The Kissing Gate

by Susan Sallis

  Jannie emerged from the driver’s seat.

  ‘I told him to park as close to the left as he could. It will give us room to use the ramp for unloading. But we’ll do that tomorrow and just take our overnight cases for now. It’s been a long day.’

  Ned could see she was nervous and was surprised. He and Robert had got on well when they had first met at the performance of The Tempest. He had expected to feel … something else. A resentment? This man – boy, really – breaking up their precious threesome? Surely he wasn’t that petty? But whatever he had expected did not happen. Robert had accepted Ned and Gussie, and they had accepted him. On the way home Father Martin had gone so far as to say, ‘Well, that Robert Hanniford seems well suited to your sister. You will make a good quartet.’

  Ned hugged Jannie now. ‘Good to see you made it. The traffic is always ghastly in July. Let’s show Robert the easy way home. Give me those bags, Jan. Robert, you all right under that suitcase?’

  ‘Think so. Steps?’

  Ned was used to this sort of shorthand. ‘No. Not the back way. But cobbles. Dad reckoned they kept your insides good and healthy.’

  Robert laughed at that but said, ‘He had a point, I think. Especially in my case. The longer I don’t use my legs, the bigger the risk of losing them.’ He shifted the suitcase and grinned up at Ned. ‘Bring on the cobbles!’

  They lurched down the backstreets towards Zion Cottage. Ned felt Jannie relax by his side. He liked Robert even more.

  Gussie met them at the gate. She was wearing a pinafore the Becks had given her last Christmas, pristine new, displaying a leaping dolphin. Above it her face was bright red and her plait was fraying damply. It had been a hot day and she knew now – too late, of course – that she should have got mackerel and soused them in vinegar and put them on Kate’s enormous meat server surrounded by a green salad. As it was, she had sweated with a recipe for John Dory braised with baby shallots, lots of Cornish potatoes not much bigger than peas and an enormous cauliflower. She had put cochineal in the cauliflower hoping it would turn pale pink, but it was now blood red.

  She leaned over and kissed Robert.

  ‘Welcome, future brother-in-law. Bit of a disaster in the kitchen department but everything else awaits you.’ She raised her head and grinned. ‘You might as well sample the worst of my cooking immediately, I suppose.’

  He smiled up at her overheated face and noticed a bead of sweat travelling down the length of her nose. He agreed with Jannie: she really was beautiful.

  ‘It’s so good to be here. As we turned off at Hayle, the air was fresher. The views so wonderful—’

  ‘And we got away from some of the traffic!’ Jannie was laughing now, happy that it was all going well, blissfully unaware of the cauliflower. ‘I know it’s a Saturday in July, Gus, but we were two hours driving from Launceston to Jamaica Inn. So hot – ghastly!’

  Gussie made suitable noises of sympathy and led the way inside, where a jug of iced water was duly appreciated. Then Jannie explained the workings of the stair lift, which involved a platform for a wheelchair and a safety chain. She followed Robert’s chair, explaining things as they rose to the hall.

  ‘Uncle Rory can remember when the Nollas – they lived here and left the house and their boat to Dad – dried their washing down the hall. Every Monday you had to fight your way through flannel combinations and blouses with very high necks!’

  Robert laughed, not at the story but because the enormous Scandinavian-blue eyes, on a level with his, were so full of life and happiness.

  They went up another level and turned left into one of the two big bedrooms.

  ‘Mum and Dad’s room,’ Jannie said briefly. She opened a door on the opposite wall and revealed a shower room.

  ‘Couldn’t be better,’ Robert said just as briefly, then added, ‘Heart sank a bit when I saw how tall the cottage was.’

  ‘Dad had it changed when he inherited it. But the main bathroom is still on ground level.’ She grinned. ‘Ned is at the top, and in the middle of the night he can do the round trip in five minutes. Gussie and I have timed him!’

  ‘Why on earth doesn’t he use this bathroom?’

  She grinned. ‘I think he might have done. Just once.’

  He grinned back as he edged himself on to the bed and lifted each leg in turn. He stretched luxuriously. ‘And which set of genes is prevalent in their youngest child?’ he said, using a voice supposed to be that of their psychologist.

  Jannie flopped by his side, then lifted herself on one elbow and looked down at him for at least ten seconds.

  ‘I’ve got large helpings from both sides,’ she whispered. And she kissed him.

  Two floors below, Ned said, ‘If you fiddle with that John Dory much longer he’ll bite off your hand! Sit down for five minutes and cool off. You’re looking like a boiled lobster yourself!’

  Gussie put the dish back in the oven and sat down in the open doorway.

  ‘Why on earth didn’t I do something cold? I don’t like the way the sauce has gone sort of grey.’

  ‘Dearest Gus, everyone will enjoy every mouthful, and that cauliflower is worth putting in the flower show next week.’

  But she couldn’t see the funny side of it. Plus there was the fact that – very unexpectedly – the familiarity of the wheelchair inside the cottage but with someone else in it, was a shock.

  She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘He was so nice, so unassuming when we met him at the school play. But here, don’t you feel odd about it?’

  ‘No. Actually, Gus, no. He seems a bit more mature here than he did at Hartley. They both seem more mature together. And, of course, the wheelchair is like a passport to us, isn’t it?’

  She dropped her voice lower still, and he could only catch the one word. ‘Interloper’. He was almost shocked.

  ‘Darling, that doesn’t sound like you. You’ve overdone it and the heat is suddenly too much of a good thing.’ He stood up and came behind her. ‘Let me have a go at your neck.’ He put her plait gently over her shoulder and began to roll his knuckles gently from the outside of her shoulders into the nape of her neck. She became still and then, tremblingly, he felt her relaxing.

  He said cheerfully, ‘D’you remember how I did this just before you took your A level examinations? You didn’t want me to, and then I reminded you – furiously, I expect – how I’d always been the one to pick you up when you fell over those big feet of yours!’

  He laughed and after a moment she joined him. ‘I had forgotten. Thank you for reminding me.’

  It sounded such a formal acknowledgement he was surprised. He had felt a kind of embarrassment several times since he’d come back home and it had gone unnoticed. In fact, she had dealt with it as she always had; as his older sister always had. This was the first time she had shown any awkwardness.

  He used the tips of his fingers and moved behind her ears and on to her scalp. Her hair was thick with salt. He said quietly, ‘Shall I undo your plait and have a real good go? I could give you a shampoo, if you like.’

  ‘No. It’s good of you, Ned, but they’ll be down any minute now and I want to get the meal over and done with.’

  He went back to her shoulders and finished off. She was no longer relaxed and he knew he would not get rid of her tension now.

  ‘I’ll wash up after we’ve eaten. You take a plate of food round to Bessie’s and stay for an hour while they settle in. OK?’

  ‘Thank you.’ She stood up and went to the oven to look at the fish yet again. ‘I think they must be settling in now, don’t you?’ She tried to sound roguish and failed.

  ‘They’re young and they’re getting married on the fourteenth of August. We’ll have to get used to it, Gus.’

  ‘You mean, I’ll have to get used to it.’ She straightened and looked at him with a familiar wry smile. ‘You’re doing splendidly and you’ve got a lot in common with him.’ Her smile died and she said suddenly, ‘Oh, Ned, I feel I am losing Jannie.’
/>   ‘Ah.’ He came to her and held her against his shoulder. ‘Mum didn’t envisage this, Gus. When she sort of handed Jan over to you, it wasn’t for life. You knew that.’

  ‘I did.’ She clung to him. ‘I did, of course. She knew I needed a bond. She was a wonderful woman, Ned.’ She looked into his face. ‘Ned, I miss her so much I sometimes think – I think …’

  ‘What do you think?’ He did not want her to move away; he prayed she would stay hanging on to him, whatever the reason.

  ‘I think I must be like Zannah. Whirling around and getting nowhere.’

  ‘Except that Zannah sounds completely off her trolley at times. And you are the most sensible, centred, wonderful woman I know.’

  Her look turned into a stare and then she burst out laughing and dropped her hands.

  ‘What on earth are we talking about, Ned? As if we could lose each other. That’s the real legacy Mum and Dad left us – each other.’ She patted his cheek as if he were still six years old. ‘Come on, brother-of-mine. Let’s dish up this ghastly supper and get started! If they’re asleep who cares? We can stick theirs in the slow oven. It couldn’t look any worse than it does now!’

  They had just finished putting the pink cauliflower in pride of place when they heard the whine of the stair lift and the wheels of Robert’s chair appeared. Jannie leaned over his head. She looked wonderful.

  ‘Did you think we’d gone to sleep? We’re showered and in our pyjamas so that we can collapse immediately afterward! My God, what on earth is that?’

  Robert said, ‘How wonderful. It’s the pink cauliflower, isn’t it? What could be a better welcome! Thank you so much. Oh, and John Dory, my out-and-out favourite!’

  Ned liked him. Gussie was laughing and looking natural with her plait hanging down her back and her damp hair in tendrils around her face. He felt a strange sensation in his chest and could not put a name to it.

  He was washing up much later; Robert and Jannie had gone to bed, Gussie was still round at Bessie’s. He hung the tea towel over the guard rail and shook the cloth outside.

  Yearning. That was the word that fitted his chest pain. He was yearning. For his sister. All those weeks in America when he had come to believe that the terrible deaths of Mark and Kate had bound the three of them for ever, were only a part of a solution. Everyone who had suffered such an enormous bereavement was bound together in a universal grief. It was a support. It helped enormously. But there were personal sadnesses too.

  He no longer saw Gussie as a much-loved sister. He yearned for her. And she did not yearn for him.

  He took the stairs two at a time. The attic was stifling and he opened both windows and stood in the dormer, staring down at the apron of cobbles and the granite steps leading to the wharf. After a while Gussie emerged from Bessie’s yard, walked slowly across to the steps, walked down them and sat on the Friendship bench below. He could see the white of her scalp where her dark hair parted and swooped around her head and into its plait.

  He withdrew his head and crossed the room to the other window. He switched on the computer, pulled up the swivel chair and logged on to the email. There were two messages from Sven. He tried to imagine the small island within sight of Stockholm where Sven Svensson had a summer cottage. He wondered whether there was an inhabitable island within the Scillies archipelago where he could isolate himself.

  He sighed sharply and clicked on to the first message.

  Twenty

  IT TOOK A week for the four of them to shake themselves into some kind of pattern. During that week, Jannie and Robert visited Father Martin twice and found him, as Jannie put it, ‘lacking on the advice front but very helpful about the privacy bit’. He thought he could arrange the ceremony in the little church on the Island where the first of the memorial services had happened after the disaster last September. ‘I’ll have a word with the bishop. It will be much easier to ensure a private wedding there – obviously. Also, a very significant church in your circumstances, my dear.’ He turned to Robert. ‘Will your parents be present, Robert?’

  ‘Both sets are abroad but they are delighted.’ Robert grinned. ‘It helps them with the guilt thing. I’m a bit of a liability.’

  The clergyman glanced at Jannie and hurried on. ‘So Mrs Beck and Thaddeus Stevens will be present? Your brother will give you away and your sister is your only attendant.’

  Jannie said, ‘Don’t sound doleful, Father. Don’t you see how special it makes it?’

  For once, the rector smiled. ‘I am not in the slightest bit doleful, January. I always sound like this.’

  She was surprised. ‘Yes, you do. How sad.’ She leaned towards him. ‘I know I shouldn’t ask this, but why didn’t you get married?’

  His smile died. ‘I did. She left me. I thought everyone in the parish knew that.’

  For once Jannie was speechless. Robert took her hand and looked across the big old-fashioned desk. ‘Probably not. We are so sorry, Father. It must be hard for you to officiate at so many weddings.’

  ‘Not one bit. The state of matrimony is instituted for the best possible reasons and if some of its participants fall along the wayside that is no reason to think less of it.’ He nodded at Jannie. ‘Don’t look stricken, January. Your marriage is going to be for life. I can usually tell. And that must be because of my own sad failure – something useful to come out of it after all.’

  She swallowed and tried to thank him. Then said, ‘You think you know people and then find you don’t.’

  ‘Quite.’ He looked at his notes. ‘So it is at ten o’clock on the fourteenth of August.’ He looked up. ‘And at Zennor for lunch afterwards. Thank you for your invitation and I am delighted to accept it.’

  They waited a few seconds for the ‘advice bit’, then realized that in the circumstances it might well sound hollow. Robert released the brake on his chair and Jannie stood up. They both smiled and nodded as the rector voiced his good wishes for their future happiness, then they emerged into the sunshine and wandered through the Warren and along the path bordering Porthminster beach. It was a very hot day and the coastline disappeared in a silver haze beyond Hayle Towans. Jannie picked a seat well shaded by a giant rhubarb plant; Robert backed his chair in beside her. They held hands and watched some children digging a miniature Suez between the oncoming tide and their sandcastle. They chatted in a desultory way; old friends already.

  ‘If this weather holds we could cancel the meal at Zennor and go for a picnic further down the coast.’

  ‘We could. But in case it doesn’t hold, Plan A is probably the best bet.’

  ‘Mmm, yes. By that time we’ll be Mr and Mrs Hanniford. That’s what it’s all about.’ She giggled. ‘Jannie Hanniford. I like it.’

  ‘Me too.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘Jan, do you mind about my parents?’

  ‘No, of course not. But I am surprised your mother didn’t want to come.’

  ‘She wants to make her new marriage work. She blames herself for Dad’s … defection.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  ‘Dad had an affair with his secretary when I was fourteen. It went on from there. I knew when he had another model because he always bought a new shirt for their first date. Nothing lasted until Marcia. She ran her own company very efficiently and she got tired of her unofficial status with Dad. It wasn’t Mum’s fault.’

  ‘Oh, Robert, how awful for you.’

  ‘It was awful. Mum was totally demoralized. I told you she didn’t really believe it – still doesn’t – but still manages to blame herself.’

  Jannie knew this part. Geoff and Elizabeth had been visiting the orthopaedic hospital with one of their students and had been introduced to Robert, who was adjusting a wheelchair. Whatever Geoff had said that afternoon had led to Robert finishing his engineering course and starting his internship at Hartley School.

  ‘I didn’t know for ages that Mum had listened to an interview Geoff gave to a programme on Radio West and had written to him!’ He shook his head
. ‘She wouldn’t take credit for that either!’

  Jannie squeezed his hand and he looked at her and started to laugh. ‘Thank God for Jonathan.’ She opened her eyes wide at him and he nodded. ‘I know. I’m pretty dismissive about the whole thing. Couldn’t stand him at first, I admit it!’ He made a face. ‘Meeting you and falling in love … it changes everything, Jan. Everything.’ He pulled on her hand and she leaned forward and kissed him. Then they whispered what Robert called ‘sweet nothings’ and – eventually – drew apart, smiling idiotically.

  Jannie said, ‘Every time these moments happen, we are plighting our troth – did you know that?’

  ‘Of course. And when I heard that phrase first I thought it was “plaiting”. I rather like the idea of plaiting our troth … intertwining it.’

  She smiled, felt tears behind her eyes and blinked hard. ‘I wish I had known you sooner.’

  ‘Yes. But perhaps no. We might have been such good friends that we could not become such wonderful lovers. Like your brother and sister.’

  She drew back and stared at him, astonished. ‘My God! How did you know that? I’ve hardly dared think it, let alone put it into words! It’s all so delicate and fragile—’

  ‘And obvious.’

  ‘Is it? Is it really? Does Bessie know, and Father Martin and – and Aunt Rosemary and Uncle Rory?’

  ‘I haven’t got the faintest. Perhaps you need to arrive on the scene when it has become obvious, like I have … if you get me.’

  ‘Yes. I think so.’ She stared at the sky above his head. ‘What can we do?’

  ‘Nothing. Until we can.’

  She switched her stare to him again.

  He spread his hands. ‘It’s not like one of your projects, Jan. There might come an opportunity. But until that happens—’

  ‘Seize the moment, you mean?’

  ‘I think that’s what I mean.’

  ‘Oh my God. Suppose we miss the moment?’

  ‘I don’t know. They might make their own moment and we won’t know it’s happened. That’s how it must have been for Jonathan and my Mum …’