by Emma Timpany
In winter, they’d stay in by the fires her mother built with intricate care, using bone-dry kindling laid in neat parallel piles, like her ironing.
‘The trouble with your mother is she has a folding disease,’ her father had announced one day. They had laughed, the three of them, really laughed. But her mother should have known. That tiny observance, an annoyance dressed up as a joke. It had been a sign.
The church darkened as a cloud moved in front of the sun and she saw her mother’s face, the colour of a pale listless sea at dawn, the day her father left.
That afternoon, Clodagh retraced her steps along the coast path, detouring to Pendour Cove to photograph treasure from the strandline. She found a prickly shore urchin feasting on a crop of barnacles, and a smooth white cuttlebone – her father had called them ‘swans’ breasts’ – which she pocketed. The sand was littered with tiger-striped limpet shells and the abandoned porcelain houses of cockles and dog whelks. She arranged her trove in a shallow rock pool decorated with red dulse and pale green sea lettuce. The rain had stopped and light broke through a violet sky, illuminating the water and its contents. Setting the Pentax 50mm lens to rapid-fire, she captured the liquid bowl of treasure for eternity. Then, with a sharp knife, she scraped a crop of tide-washed mussels off the rocks into a carrier bag for her tea before climbing back up the steep cliff path towards Treen.
It was five o’clock by the time she reached the farm and Matt was closing the yard gates after the second milking session of the day. She saw him gathering his mouth in readiness to speak, but she smiled and strolled on past the farm before he had a chance to utter a word.
Clodagh repeated her daily walks to Treen and back. On the third day there was a loud shout above the rattle of a diesel engine.
‘Hey, you!’
She turned and saw Matt leaning out of the cab of a green and yellow John Deere tractor. He cut the engine.
‘Are you from around here?’
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I’m renting a cottage at Zennor for a few months … taking a bit of a sabbatical.’
‘Oh yes? What do you do?’
‘I’m a photographer.’
‘Really? Sounds interesting,’ said Matt.
Clodagh waited for him to ask the inevitable.
‘Are you down here on your own?’
‘I am,’ she said, suppressing a smile. At least he hadn’t asked her if she was single.
‘Can I … would you mind if I asked you out for a drink? Just as a friend, you know … sorry, that sounds really crass.’
‘That would be nice,’ she said. ‘Shall I meet you at the Tinner’s Arms at, say, seven o’clock tonight?’
MATTHEW
MATT ARRIVED early at the Tinner’s Arms and made his way to the bar, nodding his head to a few locals as he went – old Major Berryman with his Daily Telegraph, whisky and black Labrador at his feet, and the Davey brothers from Boswednack Farm, with a couple of girls from the vets.
‘Pint of Tribute please, Jonno,’ he said. He leaned sideways into the bar, whilst keeping an eye on the door.
Jonno was an old school friend and had played prop forward for the Pirates prior to a busted knee. The conversation began with rugby, before moving to football, cows and the weather. Matt tried not to glance at his watch until, two pints later, the door creaked open and a vision in sea-green silk walked in.
He waved her over.
‘Hello,’ he said, as he kissed her on both cheeks, whilst thanking the Lord for Dutch courage. ‘I’m Matt, by the way.’
‘Clodagh,’ she replied. ‘And it’s a whisky and Canada Dry for me, please,’ she said, addressing Jonno.
‘I think you’re the tallest woman I’ve ever kissed,’ said Matt – he was cruising now – ‘and the most beautiful.’
‘I’ll second that,’ said Jonno from the bar, as he poured ginger ale from a dizzy height onto a shot of whisky. ‘Ice, my beauty?’
Clodagh led the way, glass in hand, to a crackling fire at the back of the pub. She settled herself down on a worn leather sofa where Matt joined her. He tried not to stare down her cleavage and fixed his eyes on her legs, which she crossed towards him, hitching up her dress to reveal a shapely pair of knees and bare skin. He averted his gaze and stared into the fire. A grandfather clock struck eight from the corner of the room.
She leaned over and pressed her hand on his arm.
‘It was kind of you to invite me out tonight,’ she said. ‘I was ready for some company. Shells and seaweed are great to photograph, but they don’t talk much. So, tell me about yourself.’
Matt took a long sip of beer and began to relax. He told her about the farm and his cows and his mother and uncle. They ordered more drinks and scampi and chips, and he talked about his love of the church and the choir, which he sang in most Sundays. And how he wanted to walk the Cornish coastline from Bude on the north coast to Saltash on the south.
‘I never go for walks,’ he said. ‘Stupid, isn’t it, living here? But that’s farmers for you. Plus, the collies don’t do walks; they herd sheep.’
He watched her face melt into ripples as she laughed. This moment is perfect, he thought. Just perfect.
‘You haven’t mentioned your father,’ she said.
‘He died. A couple of years ago now. Heart attack. He was a lot older than Mum, mind. Always had a weak heart.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Clodagh.
‘No. It was probably the best way to go – I mean, if there’s such a thing as a good way, then that would be it, wouldn’t it? They say drowning is peaceful, but I don’t know. I’d rather go out with a bang, myself.’
They both fell silent and watched the red dance of embers until Matt cleared his throat to speak again.
‘Dad loved the sea. He lived on that boat of his. Made me feel bad, really, because he would have liked me to be a fisherman. Not that he made me feel bad, he wasn’t the type, but, well, you know, it’s always when they’re gone you wish you’d spent more time with them.’
She was watching him and he returned her gaze. It was only then he noticed her eyes were the colour of pale green sea glass.
They met at the Tinner’s Arms every night for a week. The night Clodagh told him she was an orphan, he kissed her on the lips. To his amazement, she kissed him back. They bypassed the pub and strolled, hand-in-hand, beyond the church along a rutted track to a small granite cottage hunkered down at the edge of the village. Matt kissed her again on the age-worn doorstep and once more in the hallway, which smelled of old coats and damp carpet. She took his hand and led him upstairs to her low-ceilinged bedroom where the air smelled of just-washed laundry.
‘Mind your head,’ she said, as she shrugged her dress to the floor and stepped naked from a pool of silk, before drawing him to her on the bed.
‘What happened to your parents?’
‘Sshhh. No more talking.’
Matt searched her eyes. Strains of the fishermen’s hymn echoed in his head as she trailed her hair across his skin. Trailed and stroked, trailed and stroked. Conjuring a storm within his gentle soul.
CLODAGH
IT WAS mid-afternoon and a pale meringue of sun hung low in a grey-whipped sky. Clodagh sat cross-legged amongst the tombstones of St Senara’s churchyard staring up at the moors. She was thinking about Matthew Trewhella. She had imagined him the age she first found him, a newborn resting between the lines of the Zennor Parish Births and Deaths Register. In reality, he was all grown up and big as a bull. Gentle, too. She hadn’t expected that. He had inherited her father’s height and his mother’s good looks.
She inclined her head towards a pale blue ginger jar sitting on the grass beside her and removed the lid to survey the contents.
‘Happy now, Mum? The Siren of Treen can’t smile or speak. She’s as shrivelled and dried up as a mermaid’s purse on the strandline.’
A lone curlew wheeled and cried above the moor. Clodagh rocked back and forth to keep warm. Rocked and hummed. Rocked a
nd hummed. Some sounds were lonely … she reached her hand into the ginger jar … the braying of a donkey, the mewl of a buzzard, the moan of a foghorn off Land’s End. She stirred her fingers through the ash and thought about the night before. Matt’s hands. They had been wide as spades, and warm and dry across her skin. Comforting. His hands had felt like home.
She shivered. She had been sitting on the ground too long and her legs were numb.
‘I should have done this twenty years ago,’ she said, picking up the ginger jar and removing the lid. Then she sang the last verse of the only hymn she knew and scattered her mother’s dusty remains amongst the tombstones of Zennor.
MORWENNA
‘SMELLS GOOD, Ma,’ Matthew says later that afternoon as he pops his head around the back door. I know by the way he’s bending his tall body through the door-frame his boots are caked in mud, and he still has chores to do in the yard. I ask him what time she’s coming and he says six, and that he’ll be done in a second and in to take a shower.
They say spriggans steal babies from prams, and replace them with one of their own changelings. Do you remember how I used to place sprays of rowan in Matthew’s pram and turn his little cardigans inside out to protect him? He’s been safe all these years, our beautiful boy. I add more lemon juice to the salmon mousse and dip my finger in to taste. I can still taste, but eating is slow. She’s no spriggan, this girl; they’re ugly little things, spriggans. No, you bred a Siren, my love. A big, beautiful Siren and she’s come back for him. I fold in a little gelatine and beat the pink mixture to a pulp, before distributing it into ramekin dishes, which I place in the fridge.
There’s a chill in the dining room, even in May. The granite floors draw winter in at any time of year, despite a scattering of rugs. Only the kitchen stays warm with the range. I left the interconnecting door to the dining room open all afternoon to air the place, and I have lit a fire. The table is laid and there are flowers – bluebells and hyacinths. There’s a photograph of you on the mantelpiece, taken on our honeymoon. She will go straight to it, of course. She might even pick it up. I’m ready for that. Prepared for her hands to caress your face. I know what she’ll be thinking and that she will say nothing, and neither will I.
An hour later, Matthew has gone to fetch the girl. There are welcoming candles lit in the porch and on the windowsills. The Moroccan lamb casserole is resting in the warming oven. I have nothing more to do but crush the final ingredients with a pestle and mortar: lemon zest, garlic and herbs, to be added as a garnish.
I have taken care with my appearance, tonight. Remember that purple velvet dress the colour of nightshade? It still fits, still shows off my legs and my décolletage, where men dropped their eyes and you dropped your kisses. Deadly, you called me, as you peeled the velvet from my skin. My hair has faded to a rope of grey, a moonshine pelt, loosened and falling in waves down my back. My eyes, lost almost to the grief of losing you, are still there amongst the creases. Still casting their indigo gaze across the room to your face in the tarnished silver frame on the mantelpiece. My lips? An angry gash of Dior red.
Candles gutter as a door opens in another part of the house.
‘Are you warding off spirits?’ a voice booms from the hallway.
My brother, Pat, walks into the kitchen, his just-shaved face gleaming, his cheeks ruddy with warmth and sixty years on the bottle. He gives me a peck on both cheeks. He smells of aftershave and I recoil. I invited him to fill gaps in conversation, not to flirt with the guests.
‘Never seen so many candles lit, gal,’ he says with a chuckle. ‘Am I here for supper or a séance?’
I pour Pat a whisky. We don’t like each other much, but he lets me live in the house, and I’m grateful for that. Said he preferred the village. Bought himself a little cottage down the road in Treen with some money Pa left us. Gives him a break from the cows, he says, but I know it’s the pub on the doorstep that clinched the deal.
I hear the thud of a car door closing and the dogs barking. Matthew’s here with the girl. I go to the front door to greet them. She’s even taller than I expected, wearing a charcoal trouser suit with an elegant, tailored jacket and cream satin blouse, her dark gypsy hair piled high. She means business, this girl. Clodagh. There’s no denying she’s beautiful. She’s brought a bottle of champagne and a bouquet of white lilies. Matthew introduces us on the doorstep and I nod my head in silent greeting. Clodagh hesitates, and I usher them into the hallway, giving her no chance to shake my hand or present the flowers.
‘It’s good to meet you, Mrs Trewhella,’ she says in the hallway. We look at each other. I proffer my ugliness like a grizzly prize and stare her down. Behind the artifice of a beautiful smile, her past rears up to greet me. Images flash: your hand in hers, the church at Zennor, a child swinging her feet in the mermaid’s chair, her mother’s pain, the orphanage and foster homes, the bitterness of years held back. The madness. Controlled. Everything is planned and under control with this one. She must know that a gift of lilies for the hostess heralds bad luck.
There is an acrid smell in the air. I have forgotten the toast under the grill and hurry into the kitchen, avoiding the girl’s second attempt to hand me the flowers. Charcoal peppers the ceramic sink as I chip at the burnt toast. Matthew carries the flowers and champagne into the kitchen and holds up the bottle with a questioning look. I shake my head and point towards the fridge. This is not the time for celebration – not yet, and I have white wine chilled and ready to serve with the first course.
The salmon mousse is laid out on the table, and I show Clodagh to her seat whilst Matthew pours the wine. I take a long sip of Sauvignon Blanc and watch her. She has the cool, measured air of someone who has suffered and survived.
‘You have a beautiful home, Mrs Trewhella,’ she says. She scrapes a translucent line of salmon across half a triangle of toast. She eats like a bird.
‘I’m sure Mum wouldn’t mind if you call her Morwenna,’ says Matthew. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Ma?’
He looks at me across the table. I shake my head. One night of informality won’t hurt.
When the first course is finished I insist upon clearing the plates myself. I serve up the Moroccan lamb with couscous, setting Clodagh’s plate to one side. Sour cream makes a good accompaniment to spice. I mix a teaspoon of finely chopped garlic to a dollop of sour cream and swirl the mixture through Clodagh’s food. I add plain sour cream to the other three plates, and a sprinkle of lemon zest to all four portions, before carrying them to the table. Clodagh thanks me, but says it’s too much and passes the plate to Matthew, whereupon I whip it away from him and return from the kitchen with a slightly smaller portion for her. The men don’t seem to notice. Pat is reminiscing about his rugby days, and Matthew is teasing him. Clodagh is laughing, but I know she has sensed my irritation. With a voice and a smile, I could have made light of my actions. I could have said, ‘That’s all right, dear, but Matthew will want twice that amount.’ Without speech, my actions seem crude and remonstrative. I ladle an overly large amount of lamb onto Matthew’s plate to make a point.
‘What’s this, Ma?’ he says. ‘Are you trying to make me grow taller?’
The cat skulks past the open dining room door and pauses to freeze us with an emerald stare. Then she turns and leaves. She is heading for the cat flap with six hours of murder in mind.
Plates are scraped clean and the men mumble their approval. Clodagh helps me clear. We are alone at last in the kitchen. I could open my laptop and blow her cover. I could write in black marker pen across the fridge door, I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. Instead, I open the fridge and remove four lemon possets. I hand each one to Clodagh who places them on the gold-edged Wedgwood saucers I have laid out on the kitchen table. I hand her a packet of brandy-snap biscuits and she knows to place a couple on the side of each saucer. We could be mother and daughter, I think. And I feel nothing.
Clodagh offers to carry the desserts through to the dining room, but I shake my head, indicating tha
t I will follow her through with a tray. I watch her go – a black shadow in stilettos crossing the hallway. For a moment, I sense the wildness of their love and the spell she casts over my son when her hair comes down and the stilettos are peeled off slowly, from heel to elegant toe. I imagine her pale satin blouse sliding over her breasts like poured cream, and his tongue upon them. And, worse still, I imagine him gone from me and inside her.
I pick up one lemon posset and replace it with a different one from the back of the fridge. Then I take some tiny bells of pink heather from a sprig I have in a jam jar at the kitchen window and decorate three of the desserts for luck and safekeeping. I adorn the fourth lemon posset with a cluster of blue rosemary flowers. I have always grown rosemary beside the front door – they say it wards off witches and bad spirits. I picked a bunch this afternoon, burying my nose into the dark, spiky foliage to inhale the pungent smell of spring before chopping up a handful to add to the Moroccan lamb. I saved some flowers for now, floated in an eggcup of water to keep them fresh.
I carry the tray of desserts through to the dining room. Pat is telling Clodagh a story we have heard a hundred times, when the brakes failed on his tractor and he almost ended up in the sea. He was saved by a metal blade of the plough, which caught on a lump of Penwith granite at the edge of the cliff and stopped the tractor dead. Pat’s drunk, and he slurs his way through the finale, roaring with laughter at the tale of his near demise. I can tell by the angle and slight movement of Matthew’s arm that he is stroking Clodagh beneath the table. Walking to the end of the room, I place the tray on the sideboard and go to stoke the fire. There’s no hurry, I think, taking care not to look at your face on the mantelpiece. I hand out the lemon desserts: heather to safe-keep the boys and rosemary to ward off the girl.