The Golden Cup

by Marcia Willett

  One glance at his flushed, eager little face told me that he was in the grip of some exciting game of his own invention, a world away from me and Honor’s silk costume, and I felt quite weak with relief. I saw a moment’s confusion in his eyes, as the two worlds collided, and I smiled at him.

  ‘I think there might be Cornish splits for tea,’ I said to him, ‘with blackberry jelly and clotted cream. I hope Pipsqueak and Wilfred haven’t got at the cream. Shall we go and see?’

  He slipped from the saddle, watching me, and I went down on one knee and held out my arms to him.

  ‘I love you,’ I told him – oh, how I hugged him – ‘and I want you to be happy.’

  ‘I am happy, Mutt,’ he said, quite seriously as if to reassure me. ‘I love it here with you and Emma and all the family.’

  And he took my hand, Vivi, and we went into the house together.

  As he dips toast fingers into his egg, Bruno is thinking about how he felt when he went into Mutt’s bedroom and – for one heart-stopping moment – saw Mummie standing with her back to him. The costume, the smell of the silk, triggered off so many tiny memories that he’d been knocked off balance: the Paradise world colliding with the Indian world with a terrific shock. Then he’d seen Mutt’s face in the mirror and he’d felt relieved but confused and he’d run away again quickly. He’d known that if he’d allowed it he might have burst into tears, because the memories were making him remember all the people and things that he’d lost, but another part of him was already making up a story that distracted from the hurt. He’d let himself go along with the story, finding his tricycle and dashing off on it, acting out the story while it unwound itself in his head. It was a good story and when Mutt had appeared he’d almost forgotten what had happened earlier. He could see that she hadn’t, though. She had her flustered expression – caught between feeling sorry that they had to play this game of pretend but not knowing what else to do. She’d hugged him.

  ‘I love you,’ she said, ‘and I want you to be happy.’

  He knows that this is quite true and he tried to comfort her, explaining that he is happy here with all the family round him.

  Now, eating his egg and watching Pipsqueak and Wilfred playing on the floor, he knows that he wouldn’t want anything to change.

  Emma’s face is smeared with jam that has somehow got into her hair and Mutt is laughing at her. She looks at him, making a face that says, ‘Isn’t she hopeless?’ and he makes it back at her. He likes the way she makes him feel grown up.

  ‘We might go down to The Lookout after tea,’ he says casually. This is cheating because he knows that when Mutt’s had a flustered moment it is easier to get his own way over certain things. ‘Just for a minute,’ he adds quickly.

  The thing is that he gets his best ideas in that strange house, standing in the great window staring out to sea; stories and odd words and memories of things people have read to him all swill in and out of his head, just as the sea floods in over the rocks.

  ‘We’ll see,’ says Mutt. ‘Perhaps just for a minute’ – and they smile at each other with complete understanding.

  December

  It’s nearly Christmas, Vivi, and more than six weeks have passed since I wrote that last letter: a month of storms and rain and a beastly influenza which knocked Jessie and Dot and Julia down like ninepins in a row – or The Row – and then proceeded to attack James and the children. Mousie, Rafe and I escaped it and, between us, we nursed the old and the young back to health. Poor Bruno’s birthday passed almost unnoticed and we intend to make it up to him at Christmas. Goodness, I am exhausted and I’ve lost some weight, rushing between The Row and Paradise, but it was good to be useful and to try my nursing skills once more. Mousie will make a very good nurse, that’s certain, and Rafe is such a blessing.

  I don’t have to tell you, dear Vivi, that I’ve always got on better with the male of the species. They are less complicated than we are – ‘And,’ I can hear you saying rather tartly, ‘much more susceptible.’ Well, yes, I can’t deny that. I think Rafe has a little bit of a crush on me at present – violent blushing if I brush his arm, slight stammering if we are alone – it’s very touching. Mousie is contemptuous and, embarrassed for him and defensive of his self-respect, she blames me for it and is furious with him. Fifteen is such an uncomfortable age for a boy, although Rafe is very independent and mature for his age. With no father he has had to grow up quickly and Julia sees to it that he shoulders the family responsibilities in his father’s stead. She is very tough, very much like the army wives I knew in India, and I suspect that she considers me rather easygoing and emotional with the children.

  There’s something missing in me, Vivi. I never acquired that maturity which implies superior wisdom simply because – between one day and the next – I happened to become an adult, or a married woman, or a mother. When does this magical transition take place? Perhaps it’s a conspiracy and everyone feels as I do but they simply don’t admit it. Actually, Honor had that adult quality, a kind of gravitas that made you feel safe with her, yet she could be fun too. Sometimes, when I wear particular items of her clothing, a little of that gravitas rubs off on me like fairy dust. In her tweeds I feel a little more sober, more ready to deal with emergencies and – you’ll laugh at this, Vivi – on certain days that I know are going to prove difficult I deliberately choose those garments. In her grey flannel coat and skirt, along with sensible brogues, I am Honor Trevannion; going off to Polzeath to buy stamps at the post office and collect the children’s orange juice from the surgery.

  Well, I am Honor Trevannion now. I have her name, her clothes, her home and her son, and it’s only fair to try to do as she would have done with them all.

  I discovered something else, Vivi, once I’d made the decision about Simon’s invitation. I can’t send you these letters, can I? Perhaps I knew that too, but couldn’t face it. Writing to you is my lifeline to the truth, to what I really am, and I’m afraid to cast it off in case I forget the truth and lose myself utterly. I think we all long to have one person in our lives who truly knows us and, despite everything, loves us unconditionally. How can I send the letters? Will you feel you must tell your husband and, if you do, what then? One more person who knows the secret – and it’s not just my secret, Vivi. At night, alone, I rack my brains and try to see a way out. I pray for a miracle: I long to go to Mass this Christmas. If I were to make my confession how could I go on afterwards, still living a lie? What I really want is to be let off; to be given a blessing on what I am doing here at Paradise.

  Have you guessed that it’s one of those rare evenings when I am alone and I’ve had one too many glasses of James’s whisky? I miss him when he’s not here. He protects me from myself.

  I think about you, dear Vivi, and wonder what you’re doing this Christmas.

  It is true that Rafe has a crush on Honor. Something about her vulnerability and courage awakens his chivalry and he does what he can to make life easier for her. He helps in the garden, splits logs, takes letters to the post box up on the Polzeath road. His mother expects him to do these things for her as a matter of course – he is the man of the house now his father is dead – but Honor reacts differently when he helps her. ‘You are a blessing,’ she might say – or ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’ He is warmed by her gratitude, although he tries not to show his pleasure.

  Mousie sees through him, though. His sister thinks that he’s making a bit of a fool of himself and, when she overhears Honor’s grateful endearments, she shoots those sisterly glances at him – which are an odd mixture of amusement, indignation and embarrassment – and he feels foolish. He knows it’s because she can’t bear to see him behaving without dignity but he doesn’t see it like that. Ever since his father died his mother has expected great things of him, and Mousie helps her to keep him on his toes, so that he always feels slightly stretched. He can relax with Honor; she has an odd knack of treating him as an equal and yet that sense of expectation
he feels with his mother and sister is missing with her. He especially loves taking her out in the boat, teaching her to sail it, encouraging her to be confident in handling the Kittiwake. He senses the freedom she experiences when she’s at sea and it gives him enormous pleasure to help her towards being independent.

  One evening after an afternoon on the water, with James out with friends and the children in bed, she makes him some supper: just the two of them. She talks so naturally to him, not asking him what he’ll do when he leaves school or treating him like a child but really talking to him. They exchange thoughts and ideas, and presently she pours drinks for them both. He watches, rather shocked, as she tips a finger of whisky into a glass and then pours some water on top. He drinks it, though; he’s too shy to say that his mother wouldn’t like to see him drinking and rather proud that Honor looks upon him as one of her grown-up friends; like Simon, for instance.

  ‘It’s been such fun,’ she says when he gets up to go home – and she kisses him lightly on the cheek, one hand resting on his shoulder.

  At those moments he can feel himself blushing and guesses that he looks what Mousie would describe as ‘a prize idiot’, and he is filled with a whole confusing mix of emotions. He goes home by the cliff path, so as to give the fresh wind from the sea the chance to cool his cheeks, and when he gets in he gulps back cups of cold water from the tap in the hope that his mother won’t smell the whisky on his breath.

  15th January 1948

  I’ve just reread that final paragraph, Vivi, and, despite its rather dreary note, we had a delightful Christmas. It was a replay of Emma’s birthday, but with a tree and charming home-made presents for everyone – and Simon brought a goose. Did I say that he was coming for Christmas? James invited him and I have to admit that he added considerably to the fun. He’s so good with the children and had found lots of tiny treats that we hadn’t managed to rustle up in Polzeath or Wadebridge. It was good to be home for a traditional Christmas and Bruno was enchanted. I wish you could have seen him carefully examining the tree decorations, the same ones with which Hubert had decorated the tree when he was the same age as Bruno is now: delicate, frosted glass balls in different shapes – an owl, a clock, a mouse – and Victorian papier mâché bells, hand-painted red and green, and with tiny clappers. There were tiny carved wooden musical instruments and little birds, and each branch held its own candle. When they were lit on Christmas Eve, and we brought the children into the darkened drawing-room to see the finished tree, the gleaming, magical look of it quite took my breath away. Simon and James stood one on each side, beaming proudly, and I have to say, Vivi, that I was glad of the shadowy darkness. Looking at the children’s awed faces – one of those rare occasions when Emma is silenced by events too great for her – I thought of Honor and Hubert, and I wept.

  Fortunately, Emma’s silence, never very long-lived, was broken by the sight of the angel at the top of the tree and her demanding to be lifted up to look at it. I could see Simon watching me across the room but, surprisingly, it was Mousie who slipped an arm about my shoulders and gave me a hug.

  ‘It must be a bit strange after India,’ she said – and I nodded gratefully, although it was much more complicated than that.

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ I answered honestly, wiping away my tears. ‘You’ve made us feel so much at home. I don’t know how to thank you all.’

  ‘You don’t have to thank us,’ she answered in her direct way. ‘This is your home. You’re our family now.’

  It was one of those moments in life where you can go deeper in with someone, move the relationship on to a different plane and allow it to grow, and I can’t tell you how I longed to do it. She’s closest to me in age, she’s following my own profession, she adores the children: yet as we looked at each other I felt fear. Of all the family, Mousie is the only one whose intuitiveness tells her that something is not quite right. It would be impossible to come really close to her and be able to hold anything back: when she gives her friendship it will be all or nothing, uncompromising and total, and she will expect the same in return. It was a valuable gift she was offering me and I was unable to receive it from her.

  I couldn’t risk it.

  I returned her hug and made some remark about the children – but we both knew. She smiled at me and went to Bruno, leaving me alone. For a moment I didn’t know what to do, where to go: I was outside the magic circle, cold and alone. Then Simon was beside me, offering me a glass of sherry, murmuring something nonsensical but bringing me to life again. His words, just for me, were as warming as the sherry, and I felt close to him because he is an outsider too. Simon, bless him, doesn’t suspect anything is wrong but he hopes that I can imagine him taking Hubert’s place, once a decent interval has elapsed, and, man-like, he’s going to seize his opportunities when they come. His intuition – different from Mousie’s – tells him that I am not indifferent to him and that in due course I shall reward his patience. In his own way he’s just as clear-sighted as Mousie but, though his demands are different ones, it would be just as impossible, in the long term, to deceive him either.

  Simon would have given me true companionship – emotional, mental, physical – and more babies. It’s clear that he wants his own children and he would have been wonderful with Bruno and Emma; it would have meant friendship with other people of our own age and simple ordinary fun.

  I sometimes wondered, once my passion for Johnny was spent and I saw him for what he was, whether I was in love with Hubert. I certainly loved him but as if he were my brother – or so I told myself. Later I wondered if it had been more than that, but now I know it wasn’t. I’m in love with Simon, Vivi.

  A Happy New Year, my darling.

  She’s in love with him, thinks Mousie, watching them from across the room. Perhaps, after all, this is Honor’s secret. Did she fall in love with him when he met the boat? Perhaps she’s been afraid that the family will find out and be shocked. After all, Hubert had been dead only a few weeks when they arrived at Liverpool.

  Mousie feels the usual mix of irritation and sadness. Just for a moment, when she saw the tears in Honor’s eyes, her own petty emotions were washed away in a genuine surge of affection. It might have simply been a result of the magic of the tree, the children’s awed expressions, the pride on Uncle James’s face, but she experienced something bigger than her own jealousy of this older, sophisticated woman; a feeling that overcame her annoyance with Rafe’s obvious adoration for Honor and her own suspicions of Hubert’s widow. The naked loss on Honor’s face showed Mousie that judging other people might lead to terrible injustice, and she’d instinctively put an arm about the older woman.

  ‘This is your home,’ she said. ‘You’re our family now.’

  Just for a moment they looked at each other, unhampered by preconceived ideas and emotions, and then Honor withdrew herself. She returned the hug, made a joking observation about the children, but the moment in which they might have gone forward in closer friendship passed and they are no further on.

  Or is that true? Watching Honor, standing alone for a moment in the shadows, Mousie knows that something deep inside herself has changed. She is hurt by Honor’s withdrawal and feels the foolishness that accompanies rejection but, as Simon moves to Honor’s side and they begin to talk in that peculiarly intimate way together, Mousie also feels a great compassion for Honor. She sees that Honor’s need for Simon is as all-consuming as Emma’s passion for the angel on the Christmas tree that she is now clamouring to hold. Simply being held up to look at the angel isn’t enough: she needs to possess it. There is a similar expression on Honor’s face: as if she has seen something magical but forbidden.

  Poor Honor, thinks Mousie. Whatever the truth of her life with Hubert, she is in a very difficult situation now.

  Watching Emma’s storm of tears, which is a result of the denial of the angel, Bruno is glad of Aunt Julia’s rock-like presence. Her unchangeability soothes him. It doesn’t occur to her to give in to Emma’s p
assionate wails but simply stops her mouth with some small edible treat. Emma’s cries turn to a pathetic, intermittent wailing but her cheek bulges satisfactorily and her pudgy hands grasp willingly at one of the smaller wooden toys that she is allowed to hold. He doesn’t know the word ‘hedonist’ but he does know that Emma likes life to be a succession of small treats: tiny islands of pleasure placed at regular intervals in the humdrum sea of day-to-day. Such is her generous delight in sharing these treats that most people are glad to grant them for the pleasure they derive from her overwhelming joy.

  ‘Enjoying yourself?’ His grandfather is smiling at him and, from behind that lined, worn face, Bruno can see his own father like some young, vigorous ghost smiling out at him.

  He nods, suddenly unable to speak, and his grandfather pats his arm understandingly.

  ‘Good boy. Good boy,’ he says rather gruffly and turns away to talk to Rafe.

  ‘Look,’ says Mousie, showing him the tiny carved toy, whilst Emma beams at him.

  ‘Birdie,’ she says rather thickly, her mouth still full of toffee, wanting Bruno to share in her pleasure of the tiny bird. Aunt Julia gives him a toffee and pats him on the head in passing and Bruno knows that this gesture is the equivalent of Grand-father’s muttered ‘Good boy,’ and is indicating her approval because he doesn’t shout to get his own way. He sees dimly that Emma’s passion somehow results in undeserved rewards for himself and he feels a glow of gratitude towards her.