There was a whoop from Mr Fidock.
Mrs Lamerton ignored him. ‘Thank you, Mr Shawcross. I know I am speaking on behalf of all of us when I say we have so many questions that we would like to take every opportunity we can to ask them. So if I could begin. You said in an early article in a magazine I read, the article that sparked this tour, in fact, I don’t know if you heard the whole story from Lara, or indeed James or Harriet – we seem to be going through the Turners at a rate of knots’ – another titter – ‘but to fill you in, I am proud to say it was me who mooted the idea of the Willoughby tour to Turner Travel.’
‘Did you? Mrs Lamerton, I owe you.’
A scoff from Clive in the driver’s seat.
Mrs Lamerton was now almost simpering. ‘So could you tell us, Mr Shawcross, how did you first get into acting?’
For the rest of the day Patrick – he’d insisted they all call him Patrick, not Mr Shawcross – pulled anecdotes out of thin air. He answered questions for more than an hour on the bus, on everything from his early acting roles to his favourite food. He stood with the group in front of the old mill in the harbour village of Boscastle and talked about the sixteen takes – ‘Sixteen,’ Mrs Pollard had breathed – required to film the scene when Willoughby confronted the restaurant owner about the black-market produce he was selling. The director had just called the final ‘cut’ when it had started snowing. Not only had they been unable to do any more outside filming for two days but the entire cast and crew had been snowed in together. All the filming had been moved inside. In his opinion, it had been a better episode because of it.
‘You’re right,’ Mrs Lamerton said, nodding enthusiastically. ‘There is such an air of claustrophobia, of hidden tension, in that scene.’
‘All because of the snow,’ Patrick said.
‘Thanks so much, Patrick,’ Harriet said as she walked with him back to the bus after lunch. It was the first time alone she’d had with him all day. He looked the part again, she thought. He was wearing a dark green jumper, made from what looked like handspun wool. The colour suited him. ‘They’re loving your behind-the-scenes tales.’
‘I’m glad.’ Then he lowered his voice. ‘It’s just a shame they’re not true.’
‘They’re not?’
He shook his head. ‘We made Willoughby on a shoestring. We had the luxury of two takes, if we were lucky. And if it snowed, it was too bad, we still had to film.’
‘But what about that claustrophobic scene you mentioned? With those long close-ups?’
‘The cameraman had a hangover and wouldn’t get up. So they locked his camera into place in one corner of the room and switched it on.’
‘Really?’
He nodded.
‘So nothing you’ve said today has been true?’
‘Can you remind me again what I’ve said?’
They were standing together near the bus. ‘You told a story about Patch the dog finding that necklace under a hedge when you were filming one day and the scriptwriters deciding to write that into the “The Case of the Smuggler’s Skiff”.’
‘No, not true.’
‘You said the actress who played Lady Garvan was in real life descended from one of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s mistresses. And you hinted that your romance had spilled over into real life.’
‘No. I don’t know anything about her past. And she was happily married to a stockbroker in Sussex back then. They had three or four children, I think. We used them as extras now and again.’
‘The story about the post van getting stalled when you were filming on the railway line? And you only just getting away in time when a train appeared?’
‘No.’
‘The time the whole cast got the flu, but time was so tight you had to go ahead and film anyway, and dub your non-coldy voices in afterwards?’
He shook his head again.
She couldn’t stop a smile. ‘It’s all been lies?’
‘Not so much lies as fabrications. I swear, Harriet, if I told the truth they would all be snoring in their bus seats. Most days we just turned up, said our lines then went home. It was a completely uneventful program to work on. None of us ever took it that seriously, either. I think that’s why it wasn’t a big success.’
‘It was in Australia.’
‘I apologise. God bless Australia. Though now I think of it, not everything I said today was a lie.’
‘No?’
‘I really did enjoy those crab claws. They were delicious, just as I said.’
He smiled at her and she got a nice warm feeling. As if they were in on this together. They were interrupted by the group returning from souvenir shopping.
There was the usual scrum over who got to sit next to Patrick on the bus. Mr Douglas somehow managed it, with a bit of nifty footwork involving his wife as a decoy. Harriet realised she was going to have to think about a seating system before they came to blows. Or more to the point, before Mrs Lamerton came to blows with the rest of the group. She was now shooting serious daggers at Mr Douglas.
The question and answer session started as soon as they were back on the road. Harriet saw Mrs Pennefeather and Mrs Hart, the two sisters, nudging each other.
‘Go on, ask him.’
‘No, you ask him.’
‘No, you.’
Mrs Hart finally convinced Mrs Pennefeather to stand up. ‘Patrick, my sister and I were just wondering something. We all read in your biography that you’ve been married twice already—’
‘Yes, in the late eighties,’ Mrs Lamerton interrupted. ‘Once to the Welsh actress Caitlin Moore and then to another actress called Alicia de Vries.’
‘But what about now?’ Mrs Pennefeather continued. ‘Are you married at the moment?’ She sat down with a bump, her cheeks flushed. She got a proud rub on the arm from her sister for being so brave. She stood up again. ‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ she added.
‘I don’t mind at all, Mrs Pennefeather. And no, I’m not married at the moment.’
Miss Talbot stood up so she could see over the seat in front of her. ‘What are those American women doing, Patrick, letting a catch like you run free?’
‘I don’t know, Miss Talbot. It’s scandalous, isn’t it?’
‘Harriet’s single too,’ Miss Talbot said, standing on tiptoes so she could see Harriet as well. ‘Aren’t you, Harriet?’
In her guide’s seat, Harriet decided it was time to study the itinerary.
Miss Talbot spoke louder. ‘Harriet? You are single, aren’t you? You broke up with that poor Simon you were living with in Merryn Bay, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, Miss Talbot, I did,’ Harriet said, now extremely determined to look at the itinerary.
Miss Talbot sounded pleased. ‘You should ask Harriet out, Patrick. She’s lovely. And I’ve known her all her life, so I should know.’
‘She certainly is lovely. Thank you for the idea, Miss Talbot.’
Harriet definitely didn’t look up then.
An hour later, they were all standing by the waterside at the small Port Isaac harbour. They had slowly made their way down the narrow steep streets from a carpark above the village, past tiny shops and pretty whitewashed cottages crammed together. Clive had offered to piggyback several of the ladies down the steepest parts. They had all declined, taking their time instead, stopping to peek inside hotels and restaurants boasting freshly caught crab and lobster.
The harbour was peaceful, the water lapping against the stone walls, seagulls squawking, the sky above them a pale blue. Patrick was telling the group about the time the director got tangled in some fishing lines and nearly went over the edge of the lobster boat they were filming in.
‘Did you catch him, Patrick?’ Mrs Douglas asked. ‘Was it you who saved his life?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t take the credit for that, Mrs Douglas. It was the soundman. He threw out the boom microphone just in the nick of time and the director managed to grab hold of it.’
He caught Harriet’s
eye and she knew from his expression that he had made all of that up too. She shook her head, pretending to despair. As they moved to the next spot on the itinerary – a pub a hundred yards up the road, also overlooking the harbour – he fell into step beside her.
‘How am I going, Harriet? Staying within the boundaries of reality?’
‘By the skin of your teeth, I think.’
‘It could have been worse. I was going to say a shark leapt out of the water and carried the director away.’
‘I’m not sure he’s the one getting carried away.’
He smiled. ‘It’s your fault. You’re the one who invited me on the tour.’ They walked on. ‘Poor Simon, by the way.’
She looked at him. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘I said, poor Simon. You broke up with him, I believe.’
‘Yes. Yes, I did.’ She shot him another glance. His face was expressionless. They kept walking. She couldn’t resist it. ‘And poor Alicia and Caitlin.’
‘Alicia and Caitlin?’
‘Your wives.’
‘Oh, my wives. Yes, the poor things.’
‘They recovered fully from the divorces?’
‘Miraculously, I believe. You’d think the marriages had never happened.’
‘Patrick? Patrick? Could we have you here for a photo?’
They both turned. Mr and Mrs Douglas were standing in front of a moored blue boat, smiling eagerly. ‘We think this is the actual one from that episode, don’t you?’
‘I think you’re right,’ he called over. ‘Excuse me, Harriet.’
‘Of course. Mind the sharks.’
He laughed and walked over to them, just as Harriet felt her mobile phone vibrate to signify a new text message. Still smiling, she took it out. The message was from Austin.
Flights organsd. Wil b with u 2moro a.m. then onto Bath. Will find L, dn’t worry. U could b off hook yet!! A X
She read it twice, feeling strange. She gazed around at the group. Several of them were chatting among themselves, pointing up at the old harbour building that had been in episodes six and seven. Miss Talbot, Mrs Lamerton and Mrs Kempton were involved in a lively discussion, seated beside one another on a bench near a pile of fishing nets and lobster pots. They made a real picture, with the grey of the stone wall and the orange and green of the nets and baskets vivid beside them. Snatches of their conversation floated across. They were still arguing about Lady Garvan and her suitability for Willoughby. Clive had left the bus and was lying stretched out on a bench, his newspaper under his head, soaking up a ray of afternoon sunshine, oblivious to a large black cat doing the same thing beside him. Mr and Mrs Douglas were moving Patrick back and forth in front of the boat, trying to get the best angle. He was laughing good-naturedly.
Harriet read the text once more. She couldn’t deny it. She didn’t want Austin to find Lara. Not yet. The reasons why were getting more complicated each day.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
By the time Harriet and Lara turned twelve, in some ways it was as if she had always lived with them. Three children had become four, which made games easier to play, although Harriet secretly wished she didn’t have to end up partnering James all the time. Austin was always more fun.
Her parents were careful to make sure that what one of the girls got, the other did too. Two kittens. Two birds. Two goldfish. Their birthdays were both in May, yet there were always two separate parties.
Lara puzzled Harriet, though. She wasn’t how she’d imagined a sister would be. She’d thought a sister would be another girl she would play with and laugh with, and be kind to and teach how to do things. It wasn’t like that. Lara already seemed to know how to do most things – ride a bike, swim, do her homework. If she wanted to find things out, she asked Austin, or James, or her mum and dad, even Gloria, as often as she asked Harriet.
Sometimes it felt as though Lara was the one who had always been there, and Harriet was the one feeling her way. Lara seemed to be more confident. Harriet felt nervous about things, and often had to check with her parents or with Gloria if she had done something the right way or if she had said the right thing. Lara didn’t seem to need that reassurance.
Harriet tried to put herself in Lara’s shoes, the way her mother had asked her to do. To understand how hard it must have been for Lara, her own parents being killed, having to come and live with a whole new family. Harriet gave it a lot of thought. She would have felt scared, she decided. And she would have done her best to make everyone like her, and been really well-behaved and done lots of housework and not sworn and tried to be kind. In her mind, it started getting a bit confused with the Cinderella story, that she would become the unpaid slave, but it was the truth. She would have felt uncertain, that she had to behave really well so that she didn’t stand out and so her new family didn’t ask her to leave.
Lara didn’t behave anything like that, though. She had grown-up conversations with Harriet’s mother and father, talking to them in a serious way that Harriet herself had never done. Lara got on well with James too, watching cricket with him and saying quite sensible things when Harriet couldn’t make head or tail of the game and found it too slow, anyway. Lara and Austin got on especially well. They did a lot of laughing.
Harriet and Lara were still sharing a bedroom. That caused more problems. Lara was extremely tidy. Harriet was the opposite. She would come back from school and throw her belongings around, while Lara would fold hers neatly. It wasn’t Lara who complained, but Harriet’s mother.
‘It’s not fair on Lara,’ she said one afternoon. ‘Your mess is all over the whole room, Harriet. You have to try and be tidier.’
‘I try, I really do. But something happens.’
‘Your clothes grow legs and run over to Lara’s side of the room?’
Harriet nodded, smiling. ‘It’s nicer over there. It’s tidier.’
Gloria came up with the solution. She’d done the same thing with two of her sons. A line down the middle of the room. Harriet could be as messy as she liked but not on Lara’s side. Lara had every right to push any of Harriet’s mess over the line.
It summed up their whole relationship in a way. They got along perfectly well, as long as neither of them crossed the line. It worked well, most of the time. Then Harriet crossed it. Very publicly.
Her class was asked to write a true story from their family history as though they were an eyewitness. Her friend Emma wrote about the time her grandfather’s house nearly burnt down in the 1945 bushfires. She described the smell of singed hair, the feeling of his eyeballs nearly bursting in the heat from the flames. Sitting beside her, Harriet did her best to make hers as thrilling as possible too. She started with the story of her mother and father and brothers coming out from England in the boat, as one of the ‘Ten Pound Poms’, and how they had lived in that hostel place for a year, but after a few paragraphs it all seemed a bit boring, especially compared to the burning trees and sirens Emma was writing about. Emma had the habit of reading aloud as she wrote, which was sometimes annoying, but often a help with school projects.
Harriet tried to think of an alternative event from her family history. She was about to settle for the time her mum had been bitten by a wasp at a family barbecue when she remembered the story of Lara’s parents being killed in that car crash and how Lara came to live with them afterwards. Harriet didn’t know all the details. They didn’t speak about it much any more, but she knew enough to be able to write a 900-word essay. She knew Lara hadn’t been there during the crash, but she decided that it would make it much more dramatic if she was. She also decided to make Lara into a baby in a car seat, rather than an eight-year-old. It didn’t change it too much, after all. Lara would still come to live with them at the end.
Her story began as Lara and her parents were driving through the mountains somewhere in Ireland. Harriet wasn’t sure where in Ireland the crash had happened or if there were many mountains in Ireland, but it painted a sort of scary picture, she thought. She described the
noise of the engine, even the sound of the radio in the car. Their teacher had asked them to use all five senses to tell the story, so that was hearing covered, she thought. She was particularly proud of a description of the village they had driven through. There was a poster of an Irish village in the travel agency, showing lots of coloured doors and curvy lettered signs over pubs, and she’d sort of taken it from that.
Out of nowhere she had a flash of memory, overhearing a conversation between her parents about Lara’s parents. About the two of them having a screaming match. Perfect. She wrote a sentence about Lara’s parents shouting at each other, while little Lara slept in the back, luckily unable to hear. As she kept writing Harriet started to feel she was in the car herself. She leaned over the page, writing as quickly as she could. She imagined the squeal as the tyres hit an icy patch and Lara’s dad shouted, ‘It’s out of control,’ and Lara’s mum said, ‘Oh God,’ turning around to look at Lara in her seat in the back. And then the car crashed through the white road barrier, skimming over rocks and gathering grass as it did so, the three of them being thrown around, the car turning once, twice, before coming to a stop in the river at the bottom of the valley. Somehow, miraculously, the seat Lara was sitting in, wedged in with extra pillows because she was so little, had been torn from its holdings and flung out of the (luckily open) window. Harriet hadn’t been too sure if that was possible, but she hoped her teacher wouldn’t pick her up on a detail like that. Lara’s parents wouldn’t have had a hope. But thank God – Harriet’s hand was nearly a blur on the page by this stage – someone had driven by then and noticed the car. They’d run to a nearby phone box and called for an ambulance. It was the female ambulance driver who had found Lara, still strapped into her seat hours later, as the rescue party was about to leave the scene. ‘We’ve got a survivor!’ she shouted out into the night air, Harriet wrote. She had nearly been in tears.
Family Baggage Page 22
