Morgan had, but he could go a step or two further. He didn’t mind helping the bloke along, especially if faffing around with the beams steered them clear of discussing the wreck itself. “If you’re going to do a job, you have to do it properly, don’t you? Get your stuff ready and I’ll fetch the ladder.”
When Morgan got back, Dominic was laying all his kit out on a cloth on the table; neatly, like a surgeon might have his instruments prepared for an operation.
“I’ll put this here and you can get on as you like.” Morgan propped the steps up against the fireplace. “There’s the washing up to do.”
“I should be doing that.” Dominic looked up, last piece of paper in place. “Go on, leave it for the moment. I could do with another pair of hands here, anyway.”
Morgan wasn’t going to argue. Any excuse to leave the domestic duty he liked the least; one of the advantages of being with James was that they’d justified using a dishwasher. Why the hell did he have to keep thinking about those days? He shook himself, mentally and physically. “I can manage a pair of hands.”
They got on with things, Dominic—meticulous without being fussy—producing a series of rubbings which illustrated the marks on the beams and threw up some Morgan hadn’t realised they possessed.
“You should do all of them at some point,” he said, as they carefully rolled up the sheets of paper. “I wish I could offer you the run of the place this afternoon, but I’ve got to be in Padstow later.”
“You’ve gone beyond the call of hosting duty for one day.” Dominic smiled. “But if we could manage another time before I fly home, I’d be really grateful. Can I take a rubbing of the stone in the garden too?”
“Help yourself. What about coming back tomorrow afternoon?”
“Perfect. Only don’t lay on tea. It should be my treat. Take you out somewhere.”
“That’s a deal.” Morgan left the steps where they were; no point in heaving them up and down like a tart’s knickers. “Okay, this washing up. I’ll take your offer—do you prefer to wash or dry?”
“Wash, please.”
“That’s the correct answer as far as I’m concerned.”
Back in the kitchen, Morgan happily cleared the table while Dominic ran the water and fought with a slippery washing-up liquid bottle.
“You know, sitting at that table, I had no idea there’d be such a stunning view of the Devil’s Anvil from here. Would you mind if I took some pictures from the garden before I go?”
“It’s not that different a view from the one you got down on the cliff path.” Morgan winced, realising how stupidly defensive his voice sounded.
“Oh, right.” Dominic winced like a spaniel, unsure why its owner has snapped at it.
“I simply meant I didn’t want you to waste your time. If you were expecting to get something quite different.” Now Morgan was being pathetic. How could he begin to explain without having to go through the whole story about why he got so anxious about his old bedroom? How he’d seen this view from there all his childhood years, when he’d had the room above the kitchen, but at the point when he’d inherited the ability to choose where to sleep, he’d moved to the biggest bedroom. “You can see for yourself when we’ve done,” he said, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
They did the washing up in a silence only broken by discussion of whether something was rinsed enough and where to put the gloves. When the last suds had gurgled down the plughole, Morgan ushered his guest towards the back door, guilt at having been rude yet again overcoming—albeit grudgingly—his reluctance to go and look out from this angle, even in broad daylight.
It was all so bloody stupid. Face your fears, wasn’t that how you were supposed to tackle things? Or was the latest wisdom that you kept a stiff upper lip, like they’d expected in his parents’ time? What with James and the wreck and his parents, and the worry that those nightmares might start anew, he needed a whole packet of starch for his lip, plus some whalebone.
They walked across the garden, over to the hedge which marked the boundary on the seaward side, Dominic fiddling nervously with his camera.
“Maybe I misled you.” Morgan tried to appear lighthearted. “I don’t think I ever realised how much better the view is here, rather than down at the cliff. The extra few yards of elevation add a lot.”
“It certainly does.” Dominic, clearly relieved to be back on a level conversational keel once more, flashed him a smile.
“I’ll let you get on with your photography. There are some late tulips I should deadhead while I remember.” There was always something in the garden to make yourself busy with if you needed an excuse to think. This garden had been his mother’s pride and joy, and he kept it as well as he could, the gardener who’d been coming for donkeys’ years deserving most of the credit.
“Nice millstone.” Dominic’s voice, suddenly at his back, made Morgan jump. He’d been lost in memories of helping his mother plant these tulips, and time had slipped past.
“Cool, isn’t it?” Morgan smiled. Another thing the family had acquired along the way, now decorating the garden rather than hard at work grinding corn. “Oh, before I forget. Do you want me to tell you the route the locals use to get into Porthkennack? It’ll avoid the weekend traffic snarl ups and save you time.”
“It might cost my life, given what the country lanes are like round here. I’ll stick to the main roads, with the rest of the tourists.” A small, awkward gap in the conversation ensued. “You’ve put up with a lot, letting me invade your house. I’m not sure my buying you tea and cakes tomorrow can settle the bill.”
Morgan hoped he wouldn’t offer money; better to jump in now, before the level of awkwardness racked up. “If you want to, you can buy me a pint this evening.”
“Great idea.” Dominic beamed. “Why not let me go one better and buy you dinner? I mean, you’ve saved me a pile of research and everything.”
“You insist on paying and I’ll refuse to come,” Morgan replied, smiling. “Go halfers and I’m happy. When and where?”
“Half five outside the yacht club work for you? I hear it’s been tarted up, so it should be a decent enough place for me to wait if you get delayed.”
“Yep. Works for me.” Morgan consulted his watch, with deliberate theatricality. He needed some time to get his head together before this afternoon’s ordeal. “Sorry, I’m going to have to get my skates on.”
“Oh, right. My fault.” Dominic backed down the path, patting the ballast stone as he passed it. “I’ll see you later.”
“You will.” Morgan watched him all the way out of the gate, feeling guilty about the fuss he’d made about the view from the back of the house. Fucking Troilus. Why did that ship insist on haunting him?
Morgan parked his car in the carefully maintained car park of the carefully maintained nursing home. This had once been a private house, seeing action in the Great War as a place for officers to recuperate, but the family who’d owned it had run out of money and luck. The recent incarnations of the property as a hotel had been unsuccessful, but the adaptations involved had made it an attractive prospect for conversion. Everything about the building and grounds suggested quality, decency, good taste—it seemed someone was intending to impress the visitors, as well as the residents, remembering that those visitors, whether healthcare professionals or relatives, had some hold on the purse strings.
He looked around at the other cars, wondering if everyone else visiting today felt the same guilt at having had the person closest to them confined, even if it was for their own good. Every newly washed window of the house hid faded dreams, hopes for a long and happy retirement dashed by something which all the money in the world couldn’t buy off.
Back in the days when he had shared James’s flat in Victoria, the pair of them working all hours God sent during the week so they could have the weekend together, they’d been devising a strategy for what they’d do when they had enough in the bank to throw in the towel and live a little.
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br /> That time had been six months of bliss and making plans, before Morgan’s father’s death had set the domestic dominos slowly tumbling both in London and Cornwall. Funny how you could go along, step after small step, without realising how far you’d gone and how far you’d eventually end up from home. Dad’s death, Mum’s descent into dementia, the recurrence of his own childhood nightmare, James’s infidelity. Milestones on a journey neither Morgan nor his mother had asked to take.
Maybe they could have—should have—expected dementia to strike, but not so early. Morgan’s great-grandmother had lost her faculties with devastating rapidity, although the fact she’d been in her seventies meant it had been excused away.
“She had a good innings, not surprising she went a bit gaga given what she suffered losing both her brothers during the Great War.” No end of people had said it, blaming everything on the past, in the same way as her daughter’s—Morgan’s maternal grandmother’s—death in a car accident had been put down to what she’d suffered during the Blitz.
Morgan had wondered, with the benefit of hindsight, whether his grandmother’s rapid switch from “little old lady cautious” to a Formula One style of driving had been a symptom of the same affliction that was to strike down her daughter. A similar, devastating change in character. The family had shrugged it off as stress related, the consequence of grandfather passing away. Maybe there was some truth in it for mother and daughter, the sudden death of a loved one tripping the last wire in their brains.
Morgan tried not to taunt himself with what-ifs. If they’d been able to predict that his mother might go downhill so swiftly, when she’d only just turned sixty, what could they have done to prevent it? There wasn’t yet a pharmaceutical magic wand available to wave.
But it had felt like losing both parents, although the loss of his mother was being drawn out, a continual nightmare from which only her death would bring release. At times Morgan wished that his parents had gone together, so that she wouldn’t have had to deal with the consequences of bereavement. Or, perhaps worse, known the frustration and sheer terror of something inside her going wrong and having no idea what it was or what to do about it.
He glanced up at the building once more, abruptly aware of how long he’d been sitting, thinking. Time to bite the bullet—maybe today would be one of the miraculous times when the fog cleared and his mother would smile and they’d talk like nothing had changed and for a short while the world would be a better place.
He found her sitting in the lounge, evidently enjoying the sunshine. The place was clean, well furnished, and didn’t have that all pervading “urine plus boiled greens” smell that nursing homes usually did. He’d done some design work for another home, the other side of Newquay, and had hated both times he’d had to visit the place, changing his clothes the minute he’d got through his own door, although the aroma had still seemed to cling to him.
“Hello, Mum.” Morgan thrust a bunch of flowers out, feeling like a little boy again, bringing home daisies he’d picked in the lane on the way back from school. “See, your favourites. Alstroemeria. You always chose these.”
“Thank you, love.” She reached up to caress his face as he bent to kiss her cheek. Maybe this was a good day. “I’m afraid the ones you brought yesterday didn’t really last.” Not such a good day, perhaps. Morgan hadn’t been in for a week, and the last time he’d visited, he’d brought his mother chocolates. “Dad not with you, then?”
Clearly a very bad day, if she’d forgotten he’d never be able to visit anyone again.
“Not today. You know him, always busy.” Morgan had got used to conjuring up answers. There was no point in telling the truth and distressing her; better the plausible lie. He took the seat next to hers, facing a large picture window with a view of the well-kept gardens.
Mum shook her head. “That bank runs him ragged. I should have a word with Miss Charlton.”
She could remember the name of her husband’s old boss, even if she couldn’t remember his death. They carried on the conversation as though the family connection with National Westminster was alive and well, Morgan amazed at how his mother could recount the detail—accurate detail, as far as he could tell—about things which had happened fifteen or twenty years ago. Yet the present, when they touched on it, was nothing but a muddled blur.
They chatted amiably enough for a pleasant enough ten minutes before an edge in his mother’s voice put Morgan’s guard up.
“James not here, then?” Funny how her thoughts—and moods—could swing so dramatically and so quickly. The consultant had explained it was typical of this type of condition, part of the deterioration of her mental faculties. It made medical sense, but it still hurt.
“No, Mum. Not this time.” Thank God James wasn’t there, that he’d never visited this place, and not simply because Morgan didn’t want anyone who could remember his mother in her pomp seeing the shell of a person she’d become. This was a personal, strictly Capell tragedy.
“Maybe it’s as well he isn’t. We don’t want any of his kind hanging around.” She glanced slyly towards the door out into the corridor, then spoke with a crudeness she’d never have used when she was well. “There’s one here, you know. One of the nurses. He watches the men all the time. Dirty bugger.”
“Have you seen the doctor today?” Morgan asked, desperate to change the subject, despite the fact that strategy had rarely worked with his mother, memory loss or no. There was a doggedly determined streak in her that had never gone away.
“No. The doctors don’t like coming here. They’re frightened of that nurse. He might try to touch them.”
What wires had crossed in her brain to spark such a dramatic change? Mum had always been so supportive of Morgan, absolutely accepting what he was, making James as welcome, maybe more welcome, than Eddie’s girlfriend had been. Was this really a case of a U-turn in personality brought on by dementia, or the truth coming out at last? The revulsion with which she described the male nurse was staggering; had there been times she’d looked at Morgan and felt disgust?
“I’m afraid I’ll have to go in a minute.” Cowardly, to cut and run, but there was a limit to what heart and soul could endure.
“No! Don’t go. You only got here a minute ago.” She grabbed his arm, surprising strength in her wiry hands. “Are you afraid of that nurse? I won’t let him touch you. I won’t let him touch my boy.”
“It’s not that, Mum. I’ve got to go to the bank and see Miss Charlton.” Morgan, grateful for the inspiration, hated the lie, but sometimes he had to be pragmatic. His mother would never know truth from lie again.
“Tell her from me that she’s to stop treating your father like a doormat. Bloody spiteful cow.”
This new frankness was unnerving. “I will tell her, don’t you worry.” Morgan wagged a finger.
“I know. You’re a good lad.” Smiling, she patted his arm.
Best to end the conversation with a spot of the truth, to salve Morgan’s already bruised conscience. “You mentioned James, earlier. I’m afraid he isn’t around at the moment. I wanted you to know.” Morgan spoke as nonchalantly as if he were informing his mother that the morning paper hadn’t yet come. “We’ve decided to go our separate ways.”
“Oh, that’s a shame.” She shook her head, maybe some strong recollection kicking in of how much she’d liked James. “Did his firm move him to New York?”
Dear God, where had that nugget come from? When he’d first brought James home, there’d been talk of his company relocating him to their American offices. It had been a real threat to their burgeoning—and at the time so promising—relationship. How could she access such trivial facts and forget so much of importance?
“No. They changed their minds about New York. We’re not really friends now. Grew apart.” He felt like a boy yet again, coming home and telling Mum how someone had been mean to him in the playground.
His mother smiled and patted his hand, like she’d done back then, although she
didn’t have the standard soothing accompaniment of lemonade and biscuits that had always featured at home. But the smile and the touch were a sign of grace, a small remembrance of things he’d thought had gone forever, forming a benediction on their parting, letting Morgan slip away, without further argument and with happier thoughts than the ones he usually wrapped himself up in as he left her. He walked down the corridor, had a quick word with the nurse on duty, took the lift, then got himself out of the security doors.
The usual relief that he’d survived the visit without turning into an emotional wreck—or not too much of one—and that he was free for another few days, hit halfway across the car park. Morgan consulted his watch; plenty of time to drive into Porthkennack, park and get down to the yacht club, with a bit to spare. He had to get his head in gear before he’d be in any state to be civil to Dominic—the bloke didn’t deserve having a heap of angst dumped on him. Morgan never liked meeting anyone straight after he’d been to see his mother, but this time it couldn’t be helped. Life had to go on.
Although why couldn’t it simply rewind and go back to how peaceful and easy things had been two years previously?
Dominic was waiting, as arranged, on one of the benches on the seafront at Porthkennack, overlooking the sea and basking in the sunshine. It was well gone five o’clock, although the air remained balmy and any threat of rain had scudded off to the east with the clouds. It felt more high summer than unpredictable early May.
“I always think of Porthkennack being like this,” Dominic said, when Morgan was still ten yards off, as though they were picking up a conversation only just put down. “I always assume that when I return it’ll turn out to be a trick of the memory, but the weather’s great again.”
“It saved its best for you. You should have been here last week, because it was raining cats and dogs.” Morgan took a seat on the bench; his favourite nerd didn’t look like he’d be moving anytime soon.
“I wish those had been here when we came as a family,” Dominic said, pointing at the row of anchors and other nautical works of art placed along the front. “My parents would have loved them.”
Broke Deep (Porthkennack Book 3) Page 4