Do you remember, Eloise, how I tried to pursue that conversation with you, to find out about your past secret love? But it never got me anywhere. And, in the end, what you said faded away. Normal life piled up its daily layers. Yesterday was soon obscured. A few years later you were telling about how you’d met Ted in St Ives. This sulky but sexy young artist with a huge chip on his shoulder. At once fascinated by you, and at the same time rudely and stridently dismissive of your privileged background.
I thought he sounded like a complete prat, and told you so. But you were already lost. He was great in bed, you told me, and I shrugged. He and a million other guys out there, I said. No, you replied, not so. Not for you at any rate. For you there had been no one who moved you that way for many years. In fact, before Ted there had only been one; among all the boyfriends who had flocked to claim you, only one who had brought you to ecstasy and you wouldn’t tell me who.
And now there was Ted. And you married him.
All this passed through my head as I watched my daughter’s yearning face.
‘OK, Eve, who is he?’
She blushed, giggled, sighed.
‘Oh Mum, he’s so gorgeous. I saw him on the beach this morning. He’s new though. Not from round here. He’s so fit.’
Oh God. My daughter had a serious crush.
‘I tell you what,’ I said, ‘let’s see if we can find him down at the café. I could do with a cup of tea and a toasted teacake.’
Eve giggled again. ‘OK, but if we see him you won’t mention that I like him, will you?’
‘As if I would.’
‘You told Harry I liked him. It was so embarrassing.’
‘Sorry, sweetie. Lesson learned. Promise I won’t do it again. Let’s go down to the sea and see if we can spot this gorgeous boy.’
The café in our little cove is only a three-minute walk away. It was full of young families – the schools hadn’t broken up yet – and a few teenagers free of GCSEs and A levels. Small children swarmed over the rocks while their parents called them back to eat ice creams and Evie and I sat at one of the wooden tables drinking tea and devouring toasted teacakes. Although she scanned the beach with anxious eyes, the glamorous one was nowhere to be seen.
‘He’s probably got really bored with all these mums and babies. Gone off somewhere much more interesting, like Newquay probably.’
Ah, yes. There was always that undertone; although our kids loved Talland Bay, Newquay, on the north coast, with its tempting surfer glamour and noisy nightlife was always the forbidden Holy Grail. And of course, it was our fault that they weren’t there, having a great time with their peers, instead of being stuck in sedate south Cornwall, where there was no surf and the most exciting thing to do at night was to take some kindling down to the beach, light a campfire and drink lager listening to someone’s iPod.
Just as I tried to think of a soothing counterweight, perhaps a reference to the barbeque and disco to be held that night at the Smuggler’s Rest, a lively café just up the path from the beach, there was a shout from above us.
‘E-e-e-vie!’
She jumped up from the table, whirled around and clapped her hands with pleasure as her father, with a huge grin, shepherded her middle brother past some squabbling children and joined us.
‘Tom,’ Evie screamed, and flung her arms around her sheepishly grinning nineteen-year old sibling. ‘I thought you were off camping with your friends?’
‘I was,’ Tom said. ‘But it was raining like anything in Scotland, so we decided to call it quits. And I wanted to see Mum – and you.’
My eyes filled and I looked at Chris. He gave me a sweet, crooked smile. I’d had no idea, when he went off to pick up groceries from the shop earlier, that he had arranged to meet Tom at Liskeard Station.
Eve was already telling her brother about the gorgeous boy she’d spotted on the beach and Tom was laughing. ‘Come on, Sis. Not another one. I thought you were in love with Harry.’
‘God Tom, you’re just like Mum. I so don’t fancy Harry. He looks like Justin Bieber. Or at least he thinks he does.’
‘I would have thought the Bieber was right down your street, Beevs,’ Tom laughed, using the boys’ pet name for their sister.
‘Yeah, like you’d know. You are just so annoying,’ she shot back.
We started to walk back up to the cottage, Tom and Eve ahead of us. I was snuggled into Chris’s side, enormously happy and grateful to him, beyond contentment. Two of my children, here with me on this beautiful summer’s day in the most heavenly place on earth.
And then, walking towards us, came a boy. He cut in from the Talland Bay Hotel, which was just beside our house. Tom and Eve were ahead of us and didn’t see him. But I couldn’t help but stare.
He was beautiful. There was no other word to describe him. Mesmerising, a sort of sylph. Tall, slender, shaggy blond hair. A face that belonged to another world, a land of sprites and fairies. And yet sensuous, very much present and aware.
As he passed us, he gave a smile of such dazzling sweetness that we both stopped.
‘My goodness,’ breathed Chris. ‘He’s a remarkably good-looking young man, isn’t he?’
I wanted to laugh. No, I thought, he’s not a man at all. A boy, yes. But what kind of boy, human or elvish, I had no way of knowing. And yet I sensed something. I felt I knew him.
Chapter Ten
When we got back to the cottage, Eve and I started to cook dinner. Only spaghetti with a pesto sauce, cheese and fruit to follow. I’m a lazy cook. I can, actually, cook very well, as Chris and my kids will mournfully testify from time to time, remembering the homemade soufflés, steak and kidney pies, lasagne and treacle tarts that made their delicious way onto our table when they were younger. But I’d stopped enjoying cooking when the depression hit me and these days I was hard-pressed to open a can of soup. Depression is not just bad for the soul but the family stomach as well.
We ate around the old oak table and Evie once again started to talk about the gorgeous boy she had bumped into on the beach that morning
‘I hope I see him again, Mum. My friends would kill to meet him.’
Tom rolled his eyes.
‘Actually,’ Chris said, ‘I think we saw him earlier.’
Evie’s eyes went wide.
‘Dad, what are you talking about? Did you see him on the beach?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Dad and I saw him coming out of the hotel next door. At least, it may have been him. He was about your age, tall, blond and very good-looking.’
‘How good-looking?’ Tom muttered. ‘Sort of Justin Bieber-soppy good-looking?’
‘A lot better looking than you,’ Eve fizzed back at him. ‘Just because you’re as ugly as sin, and he’s gorgeous. You’re just jealous, Camel-face.’
‘Eve,’ I said. ‘Your brother is not ugly. In fact he’s very handsome. Ask Maria.’
The mention of Tom’s newly acquired university girlfriend, who had stayed with us at Christmas, made him blush, and Eve laugh.
‘Oh yes, I’d forgotten about Maria. I mean, like, God knows what she sees in you. You really are the pits.’
Chris sighed. ‘OK, Eve, that’s it. I wanted to have a really happy family break here with us all. You know your mother’s been ill and this was supposed to make her feel better. If you two can’t stop squabbling, we’ll go back to London tomorrow.’
Tom looked horrified and upset, Eve furious and defiant.
‘Mum’s always ill these days,’ she burst out. ‘I’m sick of it. Why does everything have to revolve around her? I’ve just met the boy I could fall in love with, but you lot are just putting me down.’
I was immediately flooded with guilt. It was true. I had been paralysed by depression at one of the most important points in Eve’s young life. It had made me self-absorbed, removed from my most sacred and demanding duty; to be, above all, a mother to my children, focused on their every emotion. They needed me, and I had not been there.
I sat forw
ard, motioning Chris to stay quiet. ‘Darling, nobody’s putting you down. Everyone loves you, including Tom,’ I flicked my eyes at him, and to his credit, he took his sister’s hand.
‘Hey, come on, Beevs, I was only having fun.’
It was over as quickly as it had begun. Suddenly they were laughing and teasing each other, communicating in a language their father and I could not begin to understand but were deeply relieved to witness.
We went to bed, Tom and Evie to the rooms they’d had since they were little, Chris and I upstairs to our pretty beamed attic master-suite.
We hadn’t made love since I’d left Cornwall in panic after my stay at Roseland Farm. I’d been too locked into the grey world inside my head to even think about sex; and Chris, God knows, was far too worried about me to make any kind of physical overture. But on this sweet summer night, together in our favourite place in the world, two of our beloved children tucked snugly into their beds downstairs, we turned to each other at last, in gratitude and relief. We were together again, each wrapped around the other, full of love and desire. There was so much time we needed to make up. I felt shy. Maybe it wouldn’t be the same, both of us clumsy and self-conscious after our prolonged period of sexual separation.
But we slipped immediately into our old rhythms, and it was as strong and passionate as before. And in Chris’s love and warmth, I felt renewed.
I drifted off to sleep, curled up in his arms. Totally relaxed, cherished and happy. All the anxiety and panic of my last stay here in Cornwall had evaporated. I was back in the room and the house of my dreams.
And then she came. She filled my head with her pain and fear, and although she let me stay in my own bed this time, her faded voice was urgent and demanding.
‘Cathy, Cathy, why did you leave me? Where did you go? You must stay here for me. I needed you, I still do. Please don’t go away again.’
I stumbled, slow to respond.
‘Ellie, not again, not tonight. I’ve been ill; this is my first night back.’
‘But Cathy, you must know how important this is. I was ill too, but I didn’t get better. I’m buried now, dead and buried. I can’t do anything for myself, but I need your help. You’re all I’ve got.’
In my sleep, I turned and my leg caught Chris’s. He mumbled and his hand shot out to catch mine. I held on to him hard. He was my lifeline in an insane dreamworld.
And as if she’d caught my thoughts, Eloise hit right back.
‘Cathy, do you really think you’re dreaming?’
‘Of course I am. I’m in bed, asleep, what else could I be doing?’
‘You aren’t dreaming. This is real, important; a matter of life and death. I don’t have much longer, Cath, it’s been months since I died. The spirit fades. And if that happens, if I have to go before you know the truth, then everything I love, everything I care for will be lost. I have done a terrible thing. I am going to be punished for it, not just me, I don’t count any more, but my lovely innocent children … oh, I can’t bear it any more!’
‘Eloise, my love, you have never done a terrible thing.’
‘I have. And I have to prevent what happens next, the consequences of that. And you have to help me do that. We are linked, you see. It is your destiny to help me.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘Then you, too, will suffer. Do you think your illness, your mental fragility, is just a random accident?’
‘I don’t know what you’re saying. I have depression. It’s pretty common these days. Stress and genetics are what it’s down to.’
‘No, Cathy. You must help me. You have to, or else your mental torture will be so unendurable that you will crash.’
‘Crash?’ I asked.
‘You will go under. And you will take your family with you.’
‘Are you threatening me?’
Her voice almost inaudible, she laughed. It was a horrible sound, sinister and pathetic at the same time.
‘This is about the girls, about Rose and Violet. I know you love them. I trust you to keep them safe. There are things in my past that I have never told you about. It’s all about to come out, and then … ’ Her voice in my dream broke. ‘Then it will be too late. Don’t trust him, Cath, don’t trust him. Keep my babies safe.’
‘No. I can’t help you because you are sending me mad. Leave me alone, for God’s sake, Ellie. Just leave me alone.’
I woke up in the morning, her words ringing in my head. They troubled me, of course they did. But now I thought I knew what this was all about. My own ridiculously doom-ridden thoughts about my friend’s death had trapped me into a silly, supernatural fantasy. Time to distance myself, to grow up, to see Cornwall as it had always been to me; my place, my family’s home. Bury the past and all that. Whatever this mad spirit was trying to tell me, it was time to cut loose.
I got up, pulled on a dressing gown, and went down to the kitchen. As I pottered about making tea, I felt more and more resentful. Actually, I was furious with Eloise. I had been incredibly upset by her death. I had mourned her for months. But, if I was not completely mad, her presence was preventing my recovery. Which thwarted everything I wanted at the moment. I was so angry with her, with her demands, the way she kept invading my sleep.
I decided I had had enough. I had my own family to think about. I was completely fed up with Eloise, her husband, her daughters and her mother. I stood before the kitchen window, staring at the mint and thyme in our little herb garden, and swore at her. Then I made a vow.
‘OK, Ellie. I am now beginning the rest of my life. I miss you, but I am not responsible for you or your children.’
I was exhausted. I found a note that said Chris had taken the kids off to Lansallos Bay. I just wanted to go back to sleep, and for a while I did, until the knock at the kitchen door became insistent enough to force me downstairs.
It was Ted. Not just him but the little girls as well. Rose and Violet, the adorable twins, golden haired, gorgeously dressed in Oilily cotton frocks and little white socks.
I wanted to cry at the sight of them. Ellie’s babies, still here when she was so very far away, so permanently removed from them; when they were so devastatingly no longer hers. And despite my furious vow to Eloise that morning, I knew I could never abandon them to the fate she hinted lay in wait.
‘Ted. Hello.’ How inadequate, I thought. Especially when I knew that he was the last person I wanted to see, although I was overwhelmingly happy to see the girls, wanted to drink them in, carry them upstairs to bed, tuck them in for a lovely safe sleep. Mother them, make up for the loss of Eloise.
‘Cathy. The girls wanted to see you. They’ve been talking about you and Evie for days. James at the café told me you were here.’
The girls bounded towards me, flung their tiny arms around my neck. ‘Auntie Cath. Where’s Uncle Chris? And Evie? We want to see her. And is Tom here? And Sam?’
Overwhelmed by emotion, aware that the last time I’d seen these girls was with their mother, on Talland Beach, eating pasties bought at the little café, Eloise sounding certain that her latest treatment regime would work wonders, I swallowed my tears and held my arms open to them both.
‘Well, my little darlings, how gorgeous to see you both. Let’s go inside and I’ll find you some sweeties. Eve and Tom are both here, it’s just they’ve gone to Lansallos Bay with their dad. They’ll be back soon. I know they can’t wait to see you.’
The twins rushed into the sitting room, whooping around, picking up the little wooden figures of sailing boats and fishermen that lay around the window ledges, playing with them as if they were dolls. In fact they preferred them to the Barbies Eve had shown them, kept as childhood relics in her bedroom.
They hadn’t been at the funeral. Juliana and Ted both agreed it would be too traumatic for five year olds. But I wondered. Where did they think their mummy had gone? And if they hadn’t seen her grave, how could they accept she had gone to her final resting place? I suppose children can understand that
their mummy’s gone to heaven. But, surely, at some point, they need to find a place to sit and commune with her. And a grave can be comforting, a small grotto of peace, to contemplate your loss, and talk to the beloved person it commemorates. I decided to ask Ted if he would take the girls up to Talland Church soon; if he would explain to them that this was where their mummy now lay; that, yes, she was in heaven, but part of her rested here in Cornwall, somewhere they could always come and peacefully remember her.
But before I could screw my courage up to broach something so personal, the kitchen door opened and Eve, Tom and Chris poured into the room, laughing and wafting a sharp smell of ozone in with them.
Rose and Violet were beside themselves with joy to see Tom and Evie; especially Evie, because they saw in her the big girl they hoped they would become. My two took the little ones downstairs to play with Eve’s old dolls and to watch cartoons. Which left Chris and me warily facing Ted.
Chris was his usual warm and sympathetic self. He’d dismissed what I’d told him about Ted making a pass at me as a fantasy conjured out of my confused mind, so he crossed the floor immediately and put his arms round Ted.
Ted’s eyes grew wet. He leaned into Chris’s body, allowed himself to be held in my husband’s embrace. Because we hadn’t been down in Cornwall since February, it was the first time they’d seen one another since Eloise’s funeral
‘I’m so sorry, Ted. Christ, it’s so horrible she’s gone. Are you OK?’
‘Dunno really. Holding it together I guess. I could really do with someone to talk to. I mean there’s no one really. My parents are good, but they don’t really get it. How could they? And I’ve got no brothers or sisters. And, actually, precious few friends. Apart from you and Cathy, they were mostly her mates, not mine. I don’t come from round here. And in the end, if you weren’t born here, you’re always an outsider.’
‘What about Juliana? I know from Cath, who spoke to her on the phone only last week that she is still completely felled by grief. And she feels very isolated,. She needs you, Ted. You and the girls.’
Eloise Page 7
