Another Life

by Sara MacDonald

  Small waders rose in flocks in front of her with tiny faraway cries. The waves crashing against the rocks drowned out all sounds except her breath, and the plop of her feet and Shadow’s paws on the wet sand as she ran. She stopped by the rocks, panting and laughing, and bent and hugged the dog.

  What was happiness? No more than a fleeting moment such as this. Seabirds, dog, vast waves rolling inexorably towards her with the same raw energy that she felt within her. This small single moment separated from any other, entire in itself, held so perfect and timeless that she might lift her head from Shadow’s rough fur, turn for home, and this tiny second of happiness would vanish; leaving only a memory like a threnody in the place it had been.

  Chapter 15

  Josh, on a twenty-four-hour pass, surprised them by turning up suddenly on Friday night for the weekend.

  Gabby, Charlie and Nell were astounded at how he had filled out. Gaining muscle made him seem bigger, stockier.

  ‘We do nothing but yomp, with packs on our backs, stumble badly around the parade ground, hurl ourselves round assault courses, hang from ropes in the gym, polish everything in sight … and eat.’

  ‘I’ve never heard you complain about eating!’ Charlie said.

  Josh laughed. ‘I’m not complaining, Charlie. I should be used to piles of food, growing up on a farm, but at Sandhurst we have a cooked breakfast, coffee with buns mid-morning, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner in the evening. All those carbs just to keep us going.’

  ‘Or alternatively to develop obesity and alcoholism,’ Nell said fondly.

  ‘Right, I’m off to start the milking. See you later, Josh. We’ll go to the pub after supper, have a few jars.’

  Nell went to phone Elan to ask him over to eat with them. Josh went around the kitchen touching things, prowling. He always did this when he had been away, as if to reassure himself all was still the same.

  ‘Is everything OK, Josh?’

  He went and leant with his back to the Aga. ‘Sure, Gabby, everything’s fine.’

  But he had hesitated for a split second. Gabby, watching him, said carefully, ‘There’s something worrying you. It’s such a long way to come for a short weekend …’ She went to hug him, ‘But, oh, it’s lovely to see you.’

  Josh said quickly, looking at the door, ‘I just needed to come home; touch base.’ He paused. ‘It’s a tough course. Sometimes it seems as if there is always someone shouting at you. It’s all for reasons of discipline, obviously, but after university it feels like going back to school. I just wanted to feel like a grown-up human being for twenty-four hours.’

  ‘If you’ve made a mistake, you know …’

  ‘No, Gabby, it’s nothing like that. I haven’t made a mistake and I’ve made some really good mates. It’s just …’ Josh looked at his feet and wiggled them as he always did when he was thoroughly miserable.

  ‘What is it, Josh?’

  Josh looked up. ‘There was this guy from Ghana in my year. He was a bit useless, but our sergeant definitely had it in for him, seemed to think he was bucking the system, not trying, taking the piss. We went up to the Brecon Beacons last week to train and this guy kept saying he felt unwell. He hated the cold, he just couldn’t cope with it, none of the Africans can, so we end up wrapping them in silver foil as their body temperature just plummets.

  ‘Anyway, this particular night there was a clear sky and it was absolutely freezing and Ojai’s teeth were rattling so much he could hardly stay upright. Two of us were each side of him holding him upright, keeping him on his feet, or he would have fallen. We came to this river that we were supposed to swim across and Ojai just rolled his eyes in terror. It was obvious he wasn’t up to it so we used the radio to get him casevaced back to camp, but this sergeant insisted he went across with the rest of us, said he wasn’t having anyone on his course who thought he could pick and choose what he could and couldn’t do. He said if any of us wasted any more time we would all be on a charge.

  ‘Me and this other guy roped Ojai to us and told him the river wasn’t deep, which was a lie, and that we’d make sure he got to the other side. He was frozen and scared, Gabby; he hated water, he was such a lousy swimmer he was having extra coaching. Anyway, we all descended into this bloody river and we were fine until we got to the middle, where obviously it was deeper and faster.

  ‘Ojai started to panic. Everyone was calling from the other bank, encouraging him on, but he completely lost it and started to flail around. The current was stronger than it looked and the three of us were being pulled downstream and under. We had to cut the rope, because if we hadn’t we’d have all drowned. We tried to keep hold of him, but … it was impossible.’

  Josh stopped, looked away. ‘He drowned, Gabby, they found him downstream. There is an inquiry on. All the officers are pissing themselves in case the press get hold of it.’

  ‘Josh, that’s terrible. Poor, poor boy. I hope the sergeant loses his job.’ She could see Josh was still upset. ‘You don’t blame yourself, do you?’

  ‘Not really. It’s just we lied, we said the river wasn’t deep, we said we would make sure he stayed with us and got to the other side, then we had to cut him loose to drown. There was no reason for him to die, he could have been back-coursed or just sent home as unfit. He died horribly frightened a long way from home, for bloody what?’

  Gabby bent and got a beer from the fridge, opened it and handed it to him.

  ‘Thanks.’ Josh smiled. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to get home for a bit. Let’s talk of something else.’

  Nell came into the room. ‘Elan is on his way.’

  ‘Great,’ Josh said. ‘Gabby, is it all right if I go and have a long hot bath?’

  ‘Josh, you don’t have to ask. Go and relax, my radio is still in there …’

  She went to the door with him. ‘I’m glad you came home, it was the right thing to do.’

  Elan, Charlie and Josh had gone to the pub, and Nell and Gabby were clearing up the supper things. They had both been invited and had both refused as they knew they were supposed to. Gabby told Nell Josh’s sad little story.

  ‘I knew there was something,’ Nell said. ‘I still cannot fathom the attraction of the army; I never will.’

  Gabby smiled and changed the subject.

  When Nell had gone back to her cottage, Gabby went into her workroom. She got her mobile phone out. One missed message. It was from Mark.

  ‘Hi there, it’s Mark Hannah. Just to say I’m back in London, slight change of plan. I’m following a small lead that may be a wild goose chase, but may give us a clue to Isabella.’

  Before she lost her nerve, Gabrielle pressed return call. It rang and rang, and then a breathless Mark came on to the line.

  ‘Hello, it’s Gabrielle. I got your message.’

  ‘Hi there, Gabriella, it’s great to hear from you!’

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here at six. Josh came home unexpectedly for the weekend.’

  ‘That’s great. Hey, you don’t want to be talking to me …’

  ‘It’s OK. They’ve all gone down to the pub.’

  ‘I only rang to tell you … Gabriella, hang on while I get a towel, I was in the shower.’

  When he came back, Gabrielle said, ‘Sorry, sorry, this is why I hate phoning people … It’s always the wrong time.’

  ‘Gabriella, it’s exactly the right time. I am stuck in a hotel bedroom trying to decide what to do with myself. Stay in and get bored or go out and eat alone, which I hate.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Oh dear, indeed.’ Mark laughed. ‘I thought you might be interested. One of my researchers found a Welland grave in Yorkshire. There were three generations of carpenters, all in the parish records of the time. A Ben Welland moved to Cornwall where his wife originated from. It is unclear whether he moved from his own county to please her or whether he left Yorkshire to find work in the Cornish boatyards. He had three sons and a daughter who survived beyond childbirth and one of the sons must, I believe
, have been our Tom.

  ‘Ben Welland must have gone home to die, or asked to be buried in the same churchyard as his parents, not his wife, which seems a bit strange.’

  ‘So were there were no records of the names of Ben Welland’s sons?’

  ‘All the sons who died in infancy were entered and legible, but the bottom of the page was damaged by water marks.’

  ‘So, no grave for Tom in Yorkshire?’

  ‘No grave for Tom, or his wife or children, if he had them. So, Ben was buried in Yorkshire, his wife and children in St Piran, and Tom presumably died abroad, maybe Canada, Australia or New Zealand. There was huge migration at that time, as you know. As the mines failed, hundreds of people left Cornwall and brought back stories of fortunes to be made.’

  ‘Anything about Lady Isabella?’

  ‘Not yet. I am purely following a hunch at the moment.’

  ‘Sounds intriguing …’

  In the kitchen the phone was ringing. ‘Mark, my other phone is ringing. I’d better go.’

  ‘Thank you for ringing me back, Gabriella. Tom was just an excuse to ring you. Hearing your voice has cheered me up.’

  His voice was soft and Gabby shivered. ‘I’m starting work on Lady Isabella on Monday.’

  ‘Good! Keep me posted about progress. Goodnight.’

  The phone in the kitchen had stopped ringing and Gabby dialled 1471. It was Zoë’s number, an old girlfriend of Josh’s. She dialled.

  ‘Zoë? It’s Gabby. Did you ring?’

  ‘Yes. Hi Gabby, I just wondered if Josh made it home. He said he might.’

  ‘Yes, he did, they’re in the pub.’

  ‘Oh, great! Are you coming?’

  ‘I might actually. Is it coincidence you are both back home on the same weekend?’

  ‘Well … Josh rang and told me he was hoping to come home and I was planning to come this weekend or next … OK, Gabby, see you down there.’

  Zoë had been in love with Josh for as long as Gabby could remember. It seemed she still jumped at the chance of seeing him and to Josh she was just a mate, no more than that. Gabby hoped Zoë had no residual hope in that direction.

  She pulled a comb through her hair and pulled a jacket on, then went out into the yard and started her car up. She stopped at Nell’s cottage.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind. Come on, Nell. Josh might not be home again for ages, let’s join them. Zoë is on her way, too.’

  Nell hesitated, loath to move from her warm house. Then she said, ‘You’re right, let’s go. Why should the men have all the fun? I must not get old and fuddy-duddy. But we’ll go in my car, if you don’t mind, Gabby.’

  Gabby laughed. ‘You, fuddy-duddy? I don’t think so!’

  Nell thought, How pretty she looks tonight, how excited and alive. It is true, sons do keep their mothers young.

  Gabby, driving down the rutted track, thought, How amazing that a voice can enfold you like velvet, go on holding you.

  Later, in bed that night, with Charlie snoring gently beside her, Gabby lay awake listening to the sea. The pub had been warm and full of people she knew. Charlie, Josh and Elan had been so genuinely pleased to see her, Nell and Zoë, that Gabby had felt surprised and touched.

  They sat round a large scrubbed table while Elan told his outrageous stories. Gabby had looked round at the flushed and laughing faces of her family, for Elan counted as family; at Zoë and a couple of Josh’s local friends, and she felt a surge of contentment in Josh being home. In the evening. In joining in. In Charlie’s pleasure in the fact that she had joined in.

  It’s odd, she thought, as she turned on her side to sleep. It is as if I am viewing my life suddenly from a tiny, imperceptible shift in perspective.

  Chapter 16

  They stood in the yard saying goodbye to Josh. Gabby watched him mooching about, inspecting the bantams. He had loved Elton John, a Welsomer who had pranced showing off his glossy petrol feathers of flame and green and chestnut – the current cockerel was not so spectacular. Shadow was following Josh about anxiously, her long nose pressed to his calf.

  Josh always put off the moment of leaving. As a small child he had run back two or three times to Gabby before he could get himself through the school gates.

  Zoë stood by the car, also watching him. Josh was giving her a lift back to Bristol. He walked back towards them.

  ‘Get in,’ he said to Zoë. ‘I’m just going inside to make sure I haven’t left anything.’

  Nell and Gabby smiled at each other and Charlie raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Seeing Josh off always took ages.

  ‘Drive carefully,’ Nell said when he came back out.

  ‘Yes, Granny,’ Josh said grinning, and Nell clipped him over the ear.

  He hugged Nell and Gabby, then he and Charlie did their usual slightly self-conscious hand-slapping and ‘Wahoo’ at each other before Josh bent and got into his car, which had been a present from Nell.

  Gabby leant in at his window. ‘’Bye, Zoë. Josh, have a good week. Ring me.’

  ‘I will. Good luck with your figurehead.’

  They watched the car bounce down the track until it was out of sight, then Charlie went off to get the cows in and Nell and Gabby went inside to tackle the remains of Sunday lunch. Watching Charlie’s shoulders, Gabby felt a stab of pity. Every time Josh came home she knew Charlie secretly hoped he would announce he had done the wrong thing. If they had had another son it would have made all the difference.

  Neither she nor Nell talked much as they worked. They both hated the aftermath of Josh leaving and the hole he left for an hour or two until their lives slid back into a rhythm without him. Nell would go and nap while pretending to read the Sunday papers. Gabby would walk Shadow until it was dark, following the progress of Josh’s car in her mind until it was time to make sure he had got back safely.

  ‘I miss going over the Tamar Bridge,’ Josh said. ‘It used to feel more like coming home and leaving again.’ Like a definite marker as the wide river swirled underneath, full of boats and the small ferries chugging from one side to the other. A marker between home and the rest of the world.

  Occasionally he got called a Cornish pasty by an instructor who wanted to annoy him. Josh did not rise. He did not have to prove anything. He was glad he had gone home this weekend, but it made returning worse. It felt like going back to school. He would never admit to his parents that he was afraid of failing the next fitness test, of being back-coursed, of not being up to it.

  He practised press-ups in the gym until he was purple in the face and sodden with sweat, but he knew if he could not increase the strength in his arms he would fail the assault course, and he was furious at this physical weakness when he had lifted bales since he was twelve.

  ‘You’ve forgotten the traffic jams. You’ve forgotten how long it took to get in and out of Cornwall. It’s bad enough as it is,’ Zoë said.

  ‘What? Oh … No, I haven’t forgotten. All the same, Cornwall will be one long dual carriageway lined with housing estates and supermarkets in ten years’ time.’

  ‘You sound like my dad.’

  Josh laughed. ‘So, how’s the teaching going, then?’

  ‘OK. I like Bristol. The house I share is in a really nice area. I can walk to school.’

  ‘Got a boyfriend?’

  Zoë hesitated, hope flaring for a second. ‘Mind your own business,’ she said lightly. Then, ‘Have you? Got a girlfriend, I mean.’

  Josh glanced at her. ‘No time at the moment. I’m at a sort of premature middle-aged crisis. I can only think about one thing at a time, which is staying fit and not pulling a muscle or doing my back in, or breaking a leg or a knee going from yomping …’

  ‘Yeah, well, you must be a barrel of laughs! Do you have girls on your course?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are they like men, you know butch and lesbosses?’

  Josh suddenly felt thoroughly irritated with her. ‘For heaven’s sake, Zoë! They are no
different to any other bloody women. Pretty, plain, fat and thin. Stupid remark.’

  Stung, Zoë was silent. It was unlike Josh to snap.

  After a moment, he said, ‘Sorry.’

  He knew why he was annoyed. He knew her too well. She had made the remark in the hope he would agree, thus reassuring her he wasn’t interested in anybody on the same course. He just wished she could find a bloke and they could go back to being mates.

  Then you shouldn’t have bloody well slept with her, should you?

  Josh groaned inwardly. He wished he could take that evening back. He had been pretty pissed, and she was so up for it, it had seemed almost insulting to walk. It had felt like incest, like fucking your sister. He was too familiar with the geography of her body; there was nothing to discover, no surprises in limbs he had known from childhood. It had all felt wrong, like the biggest mistake he had ever made. But not for Zoë, it seemed. He didn’t have the courage to say, I don’t fancy you. You are a perfectly attractive girl, but there is no chemistry. I have never felt like that about you and I never will.

  They had both been too drunk to use anything and Josh had spent a month in a cold sweat every time he thought about the possible consequences. He had been lucky. It was too near home. His parents were obviously OK, but he hadn’t needed to be a brain surgeon to work out Gabby must have been pregnant when his parents married.

  Gabby and Charlie were suited. He and Zoë were definitely not. When he picked a girl it was not going to be one he had gone to kindergarten with.

  He saw he had really upset her. She was staring out of her side window biting her lip, trying not to let him see she felt like crying. He turned the radio on low in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere.