by Tim Jeal
At the end of the holidays, Leo and his mother once more ate lunch with Peter in the cream-painted dining room of his hotel. The place looked more tawdry than before – the remaining windows had been boarded up and the chandeliers wrapped in protective sacking. Leo ate lamb which came in minute portions with the kind of mint sauce that left bright green stains on his plate. Towards the end of the meal, his father said with a puzzled sigh, ‘You never mention that friend of yours any more. He was a sharp lad.’
‘We had a fight. A real one.’ Leo raised a fist in illustration.
His father nodded as if he understood, then asked, ‘What happened?’
‘He wanted me to keep doing more and more scary things.’
‘Like?’
‘Climbing on the roof; being out all night. He wants to force Spud to expel him. I couldn’t stand it any more … being in trouble all the time.’
‘I can see that,’ murmured Peter. ‘I suppose he did risky things to take his mind off his dad flying.’ Leo sat staring at his plate. ‘Cheer up, old man. I’m going to be sent to do tests by the sea in the New Year. If it happens to be somewhere really nice, I’ll rent a cottage and keep it on for the holidays.’
‘We’ll be together?’ Leo sounded dazed.
‘You bet.’
‘Can’t you tell us which county?’ asked Leo.
‘Somewhere near an estuary.’
‘Sounds wizard.’
In the cab on the way to King’s Cross, Andrea was overjoyed when Leo kissed her, without prompting. She realised she didn’t feel the wrenching pain that had made his first departure such a misery.
Passing Euston Arch, she touched her son’s hand. ‘Isn’t it wonderful about the cottage?’
‘Fantastic. Will you send me a picture of the river?’
‘When I get to hear its name.’
‘I’ll stick it inside my desk lid. It’ll bring the hols closer.’
She moved up to him on the leather seat. ‘You’d tell me if you were truly unhappy, sweetheart. You do promise?’
He didn’t reply at first. Then she detected the faintest of smiles. ‘I promise, mum.’
Only when she was watching the rapidly dwindling train, as it curved out of the station, did she think she understood that look. How can anyone say whether they are happy or unhappy? Can you, mother? Life’s the way it is, and we must make the best of it.
*
The following day, as a treat Peter took Andrea to a lunch-time concert at the National Gallery to hear Myra Hess play Brahms and Schubert. While anticipatory chatter rose and fell in the high-ceilinged gallery, Andrea asked her husband to get her a postcard of the estuary near the cottage he would be renting.
‘Leo wants one,’ she explained.
‘I’ll try,’ he promised. ‘Did I tell you I won’t be working when we’re down there?’
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘I’m absolutely serious. Strictly entre nous the navy expects to test Swiss Roll in March, so my job’ll be over before Leo’s spring holiday starts.’
‘That’s really wonderful, Peter.’
So this was to be their special chance – hers and his. They would be together again for the first time since his illness, on a proper vacation. Leo hardly saw his father, so it would be marvellous for him, too; and Andrea would see enough of her son to feel close again.
When Dame Myra began to play Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, Andrea’s feet tripped along the shores of an estuary she had never seen.
*
There was a snow storm on the third day of term, and, since it coincided with the British capture of Tobruk, Captain Berty, Leo’s headmaster, felt sufficiently well-disposed to declare a half-day holiday. During the Twenties he had devised a Great War game which required a huge ‘work party’ to build a long snow ‘trench’ – in reality a snow rampart – which would be defended by one ‘army’ while a second tried to storm it. Snowballs stood in for Mills bombs and grenades. Boys who were hit anywhere above the waist were declared casualties, and forbidden to throw snowballs. Once all the boys on one side or the other had become casualties, that army had to raise the white flag.
On the morning of the day on which Tobruk fell, Leo had not yet spoken to Justin since returning to school. They had eyed one another from a distance, but, when close to, had passed by without speaking. In the war game, Leo found himself on the same side as Justin, defending the trench.
As the attackers advanced, their corduroy jerkins filled with snowballs, the defenders had to rise clear of the sheltering rampart to throw their bombs. Leo was hit on the head early in the action, and then organised a snowball factory to supply the boys still fighting.
Justin was incredibly quick at throwing and ducking down again behind the snow wall; so while boys were hit on every side, he remained unscathed. As Leo supplied his friend with snowballs, he could not help fondly remembering him jumping from bed to bed after their beating. A double bomb finally knocked Justin in a heap at Leo’s feet. Out of breath and laughing, they lay in the snow as the attackers stormed the rampart.
A few days later, Justin told Leo that his father had been burned alive, strapped in his seat, before he crash-landed. The day after that, Leo invited Justin to stay with him ‘on a river somewhere’ for the Easter holidays.
CHAPTER 3
Behind Andrea, in the back of Peter’s battered little Standard car, Leo and Justin were chattering away. It was only half an hour since she had collected them from Truro Station, and already she was starting to feel a little like a chauffeur on the wrong side of a glass panel. But to give in would have been feeble, so Andrea pointed out things that appealed to her: primroses scattered in the hedge banks, stunted oaks stretching gnarled limbs across the road, the finials of a Norman church thrusting skywards through a haze of new greenery.
Not that any of this impressed her pink-blazered passengers as much as her ability, after a week in Cornwall, to negotiate a labyrinth of lanes without the help of signposts, all of which had been removed during the invasion scare. By studying the Ordnance map, she had memorised many of these magical missing names: Poltesco, Ruan Minor, Goonhilly, Trezebal, Treworgie, Manaccan in Meneage, and Landewednack, where the last sermon in the Cornish tongue had been preached in 1678. A few miles away, a regiment of dragoons, homeward bound from the Napoleonic Wars had been shipwrecked, and, even now, the bleached bones of men and horses were sometimes washed up. With an urgency that surprised her, Andrea wanted the boys to share her latest enthusiasm.
For several days, Andrea had imagined stopping the car at a particular bend overlooking a secluded creek on the river’s upper reaches, so the boys could gaze through the branches of ancient oaks at the jade-green water flowing seawards. If the tide were out, there would be nothing but a narrow channel meandering between tall mudbanks, so Andrea was relieved to find the water up. She cut the engine and wound down her window. They couldn’t fail to love what they saw.
‘The Polwherne River,’ she announced like a showman.
‘I’d imagined it wider,’ muttered Justin.
‘Won’t be good for swimming,’ sighed Leo.
‘How come?’ asked Andrea, determined to stay cheerful.
‘That pea-soup colour means a muddy bottom, mum.’
‘Like the school pond,’ agreed Justin.
Andrea said very firmly, ‘The river’s blue downstream, and a lot wider.’
As they descended to the creek, the road squeezed between the flanks of an old granite bridge before twisting upwards again through more oak woods.
‘A civil war battle took place near here. Some kids found a cavalier’s shoe and a musket last summer.’
Justin pointed to the main arm of the river beyond the creek. ‘How deep is it out there, Mrs Pauling?’
‘Please call me Andrea, Justin. I’d guess fifteen feet right now, but who knows for sure.’
‘Not enough water for a German sub to creep in.’ Justin sounded disappointed.
‘To land spies or commandos, twit-face.’
Leo looked doubtful. ‘What would they want to blow up in a quiet place like this?’
‘They’d land here because it’s quiet. And they’d bring bicycles to get to their targets.’ Justin said this with such impressive conviction that Leo was silenced.
Andrea managed to laugh. ‘Good thing it’s too shallow.’
‘It’ll be deeper near the sea,’ said Justin.
As they skirted heather-clad Goonhilly Downs, Andrea did not mention the Bronze Age barrows in case Leo lectured her on the embarrassment of having a schoolteacher for a mother. Instead she said she had brought his bicycle to Cornwall and purchased another for Justin’s use.
‘I’m afraid yours is a woman’s, Justin,’ she added, still distressed that he had called Leo ‘twit-face’. She had been moved to tears, on first hearing that Leo had been big-hearted enough to invite Justin to Cornwall, despite their former disagreements. ‘I’ll need to ride it, too,’ she warned. The thought of Justin’s loss brought a lump to her throat. If he turned out awkward at times, who could be surprised?
A rope was flapping against the suitcase on the roof, so Andrea stopped. After making minor adjustments to the knots, she was ready to drive on; but, by then, the boys had wandered to the end of a stone barn. Across a field of newly sown spring corn, the land dropped away to a sheet of shimmering water. Leo and Justin were staring at the estuary, mesmerised.
‘Can we get a boat, mum?’
‘I’ll look into it.’
Leo turned to Justin, ‘My dad taught me to sail before his leg went bad.’
‘He took you out a few times in a sail boat, Leo. That’s all. Maybe there’s a club some place near, where you can take lessons.’ Leo looked crushed. To cheer him Andrea enthused about the nearest sandy beach, without mentioning the barbed wire defences.
The brick villa Peter had rented was neither pretty nor quaintly rustic. Just outside the hamlet of Trevean Barton, it stood at the end of a rutted lane, slightly apart from the older granite cottages. In the neglected garden, daffodils and a laburnum tree in flower banished any sense of desolation.
‘Why isn’t dad here?’ demanded Leo, clumping up the stairs behind his mother, his knee-length socks down by his ankles.
‘There’s been some minor problem with his roadway. But he’ll be back from Falmouth soon.’ Leo must not know how upset she was that the tests on the roadway were running almost a fortnight late.
Leo’s room was no bigger than a horse’s loose box, just large enough to hold a washstand, chair, chest of drawers and bed. Justin was to have the larger attic room with a view of the estuary.
‘Sorry about the wallpaper,’ said Andrea, frowning at the faded pattern of pink bows and posies.
She showed them the bathroom with its claw-foot bath and copper geyser that had left a rusty stain on the chipped enamel. ‘It roars like a locomotive letting off steam.’ She hoped for a laugh but got only a faint smile from Leo. Their flashes of enthusiasm and contrasting moodiness reminded her of their ups and downs during half-term.
The house was not as primitive as she had anticipated. Expecting paraffin lamps, she had been surprised by the flickering electric light powered by a generator at the nearest farm. But there was no refrigerator and an ancient oil-burner served for a stove. The telephone, installed by the navy for Peter, was a rarity in the village. For three weeks, Peter had been looked after by a local girl, who had managed to obtain eggs, milk and butter from the farm in scandalously large quantities without recourse to coupons. But since she had just joined the ATS, Andrea hoped to find another village girl.
After tea, Leo and Justin went for a bicycle ride. An hour after their arrival at the house, Andrea found herself alone again. She was expecting Peter to be delivered home by a Wren driver at any time. He had sworn to her that for the rest of the week he would be free to be with his family, and she did not believe he would break this promise.
Waiting for the boys, she walked to the brow of the hill outside the hamlet. Against a sky of penetrating blue the trees on the ridge stood out in silhouette. A large elm reminded her of those on New England village greens – though the English tree was more thickset than the spreading American variety. Hitching up her skirt, she clambered onto the bank. A grey-blue stripe marked the spot where sea met sky. Many times, returning from visiting her parents, she must have steamed by without noticing this coastline, as she wandered among showcases holding jewellery and expensive clothes, while an orchestra played. And now all sailings were suspended.
Two tiny figures appeared, zigzagging wildly as they pedalled up the long hill towards her. Andrea waved to them.
They were still wearing their awful pink blazers and she could hear them laughing. The wind was caressing her hair and singing in the phone wires above her head. A bubble of happiness swelled inside her.
*
When Andrea made love to Peter, she often closed her eyes and imagined him as he had been before his illness – not just slimmer and more mobile, but more cheerful, too, and less driven. She still found him attractive, although his body had become thicker and stronger above the waist and in the arms. Inevitably perhaps, given the pain he still suffered, he had become more serious and less able to relax. It was Andrea’s dearest hope that, in this remote village, he would manage to become more like the man she had first met.
Peter’s favourite recreation remained walking. But though most of his friends applauded his ‘guts for not giving in’, Andrea wished he could sometimes be happy to sit quietly with her in the garden, or to admire a country view from an automobile. Secretly, she wished that he would come to terms with his losses, and try to develop new interests to fill the gap: reading novels perhaps, or listening to music.
But whatever the future might hold, their first full day together in Cornwall was to be devoted to walking. Peter’s mind was made up. He assured Andrea that the day before he had managed to walk a mile without harming his leg. So she bit her tongue when he suggested a more ambitious hike along the cliffs. Everyone at the hospital had told her that he should be encouraged to be enterprising. He had studied the map carefully, Peter told her, so she needn’t worry. If his leg hurt, he would walk through the fields to the nearest road and wait for her to return with the car.
Peter liked to have definite objectives and today he aimed to reach a Celtic earthwork on a headland near the mouth of the river. He would achieve this, he said, by walking across fields, rather than attempting to follow the lower coastal path. In this way, all steep slopes and streambeds would be avoided.
Andrea had never forgotten him saying, shortly before leaving hospital, that a man on two crutches was a cripple but a man with a single stick was only lame. His success in ridding himself of his crutches had been achieved at the cost of so many falls that his every unaided descent of the stairs had made Andrea fear he would break his neck. And all the time he had been deaf to her pleas for greater caution. Today, as he swung his stiff left leg over a stile, with help from both hands, she experienced the same old mix of admiration and misgiving.
By the time they came to a gate where adhesive mud lay between the granite posts, he was already breathless and sweating. After negotiating this quagmire, he was obliged to rest, perching on the shooting stick Andrea always carried for him. It had been overcast earlier but now the sun shone with real warmth. Only days before the young blades of corn had seemed unable to push themselves above the earth, and larks had been flung like scraps across hail-filled skies. Today, in fields ahead, kingcups glowed and the hedges were white with drifts of hawthorn.
Peter took out his binoculars and trained them on the distant headland. A frown puckered his brow. ‘That’s odd. Looks like they’ve laid some kind of railway track.’
‘In such an out of the way place?’
‘Maybe they’re trying to fool the Germans into droppin
g bombs here instead of on Falmouth docks. Smart idea. If they light up the track at night and build a few sheds, it could even work.’
‘Unless the Germans hit our house instead.’
Andrea felt depressed by the war’s spreading tentacles. Peter lurched ahead of her again, his broad shoulders dipping from side to side as he limped across the tussocky grass. At last he stopped again and dabbed at his dripping face. His hair was shining as if with brilliantine.
Outside the estuary the sea was ruffled with white-capped waves. Andrea asked, ‘Will Leo be safe out there if I rent a boat for him?’
‘Why on earth not? There’s a naval patrol to fish him out if he capsizes.’
‘Could a German sub come in?’
‘Most unlikely. There’s a net across the estuary.’
‘Might submarines want to come in?’
‘Of course. The river’s a perfect spot to lie up before hitting a coastal convoy.’
Andrea understood why Justin had resented her automatic dismissal of his theories. Between the Channel and the Atlantic, Cornwall’s ports and airfields would be strategically important, especially since German airplanes in France were only an hour’s flying time away. The headland still looked beautiful, though the surrounding sea seemed destined to be a graveyard for scores of young sailors and airmen.
As Peter’s limp became more pronounced, he knew from Andrea’s compressed lips that she longed to ask him to turn back. But if he could put up with a little pain in order to achieve something special, why couldn’t she turn a blind eye to his occasional grimaces? Her anxiety made everything more difficult for him, taking away the joy he felt in having crossed rugged country through his own efforts. For months he had lain in hospital fearing that he would never again enter a wild landscape on his own two feet, and now that he was actually standing in such terrain with the wind and sun on his face he was not going to give up because Andrea was worried. Bathed in warm sunlight the headland beckoned, tantalisingly closer than it had been even minutes earlier.