Remembering, feeling strangely moved, Mousie closed the door gently behind her and went to make some coffee.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘There goes Joss.’ From the curved window of The Lookout, Emma could see across to The Row and the boatyard as well as far out to sea. ‘The sun is just touching the roofs. Ray always says that it’s a shame that we don’t get much sun down here in the valley in winter.’
‘Yes, I can well imagine that Brer Fox would blow up some cliffs or chop down a forest or two so as to make a place more attractive to the masses and earn himself a fast buck. It’s impossible for him to appreciate the countryside unless it’s in the terms of property development.’
Emma moved back into the room, hugging her long fleecy robe more tightly about her generous figure.
‘He is rather tiresome at the moment,’ she admitted. ‘You know, talking about what he’d do if Mutt … well, when Mutt dies.’ Her worried expression trembled into distaste.
‘Do about what?’ Bruno was sitting at the table, spooning porridge from a large bowl. The porridge was lavishly spread with clotted cream and brown sugar and he was clearly relishing it. ‘He hardly ever sees her now. What difference will it make to him?’
During breakfast he’d been mentally blocking out his next chapter whilst Emma reviewed the day ahead but, once again, reality was forcing him into an anxious awareness.
‘Well, not much,’ she agreed, shrugging, ‘but you know what I mean. Oh, I’m well aware of what you think about Ray but you’d have to be supernaturally disinterested not even to consider what would happen, wouldn’t you?’
‘I don’t see why anything should change.’ He put the bowl down for Nellie to lick and stood up. Anxiety battled with the overwhelming need to get back to his own internal world and he felt restless and edgy. ‘Why are we talking about Mutt dying, anyway? She’s broken her ankle and now she has a chill. Is it really serious? Mousie hasn’t said so.’
Emma stared at him thoughtfully. ‘Odd, isn’t it?’ she observed. ‘We’ve been coming here all these years, me and Zoë,’ she gave a little nod towards the photograph, ‘and then Olivia and Joss too, whenever we’ve been in trouble. And you’ve sorted us out and got us kick-started again. But with Mutt it’s like you just don’t want to accept that she’s old and frail and ill.’
‘It’s not the same at all,’ he answered irritably. ‘Good God! I didn’t ask you all to come. This place was like an asylum for fallen women at times. And I wish you wouldn’t make me sound like Voltaire’s philanthropic Dr Pangloss type of character. Although I do happen to agree with him that, to be happy, man must work.’
‘Oh, don’t start that.’ Emma made a face. ‘You were always going on about work.’
‘And I was right. If you or Zoë had had other things on your minds apart from love affairs and spending money you’d both have needed less kick-starting or whatever you called it.’
‘Ray didn’t want me to work. He liked me to be there for him. And anyway, there was Joss …’ Her voice changed. ‘Of course, it was rather different for Zoë.’
‘Let’s not get on to that one, shall we? Won’t Mousie be waiting for you?’
Emma burst out laughing. ‘Ten out of ten for subtlety, dear bro. But yes, I must get a move on. Are you coming up to the house with me?’
He hesitated. ‘Will it be a bit much for Mutt? All of us at once? Tell her I’ll be up about tea-time as usual …’ He frowned, feeling guilty.
‘And anyway, you want to work,’ she prompted, grinning.
He grinned back at her. ‘I don’t have a wealthy spouse to support me. Only an ex-wife who still thinks it’s my duty to bail her out of trouble at regular intervals.’
Emma’s smile died, the old, familiar protectiveness aroused. ‘She has absolutely no right to exploit your good nature. Why should you have to support her when she walked out on you? What about all those other lovers she’s had?’
‘Give it a rest,’ he said, hands raised, palms outward. ‘I’m not in the mood. Go and get some clothes on before Mousie phones up wondering where you are. Mutt’s probably all keyed-up to see you.’
She trailed away, retying the belt on her thick, soft robe, her expression sulky and dissatisfied, resenting Zoë’s presence in their lives.
The room seemed to settle and expand a little around Bruno now he was alone again. He strolled over to the window and, hands in pockets, stared down towards The Row and, beyond it, to the corrugated iron structure of the old boathouse. Under its roof, at the top of the slipway, was his old boat the Kittiwake, built in the yard before the war by the man who’d once lived here in The Lookout. She was clinker built, mahogany on oak, sixteen feet long, and as a child he’d learned to sail in her, taught by Rafe, who’d been barely more than a boy himself. Another smaller sailing boat sat nearby on a trailer. George owned the Enterprise, and Bruno wondered if there might be time for them to get out for a sail at some point while George was down. He glanced seawards: the sea, flat as a shelf, was banded with bars of silver, and there was no breath of wind.
He found that he was thinking about George: how he’d come upon him, standing with Joss one hot afternoon last summer, high up the valley beside St Meriadoc’s well listening to a lark singing high above them. There’d been some tension between them that caught his attention: the way that, though not actually touching, they’d seemed to be drawn to each other. They’d smiled at him in a dazed kind of way, rather as travellers might greet a stranger – polite but not terribly interested – and he’d suddenly realized why, much to the whole family’s puzzlement, Joss didn’t get serious with her boyfriends …
‘See you later.’ Emma was waving to him from the doorway, her sunny good humour restored. ‘Enjoy your trip down London’s sewers. No, Nellie, you can’t come this time. Sorry, old girl.’
She disappeared and Bruno began to collect the breakfast things together, relieved that the subject of his ex-wife had been avoided for once. From the very beginning Zoë and Emma had crossed swords and his loyalty to each had been severely strained. He piled the dishes beside the deep Belfast sink, let Nellie out for her morning potter in the valley and allowed his mind to flow back into its natural channels of creativity. However, now that he was able to return to his own world he felt that, mysteriously, it was closed to him. He tried the usual methods: conjuring up his characters, deliberately setting them in different situations, trying out conversational openings, but all he could think about was Zoë: bringing her home to Paradise and introducing her to Mutt before taking her down to show her The Lookout.
At twenty-three, just out of naval college and on fourth-year courses, he is well aware that Zoë is rather outside his experience: he cannot take his eyes off her. Conscious of his admiration she slightly exaggerates her movements, swinging her hips in the tight black mini-skirt, crossing her legs in long black leather boots. The severe Mary Quant bob suits her thick black hair. Zoë always wears black: she is sophisticated and sharply aware of her image. Not quite as famous as The Shrimp or Twiggy, she is, nevertheless, building up quite a portfolio and is much in demand for her Juliette Gréco type of sexuality: a waif-like gamine with an air of weary boredom; a black-eyed stare that challenges. There is nothing naïve about Zoë.
She is impressed, however, by St Meriadoc, lying in its sheltering valley, and though she makes no concessions to Bruno’s people – no playing the sweet young ingénue for their benefit – the fact that, one day, he will inherit this charming little estate elevates him in her estimation.
‘Nice, darling,’ she says, wandering round the big room with its curving window, digging a crumpled packet of Sobranies out of her bag. ‘You could have really fab parties here.’ She gives him an admiring little glance: teasing, rather veiled. ‘So this is your pad?’
He hurries to light her cigarette with the smart Dunhill lighter she’s given him for his twenty-third birthday and she smiles at him, her eyes narrowing above the smoke, assessing him. She likes
The Lookout even more than the pretty house: it lends itself to fun décor and promising weekends – although it’s rather a long way from London.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, The Lookout is mine.’
That’s how it’s always been. ‘You can have The Lookout,’ Emma says, ‘and I’ll have Paradise,’ although neither of them takes it too seriously. In his final year at school, Bruno works hard redecorating The Lookout so that his friends can come to stay. It’s good to get away from the constraints of the house and have some fun, and Mutt is very understanding. She allows him to take down some unwanted furniture and discarded curtains, and she buys a few other pieces: enough to furnish it adequately. He celebrates his twenty-first birthday with a party at The Lookout, with his fellow officers from BRNC and Emma’s seventeen-year-old school-friends.
‘We had a ball,’ he tells Zoë casually, not wanting her to think him inexperienced, thinking of those girls: smelling delicately of Elizabeth Arden’s Blue Grass, rather self-conscious in their long, pretty pastel-hued frocks. Zoë wears a scent called Jicky and wouldn’t be seen dead in bright, light colours. ‘Drank too much and went swimming off the slipway at midnight.’
‘Great,’ she says indifferently, turning from the window, grinding out her cigarette in the hastily proffered ashtray, her eyes on his. ‘So what’s the scene upstairs?’
Though grateful for the experience gained on various runs ashore in Holland and Sweden, Bruno is almost relieved when they hear a door slam and Emma’s voice echoing up the stairs. He mutters apologies, tucking in his shirt, hurrying down to meet her.
‘Mutt said you’d be here,’ she says. ‘I can’t wait to meet Zoë.’
‘I was just showing her round upstairs,’ he says awkwardly. ‘She’s just … um. You know. Powdering her nose. Ah, here she comes.’
Zoë descends the stairs slowly, aware of Emma’s fascinated gaze, meeting Bruno’s eyes with a secret smile. Whilst Bruno introduces them he senses antagonism on both sides: Zoë lets Emma see that she thinks her unsophisticated and of little account, that her arrival is ill-timed; Emma is knocked out of her stride by such sophistication coupled with barely concealed indifference. For the first time Bruno is caught between two women – between, on one side, strong physical desire and, on the other, deep affection and loyalty – but at twenty-three there is no contest.
‘You can’t marry her,’ cries Emma. ‘She’s all wrong for you. Don’t be confused by sex.’
But he is confused by it: confused, drugged and drowning in it. His oppos are wildly envious and his pride knows no bounds. Zoë is chosen to market a famous brand of cigarette and her image is to be seen everywhere: staring down from posters and out of the shiny pages of popular magazines. The photograph becomes an icon and he feels excited and overwhelmed each time he sees it. This woman, desired by men and envied by women, is his. She gives him the huge framed copy, which hangs in The Lookout, as a wedding present.
CHAPTER NINE
‘Mutt looks better today,’ said Emma hopefully. ‘Don’t you think so, Mousie? I don’t quite know what it is but she seems calmer and her mind is surprisingly clear.’
She was busy at the ironing board, pressing and folding sheets with swift, economical movements, whilst Mousie sat at the kitchen table, peeling and dicing vegetables for soup; heaping the vegetables together in a bowl, saving the peelings for the compost heap. Although she understood that Emma’s diagnosis was coloured by wishful thinking, nevertheless she was inclined to agree with her. Following that early attack of breathlessness and sweating, Mutt was less distressed; she was sleeping more deeply.
‘The antibiotics are helping,’ she said – yet she felt that it was something more than that: rather as if a burden had been lifted and Mutt had truly relaxed for the first time in several days. For the first time since the letter and the photograph had arrived … This unbidden thought had the impact of a sudden shock and Mousie looked thoughtfully at Emma, who was now carefully ironing one of Mutt’s nightgowns.
‘Did Joss tell you about our American pilgrim?’ she asked lightly.
‘Yes, she did.’ Emma paused from her work, setting the iron on its rest and turning to look at Mousie, whose fingers continued to chop busily. ‘A rather good-looking chap, I gather, who was trying to track down an aunt or something.’
‘Great-aunt,’ said Mousie, almost absently. ‘Does the name Madeleine Grosjean ring any bells?’
Emma frowned. ‘I don’t think so. Was that her name?’
‘Apparently. He said that she knew your parents out in India.’ Mousie deftly scraped the last peelings into some newspaper. ‘She might have been a nurse.’
‘Oh, well.’ Emma shrugged and turned back to her work. ‘That’s a closed book to me, you know. I wasn’t quite two when we came home. I think I can remember things, sometimes, but then I wonder if I confuse them with stories Mutt and Bruno have told me. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Mmm.’ Mousie seemed to be distracted. ‘Did you ever see any photographs? I know you all came away in such a hurry that you didn’t bring much with you but I just wondered …’
‘Hardly anything. And, of course, very little had been sent home. Mutt’s got a few photos but those little black-and-white snapshots aren’t very revealing, are they? Bruno and I were too young to go in for souvenirs, though we’ve each got a very nice cabinet-size photo of Daddy taken when he first went out.’
Mousie stood up, carried the vegetables to the sink, rinsed them and turned them out into a large saucepan containing a rich, meaty stock. Emma smiled at her with enormous affection. She liked being here, ironing whilst Mousie prepared some lunch, bringing life to this rather cold, functional room at the back of the house. Mutt had never been a kitchen dweller, preferring her little parlour or the drawing-room, and so no atmosphere pervaded it. However, since Joss had moved temporarily into Paradise, there were one or two signs of new life: two or three cards from her friends ranged along the window-sill; her plaid shawl flung over the back of a chair; a tiny bunch of snowdrops crammed into a small blue pot. Emma was oddly touched by these signs of her daughter’s presence. Privately she hoped that, one day, Joss might live at Paradise, bringing up her own children here; re-creating those happy times when she and Bruno had been growing up together. She sighed in pleasurable anticipation.
‘It’s nice, isn’t it?’ she said spontaneously to Mousie. ‘Being together like this, I mean. The clean smells of the ironing and delicious food cooking on the Aga, and having a good old gossip. Bruno would say that it all goes back to the hunter-gatherers. All those millions of years with women gathering and spending all that time together while the men were off hunting. He’s got a thing about it.’
Mousie slipped an arm about Emma’s shoulder and gave her a little hug but she was not distracted by Bruno’s theory. An idea was growing in her mind but for some reason she was afraid of it: she couldn’t get to grips with it, yet the shadow was there.
‘Have you ever seen a photograph of their wedding?’ she asked. ‘Honor’s and Hubert’s? It was a double wedding, you know. Hubert sent us a photograph at the time. My father had just been lost with the sinking of the Hood and we came back to St Meriadoc. One of the cottages was empty so we were able to move in. You know all that, of course, but it was just at that time that Hubert got married and sent the photograph.’
‘I love all these stories about the family.’ Emma folded the night-gown and placed it on the pile of crisply laundered items. ‘How terrible it must have been for you all, Mousie. I do wish I could remember more. Do you know I can hardly even bring Grandfather to my mind? But then he died quite soon after we got home, didn’t he? Thank goodness we had all of you. It must have been such a comfort for Mutt to come back to a ready-made family, especially when she’d lost her own parents so tragically in the Blitz.’
‘We were very lucky,’ agreed Mousie. ‘All of us.’ A pause. ‘So you haven’t seen the wedding photograph?’
Emma looked at her curiou
sly. ‘Have you still got it?’
‘Not the one Hubert sent to us. Or, at least, if we have I don’t know where it is. I just wondered if Honor might have had one somewhere. The American sent a copy of it. It was very odd, seeing it again after all these years.’
‘I’d love to see it,’ said Emma. ‘Joss didn’t show me the photograph, she just said he’d called.’
Mousie went out of the kitchen, crossed the hall to the drawing-room, and picked up the large leather bag which was lying beside an armchair. She stood quite still for a moment, the photograph in her hand, before returning to the kitchen.
‘There.’ She laid the print on the table and Emma bent over it eagerly. ‘Have you seen it before?’
‘Never.’ Emma was smiling. ‘Those ridiculous hats! But don’t they look happy and – good gracious, Mousie, doesn’t Joss look just like Mutt at that age?’
‘That’s what struck me,’ agreed Mousie. ‘It was quite a little shock … Do you recognize the other woman at all?’
Emma picked up the photograph, holding it towards the light from the window.
‘I don’t know.’ She looked puzzled. ‘There’s something about her … Isn’t it odd, though, Mousie … ?’
The sound of Mutt’s handbell sounded through the house and the two women instinctively tensed.
‘I’ll go,’ said Emma. ‘I’ll shout if I think you should come up.’ She dropped the photograph on the table and disappeared, running up the stairs. Mousie picked up the print and stared at it.
She thought: I wonder what happened to Madeleine Grosjean.
George Boscowan parked his car in the old quarry and sat for a moment, summoning up the courage required to break the news to his parents.
‘You have to tell them,’ Penny had said. ‘No, I can’t come with you. I just can’t face them. Sorry, George. Anyway, it simply wouldn’t work with Tasha screaming her head off or whatever.’
The Golden Cup Page 6