Sail Upon the Land

by Josa Young

  ‘No, she was too busy.’

  ‘I see. And you would have wanted to get back to Cambridge as well.’

  Sarah gazed into the past. Then she said:

  ‘When you’re my age, twenty years seems a very little time. And I’m holding a baby of the family right now in this place and he wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for Mellita. And Melissa.’

  Sarah handed Hari back to Damson and they both stood up. She slipped her arm around her granddaughter’s waist and kissed her proffered cheek.

  ‘My goodness,’ she said. ‘A new baby at last. We can talk properly in Sussex when I come down to help you settle in. I feel so sad for you that you had to go through that alone. I don’t really understand.’

  Damson saw then that her grandmother was getting old.

  ‘I’m fine. The main thing is Hari.’

  They walked towards the station together and parted.

  Damson reached Swine Cottage in the late afternoon, Hari tired and fractious after his long journey. Both of them slept well that night, and then she was up, filled with the energy of change. The removal men arrived very early to pack, load everything on to the lorry and take it down to Castle Hey.

  Damson and Hari camped that night in the empty cottage, and the next morning Damson called Munty to let him know she was setting off from Fenning for the last time. She could see him in her mind’s eye answering the red plastic Trimphone in his study, so very modern when her mother Melissa had chosen it for him in the Sixties.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Munty? Damson here, just letting you know we’re leaving in a minute.’

  ‘So pleased. Take care, won’t you.’

  She hadn’t noticed before that his voice sounded older.

  ‘Oh, and Damson. I’m glad you’re coming, and I’m looking forward to meeting the baby. What’s it called?’

  ‘He is called Hari.’

  ‘Harry? That’s nice. When do you think you’ll get here?’ Munty asked.

  ‘Well, the route finder says nearly four hours, but I think you should allow five as we’ll need stops on the way. It’s eleven o’clock now, I’m hoping to be with you by teatime.’

  ‘Well, I won’t start worrying until drinks time,’ said Munty. ‘We got the North Lodge ready in record time, Pickfords were in touch while you were away of course, for access, and the men unloaded and unpacked everything late yesterday. It’s a bit of a muddle but we’ll soon get it straight.’

  ‘Thank you, I didn’t expect you to do that. I thought I would do it myself.’

  ‘Well, what with the baby and so on, we thought we would make it nice for you before you came,’ said her father. ‘It all looks very comfortable down there, the Raeburn’s been on all week and the beds are made up. We even did a bit of decorating. It’s a very nice little house.’

  Damson couldn’t remember much about it.

  ‘There’s a big corporate cocktail party and dinner in the main house, and I thought you and Hari would prefer to move straight in to your own place. Otherwise there would be the bother of all that baby equipment moving around. I remember what it was like with Noonie and Clarrie’s children. Margaret and I are in one of the South Lodges, keeping out of everyone’s way.’

  ‘I see. No, that’s fine. Very good idea. But no one had lived there for a long time?’

  ‘Well, we went and had a look as soon as we got your email, and it was in remarkably good nick. Just needed a jolly good spring clean and the garden cleared. So we commissioned an industrial clean from top to bottom. But it’s people who make things dirty, isn’t it? And there have been no people there for many years.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Damson, bemused. ‘People do make things messy.’

  ‘Anyway, I think you’ll find it very comfortable.’

  He sounded uncertain.

  Damson’s mouth, which seemed a lot more mobile these days, broke into a delighted laugh.

  ‘I can’t wait, Munty. It sounds absolutely lovely.’

  ‘Well, you take care now on the road. Come to the left-hand lodge, and I’ll have the pleasure of escorting you to your new abode.’

  She could hear that he was smiling.

  And she kissed the baby on her hip, as he reached up to twiddle her growing hair while sucking the two middle fingers on his left hand.

  ‘Damson?’

  Pause.

  ‘Yes, Munty?’

  ‘It will be different this time. You’ll see when you get here.’

  ‘Different?’

  ‘Yes, darling, different. I can’t tell you how welcome you are and how much I’m looking forward to seeing you both. You should have been here so much more. Wasn’t right. I am sorry, Damson. The whole thing. Not all right at all.’

  ‘Munty, are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. We can talk when you get here.’

  Damson’s eyes filled with tears as the love that had been dammed up behind walls of secrecy and loss now flowed freely. She must pull herself together.

  She had last seen her father in London the year before, when they had had one of their regular lunches. His relieved and loving phone call, after she had been able to help Noonie with Ottie’s meningitis in Derbyshire, had melted some of the discomfort between them. But there was an unspoken rule that they meet away from Castle Hey – and Margaret.

  The last time she had actually stayed at Castle Hey – she realised to her horror it must have been for the Millennium – had been different.

  The celebrations had been magnificent. All the local grandees were there. There had been an extraordinary son et lumière display on the lake, with interweaving water jets lit up to resemble fireworks, and dancing in time to a live orchestra that played both Handel’s Water and Fireworks Music, as well as the Hallelujah Chorus. Damson had tried to find her father among the guests, but couldn’t and gave up, going indoors. She’d tracked him down to his study and found him sitting in front of the fire.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Not watching the display, Munty?’

  ‘No, not my thing. I was a bit cold.’

  He seemed to hesitate as if he was going to say something else.

  ‘What’s the matter, Munty? Are you OK? Health OK?’

  ‘Oh, yes, my health is fine. Had my annual check-up, Margaret insists on it. Lots of walks and an excellent diet. Nothing to complain about.’

  Damson sat down opposite him and the silence grew and spread between them, impossible to puncture. She shifted in her seat. He didn’t seem to want to look at her. This didn’t surprise her, she wasn’t decorative. He stared into the fire. In the end, with an inarticulate word or two, she had kissed the top of his head and left him to it, going up to her old bedroom to lie awake. She’d left very early the next day before anyone was up.

  They drew up outside the left-hand South Lodge at five o’clock. Damson hopped out of the car and rang the bell. She wanted to get Hari straight into the North Lodge so she could give him his tea and bath, plus a bottle and story before bedtime. Munty came to the door wearing his Barbour and pulling a flat cap over his bald patch. He was smiling, and held her shoulders, kissing her cheeks.

  ‘You’re here,’ he said. ‘You look wonderful. Darling, I’m so pleased.’

  A great warmth spread through Damson. She had made an effort and was wearing trousers, but very different from the shapeless old cords she had affected before. Her shapely hips were revealed in a pair of tapered jeans tucked into high-heeled brown boots, and she wore a fitted white shirt.

  ‘Where’s the baby?’

  Damson led him round to the other side of the car, and there was Hari, strapped into the car seat and fast asleep.

  ‘I have to ask,’ said Munty. ‘Is he yours?’

  ‘No, he isn’t, not exactly. I can explain. Hop into the passenger seat and let’s get to the Lodge. He’ll wake soon and need his tea.’

  Damson was playing for time. She wanted to be sitting calmly when she
told her father what had happened.

  He seemed to accept that and climbed up into her Freelander. It only took a couple of minutes, driving very slowly in case of deer, to get to her new home. They drove into the woods and curved round to the back of the lake, and there was the little house. Munty handed her the key and told her to have a look round, he would unload and keep an eye on Hari.

  She turned the old-fashioned mortice key in the lock and stepped over the raised threshold. There was a very slight whiff of closed-up house, but there was also lavender, beeswax and wood smoke. The windows were open still, airing the rooms. Hard to tell it hadn’t been lived in for years.

  She rushed around upstairs to look at the bedrooms, where her bed was already made up with her sheets, and then down to see the old-fashioned but spotlessly clean kitchen and bathroom beyond.

  There was her kettle, full of water, so she clicked the on switch and popped a couple of teabags from the red and gold P&Q tin tea caddy into the teapot. She got out a little pot of organic carrot and rice puree and put it to warm in a pan of hot water on the stove, pouring some more boiled water into Hari’s cup to cool down. Munty came in, carrying a suitcase in one hand and Hari’s car seat in the other.

  ‘I’ve brought your little boy, he was beginning to ask for you,’ he said.

  ‘And I’ve made some tea. Let’s just get everything in here while it brews, and then we can sit down and talk. I’ll need to give Hari his tea as well.’

  She went back into the kitchen and put milk from the well-stocked fridge, and cups, on the tray with the pot, amused to see a red and gold P&Q tea cosy in the shape of a crown waiting for her. Then she carried the tray back into the sitting room. Munty had just lit the fire made up on the hearth, and Hari was beginning to grumble.

  ‘It’s nice and warm in here, but a fire’s always cheerful,’ he said, getting up stiffly. ‘We had the chimney swept. Generations of starlings’ nests up there.’

  When the fire was going, he went and sat on one of her red armchairs drawn up to the hearth. He leant forward, looking into her face, his elbows on his knees. ‘Forgive me, I don’t want to intrude, but who is this charming little fellow exactly?’

  ‘You have every right to know.’

  She took a breath. ‘I wasn’t telling the complete truth when I said Hari was a foster child. He is, but only in the loosest sense. It’s what you might call a private, informal arrangement. The correct term I suppose is kinship fostering. Hari is my grandchild.’

  Munty’s face lit up, and he jumped from the chair, his hands stretched out. ‘This little boy is ours?’

  ‘Yes, he is. Yours and mine. And his mother’s. Although she has stepped aside from motherhood just at the moment. I’m hoping that will change. Let me give him something to eat, he’s hungry. And then you can get to know him.’

  Her father was overcome. His eyes glittered and the end of his nose was pink.

  ‘Please pour the tea,’ she said, thinking he needed something to do.

  Seating Hari on her knee and tying a muslin around his neck, Damson spooned warm puree into his willing mouth. Then she turned her attention back to her father who was quietly beaming and wiping his eyes on a large cotton handkerchief.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ he was saying. ‘This is the most splendid thing. Thank you so much, Damson, for coming back and bringing my grandchild, no, great-grandchild, with you. You’ve made me so happy.’ He blew his nose loudly.

  By this time, Damson was crying too.

  ‘Do you have a clean hankie, Daddy?’

  ‘Daddy? I like that. Yes, I’ve another one here.’ He stood up and walked across to her. ‘How did it happen that you always called me Munty?’

  ‘I don’t know. Do you mind if I call you Daddy? Look at us,’ she said shakily. ‘Crying like a couple of babies.’

  After a bit of snuffling and blowing, he went on:

  ‘So, what happened? How did you end up with the baby?’

  Damson told her father everything that had happened, up to and including Leeta leaving Hari with her in spite of all her frantic attempts to get her to stay.

  ‘I wanted her to so much. It was desperately upsetting when she left. But she was in such a state I couldn’t force her to do anything. Maybe she’ll come back later. If so we’ll be waiting for her, won’t we, Hari?’

  ‘It is quite a tricky situation,’ he was saying. ‘But I think under the circumstances we can probably sort it out. I would so love to see her as well.’

  ‘Me too. Having her for a short while and then losing her again was sad. I have her parents’ contact details but I’ve promised not to get in touch until she feels comfortable, if ever’.

  ‘Right. And by the way, I’ll tell Margaret all about it. You don’t have to worry about repeating yourself.’

  ‘I wondered where she was.’

  ‘I decided I wanted to see you on my own first.’

  ‘Has something happened?’ Damson was intrigued in spite of herself, she didn’t remember being alone with her father for any length of time, apart from their London lunches, for years. And they had never talked about anything important. He shied away from emotional stuff. She had always excused him by thinking of him as a typical stunted English public-school-educated man. He was still talking. ‘Not exactly, but I must tell you that she very much regrets what she did when you were pregnant. She feels she did the wrong thing and should have left you with more choice.’

  ‘Does she? She was kind in her way and I hadn’t a clue what to do.’

  ‘Do you think so? She didn’t force you to give the baby away? She’ll feel so much better.’

  ‘Oh, no, Daddy. It was what I’d already chosen to do before I came home. Margaret just made the whole thing much easier. I hadn’t a clue what to do about adoption or anything really. She rescued me I realise now.’

  ‘That makes an enormous difference. I have felt very much to blame too all these years for being a coward at the time and letting you both get on with it. Women’s business I thought. So relieved when you just got on with your life afterwards. Realise now of course that it was family business and I should have been involved properly.’

  He looked sad. Damson reached over and patted his hand.

  ‘It’s OK, you know.’

  He interrupted, ‘I know she can sometimes seem a bit demanding, but if you knew what she had done for me,’ he paused and then continued.

  ‘She rescued me too.’

  Hari spat a large globule of puree out indicating he had had enough. Damson gave him a sip of water.

  ‘Sorry, I interrupted, wanted to tell you how I had felt and you were going to say something else? We aren’t very used to this modern kind of talking about feelings, are we?’ He wiped his eyes again.

  ‘I never told you what happened. Why I was pregnant.’

  He tensed and gazed at her, waiting. She groped with her right hand for the handkerchief that was on the arm of the chair. ‘It isn’t very nice what I have to tell you. I’m sorry. The thing is, I suppose, that the sex was non-consensual.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was raped.’

  Her father looked horrified. She hastened on, ‘Oh, it wasn’t some stranger in a dark alley, I knew him a bit and he didn’t hurt me. He just didn’t stop when I said no. I was frightened but I was also mortified at getting myself into that position, that’s why I didn’t tell anyone. These days, they call it date rape.’

  ‘Is this something to do with why you went back to India?’

  ‘Yes, I went to see if I could find him. I wanted an explanation or some kind of closure. I found him dying alone in his isolated house. You couldn’t make it up,’ she smiled ruefully.

  ‘I helped him and called for aid, probably saved his life. He offered to give himself up to the police, said it was the only time he’d ever done anything like it and that he tried to find me afterwards. I ran away from his house you see. I don’t know if I believe anything he said but at least he said it
. Perhaps people don’t lie when they are close to death. They do lie to survive though. I don’t know.’ She’d thought about it all so much and there were no real answers.

  Munty didn’t ask who the man was but his fists clenched and then relaxed. They sat quietly, then Damson got up to change Hari’s nappy. When he was clean and happy, she placed him on his great-grandfather’s lap with a muslin to catch any overflow. Munty grasped Hari firmly by his middle and lifted him to stand on his knee so their faces were at the same level. They examined each other with interest. Then Hari carefully removed Munty’s half-moon glasses.

  Thirty-eight

  Damson

  April 2009

  Hari slept right through the first night of their new life. The next morning, Damson got up, excited at the idea of arranging a home for them both. She dressed and fed Hari, and left him on the floor, the safest place for the very young and not yet mobile. But Hari didn’t like lying on his back, unless he was sleepy. He had taken to rolling on to his front and then raising himself on his arms.

  He was lying in front of the unlit fire, on the hearth rug, with the old nursery fire guard hooked on to the chimney breast on both sides, while she nipped upstairs. She came back down a minute later into her new sitting room to find him gone. She felt herself go into shock. She had a momentary sensation as if she had dreamt it all, that he was a phantasm called up by her intense longing to be allowed to have a baby. Or that Leeta had changed her mind, crept in and stolen him away.

  She took herself firmly in hand and searched, finding him in the kitchen doorway on his front, having wriggled off like a baby seal to find her. He looked at her over his shoulder. She laughed out loud and seized him in her arms, covering his pleased golden face with kisses, blowing raspberries in his soft little tummy. Her nerves were shot.

  Damson would never get anything done if he was roaming free. She remembered there might be some old-fashioned, solid equipment up at the Castle dating from when she was a baby, so she called her stepmother’s mobile.

  Margaret answered, and said, yes, she could meet her up at the Castle. Damson put Hari’s coat on and strapped him into the three-wheeler pushchair, jogging up to the Castle, pleased to get some exercise and spring air into her lungs. Margaret opened the door, smiling at her shyly. Damson kissed her stepmother, and thanked her for the trouble she had gone to in getting the Lodge ready. Margaret bent over Hari and took his hands in hers, saying, ‘Welcome, little man,’ and kissed him on the head. She seemed unusually quiet, only remarking on how nice Damson looked. Damson examined herself for her usual irritable reaction but found it was quite gone.