He found her alone and she showed him into a back room where she was cleaning an early oil of a young girl on a horse. Josh peered at it.
‘I’m always amazed that women managed to stay on, riding side-saddle. I can’t see how they didn’t fly over the horse’s head.’
‘Someone once told me that they had a pummel to hold on to which made up for not being able to grip the horse, but I’m not convinced either. Imagine hunting, side-saddle!’
‘Great painting. He could certainly paint horses, makes me long to ride again. Have you just uncovered all that detail, Gabby, with the reins and the girl’s fingers?’
‘Yes. It’s fascinating, I don’t think this painting has ever been cleaned and I’m uncovering little treasures everywhere. It’s a lovely painting to work on. Anyway, let’s go for lunch. I’ve just got to lock up as Arabella’s also at lunch.’
Josh looked around the small trendy gallery with the latest mod lighting and mooched round studying the paintings on the walls while Gabby got her jacket and fixed the alarm.
Josh grinned. ‘You’re getting to know an awful lot of girls called Lucinda or Arabella …’
‘Mmm, and Catriona and Minty.’
They walked along the street and Gabby hugged Josh’s arm.
‘This is so nice, me taking you out to lunch.’
Josh looked down at her. Gabby looked very pretty in linen trousers and a light jacket. Different, somehow. ‘You’re getting really established up here, aren’t you?’
‘I am getting quite a lot of work, thanks to Lucinda who refers people to me. But, you know, restoring comes in fits and starts so I’m not complacent … I thought we’d eat here in this little Italian place, it’s the only one I’ve tried and it’s pretty good, I think.’
When they were sitting down, Josh said, ‘It’s quite weird having lunch with you in London. I always picture you at home, even though I know you work up here quite a lot.’ He looked at her closely. ‘I’d never have thought you could live in a city away from the sea, Gabby. When I was small it was a major deal getting you to Truro!’
Gabby laughed. ‘I surprise myself sometimes, but I’ve made good friends and work contacts here and I enjoy London, mostly, and …’
‘… You know you can always go back home to Charlie and the sea.’
Oh Josh. ‘Yes,’ Gabby said. ‘Now concentrate for a moment, darling, what are you going to have? Choose anything.’
They both stared at their menus. We are skirting the Gulf. I don’t want him to go. I want to pretend we are just having lunch because he happens to be in London.
Their drinks arrived and they ordered their meal. Josh noticed Gabby had white wine. Gabby drinks now, he thought fondly.
Josh sipped his cold beer and said, ‘I’m out there for such a short time, Gabby. No more than a training exercise really. Pilots have to gain experience in the climate they might have to work in. When I’ve gone you mustn’t go reading the papers and believing everything you read if there is a lurid article on Iraq. Servicemen are in and out of the Gulf all the time …’ He watched her. ‘I’ll probably spend a lot of time sitting around with the Navy guys getting drunk.’
‘No change there, then?’ Gabby said lightly, smiling. ‘Josh, don’t look so worried. This shooting off to places I’d rather you didn’t go is something I’m going to have to get used to, isn’t it?’
Josh laughed. ‘That’s what Marika said.’
‘Will you have time to see her before you go?’
‘We’re going to drop in to see her on the way back. She’s home at the moment. Gabby, I’ve written names of the various officers to contact in case of any emergency. I might have occasional access to a computer and I will e-mail you, but you might not be able to e-mail me back.’
‘You’ll have cabins, will you? Are there barracks or a mess or anything in Kuwait?’
‘I’m not sure what the form is yet. I haven’t really been briefed properly. I won’t be swinging in a hammock from the masts, Gab!’
Gabby felt suddenly anxious. ‘Those photos of helicopters you e-mailed me, they seem so huge and complicated. You haven’t been flying for five minutes. Why can’t they send someone more experienced?’
‘Gabby, how would I gain experience if I didn’t fly? This is part of my training. Stop worrying, these new helicopters are amazing machines.’
Their food came and Josh said, ‘Wow, I’m going to enjoy this! Not sure what the food will be like out there …’
‘Josh,’ Gabby said abruptly, ‘what about jabs, what about malaria tablets?’
‘It’s OK, we all had to have the injections as a regiment, in case we got suddenly posted, and I started my malaria tablets as soon as I knew I was going out there.’
‘We could rush and get you stuff you’ll need from Boots. We could do it after lunch … Josh, you should take soap and sun stuff and Imodium and mosquito repellent, talc, you know, and foot things …’
‘Gabby, stop! Eat. You haven’t touched your food. If there’s time, thanks. But don’t worry, Marika is also getting stuff for me, it’s giving her something to do …’
‘Please take care, Josh, please.’
‘Of course I will. You know me!’
As they walked back towards the gallery, Josh said, ‘Gabby, would you mind if I shot off now? It’s just Marika … I won’t have much time with her.’ He hugged her. ‘I promise I’ll take a crate full of medicine out with me … half of Boots!’
Gabby held Josh tight. ‘Love you lots …’
‘Love you, too. Thanks for lunch. It was great seeing where you work. I can sort of imagine it now while I’m away …’
‘I’m going home on Friday. Will you be able to ring before you fly out?’
‘Of course! I’ve had my orders from Nell. I’ll talk to you all on Friday, Gab. Take care.’
‘’Bye, darling.’
Josh turned and started to walk away, and as he did so Gabby was seized by a terrible, irrational fear. She started to run after him, stifled, ‘Josh, wait!’
She stood watching his figure until it disappeared into the crowd, her heart beating absurdly in the crowd of a city afternoon. She went back to the gallery which Arabella had opened and told her she was going to finish for the day.
On the way to the tube she started to ring Mark and then remembered he was giving a lecture. She thought of Nell, hesitated, but did not ring her. She made her way to the National Portrait Gallery and Lucinda gave her coffee and made her laugh.
That night Gabby said to Mark, ‘It’s so illogical and childishly superstitious, this need to be in Cornwall when Josh leaves, as if Josh is going to be any safer whether I am here or at home …’
‘Go home, my sweet. Superstition does not come into it. It’s perfectly understandable.’
Mark turned to Gabby. Mahler was playing, beautiful but achingly sad. A mistake, he thought, and got up to turn it down.
‘No,’ Gabby said, ‘leave it, I love it. It is my favourite piece.’
‘But sad, my darling, very, very sad.’
In bed, in the dark, they made love to the echo of the music and afterwards Mark said, ‘We don’t talk about the future, Gabriella. Are we afraid of it?’
‘Yes.’ Gabby held Mark’s face to hers in the dark. ‘It’s frightening. I love you so much I dare not talk … in case you’ve changed your mind … in case it spoils this life we’re living …’
Mark laughed quietly. ‘Change my mind. Oh my darling Gabriella, that is not going to happen. But it is easier for me, my ties are across an ocean, yours are five hours away …’
‘But they are there, Mark, in exactly the same way.’
‘Yes. It’s just gathering the courage to hurt …’
Mark sat up and pulled a pillow behind his head. He felt his age suddenly. Old and wise and … resigned? He was not sure whether resigned was the word, but he was aware that he could lose Gabriella any moment. There was a pull for her of a life unfinished. His children were
older and leading their own lives, totally independent of him.
That was not quite true. It was what he thought when he imagined himself leaving Veronique permanently for this life he had with Gabriella. He had known since Christmas that he wanted to share his life with this woman, but if she went back to her own life he would not go back to his.
‘Have you … changed …? Do you feel different, Mark?’
Mark smiled in the dark. ‘Oh, no, Mrs Ellis, I haven’t changed. I am just as irresponsibly besotted as I was that first time in your funny little museum.’
‘You stared horribly and embarrassingly.’
‘I couldn’t help it.’
‘Of course you could!’
‘I could not. I was expecting a very earnest, rather large Cornish lady in socks and sandals with fierce iron-grey hair pulled up into a bun, or with an ethnically long plait down her back …’
Gabby giggled. ‘Why? Is that what Canadian restorers are like?’
‘I’ve only met fierce ones who gave me nightmares.’
‘You do talk a lot of codswallop, as Nell would say.’
She kissed his wrists, which she found incredibly sensuous.
‘But you are very good at diversion tactics … I will go back, tomorrow. It’s not just Josh; Nell and Charlie have had another huge row about the eclipse and she sounds very depressed. It’s unlike Nell.’
Gabby paused in the dark then said it.
‘I can’t live without you, Mark. I love the people in my other life, but I love you more. For the first time I feel I am living the life I want, not dictated by circumstances, but by me.’
Mark did not move in the dark. The life that I want. The life that is me. Rilke?
Then he said quietly, ‘To do what we intend to do takes an amount of selfishness and a certain fixed ruthlessness. It is not going to slide into place with anyone’s blessing, my darling.’
‘I know.’ Gabby wrapped her arms around him. ‘I know.’
Mark, sliding down into the bed, his mouth on her hair, thought, I don’t think you do, wonderful little person. I really don’t think you do.
Chapter 49
The figurehead is raised by a chain to a horizontal position at exactly the angle I will fix it to the Lady Isabella. Today I am concentrating on the scrolls. The figurehead has been raised so that I can get an idea of the end result, the feel of her when she is fitted against the hull of the ship, for I must follow the angle of the bow carefully to about seventy degrees. Later I will return to the face.
Before I start to carve a figurehead I spend much time assessing the shape of the ship’s bow, its length and the rake of her bowsprit, for this dictates the size of a figurehead. The trail boards, the scrolls pattern that runs each side of a figurehead should fit perfectly, so that the finished figure fits exactly under the bowsprit. I know however much I calculate I will need to modify the figurehead once she is in place. I have to make sure of the depth and breadth of her so that she will not be in the way of the heavy martingale backstay and bobstay chains that lead to the dolphin striker that lies on the bowsprit.
Isabella has come early, before the heat of the morning builds to an unbearable closeness, for the days are as humid and windless as the tropics.
Lisette’s mother died during the night and Lisette is sad and preoccupied. Isabella has insisted she can look after herself, to release Lisette for family duties.
I pause in my work to wipe sweat from my eyes and look across at Isabella.
‘Tom,’ she asks. ‘How do you get the figurehead down to the ship without damaging it?’
‘We use a cart which is set on the old tramlines left from the mine to get her down to the quay, then she will be winched up to the vessel where we will bolt her to the ship. I will use old sails to wrap her on the downward journey, but she is bound to be marked or chipped a little. I have to expect this and put it right when she is in position.’
I wriggle my shoulders to release the cramp in my neck and move towards her.
‘Normally, I would carve in the boatyard down near the harbour where I can turn and judge the shape of the vessel while I am carving the figurehead, but I work better up here where I am not interrupted and it is quieter.’
I look up at the figurehead. ‘My father came up this morning to make sure she fits into the cart. Time is short and he wants nothing to hold us up.’
Isabella gets up and wanders round the carving, looking at the way I have carved deep ruts into the wood for the drapery, incorporating it so the line is fluid behind the scrolls, so that once the figurehead is in the water she will seem to rise up from the waves as part of the ship.
‘It is beautiful, Tom. I do not understand how you can create movement and life from a piece of wood, but you do.’
Isabella is wearing a white blouse of some thin material and a skirt that is of a dark shiny material, held to the waist by a belt, the clasp of which is shaped like a butterfly. The sun has given her skin radiance and lifted her hair so that small pieces glint like shiny copper. She looks very beautiful and foreign and it is hard to tear my eyes away to continue my work.
She turns and moves away under the old sail loft to the window. Out at sea there is a schooner in full sail, passing the cove swiftly. Noises from the shipbuilding yard below rise upwards; strident, hot, busy.
I see she is uncertain of the thing that lies between us, but I am also uncertain. My father this morning eyed me in that way he has as he measured the figurehead.
‘Do you need Lady I sabella up here so often, Tom?’
‘I have still to go back to the face and I need her for the fall of the drapery.’
‘Aye, I see that, but for the moment you are doing the tailboards, son.’
‘I am, but I need to finish the face before Lady Isabella returns to Falmouth. We have such a short time to complete.’
‘Aye,’ my father says again, then struggling with himself, ‘Do your work, son, and let Lady Isabella depart with Magor. She is too much in this yard and tongues willwag. She is no’ but a girl, it’s up to you to do what’s proper, protect her reputation. Offend Sir Richard and we will all be out of work, lad.’
I did not answer him.
Isabella turns. We are close and I place a finger on her bottom lip.
‘I must go back to work, Isabella.’
She nods, but we do not move. She is so near to me I can feel the warmth from her body. I bend swiftly to her mouth, kiss her, my mouth just touching hers. Our lips part a little then we stay quite still like two birds.
There is such sweetness in this long chaste kiss that I see tears behind her closed eyelids. At length I draw away, whisper again, ‘I must carve. Should you go home?’
Isabella shakes her head. ‘No. I may walk a little or read. Go, carve, I will not disturb you.’
We smile at each other.
‘I carve better with you here,’ I say softly, going back to the figurehead.
Isabella turned again to the sea. The schooner had almost disappeared into the horizon. She looked out at the empty sea and wondered about that time before she was born when the cove had been full of sailing ships. All those men and boys taking a voyage into the unknown, never sure if they would reach their destination.
She turned and looked about her, saw the ladder up into the old sail loft and climbed it to see what lay up there. She was surprised to find a bedroom of sorts, neat and swept, a mattress upon the floor with a clean patchwork cover, a small chair and table holding a carafe of water.
Tom sleeps here! Isabella climbed into the room. What a view! Across the small harbour and beyond was a last white sail in the distance, and red and green fishing smacks and red lobster buoys bobbing beyond the harbour mouth. She sat on the mattress. Above her the sky, blue as his eyes, with small wisps of white clouds flying past. Why, it is the perfect bedroom! Isabella lay back, enchanted.
I concentrate on the scroll head I am working on. Have I got the angle right? Carved exact to the shape
of the bow to meet the start of the trail boards? I can feel the familiar tension already, the anxiety of getting measurements wrong or even out by a fraction.
When I finish the scroll I am exhausted for I have been carving since early morning. I tidy my tools and look around but Isabella is nowhere to be seen. I pull my shirt off, visit the closet in the corner of the yard and then wash under the pump. I look to the sun to gauge the time; it must be near five of the clock.
I climb up the ladder to fetch a clean shirt and I am startled to find Isabella asleep on my bed, her knees drawn up like a child’s. As I stare down at her I feel tenderness, not lust. I lie on the bed, careful not to touch her, and fall instantly asleep.
When Isabella woke she could not think where she was and felt a moment’s panic, then turning she saw Tom asleep next to her. The sun was low, she should go, but she lay where she was watching him sleep. He had not put on his clean shirt and she knew his skin would be warm to touch. How smooth it was, that skin, how firm and brown and young. The image of Richard’s white body floated into her mind. The way, when he lay with her, she could feel the flabbiness of his stomach against her own. She shuddered and sat up and Tom woke.
He stared at her and moved towards her, still half-asleep. Isabella’s heart leapt as he pulled her to him, bent to her mouth, her face, her neck, put his hand over her breast. Isabella held his head to her and Tom began to undo the buttons on her blouse quickly and deftly, until he could place his hand inside her blouse and feel the warmth of her skin. Isabella gasped as he bent and took her nipple in his mouth and began to undo her belt. He could not find the catch on the waistband of her skirt and he pushed it up to her knees.
He was excited by the feel of her stockings but she pulled away, undid her skirt and wriggled out of it, then undid her stockings. She was left in her bodice and petticoats and Tom was transfixed as she took the pins out of her hair and let it fall in a small provocative gesture around her shoulders. He reached out to touch it, long, thick and shiny between his fingers.
He unbuckled his belt and pulled his trousers off. Isabella looked away, the colour rising in her face, then Tom pulled her on top of him and she bent to kiss him, her hair cascading around his face until he was buried in it. They rolled on the mattress, kissing and biting until their mouths felt bruised, and then Tom was inside her and Isabella cried out.
Another Life Page 31