Plotted in Cornwall

by Janie Bolitho

In front of her own fire, which she had decided to light, Rose listened to the crackling logs as she turned the pages of the Western Morning News, skimming through articles rather than reading them properly. Only when the name Jordan appeared in a small paragraph did a frown of concentration bisect her brow. It was a coincidence, of course, even if Jordan was not a terribly common name. But Louisa’s husband had left her and they had avoided talking about him, making it plain that personal topics were taboo.

  Shadows danced across the room, lit only by the table lamp by Rose’s side. She got up and went to the window. The sitting-room curtains were never drawn, she could not bear to shut out that view no matter what time of day it was. Over the bay stars glittered in the gaps between clouds. To her left and below her, Rose could see men on the quay. A boat must have returned, not Trevor’s, but someone else’s husband and crew safely home again. They would land the fish in the morning. One or more would sleep on the trawler until it was time to do so. How different their lives were from those of Louisa and Wendy. With sadness she recalled the lines written on the walls of South Crofty, the last mine to close. ‘Cornish lads are fishermen, and Cornish lads are miners, too, but when the fish and tin have gone what are the Cornish boys to do?’ But the tin has gone, she thought, and there isn’t much else left. Except for people such as the Jordans and Penhaligons. Why should that be?

  ‘You always make mysteries out of nothing,’ Barry Rowe once told her. She suspected she was doing so again. But her thoughts were interrupted by the telephone. It was Joel Penhaligon ringing to ask if she could possibly spare the time to speak to his father tomorrow evening.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Michael Hanson said quite seriously the day after Miranda had broken the news. He had insisted on taking her out again in order to try to change her mind.

  Miranda stared at him, her pretty face expressing shock. ‘You can’t just give up your job. Besides, there’s no work down there. Any you found would pay abysmally after what you’ve been earning here.’ But she was flattered and tempted by the offer.

  ‘But you’re going back.’

  ‘It’s different for me.’

  ‘How?’ He leaned across the table of the Covent Garden bistro where they had eaten.

  ‘I’ve got family there.’

  ‘And I’ll have you. You can’t stay with them for ever. Look, Miranda, if you don’t want to see me any more, tell me.’

  ‘I do,’ she whispered. ‘I do. But I want to go home too.’ She ran a hand through the tangle of fair curls. Each of her fingers was encircled by a delicate silver ring. ‘It’s not like here, you have to understand that. It’s not like anywhere else at all. The people are different, the whole way of life is different. You’ve only known me a couple of months, you can’t throw everything up on the strength of that.’ Could someone like Michael appreciate the winters, could he ever come to love the hot summers the way she did? She would have given anything to be walking along the beach at that moment, to hear the sea rushing shorewards, hissing as it flowed over the pebbles before receding with a sucking noise. How those sounds soothed her.

  ‘Miranda, are you in some sort of trouble?’

  She looked away. The question was too near the mark.

  ‘Are you?’

  She raised her head. There was concern in his kind face and the small scar at the corner of his mouth added interest to his good looks. She suspected that she loved him. ‘In trouble. What makes you ask that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He pushed at some crumbs on the tablecloth. ‘I’ve always had the feeling you came to London to escape something, and now you feel it’s safe to go back. Am I right? Was it a man?’

  ‘Sort of,’ she said, for it was true, but not in the way Michael had meant.

  A waiter approached their table. The long, white apron wrapped around his middle almost concealed the black trousers he wore beneath it. He cleared their plates, making no comment about the amount of food left on them. He was experienced, he had seen it all before. A lover’s argument soon depleted appetites and these two did not look at all happy.

  ‘We’ll just have the bill, please,’ Michael said, trying to smile.

  The restaurant felt stuffy to Miranda, and the mixed cooking smells, overridden by herbs, made her feel nauseous. All around them was cheerful conversation, the chink of cutlery on crockery and intermittent bursts of laughter. She suddenly felt lonely. I’ll soon be twenty, she thought, and I already feel old. Youth and innocence had been taken from her and could never be replaced. ‘Excuse me.’ She stood as Michael pulled out the table to allow her room to manoeuvre.

  In the Ladies she leaned her forehead against the cold, gleaming white tiles. A sick headache had taken hold. That’s all I need, she thought. But the nausea subsided when she splashed her face with water. In the mirrored wall behind the wash-basins her reflection stared back at her. It might have been that of a stranger for she no longer knew herself. She had paid to have her thick hair fall in wild curls and she had bought new clothes, office clothes; smart skirts and jackets and feminine blouses. She had also learned to apply subtle make-up. But underneath it all was the same Miranda, the same teenage girl who had worn jeans with threadbare knees, her hands deep in the pockets of a red reefer jacket as she had walked on the sand in winter thinking of her future. How different that future had become. No university, no fun, only a constant feeling of doom and a longing for home. Could she burden Michael with the half-person she had become? It would hardly be fair. But neither could she tell him what had made her that way.

  She washed her hands and made use of the almond-scented hand lotion standing on the vanity unit then returned to the table where Michael was waiting with her coat.

  ‘Come home with me,’ she said in the taxi. ‘Come home and make love to me.’

  Michael stroked her hair. He probably wouldn’t. Miranda needed comfort, not sex. He wished he knew why.

  5

  Rose shook her head. Why was it that the telephone only rang when she was in the bath, about to leave the house or had already left it? But the same law seemed to apply to everyone. With her bags and keys in her hand she retraced her steps across the kitchen and into the sitting-room to answer it.

  ‘Some weather, eh? We don’t know where we are, it’s neither this, that nor the third thing.’ Doreen Clarke did not give her a chance to give her name or number, she simply assumed she was talking to Rose. ‘It don’t do much for Cyril, not when he can’t get out in the garden.’

  Rose waited. There was no point in interrupting, Doreen would get to the point in her own time. A peculiar sort of friendship had developed between the two women although all they had in common was their age. Cyril was an ex-miner; he had been made redundant when Wheal Jane was closed and had not worked since. He and Doreen owned their small stone bungalow in Hayle and she took on cleaning jobs to make ends meet. Doreen looked ten years older than her age. A short, dumpy woman with straight grey hair cut just below ear level, she dressed frumpily and with a disregard for fashion. She was honest and down-to-earth and a wonderful source of gossip as there were few people she did not know or know of within the area.

  ‘Cyril’s real fond of you, maid, he’d never say so, of course, not my Cyril. Well, he never says much anyway. But it’s not everyone he’s so generous with with his vegetables.’

  Rose tried not to laugh. It sounded like an old music hall joke. And Cyril didn’t say much because he rarely got a chance to.

  ‘He’s got some lovely cabbages and carrots. If you’re in tomorrow morning I’ll drop ’un over.’

  ‘Thank you. About ten?’

  ‘Suits me fine. I likes to get me bits done early. Cheers now.’

  Rose hung up. That takes care of at least an hour, she thought, knowing Doreen would have completed her shopping by then and would linger over coffee. The weekly Saturday visit to Penzance had been a ritual since the days of her childhood when she rode over on the bus with her mother.

  Rose’s desti
nation was Zennor but first she would call in and see Laura. Laura answered the door in her dressing-gown. Her face was white, her eyes dull and the mass of dark corkscrew curls was lank. ‘Coffee?’ she croaked.

  ‘Yes, but I’ll make it.’ After nearly thirty years Rose was almost as comfortable in her friend’s house as she was in her own. It seemed astonishing that Laura and Trevor had brought up three boisterous boys in the cramped accommodation but in previous eras fishermen had had larger families than that and managed. ‘For you,’ Rose said, indicating the plastic bag she had placed on the worktop.

  Laura opened it. There were satsumas, a lemon and bananas, throat sweets and a half-bottle of whisky. She hugged Rose. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘The whisky’s for later, with the lemon and hot water. I won’t stay long, you look as if you should be in bed. Have you seen the doctor?’

  ‘No, but I rang that number where they put you on to a nurse. They said there was no point because he wouldn’t prescribe anything for flu, just to keep warm, drink plenty and ride it out.’

  ‘Then do it. When’s Trevor back?’

  ‘He’s landing on Monday. I should be over it by then.’

  Rose finished her coffee and left, promising to call in again. ‘Leave a message if there’s anything you want.’

  She saw herself out and set off for Zennor, a picturesque village with one pub, a museum and its church famous for the mermaid carving. It was also the place where D. H. Lawrence had once lived with his German wife, Frieda, until the locals, aided by the constabulary, had driven them out, accusing them of signalling German U-boats by way of washing hanging on the line. Not that any U-boats had ever been known to lie off the shore.

  Doreen was right, the weather was so variable it was hard to decide what to wear each day. Rose, however, was in her working uniform of jeans, thick shirt, jumper, body-warmer and wool socks and boots. Over this would go the waxed jacket she kept on the back seat of the car and which had served her well and still remained waterproof even if it was scruffy.

  The sky was clear and blue but the wind came from the east. There had been a hint of frost in the night. Bodmin Moor would have been white with it, the stiffened bracken like stalagmites. Rose wondered how Wendy and Louisa would cope if they were snowed in. It had happened before. Helicopters had had to drop supplies to farmers and those living in isolation whilst down on the coast the temperature would remain several degrees above freezing, which did not stop West Penwithians from complaining of the cold.

  Rose parked and walked back up the steep hill carrying her gear. She was warm from the effort by the time she found a sheltered spot at the top where she sat at right angles to the sea. For ten minutes she contemplated her surroundings. The sea was chlorophyll green, capped with white. A dot on the horizon might have been a cargo boat. Inland lay the slopes of the hills with their winter browns and greens, a couple of granite buildings just visible. Smoke rose from one of the chimneys and was sent zigzagging by the wind. Below was the village, the roofs of houses in steps, and, of course, the church. There were no songbirds now, only the call of a gull or the croak of a crow broke the silence.

  That’s how I’ll paint it. Rose decided, half land, half sea. In her fingerless gloves she began to work and continued to do so until the approaching dusk drained the blueness from the sky. She collected up apple cores, flask, ground sheet and equipment and walked back to the car, slightly stiff from sitting for so long.

  Only when she stepped into the warmth of the house did she realise how cold she had been. As she rinsed the flask and stacked her gear in the larder which led off the kitchen, her extremities began to tingle. There was just time to eat a banana, drink a cup of tea and change before setting off to pick up Joel. She had offered to meet him at his school but he had said he would walk up to Penwith College and wait for her there to save her a diversion. The bulk of school and college traffic would have dispersed by now. It would take no more than a few minutes to reach him. Wearing a skirt and jumper and the good tan woollen coat and boots, Rose set off.

  Joel was standing on the pavement, a bag over his shoulder, his hands in his pockets. He appeared younger and more vulnerable than he did during her classes. She reminded herself he was only seventeen.

  ‘Hi,’ he said when Rose pulled in and he’d got into the passenger seat.

  He seems nervous, she thought, is his father that much of a tyrant?

  ‘Thanks, again, Mrs Trevelyan. If Miranda had been around I wouldn’t have had to ask you to do this.’

  ‘Miranda?’

  ‘My cousin. She disappeared about a year ago. She was more like a sister than a cousin.’

  Disappeared? What now? Rose asked herself. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Nineteen now, eighteen at the time.’

  A sixth sense told her she would somehow become involved with this family, more so than she was already. Sixth sense, or experience. ‘What happened?’

  ‘No one knows. At the end of August last year she was still living at home with her parents, my aunt and uncle. My father’s sister and her husband. They’d put the house up for sale but the morning they were due to move Uncle Frank disappeared, he just walked out without warning, and the next thing I heard was Miranda had gone, too. She was supposed to be going to university at the end of the holidays. I’ve never heard from her since. I was really hurt, I still am, I thought we were so close. Anyway, she’s not here to stick up for me, so I asked you.’ He grinned. ‘I know it’s ridiculous at my age, but there we are.’

  ‘Why won’t your father listen to you?’

  ‘Oh, he listens, but he expects other things of me.’

  Rose sighed. If the man was so entrenched in his opinions she would be wasting her time. Joel knew about student grants and work to be had during the vacations, she found it difficult to understand the real problem. He had the talent and she had thought he had the determination to follow his chosen career.

  ‘I just want him to understand, that’s all,’ Joel said, as if he had read her thoughts. ‘I want him to see that he can’t dictate the course of my life and I’d like him on my side for once.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can. Your cousin, Miranda, you don’t have any idea where she might’ve gone?’

  ‘None. I’d seen her a couple of days previously. My aunt said she believed she’d gone with her father, but I knew that couldn’t be true. They didn’t get on that well. Louisa went anyway, alone, instead of it being the three of them. My father contacted the police because he didn’t believe the tale about Miranda being with Uncle Frank, especially as she adored her mother.’

  Louisa? Could this be Louisa Jordan? Yes. The piece in the paper said solicitors wanted to contact a Frank Jordan. It all fell into place. ‘Is Frank’s surname Jordan?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know him?’

  ‘No.’ Rose concentrated on the road. Joel and his family may not be aware that solicitors were trying to trace him. ‘What were you saying about the police?’

  ‘Dad was worried something might have happened to Miranda. He’d gone over to help with the move and discovered Aunt Louisa on her own. He thought it all very odd.’

  Louisa Jordan had made no mention of a daughter. In fact, she had stated that there was only herself and Wendy. Not only had she omitted to mention Miranda, it seemed as if she had forgotten the existence of her brother and his family as well.

  ‘Well, like I said, this happened over a year ago and as we haven’t heard anything it’s possible she’s now living with my aunts.’

  ‘Wendy moved at the same time?’

  ‘About a month or so later. She told Dad that whatever happened she knew Louisa would never take Frank back. She gave an estate agent the keys to her cottage and left him to sell it. Hang on, how do you know my other aunt’s name?’

  ‘I’ve met her. I’ve met them both. Let’s leave it at that for the moment.’

  Joel nodded. A few minutes later he said, ‘Slow down, it’s that gate up ahead.’


  Rose indicated and turned into the driveway. The house was set back from the road and there was plenty of space to park. Even in the darkness of a winter’s evening she saw that Joel’s father had done well for himself. The large property was solid and impressive and electricity bills were no problem judging from the number of lights blazing in all the windows.

  Joel let them in with his key. They could hear voices in the lounge behind a door to the right of the wide passageway. Rose had almost forgotten the purpose of her visit with all she had learned in the car. If Miranda did live with her mother and her aunt, there were no signs of her presence in the house. But then, she might have gone to university after all.

  Roger Penhaligon stood when they entered the high-ceilinged room. He was a big man. Ash fell to the carpet as he transferred his cigar to his left hand before offering his right one to Rose. ‘Ah, Joel’s friend. Pleased to meet you. I’m Roger, this is my wife, Petra.’

  ‘Rose Trevelyan.’ She smiled in Petra’s direction. It seemed Joel had not told his parents who their visitor was. Petra looked worried whereas her husband appeared merely curious. Presumably they had been expecting a girlfriend.

  ‘Mrs Trevelyan? Then you’re Joel’s art teacher. I’m sorry, we didn’t realise. Please sit down.’

  At least he now knew that much about her. Rose turned and sank into the deep, soft cushions of one of a matching pair of settees.

  ‘Can we offer you a drink? I know you’ve got the car but one won’t hurt.’

  ‘Thank you. That would be nice. Dry white wine if you have it.’

  ‘Petra? Would you mind?’

  She was already half-way to her feet as if glad to have something to do.

  ‘Joel said he was bringing someone home but he kept your identity a secret. Sit down, for goodness sake,’ he added, addressing his son who was hovering near the door.

  The whole family seems to have secrets, she thought. ‘Mr Penhaligon, I—’

  ‘Oh, Roger, please.’ Despite the admonishment of his son, Roger remained standing himself, one hand resting on the ornate mantelpiece, a relic of former times when workmanship was of a far higher quality. Beneath it logs burned in the grate, adding to the comfortable ambience of the pleasantly decorated room. Roger’s voice was deep, coarsened by whisky and cigars, but Rose did not find him intimidating.