That Still andWhispering Place

by Kathy Shuker

  *

  Claire worked through the Easter holidays. She hadn’t planned it that way - Penny had reluctantly agreed she could have some time off - but, without Laura, time hung heavily on her hands so she helped sort through a van load of goods Penny had bought at a house clearance, relieved to be busy. Having spent most of Maundy Thursday checking through a suitcase of twenties’ clothes, she arrived home to find another box of eggs on her doorstep. It seemed she had finally made a connection with Eddie.

  It was her birthday and there was a card on the mat, postmarked from Brittany. Laura had rung her earlier and had told her there was a parcel on the way too. She had sounded cheerful, had been unusually chatty, talking about crêpes and sandy beaches and a firework display. Claire was amazed and pleased and a little bit jealous and wished she weren’t.

  She put the birthday card on the sideboard next to the one her mother had sent from Greece and put a light to the wood in the stove, then went to get changed. Standing in the kitchen half an hour later, wondering if she could be bothered to cook a meal, she considered ringing Adam to arrange another meeting. Or should she try and speak to Beattie again about George first? Was there any point?

  Her thoughts were broken by the sound of a knock on the front door and she was still frowning when she opened it.

  ‘Happy birthday, Claire,’ said Neil.

  He pushed a large bunch of flowers at her, prettily wrapped in floral paper. She didn’t take them and his shoulders dropped.

  ‘Please Claire, I’m sorry. I got your message. I’m sorry about the mix up. It was an honest mistake. I didn’t realise I was messing up your plans. I thought Laura had told you all about it.’ He looked at her pleadingly. He had nice eyes, Neil: deep ocean-blue wells, long-lashed, expressive. ‘Please Claire. Happy birthday and a peace offering.’

  She sighed and took the flowers. They were her favourites: a mix of carnations, lilies, roses and gypsophila. And now he was holding up a brown paper carrier in his other hand.

  ‘There’s a new Chinese restaurant opened in Penmarna. I heard it was quite good and they do take-away so…’ He raised his eyebrows in an exaggerated way like a shocked clown. ‘…I thought maybe you’d like a celebratory Chinese?’

  It had been one of their favourite treats, a Chinese takeaway, back when the children had been very young and went to bed early. They’d sit at the table with all the foil cartons spread out before them, picnic-style, and drink white wine. Pennyman wine, of course.

  ‘Didn’t it occur to you that I might have something else planned for tonight?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’ He hesitated, glanced towards the room behind her. ‘But I suppose I hoped not. Have you?’

  ‘Why Neil? Why are you doing this?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. But when I remembered that it was your birthday I just thought I’d like to celebrate it with you. Would you mind?’

  ‘It’s not long ago you didn’t want to spend any time with me.’

  ‘That’s not entirely true, Claire. I was just…confused.’

  ‘Oh come on, Neil. Don’t give me that.’

  ‘You said you wanted the divorce too,’ he said defiantly.

  ‘I did. I’d had enough. You forced me to it.’

  ‘You forced me to it.’

  They glared at each other.

  ‘This is ridiculous.’ She shook her head despairingly, almost smiling.

  ‘I know. Truce?’ He grinned and held up the brown carrier again.

  She pulled the door back.

  ‘Thank you.’ He smiled, bent over to pick up the bottle of wine he’d put on the doorstep and walked in.

  They sat at her kitchen table and talked while they ate, safe topics like the weather, the upcoming duck race in the village and Dave Spenser’s planning application for a huge conservatory on the back of the pub. Neil told her Tim had a new girlfriend but he hadn’t met her yet. He mentioned his mother too but only to joke that she’d forgotten that he was forty-four now and didn’t need to have his bread cut into soldiers at breakfast. Claire asked about the people they both knew in Kent and if he’d seen them recently; he asked about the Craft Yard and if Claire was enjoying working at V and C. It was very civilised, very safe.

  They refilled their glasses with the remaining wine and took it through to the sitting room. He got down on his knees in front of the stove, poking the logs to make them flare up. She sat in the armchair and watched him. He looked very at home in her little cottage but then he had always enjoyed stoking fires.

  ‘Do you remember that chimney fire we had in the first house we rented?’ she remarked.

  ‘I’m never likely to forget it, am I?’ He got up and installed himself on the sofa. ‘We were young and naive. We assumed the chimney would have been swept.’

  ‘Did we even think about it?’

  He grinned. ‘No. Not really. We just lit the fire.’

  They were silent for several minutes, sipping the wine.

  ‘Do you remember that first holiday we had together in St. Mawes?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s not far away is it but it felt like another world. So - I don’t know - ordinary and so much fun. I think the sun shone every day.’

  She smiled. ‘It did. My shoulders peeled. Then you ate some dodgy prawns on the quayside and spent a day throwing up.’

  ‘Thanks for reminding me. Very romantic.’

  Their eyes met; Claire looked away first.

  ‘Why did you come back to Bohenna, Claire?’ Neil asked softly.

  She looked back at him, surprised. And irritated too. ‘Why do you keep going on about it? Bohenna’s my home.’

  ‘It was. But your father’s passed away and you had friends in Kent and a job. Laura saw it as home. Why come back here?’

  ‘We’ve been through this. Laura is grown up now and leading her own life. I was always going to come back. I see you’ve come back. Why did you leave a good job to rejoin the family firm? You always argue, the lot of you, about everything. What was the point?’

  ‘That is the point, isn’t it? It’s the family firm. It’s where I ought to be. But you didn’t have a business to come back to. It’s not as though you ever took much of an interest in the vineyard.’

  ‘Well, it didn’t take long for the old resentments to rear their ugly heads, did it? Bohenna isn’t all about the vineyard, Neil. Other lives do go on here.’

  His expression set. He took a long draught of wine, fidgeted in the chair, crossed and uncrossed his long legs, looked round the room. Finally, his gaze settled back on her.

  ‘I saw George Foster a couple of days ago,’ he said.

  Claire’s stomach tightened. ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘He said you’d been knocking at their door, asking Beattie a load of odd questions about old neighbours and the day Gilly disappeared and the fête, of all things. And everyone in the village seems to be talking about it.’

  ‘What are you getting at Neil?’

  ‘I want to know if that’s why you’ve come back: to start searching for Gilly all over again?’ He leaned forward suddenly, elbows on his knees, the wine glass still in his hand. ‘Look Claire, I thought you’d got beyond all this. When I saw you at Christmas, I was…I was blown away by how lovely you still are. And you seemed to be so much more your old self. I thought that was why you’d come back: to find yourself again.’

  She frowned, mouth open, stunned by his insight.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘So why the questions? Why start it all over again?’

  She took her time, playing with the wine glass.

  ‘I have made a fresh start,’ she said slowly. ‘But I’ve been touching base with old friends and the fête question was just a silly thing to do with work - I suppose I should have explained that to Beattie. I asked about Gilly on the spur of the moment. You’re reading too much into it.’

  ‘Am I? You’ve been asking Danny questions too. Are you telling me I’m reading too much
into that as well?’

  ‘For a family that argues as much as you do, you share a remarkable amount of information.’

  ‘Don’t try to change the subject. You always have to blame my family for everything.’

  ‘Of course I don’t. And I’d explain about the questions, but I don’t see why I have to and you clearly wouldn’t believe me whatever I said.’

  ‘OK, OK.’ He sat back, raising a hand in mock surrender and letting it fall heavily onto the sofa at his side.

  She downed the last of her wine and stood up. ‘Look, I’d offer you coffee but I’m working tomorrow and I’ve got a few things I need to do before bedtime.’

  He didn’t move. ‘You’re dismissing me. But I’d like us to talk, Claire.’

  ‘There’s nothing to talk about, Neil. Haven’t we already said it all…over and over and over? There’s nothing new to say.’ She hesitated. ‘And I’m not sure I can take any more. It wears me down.’

  He stood up too and looked at her fondly and, just as he’d done at Christmas, he reached up a hand to finger the curls of her hair.

  ‘I think you really have found yourself again,’ he said. ‘You’re getting your old confidence back; you’re…so much more alive again. You know, I’ve only recently realised just how much I’ve missed you. I was a fool. I lost my way there for a while. And I’m sorry.’

  He bent down and kissed her gently on the lips. Still stooping, looking into her face, he said, ‘Happy birthday, Claire,’ then bent to kiss her again but she pushed a hand up against his chest, blocking him and stepped back and away.

  ‘What is it?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want…’ She stopped. What didn’t she want? ‘I don’t want to get hurt again, Neil. It’s history now.’

  ‘You mean, we’re history?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I heard that you were seeing someone else. Is it true?’

  ‘I have been out with someone a couple of times.’

  ‘Adam Thomas.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it serious?’

  ‘Not yet. But who knows? How can you tell?’ Claire moved towards the kitchen. ‘Your jacket’s on the back of your chair, isn’t it?’ She returned, clutching it, gave it to him and walked to the front door. She turned the latch and pulled it open. ‘Thank you for the flowers, Neil, and the meal. I enjoyed it.’

  He joined her by the door.

  ‘I enjoyed it too.’

  He didn’t move.

  ‘Don’t keep looking, Claire. It’s time to let the past go. I worry about you.’

  ‘You don’t need to.’

  ‘I think I do.’

  She frowned, eyes narrowed. ‘Do you know something Neil?’

  ‘About what? I don’t know what you mean.’

  She stared into his face, trying to read him but she had never found that easy.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said and, after a few moments, he left.

  An hour later, getting undressed in her bedroom, she heard the house phone ringing downstairs. Her first thought was of Laura but when she picked it up to answer it, no-one spoke. Someone was there though, breathing into the mouthpiece in an exaggerated way, wanting to be heard. She repeated the number and when still there was no reply she hung up and rang 1471 to find out who it was, heart thumping. The number had been withheld. It had happened before.

  Chapter 15

  The crisp spring sunshine over the Easter break brought droves of tourists back to Bohenna and the Craft Yard buzzed with people. In the preceding month, Tim had employed a landscaper to clear an area of ground beyond the Yard, laying it out as a children’s playground with swings, a climbing frame and a slide. It was proving very popular. He had also restarted his tours of the vineyard though the vines were still in bud, the possibility of grapes as yet only an exercise of the imagination.

  In the corner of Adam’s studio stood a rack of prints of his work in assorted sizes, and greetings cards too, items he could sell inexpensively to passing trade. But with no-one else to help, selling them was a distraction, as were the endless questions and remarks about his work and his wary observation of young children’s inquisitive fingers on both his paintings and his work table. So much for open studios, he thought. It was hard to concentrate to get anything constructive done and, though the issue often crossed his mind, he had little time or energy to consider his next move in the search for information about Gilly. And there was also the small matter of the commission from the Pennymans, something for which he had as yet done little preparation and which, with time passing all too swiftly, began to concern him. There was a pressing need to do more sketches and to plan the painting.

  On the Wednesday after Easter, frustrated and crabby with the crush of people milling disinterestedly in and out of his studio, he closed it up, grabbed his rucksack, camera and sketch materials, and wandered off towards the vineyard.

  A brisk breeze tugged at his jacket but the weather looked set fair, the bright, clear sky broken only by a scatter of scudding white clouds. Adam turned right before the restaurant and trod purposefully down the side of the nearest field of vines. If by some freak chance he ran into Eve, he planned to apologise for trespassing and pass his presence off as a speculative sketching exercise. He crossed down into the next field, branched left at the bottom near the riverside woods and headed east above the treeline, glancing back frequently, trying to keep track of where he was in relation to the vantage point chosen for the commission.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock by the time he reached it and sun bathed the front of the house and cast dancing shadows from the wind-blown trees. Perfect. It was a relief, too, to be out in the fresh air and alone. For more than an hour and a half he worked, sketching, scribbling notes to himself and taking photographs as back up. Around half twelve he heard the throaty grumble of a tractor engine and Phil came into view, chugging up and down the rows of vines, spreading something around their woody stems. Seeing Adam he drew the tractor to a halt nearby, killed the engine and climbed down to join him.

  ‘Painting?’ he enquired.

  ‘Drawing. Planning the painting. Do you want me to move? I’ve nearly finished anyway.’

  ‘In a minute maybe.’

  Phil pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered one to Adam. Though the packaging was conventional, the cigarettes looked home-made.

  ‘No thanks. I don’t.’

  ‘You’re sure now? These aren’t your regular cigarettes, if you get my meaning. All my own work.’ Phil produced a wry grin.

  ‘Nah, thanks all the same. I’ve never found anything I can smoke yet which agrees with me.’

  ‘And you a painter? I thought all artists were bohemian types, liked this kind of thing.’ Phil looked disappointed and lit a cigarette for himself, cupping the flame from his lighter to protect it from the breeze. He took a hard drag, watching Adam through narrowed eyes.

  ‘You mean you thought we all smoked and drank to excess and took our models as mistresses?’

  ‘Somethin’ like that.’ Phil took another drag and visibly appeared to relax into his skin. ‘How’s it going?’ He nodded towards the sketches.

  ‘Early days really. But I’ll be able to start the painting soon with these.’

  ‘May’s the birthday bash. Not long for it to dry is it?’

  ‘I use water-based paints and collage, not oils. It won’t be a problem.’

  Phil grunted again and nodded. ‘I don’t understand anything about painting.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder if I do,’ said Adam laconically. He glanced in the direction of the tractor. ‘Spreading weed-killer?’

  ‘Fertiliser. Makes the buggers grow and keeps ‘em strong, helps ‘em shrug off pests.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about vines.’ Adam grinned. ‘But I appreciate the wine that comes from them. Drinking is maybe one thing I do do to excess.’ He bent down and pulled a chocolate bar out of his rucksack, peeled back the foil and
bit off a chunk.

  ‘Settled in Bohenna?’ Phil enquired without apparent interest.

  ‘More or less. My girlfriend didn’t though. She couldn’t hack the quiet.’

  ‘Oh? But I heard you were dating Claire Pennyman these days.’ Phil took another pull on his cigarette and looked at Adam curiously. ‘Or is she calling herself Hitchen again now?’

  Naively, Adam hadn’t expected this line of conversation but, sensing an opportunity, he thought on his feet.

  ‘The subject of her surname hasn’t come up,’ he said. ‘I guess you knew her when you were kids then, before she got married.’

  ‘Ah.’ Phil sucked on his cigarette ruminatively. ‘Known her pretty much all my life.’

  ‘Has she changed much?’

  Phil’s lip curled ruefully. ‘Suppose we all have.’ He tapped the ash from the end of the cigarette. ‘I haven’t seen much of her lately. She used to be…’ He hesitated, apparently struggling to find the right word. ‘Claire always had to be doing. A force of nature she was. Used to roam, chasing crickets, paddling in the pond to get close to the tadpoles, beatin’ us lads at our own games.’ A smile tugged at his mouth and he brushed the back of his fingers across the rapidly growing stubble on his cheek. ‘She was a case.’

  This chatty side to Phil was a novelty. On the odd occasion Adam had seen him with the Pennymans he’d said barely a couple of words. Though he dimly recalled seeing the man in the pub before Christmas, singing a succession of carols at the top of his voice, being teased about it and then told to give it a break. He’d had quite a voice. He’d also looked like he’d had a serious skinful.

  ‘Suppose Bohenna must have been a good place to grow up in,’ Adam remarked blandly. ‘I grew up on the outskirts of a city. Didn’t have much freedom to run around there. Not that safe to wander either.’ He pulled a face as if suddenly remembering. ‘Though of course Claire’s kid disappeared here too so I guess it’s the same everywhere. But more surprising in a place this size that nothing’s come to light.’ Adam chewed on another piece of chocolate, surreptitiously watching his companion’s face. Phil’s expression closed down immediately.