The other thing I have to tell you is that Natasha is Brett’s child. You probably won’t believe this, you’ll think I’m trying to get away with keeping her, but it’s true. I went to London just after you’d gone back to sea a year ago and that’s when I met up with Brett again. I’m afraid we got carried away but by then I’d had my period and that’s how I know she’s his. Even then I didn’t admit it because I still wasn’t sure I could trust him. You don’t have to believe me, there are other ways of testing it, but I hope you will and let us go peacefully.
Sorry, George, and thanks for all the good times. I’ve left the name of my lawyer but obviously I’m the one responsible for the break-up and I’m not asking for anything except that you don’t despise me too much.
She’d scribbled something that had been crossed through several times, and then written her name and he guessed that she hadn’t quite known how to finish it. As he stood with the letter in his hand, trying to take it all in, the telephone rang. He remembered his promise to let his mother know he was home safely and took up the receiver, trying to compose himself. It was a woman from a shop in Tavistock trying to contact Penny to say that something she’d ordered had arrived. George dealt with it calmly, saying that he would ask his wife to get in touch, and replaced the receiver. After a moment, he lifted it again and dialled his parents’ number.
‘Hi, Ma,’ he said when his mother answered. ‘I’m here but Penny isn’t. She’s done a runner with Brett, taking Tasha with her and leaving a letter saying that it’s all over. They’ve gone back to New Zealand.’
‘Gone?’ She was clearly shocked. ‘Oh, George, my dear boy …’
‘Bit of a conversation stopper,’ he agreed. ‘Sorry if I sound callous, Ma, but I don’t quite know what the form is for this.’
‘Of course not,’ she said quickly. ‘It was good of you to phone when you must be quite shattered. I simply don’t know what to say to you and you probably need time to adjust. I have to tell you, though, that Mutt died last night. Poor Joss found her. You can imagine what a shock it was for her. She telephoned from the practice in Bodmin and I thought she seemed rather disappointed to have missed you …’
She talked on for a moment, trying to get them both through this difficult moment, but George suddenly felt as if he’d been thrown a lifeline.
‘Look, there’s nothing I can do here,’ he told her. ‘If it’s OK with you I think I’ll come straight back. Maybe I can be useful.’
‘Oh, do,’ she agreed warmly. ‘It would be wonderful to have you here. Only, drive carefully. You’re probably in shock.’
Once he’d hung up he stared round the kitchen, feeling some kind of responsibility for this little cottage, which once had been their home and was now silent and unwelcoming. It would have to be sold, he told himself, and he wondered what would happen to the objects they’d chosen together – the pottery set and the other things that Penny had been unable to take with her.
He saw now that the hyacinth flowers were not just fading but beginning to decay, their petal edges brown; the strong scent seemed weighted with an odour of failure and deceit, and he was filled with a terrible sadness. He took the pot out and put it in a sheltered place in the back porch: later the bulbs could be planted under the hedge in the garden and next spring they would flower again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
By the time Bruno got back to The Lookout he was feeling the effects of twenty-four hours with no sleep. The day had been busy, emotional, and he’d been grateful for Mousie’s calm professionalism. She’d got them through it all: Mutt’s body taken away by the undertakers, plans made for the funeral, Emma held steady by a hundred and one tasks.
‘I shall stay here with Joss until the funeral,’ she’d told Bruno when the rector had gone and the tea things were washed up and put away. ‘Ray will be down tomorrow so Mousie and I are going to Polzeath to do some shopping and then we’ll make up beds. Why don’t you go home and try to catch up on some sleep? You look exhausted.’
He’d been glad to take her advice. Collecting Nellie from the kitchen he’d walked back over the cliff, although the dense vapour-like mist made it impossible to see very far. It was thicker now, covering his coat in tiny, shining droplets, flattening the sea that lay almost motionless against the cliffs. He felt it press damply upon him – obscuring familiar landmarks, deadening sound – chill and cheerless.
Once inside, he went to light the fire in an attempt to lift his own spirits and saw the red light of the answerphone blinking. Joss’s voice was expressionless, her message brief, as if she’d realized that Emma might well be with Bruno when he listened to it.
‘Glad you found those letters. Is it OK if I drop in on my way home about five? See you later.’
Bruno pressed several buttons and replayed it: no mistake. Mechanically he went about the task of reviving the fire, piling the charred logs together on their bed of hot ash, working the bellows until the heart glowed red. Nellie nudged at him, pushing her nose beneath his arm as he sat on the leather pouffe beside the flat granite hearth, sitting close to him as he put an arm about her neck.
‘In a minute,’ he told her, piling on new logs. ‘I know you’re hungry. Let me get this going.’ She licked his ear encouragingly, watching the sizzling tongues of flame with bright, eager eyes, and he felt an odd comfort at her presence. Once the wood was well alight, he went out into the kitchen with Nellie prancing at his heels and, all the while he prepared her supper, he was thinking about Joss’s cryptic message.
Glad you found those letters.
There was no question in his mind which letters – though he could have easily bluffed it with Emma, had she heard it too – but did she imagine that he had them? He glanced at his watch: nearly twenty minutes to five. The telephone rang and he snatched up the receiver before the answerphone could click into play.
‘Hi,’ said Rafe. ‘Sorry to trouble you, we can guess what a dreadful day it’s been for you, but we wanted to say that George is back and ready to be of any use. You can never tell at times like these, can you, but he’s here if needed.’
‘Thanks, Rafe.’ For a moment Bruno couldn’t remember where George had been and why he was back. His brain simply refused to function properly. ‘That’s kind.’
‘Pamela is asking if you’d like to come over to supper.’
Bruno hesitated. ‘I don’t think I will. I’m going to try for an early night. Emma’s staying up at Paradise with Joss. I have to say that Mousie has been fantastic, Rafe. I’m not sure what we’d have done without her.’
‘Well, she’s had plenty of experience.’ He took the praise of his sister lightly. ‘Don’t forget we’re here if you need us, any time.’
He rang off and Bruno stood for a while in thought. Perhaps Joss had snatched the letters and dropped them off at The Lookout on her way to Bodmin while he’d been with Rafe and Pamela. He racked his memory: had her car been gone from the quarry? Impossible to remember. He went out to the kitchen, checked the sitting-room, searched his study, but there was no sign of Mutt’s letters. Despite the earliness of the hour he poured himself a stiff whisky and went to sit beside the fire, waiting, with Nellie curled beside him on the sofa.
Joss arrived just before twenty past five.
‘Beastly weather,’ she said, coming across to warm her hands at the fire. ‘It was horrid driving through the lanes. I see that George is back.’
Bruno got up, realizing that she was trying very hard to behave normally, and pushed her gently down onto the sofa.
‘George is back,’ he agreed, sitting opposite on the pouffe, ‘although I don’t know where he’s been, and what’s all this about the letters?’
She stared at him. ‘George went back to Meavy,’ she said slowly, taking one thing at a time, ‘and it’s a bit odd that he’s come back so soon.’ She frowned. ‘You must have realized what I meant about the letters. They weren’t there so I imagine that you were able to get them last night when Mousie and
I were upstairs.’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that’s not so. Do you mean that you haven’t got them?’
‘Of course I haven’t. I told you: when I got downstairs this morning they’d gone.’
They looked at each other, puzzled.
‘But that’s impossible,’ said Bruno. ‘Wait a minute.’ He closed his eyes, as if calling up the scene. ‘When Mousie arrived I put them under the seat …’
‘Maybe Mum found them. Oh, my God … !’
‘I’ve been with Emma all day,’ said Bruno impatiently, ‘and she hasn’t given the least impression that she’d found a cache of letters under the seat of the sofa. Good grief! Why should she even bother to look?’
‘Then where are they?’ cried Joss.
‘I don’t know. Give me a minute to think … Hang on! Mutt’s cleaner turned up but she didn’t stay long. Mousie told her to do a quick clean round downstairs and leave it at that. I wonder if she saw them and put them somewhere safe and then forgot to mention it. It’s possible, I suppose, given the sort of day it was.’
‘And there’s something else,’ Joss told him, her hazel eyes wide with fear. ‘I thought about it when I got to work. What happened to Goblin Market?’
He stared at her blankly. ‘To what?’
‘Mutt’s book,’ she prompted him impatiently. ‘The one she treasured so much and quoted to her sister. She said that the death certificates and things were hidden in the back of it.’
‘Christ,’ murmured Bruno softly. ‘I hadn’t given it a thought. I wonder what drawer she left that in. You’ll have to find it, Joss. It’s something Emma might easily come across. Damn and hell, what was Mutt thinking about?’
‘She probably wasn’t thinking at all.’ Joss defended her grandmother, though she looked drawn and anxious. ‘It was all so long ago. As the years passed, the book and the letters would have become less important. It was only right at the end, when the American came, that she suddenly remembered them. Where can they be, Bruno?’
‘Let’s not panic.’ He saw that it was time to be reassuring. ‘Go on up to Paradise and have a look around but don’t make Emma suspicious. Shall you go over to see George?’
‘George?’ For a brief moment it seemed that she had forgotten George. ‘Oh, Bruno, I don’t know what I shall do about George. For a mad moment last night I thought that all this needn’t matter and then, when I woke up this morning, I couldn’t see how I could behave as if nothing has changed. Mutt and Mum and I are impostors. How can I pretend that everything’s just as he’s always assumed it is? I simply don’t know how to handle it.’
‘But you don’t think the time has come for the truth to be told?’
‘Oh, no!’ She shook her head, staring at him in horror. ‘What about Mum? How could we?’
The telephone rang and he took up the receiver.
‘I was wondering if Joss is with you?’ Emma’s voice was anxious. ‘She said she’d be home by five and the fog is really thick now.’
‘She’s right here, Em.’ Bruno made his voice light, cheerful even. ‘She’s on her way up to you now.’ He replaced the receiver and looked encouragingly at Joss, eyebrows raised.
‘OK,’ she said, as if obeying instructions. ‘Maybe it’ll be in the same desk. And I’ll look round and see if the cleaner’s left the letters somewhere.’
‘Try not to worry,’ he told her, ‘and telephone if you need me.’
When she’d gone he sat down again by the fire, waiting. He heard Mousie come in through the kitchen and into the sitting-room. She dropped her bag down beside him on the sofa, but remained standing, and presently he looked up at her.
‘So where do we go from here?’ he asked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
‘So where do we go from here?’ Rafe was asking Pamela. George had arrived back at St Meriadoc just before four o’clock and now, nearly two hours later, had gone upstairs to have a bath. ‘Do you think the bath is symbolic? Washing away the past and all that kind of thing?’
‘How does he look?’ asked Pamela urgently, as if George might reappear at any moment.
‘Peaceful,’ answered Rafe after a moment or two, ‘but subdued. As if he can relax at last … no, not quite that. Hang on while I think about it.’
They sat opposite each other at the table and Pamela felt about for his hand that he stretched out to her across the newspapers and other odds and ends, pushing aside his coffee mug.
‘He sounded rather flat,’ she suggested anxiously, as if this might help his assessment.
Releasing his hand, she felt about for the objects that lived on the table. A pretty, hand-painted spice jar that held pencils; a square pink and white china dish into which Rafe put special chocolates or sweets; a covey of small, carved birds. She picked one up, smoothing the grainy wood with one finger, feeling the sharp beak and clawed feet.
‘He does look peaceful.’ Rafe was clearly sticking to his original impression. ‘But it’s rather as if he’s arrived at where he wants to be through good luck rather than good judgement and he’s feeling deeply relieved and very thankful. Rather as if he’s been let off the hook, if you see what I mean.’
Pamela arranged the four birds into a line, beak to tail, and imagined them marching across the table while she considered Rafe’s diagnosis.
‘Well, that would be about right, wouldn’t it?’ she asked.
‘You mean if your theory is correct?’ Rafe turned two of the birds round so now two pairs faced each other, beak to beak. ‘Well, I admit it looks very likely.’
‘He realized that he was in love with Joss at about the same time that Brett came back into Penny’s life and, though George was prepared to stick with his marriage, Penny wasn’t. I think that one part of him was hurt and angry that, unlike him, she wasn’t even prepared to try whilst another part of him longed to be free. Now she’s let him right off the hook and although he’s got what he wants he’s probably feeling a bit ashamed. Penny’s taken all the blame and he’ll feel embarrassed about that.’
‘And what about Tasha?’ The birds were now balancing on their toes, beaks resting on the table as if digging for worms. ‘Do you believe she’s not George’s baby?’
Pamela was silent for a long moment.
‘I think we must let it go,’ she said at last, ‘and I suspect that George feels the same. If Tasha had been older or he’d been able to spend more time with her it would be a different story. Penny’s right to say that at that age she needs her mother and a stable relationship. Penny adores Tasha and I think she knows that she’ll get everything she needs in New Zealand. I think it would be wrong to fight it and especially now that there’s a doubt over who her father is.’
‘And, after all, if Brett is her father it shows that Penny did actually try for a year before she gave up on her marriage.’
‘He’d let her down before. Perhaps she was making certain that this time he was serious. A young man doesn’t take on a child unless he’s committed to the relationship and he’s had every chance during the last twelve months to disappear again. We must believe that Penny and George mistook their hearts and that now they both have the chance to start again with the right people.’
The birds paired off, two and two, were now roosting in the branches of a heavy glass candlestick that stood in the middle of the table. Pamela settled them more securely with gentle fingers and heaved a great sigh of relief.
‘It’s a pity that it’s all come together,’ said Rafe. ‘Penny going off and poor old Mutt …’
‘Oh, no,’ answered Pamela quickly. ‘It will get George and Joss over any awkwardness. They won’t have too much time to think about themselves and the guilt and all the other emotions. Life will just make them get on with it. Much better.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do say so. Although I did feel for Joss this morning when she telephoned. She simply couldn’t hide her disappointment that George had gone. I expect it was coming on top
of Mutt. They were very close.’
‘Poor Joss. I can’t believe I never guessed. She’s a good girl, Pammie.’
‘She’s a darling,’ agreed Pamela warmly, ‘and I can’t wait to tell her how thrilled we are about her and George.’
‘You won’t say anything.’ He sounded shocked. ‘I mean, not before George has … Dammit, we don’t even know we’re right, do we?’
‘Of course we’re right,’ she answered serenely. ‘And of course I shan’t say anything until it’s official. What do you take me for?’
Rafe let out a great breath of relief and got up from the table.
‘I don’t care where the sun or the yardarm is,’ he said. ‘I need a drink.’
‘Perhaps George will go up to Paradise and see her and Emma later on,’ mused Pamela. ‘I wonder how they’re managing.’
From the moment Joss had arrived, Emma hadn’t stopped talking. Words streamed from her mouth as earlier the tears had streamed from her eyes: the undertakers … so friendly and kind … Mousie, such a tower of strength … how odd it had been, making out a shopping list when poor, darling old Mutt … the rector had been so sweet … made them laugh about things that had happened in the past … her own wedding … Joss’s baptism … then, after he’d gone, trying to get ready for Ray …
Talking eased her grief, shaping it into something manageable, holding misery at bay.
‘And I’ve been looking everywhere for Mutt’s address book,’ she said. ‘Of course we’ll put a notice in the Western Morning News but there are one or two people I ought to contact. I’ve searched high and low—’
‘Searched?’ The word pierced the numbness that occluded Joss’s brain. ‘Did you … find anything?’
‘Not a thing.’ Emma sounded exasperated. ‘Every time I got started there was some kind of interruption. The undertakers arriving or a telephone call or Mousie needing something.’
The Golden Cup Page 26
