Plotted in Cornwall

by Janie Bolitho

  ‘I’m here on Joel’s behalf, at his request,’ she began as Petra returned with a tray. There were four glasses, so they clearly had no objection to their son joining them in a drink. The interruption was well timed. Rose knew she had sounded a little pompous.

  ‘On Joel’s behalf?’ Petra inquired as she poured wine and handed Rose a glass.

  ‘He’s very talented, Mrs Penhaligon. Extremely talented, in fact. It would be a terrible waste if he didn’t go to art college.’

  ‘I see.’ Roger drew at the stub of his cigar, blew the smoke at the ceiling and threw the butt in the fire. ‘What, precisely, has he told you about me?’

  ‘Very little, I assure you, only that you object to his choice of career.’

  ‘Ah, I see. The Victorian parent putting his foot down.’

  Rose grinned. Roger Penhaligon had a sense of humour and could laugh at himself.

  ‘Come, Joel, it’s time you spoke up for yourself. Tell Rose what I’ve always told you.’

  ‘That you want me to go to university then into one of the professions.’

  Roger nodded as he stared, unseeing, at the crackling fire. ‘Not in so many words, Joel. And what have you always said?’

  ‘That I want to paint.’

  ‘Quite. So what’s to stop you? Afraid if you go to art college I won’t keep you in luxury?’

  Joel’s face reddened. Petra looked from father to son but remained silent. Rose watched them all. She decided she rather liked Roger Penhaligon, that he had qualities his family might not appreciate, and she thought she understood what had been going on.

  ‘You said I’d never make any money and you didn’t want me hanging around with a crowd of hippies.’

  Roger laughed. ‘Hippies? Did I say that? I probably meant beatniks.’

  Rose lowered her head to hide her grin. It was doubtful Joel had even heard of the word.

  ‘Look, son. I think we’re wasting Rose’s time, although,’ he added, turning to her, ‘it’s been a pleasure to meet you. I know I’ve said there’s plenty of time to come to a decision, but I accept that time is running out. You might not see it our way but we do have your interests at heart.

  ‘I won’t go on but if you’re certain you want to paint then we won’t stand in your way. We had to be sure you were sure. We wanted to put up all the objections, you see. But you haven’t changed your mind and we can both see how determined you are. Now Rose has confirmed you have the necessary talent, in which case, I agree, it should not go to waste.’

  Joel stared at his father then, stiffly, awkwardly, he got up and embraced him. ‘Thanks,’ he whispered.

  ‘Did you not realise his potential?’ Rose asked, knowing both males were embarrassed.

  ‘I was never given a chance to. Joel has never shown us his work.’

  The dynamics of family life fascinated her. How different the Penhaligons were from her own family. She had shown her parents everything she had committed to paper or canvas.

  ‘Will you have another drink?’ Roger asked.

  ‘I’d better not, thanks.’ Rose stood and reached for her handbag on the cushion beside her.

  ‘Dad, Mrs Trevelyan seems to have heard of Uncle Frank.’ Joel spoke quickly because he didn’t want Rose to leave, he was terrified that all that his father had said had been for her benefit and as soon as the door closed behind her he would change his mind again.

  ‘Really?’ Roger’s expression was puzzled.

  ‘It’s odd, but I met your sisters recently.’

  ‘Good God. How on earth did you come across them? Look, are you sure you won’t have another drink?’

  ‘Half a glass,’ she answered sensibly. Once it was in her hand she continued. ‘They commissioned me to paint their portrait.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘I’m not really sure, they weren’t very forthcoming.’

  ‘No. They wouldn’t be. When was this?’

  ‘Recently. I haven’t started it yet.’

  ‘Then you know where they live.’ It was Petra who spoke. Her voice was low with the slightest trace of a Cornish accent but it carried clearly. She might appear delicate but Rose guessed she, too, had inner strength.

  ‘Yes.’ This was embarrassing. If her clients did not want their brother to know how to find them she could not tell him.

  Petra smiled. ‘I can see your dilemma, Mrs Trevelyan, so we won’t ask. We knew they were moving somewhere on Bodmin Moor but no more than that. Louisa and Wendy have our address and telephone number, it is up to them to make contact if they wish to.’ She paused. ‘May I ask you this? Is Miranda with them?’

  ‘I honestly can’t tell you. Neither of your sisters-in-law mentioned her and although I’ve only been in one room of the house there was no indication that a younger woman might live there.

  ‘I believe you contacted the police,’ she said to Roger.

  ‘I did. It was all most peculiar. One minute a family of three is about to move house, the next there’s only Louisa. With Wendy following so quickly I wondered if it was all prearranged.’ He shook his head. ‘Miranda was of age, there was nothing anyone could do. I tried the universities to which she had applied but they couldn’t help me either.’

  ‘You were that worried?’

  ‘Yes. We all loved Miranda. She spent a lot of her time with us and she was particularly devoted to Joel. I couldn’t understand her not even writing to him. Still,’ he shrugged, ‘she’s probably safe. No one’s come back to us, there haven’t been any reports of unidentified young women’s bodies.

  ‘How did you link my sisters to Joel?’

  There was no point in hiding it. The article had been in the paper for anyone to see. Rose explained what she had read.

  ‘Their marriage was unusual,’ Petra said. ‘I always felt Louisa could’ve been happier with someone else, yet she was devoted to Frank. I’ve always suspected he’d already found someone else and used the occasion as an excuse to get out.’ She placed her glass on the small table beside her. ‘But that still doesn’t explain Miranda’s disappearance.

  ‘Mrs Trevelyan, I apologise for the impertinence, but if, by any chance, the conversation turns to children or families when you’re with them, do you think you could discreetly find out anything you can?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’ A fairly ambiguous answer but Rose knew she would not be able to resist doing so. It was a challenge, and Louisa and Wendy couldn’t possibly guess she knew the rest of their family It really was time to leave. As she stood for the second time Rose saw in her mind the faces of both Jack and Barry and knew what they would think of her for becoming involved.

  Hands were shaken again, Petra’s grip was as firm as her husband’s, then Petra showed Rose to the door. Joel remained silent but she saw by his face how grateful he was for her visit. At least some good came of it, she thought as she started the engine and pulled out into the road, wishing there was someone in whom she could confide. Not Laura, she was far from well, and certainly not Barry Rowe. Would Jack listen dispassionately or would he be in one of his stern, leave-it-alone moods? There was only one way to find out.

  She glanced at the dashboard clock. It was early, not yet seven thirty. Pulling into a lay-by she dialled his home number on the mobile phone he’d insisted she took out with her at night and was pleased when he said he would meet her in the Mount’s Bay Inn in twenty minutes. ‘There’s something I want to tell you,’ he ended enigmatically.

  He sounds really cheerful for once, Rose decided as she headed towards the seafront.

  6

  ‘You’m pale, maid,’ Doreen Clarke said as she bustled into the kitchen through the side door, a cardboard box in her arms. She had parked at the bottom of the drive and was breathless from the exertion of hurrying up the steep incline.

  ‘There’s a lot of flu about. I hope I haven’t picked it up from Laura.’ Rose was not physically ill, her pallor was due to lack of sleep, but she didn’t want Doreen to know that.
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  Outside, reflecting her mood, the sky was grey once more. There was no wind, no force behind the weather, just a dismal bank of cloud cover. The garden, which Rose tended sporadically, needed some tidying. Droplets of earlier rain clung to the spiders’ webs strung between straggling plants.

  The garden looks no different from usual, Rose thought as she listened to Doreen’s chatter. There’ve always been lumps in the lawn, I don’t cut the grass often enough and I mostly forget to deadhead things. It just seems worse today somehow. The garden at the side of the house also overlooked the bay. Near the converted shed was a bench on which Rose spent many hours in the summer, as had Jack when they shared a bottle of wine. Oh, bugger the man, she thought.

  ‘No work today, dear?’ Doreen asked as she removed her shapeless coat with its odour of damp wool and the patterned headscarf she was rarely without.

  ‘No. Well, maybe later if the weather clears up. I’m now working for two ladies on Bodmin Moor, I’m doing their portraits.’

  ‘Whatever for? ’Tis real vain, that sort of thing, if you ask me.’ Doreen tucked her no-nonsense hair behind her ears and made herself comfortable at the table. Her snap-clasped handbag hung over the back of the chair. It was the sort the Queen tended to favour and probably the reason Doreen did too.

  Rose smiled wanly. Typical Doreen, no congratulations, no interest in the clients, merely condemnation of something she did not understand. ‘They used to live in Penzance.’ If anyone knew of them it would be her friend, but Rose didn’t want to break any confidences. Not that anyone had asked her to keep quiet and, in fact, Petra Penhaligon had encouraged her to ask questions.

  ‘And what name do they go by?’ Doreen spooned sugar into her coffee.

  ‘Jordan. One of them, anyway.’

  ‘Ah, well, they always had more money than sense. A friend of mine used to clean for Louisa. That was some years ago now, mind. She said you wouldn’t believe the money they wasted on things that were not much use to anyone, object dart or some such thing they called them. A bit like this here portrait, I suppose.’

  Rose wondered at the strange French pronunciation but then, some of Doreen’s English was equally badly pronounced. ‘Did you ever meet the Jordans?’

  ‘No, not me. But Ellen knew ’un quite well. It’s surprising what you can learn about people when you go out cleaning. For a start you can tell by the state of their homes what they’re like, not that Ellen would snoop or anything. And if the people are home you wouldn’t believe how some of them carry on, as if you’re not there, as if you haven’t got two good ears clamped to the side of your head. Discussions about money all the time when the two of them were there, Ellen told me.

  ‘The girl were all right, though, she’d have been about fourteen or fifteen at the time. Some fancy name she had. Marina, was it?’

  ‘Miranda.’

  Doreen nodded and reached for another slice of heavy cake. She had bitten into it before what Rose had said sank in. ‘Then you must know them.’

  ‘No, not really, but I teach their nephew, Joel.’

  ‘They’m rich, too, the Penhaligons. My Cyril tried for years to get work, but he only knew mining, and that was in his blood. I’m sure that’s why he’s always digging his damn garden, still trying to get back underground, if you ask me. What was I saying? Yes, Cyril. Ellen mentioned his predicament to Louisa Jordan and she said she’d have a word with her brother. Cyril had a long chat with Roger Penhaligon but decided against going to work on one of his holiday campsites. The hours weren’t long enough, he said, but to be honest, I think by then he’d just lost heart. The Penhaligons’ve got a few bob, too, by all accounts. Ellen did a few stints for them when their own cleaner was off sick and she said, for rich people, they were quite normal. Good job Ellen’s got a car, gadding about the way she does.’ Doreen thought nothing of the distances she had travelled in her own car over the years to tidy up after people who lived in isolated areas. She chewed thoughtfully and brushed some crumbs from her large bosom which was encased in pastel pink acrylic. ‘I did hear that the Jordans had moved away but I can’t imagine folk like that lasting up on Bodmin Moor.’

  ‘The husband and daughter didn’t go, only Louisa and her sister.’

  ‘So the sister joined her, did she? It was said that Frank Jordan couldn’t say no to no woman,’ she added enigmatically.

  Double negatives aside, the information was useful and provided an obvious explanation for what had seemed mysterious. Petra Penhaligon had said much the same thing, that another woman was involved. Rather than have it known that he had gone off with someone else, or maybe to save his wife’s embarrassment, he had used the move to cover his actions. If the woman was married neither of them might wish to be found. But that doesn’t explain Miranda, Rose realised. Unless, contrary to what the Penhaligons believed, the girl had sided with her father and gone to live with him as Louisa had suggested to her brother. Instinct told Rose this was not the case.

  ‘You’re looking a bit brighter now. Nothing like coffee and cake and a bit of a natter to set you up, that’s what I always say.’

  And for once Doreen seemed right. Discussing the Jordan/Penhaligon family had taken her mind off what had kept her awake all night.

  Doreen got up to go. ‘There’s a load of veg in there, girl. If you can’t use it all pass some on to Laura.’

  ‘Please thank Cyril for me and tell him none of it’ll be wasted.’ Laura would certainly benefit and it was a fair exchange because Trevor kept her supplied with fish. The barter system was still strong in Cornwall.

  When Doreen had gone Rose put the vegetables in the larder which led off the kitchen. It was cool and airy and a handy place for storage and somewhere to keep the freezer.

  The cloud began to break up and drift away. The ground would be damp but it was possible to work outside now because the light was good. Rose toyed with the idea of going to the Tate in St Ives. Whoever was being exhibited, the building alone was always worth a visit. From inside, the concave glass semicircle which formed the front reflected the golden sands and the sea, and there was always a Hepworth sculpture worth viewing. And I occasionally get to meet another artist, she thought. But in the end she decided to drive to Zennor again. More work was needed on the painting she had started only yesterday but which seemed like a lifetime ago. Her treat would have to wait.

  Being a Saturday there were a few people around but not enough to distract her, not that there was anything from which to distract her except her thoughts. She stared, unseeing, at the canvas and relived the previous evening.

  Jack had arrived at the Mount’s Bay Inn ahead of her. He sat on the padded bench near the fire, one arm stretched along the length of its back. As Rose pushed open the door he had smiled and stood to buy her a drink.

  Longing to talk about Joel and his connection with the sisters, she’d decided to wait. Such coincidences were not rare in Cornwall. Many locals were interrelated with families up and down the county. But two of this family seemed to be missing.

  Rose sighed deeply. The beauty of the scenery was dazzling, more so through the sparkle of tears. The conversation she had hoped to have had not taken place. Not wishing to blunder in with her story first Rose had asked, ‘What was it you wanted to tell me, Jack?’

  ‘It’s about last night. You know, after I left you I said I was meeting some friends.’

  ‘Ah, your CID chums. I bet it was a good evening.’ She had actually smiled.

  ‘Yes, but not in the way I intended. They couldn’t make it. Something big cropped up in Plymouth. They’d tried to get me at home during the day but I was out with you. Anyway, they caught me at the pub on my mobile.’

  Rose had had no idea what was coming. In retrospect it should have been obvious, but she hadn’t spotted it, hadn’t wanted to, perhaps.

  ‘A woman came in. Alone. We were both at the bar so we got talking. She was meeting a friend. The friend turned up eventually, about half an hour late.’
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  Rose’s mouth had gone dry, there was lead in her stomach.

  ‘I’m taking her out tomorrow,’ Jack had said without embarrassment, without guilt.

  Rose had nodded. Unexpected jealousy had made her speechless. She knew how unfair she was being, hadn’t she once arranged to meet Jack in a pub in Marazion where she had put an end to their affair? Not that it had ended completely, not until that minute last night.

  ‘I wanted to tell you face to face. You know what it’s like down here, we’d have been seen, maybe even by you. I didn’t want to go around feeling, wrongly, I was doing something underhand. I wanted you to hear it from me, Rose.’

  So she isn’t married if it isn’t underhand, Rose had realised. ‘Where are you taking her?’ she had asked stupidly, as if it made any difference. But people in such situations have masochistic tendencies.

  ‘The Newlyn Laundry restaurant, and maybe a drink afterwards.’ Jack had paused, wondering how much to tell Rose. ‘Her name’s Anna Hicks. She’s a beautician and runs her own business. Anyway, enough of that. What did you want to see me about?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, it wasn’t important. I have to go now, I’m expecting a phone call.’ A feeble excuse but the best she could think of at the time.

  Rose’s fingers were stiff. She had been gripping the paintbrush, which had yet to receive any paint. Gazing out to sea, nothing had changed. The blues and greens shimmered in the winter sunshine, just as they always would, heedless of her pain, or anyone else’s pain. Far away seagulls floated on the swell, one or other of them taking off and landing again.

  Anna Hicks. Cornish then, or had been married to a Cornishman to possess such a name. A beautician. Rose pictured a slender figure in a crisp white uniform, bare, suntanned legs beneath it. She would have perfect make-up, hair and nails. Someone young, someone beautiful, someone who would not turn Jack away. And bright, too, if she ran a successful business.