He’ll be going on with a lot of his friends from his primary school so that’s all good. He won nearly all the prizes at the last Sports Day, which he’s really thrilled about. And he’s very good at maths.’
Adam’s demons jostle at his lips. He wants to say, ‘He’ll be OK then. Pa would approve,’ but he swallows the bitter words, and drinks some coffee, disappointed by his swift negative reaction. This is going to be much harder than he hoped.
‘Clem asked if we could go over for tea tomorrow,’ Dossie’s saying. ‘He’s got the afternoon off and he says they’d love to see you.’
If Adam’s smile is wry he can’t help it. He doubts very much that Clem said anything of the kind but he nods and finishes his cake.
‘Sounds good to me.’
He sees her relief and is heartened.
Dossie feels quite weak with relief. She can’t quite believe what is happening. It’s as if some kind of transformation has taken place, though she can’t think how or why. Were things really so bad between Adam and Pa? Of course Pa could be a very tough cookie, and relationships between fathers and sons are often difficult, but it shocks her to think of the bitterness that has pursued Adam down through the years.
Looking back, it was as if Adam always arrived at The Court armed ready for battle, and so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Dossie is filled with sadness, anxiety, but also with a new hope that some miracle might occur. She knows how quickly Adam can swing into defensive anger but wonders if he can be led, somehow, into a new sense of self-security and slowly regain confidence. She believes that the little family at the Retreat House might be a part of that healing – and maybe Ned and Hugo and Prune, too.
‘How about a walk before supper?’ she asks. ‘Or was getting down to the church and back enough for an old townie like you?’
He smiles lazily at her banter but doesn’t rise to it.
‘Sounds OK to me. I’ll get my stuff in from the car.’
She watches him go out, takes a huge gasping breath of relief and begins to clear the table.
CHAPTER NINE
PRUNE STEPS OUT of the greenhouse and stands in the cool air of the early evening. She’s been succession sowing: carrots, endives, purple sprouting broccoli, French beans and salad crops. It’s good to come out from the warm, damp atmosphere, from the vegetative scents of earth and growing things, and breathe the heavenly perfume of the luteum that grows just here. How magical the gardens look with their flowing patterns and shapes and colours. Azaleas and rhododendrons, as tall as trees, follow the curve of the paths that vanish amongst the bushes; red and white magnolia blossom lies thickly scattered on the bare earth around their roots as though an exotic rug has been flung down. A blackbird hops along the top of the yew hedge, trimmed as flat as a shelf, and cocks a yellow-rimmed eye at her. Prune suspects that his nest is somewhere near and stands, unmoving, until he gives a sudden warning cry and swoops into cover. Buckets stand and a big stiff-bristle broom leans against a stone bench, and two of the gardeners appear and pick them up. They wave to Prune and she waves back. She’s beginning to feel a sense of comradeship, of being part of a team, which is important to her, but she also needs these moments of separateness. It is necessary to her to be able to allow her thoughts to flow freely, to be a part of this: the peace of the gardens, the quality of absolute availability to her deeper inner world.
Prune sits for a moment on the edge of the stone bench, watching a s
quirrel darting amongst the delicate wood anemones and knobbly roots, and listening to the yaffle laughing up in the woods behind her. Suddenly she glimpses the flash of his green wing, his swooping flight, and she smiles with delight. She stands up and stretches, and makes ready to go home. It’s lucky that it’s a short enough distance for her to be able to cycle to work from the house on the quay. And tonight Hugo and Ned have invited her to go with them to The Chough for supper. It means that she’ll see Ben, although he’ll be working, and there will be a walk for the dogs along the way. Life is good.
Later, when she walks into the pub with Hugo and Ned, she feels a frisson of pleasure to see the way Ben’s eyes widen when he sees her; the way he smiles. She deliberately hasn’t texted him so as to surprise him, and she’s glad now. It boosts her confidence to see his delighted reaction. Hugo is already at the bar ordering pints for himself and Ned. Before he can ask what Prune would like, Ben has produced a bottle of apple and pear juice, which is her favourite just at the moment. She smiles at him, acknowledging the fact that he’s remembered, and they share a brief, private moment before she sits down with Ned.
The look the older man gives her, however, makes her suspect that perhaps it wasn’t such a private moment after all, and she knows that she’s blushing a bit but she can’t seem to help it. Luckily a couple come to sit at the next table, which involves a slight reordering of the chairs. Hugo arrives with the drinks and the moment passes.
Prune settles herself more comfortably, Ben brings them each a menu.
‘The pie of the day is steak and ale,’ he tells them, ‘and the soup is spicy tomato and lentil.’
He’s trying to catch her eye but she stares at the menu, not wanting to give herself away again. The two men order the pie, Prune orders gnocchi, and Ben goes back to the bar. She takes a deep breath and smiles at Hugo and Ned almost defensively but they are talking about having lunch with Dossie the next day and she relaxes.
‘It’s a shame that you’re working and that you can’t come,’ Hugo says to her. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing The Court. It sounds rather a nice old place. Of course, the church is famous for its summer music festival. The programme arrived this morning, actually. They’re doing Berlioz’ L’enfance du Christ. Martyn Brabbins is conducting … Mark Padmore … Susan Bullock …’
Prune’s eyes drift back to Ben behind the bar as Ned and Hugo discuss the festival. Ben winks at her and she gives a little grin of pure happiness.
Ned watches these exchanges out of the corner of his eye and is filled with so many different emotions: pleasure, amusement, sentimentality and envy. How good to be young again, and in love: to have it all before you. He leans back in his chair as fragments of conversation drift around him.
‘I told him, you should see the other guy.’ … ‘The service was appalling. A very tiresome waitress. I said to her, “What would be ‘fantastic’, dear, would be if you stopped saying ‘fantastic’.”’ … ‘We’ve been married for forty years and I haven’t found the off switch yet.’ …
Sometimes he can hardly remember his own recent past. It’s odd that the later years of retirement should fade whilst a memorable run ashore in Naples, a ‘show-the-flag visit’ to Piraeus, the two-year posting to New London, Connecticut on the Staff USN Submarine Development Squadron, should now be so vivid to him. He finds that he’s thinking about Jamie. He’s decided to retire from the RAF; to make the move. ‘Better to jump than be pushed,’ he said to Hugo.
Ned is seized with impotent rage on Jamie’s behalf. If he does decide to cut the mooring rope, he’ll be adrift for the first time in thirty years, and he’ll still have his debilitating health problem to deal with, as well as huge new adjustments. Jamie has told him of how the dizziness can disturb his equilibrium; about the migraines, the occasion when he was buying a birthday card, lost his balance and fell over, crashing into a window display, and the looks of disgust and suspicion from the staff and other shoppers.
‘They thought I was drunk,’ he said. ‘The trouble is you never know when it might creep up on you. I was going to buy a little light plane when I retired. Keep it at St Mawgan. Maybe give private flying lessons. But not now.’
Ned drinks some of his local ale and wonders what Margaret would be saying now; what advice she might give. He winces at the all-too-familiar twinge of guilt that accompanies his memories of their relationship. Thank goodness she never knew about his indiscretions; his infidelity. He couldn’t have had a more perfect wife: pragmatic, capable, loyal. Even when Jack was killed in the Falklands she outwardly maintained her self-control though there was a sea change, something within her radically altered. He often wondered how she managed when he was back at sea and she was alone. How strong and brave she was. He was the one who privately raged and wept at the death of his son. Ned gives a silent snort of self-disgust: he’d always been too emotional, too romantic. He controlled it, of course, stiff upper lip and all of that.
Ned takes another sip of his ale and he wonders how much Jamie is really suffering.
Hugo is thinking of Jamie, too. Ben, behind the bar, has put on some music and is miming the words to Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man’, one of Jamie’s favourites.
‘You should have been a concert pianist,’ Jamie still tells Hugo. ‘You had the talent, you lucky bastard, those big hands that can stretch more than an octave.’
‘You know I couldn’t,’ is his reply. ‘I don’t have the temperament. The preparation, the expectation, would have killed me. I hate people looking at me. I prefer to be behind the camera. I’m a team player, not a soloist.’
He knows that in some strange way, despite Jamie’s impressive profession, his glamorous cousin slightly envied his bohemian life in London; the BBC in-jokes, and what Jamie calls his ‘luvvie-lefty’ friends. He got on very well in that circle, and they, in turn, always loved to see him and to hear about his other world. They pulled his leg, sang ‘Take My Breath Away’, but treated him with great respect, especially during and after the two Gulf Wars. It was good for Jamie to come to London back then, to unwind with Hugo, with these media people; chatterers who loved to be in the swim. The parties would often end up with Jamie playing jazz piano in someone’s flat. Unattached women – and sometimes attached ones – fawned on him, but Jamie seemed impervious, though he often spent the night with one or other of them. ‘Your serious cousin,’ they called him because he would never drink if he were driving, or flying the next day.
‘You’re a risk analysis freak,’ Hugo would say. ‘You don’t just have a Plan B. You have a C, D and an E …’
His cousin would laugh at the exaggeration. ‘You have to if you’re a pilot,’ he would reply.
It puzzles Hugo that Jamie never married again – he must have had so many opportunities – and he wonders again quite what went wrong between his cousin and Emilia. He finds himself thinking about Lucy, and small Dan, and tries to imagine the scenario should she come face to face with Jamie. She is so like Emilia that it would be a shock to him. He wonders why the thought of warning Jamie that Lucy’s around fills him with a kind of dread, especially just at this time when Jamie is vulnerable. Hugo reaches into his pocket for his phone to send his cousin a text, but just then the food arrives. Hugo sits back in his chair and decides to wait until after supper.
It’s still light when they come out of the pub, and Hugo drives by twisting, secret lanes to the clifftop where the dogs are released and run free. Prune runs with them, laughing, leaping, encouraging them.
‘How nice to be young,’ says Hugo, watching her whilst keeping pace with Ned’s slower steps.
‘And in love,’ adds Ned, smiling at Prune’s antics, knowing how it feels to be in love: exuberant, fizzing with excitement, slightly crazy. Her mood is all because of that tall, good-looking young fellow in The Chough. Ned understands exactly what Ben and Prune are experiencing and, just at this moment, with the sun drowning in the sea and the moon rising, sharply curved as a scimitar, he would give every
thing he has to be young again and feel as they do.
Glancing at Hugo he sees that, though his nephew is clearly sympathetic to Prune’s behaviour, there is no reminiscent stirring in his blood, no sense of envy or longing to be in love.
Perhaps, thinks Ned, it is because he’s still young enough to be considered viable; to be taken seriously.
He walks slowly, leaning on his stick, and thinks of times past; of women he has known and loved who added colour and glamour and fun to his life, especially when Margaret grew distant after Jack’s death. Their physical relationship had slowly dwindled into a quick hug, a comforting pat, but all her early passion seemed to die out of her. It was surprisingly lonely. He was a tactile man, an affectionate man, and to be gently, politely, but firmly repulsed was very hard. He was not proud that he continued to seek solace elsewhere, and he wonders if Hugo is doing the same when he makes those dashes away to London to see his friends.
Prune is running back to them, the dogs in close pursuit. The dusk is falling and it’s cold. Ned stops walking and, taking the hint, Hugo waves to Prune, gestures back the way they have come, and they turn for home.
CHAPTER TEN
AS LUNCHTIME APPROACHES, Adam is surprised at how nervous he feels at the prospect of meeting Dossie’s friends. He still can’t quite get used to The Court without Mo and Pa: at how laid-back it feels. Nor was he prepared to find how easy it is to be with Dossie. The age gap between them seems to have vanished, she asks his opinions, his advice, and he senses her vulnerability. This especially weakens his veneer of indifference, his unapproachability. He allows his guard to drop a little, although instinctively he’s waiting for criticism or rejection. Instead she makes him laugh, involves him, until he’s behaving as if he has every right to be here, making decisions, helping her to organize the lunch.
Homecomings Page 6
