Away From It All

by Judy Astley

  ‘Theo, come and sit next to me,’ Alice suggested. ‘And, Grace, you go the other side of him.’ It seemed important that Theo, for at least this first vulnerable day, should be spared any scathing comments from Chas and Sam about his peculiar eating habits. There were courgettes on offer: Theo would probably pile them up in the centre of his plate, arranged like a spiral staircase, then eat only what surrounded them.

  ‘Where’s Aidan? Isn’t he coming?’ Jocelyn, her hand stroking the back of the empty seat next to her, asked Mo. Mo wiped the back of her hand across her brow and glared at her mother-in-law.

  ‘I don’t know. He knows what time we eat. Perhaps he’s gone to the pub.’ Mo snatched Chas’s plate out of his grimy hand and started thudding potatoes onto it.

  ‘No I haven’t. Of course I haven’t. I’m here.’

  So this must, Alice realized, be the writer that Harry referred to as The Ghost. He didn’t look very ghost-like to Alice, more like an archetypal London Media Man, a species undoubtedly unfamiliar to Harry. Aidan had that blinking, short-sighted geeky look that didn’t quite hide a boyish attractiveness even though he must be at least thirty. Alice was amazed at the transformation Aidan’s arrival brought to her mother. Jocelyn couldn’t have looked more thrilled if Jesus had phoned to say he’d chosen to make Penmorrow the venue for his second coming. Aidan, tall and wearing fashionably narrow, frameless glasses, shimmied across the room and kissed Jocelyn’s outstretched hand. He was wearing pale cream crumpled linen trousers and an oversized black tee shirt and carried a slight scent of Alice’s favourite Clarins shower gel. Next to her, Alice heard Theo trying to stiffle a giggle.

  ‘Aidan! Sit beside me, sweetie, here. Aidan, this is my daughter Alice. And Alice, this is Aidan. Aidan is helping me with my autobiography and we’re only halfway through. He is the reason I cannot die yet.’

  Three

  GRACE SAT UP in the lumpy single bed and looked down towards the beach through the low window fringed by loose tufts of mossy thatch that the squirrels had scuffed from the roof. The broad window ledge beside her had brown smudgy spots where rain had found its way in. On a rough stormy night, Grace knew she’d have to move the bed out of the weather’s reach or she’d be woken by a spattering of cold raindrops. This room in Gosling had the best view in the whole of Penmorrow. Through the gap in the trees where a diseased ilex had fallen in the big storm of 1991, you could watch the day opening up from the sea’s edge to the centre of the village. Sometimes there’d be a seal lolloping about to see if any early morning fishermen on the rocks caught anything that they were willing to donate to idle wildlife. Usually there were a few villagers out jogging – occasionally they stopped to talk to each other, other times they just gazed straight ahead and raised a hand slightly as if there was no energy to spare to puff out a hello. Dog-walkers shuffled along the sand, disregarding the ‘No Dogs’ notice, confident that it referred merely to holidaymakers and to busier times of day. At the far end of the sand, where the sheltering cliffs rose up, the beach café had early surfers in for a bacon sandwich and polystyrene mug of tea before the trippers arrived in search of beach toys, pasties and wetsuits to rent.

  The rabbit had to go today. Grace had kept it just that first night in its basket on top of the chest of drawers and it was sitting still and gloomy, staring at her with a decided look of feeling very let down. It couldn’t even be bothered to twitch its nose. She didn’t blame it – a creature saved from a pet shop’s crowded cage was entitled to expect accommodation more palatial than a blue plastic prison. She’d taken Monty the cat’s empty basket outside and stowed it under the porch in case the rabbit felt the further unfairness of one animal being out and enjoying itself while he was still imprisoned. Monty, ears up and whiskers at full alert, had rushed off to spend the night outside, reclaiming his hunting territory. Waking in the early hours to the sound of him crunching his kill beneath her bed was one of the very few things Grace wasn’t too keen on about country living.

  From the sofa bed in the sitting room downstairs, by way of the gaps in the floor where the boards were disconnecting themselves from the rafters below, Grace could hear the beep-beep of Theo texting someone. She was amazed he was awake. It wasn’t even eight yet and on a normal non-school day he’d be well deep into whatever turgid teen dreamland boys like him inhabited in their sleep. She could also hear her mother in the kitchen – there were sounds of a kettle being filled and clunking down on the stained and splitting old wooden worktop. Several minutes later the fridge door creaked open and there was a shriek, followed by, ‘Shit! Where did that come from?’

  Grace climbed out of bed and padded barefoot down the stairs, careful not to slip on the ancient worn-smooth, sludge green carpet. ‘Mum? What was that?’ she asked Alice, who was now stirring a teabag furiously round in a mug of boiled water.

  ‘There was a bloody great mouse! In the fridge! Probably living on the mould at the back. You could grow a crop of ice mushrooms in there. This place! No wonder the business side of it is so crap. I mean who’d pay to stay here?’ Alice waved her arm round, encompassing the flaking ochre walls, the cupboards with their doors hanging askew and several handles missing, the curtains with grease-splattered hems, sporting an orange daisy pattern that had been Mary Quant’s trademark almost forty years before. Grace could see that her mother was close to weeping for her own streamlined domestic universe.

  ‘Perhaps it got in when you put the milk in there last night.’

  ‘It didn’t, I’d have noticed. I bet it got in through the drainage hole at the back. Good thing we brought Monty – where is that cat by the way? Did he sleep on your bed?’

  Grace shrugged. ‘I thought he was with you. He’s probably hunting in the woods.’

  ‘Huh. A lot of use he is out there. We need him in here. I’ll get some traps. Don’t tell Joss.’

  Grace laughed. ‘Why not? When has she ever minded about killing stuff? You told me she used to wring the chickens’ necks, no problem.’

  Alice, pouring a year’s worth of ancient crumbs out of the toaster and into the sink, said, ‘It’s not the killing, it’s about me being such a wuss that I’m squeamish about sharing the premises with a bit of harmless wildlife. You know what she can be like. Tough doesn’t even come close.’

  Grace did know. She remembered when she was no more than seven and she’d just learned to swim after a course of weekly lessons at the local pool. Jocelyn had invited her to join her for her daily morning swim in the sea. Grace, conscious of the honour of graduating to being her grandmother’s chosen companion, had been scared of the waves and had taken her armbands along, just in case.

  ‘You don’t need those!’ Jocelyn had crowed at her. ‘The sea will hold you up, just trust it!’ Too fast, she’d grabbed Grace’s hand and hauled her into the crashing grey waves, giving her no time to adjust to the cold and the heavy clinging sand shifting over and under her small, unsteady feet.

  ‘I thought you said you could swim!’ Jocelyn had teased her minutes later when she’d pulled the choking child back to the shore and watched, hands on hips and a mocking smile, while the mortified Grace threw up a lungful of salt water. Grace had hated her then, sobbing out the unfairness of it all as she staggered up the hill path back to the house, her barely dried body clammy with damp sand. But then Joss had done the thing she always did when she’d upset someone: she’d soothed and comforted and petted and coaxed until Grace could only love her again. She’d wrapped her in the precious silky patchwork quilt with its golden spiky stitches linking each perfect diamond patch, sat her in the rocking chair by the Aga and given her hot cocoa with brandy and extra sugar and told her it was wise to be wary of the sea, to respect its powers. But not to be afraid, not to fight it – it was a force for the good and did not want to do damage.

  Later the same week Grace had silently followed Joss down to the beach again in the early morning and slid into the waves beside her, taking her own time to get used to the cold. Jocely
n, she discovered, hadn’t really been wrong, and when she relaxed the sea did support her and she wallowed and bobbed as easily as a turtle. It was only years later that she’d thought about that episode and realized that there was nothing magical about the sea’s powers. It wasn’t on anyone’s side in some kind of war between nature and knowledge. Survival in it was a matter of luck and a well-mastered swimming technique. Her all-powerful grandmother had simply handled the situation with almost dangerous irresponsibility.

  Tremorwell’s village shop hadn’t changed a lot over the years. It stood in a prime position on the seafront beside the Blue Cockle pub, converted in the 1950s from a disused net shed. When the shop was crowded with summer visitors, the very oldest residents liked to show off their credentials as genuine old-time Cornish by wrinkling their noses and declaring that they could sense mackerel in the air. The only fish sold these days were firmly processed into child-friendly shapes, orange-crumbed, packeted and frozen. The electronic till, fierce bright lighting and self-service layout were advances since Alice’s childhood but, on her way to pick up a newspaper and a few food essentials, she knew that there’d be the same old bizarrely dated stock on the shelves.

  Only in Tremorwell, she imagined with a tweak of nostalgic fondness, could there be such a demand for tinned stewed steak, spam and piccalilli. The TV-cook phenomenon, the organic movement and the pasta revolution had passed the place entirely by. Bacon was the cheapest pre-packaged economy brand and all cream and much of the milk was long-life, in spite of the presence of a thriving mixed farm on the far side of the hill. For the wooing of tourists there were a grudging couple of bottles of olive oil, a dusty shelf of sour bargain-price wine and sumptuous ice cream in fourteen flavours. Outside stood cardboard boxes of misshapen, bruised and fast-softening vegetables which would certainly have been rejected by any reputable supermarket. Mrs Rice, current proprietor and postmistress, complained that the trippers brought boxes of food down from London and only popped into the shop for emergency toilet rolls, the Guardian (which she didn’t stock) and firelighters for their fancy stainless steel barbecues. And so the supply and demand circle continued to be vicious and barely turning.

  Alice, ambling slowly down the hill and along the lane above the beach, almost dreaded going in, wondering which of the three local harridans would be that morning’s keeper of the till. She always pictured them as resembling Beryl Cook’s famous painting of a seaside landlady: all fluffy mules, Dracula teeth and a ravenous appetite for gossip. Whoever was on the till today would, without fail: a) exclaim at her presence in the village: ‘Oh so you’re down again!’ b) comment on her London pallor: ‘You look like you need a breath of country air!’ and c) mention whatever was on the mind of the village, in this case: ‘Jocelyn, now, they do say she’s very poorly m’dear,’ which Alice would interpret accurately as an order to give a detailed rundown of her mother’s exact state of health with possible estimate as to the projected day of her demise.

  It was all normal enough stuff by any community’s standards, and Alice recognized that her aversion to sharing personal information wasn’t usual or logical. But since the very first days when she’d ventured out alone as a small child running errands, every time she’d entered the shop she’d pleaded silently, ‘Don’t ask me things, please don’t ask me,’ in dread of facing these Dracula women with their dribbling eagerness to glean something salacious. With unashamed greed they’d solicit information about What Went On up at the mysterious commune and invent for themselves when disappointed.

  ‘They do say there’s witchcraft up at Penmorrow,’ was one rumour (largely untrue, though pagan festivals were celebrated.) This could be followed by ‘Those children, they run wild like savages and forage on raw shoots from the garden,’ (not wholly a lie – mealtimes weren’t exactly regular), and ‘It’s all free love and orgies,’ (uttered with more hope than evidence). Alice, having spent all her growing-up years under this inquisitive speculation of the entire village, enormously valued the unintrusive anonymity of suburbia. Only lovely Brenda, mother of her first-ever best friend Sally, had never plied her with sly questions, but she had died three years ago and Alice, clutching a list like a lucky talisman, hoped that today she could fend off the worst of the coming inquisition.

  Aidan was outside the shop, reading adverts on the postcards taped to the inside of the window. He was wearing a blue Beach Beat tee shirt and baggy cream Quiksilver board shorts but still somehow managed to look, she thought, very Urban Man Interprets Surf-wear.

  ‘Looking for a handy gardener or a Shape Sorters class? Lost your cat?’ Alice asked, peering past him at the sun-faded writing on the cards. Some looked as if they’d been there for decades. There were offers of babysitting, painting and decorating, half-shares in ponies and several bed and breakfast venues. Among them was a bleached-out photo of Penmorrow and an offer of luxury accomodation that was well in breach of the Trades Descriptions Act.

  ‘That must have been a long, long time ago.’ Aidan pointed to it and grinned at her. Alice felt defensive suddenly, just as she did when Noel criticized – it wasn’t for outsiders to snigger at her family’s slide towards dilapidation.

  ‘It wasn’t always the way it is now. Harry and Mo have been going through some difficult times,’ she said, turning away to go into the shop.

  ‘Hey, wait, Alice.’ Aidan followed her in. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean . . .’

  ‘No it’s all right. Really.’ She stopped him quickly, turning to press her hand against his chest to make sure he shut up. Mrs Rice, at the till by the doorway, had already ceased checking off her waiting customer’s shopping, and with a box of teabags held suspended in mid-air she stared at Alice and Aidan with a look of expectancy.

  ‘Oh it’s you Alice! Here for long?’ she said, then went on without waiting for a response. ‘The sea air will put the colour back in your cheeks. And how’s your mother? Getting better? Not like her to have the doctor in. We were only saying . . .’

  ‘Hello Mrs Rice, it’s good to be back. Joss is much better thanks – should be fine,’ Alice declared breezily, stepping quickly past to find bread, milk and the Independent as well as a restock of basic cleaning material. Mo had asked for help – the best Alice could do for now, she decided, was to sort out the health hazard that passed for a kitchen and give Gosling a complete overhaul. She didn’t look back at Mrs Rice’s face. She knew that disappointment would be etched in every sun-baked jowl. Like Cilla Black anticipating a Blind Date wedding, she’d have been eagerly trimming new magpie feathers onto her best funeral hat.

  At the back of Penmorrow, close to where Harry’s polytunnels hid both illicit and legal crops, there were many rickety sheds that Noel had once rudely (and ignorantly, Grace had thought) compared to a small Third World shanty town. Some had slabs of corrugated iron patching rotted roofs, others had mismatched chunks of old fencing where whole sides had given way. One was simply a bare skeleton of a structure, covered with a blue tarpaulin as if it had grown itself a protective tent beneath which to decay in private. At least it was rainproof and was where Harry kept the ancient ride-on mower for cutting down the meadow and the orchard twice a year.

  Theo and Grace went to see if Alice’s old cart was still hidden away among dismantled hen houses, perished goat-tethers and the heaps of ancient compost on which, Alice had said, mushrooms used to be grown for the household. Theo was treading carefully – his new Globe CT-V skate shoes were not really built for accidentally stepping on the sharp side of an abandoned scythe or paddling in spilled chainsaw oil. ‘You’ve got shoes that look like bumper cars at the price of a family saloon,’ his father had commented sourly when Theo had first worn them. Oh funny ha ha, Dad, Theo had thought, wondering if Noel had spent his own fifteen-to-twenty years in a deep cavern somewhere in a remote mountain revising schoolwork.

  ‘Can you see anything?’ Grace called to him from the far side of a heap of old paint cans.

  ‘Like what? Like just what are we
looking for?’

  Grace didn’t snap back. She recognized he was just doing an ‘I’m too cool for this stuff’ act.

  ‘I told you. A little pull-along cart, bits of wood on pram wheels. Mum said Arthur used to tow her around on it when she was really small. It’ll be just what we need: I’m not lugging that rabbit all the way up the cliffs by hand.’

  ‘I don’t know any Arthur, who’s Arthur? Can’t you just let it go in the garden like you always used to?’ Theo had got something sticky on his hands. He wiped them down his jeans and hoped it wasn’t paint or something that stank.

  ‘You do know Arthur, well you know about him – he lived here with all of them. One of Joss’s men. Did the statues. There’s two in the Tate. He’s – was – famous. Oh come on Theo, you heard what Chas and Sam said. Harry’s been shooting rabbits. And this one’s white – even a crap shot could hardly miss him. He’ll look like a fat pillow, sitting on the grass at dusk.’

  ‘You should’ve got a black one then,’ Theo muttered, edging towards the sunlight beyond the door. ‘Come on, there’s nothing in here.’

  As they made their way to the next shed, Mo’s chickens in their tatty baked-earth run started up a warning cluck.

  ‘See, they’re being watch-hens. Geese are better though – Mum says geese really scare away burglars.’

  ‘So do Rottweilers and burglar alarms and video entry systems,’ Theo grunted moodily. Grace always did this at Penmorrow – she went on about her mother’s childhood as if she’d been there herself. She was all right in Richmond – she watched telly and wore little cropped-off tops and played computer games and read stupid-girl magazines just like everyone else. It was here she changed. A couple of weeks of this, Theo thought, and she’d be dressing up in hippy beads and going veggie and whittling herself a wand. Just rad. Not.