by Rachel Hore
The Pentreaths’ china bowls were gone now, the house sold, the pain of letting go of their childhood home a further sorrow after their mother’s death nearly a year ago. Mel replaced the bowl and shut the cupboard, leaning against it, as if to lock up the memories. If only it were that easy.
Once again the doubts rolled in. Four weeks in this place, alone with her thoughts, when she was emotionally so fragile – why on earth had she come? Suddenly she longed to be back in her flat in Clapham, looking out on the carefully tended strip of garden where yellow and white spring bulbs would soon be giving way to rich blue ceanothus and purple lilac. Except Clapham didn’t seem right any more either. Her flat hadn’t felt like home since Jake had left. There weren’t enough books to fill the gaps on the shelves, and the pictures he had lifted from the walls had left ghostly shapes behind that shouted their very absence – and his. She knew David had been right – she really did need to get away.
It was three weeks ago that she had been coming out of one of those interminable college faculty meetings in which everything is thoroughly discussed but nothing decided, when the Senior Tutor had caught up with her.
‘Mel, do you have a moment? A quick sandwich, maybe?’ David looked at his watch. ‘I’ve another meeting at two, but . . .’
They wove a way through the stream of students towards the staff café and soon Mel was picking at quiche and salad, trying to inject some life into her voice as she answered David’s routine queries about her work. She mustn’t let him know quite how bored she was with it all at the moment, how colourless was the round of teaching and marking – indeed, how dreary everything seemed. She was wrung out. But he seemed to have read her mind.
‘Mel,’ he said gently. She flinched at his searching gaze, knowing that her eyes were dark-ringed in her tired, pale face.
He smiled, a grizzled, avuncular man, with springy silver hair and lively eyes that belied the fact that he too was feeling the strain. The pressures of providing for increasing numbers of students in cramped conditions and with limited funds were taking their toll on everybody. David was, Mel knew, looking forward to retiring at the end of the summer term, leaving teaching and administration so that he could pursue the historical research he never had time to do.
Now he said, ‘Do tell me to mind my own business, but I was watching you in that meeting back there. You looked as though all the cares of the world were on your shoulders.’
‘It’s listening to John O’Hagen,’ Mel tried to laugh, referring to the Angry Young Man of the Arts Faculty, ‘banging on about union rules again. I know technically he’s right, of course, but we can’t threaten industrial action about every little thing. We have responsibilities. God.’ She rolled her eyes in a sudden flash of anger.
‘Now you’re more like your usual self.’ David reached over and squeezed her clenched fist. ‘A year ago, you know, you would have been talking him down across the table.’
‘I would, wouldn’t I?’ Mel gave him a ghost of one of her most dazzling smiles, then slumped into round-shouldered misery once more. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not very good company at the moment.’
‘You’re always good company,’ said David. ‘But you’ve had a bad year one way or another . . .’
‘It’s not been great, no.’
‘How are the family doing?’
Mel pushed a chunk of quiche into her mouth and chewed, which bought her time to consider the question. ‘I haven’t a clue what my brother William is thinking. He’s always been the sort to get on with things. Shuts his feelings out. It’s much easier to talk to Chrissie, my sister.’ She was silent for a moment, then rushed on. ‘It’s just not fair, though – the cancer taking Mum so quickly. I keep going over what happened. Did we try hard enough to get her the right treatment? Shouldn’t we have noticed earlier that she was so ill? She had been losing weight and getting tired, but I didn’t realise—’
‘You mustn’t feel guilty,’ David cut in, picking his words carefully. ‘It sounded as though there was little you could do with such a virulent form of the disease.’
Mel looked at her plate. ‘That’s what the doctors insisted.’
They both ate in silence for a moment, then David said, almost casually, ‘And then there’s Jake.’
‘And then there’s Jake,’ said Mel, reaching for her water glass and taking a gulp as if it were some nasty-tasting medicine. David knew Jake well. For the irony was that Mel’s ex-boyfriend was also a lecturer in the Arts Faculty – in Creative Writing – and she came across him all the time, at the coffee-machine, by the photocopier, in the café. She had taken care at this morning’s meeting to choose a seat that meant she wouldn’t have to see his face every time she looked up. But even so, she was aware he would be sitting, restlessly doodling crazy cartoon faces on his A4 pad, and she couldn’t block out the lazy tones of his voice, once soft in her ear alone, or his comments, as ever acerbic and to the point.
‘Mel, I’ve a suggestion to make,’ David said suddenly. ‘You’re due a term’s study leave sometime next year, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. Ite interruptioner of ’ll be five years since my last,’ said Mel, who had, like everyone else in the Faculty, calculated to the day when her next paid sabbatical was due.
‘What are you working on at the moment? Have you any plans?’
‘I do, actually. I’ve been researching artists in Cornwall,’ she replied, ‘the Newlyn School of painters at the end of the nineteenth century, and their links with the artists who settled in Lamorna up the coast.’
‘Ah, don’t remind me. Stanhope Forbes – was he Newlyn School?’ David guessed with a look of mild alarm. He was a medievalist and it was a joke in the Faculty that he was only dimly aware of any artefacts that hadn’t either been dug up or handwritten by monks on vellum.
‘Yes, and his Canadian wife Elizabeth. Then there were Thomas and Caroline Gotch . . . Walter Langley. They’re the more famous ones. And then later, in Lamorna, Harold and Laura Knight, Sir Alfred Munnings . . .’
David nodded. ‘I know, the one who painted horses?’
‘That’s right. Grosvenor Press, the art-book publishers, have asked me to write a book about the Newlyn and Lamorna artists and their work. I was planning to finish the research for it over the next couple of months, visit Cornwall for a few weeks after the summer term finishes, and do most of the writing when I get back. The deadline’s the end of the year, you see.’
‘Sounds an interesting commission.’
‘Oh, it is. It’s the women I’m particularly drawn to. They had so much personal and professional freedom, but some of them had to struggle so hard. Laura Knight, for instance, found herself a penniless orphan . . .’ She stopped, realising she was waving a fork around to emphasise her points, scattering crumbs. David was looking at her, a lopsided smile growing on his face.
‘Why don’t you start your sabbatical now?’ he suggested. ‘Take the summer term off, don’t wait until next year. If you combine it with the summer break you’ll have nearly six months’ writing time without distractions.’
Mel’s face lit up for a moment, then the light died.
‘It sounds fabulous,’ she said, ‘but aren’t I supposed to be taking the “Nineteenth-century Painting” seminars next term? And “An Introduction to Modernism”? And who’ll look after my MA students?’
‘Mel, I had an email from Rowena Stiles last week,’ David said, watching her reaction, and Mel couldn’t help frowning.
Rowena had arrived as cover for a term when Mel had been away on compassionate leave eighteen months before. There had been talk about finding her a permanent position, but then she announced she was to follow her banker husband to New York and Mel had been relieved. It was no secret that the two women hadn’t got on.
David continued: ‘She’s back in London for a few months and would be glad to fill in.’
‘You’d already asked her, then?’ she said, sitting up straight in her seat.
‘No, o
f course not. She had got in touch because she was looking for work. Relax.’
Mel thought for a moment, measuring up the tantalising glimpse of freedom, like a chink of light through a door in a dark room, against the prospect of Rowena taking over her work again. Rowena knew her stuff, all right, but she liked to be in control and had an abrasive manner. Mel was proud of the fact that she herself got on well with her students. Her dramatic red hair and colourful bohemianI miss you, Mel, I really do. Our time together was so short, but now I look back I know it was wonderful and I think. is dress sense gave her a bona fide artistic air, and she was always generous with her encouragement and not too hard on those who delivered their work late. By contrast, they had to watch their step with Rowena. And the latter might not be content just to stand in temporarily this time, once she had got her feet under Mel’s desk . . .
But a whole term off, starting next week when they broke up for Easter? Then the long summer break? It was tempting – very tempting.
‘Rowena does an excellent job, Mel,’ David said firmly. ‘I know she can be . . . assertive . . .’
‘Pushy and manipulative’ are the words you’re skirting round, Mel thought. She wondered what had happened to that hot job at the Manhattan museum Rowena had boasted about? Well, David was right: maybe her students could put up with Rowena for a term – and it wasn’t as though she could legally steal Mel’s job.
‘Are you sure you’re not trying to get rid of me?’ she teased him, a smile transforming her tired face.
‘No, don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘Mel, I’m saying this to you as a friend. If you don’t take some time away, I’m frightened you’ll make yourself ill. And I won’t have you getting to that stage. Think about it over the weekend, then come and see me on Monday.’
The more she thought about it, the more attractive the idea seemed, but there was one problem.
‘I haven’t got anywhere to stay. It’s Easter and everything’s booked up.’ Mel was on the phone to her sister Chrissie the following Sunday evening. Chrissie, who lived in North London with her amiable civil servant husband Rob, juggled part-time administration for a TV production company with raising two young sons, Rory and Freddy.
‘Wait a minute, Rory, darling, I’m on the phone. Sorry, Mel. Where exactly would you want to go?’
‘West Cornwall. Ideally in the Penzance area.’
‘Ah, the Wild West. Mum used to love that part.’ Chrissie sighed. Their parents had met at school in Cornwall, but further east, in Falmouth. They had moved ‘up country’ to London soon after their marriage, when Tom Pentreath qualified as a junior doctor, the start of a dazzling career as a heart surgeon. ‘It’s a shame we don’t know anyone down there since Aunty Jean died. When did she die, I can’t . . . Wait, wait, I’ve just remembered something. Mel, this is really amazing. You know Patrick?’
‘Patrick who?’
‘Patrick Winterton. Friend of Nick’s?’ Nick had been a boyfriend of Chrissie’s at Exeter University with whom she had stayed in touch after the romance had fizzled out. Chrissie stayed in touch with everybody.
‘No,’ Mel said shortly. ‘I don’t know Patrick.’ Chrissie was always doing this, assuming that she, Mel, knew everyone Chrissie knew. And with Chrissie’s vast acquaintance this could prove impossibly confusing.
‘He studied History at Exeter. Got his own business now. Something to do with the Internet,’ she said vaguely. ‘He’s still the same – funny the way some people don’t change a bit . . . Oh Rory, do stop it, darling, you can talk to Aunty Mel in a moment. Anyway, he was telling me he’s just inherited this place near Penzance from his great-uncle or someone. I’m sure he said Lamorna – isn’t that one of the places you need to go? There’s a cottage in the grounds he might do up and rent out. I don’t know what state itI miss you, Mel, I really do. Our time together was so short, but now I look back I know it was wonderful and I think. is’s in now. Mel, talk to Rory while I find the email address he gave me.’
In the dim glow of the wall-lights with their crimson frilled shades, the sitting room in the cottage looked dingy but cosy. Apart from a huge silver television crouching in a corner like an alien spaceship, the furniture seemed as old as the house. A horsehair sofa with wooden arms, two matching fireside chairs, all with lace antimacassars laid over their backs, were arranged before the small fireplace where a neatly piled pyramid of paper, kindling and wood awaited the touch of a match. A fire would probably cheer up the room, but there was no point lighting one this late. Mel wondered idly where more wood might be stored. Another task for the morning.
She sank down onto one of the chairs. It was surprisingly comfortable. As ever, her professional interest drew her to the pictures on the wall. Instead of the cheap reproductions and mass-produced prints that landlords of holiday cottages often inflict on their tenants were half a dozen fine watercolours of flowers.
She got up to view the one hung above a mahogany bureau. The weak light reflecting off the glass forced her to lift it off the wall in order to study it properly. The words magnolia sargentiana robusta were painted lightly beneath the delicate rendition of three pale pink flowers on a woody stem, followed by the initials P.T. She noticed the needle-fine detail of the stamens, the light wash of colour blushing deeper towards the centre of the blooms, the gloss of the wood. It was meticulously observed and executed.
She replaced the magnolia and moved to consider the others. There was a creamy rhododendron macabeanum, a scarlet camellia, a purple iris and two kinds of rose. Each picture was as exquisite as the last. And each was signed P.T. Before she replaced the sixth and last on the wall, she turned it over hoping for a date. But the brown-paper backing was blank.
A plastic travel alarm clock on the mantelpiece, looking as out of place as the telly in this dingy Victorian setting, showed five to ten. Mel went to haul the suitcases upstairs.
In the larger of the two bedrooms the Victorian oak double bed, she was relieved to see, was made up with a plump duvet, rather than old-fashioned sheets and blankets. However, the musty smell was, if anything, more intense in here. She dumped the cases on the floor, wondering where she would stow everything tomorrow. By the door was a rough-hewn chest-of-drawers with a wedge of cardboard under one front claw foot. A cracked jug stood in a washing bowl on top and Mel, clutching an armful of clean underwear, traced its painted pattern of storks with her finger.
With her free hand she pulled at the knob of the top drawer, intending to stuff the underwear in it, but the drawer wouldn’t move. She dropped the clothes on the top and tugged at it with both hands. It opened halfway and stuck. Mel peered inside.
Caught at the back was a wad of yellow newspaper which she gently eased out and unfolded. The date was ripped but she held the edges of the tear together until she could read the words March 1912. Almost one hundred years ago. Her attention was caught by a short piece about a train-load of unemployed tin miners and their families leaving Penzance to join a ship to the Cape from Southampton. The stream of emigrants shows no ebb, but still runs on, as fast and deep as ever . . . the article said.
She turned the paper over. Amidst the advertisements for patent remedies and ladies’ fashions was another news article.
TRAGEDY AT NEWLYN
Soon after ten o’clock on Saturday evening, drinkers were alerted to a sudden blaze in the upper storey of the Blue Anchor Inn by the harbour, (proprietress Mrs Adeline Treglown). An alarm was raised, the building evacuated and help came from the coastguards, some of the crew of His Majesty’s ship Mercury, and fishermen. Although the fire was brought under control, the body of a man has been found in the wreckage. He was later identified as Arthur Reagan, aged 52, a visitor from London. An inquest will be held next week.
Mel read it twice, wondering why someone had kept it. Was it just to line the drawer, she wondered. She refolded the paper and dropped it back in the chest.
As she pulled on an old T-shirt nightdress and brushed her teeth at a little washb
asin she thought about events at the Blue Anchor a century ago, imagining that His Majesty’s sailors must have been propping up the bar when the fire broke out, and presumably fought the flames whilst the worse for wear. She wondered at the serendipitous way other lives had leaped out of the past and into her consciousness. She had only been looking for somewhere to stow her knickers and had been given a story instead.
Cornwall was one of the most ghost-ridden counties in England, Mel’s mother had once told her. There was a time when they were children that William relished reading Mel and Chrissie Cornish ghost stories of headless horsemen, of mermaids and spooky lights luring ships onto wrecks until the sisters lay in their beds at night rigid with fear, unable to sleep. There was one particular favourite of his about the ghost of a suicide buried at a crossroads, which could only be prevented from walking by a spear driven into the chest of the corpse. Little Mel would have nightmares about it, waking screaming, until their mother took the book away. She used to counter the girls’ night fears with an old Cornish prayer she had been taught as a child – what was it? Something about being saved ‘from ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night,’ ending with ‘Good Lord, deliver us!’
Just then, there was a particularly loud creak from outside on the landing. Mel, lying in bed, tensed up, her sixth sense switched onto high alert.
It’s just the wooden stairs settling, she soothed herself. As fear slowly receded, the ghouls of doubt and sorrow clamoured for attention instead, and waves of desolation washed over her. She cried a little, feeling as vulnerable as a child lost in the dark. Eventually, as she used to when tiny, she cuddled a pillow for comfort. When she slipped into fitful sleep, she could almost hear her mother’s voice whispering, ‘Everything will look better in daylight, darling.’ She only hoped that without her mother there this mantra would still hold true.
As she slept, the house whispered its secrets.