The Golden Cup

by Marcia Willett

  Emma was alone at Paradise. Mousie had gone to Polzeath to do some shopping, she told him, and would look in later on.

  ‘We are so lucky to have her,’ she said. ‘Joss is doing what she can but she has to keep her practice going and, after all, darling old Mousie is so experienced. Mutt seems calmer today, we both think so, though she’s very weak. The doctor will be calling in a bit later. Go and talk to her.’

  He went upstairs, relieved that he was able to have a moment alone with Mutt, wondering how he might broach a very difficult subject. He closed the door quietly behind him and stood for a moment, seeing that her eyes were closed. The sight of her, frail and tiny in the big bed, affected him powerfully. He realized now that he’d always seen her as a brave and gallant figure: watching over him and Emma, guiding them as she’d thought best. He remembered her as she’d been only a few months ago, at the end of the summer: still sailing with him in the Kittiwake, working with Rafe in the garden, walking over the cliffs and along the valley. Their scattered neighbours and friends had been very slightly in awe of her for, despite her natural warmth, she’d tended to hold them at arm’s length. Yet he’d known another side of Mutt’s character: a ready sense of humour, a vulnerability, and a deep, compassionate insight into human failings. She’d looked after them all, his grandfather and his Aunt Julia, as well as old Dot and Jessie Poltrue: Paradise and the valley would seem empty indeed without Mutt’s presence.

  Trying to conceal his emotions, he crossed to the bed and kneeled down beside her, kissing her soft, wrinkled brow. He took her hand, holding it tightly, and very gently shook it, as if to attract her attention. She turned her head slowly on the pillow and her eyes beseeched him for understanding.

  ‘Everything was for you and Emma, wasn’t it?’ He leaned closer so as to hear her feeble voice. ‘But now I want Joss to have Paradise.’

  ‘Is that how you’ve left it in your will, Mutt?’ he asked. ‘I need to know this. Have you been explicit about the estate?’

  She frowned as if remembering something, her lips mumbling a little, her eyes sliding away as if she could no longer meet his own. ‘I’ve been a fool.’ She took an uneven breath. ‘Forgive me.’

  Her withered lips shook with distress and he pressed his own together as he watched her struggle against the pain that dimmed her eyes, quite unable to question her further.

  ‘Nothing to forgive,’ he told her firmly. ‘Remember how happy we’ve been, all of us. You kept us together as a family.’

  Tears squeezed beneath her papery lids and she clutched his hand tightly. ‘You’ll look after them, I know that,’ she whispered with difficulty. ‘But I did so want Joss to have Paradise.’

  He leaned forward to kiss her. ‘I promise to look after Joss,’ he said clearly, his lips close to her ear.

  Before she could answer, the door opened and Emma appeared. Bruno sat back on his heels as she approached the bed and, releasing the thin hand, stood up and walked away to the window.

  ‘I think she should rest now.’ After a few moments Emma joined him, speaking in a low voice. ‘I’ll come and sit with her for a while but shall we go downstairs and have a cup of tea first?’

  He followed her down to the kitchen but he knew that, in his present mood, it would be quite impossible to sit cosily over the teacups.

  ‘Do you mind if I crack on?’ he asked. ‘Poor old Nellie needs a walk and I’d like to get a bit more work done, then we can have some time together after supper.’

  She responded at once to the suggestion: those after-supper times with Bruno were terribly important to her.

  ‘I might be a bit late, though,’ she warned him. ‘I don’t know what time Mousie will be back but I said we’d have something together here.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said, just needing to get away, to be alone to think things over. ‘Whenever. Come on, Nellie.’ But, at the door, he hesitated, suddenly conscious of Emma’s fears and anxieties. ‘Are you going to be OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course I am.’ She was touched by his concern. ‘To tell you the truth I rather like being here on my own. It’s so peaceful and I like to listen to the silence. I know you’ll find it difficult to believe,’ she made a face at him, ‘but I can manage an hour of my own company if pushed. Specially here. I like to think of Joss living here – well, she’s doing that anyway at the moment – but Paradise is her natural home, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said abruptly.

  He stooped and kissed her cheek, turned quickly away, and she watched him stride off down the drive, surprised at this unusual display of affection.

  She thought: He’s upset by the way Mutt looks. I expect he wants to be on his own for a bit to come to terms with it.

  And she went back inside and upstairs to her mother.

  But Bruno wasn’t thinking about Mutt. He was remembering how, thirty years before, Emma had introduced him to the young Raymond Fox. As he climbed the footpath to the cliff, Nellie already far ahead, he recalled her expression: pride mingled with anxiety – and a kind of ‘anything you can do I can do better’ tilt of the chin.

  It is a warm evening in June and the big windows are open to the swelling sea, its taut surface skin gleaming and iridescent as a peacock’s feather, its toothless mouth sucking and mumbling at the rocks beneath. The room is washed by golden light and full of sweet, fresh air. Fiddling with a dish of olives, wishing that Zoë would appear, Bruno checks his watch for the third time. It is at his suggestion that Emma is bringing Raymond to The Lookout. Instinctively, Bruno has arranged this meeting on his own ground: Emma’s descriptions of Raymond Fox, twelve years her senior, make him sound formidable. Already he is the junior partner in a company of City stockbrokers, he has inherited a highly desirable town house in Henley and owns a flat in London.

  With his short-term commission ended and his first book attracting attention, Bruno need not feel overshadowed by such a reputation. Nevertheless, there is an air of contest here. Ever since his marriage to Zoë, it is as if Emma feels that she must match his status but the harmony between them is shattered by the two girls’ antagonism. As he pours himself a drink he hears their voices: Emma’s light and rather breathless – she’s nervous, he thinks – and the pleasant baritone accompanying it, measured, calm, confident.

  He lets them come in to him, Emma leading the way and calling out as they pass through the kitchen, and the next minute they are here. She makes the introductions, cheeks flushed with that odd blend of pride and defiance, whilst Raymond holds out a large square hand. His handsome face is oddly lacking in expression, as if it has been carved from brown, lightly pitted wood. There are already deep grooves between nose and chin and his light grey eyes are watchful. He exudes self-satisfaction and Bruno feels a childish satisfaction at being several inches taller.

  ‘Nice little place,’ Raymond says, strolling to the window. ‘Damp in the winter, though, I should think, isn’t it?’

  ‘The whole of Cornwall is damp,’ answers Bruno coolly, ‘winter and summer alike. We have amazing varieties of fungus in the peninsula.’

  He pours Emma’s usual gin and tonic and holds the bottle questioningly towards Raymond.

  ‘Got any Scotch?’ he asks genially – as if he doubts that Bruno will be so sophisticated – and Bruno pours some malt whisky into a tumbler, his mouth compressed into a line of irritation. Emma hastens into speech, demanding admiration of the view, whilst Raymond smiles tolerantly but possessively upon her and Bruno writhes with embarrassment.

  ‘Very narrow little cove, isn’t it?’ Raymond remarks, sipping his drink, peering downwards. ‘Not easy to sail from, I imagine.’

  ‘Not very,’ answers Bruno. ‘Apart from anything else there are very dangerous rocks right across the entrance.’

  ‘Pity.’ Raymond frowns judicially: already there is a black mark against St Meriadoc’s viability.

  ‘Not particularly.’ Bruno comes to its defence. ‘We know exactly where they are.’

>   ‘Mmm. Not very good for holidaymakers, though. And there’s no real beach, is there?’

  ‘We don’t have holidaymakers here. It’s a private valley.’ Bruno can hear that he is being snobbish but cannot help himself. ‘We live here.’

  ‘Mmm,’ says Raymond again. ‘But you could make a nice little killing if you were to knock down that old boatyard and build a hotel …’

  It is at this moment that Zoë makes her entrance, coming down the stairs, yawning a little, her black eyes taking in the scene. Her feet are bare, she wears one of Bruno’s shirts and very little else, and she looks bed-rumpled and terribly sexy: in this company she is rather like a predatory, experienced tigress set down unexpectedly amongst a litter of domestic kittens. Emma’s face grows sulky and cross, Raymond’s hands go instinctively to his tie and Bruno begins to chuckle inwardly. He simply cannot help himself.

  ‘Hello, love,’ he says. ‘All dressed ready for dinner, I see.’

  Zoë’s eyes wander over Emma’s pretty frock and Raymond’s London suit and, although she doesn’t speak, Emma instantly feels frumpy and Raymond overdressed. He steps forward, however, undiminished by her glance and introduces himself.

  ‘And I know who you are,’ he adds playfully, though she has made no effort to tell him her name.

  She turns away from him, reaching for the drink Bruno has poured for her. ‘Everyone knows who I am,’ she says indifferently. ‘You didn’t say we had to dress up, darling.’

  Emma stares at her. ‘You weren’t coming up to dinner like that, were you?’ She laughs, an artificial sound. ‘Honestly, Zoë. Mutt would have a fit, you know she would.’

  ‘Well, of course not,’ Zoë says impatiently. ‘But you’re looking a bit formal for such a warm evening.’

  She yawns, assessing Raymond, decides that, even for the pleasure of upsetting Emma, he isn’t worth flirting with and makes a tiny bored moue.

  ‘I’m going to have a bath,’ she says, trailing away, carrying her drink, pausing to stretch on tiptoe so as to kiss Bruno. Bare-legged, the shirt only just long enough to be decent, she knows the picture it will make and cannot resist a backward glance to check out the reaction.

  ‘Hurry.’ Bruno pushes her towards the stairs, still amused at the performance, grateful for the distraction that has pre-empted a row between him and his putative brother-in-law. He sees trouble ahead.

  ‘You can’t marry him,’ he tells Emma later.

  ‘Mutt really likes him,’ she says stubbornly. ‘She thinks he’s reliable and steady.’

  ‘Reliable?’ He shakes his head in disbelief. ‘For God’s sake, Em. Do me a favour.’

  ‘What’s wrong with being reliable?’ she bristles. ‘Why don’t you like him?’

  ‘Because he can’t love properly,’ he answers after a moment. ‘There’s no real warmth in him. You need to feel safe emotionally in marriage, Em.’

  ‘You mean like you and Zoë?’

  She can’t resist the cutting retort: the taunt is bitter but well observed and he has no answer for it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It was dark by the time Joss arrived back at St Meriadoc. She was later than usual, having fitted in an appointment at the end of her surgery hours: a farmer complaining of a low backache. He’d never been to an osteopath before and, as she’d welcomed him in, he’d looked faintly sheepish and rather wary. She’d sat him down beside the little desk, talking to him so as to put him at ease and, very gradually, in fits and starts, the facts had begun to emerge.

  ‘… Did it ten days ago or thereabouts, diving for an old ewe … felt it go but couldn’t stop … had a hot bath, not a bad night, bit uncomfortable … got a bit better but it never went away, then, yesterday, turned round in the Land Rover to grab my coat and, hey, the whole thing’s worse again.’

  She’d listened carefully to his story, asked a few questions: low backache on the right side, no pins and needles, no numbness, no radiation of pain down the leg, so probably not a disc problem. He hadn’t been too happy about stripping down to his underwear and she’d gently explained that she needed to see his spinal movements but that he could put his shirt back on afterwards. She was able to work with one layer of clothing – no more – and, feeling happier, he’d soon relaxed enough to allow her to check the state of his soft tissue and joint mobility. As she worked it became clear that, as he’d lunged to the right to catch the sheep, he’d strained the lower lumbar segments and the muscles had gone into spasm to protect the area from further damage. At last, after massage, passive articulation to release the joint restriction, and then some manipulation, he’d felt a great deal easier.

  His shyness had evaporated during this treatment. Joss had learned to talk as she worked, finding out more about her patients so that she could take a holistic approach to their healing. She liked to build up a picture of what kind of people they were, how they related to their environment, and so, if necessary, gently helping them towards a realization and acceptance of the need to bring their lives into balance.

  This holistic approach was what had drawn her most powerfully to the work; that and seeing a young friend, almost crippled by a fall from a horse, restored gradually to health by an osteopath in Maidenhead. Joss’s training – and now her practice – continued to confirm this belief and vitalize her; in her own way she was putting back into society what her father had taken from it in his lifelong meannesses and petty behaviour.

  Now, driving down the narrow lane towards St Meriadoc, she chuckled as she remembered the farmer’s reaction to the manipulation. He’d first looked alarmed and then laughed almost gleefully at the sound of the clicks, and he’d been very ready to make another appointment. He might need several more visits over the next two weeks but, if it had resolved itself by the next appointment, then all well and good. Joss often reminded herself of a phrase frequently used during her training: find it, fix it and leave it alone.

  She parked the car and remembered with a shock that George was here. Anxiety replaced her sense of satisfaction with a good day’s work and she slid silently from the car, closing the door as quietly as she could, lest Rafe or Pamela should appear. As she crossed the road and climbed the track to The Lookout, she told herself that it was foolish – that whatever might happen between George and Penny, she had done nothing of which to be ashamed – nevertheless, unease dogged her and she was glad to see the light shining out like a beacon from the great outflung window.

  Bruno poured her a glass of wine and she sat down in the bentwood rocker, suddenly at ease, feeling exactly as she did in Mutt’s bedroom: that they were cut off and freed from the day-to-day anxieties. She fetched a great sigh and stretched a foot to Nellie, who was lying on her back in front of the fire, looking as fluid and boneless as a bendy toy.

  ‘Good day?’ asked Bruno. ‘Getting the hang of it now?’

  She smiled up at him gratefully; he knew how anxious she’d been because, to begin with, she’d worked so slowly. Even after nearly two years, in her own practice she still booked an hour for each appointment, which allowed her the time to build up her picture of the patient – general health, occupation, family ties – to get down all the details before she began the examination and this way she didn’t have to rush. As an assistant she was obliged to work more quickly so she felt that, at present, she was having the best of both worlds.

  ‘I’m getting better,’ she told him. ‘Working a half-hour list at the practice in Bodmin is giving me confidence. One of the things I’m learning is the ability to shut down on the details of one patient before picking up on the next one. I think I’m getting a bit more efficient. I’m beginning to get a few referrals so I must be getting something right.’

  Bruno sat down on the sofa and Nellie immediately leaped up gracefully beside him, curling against his side. Joss rocked herself, sipping with pleasure at the chilled Sancerre.

  ‘You look content,’ Bruno observed, raising his glass to her.

  Joss thought about it. ‘I
am,’ she agreed, sounding rather surprised at this discovery. ‘I just love my work, I suppose – why are you smiling?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing, really. Just a conversation I was having earlier with Em about the benefits of honest toil.’

  ‘Mum didn’t have much chance, really,’ said Joss quickly, as if defending her mother. ‘Married so young and Dad wanting her to be there all the time. There’s always quite a lot of entertaining in London. Actually, I think Mum enjoys that bit.’

  ‘I was remembering,’ he said mildly, ‘not criticizing.’

  ‘I’m sure you weren’t but there have been times when she’s been … well, restless probably describes it best. And then I’ve wondered if it would have been better for her if she’d other things to think about apart from Dad and me.’

  They sat for a while in companionable silence, watching the flames flaring and dying, whilst, in the background, Billie Holiday’s husky voice singing ‘No More’ created an atmosphere of bittersweet melancholy. Bruno had a vast CD collection of female blues singers: Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Dinah Shore – he loved them all, playing them as he sat after supper, thinking about his characters and the worlds they inhabited, losing himself in their company.

  Joss, listening to the gravelly, sexy voice, wondered why it was that, once you fell in love, it seemed that every love song might have been written for you personally.

  ‘Since your supper plans have been cancelled,’ said Bruno at last, ‘can I offer you something or will you go up to the house and join Em and Mousie?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I think so or Mum will wonder where I am.’ Her face clouded. ‘Sorry about that message, Bruno. You must have wondered what’s been going on.’

  He shrugged. ‘Just a tad. Rafe sounded the least bit harassed. I gather that George has a problem. I imagine it’s to do with Penny.’