by Fern Britton
She sat on the bed, closed her eyes and began her private ritual of summoning Trevay in her mind’s eye and walking its narrow streets and lanes. What were the little boats in the harbour doing now? Would any of the ones she remembered still be working or were they left in the silt, their hulks rotting down to skeletons? Or perhaps they’d been dragged up to The Sheds where all boats rested, used and unused.
She could smell the seaweed and the salt.
Hear the gulls laughing.
The splash of water as children launched their crab lines into the deep harbour.
Her mother painting at her easel on the beach. Her washed-out linen shirts and faded trousers glowing in the sun.
Poppa sitting at his pottery wheel. The shiny slip of water and clay covering his hands to his elbows.
She dared, for a moment, to think about Henry but, as always, the electric nerve pain of the thought stopped her. She couldn’t even summon his face now. Or Ella’s. She had been a wicked woman. And now, with the letter from Cornwall, they had found her and would make her pay.
It had come like a ghost summoning her to her grave.
There were several old addresses written on the envelope as it had chased her around the globe, before finding her here, in India.
When she had read it, locked in her bathroom, away from any inquisition, the sense of fear had almost compelled her to run again.
The letter told her that her father had died some years ago, her mother three years ago. They had died intestate, had made no will, so she was the sole heir to the estate. The house had been sold for a good price when the solicitor, acting as trustee, had rightly thought the market was at its highest. That money was now in a high interest account and it was hers. She or her solicitor should come to Cornwall. All that needed to be done was to prove her identity and sign some forms. She didn’t even have to come to Cornwall, she could send a solicitor as her representative.
There was nothing about her children.
It took several days before she could formulate her reply. In it she expressed a desire to meet Henry and Ella and would only return to Cornwall if they wanted to see her.
The solicitor agreed to phone her when he had their answer.
She lay on the bed and allowed memories of her childhood to fill her thoughts.
She was on the beach at Shellsand Bay. Her father, nut-brown and strongly muscled, was swinging her round and round. He was smiling. His bright blue eyes twinkling in his tanned face and his deep laugh making her giggle. ‘Daddeeeee.’
‘Bill, darling, she might be sick,’ said her mother.
‘Are you going to be sick?’ he asked Sennen.
‘Noooooo,’ she giggled.
‘Would you like to come swimming with me and Mum?’
‘Yeeessssss.’
He put her down on the warm sand. ‘Get your rubber ring and we’ll look for the mermaids, shall we?’
Sennen ran to her mother. ‘Mummy, Daddy’s taking us swimming.’ She’d pulled at the slender, elegant hand of her mother. ‘Come on.’
Her father stood ready in his dark-blue swimming shorts.
Her mother smiled, ‘Of course. Let me just sort myself out.’ Adela had been painting in the small sketchbook she always carried with her, capturing the likeness of fishermen mending their nets or lobster pots piled high on the harbour or the holidaymakers napping in the sun.
‘I like that,’ said Bill peering over her shoulder at her watercolour of the beach scene in front of them. ‘Good colours.’
Adela stood up and put her hands on her husband’s bare chest. She kissed him. ‘Thank you.’
He kissed her back then held her slim body in his arms. She pressed her cheek against him and smelt the warmth of his skin.
‘I do love you,’ she said.
‘And I love you.’
Sennen bashed her mother on the back of the knees with her sand spade. ‘Come! On!’
Bill and Adela laughed and, taking Sennen in a hand each, they ran to the waves, swinging her between them. She had grown up surrounded by so much love and kindness. How could she have turned her back on them?
3
Cornwall, 1972
Adela was Cornish to the heart. Her parents had been wealthy landowners from Bodmin, her father the quintessential country squire and her mother a beauty of her day. Adela had wanted for nothing. The only awkward thing being that they were none of the things she actually wanted. Money, comfort, beauty, beaus – all were hers for the taking. But it wasn’t what she longed for. She dreamt of being a great artist, living a rackety bohemian life in London, preferably Pimlico, which she had heard about and liked the sound of.
When she finally told them, it had caused much consternation for her parents, who had planned a husband, Anthony, handsome and untroubled by intellect with a rather lovely medieval manor house on the banks of the Tamar.
But it was not to be. At the age of eighteen she won a place at the Slade School of Art on Gower Street, Bloomsbury.
She refused her parents’ offer of a nice little flat in Baker Street and, instead, put her name down for a flat-share with any of the new, female, students she would be joining up with. She would find out who when she arrived for her first term.
Her mother, a woman with a great capacity for organisation, decided her talents would be best spent taking her only child to Truro for the day and kitting her out with a new wardrobe of fashionable dresses and accessories and, as an afterthought, paints.
Come early September her father ordered his cherished Morris 6 to be serviced, polished and refuelled and drove her up to London in what he noted was record time. Nine and a half hours. It would have been even quicker if it hadn’t been for the thick fog that had rolled over Dartmoor and a puncture on the A38.
Adela had waved him off to his club, where he would spend the night before the return journey the following day, and set about her new life with enthusiasm.
Her new flat, off Marylebone High Street, was small but clean and her flatmates were fun. There was Elsie, who was Irish and smoked, and Kina, who tied her hair with bright cotton scarves and wore boy’s jeans. She was from Jamaica and was the most exotic person Adela had ever met.
Together they shared everything, including Kina’s fashion sense. Within days Adela’s pretty dresses and gloves, were taken off their hangers and bundled into Adela’s suitcase under her single bed. Now Adela hunted the jumble sales and bric-a-brac stalls for overgrown jumpers and men’s shirts which she knotted at the waist and loose canvas trousers. For a brief moment she tried smoking too but she really couldn’t get on with it so took, instead, to drinking halves of bitter when she met fellow students in the pub.
The first year flew by and, returning to Cornwall the following summer, she was surprised by how much she had missed it.
Her mother wanted to know all the London gossip. She had none. Had she been to Harrods? No. At which restaurants had she dined? Again, none.
Had she met any nice boys as she would be delighted to invite them to tea? No, but if I do I shall let them know.
Why did she wear such shabby clothes? I like them.
Wouldn’t she like to get her hair styled? It’s fine as it is.
It was towards the end of August that Adela took herself up to the golden fields of swaying corn in order to paint the local men who were getting her father’s harvest in.
Her mother had hung string bags of bread, cheese and pasties on her handlebars and in her panniers she had placed bottles of cider to give the men a snack. When Adela had arrived, the men, stripped to their vests, had cheered and stopped work to enjoy their break. She knew most of them by sight, if not by name, as they had been getting the harvest in for as many years as she could remember.
Perching on whatever they could find, the bolder amongst them asked about her new life in London. She told them about the London pubs she visited and the life-drawing classes where the models were naked.
There was one boy, wide-shouldered and sunb
urnt with very blue eyes and very white teeth who lay on his shirt and listened but didn’t look at her or join in.
She had never seen him before.
When the snack was done and both thirsts and appetites quenched, Old John, her father’s stockman, called the men back to their labours.
The new boy thanked her for the food and drink and introduced himself as Bill. His hand was rough and strong in hers as she shook it. ‘Will you be here tomorrow?’ he had asked. ‘I’m not sure,’ she replied.
He smiled as he put his cap on and picked up his pitch fork. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he said and strode back up the field.
‘Who’s that new boy helping with the harvest?’ she asked her father over dinner that night.
‘Aha,’ smiled her father. ‘No need to ask you which one. All the girls are after him.’
Adela looked at the asparagus on her plate and stabbed it. ‘I was just wondering.’
Her father gave a sly look to her mother and said innocently, ‘He’s a good chap, actually. I know his father. Nice man but awfully worried for the boy. He doesn’t want to join the family firm. He’s down in St Ives, working with some pottery chap. Pity.’
Adela couldn’t help but bristle. ‘Pity? Because he prefers art to business?’
Her mother leant over and touched Adela’s hand. ‘No dear, your father is mischief-making. The boy – William, I think his name is?’ She looked at her husband who nodded. ‘William, is a super chap, although a bit of a leftie.’
Adela couldn’t help but laugh. ‘We are all a bit “leftie” now, you know.’
‘We are not!’ Her father banged the table.
‘Well, I am,’ said Adela calmly.
Her mother gasped and clutched her throat. ‘Oh darling, is that why you dress like a man?’
Adela shook her head smiling. ‘No, Mother, I dress like this because it’s comfortable and practical and all my friends do the same.’
Her father took a mouthful of pork pie and mumbled, ‘I told you we shouldn’t have let her go to London.’
Her mother ignored him. ‘But, Adela, dear, if you want a husband you must at least try to look pretty.’
‘I’m not sure I want a husband.’
‘But, dear …’ Her mother was putting two and two together and making six. ‘Do you not like men?’
Adela put her knife and fork neatly on her plate and said nothing.
‘I mean,’ her mother continued, ‘it could be just a phase you’re going through. I remember at boarding school there were girls who got quite friendly but they got over it in the end.’
‘Mother, stop, you are embarrassing Father, me and yourself.’
‘Your father’s a farmer, he knows all about these things.’ She turned to her husband. ‘Don’t you, dear?’
Her father finished his wine and stood up. ‘I’m going to let the dogs out.’
‘Mother, you are terrible,’ said Adela watching her father go. ‘Now let’s clear the table.’
The next day Adela went back to the fields and was pleased when William waved at her and was one of the first to get a glass of lemonade and slice of cheese. ‘Hello again,’ he said. ‘Are you painting today?’
Adela was putting out the bread and cheese and a few apples on to a linen cloth for the lads. ‘It’s so lovely up here, I thought I would.’
‘May I see it when you’re done?’
‘It depends.’ She smiled. ‘I hear you’re a potter?’
He took an apple and rubbed it on his trousers. ‘My father has been talking to yours, I suppose?’
Adela smiled wryly.
‘I’m an apprentice,’ said Bill, ‘down in St Ives?’
‘Ah, Bernard Leach country.’
‘I’m impressed.’ He took a chunk out of his apple. ‘Nobody here seems to have heard of him.’
‘I’m studying art at the Slade.’
‘Yes, I heard. Your father has been talking to mine.’
Adela laughed and Bill looked at her closely. ‘That explains it.’
‘Explains what?’
‘The way you look.’
She looked down at her crumpled linen smock and rolled up trousers, and said defiantly, ‘What’s wrong with the way I look?’
‘Nothing.’ He grinned. ‘I like it. You look like the type of girl who wouldn’t mind getting caught in rainstorm, or pushing a car out of a ditch.
‘Oh,’ she said disconsolately.
‘It’s a compliment, believe me.’
‘Didn’t sound like one.’
She looked down at her scruffy sandals and brown, unshaved ankles. Self-consciously she tucked them under herself.
From the top of the field she heard Old John calling the lads back to work.
‘Tell you what,’ said Bill standing up and tossing his apple core into a hedge, ‘what are you doing tonight?’
She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Why?’
‘I’m taking you out. I’ll pick you up at seven.’
She had nothing to wear. The bed was littered with half a dozen garments which she’d had for years. Amongst which was an old dress she’d had since she was fourteen that was too short and much too tight; a pretty cotton skirt with a broken zip – and a horrible taffeta bridesmaid dress she’d had to wear for her cousin’s wedding. Red faced from her bath and the putting on and taking off of so many things, she sat on the edge of the bed in despair. There was a soft knock at the door.
‘It’s Mother. Can I help?’
Adela sighed and flopped backwards on to the bed in despair. ‘Come in.’
Her mother put her head around the door. ‘I thought so. I found this. Any good?’
She was holding a Liberty-print cotton summer dress. ‘I bought it ages ago. In a sale. It’s too young for me. Too small, too. Try it.’
In the mirror, even Adela was pleased with her reflection. The dress was simple and hung a little loose on her but it was perfect. Her mother had brushed her hair into a neat ponytail and had attempted a little rouge and lipstick but Adela had been firm about saying no. Finally, her mother had stepped back. ‘You’ll do,’ she said.
From downstairs they heard the bang of the old doorknocker and her father calling up the stairs, ‘Prince Charming has arrived, Cinders.’
Bill had borrowed his father’s car and drove Adela through the lanes and down to the pretty fishing village of Trevay. His shirtsleeved arm leaning on the open window, he chatted about this and that and gradually the knot in Adela’s stomach began to loosen. As they came down the hill towards the harbour, Adela saw that the fishing boats were coming in on the tide, ready to land their catches on the quay. The sun was bouncing on the surface of the rippling sea making the light sparkle and flash.
‘I love it here,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been for ages. I could paint that sea every day.’
Bill parked the car outside the Golden Hind, picked up his jacket from the back seat and helped Adela inside.
‘What will you drink?’ he asked.
‘Half a bitter, please.’ She didn’t see his amused smile as she looked around the dark and cosy bar. ‘It’s nice in here.’
Paying the barman, he carried his pint and her half towards the door. ‘Let’s take our drinks outside.’
The sun was beginning to set and the day was losing its warmth. She shivered a little as they sat on the harbour wall across form the pub and watched the fishing boats unload.
‘Would you like my jacket?’ he asked. ‘Or I have a jumper in the car?’
‘You’ll need your jacket but the jumper would be lovely thank you.’
‘Don’t go away.’ He set off for the car, Adela watching him. He was undeniably handsome, tall and muscular with an easy smile, the sort of man, she thought, one could fall in love with. She checked herself and looked back at the boat. She was only eighteen and she and Elsie and Kina had sworn to each other that they would play the field as men did, would never settle down with the first man they met. She looked over to him again.
He was leaning into the car and reaching for something on the back seat. When he reappeared, he had the jumper in his hand and looked over at her with such a look that her heart jumped a little. She quickly returned her gaze to the boats, as if the unloading of their catches was of the utmost interest. She decided that, when he came back, she would be polite and cool. She would give no indication that she might find him attractive.
Adela waited a few seconds longer then glanced in his direction to see what was keeping him.
She saw at once.
Two girls were talking to him. Two pretty girls. One had her hand on his chest as she was talking to him, the other was pulling at his hand.
Adela’s hand was shaking so much that she had to put her drink down. She looked over again. He was pointing at her and all three of them were laughing. At her? She felt her breath quicken and her cheeks redden. How could she escape?
Too late, he was coming towards her. ‘Adela, meet a couple of old friends. Barbara …’
‘Hello,’ pouted Barbara, still holding Bill’s hand.
‘And Jill.’
‘Hi,’ said Jill, giving Adela a full top to toe scope.
‘Bill …’ Adela stood. ‘I’m so sorry, I’m not feeling very well. I’ll get the bus back.’
Bill frowned. ‘Don’t be silly, I’ll drive you.’
‘No, it’s no trouble. I’ll get the bus or ring my father. I don’t want to spoil your evening.’
‘Spoil my …’ Bill was confused and exasperated. ‘We’ve only just got here.’
Jill butted in. ‘She’ll be fine on the bus. Stay with us. We’ll have a laugh.’
Adela stood fixed to the spot. Was she to be so easily shaken off?
Bill shook out his jumper and placed it around Adela’s shoulders.
‘Adela needs to go home and I shall take her.’
In the car, Adela said nothing. Her emotions were running high. She was elated that he had brushed those girls off but angry that he even knew them. Who were they? How well did he know them? Her father had said that all the girls were after him. Well, she wasn’t. This would be the first and last time she would accept a date from him.