The Tintagel Secret

by Sarah Till

  'Jason Wright. Or Tempest, Temp to my friends. I've come to see this fine lady.' He threw his leg over her and started her up and she positively purred. Then he jumped down. 'Can I see the docs?'

  I pass them to him and his eyes fill with sorrow.

  'Jerusalem Thomas. Has he..?'

  I nod.

  'Yes. About six weeks ago. All of a sudden.' To him anyway, I smile to myself.

  He's silent for a few moments.

  'I knew Jer. Back in the day. We used to go metal detecting together. I saw him about six months ago and he told me he was here to find something. I guess he found it.' He looks at Daisy and caresses her handlebars. 'I should have known. She's beautiful.'

  He's staring at me now and I blush a little.

  'He would have wanted her to go to the right person.'

  Temp nods.

  'That's me, all right. That's me. How much do you want for her? Name your price.'

  I know she's worth a lot of money, but I also know that money means very little when someone like Daisy changes hands like this.

  'How about you look after her for a bit? Until you decide. No point leaving her here to rust. Jer wouldn't have liked that.'

  He smiles and flicks up a small compartment behind the wheels.

  'Secret compartment. Who knows what you'll find in here.' I watch as he pulls at the panel. 'Mmm. Can't budge it. There's a knack to it, different on every bike. I'll have to have a few tries.'

  He taps the plastic and eventually it pops open. He pulls out a gift bag and a piece of dull, twisted metal. We both stare at it and I wait for the greedy sheen to cover his expression. But it doesn't. He offers it to me.

  'It's OK. I don't expect there's anything of value there. Just throw whatever it is in the bin over there. I'm sure it's worthless tat.'

  He smiles and throws it in underarm, a direct shot into the dustbin.

  'You'll get your rewards in heaven.'

  I laugh a little bit too loudly but he doesn't flinch or look embarrassed.

  'I very much doubt that. I won't be going there.'

  He laughs with me, then he becomes more serious.

  'So. When I've decided, how do I contact you? Do you have a phone number?'

  I shake my head, bashful now.

  'No. Sorry. Not yet anyway.'

  'That's OK. Shall we meet then, say a week from now, at the Castle? Down at the bottom of the hill, where the café is? Maybe I can buy you lunch?'

  I nod.

  'It's Lizzie.'

  'Ah. Lizzie Thomas.'

  I sigh.

  'No. Not Thomas. I wasn't Jer's wife.'

  He smiles widely.

  'I beg to differ. He wouldn't have left this fine lady with you if you weren't the person he trusted most in the world. I think you were his wife. Maybe not in law, but certainly in spirit.'

  He revs daisy and rides off on her. I haven't got an address for him, or even a phone number, I realise as he disappears through the bushy hedgerow, Daisy purring loudly. But I do have a date.

  Days afterwards, there is a knock on the door at nine o'clock in the morning. Alice is already gone, and I run downstairs in my dressing gown. I can see two shapes through the frosted glass panels beside the door, and I open it slowly. Two middle aged women are standing there, and I wonder at first if they are Jehovah's Witnesses. Then I see their eyes, the same as mine, large and dark, and the hint of my mother's smile. I shake my head.

  'Kim and Ann. Bloody hell.'

  We all go in, tearful and staid, and exchange the details of our lives. I miss out all the bag lady days, and don't talk too much about Andrew.

  'Oh, he's got his own family to see to now. You know how it is.'

  It turns out that they are both married with grown up children and are both teachers. Ann, my youngest sister explained.

  'We were so fed up that we had to get out of that bloody house. So we went to university. We still lived at home, but by that time John had gone and Dad was in the pub all day and night.'

  I stared at her.

  'Dad? And Mum?'

  'Dad's in a home. He's got dementia and he doesn't know who we are. He saw you at Stan's funeral, didn't he? He was quite bad then. Had to go into a home in Blackburn. Then this bloke who claimed to be his long-lost son buggered off with his savings and since then he's just been chuntering about King bloody Arthur and the Grail. You know how he is. We didn’t believe him at first, but apparently he had a kid with this woman just before he met Mam. And her. Mam. Her and her bloke got married and emigrated to Spain. She's still working as an artist.'

  I'm whisked back to her glorious paintings and her powder footsteps as she left, and I'm glad for her.

  'Is she happy?'

  Ann winced.

  'We don't really know. She never answers any letters, we only tracked her down through the Salvation army, one of her step children replied on her behalf. I think she's seen James. He searched her out from Canada.'

  There's only one person left, and the question hung thickly in the air.

  'And John.'

  Kim took my hand.

  'He never touched us, either of us. We never knew what he did to you, or we would have told. Fancy having to live with that over you all them years. Anyway, we've written a letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions telling them what our childhood was like, how me Dad was barmy, making us do all that stuff, making us come here. It's a bit unsettling coming back. I don't know how you've managed?'

  I nodded. That's just the problem. I haven't managed.

  'But now? Where is he now?'

  'He's living in a tower block. On his own. His wife divorced his coz he ran off with a young girl and his children have all moved away. He's on his own. Every now and again, when Dad has a coherent moment, he'll tell one of us that John has been, always for money. He's skint and alone.' She fixes her eyes on me. 'Just what he deserves.'

  I nodded.

  'Well, it looks like it'll be some time until I know if I'll be prosecuted for Emma. That's what I called her, Emma.' My soul still winces at her name, and the memory. 'And my solicitor thinks I won't go to prison.'

  They visibly relaxed. Ann smiled at me.

  'Like we said, we've written in, we can back you up. Even after all this time, we're still your sisters. You must come to see us in Manchester. I'm still living in Baggerly Street. You can stay with me.' She reaches into her carrier bag and brings out some sheets of paper. 'I found these upstairs. I thought you might like to have them.'

  I take them from her and turn each one over. Two of them are Mum's watercolours, dabs of pastel shades and children in the distance. I smile. Until I reach my own work. Swirls of dark colours and a castle overshadowing a girl. The girl looks sad and is surrounded by the sea. I look at my sisters, who both nod at me. Kim speaks first.

  'So obvious now, isn't it? But look at the one underneath.' The next one shows three little girls drawn roughly on a beach scene. 'Maybe that's what we should concentrate on?'

  I nod and they leave. Of course, I'll never go back to Manchester. I couldn't bear to set foot in Baggerly Street, not where my past lay dormant. I couldn't take the risk of it leaping back out at me. For the time being, I'm just here, dangling in time and space in Tintagel. I've been to see Dr Davison and he prescribed me some anti-depressants, but I haven't taken them. Even though I'm gradually slipping back into the person I was before, even before Emma, I still know that there's something a little strange about me. People like to call it mental illness, those people who need to do something about it. Of course, there are those people who may be mentally ill, whatever that is, and may benefit from taking medication that will whip them back into a more acceptable shape, one that the world approves of. Then there are people like me. People like us.

  Some days you never forget. They force you to become someone you once were, someone else. The day that I sung Jerusalem was one of those days. I stood in front of those generations of women and dropped my bags. I don't know what
happened, or how it happened, but somehow I was given the strength of all those women who had ever sung it before. Jer's Mother and Grandmother, all the generations who had mustered strength. I'd finally become a bone fide member of Tintagel library. The stern lady who had once barred me for using the only public flushing toilet in the village, had become beguiled by my Marks and Spencer cardigan and my sturdy K shoes, as well as my sparse make-up and smart mackintosh. She knew I was the same person, but with different layers of onion skin I became much more acceptable.

  The first thing I looked up in the library is Jerusalem, the poem, not the man. I gasped at each new piece of information. Each story is a ring, and beginning, a middle and an end. I don't believe that they are linear, because they all go back to the beginning in the end. Like life; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Stories recount themselves constantly ricocheting back and forth to weave truth on a shaky loom. Jerusalem was no exception. The words of the poem had become tethered to religion but looking back to the beginning of the story in context, the words question the possibility of a heaven on earth. Isn't that what we all strive for? That perfect moment when everything becomes clear? Was heaven in these English pastures? Or was it elsewhere? Was this heaven, the abstract precious jewel, the Holy Grail? I stared at the aluminium ring, still on my finger, and wonder if Jer had found his heaven with me, in that balance of peace and solitude that I allowed him at the end. Surely there was some reason he stayed, and not just for the Grail? And had I, at that difficult time in my life, found it in him? So much that I wanted him all to myself, what was mine. To anyone who threatened to take him: Kill You Next Time. Was this how people lived? Or was it just another game, with him after what I had all along?

  I'm back at the beginning now. I used to think there was an answer to every question in the world. But the unanswerable questions in life, those about my son and the hatred surrounding that situation still tower over me, Morgana’s story dipping into my own, weighting the growing lightness in my heart. I know I don't deserve happiness after what I have done, but I never meant to hurt anyone. As if to balance it out slightly, when I left the house today I noticed a cream envelope on the new wicker doormat, addressed to Elizabeth Nelson. I tore it open and held in my hand all the hope I had dared to wish for.

  Dear Mrs Nelson

  I apologise for how I treated you when you visited my home. Andrew told me you were not his mother, but it has become clear you are. I can only guess at what has come between you and my husband as he refuses to discuss the matter. I have enclosed some pictures of your grandchildren, and I will try to get Andrew to arrange a meeting. I expect that you think this is impossible after what has happened, but I hold a little hope. When I gave birth to Brianny, I was under the impression that you were dead, that you had died when Andrew was young. When you called at the house I was convinced that you were not Andrew's mother, except for one small detail. My daughter's second name is Elizabeth.

  I contacted the police to obtain you address, and they told me you thought I was holding up a sign saying 'Help' to the window when you were leaving. They were concerned that I wasn't safe. I can assure you that I am safe, and so are your grandchildren. The sign actually said, 'I'll help you'. I am more than aware of my husband's shortcomings. I can understand your mistake because, after all, we all see only what we want to see sometimes, don't we?

  I will be in touch as soon as I can. In the meantime, apologies and I am very sorry about your own daughter, who I read about in the paper.

  Sarah Nelson.

  I stare at the photographs. Tommy and Brianny with Andrew. He looks happy, his arms wrapped tightly around his children. Just like I had held him, protected him from the world. Sarah and Andrew on their wedding day, her smile radiant and Andrew looking at her, his eyes full of love. Christening photographs, and birthdays. I'd missed it all, and now a lost life that ran parallel to mine flashed before me like a slideshow, but I knew that I was there somewhere, my essence in vicariously carried through Andrew. He hadn't forgotten about me. It seemed he had found someone unlike me in Sarah, someone brave who wasn't scared of her own shadow or those who threatened her; someone who spoke up for themselves. Someone who protected her child. But there was hope. Elizabeth. He had called her Elizabeth. I push the letter into my handbag and pull the door shut behind me. I'm still his mother.

  I'm sitting waiting for Temp in the café beside the castle. I've bought a new pair of jeans, a little young for me but what the hell, and a pretty t-shirt. I raided my bags for a pair of smart designer sunglasses I'd picked up on the beach years ago. I sip my tea and think about the irony of life and how someone can be written off in one foul swoop. How lives can change year by year, then suddenly, overnight. People are so strange.

  It took me a while to get used to people. Just people in general, having day to day contact with them, moving gradually nearer to my audience until I was right up close, amongst them again. And then, of course, there was Julia. Each morning when I drop down from the lane to the main street, she's waiting for me. She has a bottle of holy water that she sprinkles in my path as I walk along. Then, later on when I'm in the shop with Alice, I see her shuffling along the pavement with a huge shopping trolley, mumbling to herself and looking to the left, then to the right. She'll pause at the Sword in the Stone car park and take a swig of the holy water, then continue up the road and onto the coast path, past the Camelot Hotel. Her husband left a while ago, and someone has rented her grocer's shop. In the evening when Alice and I are walking back to the cottage, arm in arm, she'll throw water from across the road.

  'Morgana! Be gone with you.'

  She's getting more ragged by the day and I see the signs. She's got a secret that no one else knows. Of course, Dr Davison's had her in his surgery and she's told him he doesn't understand, no one does. That there's witchcraft afoot in the village and that I'm a killer. It's difficult to understand her, but I must. I know who she is. She's me at the beginning of this journey, someone who is so muddled by life, so strained by trying to be something she isn't, by being the queen of misunderstanding and, finally, by the cruelty of their own audience. Julia has my territory, an appearance, a vehicle and a language. She must continue to raise her bag lady standards until she has progressed through to the end, and only then, if she survives, will she understand the route she has walked. I watch her, and silently pass on the bag lady handbook to her through my own past, for which she has taken up the baton.

  I sit here waiting for Temp and I smile to myself.

  Only last night I sneaked up to the caves and stripped off in the facing sunlight. I rubbed the makeup from my face and ruffled my hair, throwing my clothes around me. I lit a fire in the cave and lay in front of it, waiting for Jer. Of course, he never came, but to pass the time I lay naked in the afternoon sun. The water was cool and fresh and I floated, star fished in the salty water, my ears below the surface so I could not hear the universe outside, only the one within. It's there I heard him laughing, telling me about the stars and the moon, and the sun, and how truth is just a matter of perspective. The kestrels circle high above me, the lonely single bird having found a new mate now, telling me they were still there, still there for me, should I ever back away from the world again.

  Later that night, like every night, I went to my bedroom and waited, reading lamp on, for Alice to go to her room at the far end of the house. Then I'd creep across the landing, down the stairs and out of the back door. Past the sunflowers, which are now in full bloom telling me that the time for me is now – right now – and into the shed. There I'd stay until first light, looking at the grail and wondering what had happened to Mia and the case. I thought I'd hear from her, but as there had been no more murders and no more notes she'd probably been hurried to the next emergency, the next corpse. There'd been no arrests either, and, obviously, no announcements about someone finding the Holy Grail. So I guess she had her answers. I finger the gold. Sometimes greed is private, isn't it, just there to be consumed in secret
? Top Secret. After a while I'd creep back into the house. Old habits die hard, and this one's part of me. It's inside me, instilled in my mind. My story, complete with my new Top Secret, is printed on my soul. Secrets cover secrets until, eventually, you reveal almost everything and only the bad things are left. Only Emma and I know what really happened that night, so long ago, on the beach. Her tiny voice in the darkness, her little fingers encircling mine, just for a split second I almost gave in and took her back to the boarding house, to a life of misery that I would never escape from. But you understand, don't you Emma, why I had to do it, why I hid you in the ground, even when you whimpered and your mouth searched for food, like a baby bird, the dirt covering you like a warm blanket, keeping you safe. You understand, don’t you? Why you were my Top Secret? And Jer, he had to spoil it and try to take what was mine, so I took what was his. All's fair in love and war, and I won. Kill You Next Time. Next time those women try to take what's mine. He tried to deceive me with his lies, killing my little friends because he knew what meant the most to me, but in the end I wasn't sure if anything was true anymore. In the time between life and death he was mine, he told me he loved me and I now choose to believe this story above all the others, above all the evil echoes of Morgana and her legacy. It's all I have apart from the Grail and my own secrets.

  As I sip my tea and wait for Temp, Mia Connelly sits silently at the end of the road in her car. She knows that there's still a missing piece to this puzzle, and, like any good detective, she'll drill away until she finds it. But I’m the last person she will look to, who she least expects, an innocent, duped by a con artist. She’s sitting in her car right now, hand over her hardly existent bump, proudly keeping her baby safe. I can tell, she’s showing all the signs, and the fertility bracelet hangs from the rear-view mirror of her red Mondeo.

  Julia could help her, she's got all the right answers – she was right all along, from the moment she saw me on the headland that night when Susan told me about her and Jerusalem, told me to leave him alone. Shame it had to be there, I was afraid they’d found my Top Secret when I saw the yellow tent that morning. And she saw me at the waterfall park and hurrying through the caves washing the warm blood from my hands, but now she's like me, mad with righteousness and completely unconvincing.