'Oh, yes, of course. I'm not talking about those kinds of things, Clio. You've been wonderfully practical and done all the hard work for me. This is to do with his history. I keep remembering odd things about the past and making notes. I know it's foolish to try to second-guess what he wants to know, but I need to be prepared. I'm trying to put it down on paper sensibly.'
Clio laughed, a genuinely amused sound. 'It sounds to me as if you're writing a script for him,' she said. 'Jonah's the last person you need to do that for, Hes: he writes his own scripts.'
Hester chuckled too. 'I know that but I can't help myself. I want to show him things too. To take him to all the places Michael knew when he was young. We used to have such fun. Of course, Lucy never went too far afield. It was much more difficult in wartime with the petrol rationing, but I'm so looking forward to showing it all to Jonah.'
'He'll love it. I know he will. Just don't overdo things.'
'I promise I won't. Good luck for tomorrow.'
A tiny pause, then: 'What do you mean?' Clio asked rather defensively.
'Well, just starting back to work after a long break. It can feel odd, that's all.'
'Oh, I see. Thanks. Well, I shall be thinking of you and Jonah. I'll phone at the weekend to see how it's going. Bye, Hes.'
Hester sat down again. Clio sounded like a child that has been excluded from a party but is trying to be brave about it, and Hester wondered how she would have reacted if she'd told her about Robin's plan for Bridge House. It had been impossible to mention the subject lightly – apart from the fact that she knew Clio would worry about it – but it also seemed just as difficult to write the words to Blaise.
'Robin's just telephoned with a not wholly unexpected suggestion . . .'
'Do you think it's time to sell Bridge House and look for something smaller . . . ?'
'I feel old and vulnerable, Blaise, and I need your help . . .'
None of these approaches was the right one and, in the end, Hester decided that it should be left until morning. There was unfinished business at Bridge House and nothing could be decided until after Jonah's visit. She went back to the study, losing herself in her work preparing for his arrival.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Afterwards, Jonah remembered his stay with Hester in a series of mental images that were composed of light and air and water – and always accompanied by the unforgettable sound of the river. Everywhere they went, driving in Hester's little car, there was the noise of water: rain clattering down in soaking torrents, the roar of fast-running rivers in broad, open pastureland and the gurgling of brooks in narrow, wooded valleys. He peered dizzily down into tree-clad, steep-sided combes to see, far below, small secret streams tumbling, white-tipped, over rocks, and watched swift-flowing water sweeping knee-deep across narrow stony fords. When the rain ceased, the louring cloud-banks fell apart to show amazing skyscapes: scraps of rainbow arching diaphanously between soft, moisture-laden woolpacks; inkycoloured rags scudding across patches of tender blue; and, here and there, golden vapour trails arrowing across the sky.
He stood on grassy cliffs whose precipitous sides plunged down into restless grey water, and looked across the Channel to where Wales huddled, half hidden in pearl-soft fleece. Then, homewardbound along a quiet road, he saw a gush of white water issuing out of the very rocks, and crying, 'Stop!' he climbed out and stared up, head back, so as to see the source of the waterfall that plunged down the high bank. Just here, where the water spouted and tumbled, the black, ridged rock was worn smooth and shining while on either side clustered hart's tongue and pennywort and bright green ferns.
And each morning on waking and every night before he slept, the constant, surging voice of the river.
At Bridge House they spent most of their time together between the breakfast-room and the bookroom. Jonah especially liked the book-room. It was cosy in the evening, with the fire lit and the curtains drawn, the photograph albums open on the small table and Hester gazing into the flames whilst she talked.
As he listened, cameos of the day's journey seemed to mingle with her words and add colour to her stories. In his mind's eye, as Jonah watched scenes unfolding, characters developing, he was aware of tiny dramas weaving together, growing like a tapestry into a larger picture. Sometimes he wished he had a tape-recorder, despairing of ever remembering each detail she described so accurately, yet with another part of his mind he knew that, mysteriously, the story was being stitched by her precise words into the fabric of his memory: a tiny piece of history being passed from her to him.
Sometimes he would interrupt, asking for more personal information: 'But what did Nanny look like?' and, 'How did Patricia cope with her husband away fighting?' or, 'Yes, but what do you think Eleanor actually felt when she heard that Edward was posted missing, believed killed?' and so on. It dawned on him that, however accurate Hester might be, however truthful in her recounting, she was less sure when it came to people's emotions and reactions. He guessed that her detachment, which made her such a restful and fascinating companion, had given her a blind spot here.
Nevertheless, each time she described Edward and Michael, her animation contained all the passion and admiration she'd once felt for these two young men and, as she told of amusing escapades and described their love of poetry and the English language, Jonah knew that a real sense of his grandfather was developing and he began to identify strongly with him. In Hester's stories of the past, the young Michael lived again: sensitive, driven by the creative impulse, fearful for his small child.
Jonah discovered too a great deal about Hester. Some things she disclosed quite unconsciously in her telling of the past; others he learned simply by living with her. He liked the way that she didn't fuss over him. Her whole concentration was focused on a need to convey to him certain things that were part of his heritage and she treated him exactly as if he were a very old and valued friend. Her mind – keen, tough, alert – distracted from her physical frailty and her ready humour kept any kind of self-pity at bay.
She talked to him of Michael's love of the poetry of John Clare and of the way he and Edward used the poet's words – 'haynish' for awkward, 'clumpsing' for numb with cold – and on one occasion she picked up a book and read to him. Her voice barely changed, continuing quick and light, so that for a second he didn't realize that she was reading:
'Just by the wooden brig a bird flew up,
Frit by the cowboy as he scrambled down
To reach the misty dewberry – let us stoop
And seek its nest – the brook we need not dread,
'Tis scarcely deep enough a bee to drown . . .
. . . Five eggs, pen-scribbled o'er with ink their shells . . .
. . . They are the yellowhammer's . . .
'Your grandfather loved the bird poems best,' she told him – but she did not urge him to read them for himself for that was not her way. He saw that she made no effort to control any situation or impose her own views; she simply related what she knew and left him to make up his own mind. Nor did she question him. She never asked him what he was thinking about, though he often sat for long periods, staring into the flames and building scenes in his head. He couldn't help himself: his imagination seized on anything that might feed it and now it felt as if he had been waiting for this ever since he'd seen the photograph, all those years ago in the attic room, of his mother with Jack and Robin in the garden at Bridge House.
'Don't you think it's odd,' Jonah burst out suddenly, 'that Mum never wants to talk about her father? He sounds a really fascinating person, and you all seem to have had such fun together.'
'Ah, but you mustn't forget that by the time Lucy arrived here things were rather different. Her mother had been killed and Michael was very anxious about her.'
Hester fell silent and he glanced at her shrewdly. 'You haven't told me about that yet.'
'Not yet,' she agreed calmly. 'I thought that it was best to continue chronologically. I have the feeling that it's not only Michae
l's story that is interesting you.'
'You're quite right,' he said thoughtfully. 'He is a part of the whole. Obviously, to me, a very important part but I need to see the overall scene, including him, in context. I can imagine something bigger happening here.' He looked at her quickly. 'Please don't think that I'm not treating it seriously, though. I see it as a jigsaw puzzle that I'm piecing together but I can't visualize the whole picture yet by any means. For instance, that night I arrived. I saw that man run out. I saw him, Hester. I had the strongest sensation that this had happened before: a man running out into the wind and rain crying for help. It happened, didn't it?'
She nodded slowly. 'I'm not being deliberately reticent,' she said at last. 'It's a very important part of the story, which is why I want you to feel familiar with the cast before I tell you about it. I hope that you will be able to see it whole so that you don't misjudge any of us.'
He smiled at her use of the word 'cast', but he said: 'That sounds a little ominous.'
'It wasn't meant to be.' She stood up and touched him lightly on the shoulder. 'I'm off to bed,' she said. 'Goodnight, Jonah.'
He watched her go, liking the way she never gave him instructions: 'Don't forget to make the fire safe' or 'put the cat out' or 'switch off the lights'.
St Francis padded in through the half-open door, jumped into Hester's vacated chair and turned round and round on the cushion before settling to sleep. Jonah watched him, thinking that the cat's air of benign detachment reminded him of Hester. He remembered her telling him how her mother had liked this room and he glanced about, trying to imagine how she'd sat here, by the fire, enduring the pain of losing two sons whilst knowing that a third, her favourite child, was a prisoner of war.
It was as if he was looking at her through the lens of his mind's eye, her shade called up by Hester's words, and briefly he was able to connect with her agony. Round her other figures moved and gesticulated; children cried and called to one another. With his eyes closed he could see and hear much more clearly and he settled back in his chair, feet stretched to the fire whilst he watched.
Slowly the story took shape visually: scene following upon scene, building to some shadowy climax that he could not yet see. If he were directing such a story he would want it to start before the war with the boys coming home from Cambridge to the family at Bridge House, their own small dramas being played out in this peaceful corner of Exmoor whilst, on the larger global stage, much darker and more violent actions were escalating towards the war in which they would all be entangled.
Between Hester's stories and his own imagination it seemed that he moved amongst them. Soon it was impossible to distinguish between the two worlds and presently he slept.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next morning the wild showery weather had cleared away and the sun shone from a tranquil sky.
'We shall go to Dulverton,' Hester decided, carrying the breakfast things into the kitchen and opening the dishwasher. 'We'll have coffee in Woods or a glass of wine.'
Jonah followed her out, carrying their fruit juice glasses. He looked around the kitchen, knowing now that the breakfast-room was a fairly recent addition and that, during those earlier years, all the family's meals had been eaten in the room that was now Hester's study. She had described the original kitchen to him and he could imagine exactly how it had looked with the ancient solidfuel range and the butler's sink and Nanny's pots of geraniums on the window-sill. Today there were still several pots of geraniums, sitting in a row on rather beautiful old hand-painted plates, and as he glanced at them something else caught his eye: a white plastic tub that had once contained ice cream. A label was stuck on its lid and he bent closer to read the printed words: 'DO NOT DISTURB. SOMEONE IS SLEEPING HERE.'
'Hey, Hes,' he said, startled. 'Who's sleeping in the ice-cream tub?'
She raised her eyebrows, as if puzzled at the question, and then her brow cleared. 'It's a butterfly pupa. Much safer there. Let me have those glasses.'
He laughed, experiencing a moment of brief uncomplicated happiness before a thought struck him.
'I realized last night that there's simply not going to be time for you to tell me everything, is there?' He passed her the glasses, his face downcast. 'I feel I've only just started and I have to go back tomorrow.'
Hester looked at him, surprised. 'But you'll come again, Jonah. Very soon, I hope. This is important, isn't it?'
'Yes, it is important. Not only for me personally, but because there's another side to it.' He hesitated whilst she watched him with her bright intelligent gaze. 'How would you feel if all this finished up as a play, perhaps for the television or maybe the theatre? Would you feel that it was being trivialized?'
'Trivialized? No, I don't think so. I've been aware that part of your mind is shaping it, if that's an accurate expression. I feel quite strongly that both Edward and Michael would have approved, provided you are truthful.'
'That's wonderful. Fantastic!' He was almost euphoric with relief. 'It's been so difficult to separate the two things and it's beginning to haunt me. Of course I'd want it to be truthful. Gosh, Hes! We've got a long way to go yet.'
'I realize that.' Her own enthusiasm shone in her eyes. 'But it can't be hurried. And the landscape in which the events happened is just as important as the story.'
'I'm sure you're right but I'm impatient to know what comes next.'
'I know you are. I only hope it won't turn out to be an anticlimax. It's a very familiar theme – just a love story that went rather tragically wrong.'
'It was Eleanor and Michael, wasn't it? Don't worry, I'm not trying to rush you with the story but I wonder if that's why Mum won't talk about it.'
Hester frowned. 'The odd thing is,' she said, 'that I can't really imagine that Lucy knew anything about it. She was only a child.'
'Oh, but children pick up so much, don't they? And adults often don't notice that they're around. Perhaps she saw something that upset her?'
'Perhaps. An embrace? An argument? It's possible. Will you tell her what you've discovered?'
'I'd like to, if that's OK with you?'
'Of course it is. I'd rather want you to, in fact. She might be able to provide some other side of the story for you now.'
'I'm hoping so.' He grinned at her with pure pleasure. 'This is so exciting, Hester, isn't it?'
'Yes, it is exciting,' she agreed. 'And necessary, I think.'
He liked Woods Bar, with its beamed partitions and terracotta-coloured walls. The bistro atmosphere was reinforced by the impressive array of bottles reflected in the long mirror behind the bar and a soundtrack of Mama Cass singing 'California Dreamin''. Two large young men, perched on the stools at the bar, were drinking beer whilst an elderly lady sat at a corner table sipping coffee and reading a newspaper. Although sunshine splashed on the white-washed walls of the house opposite, a fire burned in the stainless-steel beer cask that had been made into a stove and stood in the inglenook and, beyond the adze-cut wooden partitions, he could see a young couple enjoying an early lunch in the dining-room.
'It used to be a bakery,' Hester had told him. 'Delicious home-made cakes. I have to say the standard of the food is still just as good.'
She'd gone off to the library, leaving him to drink his mocha alone, and once again he was grateful for her ability to give him space to think his own thoughts and absorb the atmosphere of the life around him. In this need for solitude he and Hester were alike and he wondered if it was the reason she had remained alone. His own relationships had foundered on this stone: this requirement for space to allow for the creative life of his imagination.
Both of the girls with whom he'd shared his life so far had accused him of detachment: of not caring, not listening, not being able to put them before his work. To begin with, each relationship had followed the same pattern once the initial physical attraction had drawn them together: a declared fascination in the creative process, leading to encouragement and real belief that one day he'd write the '
big one', which slowly degenerated into impatience, accusations of neglect and declarations of feeling cut off.
'You're not listening to a word I'm saying. I know that glazed expression. You're "writing", aren't you, inside your head? I might as well be talking to myself.'
It was a perfectly reasonable accusation and he'd had no defence so, after a few stormy weeks of trying to change and failing, he'd be alone again. He was fascinated by women but realized that in his attempt to understand how they thought and felt he was actually doing himself no favours.
'And anyway,' one of his girlfriends had said acidly, 'you're not really interested in me, you just want to use me as copy for your next female character.'
There was a grain of truth in this – someone had once described this syndrome as the splinter of ice in the heart of the creative person – and he was unable to convince her otherwise, so it seemed better to let it go at that. He saw that women were very complicated people – unable to experience simple happiness without guilt or anxiety coming hard on its heels. In bed: 'Was it really good for you?' a contented cuddle, then: 'You don't think I'm too fat?' At the theatre: 'Isn't Richard Griffiths brilliant?' a sip of wine, then: 'Did I remember to take the chops out of the freezer?' And it seemed difficult for them to accept that men could be truly peaceful whilst simply staring at their shoes. 'What are you thinking about?' 'Nothing.' 'But what are you doing?' 'Staring at my shoes.' Those moments of joy that were uncomplicated or unaffected by the state of a relationship appeared to be unknown by women. Even in the aftermath of a row – amidst silent sulking and glares of recrimination – it was possible to be amused by something on the television or absorbed by a book, which caused further resentment; as if it should be unthinkable, even reprehensible, to experience any emotion that was not related directly to her.
Jonah finished his mocha and ordered a pint of beer: he'd decided that he simply wasn't good partnership material and that it was best to remain alone – until he'd met Clio. He'd been rather taken with Clio. He'd mentally tried out one or two opening remarks in the hope of finding out a bit more about her from Hester. It hadn't worked.
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