Meredith and Bernard were seventeen, and home for the Christmas holidays from their respective private schools. Mr Barton senior had recently moved the family to Hampton, and as a bigwig in the Wool Board he’d attracted the interest of Bernard’s mother, who issued an invitation to the Westons’ notoriously select Christmas Eve drinks party. When the Bartons arrived, Bernard and Meredith, as was their habit, were huddled in a corner for mutual support, and as a result Bernard had an unimpeded view of Meredith’s expression when she caught sight of Jonty. To be fair, she was not the only woman reacting to his entrance, but she was the only one young enough and (Austen again) handsome enough to tempt the tall, muscular and chiselled-featured (more Barbara Cartland, that) Jonty Barton.
To add to his attractions, Jonty was nineteen and excelling at university, where he was studying to become a chartered accountant. On the fast track to become a partner in a major firm, Bernard’s mother delighted in telling him. If Verity Weston could have designed her ideal son, he would have been exactly like Jonty Barton: sporting rather than bookish, outgoing rather than shy, robust and attractive rather than slender and bespectacled, ambitious for a proven career rather than wasting time with books. In other words, a single man of guaranteed good fortune, who, judging by the look on Meredith’s face that night, would not long be in want of a wife.
Austen to Brontë: Reader, she married him. Jonty did indeed become a partner in a firm of chartered accountants. They had two daughters. They inherited Woodhall when Meredith’s parents passed on. Bernard’s mother continued to needle him with constant comparisons. How successful Jonty was, how wealthy, how much status he had in the community.
But if Jonty were the hare, Bernard fitted well the role of tortoise. He attained a first-class degree in English Literature, found a job in a mid-sized publishing firm, and met Patricia, who worked in his favourite bookshop. When she asked him out, Bernard was so shocked he couldn’t remember saying yes, but as she was the first woman to have shown even a glimmer of interest in him, he would hardly have refused.
He couldn’t remember much about the worst day of his life, either, when he and Patricia were informed they could not have children. They must have comforted each other, before they’d quietly re-calibrated their expectations and moved on.
When the publishing firm was acquired in the mid-1980s, Bernard, by that time a shareholder, was suddenly prosperous. Suspecting he’d soon be edged out by the new regime, he quit and, though his affection for publishing tempted him to start a company of his own, his natural caution and sense of duty to Patricia led him instead to buy a commercial building in Hampton.
His mother derided his decision, citing Hampton as a no-hoper’s backwater. Which, to be fair, in those days it was. Then it boomed. Bernard bought more property, in Hampton and in Gabriel’s Bay. He made a profit on everything he sold. By the mid-1990s, the tortoise was considerably wealthier than Jonty Barton, and had more status, too, having been invited to join numerous civic-minded organisations and boards of local companies. Even Verity Weston had to accept that, though she was not lost for other ways to needle him. And now, of course, the giant had plummeted from his cloud castle and hit the ground hard. Jonty was trapped by a debilitating illness, whereas Bernard was hale and free.
And, aye, there was the rub: even if he had been petty-minded enough to see his ascendancy as a victory, Bernard could never truly relish it. Patricia and he were quite content, and he was grateful for her considerate nature and undemanding companionship. But always in his mind lurked questions about his own actions — or inactions — on that Christmas Eve. Should he have fought for Meredith? Argued that her attraction to Jonty was shallow, purely physical, whereas he, Bernard, had proved for all the years they’d grown up together that he could offer her real, lasting affection? Could he have persuaded her that kindness was preferable to domination and control, humility easier than arrogance? Could he have made her see that she would be so much happier if she chose instead her life-long best friend?
Even the novel in his hands seemed to be a rebuke. Hardy’s title — A Laodicean — referred to the Bible and the harsh words of the angel of the church in Laodicaea: ‘I know your life; I know that you are neither cold nor hot … now, because you are lukewarm … I am about to spit you out of my mouth.’
On that Christmas Eve, Bernard had been lukewarm, and Meredith had spat him out of her life. But forty-six years had passed. It was foolish to entertain even the faintest hope that there would be any kind of second chance.
Chapter 3
Kerry
Kerry took the turn off the main street to the beach. His new employer — Mrs Barton, until the unlikely event that she indicated a less formal address would be acceptable — had shown him his quarters and asked him to report for duty at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Now, he had the rest of Sunday afternoon to kill, so he may as well explore what scenic delights Gabriel’s Bay had to offer, seeing he’d apparently exhausted what it had to offer in the way of town.
Really, whoever built that website was either deluded or should be prosecuted for false advertising. His father’s model-train villages had better amenities and more aesthetic civic design, and they were only a few inches high and made from a kit. Kerry had always enjoyed his father’s hobby, but only now did he get a full sense of the pleasure one could gain from creating your own little world. Everything arranged just so — neat, pretty and working without a hitch. Gabriel’s Bay was living proof that picture-perfect existed only in pictures, or out in a shed on a base of plywood six feet square.
However, as a bonus his new quarters were miles better than a plank and straw ticking, being a renovated shearer’s hut at the rear of the property, five minutes’ walk from the house.
‘This was a three-thousand-acre sheep farm at one time,’ Mrs Barton had told him. ‘My family settled this land in eighteen seventy-five, and farmed it successfully, profitably, for over a hundred years. But between the lifting of government subsidies and a generation less willing to do the work, it became unviable. The homestead and gardens, and a few other outbuildings, are now all that’s left.’
‘Who bought the rest of the land?’ said Kerry. ‘If that’s not a sore point.’
‘Various owners,’ she replied, ‘with varying degrees of competency. With every sale, it seems, the land is broken up into ever-smaller blocks. Our nearest neighbours have been here only six months. They are apparently establishing an organic enterprise.’
‘Apparently?’
‘I suspect their ambitions may outstretch their ability. They seem a very nice young couple, but rather … Let’s say, over-optimistic.’
The shearer’s hut had been renovated to a taste that Kerry cautiously pegged as feminine. White walls with duck-egg blue trim on the window ledges, a single bed with a patchwork quilt, a chest of drawers and iron-curlicue hooks on the wall for clothing, and a chintz-covered armchair next to a pale green box that served as a side table. The box had round holes in the front, and on the lid the words ‘Live birds’ shakily handwritten in black pen. Along the back wall there was a tiny kitchen, a fold-up table and two chairs, and a door that Kerry assumed — hoped — led to a bathroom. There was no television, but on the single bookshelf was an old cream-coloured Bakelite radio. The room and everything in it were as clean as a whistle.
‘This is very nice,’ he said. ‘Did you do it up yourself?’
‘My daughter did. Nicola.’
Meredith Barton lifted a finger to straighten a watercolour of some purplish flowers in a blue vase.
‘This was her haven, before she—’
Kerry noted the catch in her voice, the slight tremor in her hand. Oh, God, he thought, her daughter’s died. Then again, there was no knowing what might upset some people. Kerry didn’t trust himself to speculate and lacked the courage to ask.
‘We lost her eighteen months ago.’
Still a lingering ambiguity, but Kerry felt safe enough to say, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Thank you.’
His employer subjected him to a cool, silent scrutiny, which incited in Kerry an urge to drop to his knees and beg forgiveness for all his manifold sins. Perhaps because she reminded him of an older version of the Madonna in the print in his parents’ house, dark-eyed, clear-skinned, not particularly thrilled to be holding up her baby, as if it was the millionth time that day she’d been asked to do so. It was his father’s print, of course. His mother only tolerated it because the copper-haired Christ child was, she swore, a dead spit for Kerry as a baby. Kerry grew to have doubts about God being a ginger, but who was he to question a mother’s love?
‘Nicola’s death hit my husband very hard. It brought about the onset of his — condition.’
In her emails to Kerry, Meredith Barton had only said that her husband would not leave his bed, ate very little and shunned the contact of anyone but his wife. No name had been given to this ‘condition’, but Bronagh Macfarlane, when he called to tell his parents he was off to New Zealand, said, ‘If there’s nothing physically wrong with him, no heart trouble or low blood pressure or dicky hormones, then it’s most likely clinical depression.’
‘And is there a cure?’
‘He should be getting medical treatment and counselling. Is he?’
‘Doesn’t sound like it. I got the firm impression the only person who’s been looking after him is his wife.’
‘But now she needs help?’
‘I’d say she’s needed it from the start, but it’s taken her this long to ask.’
‘And you’ll do what for her?’ said Bronagh.
‘Cook for the pair of them, do the laundry, run errands. She has a cleaner,’ he added. ‘And a gardener.’
‘Not short of a bob then?’
‘Their house has a name.’
‘Our caravan has a name!’
‘ “Adventure before Dementia” doesn’t quite have that same posh ring to it.’
‘Do they not have family to help out?’ asked his mother. ‘Children?’
‘Don’t know,’ had been Kerry’s answer then. ‘If they do, they’re not around.’
He’d cursed his poor choice of words as the conversation dropped into a black hole, both of them aware of the distance between them, neither of them willing to raise the subject of when it would be reduced.
‘Miss you,’ said his mother, finally.
And Kerry had ended the call with ‘Miss you, too.’
He’d call his mother again soon, and fill her in on the new, if possibly very temporary, situation. He was already embellishing the story: Jonty Barton, like Dracula during daylight hours. Add in the reserved and stoical Mrs Barton and the ghost of a dead daughter, and the whole set-up was pure Mysteries of Udolpho. All it needed was for the gardener to have one eye and a limp, and the cleaner the ability to slide noiselessly up behind you. And at least one room that must never be unlocked.
Oh well, his relationship with anyone at Woodhall would be purely professional. All the more reason to get to know others in the town, make sure he had normal people to talk to. Real people, with whom he could make real connections.
Kerry had never had trouble making friends; he was naturally sociable. But over the past eighteen months, he had come to realise that his idea of friendship was one that required minimal emotional effort. Drinks at the pub, social football followed by drinks at the pub, watching football on the pub’s big screen, celebrations — birthdays, getting new jobs, quitting old jobs — at the pub. His group were all good blokes, liked a laugh, ribbed each other mercilessly, shared standard gripes against bosses, people better off than them, and the unfathomable contrariness of women. Kerry had never heard any of them confess to finding life tough, despite evidence to the contrary — redundancy, the break-up of long-term relationships, the death of someone’s mum or dad. All that stuff was shrugged off, brushed away with ‘Life’s a cow’, followed by ‘Your round?’ No friend had ever phoned Kerry for a heart-to-heart. No one had ever confided in him, or asked for his help. Was that a reflection on him, or just typical of the kind of men he used to befriend? Could he be a different kind of man here? Did he have it in him?
But before he put it to the test, he needed food. It was three o’clock and he was famished. If he found nothing at the beach but sand, he’d head on back to the all-purpose takeaway he’d spotted.
He passed a couple more shops — a dowdy video store, fishing supplies — and an old printing firm that seemed to have been shut for some time. Across the road, there was a sign that said, with admirable brevity, ‘Plumbing’, next to a repairer of small electrical appliances. The commercial buildings, such as they were, petered out into scrubland, some areas fenced with chain link, though there seemed to be nothing but derelict sheds to protect. Then the road swung round and suddenly Kerry had sea to his left, bordered by tussocky dunes and a low fence half-submerged by sand. On his right was a collection of small houses, all showing signs that seaside living here was not always as tranquil as today. Rusty roofs, cracked and pitted corrugated plastic, stripped paint, wind-burned leaves on sparse plants. Halfway along, beachside, was a track to drive down if you wanted to launch a boat; Kerry spotted a wooden jetty. Just past that was a small parking lot, room for ten cars at most, and a series of four wooden boat sheds, raised up on short piles, Kerry assumed to avoid being washed out by unusually high tides or buried by massive sand drifts, or both.
The first three boat sheds looked to be exactly that, with padlocked doors and ramps for access. The last shed had no ramp — just a set of narrow wooden steps, and its door was not padlocked, but wide open, held fast by a hook on the side. Above the door was tacked a sign painted on a slab of driftwood: ‘The Boat Shed’. Kerry could see tables and chairs inside. A seaside café? Or someone’s private lounge? He swung into the parking lot, slotting the Fielder in next to an aging flat-deck utility, once red, a Honda motorcycle and, to his surprise and slight alarm, a police car.
As he got out of his own car, a young policewoman appeared in the shed’s doorway, in one hand a plastic refillable coffee cup and in the other a brown paper bag. She was in her mid-twenties, dark-skinned, dark hair pulled back in a short ponytail, attractive and slim with an athletic, no-nonsense gait. She spotted him, stopped for a moment to assess him, swiftly and unsmiling, then gave him a single nod.
Kerry decided against ‘Afternoon, officer’, and instead gave a nod of his own.
And that, it seemed, was their interaction complete. The policewoman hopped in her car, secured her lunch, slotted on a pair of dark glasses and drove off.
So much for making new friends. On the plus side, unless the owner was being strong-armed into paying for protection in kind, it seemed that coffee and food were indeed on offer inside.
Kerry took the steps to the front door and peered in. He was greeted by a tantalising aroma of roasting meat, but not by a person. Right at the back was a lean-to kitchen, and, through its open door, Kerry glimpsed the beach, heard male voices and smelled cigarette smoke. The interior walls of the shed were painted a pale yellow, and on them hung all manner of art and object — a carved wooden rifle, a photographic portrait of a white-haired woman with a tattooed chin (Māori, he assumed), an early advertising poster of a farmer herding sheep at the foot of snowy mountains. At the back was a short bar, with a coffee machine at one end and a lampshade with a stand made from deer antlers at the other. On a shelf were a blue ukulele, a pair of cowboy boots and a stuffed weasel. Six bleached-wood tables were matched with bright painted folding chairs, and four stools allowed for sitting up at the bar. The whole place could fit, at a guess, twenty-five people, though Kerry doubted that anyone around here paid much heed to fire safety regulations.
He reached the bar, hoping his footsteps would have alerted the men beyond, but either they hadn’t heard him or they’d chosen not to.
‘Hello?’ he called.
‘Fuck off,’ called a voice in return.
It wasn’t the
first time Kerry had been told that. And his hunger was such that he was not about to be deterred.
‘I have a wad of ready cash and I’m willing to spend the bulk of it right now.’
Silence. A scraping of chair legs. A heavy tread. And then the back doorway was entirely filled. Kerry’s palms began to sweat.
The man was easily six-foot-seven, blond and blue-eyed like an advertisement for the ideal Aryan. His outdoorsy perma-tan meant he could be anywhere from mid-fifties to a one-hundred-and-five. He wore a lumberjack plaid shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms the size of sheep and hands that could crack coconuts without aid. If Kerry lay on his side, he suspected his entire length would fall short of the breadth of this man’s shoulders. The only thing that slightly detracted from the effect was that he was wearing a red-and-white frilled apron.
The giant placed two hands on the bar and leaned forward. Kerry did his best not to lean back.
‘We’re closed,’ said the giant.
‘You served the policewoman,’ Kerry protested.
‘Special case.’
‘What if I beg?’
The giant blinked twice, surprised.
‘Seriously,’ Kerry continued. ‘I am so ridiculously starving, I have no shame.’
A chuckle from the back doorway. The giant’s companion. Rounder and much shorter — but then, who wasn’t? — of Polynesian descent, Kerry guessed, neat salt-and-pepper beard. Short-sleeved brown shirt with a swirly pattern that Kerry assumed was also Polynesian.
The companion rested his crossed arms on the bar.
‘Not from round here, are you?’
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