by Susan Sallis
‘It did help,’ Sheila said, and May nodded agreement. ‘We don’t know how or why but it made us feel … better. We think.’
‘Was it because of the gates of glory?’ Jannie asked.
It was the first time anyone had mentioned the triumphal opening of the service and even now no one in their vicinity picked up on it. But May said, ‘It was a bit like Dunkirk. When we thought we’d been beaten and then Mr Churchill made it into a victory.’
The next day most of the group went on a tour around the shops before their flight home. The Briscoes took Sheila and May to the Cloisters, where they could look down on the Hudson far below and sit in the autumn sun. They exchanged addresses. ‘If it’s only a card at Christmas …’ Sheila said.
‘After Christmas things might be better. Two thousand and two. It sounds hopeful,’ Ned replied.
‘I can’t imagine … anything. We can’t go back and we don’t know how to start again,’ Sheila confided.
Gussie looked out at the length of Manhattan. She loved her work but, like Sheila, she could not imagine going back to it.
Jannie said sturdily, ‘My last year at Exeter. I’ll just get on with it and hope there’s a job at the end. English graduates are two a penny. I might travel.’
Ned and Gussie could not imagine Jannie with a backpack far from home. As Ned glanced at Gussie, he felt her uncertainty echo in his own head. Neither of them had done any work for almost two months. He loved his research work in Bristol; it was important, it might matter to thousands of people. But it would go on without him. He could understand how Jannie felt only too well. Yes, she should travel …
He took a deep breath. He knew what he was going to do. He would wait until the new year and then, long after the McKinnons had done – or not done – their deal, he would see his father. The man who had left him and his mother twenty years ago and who was now in his eighties. Victor Gould, the artist. And Gussie, dear Gussie, who would, so obviously, fit into his mother’s shoes and look after the cottage and her father’s work and always be there for Jannie and himself, Gussie should go and see her mother.
Eight
JANNIE WAS THE first to leave.
In spite of the precious message from their parents, Gussie and Ned were still in a strange no man’s land, a grey directionless place of half-decisions; but they both noticed that Jannie had changed. She still wept copiously but then, suddenly, when Gussie offered the usual shoulder, she held out one arm and gasped, ‘I’m OK. Honestly. Just … all those people and that smell … and then Mack … and the message from Mum and Dad, like the messages in bottles we used to launch at Christmas … and everything.’
When they were on the plane coming home she leaned forward to look across at the other two, smiled gratefully and said, ‘Thank you for taking me to see John Lennon’s Memorial in Central Park.’
The main reason for the long ramble through the park on their last day had been to see the famous carousel where a three-year-old Jannie had ridden so joyously with applause from her family. But twenty-year-old Jannie had no recollection of that innocent time and had spent nearly an hour standing next to the Lennon stone. She joined the other two where they were sitting gazing back the way they had come towards the building where the McKinnons had their apartment. She had smiled reassuringly at them.
‘Isn’t this marvellous? All these people coming to think about a man who seemed so wild and yet sang such commonsense songs!’ She stared at the groups of pilgrims around the simple memorial and raised her hand slightly in what could have been a salute or a farewell. Then she said briskly, ‘We must come to the meetings as often as we can. We’ll be invited because of Dad, and we need to show that we belong – like he and Mum did – to all the people. You know, like in John Lennon’s song.’
Finally, after the sleeper deposited them in Penzance station and the taxi had taken them along the A30 back to St Ives, she surprised them again. It was bitterly cold in Zion Cottage, and though they had been away less than a week, the house looked neglected and the grey morning light was unwelcoming. Gussie started to make tea and Ned fiddled with the boiler and then switched on the heating.
Jannie put her big shoulder bag on the kitchen table and scrabbled through it, emerging triumphantly with a piece of paper. She waved it in the air. ‘Phone number. Sheila and May. Must check that they got home safely and let them know that we did too!’
‘You’re not going to ring them now?’ Ned said. ‘It’s seven thirty in the morning; they won’t be up.’
But Jannie was already punching numbers into the kitchen phone and then announcing their arrival to a surprised Sheila.
‘We’re home, Sheila. And you too. Everything all right?’ She listened intently, a whole range of expressions crossing her face. Gussie made the tea and put mugs on the table next to Jannie’s bag. Ned looked for his toothbrush and made signs that he was heading for the bathroom. Jannie was making small sympathetic sounds into the receiver by this time. Then she said, ‘Well, why don’t you come here? As you say, Sheila, all of us will be disorientated this Christmas. Come to us for a week! It’s a great idea. Completely different.’
Ned and Gussie halted in their tracks, staring at her. She turned her mouth down. ‘Are you sure? If you change your minds … yes. Of course. We understand completely. We’ll be in touch again – must tell you about Central Park. Better go. We’re a bit jet-lagged, I think!’ Then she replaced the receiver.
‘Poor Sheila. May was ill on the plane coming home and Sheila is wondering how they’re going to get through Christmas. So I asked them to come to us. I knew they wouldn’t, but it was worth a try.’
Gussie was wide-eyed. ‘Where on earth would they have stayed?’
‘With Mrs Beck, of course. They could have come to us for all their meals and we could’ve taken them to Land’s End and Cape Cornwall. Everywhere is so lovely and empty, it would have done all of us a lot of good.’
Gussie looked at Ned, who seemed to have given up on the bathroom and was using the water in the kettle to fill hot-water bottles.
She said, ‘I have to admit I am relieved, Jan. I think we should close ranks for a bit longer.’
Jannie hugged her sister. ‘We’ll always be in the same boat, darling. But we need to do things. Open up. For the sake of Mum and Dad, really.’ She choked a little, swallowed, then went on, ‘I’m going back to college, and I think you and Ned should start working again. You’re sort of lost at sea.’
Gussie leaned away and stared into those Nordic-blue eyes with some surprise. ‘My God, you’re right, of course. But … aren’t you with us any longer?’
‘Where? Oh, lost at sea?’ She frowned, thinking about it. ‘Well, yes. But I am plotting a course. It might change. But I’m going to get down all my notes for the dissertation by the beginning of the spring term – stop laughing! Then I’ll spend that term writing it up. Really working on it. Before all this business – ’ she waved her hand – ‘I booked to do some observations at a special school in North Devon. I want to do that before I actually start on my final draft.’
‘I wasn’t laughing. But you didn’t tell us about this placement.’
‘Not a placement, a week of observation, that’s all. I wasn’t keen at first, and we were having such a gorgeous time with Mum and Dad before they went to the AGM. I wanted to forget all about college for the whole of the summer! And then, well, you know …’ Her voice trailed off and Gussie waited for the tears and the hug. Neither happened. Jannie added, ‘After I’ve handed it in, I’m going to apply for a job.’
‘I thought you were going to travel.’ Gussie spoke teasingly, but Jannie did not grin or shrug her shoulders.
‘I am,’ she said. ‘I’ll be eligible this summer to teach English in India. There are lists in the Junior Common Room – schools that can accommodate graduands – mostly in the south. Food and accommodation only, so not many people can afford to apply.’ She made a wry face. ‘I can, of course. I gathered from somethi
ng Mack said we’re probably going to be fairly rich.’
There was a silence.
She said in a small voice, ‘I’m sorry, Gussie. Please don’t cry. I didn’t mean to be so horribly insensitive. It’s just that I sort of learned something from going to New York. There were so many people who were grieving in so many different ways. Some wished they had been killed too. Others were like us, not knowing how to go on … Sheila and May were the most like us, weren’t they? And after we left the Cloisters on their last day they both said they felt better for coming and for meeting us. And I said I felt better for meeting them. I wasn’t just being polite, Gussie. I did feel better. I could see them – I mean, see them. They … they’re flipping well disabled by what has happened. The randomness of it all. And then I started to think about disablement. We’ve been disabled. Like Dad without any legs, except that he never had any. There’s no special school for us so we have to learn somehow to cope by ourselves. I’ll find out more when I do my observation week.’ She paused, looking suddenly uncertain and added, ‘Won’t I?’
Gussie swallowed hard. ‘Yes. You will. You will, Jannie. You’re right, of course, you will have to open up to find out!’ She smiled wryly, then went on determinedly, ‘And don’t worry about Ned or me. We’ll have to find our own ways, but we’ll get there in the end.’ She flung her arms around her sister. ‘Darling, I’ll have to shed a few tears but I’m not unhappy – honestly. I’m really proud of you!’
Jannie reached round and tugged gently on Gussie’s plait. ‘Listen, pour the tea. No milk, I suppose? Let’s see whether it’s gone off …’
Gussie freed herself and scrubbed at her face with a tissue. She watched Jannie sniff at a bottle of milk and said in a small voice, ‘Jannie, you will come home for Christmas, won’t you?’
‘Of course. A swim at high tide and a drunken orgy with the Becks!’
Ned did not join in the laughter. He was by the stairs again, holding three hot-water bottles and his toothbrush. He said, ‘I’ll skip tea, if you don’t mind. I need to sleep.’ He started to clump up the stairs.
Gussie called out, ‘Ned! You’re all right? You do understand that Jannie has to do this?’
He stopped and looked down at them. Their faces, looking back at him, were so blessedly familiar. For some reason he felt heavy with dread. He faced the unpalatable fact that he did not want to move forward, open up, get on with life. Whatever they called it, he didn’t want it. He wanted to stay here and try to go backwards. Maintain Zion Cottage and the Scaife studio. Go fishing with the small remaining fleet of boats. Let Gussie take his mother’s place and Jannie be the baby of the family.
He said, ‘Of course I understand. I’m just … whacked.’
He went on up the stairs and as he tucked the hot-water bottles into the girls’ beds he knew there was something else. He hated the thought of it and refused to ‘plot a course’, but at some point he really did have to go back in time to before he belonged to the Briscoes. They had become his anchor and he had to – somehow – cut himself free and go back to another time; the terrible time; the lost time. He had to see his father.
He reached his room in the attic, put his hot-water bottle into his bed and stood in the dormer gazing out at the harbour and the fishing boats. The tide was in and they were bobbing beneath the pier unloading their catch. And somewhere way out across the seas was Victor Gould, who lived in California and was an old man now. Born on Armistice Day in 1918 and named Victor. With an estranged son who must look like him because Kate was blonde and blue-eyed and so was Jannie. He shivered; if he looked like Victor Gould might he actually be like Victor Gould?
Ned took a deep breath and let it go against the windowpane, where it flowered immediately into a mist. He had to confront this man. He had to leave Gussie here on her own and go back to the States and find out why Victor had left his wife and son all those years ago. He felt sick.
Having slept all morning, they went for a walk late that afternoon. None of them wanted to but Gussie rallied them.
‘We’ve got to separate day and night somehow. Get some Cornish air into our lungs too – help us back into our proper sleep patterns.’
They headed automatically for the cliff path beyond Porthmeor, where a sharp wind failed to move the lid of cloud out to sea. In the ten days since they had walked this way, winter had come. Gussie buttoned her jacket up to her chin and Ned stuck his hands in his pockets. Jannie took their arms and drew them towards Old Man’s Head into the lee of the rocks.
‘You’re not enjoying this,’ Jannie accused the others. ‘We’ve got to make a conscious effort – come on now! I know you’re not happy about me going back to Exeter before Christmas, but just listen …’ She reiterated her intention of returning to college. She wanted her tutor to register that she was ‘still alive’ and very much part of the course.
‘There’s only four weeks left of the term, Ned. I wish you wouldn’t look as if I’d stabbed you or something. Did you think I’d given up?’
‘Yes.’ He stared at her wryly. ‘I didn’t want you to, of course. I was all prepared with about five very cogent arguments as to why you should finish your three years! You’ve whipped the carpet from beneath your wise older brother’s feet!’
Jannie leaned her back against the base of the rock tower. She looked less certain. ‘You don’t think I can do it, do you? You see me as a dumb blonde!’
Gussie cut through the following gabble from both of them. ‘Listen, you two, this time yesterday we were in New York. We cannot make decisions today. Let’s turn back – I’m absolutely frozen – have fish and chips and a proper night’s sleep.’
Jannie agreed. ‘We need to play our message again.’
Ned said, ‘Actually, this time yesterday we weren’t in New York. We were in mid-air. And for ages before that we were hanging about in the airport.’
‘For Pete’s sake, let’s get going!’ Gussie said.
‘This is like old times,’ Jannie giggled. ‘Proper old times.’
So they walked back, talking of those old times. Remembering without the agony of regret.
That evening Aunt Rosemary telephoned from Bristol to see how they had fared in America. They took turns at the telephone. Gussie was last and hung on to it a long time. The other two were not surprised. Rosemary said often and without tact, ‘You are the first-born, my dear. Besides which, you take after my mother and she had a head on her shoulders. You are the one who will need to do the bizz.’
Now she said briskly, ‘There are some documents here I’d like you to see – and to sign if you agree with what they propose. All three of you. Any chance of you driving up so that I can explain it properly? I’ve talked about it with the solicitors and, briefly, Mark, Kate and I were joint owners of this house. You might already know this. Anyway, I would like you to take on their shares. And the sooner the better. Inheritance tax and so forth.’
Gussie glanced at Ned and Jannie, half asleep already. She took the bull by the horns. ‘We’ll come in a few days, Aunty Ro. Then on the way back we can drop Jannie at Exeter. Does that sound all right?’
The other two looked surprised.
‘I shall look forward to that. I am delighted that Jannie is going to finish her course. I was afraid that would all go by the board.’
They said goodbye and Gussie replaced the receiver and smiled across the table.
‘We’re probably going to be joint owners of the Briscoe house in Bristol.’
Jannie said, ‘Never mind that. Did you mean it? Will you take me back, see me settled in that awful student flat?’ Her recently found confidence sounded shaky.
Gussie nodded slowly. ‘The fact that we are needed to sign documents and so forth – it’s rather pointing the way, don’t you think?’
So only five days later, after a few hours in the tall Georgian house in Clifton, they left Jannie in Exeter and came back to St Ives. The weather was unseasonally warm, and Somerset, Devon and Cornwall shone
in the November sunshine. Ned carried Jannie’s bag up three flights of stairs and they all crowded into the tiny bedsit.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Jannie said suddenly. ‘I don’t want to do this. We can’t break our threesome – not yet, anyway.’
Gussie said, ‘Darling, do what you think best. Talk to Ned. I remember where the kitchen is – I’ll make some tea.’
But as she looked around at the kitchen, shared by the three other students in the house, she said aloud to herself, ‘She can’t stay here. Not after what has happened.’ And yet Jannie had returned at the beginning of October and managed somehow. But that was before they had gone to New York. Gussie felt her mind whirl into uncertainty again. Automatically she found mugs and washed them, boiled water in a saucepan because the electric kettle was nowhere to be seen, made the tea and poured it, milkless into the mugs. She trudged up the stairs again and felt a pang of real fear for their future. Financially they could afford to live together in Zion Cottage and try to resurrect the past. Perhaps that was not a good thing at all.
Ned opened the door and looked out. ‘Let me take that … It’s OK, it was just a sudden fright. She’s fine. Doesn’t want us to hang about too long.’
They drank the tea and Jannie told them three times not to worry. They left.
Ned and Gussie had lived by themselves in the cottage for almost the whole of October and should have been used to it. Now, arriving back without Jannie, it seemed odd. Just five days ago they had arrived home from New York, bonded by their experiences there. Their threesome had been reinvented somehow; Jannie had changed it in some way. And now she was not there. They sat in the parlour drinking their way through yet another pot of tea while the light slowly faded outside the window and the gulls finished wheeling and screaming around the incoming fishing boats. Ned, who had done most of the driving, announced he needed to have an early night. Gussie nodded abstractedly and stirred her tea. She wondered what on earth she could do with the rest of the evening.