Luisa trailed a hand on the back of an old carved chair, the fabric seat battered and frayed. ‘Did you have all this furniture?’
Hands in his pockets, Kit looked around. ‘Most of it was in the shed. A bit dusty, but fine.’
Luisa moved to the wall, her interest caught by a small painting. ‘Was this in the shed? Or did you find it? Clever to pick up a lighthouse picture already.’
‘I’ve got another actually. That one was in the bathroom at my mother’s house. I thought I’d bring it when I knew I was coming to meet my lighthouse.’
Luisa bent close to the picture. ‘It’s lovely, do you know who painted it?’
Kit shook his head. ‘I always assumed my mother collected lighthouse odds and ends because of the name of her company. Never thought more of it until now.’
Kit led her along the wall to show her a night-lit lighthouse, its beam inlaid mother of pearl. ‘I found this and a lot of bits and pieces in a nice old junk shop down the coast this morning.’
Luisa laughed. ‘You haven’t wasted any time settling in, have you?’
He shrugged. ‘To be honest, I’m used to a house full of clutter, this seems very pared down. I like it, I’m realising there’s no need for so much stuff in life.’
She raised her brows. ‘Oh really? Interesting view considering you’ve just acquired a three- or four-storey heap of bricks and mortar.’
Kit paused, looked quizzically at Luisa, ‘Bricks and mortar? I thought it was a pillar of salt.’
‘Or a giant stick of striped rock,’ she agreed. ‘Oh, anyway. It’s straight out of a story book.’
Trying not to meet his gaze she bumped her shoulder against his. The sensation of his breath, warm on her neck, silenced her.
They walked back through the kitchen, where dusty double doors opened out to the patch of grass and the sea beyond. Kit had erected a small round table and decorated it with a jam jar of blue flax and poppies and an array of old plates and glasses. Mae, having announced there were one hundred and thirty-seven steps, collapsed into a chair, Luca supine on the grass beside her. They lolled like lion cubs at ease, chatting to Kit, bright with curiosity.
Luisa had a sudden rare moment of seeing her children through someone else’s eyes.
‘What’s it like living in a lighthouse?’ asked Luca. ‘You’ll need a basket on a rope to get stuff up to your bedroom.’
Mae, rather to Luisa’s relief, had knocked over her beer and hadn’t noticed as it seeped in to the grass. She flitted back to the doorway, flashing the camera on her phone up the shadowy walls of the Lighthouse.
‘D’you have kids? They’re sooooo lucky, I know which room I’d have if I lived here.’
‘I already told you, Mae,’ Luisa hissed, but Kit was answering smoothly, ‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ he said. ‘No family at all now.’ He broke a ripple of wax off a candle stick and threw it into the flames of the fire he had made outside. Luisa felt her heart lurch protectively; she fancied she saw sadness in his face. The firelight encircled them as dusk fell. The big flat pebbles glowed around the logs placed like a wigwam, creating a solid tripod of orange light in the gloaming. Kit had done it just the way Tom always made a fire. In her childhood, if there was an outdoor fire, it was always in something – a metal bucket or a wheelbarrow. Contained. Cosmo would have put it in a brazier.
‘I wonder if cavemen lit fires like you do?’ she mused.
Kit didn’t blink. ‘Of course. How else?’ He crouched to place another log.
‘Unless they were roasting a mammoth on a spit. Or building a pyre,’ said Luca.
‘I think cavemen are over rated,’ Mae flopped onto the seat next to Luisa, ‘cave girls would’ve invented wheels and ovens so much more quickly if they’d been allowed to.’
‘Or Italians,’ Luisa interjected, ‘we like braziers and barbecues. None of this primitive stuff.’
‘The Italians came later,’ said Kit, only a slight flicker in his cheek suggesting amusement. ‘They were too sophisticated for Neolithic pursuits.’
‘Have you noticed how much of the horizon we can see from here?’ Tom had been standing apart, clearly lost in this own thoughts, looking out to sea. ‘I can see Lowestoft lit up like a battery hen farm.’
‘Dad! That’s a bit harsh. What d’you reckon about cavemen? Were any of them Italian?’
Luca sprang up and pulled Mae to her feet. Tom sat down in the seat his son had vacated. ‘Doubt it, the Italians had too much sense. They waited to join the evolutionary chain around the time of underfloor heating and hot- and cold-running slaves,’ he observed.
Luca jerked his head towards Kit, a grin hidden by the fall of his fringe. ‘Exactly what Kit said!’ He reached for Mae’s arm and propelled her away. ‘Come on, Sis, let’s look over the edge. Could be shark-infested waters, you never know.’ They loped off, the flax rolling in a blue haze around them to the cliff edge.
Kit and Tom were talking about Kit’s business. Fifty employees on the pay roll. An annual turnover, manufacturing, owning a factory. He talked easily, legs stretched in front of him. He had an athletic man’s ability to appear at ease in his body, and although the chair legs dug into the ground lopsided, Kit, one hand deep in his pocket, the other cupping his wine glass, was as urbane and relaxed as if he had been lolling on a sunlounger by a swimming pool.
A bubble of laughter burst from Luisa and she blushed. ‘Sorry, just thinking,’ she said guiltily.
‘Thinking what?’ Tom asked. She shook her head.
‘What about your business?’ Kit looked between the two of them, ‘It’s ice cream, isn’t it?’
Tom shrugged. ‘Oh, that’s Luisa’s thing. Give her a whisk and a few ingredients and she’s off. I’m better on paper than trying to create something.’
‘What about my van?’ she hadn’t meant to sound nagging, but Tom gave her a sharp look.
‘It’s in hand,’ he said shortly.
‘Your van? The ice-cream van?’ Kit leaned forwards to poke the fire, sending a coil of orange cinders up into the darkening sky.
‘I wish I could paint it these colours,’ said Luisa, ‘like a sunset. Not sure it works for ice cream though.’
Tom snorted, ‘It’d look like something off a Meat Loaf album if you did.’ He turned to Kit. ‘Didn’t you say your mother was the reason you ended up here? Did she have a Norfolk connection then?’
‘If she did, I never knew it.’ A frown drew Kit’s brows together. He had nice eyes, Luisa thought, kind. He was telling Tom about his mother’s life.
‘My stepfather, Joseph, was a BBC photographer in the war, he was partially blind after that, so she was the driving force always. Lighthouse Fabrics was her baby.’
‘Your stepfather? What happened to—’
‘Mum!’ The children had wandered back, and stood beyond the glow of the fire. Mae caught Luisa’s eye and jerked her head in the direction of the car, ‘It’s really late,’ she hissed.
Luisa looked at her watch and jumped up, ‘We must go.’
Tom’s phone bleeped and he walked away from the group to take the call.
‘It’s early, you don’t have to leave.’ Kit put his drink down and leaned forward, elbows on knees, and smiled. Luisa immediately blushed, heat stealing up her body, across her chest, over her décolletage, around her neck and, she was sure, flaring crimson on her face. A blatant, literal indication of how uncool she was.
Luca walked up to bid Kit farewell. ‘You’ve gotta have a party here, it’s so cool. There’s nowhere like it.’
Kit shrugged, but looked more pleased than nonchalant. ‘You think so? That sounds good. Who will I ask?’
Luca rolled a cigarette. ‘We’ll help you ask people, it’ll be an introducing yourself to the neighbourhood thing. Everyone’d come, wouldn’t they, Mum?’
‘Definitely,’ she nodded.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ interrupted Tom. He had finished his call. ‘Parties are trouble, start to finish.’
‘Dad, you’re such a killjoy,’ Luca offered the roll up to Kit, who shook his head.
‘Thanks, but I stopped years ago. Had a brush with long-distance running, and couldn’t stand the spluttering. Now I think the only bonus of getting old is that the day is fast approaching when it won’t matter if I smoke, or take opium or spend every last penny I have on the dogs.’
‘What dogs? You don’t have one do you?’ Mae moved closer to her mother in order to pinch her arm lightly. ‘We went to see such sweet puppies on our way here, they’re Grayson’s.’
‘Grayson?’ Kit was confused, ‘I was talking about greyhounds.’
‘Oh, you mean dog racing. I love that.’ Mae flashed a melting smile in Kit’s direction, then murmured to Luisa, ‘Come on, you said we’d be home by nine.’
Luca had another beer in his hand, Luisa hoped Mae wouldn’t do the same as an act of defiance. ‘We used to go with Cosmo, didn’t we, Mum?’ Now Luisa had a child on each side, and was more or less being propelled away from the evening.
‘Gambling in the blood then?’ Kit winked. ‘I’d like to go with you some time. You bring the tips, I’ll stand you the Surf and Turf.’
‘What’s that?’ Mae demanded, breaking off to hold out the skirt of an apron hanging on a hook in the kitchen. ‘Hey! Look Mum, this has got windmills on it like that dress of Dora’s. It’s vintage. It’s even got the same red frill.’
‘It’s my mother’s design.’ Kit lifted the apron off the hook and held it out to Luisa and Mae. ‘This is something we reworked from a pattern she was using in the forties, and it’s been incredibly popular. We must’ve printed miles of it over the years. Saved our bacon financially on more than one occasion.’
Mae jumped up. ‘She designed this? That’s what I want to do. The only reason I’m not running away to India with my sister is that I want to be a fabric designer and I need to get into art school.’
‘You do?’
Luisa’s astonishment at Mae’s sudden change of plan was interrupted by Luca. ‘First I’ve heard of it,’ he said laconically.
‘Why not?’ Tom drained his glass. ‘She’s good at it. Never knock a dream, eh Mae?’
Kit nodded. ‘Young talent is something we’ve focused a lot of attention on. We want to create opportunities in the whole industry.’
Luisa wondered why hearing of other people’s generous behaviour often made her feel stunted and inadequate rather than inspired. Why was she not helping to mastermind an ice-cream makers’ foundation for the under-privileged, rather than selfishly concentrating on her own success?
Kit folded the apron and placed it on the back of a chair. ‘Perhaps it’s sprung from having no kids of my own, but I’ve ended up on a bit of a soapbox about the importance of creating proper jobs, you know, like the apprenticeships in our day.’
Mae spun away from her mother. ‘I could do one!’ she pleaded. ‘Could I?’ Her gaze darted between her mother and Kit. Luisa, trying to read Kit’s expression, thought she detected reserve.
‘Something to talk about at home, darling,’ she fixed Mae with a fierce gaze.
‘Why are you glaring at me, Mum? I’m allowed to ask, aren’t I?’ She appealed to Kit.
He shrugged. ‘You can apply when you’re eighteen,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a strong programme for apprentices, my mother was a great champion of young design.’
Mae clapped her hands. ‘Yes, yes please! I’d love that.’
They drove home with all the windows open, the moon a tracing paper disc above the knife-edged silhouette of shifting reeds along the roadside.
Kit had got Tom thinking. ‘Inheritance is an odd business. What’s a man like that going to do with a bloody lighthouse? He isn’t exactly Mr B&B, is he?’
‘It’s not as weird as him having a business called Lighthouse Fabrics,’ Mae interrupted. ‘I saw the logo on the apron, it looks just like his lighthouse, even the little outhouse on the side. Was there a standard look for lighthouses ever? A manual or something? I mean you couldn’t look it up on the Internet could you?’
Luisa dragged her thoughts back to the present. ‘I suppose they do,’ she said.
‘You suppose who do what?’ Tom yawned. ‘I’m exhausted. Nice man, though. I think Mae’s right.’
‘Right about what? The Lighthouse?’ Luisa watched her husband’s profile. He was scowling, concentrating.
‘Mmm,’ he nodded. ‘His mother must have come here. It wouldn’t surprise me, there’s always a link between these artists’ colonies. I’m not saying there was one fully established here in Norfolk, but she might have known a few people here. Maybe even come for a holiday some time.’
‘D’you think he’ll stay here long enough to have a party?’ asked Luca.
‘I thought he was nice,’ said Mae. ‘I hope he stays.’ She rested her cheek on her mother’s seat, her face lit by the dashboard. ‘We should get Dora to go out with him.’
The scent of the night air was sweet when they stopped. Luisa stood for a moment after the others had gone inside. Everything about her home was familiar. The sounds and smells of a summer evening, the shadows in the garden, the mown grass damply cool after a hot day. Grayson was in the yard, silently sniffing flowerbeds. She could have drawn the curl of his tail, the gleam of his eye and written a poem on the familiarity of his nose, cool and damp when he pushed it into her hand for his customary welcome. Luisa drank in the sensations. Her nerve-endings hummed with the electric excitement of being alive. She wanted to dance and sing, she wanted to spread her feeling of delight. This was what it was like to be at home with her family. There was a blast of sound from the living room where Luca had turned on the television. Tom whistled and banged the gate as he came in from putting the car away.
Luisa knew every inch of her life, every familiar sound, and yet, she thought, she didn’t really know it at all. She only knew it through her eyes. She could see her version, but she couldn’t see Tom’s, or Mae’s or Luca’s. Most of life was obscured for most of the time, emerging briefly, like the beam of the Lighthouse.
The kitchen door opened, Tom appeared, taking out the rubbish, and the dazzle from behind him fell across the lawn. He looked at Luisa, hesitated as if he were about to come across to her, then turned and went back inside. After a few minutes she followed him in.
Chapter 8
From the window in Felicity’s kitchen, Michael could see half the Mousehole harbour, and a sliver of the front of the pub if he craned his head to the left. Mainly, though, his view was out to sea. The nets and boats drying on the quay, and the usual village cats prowling for leftover fish on the slipway were a frame for the expanse of horizon that held him like a spell. He didn’t know how many hours he had spent over the last few months just staring at the sea. No matter what the time of day, and no matter what he had set himself to do, he could be stopped in his tracks to gaze at the limitless ocean. He drank in the power of it, and the paradoxes: the silence and the roar, the stillness and the ceaseless exuberance, the swell and the falling away of the tide. He was humbled by the might of the waves, and slowly he filled himself up with its strength until he felt he had his own vitality again. It was only now when he felt he was beginning to be put back together again, that he understood how fragmented he had been. He could think a thought through to the end now, and that was something that he hadn’t realised he had lost until he had rediscovered it.
It was low tide, and a small girl played on an exposed crest of sand in the little harbour. The sky was heavy today, clouds moving lumpen and slow, waddling off the hill and scudding out to sea, where they massed and darkened. A summer day with lethargy in the air. A tamarisk shook yellow petals on the slate path to the gate and on to the dry grass of the lawn where they lay scattered like raindrops reflecting the sun. There had been little enough rain in the past weeks, but the cloud today released occasional fat drops which spattered against the window panes. It was August. Frequent summer storms cracked and rumbled out at
sea, but few broke over Mousehole. Felicity was at the bookshop, Michael would meet her at lunchtime. A half day. He would help her pull down the blinds and lock up, then, hand in hand, they would walk up Raginnis Hill, not pausing until they reached the top and had a view right across Mount’s Bay to Lizard Point and far away beyond. He would bring bread and cheese, apples and ginger beer, and their lunch would be a picnic.
He was back from working on the cutting beds early. He had started at five, dawn rising behind him, rinsing the sky in pink and mauve as Michael weeded and dug to plant a bed of violets to grow on for spring. Michael liked Felicity’s half day, it meant he would see her sooner. He was impatient of lost hours, it was as if he had replaced his inbuilt wartime anxiety that something unspeakable was about to happen with a fear of missing something vital.
For the past three weeks Felicity had been working on a painting. A view from the hill, painted while Michael lay and read to her and today she planned to finish it. He wanted to talk to her today, about his family, his brother. He loved her, he would always love her, but he had to go back home. One day he would leave. The weeks had spooled into months in Cornwall, and he’d made friends and a life here. He wrote to his mother, a letter he asked a transient artist to post from London. He didn’t want her to know where he was, he owed it to Felicity to protect their world. Writing to his mother, tears smudged the ink so often he ended up writing the letter in pencil instead. He said he was sorry, he couldn’t come to terms with all that had happened. He promised her one thing, he pledged on his life that one day he would come home. He needed to tell Felicity about this letter. He didn’t want secrets from her. She was his soulmate, and he wanted her to know him. To know his story and his family.
Then there was Janey. Michael found that his mind became a blank fog when he tried to remember her, or think about her. He couldn’t see her in his mind’s eye any more. He had tucked her photograph into the back of his wallet, and he didn’t take it out. Without anyone to talk to about her, her found he could push all his guilt about her, all his snatches of memory, down into the fog. Out of the way. It wasn’t good, he knew that, but it was out of the way, and that was all he could bear just now.
From a Distance Page 14