Joss stared into the fire whilst he watched her consideringly: she made a rather charming picture, rather off-beat but very much her own person. From childhood her style had been eclectic: a blend of countrified bohemianism that appealed to Bruno. On anyone else the mole-coloured needlecord overshirt worn with a long charcoal-striped flannel skirt, embroidered at the hem, and the whole outfit finished off with leather ankle boots might have looked strange but Joss carried it off with her usual air of casual elegance and managed to look different and special.
‘The thing is,’ she said suddenly, ‘that Penny wants to go back to New Zealand. She misses her family terribly and having the baby, instead of bringing her and George closer, has made that longing worse. She’s been terribly depressed since she had Tasha and she just wants to be back at home amongst all the old familiar things. I can understand that, can’t you?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Bruno answered readily. ‘Home is always best when we’re miserable or hurt. I suppose she and George haven’t been together long enough for her to feel that that place is with him?’
‘Well, he’s been at sea quite a lot and they’ve only known each other for two years, anyway.’ A pause. ‘And then there’s something else,’ she added.
‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘I had a feeling there might be.’
She looked at him quickly. ‘You guessed, didn’t you? I wondered after that day you saw us up in the valley at the well but it’s not like you might think it is.’
‘I don’t think it’s like anything particularly.’ Bruno emptied his glass. ‘You and George have always been very close. Like we said just now, at times like these we turn to old friends, people we trust.’
‘Mm.’ She wasn’t looking at him now and her voice was rather non-committal. Bruno waited, turning the empty glass between his fingers, feeling Nellie’s warm weight comfortingly heavy against him. ‘It’s a bit more than that, though.’
Bruno smiled to himself, guessing that Joss’s inherent honesty wouldn’t allow her to dissemble. ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he told her gently. ‘It’s between you and George.’
‘The thing is,’ she said again, ‘I love him. I do love him. I’ve tried not to but there it is. But I’ve never tried to influence him, if you see what I mean. I’ve just listened.’ She looked at him anxiously. ‘There’s nothing wrong in that, is there?’
He grinned at her, quirking an eyebrow. ‘Depends how you listened,’ he said.
She laughed, as he’d meant her to, toeing off her boots, tucking her legs up on the seat and folding the soft material of her skirt round her ankles. Bruno recognized the gesture: he’d seen it so many times with Emma and with Zoë. It meant that it was confession time.
‘You’re utterly right,’ she was admitting, combing her fingers through her shiny brown hair, her body relaxed by the wine, encouraged by the warmth and the compassion she sensed was flowing from him towards her. ‘I tried to be absolutely fair but I admit that I was always on his side. We agreed that things are hard for Penny, that she needs time to adjust, that she’s lonely when George is away but, underneath, I kept wanting to say, “If she really loves you, George, then she’ll manage it somehow.” I never actually spoke the words but it was implicit in my response to him.’
‘And do you suspect George of transferring his attentions from Penny to you?’
She shook her head and then paused. ‘I think George loves me,’ she replied honestly, ‘but he wouldn’t have let it make a difference if Brett hadn’t come back into the frame.’
Bruno got up, threw two logs on the fire, fetched the bottle from the table and refilled their glasses.
‘You’ve lost me now,’ he said, sitting down again. ‘Who’s Brett?’
Joss explained. ‘And now Penny wants out. It’s awful, really. Deep down inside me a tiny voice is shouting “Yes! Yes!” and punching the air because it means we can be together, but it’s so complicated. What happens about Tasha? And Rafe and Pamela will be absolutely gutted. George is in a terrible position. He’s told Penny that he’s ready to move to New Zealand and try a new start but Penny is adamant. How can he let his baby go? But how can he keep her here?’ She sighed. ‘I suspect that Penny has finally pulled the plug and that’s why George is here. Can you imagine anything more terrible than telling your parents this kind of news?’
She glanced at Bruno after a moment, saw that he was looking particularly sombre, and looked at her watch.
‘Hell!’ she said. ‘Mum will be having fits. I’d better go. You won’t say anything to anyone, will you, Bruno?’
‘Don’t be daft,’ he answered impatiently, getting up to go out with her. ‘Do you want me to come up to the house with you?’
‘No, I’m fine. It’s a fine, bright night, not properly dark at all. And thanks.’
She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and he watched her walk away, swallowed up by the shadows, before he turned back into the house. Sitting down again, leaning forward to reach for the poker, it seemed that he heard other voices echoing in the shadows.
‘I might as well tell you that I’m pregnant.’
‘I’m going to have a baby, isn’t it wonderful?’
The same news but oh, the different ways of telling it. Bruno stabbed so savagely at the logs that showers of sparks burst and exploded against the smoke-blackened stone of the wide chimney. Dropping the poker, leaning back into the sofa, he picked up his glass again and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘I might as well tell you that I’m pregnant.’ Zoë’s voice is flat, and she huddles her dressing-gown around her as she sits in the rocking chair, one knee crossed over the other. Her black hair, usually so shiny, is lank, and her bare legs and feet look bird thin and sharp-boned.
Bruno sits down on the edge of the sofa, elbows on knees, his hands clasped.
‘But that’s wonderful,’ he says, though he sounds tentative, reining in his own joy because of the expression on her face, the glum voice. ‘It’s fantastic.’
‘Is it?’ She raises his head and stares at him, her expression almost contemptuous. ‘Wonderful for you, perhaps. Not for me.’
‘Why not?’ He longs to kneel beside her and put his arms about her but he knows Zoë in this mood. ‘Why shouldn’t it be wonderful for you too?’
It strikes him that she might be frightened and he is pierced with a sharp compassion for her. During the last year the gloss has been rubbed from the brilliant veneer of her popularity – the blonde British starlet, beloved of the late-sixties cinema, is now in the ascendant – and Zoë has adopted a protective air of almost insolent hauteur. It hasn’t helped her pride that Bruno’s second wolf-scarer has been received with great enthusiasm and it is beginning to look as though, in his own field of endeavour, he might become just as successful as she is. Unfortunately, Zoë doesn’t view this likelihood with a great deal of excitement.
All these things pass through Bruno’s mind as he watches her, wondering what he might say that won’t affect her amour propre.
‘Think of the effect you’ll have,’ he suggests. ‘You’ll be the first of your group to become a mother. Terrific press coverage, all the glossies will want an interview. It’ll put all the others in the shade. The photographers will fight over you. After all, pregnant women are so sexy.’
He sees that behind her half-closed lids she is considering these images and he tries to think of other persuasive tactics that might comfort her. He rejects the more brutal: ‘It might be a good idea for you to stay out of the limelight for a bit’ or – the thing he really longs to say – ‘Perhaps you might even enjoy being a mother. Stay here with me and give it a try.’
It has been impossible for Zoë to pursue her career from The Lookout so, for much of the time, they live together in their flat just off the King’s Road in Cranmer’s Place. Bruno, however, finds St Meriadoc a far more peaceful place to plan his books and returns to The Lookout to write. Zoë joins him regularly, relaxing from the London scene,
although she often brings friends with her. It works very well to begin with but, just lately, he’s begun to see a little less of her.
‘Why don’t you stay down here for a while?’ he says carefully. ‘Give yourself a holiday. We could have friends to stay. Give some pre-Christmas parties.’
He offers these entertainments, knowing that after a few days on the north Cornish coast in late November she will be bored and restless, silently cursing that this has to happen whilst he is in the middle of writing his latest book. Feeling guilty he edges forward so that he is kneeling in front of her and takes her hands.
‘I wish you would, love,’ he says. ‘We could have fun.’
He leans forward to kiss her; her body is a frail cage of bones beneath his hands and he is moved by a protective tenderness. She responds for a moment and then draws back, smiling at him, reaching for the inevitable Sobranie.
‘Pour me a drink, darling,’ she says, and she curls back in the chair, staring into the fire as she lights her cigarette.
He pours some wine, wishing this could be simple, that they could both be celebrating with a shared joy. For a moment he allows himself to think about the baby: about being a father. His heart bumps with excitement and terror at the prospect and he wonders if either of them is ready for such a huge responsibility. His hands tremble as he sets down the bottle and lifts the glasses, and he is washed through with a happy pride. As he passes her the glass, he bends to touch his lips to her cheek, and she smiles again, veiling those cat-like eyes. She draws her feet up beneath the dressing-gown, threading her fingers through her short hair, and sips at the wine, flicking ash in the direction of the great granite hearthstone.
‘The thing is,’ she says, and her voice is full of confidentiality, ‘I’ve been offered this part in a film.’
He watches her, trying to hide his dismay. He is not envious – merely filled with a sense of foreboding.
‘What kind of part?’ He is careful to keep his voice fairly neutral.
‘It’s the old marital triangle thing with a bit of a twist. It’s very controversial stuff, actually. The man is really a homosexual and has a lover. The other woman is a camouflage, you see, but neither woman knows that. It’s terribly sad and shows the impossible position of people who have to hide what they truly are, and it sets out to explore the prejudices and the misunderstandings that surround them.’
‘It sounds good,’ he says sincerely. ‘I approve. And what is your role?’
‘I would be cast as the other woman,’ she answers, ‘although it’s very early days to be able to say too much about it. It’s a very new film company but I think they’re going places.’ She hesitates, not looking at him. ‘So you can see why the prospect of a baby isn’t exactly a brilliant one just at the moment?’
He stares at her, disbelievingly. ‘But need it make a difference? How far – ’ he glances at her thin frame – ‘how many months are you …?’
‘Two months.’ She looks sulky and he is seized with fear. ‘By the time we start filming it will be showing. These projects take ages, darling, you know that. I can’t risk it.’
‘What do you mean?’
She glances at his white angry face and looks away again.
‘It’s OK for you. Nothing need ever interfere with your career. I’m not ready to abandon mine yet. But I don’t want to go to some back-street abortionist. You’ll have to help me, Bruno.’ Her voice changes, wheedling, persuasive. ‘Please, darling, this means so much to me. I might never get another chance like this and we can have a baby any time.’
The row that follows is so deeply destructive that Zoë leaves for London early the next morning. Later, she tells him that the pregnancy was a false alarm but he hears through friends that someone has helped her to get rid of the baby. The film is never produced – perhaps it is too compassionate, too open-minded for the censorship board – and Zoë’s career as a film star suffers the same fate as their baby.
Bruno never mentions it again but, as the years pass, and he watches Joss and George growing up, he thinks: My child would be five, seventeen, twenty-two.
When a few months later Emma says, ‘I’m going to have a baby, isn’t it wonderful? Ray is out of his mind with pride,’ Bruno feels as if something sharp is being twisted agonizingly deep inside him. Before the end of the following year Zoë has left him for the first in a long line of lovers.
By the time supper with Mousie and Joss had finished, and Emma reappeared at The Lookout, Bruno had moved on to Ravel’s String Quartet in F major and was stretched full length on the sofa with Nellie asleep on the floor beside him.
‘How was it?’ he asked without getting up, raising a tumbler half full of whisky in a kind of salute, and then resting it again on his midriff. ‘How’s Mutt?’
Emma dropped her coat on a chair and sat down in the rocker. The tone of his voice alerted her to the fact that he was having a ‘downer’, as they both called it, and she wondered if he’d at last faced the fact that Mutt might not be much longer for this world.
‘The doctor called in earlier,’ she said. ‘This wretched infection is pulling her down and she’s rather weaker again this evening. The doctor says she might have some fluid on her lungs but he’s convinced that the best place for her is in her own home with her family nearby.’
Bruno pushed himself upright. ‘Should I go up to see her?’ he asked anxiously.
‘Heavens, no.’ She was quite emphatic about it. ‘After all, you had some time together, didn’t you? She seemed very peaceful and happy once she’d seen you. Mousie will have settled her for the night by now and Joss has promised to telephone if she thinks it’s necessary. I thought she was surprisingly lucid, actually. Did you find that? We had lovely little talks together through the day, just very short moments, but I was amazed at her memory for odd things. We’ll go up together first thing in the morning.’
‘OK.’ He sat for a few seconds, staring at nothing in particular. ‘You must be very proud of Joss, Em,’ he said at last. ‘She’s a great girl.’
She warmed to his praise but now knew what the trouble was all about. At regular periods he had downers when he thought about Zoë and the baby she’d refused to have. Her own pregnancy, coming so close on Zoë’s, had caught him off guard and he’d told her about that evening and described the row that had followed his refusal to assist in the destruction of his own child.
Even now, Emma could remember the shock she’d felt and the way she’d instinctively closed her hands protectively over the new life within her: as if, in some way, Zoë’s reaction had threatened her own baby. Seeing the gesture, Bruno had turned away, his face creased up with anguish, and she’d been unable to comfort him. Passionate and angry on his account, it had taken her years to see that bad-mouthing Zoë was not an answer: vilifying his ex-wife brought him no comfort. Bruno would point out that Zoë had to cope with the unfortunate character she’d inherited: once she was beyond her youth, she was unlikely to have a peaceful or happy life. Deprived of this natural outlet for her rage on Bruno’s account, Emma tried to cheer him up in other ways but was unable to resist the occasional outburst.
‘It must be hell to be Zoë,’ was all Bruno would answer. ‘Give it a break, Em.’
‘You say things about Ray,’ she’d grumble.
‘You’re right,’ he’d say, grinning at her. ‘It must be hell to be Brer Fox too.’
‘He hates you calling him that,’ she’d say. ‘He thinks it’s affected.’
‘He expects me to be affected. He has his own preconceived idea of a man who writes novels and I don’t like to disappoint him.’
Now, watching him, Emma was unable to think of anything that could be of comfort. Instead she said warmly, ‘I’m terribly proud of Joss. It’s lovely to see her with Mutt. I know I shouldn’t say this, Bruno, but I have this dream of Joss living at Paradise. I keep hoping she’ll meet someone special and settle down. After all, she could have her patients to the house, couldn’t she?
No neighbours to worry about, plenty of parking space, and she could use the dining-room as a consulting room. That old back road to the house could be reopened so that patients didn’t have to drive through St Meriadoc.’
‘I feel we’re jumping the gun a bit, don’t you?’
She looked guilty. ‘Oh, I’m not wishing Mutt’s life away. Of course I’m not. Anyway, it’s just as much her dream as mine, I promise you.’
‘Have you any idea what’s in her will?’
Emma shook her head. ‘But it was always settled, wasn’t it? You have The Lookout and The Row and I have Paradise.’
‘I suppose Mutt might have other ideas. You might get The Row and the boatyard.’
‘God, I hope not,’ said Emma involuntarily. She glanced quickly at Bruno but he’d leaned forward to stroke the recumbent Nellie and wasn’t looking at her. ‘It’s simply that Ray would be a pain in the neck,’ she said, laughing a little, making light of it. ‘You know how he’s always said that we should pull down the old buildings and build a hotel there.’
‘But since that means destroying the quality of life for everyone in The Row, I imagine he’d see that it’s not an option.’
‘Oh, you know Ray. He thinks that Rafe and Pamela and Mousie would be just as happy in nice new bungalows in Polzeath.’ She sighed. ‘He has no idea. The trouble is he’s such a juggernaut once he’s got an idea in his head. Of course I don’t agree with it for a moment and it certainly wouldn’t improve our relationship.’
‘He wouldn’t want to sell Paradise?’
She hesitated. ‘Probably not as long as he thought Joss was getting it. God, it does make him sound a bit of a shit, doesn’t it? But you know Ray.’
‘Yes,’ he answered grimly, ‘I know Ray. And, as I’ve said before, none of it is his to do anything with, either now or in the future.’
‘I know that,’ Emma said rather crossly, ‘but it’s simply not that easy. When he gets a bee in his bonnet he goes on and on until I’m worn down with it. This would be rather different, of course,’ she added hastily.
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