He decides to play it by ear. At some point he’ll run the idea of lunch at Sandra’s past the girls and see how they react. If they find it attractive then he’ll have to take his chance about how discreet she is. If they decide they’d rather he took them to a play-park or another place of entertainment then he’ll tell Sandra tactfully that they’ve made other arrangements.
Jerry pulls up at the junction, turns out on to the main road, and heads towards Thurlestone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE MIDWEEK MASS at Buckfast Abbey becomes a habit. Tim drives Francis, manages his wheelchair, and sits through the service gazing at the amazing stained-glass window in the chapel. The liturgy is familiar and though he does not receive Communion he is given a blessing. He doesn’t know why the touch of the priest’s hands on his head and the murmured words are a solace, but they are and he looks forward to them.
Afterwards he wheels Francis out of the Abbey, across to the café, and they have an early lunch together. It’s the hottest June on record and they sit outside on the balcony, looking over the gardens and the lavender beds, enjoying this sharing. And indeed, thinks Tim, it is good to share with Francis. Other little jaunts occur. They drive across the moor to the Two Bridges Hotel and sit by the river in the sun; Francis enjoys a pint of Jail Ale and laughs at the strutting and hissing of the geese. He calls them ‘the Mafia’. Tim takes him to a concert at the Abbey, where William’s choir is singing with other choirs, and drives him to Torcross beach where they sit in the sun and eat ice cream.
Tim is constantly surprised at his affection for this elderly man who is old enough to be his grandfather. There is an agelessness about Francis. He doesn’t talk endlessly about his past nor does he have a fund of anecdotes culled from his political life. Instead he engages with Tim as if he were his contemporary: they discuss poetry, music, ideas. It’s as if that one revelatory discussion, where each told a crucial secret about themselves, has brought them closer than if they’d known each other for years.
One day, after Mass, Tim admits to Francis that he’s been trying his hand at poetry: ‘It’s rubbish, of course,’ he says defensively, ‘but it’s very therapeutic.’
Francis doesn’t immediately ask to read it or protest that he’s sure it’s very good.
‘Writing’s a gift I’ve always envied,’ he says reflectively, ‘or indeed any of the creative arts. Music or painting. Where on earth do you begin?’
‘I didn’t start until I moved here,’ Tim tells him. ‘When I’m walking on the cliffs or on the moors I find that I’m trying to find phrases that might describe them. It’s impossible really. I started by making lists of words that related to something I felt.’ He stops and bursts out laughing. ‘Does that really sound as pretentious as I think it does?’
Francis laughs, too. ‘It’s no more pretentious than me trying to write my memoirs. At least it’s not all about you. After all, why should anyone be interested in the political maunderings of an old buffer nobody’s heard about?’
‘I suppose it depends whether you know any scurrilous stories about those in power at the time?’ suggests Tim. ‘Or would that be libel?’
Francis shrugs. ‘I think that it’s more to do with trying to make sense of my life. To see some sort of pattern. There was never any serious thought of publication.’
He looks around the café, as he often does, almost as if he’s hoping to see someone he recognizes and, when Tim raises his eyebrows, Francis smiles at him.
‘I met an old priest here quite by chance once, years ago. I was at a very low ebb and he put me back on course. He pointed me towards the writings of St John of the Cross, which have come to mean a very great deal to me. It’s foolish but I always hope I might see him again, sitting at a table reading a sheet of paper with the “Prayer of a Soul in Love” printed on it. He left the paper on the table when he went and I still have it.’
‘Did he leave it on purpose?’
The old man shrugs. ‘Who can say? I like to think so. I think that’s what prayer is all about. That we’re taken care of in those dark moments. I was in a very bad place and I came here looking for help. Father Theo was my miracle.’
Tim smiles at him. Francis’ faith touches him; he envies him the simplicity and strength of his belief.
‘Shall we go and smell the lavender?’ he asks.
Francis nods and Tim gets up and wheels him outside into the sunshine.
William’s barbecues are also becoming a regular event – on Fridays now, to kick off the weekend. It’s fun, once a week, for everyone to gather outside in these warm evenings and have a little party. Each person contributes and he enjoys getting everything organized: he chooses the meat, Tim provides the wine, Charlotte brings a pudding.
‘I feel rather de trop,’ says Kat.
‘You can supply coffee,’ grins William. ‘You know. “From each according to their abilities; to each according to their needs” or whatever.’
‘I didn’t know you were a Marxist, darling,’ she says.
It’s a good way to catch up and, though it’s accepted that friends are welcome, it tends to remain a family affair. Francis usually manages to come down from his lair to join them and, one Friday evening, Mattie was there, celebrating getting the job at Exeter. That was a very special, celebratory barbecue and William drank too much and sang.
It was even better when Fiona was staying. She thoroughly entered into the spirit of the party and William rather basked in her approval whilst telling himself not to be a bloody fool. She and Kat seemed to be getting along very well these days, though he noticed that Kat never invited Jerry along again.
‘He’s very welcome,’ he said to her. ‘It doesn’t have to be just family.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t quite work. I don’t know why. And it’s fun when it’s just us, isn’t it?’
‘Well, it is,’ he agreed. ‘It’s very relaxed. Though it was lovely when Mattie came, wasn’t it? Maybe she’ll manage a few more when she’s moved down.’
‘She can stay overnight with Charlotte,’ Kat said. ‘Or with Tim.’
He looked at her. ‘Anything going on there, do you think?’
She frowned, looking puzzled. ‘I think so but I’m not quite sure how – or what? Perhaps this is how the young have love affairs in this modern age. Or perhaps they’re just good friends.’
‘Perhaps,’ he said, but he was still puzzled.
Meanwhile his relationship with Fiona is easy again. She says no more about getting a bolt hole and William is beginning to wish that he hadn’t been quite so negative about it. He wonders whether it’s time to offer her the spare bedroom occasionally but needs to sound Kat out first. It’s such a volte-face that he’s embarrassed to mention it, though a little plan is forming in his mind. Andy is getting a week’s leave early in July and William wonders whether this would be the moment to broach the subject. It’s not that he wants to muscle in on Charlotte and Andy – they need privacy – but perhaps Fiona could stay over for just one night to see her son. He could organize a barbecue for that last Saturday night.
William feels rather excited at the prospect of them all being together but he knows that he needs to think about it very carefully. He’ll mention it to Kat and then talk to Charlotte before he even gives so much as a hint of it to Fiona.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MARKET DAY. THE stall-holders and the market traders are busy setting out their wares, awnings and canvases flap and flutter in the warm breeze; a pretty girl pushes a wooden barrow laden with vases and jugs full of bunches of fresh flowers to her pitch beside a pillar at the market’s edge. Across the street a busker is playing the Spanish guitar. As Kat wanders between the stalls, stopping to look, to chat, she listens to the Latin American music and wants to dance. The shoppers, locals and holiday-makers fill the square with bustle and noise, and she breathes in the scents of old books, Indian cotton, flowers and cheese.
Glancing idly across th
e high street she sees them: Jerry and Sandra standing together. He looks down at her as she talks, pretty in her summer clothes, bursting suddenly into laughter and clutching at his arm as if she might fall over with mirth. He doesn’t make any effort to remove her hand and Kat watches them, trying to analyse her reactions: jealousy, irritation, amusement? Oddly, she feels a sense of anxiety. She’s met plenty of Sandras: passive-aggressives, wearing their victims down by a relentless tide of good humour, determination, a quiet sense of grievance and the assurance that they know best. Jerry is no match for her.
Kat wonders if she should stake her claim: cross the road and take his other arm, kiss him. She can see a way forward with Jerry, a sharing of their lives together even if she goes to London. He was at ease with her friends at Bristol: his drama training stood him in good stead with these people of the stage. She can imagine him visiting London, spending time with her, having fun; and she will want to come back to see her family and be with him here. It could work, she is certain of it. He brings a kind of stability, calmness, which she values.
Even as she wonders what to do there is a little stir at the edge of the pavement. A pair of holiday-makers put down their shopping bags, walk into the road and, in perfect time with the guitarist, perform an Argentinian tango. Briefly Kat sees Sandra clutch Jerry even tighter, her mouth rounded into a rather shocked, surprised ‘O’ as if she slightly disapproves, and then all Kat’s attention is taken by the dance. In their shorts and sandals it should be incongruous, but it is not. They move beautifully together and with the music; there is dignity, even passion and drama. Nobody takes much notice; a car drives carefully around them, shoppers pass to and fro. When the music finishes the couple simply step back on to the pavement, pick up their bags and disappear into the crowds.
Kat steps forward and begins to clap, others follow suit, even the guitarist is smiling. Now Jerry has seen her. He looks uneasy, as if he has been caught out, but he is clapping too, now, so that Sandra’s hand has been dislodged. Kat laughs and waves to him, signalling her delight in the performance, and his anxious expression widens into a smile. Her heart gives a little tick and a jump: how dear he is to her. She crosses the street, still smiling.
‘Wasn’t that wonderful?’ she cries, including Sandra in her delight. ‘I could hardly believe it. Only in Totnes. Nobody turned a hair, did they?’
Sandra is looking at her warily: chin drawn in, eyes narrowed.
‘Rather dangerous,’ she says reprovingly, ‘dancing in the road. Not a very good example to the children.’
Kat stares at her with surprised amusement, wondering if she can be serious. ‘I don’t think it was too anarchic, was it?’
Sandra looks to Jerry for support. ‘You’re a teacher,’ she says brightly. ‘What do you think?’
Kat meets his eyes. She wants to burst out laughing but she sees that he is discomfited, pulled two ways at once, and she feels sad, irritated, and sorry for him all at the same time. She touches him lightly on the arm and turns away.
‘See you later, Jerry,’ she calls over her shoulder. ‘And remember, no dancing in the street!’
Jerry watches her go. He wants to run after her, to explain to her and make her understand how he feels: how impossible it is for him to hold a balance between her and Sandra. But something prevents him, some deep-down, ingrained desire to be conciliatory, reinforced by forty years of marriage, that makes it impossible for him to act outside of his conventional, well-mannered upbringing.
‘What an extraordinary thing to say.’ Sandra stares after Kat with an expression of disbelief on her face. ‘What a very odd woman she is. And are you,’ she adds almost carelessly, ‘seeing her later?’
‘Yes,’ he answers wretchedly, cursing himself for not having the courage to tell her to mind her own business. ‘Actually . . . yes, yes I am. And so what are your plans now?’
He can see that she’s wrestling with indecision: to question him further about Kat or seize the opportunity to make the most of her chance with him.
‘Well, I think it’s coffee time, don’t you?’
She smiles at him and she looks so arch, so hopeful, that he hasn’t the heart to refuse the implied offer – especially as he’s longing for refreshment.
‘I think it might be,’ he says. ‘Shall we sit outside in the sunshine?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ she answers at once. ‘It gets so hot and I’m no good in the glare of the sun. It’s because I’m so fair-skinned. Not like your Russian friend,’ she adds.
He begins to say that Kat isn’t Russian but decides against it. It will simply lead them deeper into the morass. They pass along the busy pavement, now jostled together, now separated, and he thinks of Kat and the way she looked at him, eyes brimming with mirth, inviting him to share the joke. And once again he wants to turn round and run after her, to see her face and to hold her tall, dancer’s body close against him.
‘This is nice, Jeremy,’ says Sandra, leading him into shadowy coolness and settling at a table. ‘So much better out of the sun. Now, what shall we have?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
FIONA SITS AT the kitchen table watching William unloading the dishwasher. As he puts things away, talking about what’s been happening since she was last down from London, she thinks how extraordinary it is that she should be here. After the separation, when William moved to Brockscombe, they met only at family events where, for Andy’s sake, they were always amicable. So successful were they on these occasions that some of Andy’s friends didn’t know anything had changed. It was only once Andy and Charlotte moved in next door and Oliver was born that she visited Brockscombe.
It seems odd, and yet familiar, to be sitting here in this domestic setting and talking to William about family things. She can see that he is enjoying it, which is also slightly surprising remembering his reaction when she’d asked about the cottage as a bolt hole. There has been a sea change since that first barbecue after she’d met Kat and Jerry at the Cott.
As she looks around the kitchen Fiona notices familiar objects: some hand-painted china on the dresser, the brass-bound clock on the wall, a watercolour painting. Even during the sharing out of their belongings they hadn’t quarrelled. The new flat in London required modern pieces and a minimalistic approach, not cottage-style furniture, so in the end she took very little apart from her books and personal items.
‘What happened to the kitchen table and chairs?’ she asks suddenly.
William straightens up and glances round. ‘They all went in the sale. Francis lets these cottages partly furnished and actually some of the furniture is very old and much better than anything we had. This oak table is nicer than our rather tatty pine, don’t you think?’
She has to admit that it is but she feels a little pang at the thought of his parting so easily with things they’d chosen so happily together when they were starting out. He’s looking at her as if he can guess her thoughts.
‘Well, you didn’t want it, did you?’ he asks. ‘We agreed that anything surplus would go into the house clearance sale and we’d share the proceeds.’
This is perfectly true: she walked away from it all uncaringly – why should he be expected to cherish the things she rejected?
‘No, no, I know. It was just seeing a few familiar bits and pieces. Takes me back.’
She smiles at him, wanting to establish a rapport, a sentimental link to their past, but he remains wary.
‘Francis let me store some things in the house,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure you’d want any of it. Mostly it’s Andy’s stuff. Books and toys. You know the kind of thing. I thought they’d be nice to pass on if he had kids of his own.’
‘And now he has,’ she says lightly. ‘It was good of you to think of that, Wills. I suppose, knowing you as I do, that I just assumed you’d do all the right things.’
She means it, too. He’s a good man and his instincts will always lead him to do what’s best for the people he loves.
‘Unlike me,’ she adds, grinning at him, ‘who only ever thinks of Number One. It’s all about me, me, me.’
‘That’s not true,’ he says, laughing too. ‘At least, not all the time. Although now you’re here you might like to look at a few of the things I saved. If anything happens to Francis and I have to lift and shift then I shall need to make a few quick decisions.’
The laughter fades from her face and she frowns. ‘How do you mean? Would you have to leave Brockscombe?’
‘Oh, yes. The boys would certainly sell it. Neither of them has any feeling for the place and it’s too big to keep as a kind of family holiday cottage. They’ll sell.’
‘But where would you go, Wills?’ She’s really upset at the thought of his having to find a new home. ‘You love it here.’
He makes a little face, shrugs. ‘It was always on the cards. I do love it here, especially with Charlotte and Oliver next door, and Kat. It’s been a lifesaver for me but I always knew the score.’
She feels herself colouring, flushing with the shame of her own selfishness.
‘I suppose I wasn’t thinking straight,’ she says. ‘I never did quite know what the relationship is between Cousin Francis and you but I assumed that you’d probably have certain rights and privileges, if you see what I mean.’
‘It would be crazy to give anyone rights over one cottage in such a big complex. It would certainly affect the value of the place. No, no, I knew it wouldn’t be for ever. Anyway, let’s not worry about that now. It’s not your problem.’
And this is true, she tells herself. She has no right to query it or make suggestions. At the same time it throws a new kind of slant on the future and she decides that she needs to think about this very carefully.
William watches her disappear to see Oliver and Charlotte and wonders why he didn’t mention Andy’s leave. He’s discussed his idea that Fiona should be offered his spare room for a night or two with both Charlotte and Kat with positive results.
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