Come Away With Me

by Sara MacDonald

  Ruth drove back through the town, parked near the video shop and told Adam to choose some DVDs to watch. This would release them both from determinedly strained conversation. The days seemed to hang endless and heavy. Ruth longed to immerse herself in work. She had not wanted to come to Cornwall for half-term and was only beginning to realise how strong a presence in Adam’s life Peter had been. How free she had been to do her own thing while they had gone off together.

  They had agreed to see Naomi Watson the following day and Ruth resolved to tell her she would continue to bring Adam if she thought it would benefit him, but she certainly did not want counselling sessions herself.

  Adam said as they dashed from the car to the cottage in the first burst of the squall, ‘Thanks, Mum, for the surfing lessons. They’re great.’

  ‘I’m glad you enjoyed the morning, darling. They seemed a nice crowd of boys.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m going to my room to read my book for a bit.’

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yeah, please. Is there any malt loaf left?’

  Ruth laughed. ‘After fish and chips? You’ll be sick.’

  At the bottom of the stairs Adam stopped and turned back to Ruth. ’Mum, do we have to see that woman tomorrow?’

  ‘Naomi Watson?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She thinks it might be helpful for you to talk about how you feel about Jenny, about Tom and maybe about me. Because you are angry with me, Adam, and I’m sad about that.’

  Ruth watched a myriad emotions pass across Adam’s face as he scuffed his feet in the dark little hall. His uncertainty and confusion caught at her and she went to him, risking rebuff. She held him with care and for a minute he let her. She understood suddenly how miserable it was making him to be angry with her. How abruptly confused he felt with his life.

  She let him go swiftly. ‘Go and read your book. I’ll bring you up tea and malt loaf. Let’s see how we feel, shall we, after we’ve seen Naomi Watson tomorrow?’

  Adam did not reply but went slowly up the stairs. He threw himself on the bed and reached for his book. Out fell the photograph Jenny had given him of Tom Holland. Adam’s stomach contracted every time he looked at it. Tom was in uniform, his face serious, red beret on his head. SAS wings at a slant. His eyes held a faintly amused look as if he were ever so slightly laughing at himself. Adam held the small photograph to his heart. When he heard Ruth coming up the stairs with his tea he hastily pushed it under his pillow and grabbed his book, his heart racing with guilt.

  The first thing Naomi Watson did was assure Ruth that these sessions with her were on the National Health, as if somehow this might be Ruth’s predominant concern. She took Adam off into her room first, leaving Ruth sitting in the waiting room flicking through a magazine.

  Jenny had rung the cottage that morning inviting them to lunch at Tredrea. Ruth had been about to refuse gracefully when she looked up to find Adam leaning anxiously over the banisters nodding his head up and down and hissing, ‘Yes. Say yes, Mum.’

  Ruth said, ‘It’s kind of you, Jenny, but haven’t Bea and James had enough of us after last Sunday?’

  ‘No, not at all. Actually, there’s a trip out to Godrevy lighthouse this afternoon, if the weather clears, which it usually does in the afternoons. Dad thought Adam might like to go with him. The weather has been pretty foul this week and we’ve been thinking of you.’

  Ruth accepted. Jenny was right; finding things to do with Adam was wearing her down. Not because there was nothing to do, but in the light of his unpredictable moods it was hard to get enthusiastic enough to suggest any.

  Adam came out of Naomi’s office looking flushed. Ruth went in. Everything about the woman grated on her. The way she set the clock and the way the box of tissues lay discreetly on the table behind her. As if sensing this, Naomi said, ‘Ruth, I am here to help you and Adam. It is, of course, your choice whether you talk with me. You might prefer it, or it might be easier for you, if I referred you to a colleague in Birmingham?’

  Talk with me. Why couldn’t she say to me? Ruth took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry if I seem rude. I don’t believe there’s any need for me to talk to anyone. I’m perfectly capable of assessing the difficulties with Adam. I have a horror of airing dirty linen in public and I’m more than used to looking after myself. I’m also sure that all this introspection is not healthy for Adam, he’s a private person too.’

  Naomi shuffled papers and smiled. ‘Adam’s still a child. His life has been changed dramatically by the discovery of his father in extraordinary and traumatic circumstances. He has formed a bond with Jenny. She is the only person who can tell him about his father, but he knows this will hurt you and he is torn. All this leaves you vulnerable.’

  ‘I can cope. Adam and Jenny got on well before we knew anything about her life. Adam is also of an age when he needs a father figure. He would possibly be difficult at thirteen anyway. It will pass.’

  Naomi made a steeple of her fingers and looked long at Ruth. ‘You are right. Adam does need a father figure. Have you taken into account the fact that Adam has lost his stepfather too, just after he discovered his biological father was dead?’ Seeing Ruth’s surprise she added, ‘Yes, he mentioned that Peter had gone back to Israel. I gained the impression he was very fond of him, that they had had a good relationship?’

  Ruth nodded. She couldn’t speak. She was mortified that Adam had confided anything to this woman.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that you might not be able to cope with the current circumstances, Ruth. Or that you are unaware of the consequences for you, Adam and Jenny. I am suggesting that it is possible to make them easier for you. In my experience burying things for a long period of time is damaging.’

  So who had suggested to Naomi Watson that she had buried Tom? Ruth, angry, heard the defensive tone in her own voice: ‘What makes you so convinced, Naomi, that you, as a professional, could possibly be more aware of Adam’s needs than I am as his mother?’

  ‘Because as a professional I can take an objective overall view. I can stand at a distance, something you cannot do immersed in the middle. Adam is struggling, Ruth. He is loyal but totally perplexed about his extreme emotions.’

  Ruth was silent. She could not argue with this.

  Naomi said gently, ‘To help Adam I need to gain his trust. To gain his trust I need to see him regularly or refer him to someone nearer to you in Birmingham.’

  Ruth got to her feet. ‘We live too faraway for you to see Adam regularly and you can’t gain his trust if he prefers not to talk to you. Adam has to want to see someone and to be ready to talk about his feelings, and I don’t believe he is yet. If this changes I’ll contact you or someone else nearer to us. I don’t mean to be rude, I’m grateful to you for offering us help, but it’s Jenny who has lost everything and needs your care.’

  Naomi Watson got to her feet too and held out her hand. ‘That’s fine, Ruth, you have obviously thought about it and I respect your wishes. Good luck to you both. Take care.’

  Surprised at the suddenness of Naomi’s capitulation, Ruth found herself feeling wrong-footed and vaguely uncomfortable as she went back to Adam in the waiting room.

  They drove in silence into St Ives and up to Tredrea. Bea was weeding in the drive and waved cheerfully as they turned in. James was mowing the lawn on his tractor and Ruth, watching Adam’s face, thought with a pang, He feels safe here. This is why he loves coming. There is no Peter any more. No grandparents of his own. But here in this house he can pretend these people belong to him.

  Jenny leant out of the window and called down, ‘Hi, there, Ruth and Adam. I’m just coming.’

  Adam looked up at the attic window. His whole mood changed in a second. He bounded away towards James and the tractor, and Jenny’s head disappeared back inside the house. Ruth stood there with the car key in her hand.

  Bea came up behind her and put her arm round her waist. ‘So glad you could make it. Come and help me shell
peas, darling. We’ll have a gin and a gossip.’

  Walking into the familiar house, Ruth thought back to the days when she and Jenny had been close as close. Oh, God, here come the terrible twins, Jenny’s older sisters would cry. Look at the state of you both. Where have you two been?

  Ruth realised how lonely she felt. She ached for that lost, long-ago friendship. Here was Bea, in this familiar kitchen. Scooping her up, just as she always had.

  How strange, how chastening, that Adam was being drawn into this household just as she had been, for the lack of something secure and binding to hang on to at home.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Bea was with Ruth in the kitchen when I went downstairs. Mum had always been good with Ruth. She picked up her moods more quickly than I had when we were children. Sometimes, for no reason that I could fathom Ruth would not want to play with me and she would go and look for Bea. I’d find them together making pastry or tidying my mother’s workbox or picking raspberries. Today they were shelling peas. Outside the window Adam was running across the grass, emptying lawn cuttings for James.

  I looked down at Ruth and saw how pale and somehow frail she seemed. I remembered the happy, confident woman she had been on the train. She was suffering. Peter leaving her had nothing to do with me, but everything else did.

  I thought how she must resent Naomi Watson poking about, wanting to press bruises with her fingertips, trying to discover Ruth’s feelings about Tom after all this time, worrying her over Adam and disturbing places best left buried. I sat down beside her and put my hand on her arm. ‘I’m so sorry about Peter, Ruth. I’m sorry about everything.’

  She let the peas drop from her fingers. ‘Thanks, Jenny.’

  Her eyes were on my hand touching her. I could feel the tears way back in my throat for what we had once been to each other. I saw Bea slide quietly out of the back door.

  ‘I miss you,’ Ruth whispered.

  ‘I miss you too.’

  ‘Is it possible to be friends?’ She looked at me.

  I drew away a little. I wanted to be honest. I didn’t know. I didn’t trust my see-saw emotions. I said, ‘Of course.’

  Ruth gently pulled a pea pod open and the peas dropped with a plop into the bowl. We stared at each other and the atmosphere was thick with our separate needs. Our once intense possessive love for each other hovered in the room, ambiguous and sullied.

  I wanted to run out into the garden. I closed my eyes. I must reassure Ruth. It was important. We had to come to an understanding.

  I opened my eyes. ‘Think how many hours of your childhood you spent in this house with us.’ I indicated the large kitchen we were sitting in, the whole house, Bea and James outside. ‘You were part of us all and now you’re back. I’m sorry that you’ve been pulled in, that you’ve become involved in my life, but I can’t change what’s happened.’

  We could see Adam and Bea and James walking across the lawn towards us. Ruth said, ‘I know. I’m not blaming you for anything. How could I? It’s just that the effect on Adam has been catastrophic.’

  I looked outside. Adam was lolloping beside Bea and James. ‘He’s simply getting used to the idea of Tom and of me, that’s all. Look out there, Ruth, Adam is relaxed and laughing. Please don’t see me or Bea and James as a threat to your relationship with Adam.’ I was being unfair. I knew how I would feel.

  ‘Of course not!’ She put out her hand to me as they reached the kitchen door. ‘He loves coming here.’

  We smiled quickly at each other and both turned towards Adam as he came through the door. He greeted me awkwardly, turning pink, before Bea roped him in to help her and Ruth with the unshelled peas that were going to hold up her lunch.

  I left the room, went outside and walked across to the summer house. I lay for a moment on the daybed. I found it frightening how much of ourselves we hid from other people. How honest had I been with Ruth or with myself? I did not know the answer. It seemed to me that we never truly know other people and we become strangers to ourselves.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  James nosed his small sailing boat out of the harbour using the engine. It had been too rough for the boat trip to Godrevy, so he decided to take Adam for a bit of mackerel fishing. Adam sat contentedly at the back, snug in waterproofs and lifejacket, laughing as the spray arced up and over him in the small boat.

  They both turned, before disappearing round the headland, just making out Bea and Ruth on the beach waving at them. James headed for the shelter off Carbis Bay and put down the anchor by the lobster pots off the point. Together they unravelled the mackerel line James used with his grandchildren and threw the bait into the inky sea.

  Ruth, back on the shore, felt relief. ‘This is so kind of James, Bea. I don’t know how to thank him. Adam is in his element.’

  Bea smiled at Ruth. ‘James loves taking the boat out, it isn’t a chore, don’t worry. When his grandchildren are here he lives in that boat.’

  Jenny was back at the house, resting. Bea and Ruth began to walk along the shoreline. ‘I remember how hard James worked when we were children. He always seemed to be on duty at weekends but he took surprise days off in the holidays, didn’t he?’

  ‘Fancy you remembering that. Yes, he was and still is a wonderful father and grandfather.’

  ‘What is Jenny going to do if she’s not going back to London?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘She wants to find somewhere to rent nearby. I think she needs to be alone for a while.’

  ‘Is it a good idea?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s lived with other people for a long time. However, she’s not ready to go back to the London house and at least we’re going to be on hand down here.’ Knowing that Flo and Danielle were worried about the business without Jenny, Bea said, ‘Do you think you might take a job with Danielle and Flo? Are you going to go up to London to see them?’

  ‘I’m very interested. I should go as soon as I can. I’ve just got to work out the best time. Adam and I are here until Friday or Saturday. Then I’m into a hectic week for the autumn buying. I’d like to go home early, but Adam wants to stay down here the full week. I don’t blame him; the house does feel empty without Peter, so I’m happy to stay on.’

  They left the beach and began to climb the steep path back to the house. ‘Why don’t you go up to London from Truro? You could get a sleeper back. Adam could stay with me and James for the day. It would give you more time to think about whether you’re interested in Danielle’s offer before you go back to work.’

  It was tempting. Danielle wanted an answer as quickly as possible. Maybe Adam could go with her? Maybe they could do the Science Museum or something? Ruth dismissed this quickly. Adam would hate to break his holiday for five hours on a train. ‘It would be an imposition. I can’t take you and James for granted, and Jenny is still supposed to be resting.’

  ‘My dear Ruth, if you feel happy to leave him with us and Adam is happy to stay, it’s no problem at all. We have more than enough room and he’s the easiest of boys. See what Adam says when he comes back.’

  Ruth knew exactly what Adam would say: ‘I can stay in St Ives until you get back? Wicked, Mum. No, of course I don’t mind you going.’ ‘I’m not going to tell Adam why I’m going up to London. He won’t question the trip as I go up so often for business.’

  James followed Ruth and Adam back to the cottage in his own car. Jenny was still not allowed to drive because of the drugs she was taking. Adam rushed upstairs to get clean clothes, his books, and his mobile phone from his bedroom. Then he dashed back for his fishing rod.

  Ruth booked herself train tickets to Paddington. She could get the early train up and the sleeper back.

  ‘Now, don’t worry about Adam or anything else,’ James said to her when Jenny and Adam were outside, stuffing his things into the boot of the car. ‘Adam is a lovely lad and a credit to you, Ruth. Just concentrate on yourself. It’s important you make the right decision for you, my dear, not to accommodate or please anyone else.’


  Ruth was touched. ‘Thank you, James. You and Bea are being very kind.’

  ‘Bea and I are very conscious of your feelings in all this. Adam is your son and we’ll take great care of him. Jenny will relax about all this, you know. She will get used to the fact of Adam. She will resume her life and so will you, my dear.’

  Ruth touched James’s arm. ‘I know you will take wonderful care of him. Thank you both for being…as you’ve always been.’

  James smiled. ‘We watched you grow up with our brood. Now, have a good trip.’

  He walked down the path and got into the driving seat, and Adam came round the car to say goodbye to Ruth. His face was both eager and anxious, as if she might change her mind about leaving him. He let her hug him, then got quickly into the back of the car.

  Jenny wound down the window. ‘’Bye Ruth. Give my love to everyone.’ Her face was suddenly wistful. She hesitated, about to say something else, then changed her mind.

  Ruth waved them off and turned back into the empty cottage. She went to the fridge and poured herself a glass of wine. She felt a dormant excitement. She wished to change her life and Adam’s. She needed a challenge, something she could build up and get her teeth into. She wanted to work in London with the dark French girl and Florence. She prayed she would like the set-up and that she would be offered a reasonable package. She looked at herself in the mottled hall mirror. Peter had so obviously found someone else, was probably happily mapping a future. Her stomach ached with the hurt of it. She turned away. One way or another, she had to move herself on.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Tom and I are lying in the park on a Sunday afternoon, soporific after a boozy lunch with some of his friends. There is a wonderful smell of blossom on the breeze as the day cools. Somewhere there is a concert and music drifts to us with the distant sound of traffic.