Come Away With Me

by Sara MacDonald

  Adam went pale and sat down abruptly. ‘Honestly? Do you mean it, Mum? You’re not joking?’

  ‘I’m not joking! I mean it. Look, here comes the champagne to prove it. A letter from Truro School will be waiting for us at the cottage.’ She went round and hugged him. ‘Clever, clever boy! I’m so proud of you, Adam. You were so determined and you did it!’

  ‘I wonder who on earth he takes after,’ Peter said and poured the champagne. They lifted their glasses. ‘Well done, Adam! That’s a prestigious prize to win.’

  Adam grinned, embarrassed, and could not stop grinning. He drank his champagne in a gulp, choked, turned green and made a dash to the lavatory where he was sick. He leant against the cubicle and trembled with relief. He knew that if he had failed he would have had to agree to go to a London school. The school fees were astronomical without boarding fees on top. He could not have let his mother even try to pay them.

  Ruth, waiting for him to emerge, knew that if the answer had been different she would have had to watch Adam’s life unravel in front of her.

  When Adam had disappeared to shower and ring Harry, and, she guessed, Jenny, Peter asked, ‘How will you feel living without Adam for the first time?’

  ‘Miserable, I expect. I made a huge mistake in insisting he went to his last school, Peter. I have to try and put that right and think of what Adam wants now, and Cornwall is what he wants. He’s achieved it by sheer will and hard work, and I have to respect that.’

  ‘He’s certainly a country boy. You should see him on the boat, binoculars at the ready, happy as the day is long. It’s been great watching the tension disappear. The scholarship is obviously a help, but with boarding fees it’s going to be a bit tight, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ll manage. I’ll invest my half of the house, and Danielle is paying me well.’

  ‘It means you end up with no home. What if this job doesn’t measure up and you want out?’

  Ruth laughed. ‘I have my Cornish cottage.’

  Peter smiled. ‘So you do. Shall we swim?’

  For a week Ruth lay by the pool and read and slept. She had every spa treatment going and felt wonderfully spoilt and decadent. She started to put on the weight she had lost and she could feel the exhaustion slipping away from her. She found herself smiling for no reason.

  Adam grinned at her one morning. ‘You’re happy, Mum. I’ve never seen you do nothing before. It’s spooky.’

  Ruth thought, How self-perpetuating happiness is. I must think back and remember because unhappiness is catching too and can become a habit.

  On their last night at the hotel there was a dance and Adam went off with some American teenagers to have a barbecue on the beach.

  Peter said suddenly and astutely, ‘Make the future work, Ruth, for both you and Adam. The new job sounds great but you’re going to be living in Jenny’s house with Jenny’s friends and work colleagues. Adam is probably going to see more of Jenny and her family in the term-time than you. Realistically you’re not going to be able to travel down to Cornwall every exeat he has and Adam will need to get out of school. Are you prepared for this? Have you thought it all through?’

  Ruth, moving to the music, wasn’t sure she had. The shadows were back, like distant voices from another room, faint but insistent. She was avoiding facing the reality and consequences of what Adam’s award really meant. She was avoiding exploring her feelings about something that seemed to have happened so fast.

  Peter said gently, ‘You must get it all clear in your head. I feel responsible in a way. I left you and it’s dictated the decisions you’ve made.’

  Ruth looked at him. ‘You left me because I didn’t make you happy and…’ She stopped.

  ‘You would probably have left me anyway,’ Peter finished for her with a dry smile.

  They went back to their table, picked up their glasses and made their way out into the hotel’s tropical garden. The air smelt of herbs and seaweed, and the crickets sounded loud in the dark beyond the pool.

  ‘How are things with you?’ she asked. ‘Your family must be over the moon to have you with them.’

  Peter did an amusing imitation of his Jewish mama, then he said, ’I’m going to buy my own house. I’m too old to live back at home despite my mama’s pleas.’ He sighed. ‘It’s hard forming new relationships as you get older. Perhaps I’m set in my ways. Anyway, let’s say things haven’t gone quite as I hoped. Sharing space is difficult.’ He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘I just want that old-fashioned thing, a wife and a child. It doesn’t sound complicated, but it seems to be.’

  Ruth felt sad. She didn’t know what to say. Peter took her hand suddenly. ‘I’ve just been lecturing you to make your life work. Now you know why. I have to make mine work too or what has it all been for? What’s it all been for?’ They stared at each other in silence. Then Peter jumped up. ‘Come on, let’s have one more dance, then we’ll go and find Adam.’

  As they danced, Ruth said, ‘Thanks for this week. It’s been an absolute godsend. We’re still good friends, aren’t we, Peter?’

  ‘We are indeed.’ He was smiling down at her as they danced.

  ‘Why are you smiling at me like that?’

  ‘Because actually, you are still my wife as well as my good friend and I still fancy you like hell.’

  Ruth grinned. ‘Don’t tempt me! It would be bad move, Peter. I’m only your wife on a piece of paper. We both have to move on. You know this. Don’t let’s risk spoiling the week. You’ve already told me that we must make our lives work.’

  ‘So I have.’ Peter kissed the end of her nose. ‘So I have.’

  As they made their way to the beach, Ruth said, ‘Pete, don’t make me or our marriage into more than it was in looking back. It’s easy to do, especially when things are going wrong. We’re probably closer now than we ever were when we were living together.’ She stopped walking and turned to him. ‘You know, by not starting divorce proceedings you will make anyone you are with insecure and doubtful of what you really want.’

  Peter looked guilty. ‘I know. I know I should get on with it. Somehow, I just thought I’d leave it for three years and then divorce is automatic.’

  ‘But one of your reasons for leaving me was to be with someone else.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said miserably.

  Ruth reached up and placed her cheek against his. ‘Listen, you. Go back and start divorce proceedings. Go back and try again.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Peter said. He sighed. ‘It’s been a wonderful few days, Ruth. It’s what I needed too.’

  Adam, catching sight of them, waved. He looked flushed and happy. Watching him Peter thought, I do want children of my own. I must make things work out there. I must; but letting go of these two is hard. So hard.

  FORTY-NINE

  I woke early in my house and would lie in bed listening to the curlews and the songbirds in the garden. I could see them hopping over the tiny lawn and exploring old Nelly’s numerous bird feeders.

  In the next-door garden there was an enormous macrocarpa tree. Its huge branches were bent at angles by the relentless wind and some must have split and been lopped as there were gaps in the trunk like missing teeth. The spread of the tree was so wide that it was if it were stretching in all directions to fill the sky. It was staggeringly beautiful with its top branches flattened by the prevailing winds. It looked like an African acacia in the middle of the desert. In the evenings as the sun set behind it the branches turned silver. I was so afraid someone would try to fell it. It was what happened all the time. City people bought a house or developers came and all they could see was a tree that blocked a vestige of their sunlight or whose trunk took up room for another dwelling. They did not even pretend to care that trees hundreds of years old had more right here than the relentless race to turn each village into a uniform suburbia.

  It was a long time since I had listened to the sounds and sensations of a day waking up. It cleared my spirit, made way for a quiet peace, but it also
made room for sorrow.

  In my cloistered first few weeks in the house I felt an indefinable growth and expansion as if, subconsciously, I were beginning to accept that the pain I carted around with me was never going to go away but would become a part of who I was. My thoughts were often stark and vivid as I began to edge forward towards a future without Rosie and Tom, the two people who had anchored me to such happiness, a happiness I had never dared take for granted because of the job Tom did.

  September came and the light began to change, the leaves faded and curled, their edges turning brown. There were only a few hardy holidaymakers left, sitting in clumps on the beach watching the high neap tides.

  Sometimes I would get up early and walk on the deserted estuary still bleached of colour, black and white with the sun trapped behind mist. Seabirds rose up in feathered clouds in front of me and wheeled away in a circle like miniature silent jets.

  The sea was pewter, still as glass. I would love to trace my feelings on the surface of the water, knowing that when I turned away my dark thoughts would disappear like a ripple, sink without sound into the endless depth of this space in my life that I was trying to make sense of.

  Every day Bea or James, Danielle or Flo would ring me, not quite trusting my ability to endure alone. Even in the darkest moments I appreciated my luck in having them. It was this unfailing love that warmed me and gave me the same sense of wonder as my tree, or the aching, undulating sound of curlews. Or Adam.

  As I thought back over my life with Tom, as I did all the time now that I was at last alone, it felt like a precious and sacred story I was preparing for Adam. I wanted it all there for him, no piece left out, so that it stayed with him for ever, a vivid, indelible picture of his father.

  The day we get married in St Ives parish church there is a heatwave. As the wedding car drives down Tregenna Hill the streets are lined with people. Everyone knows James. He has lived in St Ives for the whole of his working life. Most of the older generation have watched all of his children grow up. In this car we feel a bit like the royal family. I wave on one side of the car, Dad on the other. We both get the giggles.

  The doors of the church are thrown open against the heat. The church is bursting with people and so are the narrow streets outside. It seems that everyone, holidaymakers and locals all thronging the town, has decided to join in cheerfully from the doorways and edges of the church.

  Danielle designed my wedding dress. It is deceptively simple and exquisitely cut, like the dress Tom first saw me in. This time Danielle, Flo and all the girls have scattered millions of tiny pearls all over it and sewn narrow silk ribbon in a cross band round the waist. The tiny pearls catch the light and I feel as if I am floating out of the car like a mermaid, bright blue sky above me, intense blue sea caught in a glimpse as I walk into the church.

  My hair is too wild for a veil and it is hardly appropriate, given the amount of time Tom and I spend in bed. Danielle has made a little tiara of white silk roses and dotted more on clips in my hair.

  As I walk into the church where I was christened and confirmed, with my two little blonde nieces as bridesmaids in similar dresses, there is a gasp and I hope fervently that Danielle hears it. I lost count of the midnight hours she spent working and worrying about these dresses. A selfless, sweet labour of love.

  When I reach Tom I see that his hands are trembling. I am late. I am always late. Did he think I wasn’t coming? His incredible purple eyes widen when he sees me. How I love him. I hold out my hand. He takes it as if I might break and as we turn to the altar he sighs.

  The church is full of the scent of white lilies and incense; of white and pink roses, all my favourite flowers. Bea and my sisters have decorated the church and it is amazing. I float through the service and it seems that in one trance-like moment we are married. I want to do it all again and take in every second of the wedding mass.

  We walk out through Tom’s guard of honour, who are causing quite a stir in dress uniform and spurs, then hand in hand we walk through the crowds down to the harbour beach for some wedding photographs, closely followed by his best man, and other officers who bolt straight for The Sloop and a beer.

  ‘Don’t even think about it!’ I murmur.

  ‘Perish the thought, wifie,’ he says.

  I watch Tom’s parents as they pose for pictures with us. His father is rather bluff and alarming, but his mother is tranquil and easy. When the bridesmaids are being photographed with me on the harbour wall, I see Tom walk over to Danielle. He bends and says something to her, then suddenly pulls her to him and hugs and hugs her. He is telling her how beautiful my wedding dress is. I watch her face flush with pleasure. I watch her hug him back and see what she hopes no one will notice: tears have sprung to her eyes. I turn away, choked. The best wedding present I could have is that my best friend and my husband are friends.

  We traipse up the hill to Tredrea and the marquee in the garden. Bea is having a panic about the caterers and James is calming her down. The dreamlike day whirls into evening and when the dancing begins Tom and I watch our friends getting off with each other and giggle. We are smug marrieds now. All that is behind us.

  We move alone to the bottom of the garden and watch the sun set over our wedding day. It has been so perfect. The weather, friends and family getting on together; the food, the speeches. Everything.

  Tomorrow we fly to Malaysia with Tom’s parents. We have ten days on our own on Pangor Laut Island, then a treasured week for Tom with his family, playing golf and going to the Club with his father, snatching precious time with his mother.

  As soon as we get home Tom leaves for Northern Ireland. Monitoring the activities of IRA members reluctant to be part of the peace process, I guess. He has been home working in London for a few months and it’s been wonderful. How will I bear his going away again?

  Tom hugs me. His voice is thick with emotion. This has been the most wonderful day of my life, he says. I have everything and everyone I most love in one heavenly unforgettable place. How lucky we are, darling Jen. We must never forget that. How very lucky we are.

  I can bear any absence, I think. I can bear any absence because of the joy and certain knowledge that I have just married someone very special.

  FIFTY

  Ruth drove Adam down to Cornwall to talk to his housemaster and have a guided tour of the school before the beginning of term. Cornwall was at its wettest and Adam dared not admit to Ruth how nervous he felt as the first day of term loomed.

  As they walked round the school buildings up on the hill overlooking the city he recaptured his sense of excitement and disbelief that he really was coming to this school. It was only when they reached the dormitories and he was confronted with the reality of communal sleeping that Adam felt sudden irrational panic.

  The dormitories were set in the grounds, in separate houses with a housemaster and his wife who lived in. There was a communal room with microwave and toaster. The rooms were small, with three or four beds. Not as he’d imagined, great rows of them but there was no real privacy, hardly an inch of his own space. Adam felt the sweat break out on his forehead. He had never shared a room with anyone in his life and at thirteen it seemed a totally alien, claustrophobic concept.

  Ruth had been watching him, and when his housemaster sent him off with his music teacher she said, ‘I think Adam’s going to find the boarding bit difficult. He’s an only child and used to his privacy. He’s always spent a lot of time on his own.’

  ‘It’s obviously going to be harder for Adam to adapt to boarding school than if he had come to us a bit younger. The first few weeks of any new place are difficult for all pupils until they make friends. Try not to worry. Adam’s a bright boy and I’m sure he’ll fit in quickly.’ The housemaster poured Ruth coffee. ‘We do suggest that parents leave it two or three weeks before they take their children out in order to let them settle into a school routine.’ He smiled at her worried face. ‘Please don’t worry, Mrs Hallam, boarding—being away from
home for a while—is an excellent thing for boys without siblings. It allows them to integrate fully into the life of the school and experience a more maleorientated world.’

  Ruth knew that what he really meant was ‘boys without fathers’, boys anchored to single mothers, and she felt mildly irritated. It reinforced all her prejudices about boys’ public schools even though it was now co-educational.

  Adam came back grinning, thrilled by the choice of music for next term. The music master shook Ruth’s hand. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to work your boy hard. There will be music practice each day on top of his school work, but your son is talented and enthusiastic, and we’re very glad to have him with us.’

  As they said goodbye, Ruth repeated that although she would be working in London they had a holiday cottage the other side of Truro and she would be down to take Adam out regularly. She had already explained about Bea and James, and given the school their address in case of an emergency.

  ‘Is that Dr Brown who used to be a G.P. in St Ives?’ the housemaster asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Ruth replied. ‘I lived in St Ives as a child and they were very good to me.’

  ‘I know the family. Their boy came to the school when I was just starting out as a teacher. Ben, wasn’t it? He was a wild and personable boy in a sea of girls. He was quite a character. I imagine Dr Brown and his wife were very sad when he emigrated.’

  ‘I was friends with their youngest daughter, Jenny. Ben was older and I didn’t really know him. He was always surfing or at uni,’ Ruth said. ’I’d almost forgotten that everybody knows everybody else in Cornwall.’

  ‘Indeed!’

  The housemaster shook her hand and as they drove back to the cottage, Adam said suddenly, ‘Funny, isn’t it? If you had a job in Cornwall I could practically walk or bicycle home every night.’

  Ruth looked at him. ‘Darling, are you having second thoughts?’