by Susan Moody
Efficient Bella has brought piles of sandwiches. Callum produces three bottles of cheap champagne. Dougal provides half a dozen bottles of wine for my ‘cellar’.
And Orlando has brought me a house-warming present, a painting. It’s a view of the rocking sea, the cliffs of France, the wrecked pier and the broken spars out on the horizon where the Goodwin Sands have lurked for centuries, to trap unlucky sailors.
‘Darling!’ I am overjoyed, for this is not the current prospect from my window but the much-missed view from our childhood home, ten doors down. ‘It’s wonderful!’
‘Where did you get it?’ Callum wants to know.
Orlando grins at us, his particolored hair and eyebrows giving him the look of a two-legged badger. ‘Recognize the signature, anyone?’
‘Whose is it?’ Dougal is sprawled on my Chesterfield sofa, placed so I can stare at the sea all day long if I wish.
‘Bertram Yelland.’
Orlando and I glance at one another and then quickly away. The ghost of Nicola flutters between us. In twenty years, we have never mentioned her name to each other. I wonder if she is branded on his brain cells, as she is on mine.
‘I know that name from somewhere,’ says Bella.
‘He’s now a rather successful painter,’ says Orlando.
‘He always said he would be.’ I remember a summer morning, Ava and Bertram talking, his insistence that he would make his name one day.
‘I was walking down Bond Street the other day and saw this in the window of a gallery.’ Orlando grins. ‘I knew it was the perfect present for Alice.’
‘Just a minute . . .’ Callum frowns. ‘Wasn’t he that awful man who lodged in the side bedroom at Glenfield, all those years ago?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Good Lord!’ The others open their eyes in surprise.
‘An art teacher, wasn’t he?’ says Bella. ‘A bit scary, if I remember right.’
‘A right bastard is what he was,’ Dougal says.
‘He’s apparently all the rage, one of those painters who go in for female nudes with varicose veins and sagging bellies in undertaker blue.’ says Orlando.
‘I remember him constantly erupting from his room.’ Callum laughs. ‘Red-faced, smelling strongly of drink and poor dentistry, shouting damn it all to buggery, you little sods.’
‘I didn’t think it was all that funny.’ Dougal shifts on the sofa. ‘I wonder if Fiona knew how he flicked at our bare calves with a wet knotted towel. God, that used to hurt.’
‘Only if he caught you. I usually managed to get away.’
‘Much worse,’ said Orlando, ‘was the way he’d suddenly emerge from a bush or from behind a tree when we were innocently rambling through the countryside, and start charging at us with a stick.’
‘Or even,’ I add, ‘with a length of bramble he’d torn from the hedge, switching at us, while we tried to outrun him.’
‘Hares fleeing the hound.’
‘It was clear even then that the man was as mad as a hatter,’ Dougal says. ‘I don’t know why Fiona didn’t get rid of him.’
‘Anyway,’ says Bella, looking at my painting, ‘there are no naked blue ladies here, thank goodness.’
‘That’s just how Shale used to be before they tarted the place up,’ Dougal says. For the rusting hulk has long since gone, the broken pier has been replaced with an ugly concrete construction, even the tilting masts have been removed.
‘Mr Bloody Yelland . . . I don’t believe it.’ Callum slowly shakes his head. ‘Talk about coincidences . . .’
‘People say there’s no such thing as coincidence,’ I say. Not that I believe it. There are too many other coincidences in my life for me to be sceptical.
‘I’ll tell what’s a real coincidence,’ says Dougal. ‘That after so many years, Alice should just have happened to be down here and just have happened to find this place, just up the road from where we used to live?’
‘Don’t you think it was meant?’ Orlando raises a sardonic eyebrow. Like me, he doesn’t believe in such things, and normally I would have made some scoffing remark. But today I don’t.
‘And what’s more,’ says Bella. ‘This is the very place where Alice used to take piano lessons from that German refugee.’ She raises interrogative eyebrows at me. ‘Whatever happened to him, I wonder?’
I’ve so often wondered the same thing. Wondered what might have been the result, if I hadn’t taken the coward’s way out, ten years ago.
‘It must be possible to find out,’ I say. ‘Do you know, I actually met him in Paris, when I was living there.’
‘Is that his piano?’ asks Callum.
‘It was the owner’s. It’s mine now. It’s the very one I took lessons on.’
‘That stool’s a nice piece.’ Dougal fancies he has an eye for furniture, though you don’t need one to see that the stool is an exceptional bit of work, made of fine polished mahogany, with a seat whose lid lifts up to hold music, and an elaborately turned wheel for lowering or raising the height. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘The previous owner threw it in with the piano.’ I look round at them all. ‘Mrs Sheffield.’
‘Strewth,’ says Dougal, sitting up. ‘Mrs Sheffield . . . she had that stunning daughter, remember?’ He makes eyebrow-lifting faces at Callum.
‘Linda Sheffield. She was a bit of a goer,’ responds Callum.
‘You two are so crude,’ Bella says. She looks faintly worried, as though hoping that her two little boys will turn out differently.
‘I wonder why you and Orlando had lessons and the rest of us didn’t,’ says Callum.
‘We looked like more promising material,’ I say. ‘Besides, Fiona didn’t have any money for the rest of you.’
‘Besides, it was my godmother, Ursula Motherwell who paid for all my music lessons,’ Orlando says. ‘Good old Ursula. Without her, I wouldn’t be half the man I am today.’
Dougal remarks, ‘Wouldn’t have half the trust-fund either, I dare say,’
‘That didn’t come from her.’
‘If you ask me,’ says Bella, ‘Fiona could see it was far too late to try to civilize the rest of you.’ She pulls her big hold-all closer and starts removing sandwiches and fruit. ‘Thought we might need something to eat.’ I see that she is wearing Ava’s beautiful aquamarine ring, which we learned years ago had been given to her by the man who later became her second husband.
‘You’re a marvel!’ I hug her. She is so considerate, so steady, so like her mother. ‘Thanks for being so thoughtful.’
‘Well . . . trying to get this lot fed . . .’ She shrugs. ‘By the way, I brought you a couple of things . . .’ Another plunge into her bag. ‘You always used to love him so I thought I’d bring him down to keep you company.’
‘Rory O’Sullivan! Oh Bella, you couldn’t have brought me anything nicer!’
Rory O’Sullivan is a knitted soldier doll in khaki uniform. From the polished Sam Browne belt across his torso and the gold buttons on his knitted shoulders, I deduced as a child that he must be an officer and a gentleman. Not having any other doll, I had envied him from the first moment I set eyes on him; he was Bella’s, a gift from her mother. Now, I set him carefully on the window-seat so that he could look out at the view, and the shelving beach from which so many of the other survivors of the officer-class had once plunged into the sea for their matutinal dip.
‘Sorely missed,’ Orlando says softly, taking my hand. Our beloved Ava died of cancer three years ago. I’d flown over from Michigan for the funeral, knowing that she was leaving a gap in our lives which nothing would ever fill. In many ways, I believe we miss her more than Bella can, for in the face of Fiona’s unorthodox parenting, not only was she our substitute mother, she was the rock to which we clung.
‘And something else . . .’ Bella produces some thick albums from the depths of her bag. ‘Seeing as you’d moved down here, and you were once good friends with that horrible Nicola girl, I thought you might be in
terested in these.’
‘What are they?’
‘They were Mum’s. She collected all the cuttings she could about the . . . the murder, especially since we were all kind of involved. And I also brought the cuttings she’d put together about the Farnham murder, since Nicola was part of that too.’
‘What on earth made her keep track of that?’ Dougal said.
‘She was fascinated by Mrs Stone – Farnham, I suppose she is really – the way she’d show up at her husband’s trial day after day, dressed in amazing clothes. Mum loved all that sort of thing.’ Bella laughed, a little shakily, thinking of Ava. ‘You should see the stuff she got together about the Profumo affair. Mandy Rice-Davies and Christine Keeler. She was completely captivated by those two.’
‘A lot of people were,’ says Dougal. ‘Including Krista.’
‘These’ll be fascinating, Bella. Thank you.’ I touch the files, not sure whether I even want to read them or rehash the events of that summer. It would make much more sense to forget about it, to consign it to the past. Then I think of Julian. Of Sasha Elias. Of Orlando and myself. Perhaps one rainy afternoon, fortified by a glass or two of wine, I would get up the strength to delve once again into those far off and seminal days.
TWO
As if to accentuate how life constantly repeats itself, this is another exceptionally fine summer. The days pass in a fine web of heat. From the big bay window of my new home, I can see how it sits on the surface of the sea, holding the water steady, weighting down the waves like a paperweight. Along the front, children come and go on tricycles and bicycles, carrying beach balls and cricket bats, aimless, sated with sunshine, just as Orlando and I once were.
There are solitary men traipsing along the sliding pebbles, metal detectors swaying from left to right. There are fishermen carrying more equipment than an Everest expedition. There are the constant dog-walkers. And one of them, I see with surprise, and a certain alarm, seems to be Louise Stone, looking old and bent, though she can’t be more than fifty-two. How could she bear to stay on here, after what happened? I wonder if she still lives in the brightly painted little house she used to occupy; one of these evenings, I might walk down to the North End and find out. Or, more likely, I might not.
More days of breathless heat. I am restless, worn out with trying to keep at bay the thoughts I cannot control. Nicola haunts me. The Secret Glade where we found her body: is it still there? Would it exorcise my memories if I were to walk along the sea front and find the place again? The grass on the green is yellow, like straw, parched for moisture, and I, too, am parched, needing something.
One afternoon I walk along the sea to where the low cliffs begin, then climb up through a green lane still hidden, as it was back then, by overhanging greenery and arching trees so that walking along it is like burrowing into the landscape. At the top, the Secret Glade is still there, though houses have crowded nearer on three sides, new brick developments already melding into the landscape with trees and mature gardens. I’m amazed at how close to Glenfield House the area is. As a child, it had seemed a fair distance, but even on foot it can’t have been more than ten minutes from the garden gate. How had Nicola and Yelland been so foolhardy as to do what they did out in the open? Or had the possibility of being seen simply added to the excitement?
Several times I have walked past Glenfield, observing the changes that have taken place. The house and grounds have been done up: the woodwork is freshly painted, bricks repointed, the lawns mowed into orderliness. The tumbledown greenhouse has gone, the bamboo thickets have been tamed, the lily pond now contains water-lilies and a flash of neon orange indicating goldfish.
The nights are hot and sultry. I sleep badly. Even with the windows open and a breeze blowing in off the sea, the air in my bedroom is thick and close, almost unbreathable. I am flooded by the remembrance of things long past. That summer. Sasha. The body underneath the blackberry bushes. If only I could erase it from my mind. Late at night, I walk along the seafront in the warm dark, listening to the waves rolling in, churning up the shingle, in and out, the sound like a giant crunching stones and spitting them out. I smell pine trees and salt and green leaves, the scent of lilac and cut grass, blackberries on my fingers.
All day the light pours into my room, searingly hot even with the windows open and the white drapes pulled across. The Steinway stands in the bay and eventually, with some difficulty I manouevre it further into the room, not wanting the fine rosewood case to be damaged. I shove the piano-stool into place and finding it unexpectedly heavy, idly lift the lid. It’s stuffed full of music: books, songs, an ancient annotated copy of Messiah, another of Judas Maccabeus. There was a thriving Choral Society in the town back then. I must find out if it still exists; if so, I shall join.
I dig deeper, displacing Bach and Rachmaninoff, Debussy and Chopin. Further down, I find The First Book of Easy Pieces. The paper cover is worn and dog-eared. I remember my excitement when I went into the music shop to order it, the feel of it as I later carried it home, my absolute certainty that some not very distant day I would be the cynosure of piano-loving eyes. I recognize the pieces so well, the annotations made by Sasha Elias, the finger numbering, the musical direction. The Fairy’s Picnic and By the Lake; there they still are, waiting to be brought back to musical life. The music books are dog-eared and old-fashioned. Sasha had several pupils as well as me, Nicola and Mary. Were they all as unpromising as I was? I remember Fiona telling me that he was much in demand as an accompanist. From Gordon the Librarian, I knew he worked with the choir at St George’s. Ekeing out, I now realize, what must have been a meagre income as music master at the boys’ prep school where he taught. Did they tease him for his accent and shabby clothes? Did they torment him for being German?
We never got round to discussing such questions . . . I feel the pain in my heart again, that too-familiar sense of loss and regret.
There are also several books of manuscript paper. When I open one, I see thick black notes scattered across the pages, pieces which Sasha Elias himself must have composed. One is entitled Homeland. Another is called Girls and underneath the title, in spiky black letters: Claire, Nicola, Mary. And there’s a third: For Alice. I can’t help it. I flush with a warmth I recognize only too well. Where is he now? How can I find out?
As for Nicola . . . I do not want to think about her. For years I’ve managed to close all thoughts of her up in a box at the very back of my mind and am not about to release them now. Not for the first time since I moved in here, I wonder why I have chosen to throw myself back into the snake pit of memory.
I open another of the manuscript books and inside are sheets of paper; Mutti, I read. My little sisters. And on another page: Here, where the land falls into the sea, I am more than alone. I am deserted, abandoned. I’m parched with loneliness, dying of it. I can smell it on myself, like an aura. Lonely beyond bearing, my clothes are stinking of it, as though I have soiled myself.
Biting my lip – should I be reading what is obviously some kind of diary? – I carefully remove each sheet, place one on top of the next until I have a pile of ten or twelve sheets. Some only have a paragraph or two written on them; others seem to continue for several pages. I straighten them up, fuss with them, and finally, reluctantly, place them tidily on the lamp-table beside the sofa. I will read them, just as I once read Fiona’s diaries . . . but not just yet.
One evening, as dusk turns the flat sea to the grey of aluminium, I walk towards the town, to the area they call the North End. Small twisty streets run down at right angles to the beach, crammed with tiny picturesque cottages, one jammed up against the next. The front doors open directly into the little sitting rooms, all of which contain a large brick hearth that must once have heated the entire house. The houses sit on top of cellars, earth-floored and sea-damp, where smugglers could stow the contraband unloaded from small boats run directly up onto the nearby shingle beach. The cellars created a network of interlocking tunnels where illicit cargoes c
ould be hidden away or disposed of before the Excise Men had even come knocking at the door.
I turn away from the sea and walk quietly, almost on tiptoe, along Fisher Street, as though fearful that someone might otherwise lean from a window and accuse me of trespassing. Halfway down is what was once Louise Stone’s house. The curtains are drawn only partly across the window and I have a clear view into the front room.
She is there. She is watching something on the television, seated on a sofa I recognize, with a small dog – a glossy little dachshund – beside her. She strokes one of the dachshund’s ears, spreading it across her thigh as she does so. How does she look, glimpsed between the half-closed curtains? I don’t know what I expected, but she seems calm, composed. Yet I wonder how she can be either of those, considering the double tragedy of the hand she has been dealt. Only a certain tension about the shoulders indicates that she is neither, that she waits, just as Ava used to wait, for something violent to hurtle back into her life.
Because I once knew Louise’s house as well as my own, I know that the door to the right at the end of the room leads to a kitchen, that behind the length of beige velvet curtaining which covers the far wall is a patch of grass surrounded by flower beds and beyond the grass, an outbuilding which Louise had converted into an office.
To the right of the television, on a small side-table, is a photograph of a man with a smiling wife and two children. Next to it, another of the same two children, without their parents. I assume this is the family of Louise’s son, Nicola’s cripplingly self-conscious brother. I struggle to recall his name. Michael? Malcolm? Simon . . . Simon who never spoke. I move my head from side to side of the gap in the curtains, but can see no reminder of Nicola: the pain of her loss obviously still runs too deep. I stand at the door with my hand raised to ring the bell, and then draw back. I know that if I am to ease down into the time and place I have chosen to inhabit, then I shall have to speak to Louise. But is this the right occasion? In front of the window again, I see her abruptly look up, out at me, as if – although she cannot possibly see me – she knows I am there. As if she has been expecting me – or someone from the past – for years.