A Sweet Obscurity

by Patrick Gale

  She turned to the books and, from the little she had learnt of Pearce, was surprised to find a literary compost heap: some thrillers, a tractor maintenance manual, an unfamiliar Tolstoy, a guide to the footpaths of Madeira, Aubrey’s Brief Lives, the Observer Book of British Insects, Elizabeth David’s Summer Cooking, and both Travels with My Aunt and Travels With A Donkey. She reached for Brief Lives and, sipping cold tea, turned to fondly remembered stories; ‘Sweet Sir Walter’ becoming ‘Swisser-Swatter’ in the throes of passion and Queen Elizabeth’s exquisite cruelty in welcoming the Earl of Oxford, returned after a seven-year embarrassed absence, ‘My Lord, I had forgott the fart.’ She read another potted biography, a sad one she had forgotten entirely or never read, then turned automatically to the brief entry on Trevescan.

  There was more than one Cornish gentleman at court, for the Queen had it that they were all born courtiers and with a becoming confidence. Less generous spirits said it was more truly that she ruled such distant families by keeping their most favoured offspring by her side and still others, that men from such a remote and unruly county were the less likely to have formed dangerous and powerfull alliances close at hand. One such was Roger Trevescan, not a prized first son but a cunning Benjamin, skilled at languages, briefly a pet of Her Majesty’s and most like to have proved himself a useful diplomat. He proved less a Benjamin than a Jonathan, however, for a friendship grew up between him and my Lord Beaufort’s godlike younger brother, sighs, sonnets, madrigals and all, which set tongues wagging until My Lord must needs take action. To save the family honour while yet seeking to give a round offence and so inspire a duel, he took advantage of Trevescan’s known excellence in Spanish and rumoured dealings for Walsingham among the enemie and penned a scurrilous unsubtle squib on the walls of the house of easement most frequented by the gentlemen of influence. The whole escapes me but I remember the opening couplet for its scurvy rhyme and libellous suggestion that he had whored himself to the enemy’s emissary: ‘Trevescan is Don Diego’s Man, His Ladye, rather, or pute d’Espagne’. No mention of the godlike brother, for whom swift and manly business had been found elsewhere. The lines soon circulated, as such things are wont, and were even heard sung to the tune of one of Trevescan’s more noted madrigals, until The Queen herself was heard to chuckle over them whereon it was assumed the Cornishman must fight. He fled home to his family’s distant and fishy estates, however, proving his effeminacy.

  Or so it seemed. Other Cornishmen came to replace him in time and he was quite forgot until word reached court that he had died a patriot and hero, defending the honour of his brother’s betrothed during one of the Spanish raids then attempted in those less defended parts. For he was not a coward but rather preferred to seem so than to slay his friend’s brother, as he surely would have had a duel been fought. Also a born courtier, as Her Majestie would have it, for an ancient law forbade the drawing of arms at court in any cause but Her own defence. My Lord Beaufort was distinguished only for the pox which cost him his nose. His brother may be assumed to have lapsed into virtue or plainnesse, for there came no further report of him.

  Reading the familiar words, Eliza felt the old regretful twinge at Aubrey’s casual scattering of references to Trevescan sonnets and songs since lost to posterity.

  Showered, and dressed in her borrowed clothes, she followed the sound of the tractor out to a field above the sea where Pearce was cutting back the grass with a large, flat device that hung from the tractor’s rear. Standing in a patch of yellow daisy-like flowers to watch his progress, she thought wryly that she should be holding a brimming jug of cider and a plate of bread, ham and onions.

  He finished another pass across the field then paused and opened the cab door. As she approached, he offered her a hand then thought better, seeing how filthy it was, and turned it over to offer her his fist and wrist, with which she heaved herself up the high steps and into the cab. Stretching past her to tug the door to again he smelled so good she felt compelled to kiss him.

  ‘Toothpaste,’ he said.

  ‘Grass,’ she countered.

  He set off again, glancing over his shoulder as he activated the cutting machine and lowered it. ‘You’d better sit or you’ll bang your head,’ he said as they lurched away so she perched on a heap of old clothes, squashed in beside the armrest of his seat. He reached across her again to adjust a knob which made the noise from behind even louder. They nearly kissed again but he held back, said, ‘You’ll make me crash us,’ and grinned.

  He was heroically dirty as if he had rubbed earth between his hands then rubbed them on his cheeks. He seemed his own, wild, stiff-haired twin. Flecks of grass clung to his shirt, forearms, even eyebrows. The whites of his eyes, smile and a glimpse of relatively clean thigh through a rip in his oily jeans were the only vestiges of the outsize altar boy who had taken her on a date.

  He saw her looking. ‘Left the window open when I started on this,’ he explained. ‘Mind on other things, see.’ He smiled to himself and she wondered for a moment what he meant.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’ he said, turning down the radio.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she shouted for the noise was still intense even without Woman’s Hour on full blast.

  ‘Topping,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ she said and he smiled again, knowing this had left her no wiser. She turned the radio volume back up. It was a discussion on the rise in chlamydia infections among schoolchildren. She wondered how many farmers listened to Woman’s Hour as they worked, and whether it made them better husbands.

  ‘How about you?’ he asked.

  She shrugged, ashamed at appearing like a bored child. ‘Nothing really. I ought to go and check on Dido. Fetch her from Molly’s.’

  ‘I can run you up in half an hour.’

  ‘No, honestly. I feel like a walk. This place must be getting to me. I never feel like a walk!’

  So he gave her a lift in the tractor to the nearest point where she could scrabble over a hedge and onto the coast path. The route to St Just was quite simple, he said. ‘Just keep the sea on your left and turn inland when you reach some cottages on the path above Cape Cornwall.’

  She was prepared for the drama of waves on rocks but had forgotten the exuberance of Cornish coastal flowers. To either side and all over the steeply banking ground to her right were plush cushions of kidney vetch, thrift, policeman’s buttons, even mats of naturalised exotica like hottentot fig with its flowers like stiff pink and yellow paper. More plant names came back to her as she walked, unused since biology fieldtrips out of school.

  Not having glanced at a map first, she was unprepared for either the distance or the steep climb from cove to village and had a raging thirst by the time she arrived at Molly’s terrace. But there was no reply and the door was locked. She walked on up the lane to the library but was told Molly was still on leave.

  She had probably driven the girls down to the farm while Eliza was trailing along the coast path. Overcome with weariness, Eliza decided to be lazy and wait in the square for a bus that would carry her up Carn Bosavern to the caravan.

  There was a bus in ten minutes so she slipped into the baker’s shop, bought two saffron buns and a beaker of coffee and took herself to the churchyard wall to enjoy them. The coffee was filthy but the buns were fresh and good, authentically chewy, and restored her strength. She always found a cheap, rebellious pleasure in eating in the street because it was so strictly vetoed when she was growing up. When pressed, the only reason her mother gave her and Hannah against the practice was that people would think one was hungry.

  ‘But I am hungry,’ she would insist.

  It was left to Hannah to explain, ‘She means poor,’ and earn herself a smacked hand.

  ‘Well I am poor,’ Eliza thought now as she licked the sugar off her lips and used a thumbnail to pick at a currant lodged in her teeth. Unbidden, the possibility occurred to her that Pearce was rich but she dismissed it. He was pro
ud, perhaps, aware that inherited acres and a house with family connections was a burden of trust and duty but he was too careful even to be one of those comfortably off men who cultivated shabbiness as a kind of good manners towards the less fortunate.

  Like the old houses around it with their swirl-carved kneelers, the church, she realised, was a small jewel. Lured inside by the ancient sundial above its porch, she was disappointed to find it had been zealously scraped of much of the character its exterior still possessed. Despite two drywork paintings on the plasterwork of Christ and St George, sure indications of the plaster’s authenticity, some fool had not only removed most of it but had repointed the exposed granite with brown mortar, making a dark interior darker still.

  Back outside she browsed through the small graveyard, reading the tombs. The range of names was as limited and local as those in the Polglaze family Bible. By Tre Pol and Pen shall ye know Cornishmen the rhyme had it but here it was all Eddys, Thomases and Clemenses. Heading back towards the gate, keeping an eye out for the bus, her attention was hooked by a familiar surname.

  It was a Victorian stone, a tidy granite slab. Near this spot lies Roger Trevescan of Vingoe Farm in this parish, courtier, composer, devoted son, loyal brother, who died in 1595 defending the honour of his kinswoman from Spanish raiders. This stone paid for by the Pentreath Society. A few words followed in Cornish.

  ‘The original’s over there against the wall, Eliza.’

  Eliza turned and saw that Molly had pulled up outside the bakers in her car. Eliza smiled sheepishly. ‘I was just waiting for the bus,’ she explained herself. ‘Where d’you mean?’

  ‘Behind that gorse bush there.’

  Eliza walked a few paces to one side and found a sad line of broken or illegible stones tidied away against the yard’s low wall so presumably separated from their graves. Trevescan’s was little more than a stump…evescan, it read, in plainer lettering than the Victorian one. Devoted son, loyal brother. Murdered in ye Spanish raide. Jan 5 1595. Requiescat. A winged skull was now half-sunk in turf.

  ‘Hop in,’ Molly called. ‘I’ll run you up.’

  ‘Where are the girls?’ she asked. ‘I called round.’

  ‘They wanted a bigger bike ride than normal so I dropped them off on the edge of St Ives. They’re coming back around the coastal route, through Zennor and Morvah. With the way my one dawdles and your one talks, it should take them most of the day. Was that okay? You didn’t have plans?’

  ‘No. I was just feeling a bit ashamed. All I was going to do was take advantage of the peace to flop.’

  ‘So come to Truro. Keep me company.’

  ‘I’m a hopeless shopper, I warn you.’

  ‘I’m not shopping. Not really. I’m going to the Museum to look some things up for Lucy’s holiday project. It’s sort of a tradition with us. I do most of the work for her holiday projects in return for her doing all the washing up until term starts again.’

  ‘Isn’t that cheating?’

  ‘Yes. But I make sure she understands it all and writes it up herself. I’d rather this way than spend the next eight weeks nagging her.’

  ‘I thought she was bright.’

  ‘She is for some things. Science things mainly. Anything involving the past is a kind of nightmare for her. She just glazes over.’

  ‘What’s the project?’

  ‘Great-grandparents. They have to write a paragraph about each one and if possible find a photograph. Then they’ll put them all together next term and see what patterns emerge. Who was local. Who fought in the Great War. Which families intermarried. How many died in childbirth or the great flu epidemic. I’m going to look up and copy the births, marriages and deaths for her and squirrel out the photos. She’s got to do some work, though. Sorry. I’m kidnapping you. Are you sure you don’t want to change?’

  ‘Are these clothes very odd?’

  ‘No!’

  They laughed and Eliza asked at least to change into something a little more suitable for town.

  ‘I drove round to Pearce’s earlier, actually,’ Molly admitted as they set off again. ‘To pick you up. But you’d set off already.’

  ‘Ah. Sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  Eliza thought a moment. ‘So you knew I’d spend the night there.’

  ‘I knew what Pearce wanted. I hoped…I’m not going to pry, Eliza.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘But…Well –’

  ‘– I spent the night,’ Eliza said as simply as she could. ‘It was very nice. He’s a lovely man.’

  ‘Yeah.’ They began the steady descent from Newbridge towards Mount Misery and the main road. Eliza could tell Molly was searching for suitable words.

  ‘And he’s very…’ Molly went on. ‘He hasn’t much experience.’

  ‘You’re not making out he’s a virgin?’

  ‘No, no. Not that. Not quite. God, I hope not! But…’

  ‘Nearly.’

  ‘Yeah. He’s quite shy and the farm takes up so much time and the work’s so isolating. And when we were growing up he was never much one for Young Farmers discos and stuff. He was never one of the lads in that way. Thank Christ. And then after Mum died he sort of got drawn into helping Dad out with things and…well…I suppose what I’m trying to say as his older sister I feel very protective towards him.’

  ‘And you want to know if my intentions are honourable.’

  ‘Oh dear. Well yes. I suppose I do.’

  ‘Molly, I hardly know him. We’ve only just met.’

  ‘That didn’t stop you!’ Molly said sharply then sighed and pulled herself back. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘That came out all wrong. I just don’t want him getting hurt,’ she added more gently.

  ‘And I don’t intend to hurt him,’ Eliza said. ‘But we haven’t…you know…discussed anything.’

  ‘And he won’t. Pearce can’t bear talking about things. Not if they’re personal.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning.’

  They laughed and the air cleared a little. Molly accelerated onto the dual carriageway with palpable relief.

  ‘It’s funny,’ Eliza said. ‘I’d never thought of myself in that light before.’

  ‘I didn’t mean –’

  ‘I know, I know. But. Well. I suppose I am a single mother with an estranged husband and no job. And I’ve blown in from the big bad city with a dangerous lack of plans in mind. There’s no one else at the moment.’

  ‘Oh. Well that’s good.’

  ‘No. I mean is there anyone else? Is he keen on anyone right now?’

  ‘Apart from you, you mean?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘He’s keen, you know. He’d never have moved so fast.’

  ‘Well he was quite prompt,’ Eliza admitted, thinking of a starry night sky.

  ‘He’s really keen.’

  ‘Stop it!’ Eliza laughed. ‘So am I, all right? He’s wonderful. He’s the loveliest man I’ve met in years. Now shut up and stop it!’

  ‘Okay okay.’ Molly smiled to herself as she concentrated on overtaking a lorry. She added, almost as an afterthought. ‘No. So far as I know there’s been no one since he had a hopeless crush on Maddie Nicholas.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Got tired of waiting for him to say something, I think, and married someone else.’

  ‘Ah. Did they…er?’

  ‘I don’t think so. No.’

  Glancing across as they skirted a roundabout, Eliza noticed now the similarity between brother and sister. The features that looked simply blunt on him, their sculpture unfinished, looked too large and plain on her.

  ‘That’s his trouble,’ Molly was saying. ‘Most men – men like Morris – need a snog at the very least even to get them interested. But with Pearce the effect of just smiling at him and saying hello in a particular way could last for weeks with no further encouragement. I dunno. Women are meant to be the fantasists – they’re always saying that’s why men need dirty mags
– but Pearce could dream me under the table.’

  ‘All that being by himself and driving up and down alone with his thoughts,’ Eliza said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And Woman’s Hour.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  And for a few minutes they drove on in silence, contemplating the mystery of men. They passed the Camborne turn-off. Eliza sighed.

  ‘What?’ asked Molly.

  ‘Oh. Nothing. Camborne, that’s all. Reminded me of Kitty and how she’ll want her place back and all the things we need to sort out.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like the house. My dead mum’s house.’

  ‘She was from Camborne?’

  ‘No!’ Eliza snorted, imagining her mother’s genteel dismay at such an accusation. ‘She was from Barnstaple. He was from Camborne and so was I.’

  ‘You’re kidding! You don’t sound Cornish.’

  ‘I do when I’ve drunk too much. Well he was the one with the accent and he left and she shouted at us if we so much as burbled our Rs so I never really picked it up properly. But yes, my sister and I were born in Camborne and went to school in Redruth.’

  ‘Have you still got family down here?’

  ‘Probably.’ Eliza shrugged. ‘I never thought about it. I never met any.’

  ‘I bet you’ve got cousins at least.’

  Molly’s manner towards her now changed unmistakably. She had been friendly before but now was friendly and relaxed, as though the previous feeling had been not entirely trusting. It was touching, Eliza thought, that the mere accident of a place of birth could count for so much, this assumption that being Cornish would make her less likely to run away.

  She never thought of herself as Cornish and researched Trevescan purely because his music spoke to her and no one else was studying him. Perhaps she would have had a stronger sense of roots had she been raised in an area more readily mythologised, like Mousehole or Lamorna.