‘Ssh,’ Tom whispered, and gently covered her mouth with his own. Isabella came so violently her body shuddered for moments afterwards.
‘Mine,’ Tom thought, holding her. ‘Mine.’
Isabella floated, felt the smoothness of Tom’s skin under her hand, experienced a sense of euphoria. They lay like cats facing each other, rapt.
This idyll was broken by the sound of Lisette’s voice.
‘Tom? Tom Welland, I’m looking for Lady Isabella.’
I dive for my trousers but Isabella is paralysed. I put my finger to my lips and go to the hatch.
‘What is it, Lisette?’ I ask, faking a yawn.
‘What time did Isabella leave here?’ Lisette demands. ‘Did you walk her home?’
‘I did not,’ I say, ‘for it was still light and she was taking a walk, I think to her father’s gardens.’
‘It is too bad,’ Lisette says crossly. ‘Why can she not stay put instead of gallivanting around the countryside? As if I have not enough to do.’
‘Then why do you not leave her to her day instead of shepherding her every move like a sheepdog, Lisette? No wonder she escapes. She is not a child and you have disturbed my rest,’ I add, pretending at petulance.
‘I am sorry for that, Tom, but I have been to the house to find her and I am now to my mother’s cottage for the preacher. Isabella is in my charge and I have no idea where she is …’
‘Lisette, go to the preacher. I will go to try and find Lady Isabella for you and tell her … what shall I tell her?’
‘That I will be back to the house by nine and Cook has a cold supper ready and she should stay in the house …’
I try not to laugh. ‘Now, Lisette, does she need help to eat this cold supper, should I stay and spoon-feed her …’
Lisette tuts crossly at me. ‘I would be grateful if you could find her before dark, Tom Welland. Sir Richard expects me to …’
‘Then I will find her, Lisette,’ I say kindly, for I am sorry for her troubles. ‘Even if it means I miss my own supper.’
But Lisette has already turned and is hurrying across the yard to the road.
Isabella has been lying quite still, her eyes large with fear, but now she begins to laugh with relief.
‘I must dress, Tom …’
I watch her, fascinated by the complications of women’s clothes. She starts to pin her hair back up. Her eyes are shining and her dark skin is flushed.
I would know immediately.
‘You are very beautiful, Lady Isabella,’ I tell her softly. The shadows of the dying day are caught across her face and I am suddenly alert to the danger of her getting home unseen.
‘Wait! I will go and make sure the road is empty. Most people should be having their tea.’
I go down the ladder and across the yard to the gate. The road and coastal path are deserted. I go back and call her.
‘Come, Isabella, quickly.’
Isabella comes down the ladder looking suddenly small and afraid. I touch her arm.
‘Go and take the coast path and walk until you come to the stile which leads down to your house. I will take the road and join you there as if I have been searching for you.’
Isabella moves swiftly up the hill and bears right to the cliff path. I follow, but along the road until I reach the path. I turn onto it and see Isabella coming towards me.
‘Why, Lady Isabella,’ I say loudly, although the road is deserted. ‘What a surprise! I am sent by Lisette to find you and escort you home before dusk. Where have you been?’
Isabella is out of breath. She laughs, but I can see she is nervous and will be glad to be indoors. I walk with her to the front door.
‘Isabella, I will come and find you when I need you again for the face. We must be careful. You should not come to the yard too often. Lisette is like a guard dog where you are concerned.’
Isabella is silent. I see she is unsure whether I am distancing myself. I lift her small hand and hold it to my cheek. ‘I could not think less of you, Isabella, ever. It is not that I do not want you near me, only that I do not want to put you in danger. You see that?’
‘Of course.’ Her small mouth trembles. ‘I must go inside, Tom.’
‘Yes.’ But I cannot let go of her hand. ‘We will try and meet elsewhere … down in the cove. We will find a way …’
Isabella looks me in the eye and reads clearly all that I feel. She smiles.
‘Goodnight, Tom.’ Her hand slips from mine and she is gone through the door.
Bats swoop down at my head in the dusk as I walk back down the hill to my mother’s cottage for my meal. I would avoid going home but I am extremely hungry. My family are already at the table and all look up as I walk in.
‘Your tea is near spoilt,’ my mother says crossly.
I decide on a half-truth. ‘Lisette arrived in a state. She could not find Lady Isabella and the preacher was due at her mother’s cottage, so I said I would go and find her.’
‘And did thee?’ my father asks.
‘Yes, she was on her way home.’
‘Not with you, then?’ one of my brothers laughs crudely.
‘Obviously not,’ I say shortly.
‘We’ll have none of that,’ my mother snaps. ‘You may all have known Lady Isabella since she were a child, but she is a respectable married lady now and don’t you forget it.’
I eat my meal in silence. Since my years in Prince Edward Island I have grown away from my brothers. In the house I shared with the architect’s family I was treated almost as an equal. I learnt to converse, to listen, and to read. I learnt there is more to life than putting a meal on a table. I learnt that the world is vast and there is much to discover away from the land of your birth. I learnt that I want more of a life than the one my parents and brothers lead here in the village.
God gave me a gift. Through my fingers, through my love of wood lies the way forward to a better life.
I walk back to my room through the hot summer evening. It still feels close and I watch the glow-worms by the side of the road and feel a strange, sick longing for a woman not of my own kind, who belongs to someone else.
In the sail loft the covers are still rucked up and disordered. I catch the smell of Isabella on them. I lie exactly where she lay and fall into an exhausted sleep.
At dawn, when the sun was edging up, hazy in sea mist, blood red over the sea, glittering on the water as it burnt off and flamed into a new day, Tom finished carving the haunting and sensuous face of Lady Isabella Magor; as he remembered her, lying under him, arched and abandoned in that first act of love. The date was June 15th 1865.
Chapter 50
A thin blue airmail letter arrived from Josh at an RAF air base in Kuwait. He sounded excited. He was about to leave for his ‘floating airfield’, somewhere he could not specify. He was flying a Lynx Mark 7 and extolled its virtues in the enthusiastic way pilots talk about their aircraft.
The aircraft carrier had left British waters before Josh had been picked to take over from a sick colleague, and he told Gabby he was looking forward to joining the rest of his squadron.
There is quite a lot of frustration here in Kuwait among the pilots flying the RAF Tornados over the no-fly zones in Iraq. The living quarters are quite basic, with overcrowding and not enough washing facilities or airconditioning. Added to this, there is a lot of rumbling about the high temperatures affecting the jets, which are designed for cold war airdefence. The Yanks flying side by side with us have far superior equipment, so you can imagine the envy of British pilots!
Gabby … This is just a quick bluey while I’m on dry land … got to go … Hope all is well at home … Give my love to everyone … Love you lots, Josh.
Gabby smiled and tucked it in her pocket. It was seven days old. Josh would be on the aircraft carrier by now. She looked up at a clear sky. How far away he seemed.
How different Cornwall seemed, too, Gabby thought. People were beginning to descend on the coast in the run-up to the
eclipse and the roads were full of foreign cars and television vans. The landscape seemed to have been hijacked and plundered. Even the beach no longer belonged to her and Shadow. There were figures doing strange dances to the rising sun and sitting in yoga positions and chanting and drawing strange circles in the sand.
‘I even found someone in my garden,’ Elan said indignantly, ‘and when I asked him why he was there, he said “The cliff top belongs to everyone, man.”’
‘I suspect you told him exactly who it did belong to?’ Nell said, trying not to laugh. ‘The television companies are camped out on Marazion beach. It is quite festive down there, actually.’
Nell, who had thought the smallest cottage beyond the barn too shabby to rent out, had been offered a ridiculous amount by a Dutch television station.
‘I showed them round first,’ she told Gabby and Charlie, ‘and they jumped at it, though where they are all going to sleep is a mystery.’
‘I wouldn’t worry,’ Charlie said. ‘I expect they have an expense account for twice the amount you are asking.’
The days were hot and sticky, the air full of anticipation and something elemental too. There was an unnatural lack of wind to lift the heat haze which hung over the fields. Everyone longed for a breeze to come off the sea, cool and sharp.
Nell reluctantly set off for Truro one morning with a painting. She was going to lunch with Peter, but could have done without a morning in a town. Charlie left early for the auctioneers in St Austell with some cattle, and Gabby set off along the coastal path to the village with Shadow to buy stamps, airmail letters and bread.
She met Susan Dale riding Hal through the village and the horse tried to bury his nose in her pocket. Gabby laughed, stroking his whiskery old face. The two women talked of Susan’s children and Josh for a few minutes and moved on.
Gabby felt restless. She thought of Mark. Now she was here she ached to be back with him in London. Should she walk over to Elan? She decided against it, she would go home and write to Josh.
As she came up the path which skirted the top field, now full of almost finished houses, she spotted a black car moving fast down the lane towards the farmhouse. Something about its speed alarmed her and she broke into a run as she entered the yard.
Three men got out of the black car and stood outside the front door which was never used. Two were in naval uniform. One was a padre wearing a black cassock. Gabby called out to them and they turned towards her, their faces serious. For a moment she thought they must have come to the wrong house and were looking for someone else, then something grim in their faces alerted her and she stood quite still as they moved towards her.
‘Mrs Ellis?’
Gabby nodded. Please God. Please God. Please God.
Josh!
‘Could we go inside, Mrs Ellis?’
‘Please … tell me …’
‘Let’s go inside.’
Gabby turned like a sleepwalker and they followed her round into the yard and through the back door into the kitchen. She saw one of them had a roll of paper in his hand and was preparing to read a statement from it.
‘Is my son …?’
‘No,’ the padre said quickly. ‘Your son is not dead, Mrs Ellis.’
They kept asking her to sit down. Gabby sat on a chair and the naval officer said, ‘I’m Lieutenant Commander Paul Drew. This is the naval family officer, Don Watts, and our padre, Commander Paul Mitchell. We are here on behalf of the army as your son was operating from a Royal Navy aircraft carrier in a multi-service operation.’
He nervously unrolled his piece of paper and stood in front of Gabby and formally read out in a monotone:
‘I regret to inform you that at fifteen hundred hours yesterday, your son, Joshua Ellis, along with his co-pilot and two passengers, was reported missing in hostile territory. All the British soldiers involved were participating in a training exercise with an Air Assault Brigade.
‘It is believed that Captain Ellis was forced to land his Lynx helicopter through bad weather or hostile fire. Search and rescue were immediately mounted. We regret that at the present time we do not know the whereabouts of your son, his co-pilot, or the other two British soldiers, and they are now listed as missing.’
Gabby felt the strange displaced feeling of sudden shock. The naval officer lowered his piece of paper and looked at Gabby anxiously. The family officer hovered at her side. She realized they were waiting for her to break down.
‘Let me make some tea,’ the family officer said.
‘Are you saying that the helicopter was forced to land somewhere in Iraq?’
‘I’m afraid so, Mrs Ellis. More information is coming in all the time. There had been a sandstorm earlier in the day and that alone could have brought the Lynx down.’
Gabby stared at him. ‘But the helicopter didn’t crash?’
‘No, it had a forced landing.’ But the Lt Commander did not meet her eyes.
‘How do you know this?’
‘The Lynx was traced. Radio contact was maintained after it was damaged and forced to land.’
‘I don’t understand. If you had radio contact, why don’t you know where the men are? Why wouldn’t they stay with the helicopter so they could be rescued?’
The Lt Commander sat down opposite her at the kitchen table. Gabby saw he was anxious and very young. Perhaps it was the first time he had had to do this sort of thing.
‘Mrs Ellis, we are constrained by the nature of this operation as to what we are allowed to divulge. The political situation is extremely tricky … The helicopter, once on the ground, would have had to be made inoperable in case it fell into Iraqi hands …’
‘You say missing …’ Gabby’s chest was so tight she could hardly breathe. ‘You mean captured, don’t you? You mean captured …’ She heard the kettle boiling behind her, held on to the edge of the table.
‘No. Not necessarily. The four men would have had to split up in order to evade capture. Unfortunately they will also be unable to use their radios because if we can pick up their signals so can the Iraqis. But you must remember, Mrs Ellis, all those men have been trained for this sort of eventuality.’
‘My son had only been out there about two weeks.’
‘I assure you, if he had been picked for this operation he would have been training for months.’
‘But not in desert conditions.’
They all looked at her. ‘He would definitely have trained in desert conditions, Mrs Ellis.’
Gabby felt sick. There was so much about Josh’s life she did not have a clue about, obviously could not be told. There she had been, thinking he was safely flying a few hundred miles up the road in Wiltshire, and he had been somewhere quite else, thousands of miles away in Kuwait, training for this. Every week they had talked. Every single week. But she should know, for God’s sake she should know, with a mobile phone you could be anywhere.
She got up to find clean mugs and pointed out the tea, got the milk out of the fridge. Everything had gone into slow motion and she was watching herself calmly doing these things. She forced herself to ask, ‘If they are captured, what will happen to them? Will you know? Will they be paraded in the streets like those two poor RAF officers in the Gulf war …?’ She could not bear it. Josh beaten-up, humiliated … maybe alone and frightened.
‘We are not at war with Iraq. We are maintaining a UN-sanctioned no-fly zone for the protection of Northern Iraq, the Marsh Arabs, the Kurds, and countries such as Turkey and Saudi. Unfortunately this means constantly being under Iraqi fire, but I do not believe Iraq wants a diplomatic incident at the moment.
‘Mrs Ellis, there are a lot of people out looking for your son and the other officers. This includes the American helicopter pilots. God willing, we will find them before they are captured.’
‘You … really believe this?’
The young officer paused. ‘I do, Mrs Ellis. There is a concentrated effort being mounted to find and air-lift them out …’ He swallowed and met Gabby’s e
yes. ‘We must remain optimistic that all four men will come out … safely.’
To his credit he did not flinch from the truth, but Gabby was suddenly very cold. He had just stopped himself saying, alive.
‘However, the situation is extremely grave. We have a Foreign Office minister flying out to Kuwait tonight. I promise you everything that can be done is being done.’
A cup of tea was placed into her hand. In a moment, Gabby thought, I will wake up.
‘May I say that you are taking this remarkably well, Mrs Ellis.’
He sounded so relieved. Gabby smiled. What a horrible job the poor man had.
‘Your husband? Can we ring him for you?’
Charlie! ‘He’s in St Austell. I’ll ring his mobile.’
Charlie picked up straight away. ‘Gabby, this isn’t a good time.’
‘Charlie, please come home. I have some naval officers with me. It’s Josh … Josh’s helicopter has come down over Iraq … he’s missing … Charlie, he is missing … maybe captured.’
Gabby was suddenly shaking as the words began to sink in.
‘Jesus,’ Charlie said. ‘I’m on my way now.’
The Lt Commander said to Gabby gently, ‘I need to reach one more family in Plymouth in case the news breaks at six p.m. Apart from alerting the families we are trying to keep this low profile for obvious reasons relating to safety. So any information you are given is restricted, Mrs Ellis, to immediate family. I have to make you aware of this. I am so sorry to leave you. Would you like the padre to stay?’
Gabby shook her head. ‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’
‘The family officer will stay with you for as long as you need him and certainly until your husband gets here. This is a contact number to ring for information. Give them about twenty minutes for new information to come in.’
Another Life Page 32