Later, I’d read voraciously, helping myself to what I felt like in the local library – romantic novels, sagas, not the classics Clare was force-fed – and then later, as a teenager, I developed a passion for the poetry of Emily Dickinson. I’d sit for hours and read it on the same back step where I’d fed the chickens. No one took much notice though. Expectations were lower, you see.
So had Dad enhanced Clare’s life, I wondered now as I stepped on to the bus? Would he be proud of her now? Or, with the hindsight I was sure heaven afforded, would he be looking down and wondering if he hadn’t ‘bin a bit hard on the lass’? Wondered if he could perhaps have loosened the rein? Wished she were at home now, with Henry, playing with building bricks on the floor, cuddling him on her lap as they watched Teletubbies together and munched their way through a packet of biscuits, or would he still be up there thinking: That’s my girl. Off to show those boys a thing or two in the money markets. Off to kick some ass.
I sighed as I got off the bus at my stop and walked along the High Street. Who knows. Certainly Mum had quietly questioned Clare’s life since Dad had gone, wondered if she wasn’t pushing herself and her family too hard, but everything Mum suggested was hesitant. Timid. Clare, like her late husband, knew best. On the other hand, Dad’s death had made Mum dare to champion me. Whilst he’d scoffed at the romantic stories I wrote, calling them tosh and bunkum, Mum had always quietly lapped them up; she read me in every woman’s magazine I featured in and loved every minute as I rehashed the same doctors and nurses, bringing them out in different guises.
When Dad died, it was she who urged me to write a novel. I didn’t tell her that what I really wanted to do was write a bio
graphy about a certain poet I admired, but didn’t feel I was educated enough – or even the right nationality – to do Emily justice. I was pretty sure I ought to be a Harvard WASP. No, some dreams I couldn’t admit to, even to Mum, although, to be fair, had she known, I’m sure she would have encouraged me.
I turned the corner into Gertrude’s road. Tall, elegant cream houses reared up at me out of a sailor-blue sky. Yes, encouragement, I mused. That’s what I could have done with when Dad was alive. Yet when Mum had suggested I try for university, he’d said, ‘Leave her be, Mum. She’s not the same calibre as our Clare,’ rhyming calibre with saliva.
I smiled to myself as I approached Gertrude’s house: huge, stuccoed and double-fronted. And maybe he’d been right. Maybe he’d known I couldn’t cut the mustard. After all, three attempts later and I still wasn’t published, even though … well, even though this time there really was a glimmer of hope. I clenched my hands in my cardigan pockets in excitement. This time, amazingly, a large publishing house had responded to my last oeuvre, not with the usual polite rejection slip, but with a personal letter from a senior editor. I knew it by heart.
Dear Mrs O’Harran,
Thank you for sending me the first three chapters of your manuscript. I think you show great promise and have considerable talent. I do hope the novel continues in the same vein. I have to tell you, however, that the reading public nowadays demands a great deal more sexual explicit ness from romantic fiction. So far, your characters seem reluctant to move in this direction. Perhaps Lucinda could get her kit off in chapter four?
Yours sincerely,
Sebastian Cooper
Senior editor
Now, admittedly that last line had startled me. Shocked me, in fact. But then again, I reasoned, I wasn’t used to the right-on ways of hip and trendy publishing houses. Wasn’t used to the lingo. I was merely a housewife from Fulham penning my love stories and, actually, straightforward advice was just what I needed right now. And if sex sold, then surely I could steel myself to write it? My toes had curled in my trainers as I’d tried, and recently I’d been having a whopping great gin before sitting down at my laptop to see if that helped the erotic flow. It had, a bit, and I was pretty sure that the combination of Gertrude’s house by the sea providing a conducive environment and buckets more gin would do the trick. And hadn’t Mr Cooper also said I showed ‘great promise’ and ‘considerable talent’? Of course he had.
I raised my chin defiantly and mounted the steps to Gertrude’s gleaming black front door, remembering how awestruck I’d been by these exclusive South Kensington surroundings a year or so ago. David had brought me here to Onslow Gardens to meet his only living relative, with the vague proviso that she was a bit dippy and rather bohemian. Expecting a sweet old thing in a chaotic flat full of cats, I’d dressed accordingly. Stripy socks, baggy canvas trousers and a patchwork jumper had been the order of the day, and I’d bounced up these same steps to find a very grand old lady in grey flannel trousers and a Katharine Hepburn black polo-neck, opening the door to the largest London house I’d ever seen. One hand held the doorknob, whilst the other rested on a rifle, nestling in the umbrella stand. As she’d towered over me, regarding me with icy hauteur, I’d nearly fallen over with shock. David explained later that the air rifle had belonged to his late uncle and that she always opened the door with her hand on it to discourage intruders. Believe me, she didn’t need to. Despite a rapidly fading memory, she still, at eighty-odd, had the power to scare the pants off anyone.
I had to keep telling myself that she must be kind at heart to have taken on her eight-year-old nephew when her sister and husband had been tragically killed in a boating accident, and Flora assured me that she was. Despite, or perhaps because of the generation gap, she and Gertrude got on famously and, at Flora’s insistence, we often popped in to see her after school. I had to steel myself even for these little encounters, but it helped enormously having Flora there. She’d breeze into the house in a way I was totally incapable of doing, give Gertrude a smacking kiss, then make straight for the tallboy in the drawing room where the photograph albums were kept. Plonking herself down on the carpet and with Gertrude perched at her elbow, she’d pore over them, wanting to know exactly who everyone was, and prompting Gertrude if she forgot.
‘That’s cousin Harold,’ Gertrude would say imperiously, pointing a bony, jewelled finger.
‘No, Gertrude, it can’t be. Cousin Harold was blond. Look.’ And she’d flip back a page to prove it.
Gertrude peered again. Sat up straight. ‘My dear, you’re quite right. Very blond. He was a faggot, too, if you’re interested.’
Flora was.
I smiled as the door opened and Gertrude peered down at me: tall and commanding in an ankle-length purple waistcoat, corduroy trousers and ropes of beads around her neck. Cascades of dark, onyx balls shone from her ears, and her steel-grey hair was cut in a sharp, uncompromising bob. Her pale blue eyes were cloudy though, over her hawk-like nose.
‘Annabel! My dear, how delightfully unexpected.’
She presented me with her floury cheek, indicating it should be kissed.
‘Unexpected, Gertrude?’ I flinched, anxiously. ‘Didn’t David say I was coming?’
She stared down at me, blue eyes more penetrating now. After a moment, they cleared. ‘D’you know, you’re quite right. I believe he did. Rang not half an hour ago.’ She clapped a hand to her forehead. ‘Stupid of me! Come in, come in!’
Her voice echoed flutily down the hall as she strode off into the depths of the house, then paused at the entrance to the lofty drawing room, bowing her head low to indicate I should shuffle through first.
The room was high, with an elaborately moulded ceiling, and painted a delicate shade of duck-egg blue. At the tall sash windows, drapes of deep plum damask hung in heavy folds, and all around the room were dotted Gertrude’s potted palms and elegant but delicate antiques. I made firmly for the sofa, remembering how, on my first visit here, I’d heard an ominous creak coming from the dear little eighteenth-century love seat I’d plonked myself on.
‘Coffee?’ She swooped, then gave a dangerous twinkle. ‘Good and strong and black?’
It was a private joke between us, except the joke was firmly on me. The only way I can take my coffe
e is white and very milky, but on that first disastrous visit, I’d been offered it good-and-strong-and-black. Desperate to ingratiate myself, I’d accepted with alacrity.
‘Mmm, please!’
‘There’s no milk you know,’ she’d barked accusingly at me. ‘I don’t drink it. Makes me heave.’
I remember giving a little cry of pleasure, and assuring her that it had precisely the same effect on me. In fact, I was so nervous, I pretty much led her to believe that had the milkman come jingling round the corner on his jolly old milk float right now, I’d have lunged for Uncle Hugh’s air rifle and slotted him between the eyes. I remember sitting there, in that ominously creaky love seat, one ankle resting on my other knee in a curious attempt to look relaxed, constantly using my stripy sock as an absorber for my sweaty palm, and watching as she poured the filthy treacle from a percolator. I’d stared at it for twenty minutes, raising it to my lips occasionally but unable to get a drop down. Later, when she and David briefly left the room to attend to a broken window lock in the kitchen, I threw it, in desperation, into the nearest pot plant. The next time I visited, it had mysteriously died. Latterly, of course, I’d come clean and she’d deigned to add a drop of milk, but it was still very strong and quite filthy, and I was still too timid to refuse.
‘I’d love one, Gertrude,’ I said, cranking up a vivacious smile. ‘Although’ – I licked my lips bravely – ‘I’ve been reading more and more about how bad coffee is for you. I’m thinking of switching to tea.’
‘Stuff and nonsense.’ She glared. ‘It’s all rubbish, that propaganda about caffeine.’ She fumbled with cups and saucers on a tray. ‘I’ve been drinking five cups a day for the last sixty years and I’ve never felt fitter. Never felt remotely “high” as they say one should.’
Could account for the violent hand tremor though, I thought as the cup and saucer rattled its way precariously towards me.
‘Oh, absolutely,’ I agreed spongily, rescuing it from her liver-spotted hand. ‘They’ll print anything in the papers these days.’
‘Well, quite.’
Gertrude sat down opposite me on the club fender and raised her cup to her lips. Then she straightened her long, thin back and fixed me with a stare of stern disapproval.
‘Now. I gather you’re after the house.’
I flushed. Oh God, that sounded awful! Like some terrible, grasping arriviste, intent on my future husband’s chattels.
‘Well, n-no,’ I flustered. ‘It’s just that David said it was empty and … But if it’s not convenient …’
‘It’s more than convenient, my dear, I’m delighted to have it used. You’ve seen it, I take it?’
‘Er, I know where it is, vaguely, but –’
‘But I’ve shown you the picture?’ she persisted. ‘Picture? No, never. Perhaps Flora’s seen it. In an album, but I don’t recall –’
‘No no, my dear, not a photograph. We did have one or two of those but something happened to them. Some idiot threw them away for some blasted reason. No, the painting in the dining room. Didn’t I show you last week? Showed someone.’ She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes accusingly.
‘No, Gertrude,’ I said firmly. ‘Not me. Must have been someone else. Cecily, perhaps?’
Cecily was a niece on Hugh’s side who popped in occasionally to visit and quake, like me. We swapped horror stories.
She kept her eyes trained suspiciously on me for a few long moments, convinced that I was trying to trick her. I tried not to flinch. Abruptly her face cleared. ‘You’re quite right,’ she said quietly, lowering her eyes and brushing some imaginary crumbs from her lap. ‘It was Cecily. Came in to fill in some forms for me. Eyes aren’t quite what they used to be. I remember now. We did it in the dining room, that was it. So.’ She put aside her cup and rose to her feet. ‘Come.’
She towered above me, calling me to attention. Hurriedly I put down my cup and followed as she strode towards the double doors which connected the two huge rooms. She opened them with a flourish and swept through into the dining room. Her violet waistcoat fanned out behind her like a cloak as she skirted the vast Regency table and came to a halt by the Adam fireplace. She gazed up at a picture above it.
‘There.’ She raised her chin imperiously. ‘What do you think?’
I followed her eyes. ‘Oh,’ I breathed. ‘It’s gorgeous!’
I’d only been in this room once before, and never noticed the painting. It was a large watercolour of a low, long, Elizabethan house, timbered and covered in wisteria, and with a sweeping lawn in front. Flanked by rhododendron bushes, it stood proudly on a cliff top overlooking the sea.
‘Just look at that view!’
‘But will it suit?’ she demanded sharply. ‘Suit? Golly, Gertrude, it’s fantastic. I mean – to be literally right on the sea like that …’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, head on one side, considering it. ‘It is a lovely spot. Just at the end of the creek. And the beach is pretty much private. We own the land at the top. So Joe Public can only get to it by boat, or else scramble across the rocks and get marooned, which they do de temps en temps. Silly arses. We’ve had the odd drowning incident, you know. Always a bit tricky.’
For whom, I wondered nervously. Her, or Joe Public? ‘And we had a whale of a time there as children, of course,’ she mused, fiddling with her beads. ‘Pammy and I. With Mummy and Daddy. Picnics and bathing and whatnot. Such larks.’
Her blue eyes clouded for a moment and I thought how awful it must have been to lose her sister like that, suddenly, at only thirty-two.
‘And with David too,’ she went on. ‘When Pammy and Angus died and Hugh and I took him on, we took him down there for the summer. Well, of course we did. No point selling it. Can’t think why he doesn’t use it more now, but then perhaps …’ She tailed off, puckering her floury old brow. Miles away. ‘Anyway.’ She came to. ‘Now there’s you and Flora to use it, so that’s marvellous. And maybe more children in time?’ She eyed me craftily.
I smiled. ‘We hope so, Gertrude. David would love children, I know.’
‘Splendid! So the house will be full again. Of course I still go for a spell in September, but July is so desperately crowded, although admittedly not in our little creek. Take it, my dear. I really couldn’t be more pleased. Have it with pleasure. Here, I’ll give you a key.’
She crossed to a little inlaid writing table in the corner and pulled out a drawer.
‘Somewhere … in here … ah.’ She took out a ring with half a dozen identical keys on it. ‘Always keep a few’ – she fumbled around and I resisted the urge to help her – ‘because I lose them. Hopeless. You’ll probably find one or two down there, but … here, my dear.’ She pulled one off finally and handed it to me. ‘Now. David can tell you how to get there –’
‘Oh, he already has,’ I broke in eagerly. ‘And actually, I know the spot quite well, because when I was young we always used to go to that part of the world for our holidays. We took our caravan and parked it in the campsite close by, and I always used to peer down that long drive and wonder who lived there. Tried to imagine what the family was like.’ I flushed. God, did that sound awful? Like some frightful below-stairs peeper, or something? ‘I grew up in Devon, you see,’ I went on hurriedly, ‘and Rock’s only an hour or so away –’
‘Of course, you’re a West Country girl. Well then, you’ll be quite au fait with the beating of the waves and the seagulls screeching endlessly overhead. And of course they do say the place is haunted by a pirate chief, but that’s all baloney.’
‘Quite. Show me an old Cornish house that isn’t haunted. The estate agents down there know that vendors would be very disappointed if they didn’t get the ubiquitous ghost.’
‘Exactly, all part of the charm. And you never know, you might get some inspiration for that book of yours. Might do some writing?’
‘Well, that is rather the idea,’ I said, confused. ‘Didn’t David say?’ I added anxiously. ‘That’s the whole point. I wan
ted somewhere quiet to – you know – write in peace.’
Golly, did she think I was deserting her nephew to top up my tan on her terrace? Knock back some solitary cocktails? Go clubbing with the locals?
She frowned down at me. Blinked. ‘D’you know,’ she said slowly, ‘I believe he did mention that. Tell me.’ She seized my arm urgently and brought her face down to mine. ‘Is it saucy?’
‘Heavens no!’ I said, terrified.
‘Oh.’ She looked disappointed. ‘B-but I haven’t written it all yet, Gertrude,’ I said, desperately feeling my way. ‘And I have been asked to spice it up a bit, but I’m not sure –’
‘Oh, I should!’ she urged. ‘Tell me, am I in it?’
I gulped. What – as the love interest in the Twilight Home, perhaps? A geriatric temptress, corridor-creeping towards the Major’s bedroom after lights out? Sniffing for trouser in an angora bedjacket? Would she like that, I wondered? Another dilemma.
‘Um … not yet …’ I said guardedly, gauging her response. She frowned. ‘But – you will be soon!’
‘Excellent!’ She clasped her hands excitedly. Then eyed me suspiciously. ‘But as the matriarchal old bag, no doubt.’
‘N-no.’ My hands felt a bit sweaty. ‘As the – the distinguished’ – her face fell – ‘b-but terribly attractive older woman.’
She smiled and patted her hair. ‘Ah yes,’ she purred. ‘A marvellous literary archetype. Frightfully well preserved, but with a hint of come-hither in her eye, eh?’
‘Oh, more than a hint,’ I said warmly. ‘Positively awash with it!’
‘Steady,’ she admonished, but gave a skittish little toss of her head and I could tell she was thrilled to bits.
I breathed again, exhausted. Clearly an Ealing comedy along the lines of Carry on, Lady Bracknell was called for here and I wasn’t sure I was up to executing it. Although actually, I reflected, pocketing the key, writing Gertrude in as a raunchy cameo role was a small price to pay for a house on a cliff with its own private beach. And speaking of payment …
The Wedding Day Page 5