Flo was sitting with Bea and James in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading the papers when she lowered the colour supplement she was reading and took a deep breath. ‘Something rather odd happened last week.’
Something in Flo’s voice made James put down his paper. ‘Oh?’
‘I noticed a man sitting in a car in the road outside the house. The car changed and so did the man, but it looked as if someone were watching our house or the house next door. No one else seemed to have noticed him but when I mentioned it to Ruth and Danielle we all agreed that we should ring the police, in case of a potential burglary. As you know, there are quite a few diplomats in the road.’
Flo paused. James was watching her intently. I think he’s ahead of me, Flo thought.
‘I rang the police and instead of a polite lack of interest a Detective Inspector Wren came round immediately. He told me they were monitoring the movements of a nameless diplomat in the road and watching the comings and goings of everyone entering and leaving his house. I told him that it seemed to me that it was our house that was being watched. He assured me that I was mistaken and that surveillance officers have to change around. He seemed concerned that I shouldn’t interfere with their investigation and that I should keep what he told me to myself. I would have believed him except I knew I had seen him somewhere before and I suddenly remembered: it was when Tom was killed. He was one of the detectives who came to the house. I knew he was lying and I could see that it annoyed him. At the front door he said. “You’re an observant woman, Mrs Kingsley. It’s in the interests of Tom Holland’s widow not to jeopardise or put at risk an ongoing investigation.” Then he left. I told Ruth and Danielle what he wanted me to say. That one of the diplomats in the road was being watched.’
James and Bea stared at Flo in silence.
‘I didn’t see any point in mentioning this to Jenny. She’s just finding her feet again and there is nothing tangible to tell her. Am I right?’
‘Of course you are, Flo,’ Bea said quickly. ‘We have no idea what these police inquiries or investigations mean. There’s no point whatsoever in mentioning it.’
‘I agree,’ James said. Justice for Tom should be paramount but it seemed unlikely to him that the police would find who was responsible at this late stage. The nature of Tom’s job made the possibilities endless. ’There’s no point in Jenny knowing that the police are still investigating his murder. I’m sorry. It must have been disturbing for you.’
‘Well, I’m a tough old boot. My father was a policeman and he used to make me play that game of remembering how many objects there were on a plate. It made me observant.’
‘I’m glad Tom’s death hasn’t been forgotten,’ Bea said.
‘Thank you for telling us, Flo. Now, weren’t you two tough old boots going to meet the girls at the Tate?’
‘What are you going to do, darling?’ Bea asked.
‘I’m going to potter blissfully on my own in the garden.’
Flo reached for her jacket. ‘I think that’s our cue to be off and leave him in peace, Bea. He is rather overwhelmed by women this weekend.’
‘My dear Flo, when have I not been overwhelmed by women? It has been my lot these thirty years.’
‘You’ve enjoyed every minute,’ Bea said unsympathetically, reaching for her coat from the back door and pecking him on the cheek.
‘This poor old cottage is beginning to feel damp and unlived in.’ Ruth threw open the windows. ‘If I keep it, I shall have to get rid of the night storage heaters and put in central heating.’
‘You’re not going to sell it, Mum?’
‘I don’t want to.’ She looked at Adam. ‘But, maybe you…we…have outgrown it. I should be practical.’
Adam shook his head. ‘No,’ he said seriously. ‘It’s your heirloom, you have to keep it. Do what Peter said and rent it out for a while. If you put central heating in, maybe you could get a new Aga that works when we are not here and then it will keep the house dry.’
Ruth tried not to laugh. ‘You’re right it is my heirloom. Maybe that’s what I’ll do. Use a bit of our Birmingham house money. Let’s open the windows and then walk over to Polmarrick and have lunch at The Egret.’
Going into his own room to open the window, Adam stopped and looked over at his bed and at his books stacked on the shelf above it. What a baby he had been when they all came to the cottage. Now he felt so grown up. It seemed like remembering someone else. Yet how simple it had been, too. Just fishing and picnics and Mum and…often Peter. A shadow slid across his horizon for a second: a pang of regret for Peter who had given Adam unselfish years of himself. ‘You can’t sell this place, Mum,’ he called. ’It’s part of my heritage.’
He heard his mother give a snort of laughter. ‘Is it indeed? I’m glad to hear it, darling.’
On their way back to St Ives in the late afternoon, Adam got out his mobile and dialled.
‘Who are you ringing? Harry? You’ll see him in a couple of hours.’
‘No.’ Adam went pink. ‘Hi, Jenny. Yeah, great. We’re on our way back. What time shall we come over to St Ives? Yeah? OK. See you later. I was just telling Jenny we were on our way back,’ he said to his mother unnecessarily.
‘So I gather,’ Ruth said drily.
Danielle and Jenny stood looking over the harbour wall, watching the clouds of seagulls following the fishing boats back in.
‘It is very beautiful, Jen, and there are lovely galleries and some interesting shops, but do you not miss the buzz of London? For a holiday it is perfect, I think, but to live, pff, I would soon be bored.’
Jenny laughed. ‘You’re a city girl, that’s why. This is my home, Elle. For now this is as perfect for me as it gets.’
Danielle turned her back on the sea. She picked up the ‘for now’ and took heart. ‘Of course it is. It is different when you grow up in a place. I selfishly miss you, that is all.’
‘But it is working out with Ruth?’
‘Oh, yes. She knows her stuff. She is clever at marketing, very much the PR girl and she has found us many new contacts. She is also very nice, but you know this, you grew up with her. And you, it is working with the boy living with you?’
They turned away from the harbour and began to walk home. Bea had sent them on ahead to turn up the Aga.
‘Oh, yes. It’s working perfectly.’
At that moment Jenny’s mobile rang. She smiled as she talked. ‘Hi there! Have you had a good day? Oh, come about six thirty or seven, whenever you’re ready. OK, love, I’ll see you later.’
‘Not too perfectly for Ruth’s peace of mind, I hope,’ Danielle said, watching her.
Jenny glanced at her sharply. ‘Surely Ruth must be relieved Adam is happy, which he is. I know I would if he were my son.’
Danielle stopped herself from saying but he is not your son and linked arms. ‘Darling, do not get defensive. It is a tricky balance for you both, is it not? I see it from a distance, from a position of…’
‘Neutrality? Objectivity?’
‘Both. Let us change the subject.’
After a moment Jenny said, ‘I don’t miss the city but I do miss the house and you, me and Flo working together. I miss the life I had and sometimes when you or Flo ring and I can hear the buzz of the day behind you I feel great loss. It all suddenly seems strange, this life I have now. As if I have stepped into another world and become another person.’
‘You are Jenny and you always will be. You will come back to us. I know this. You will come back when you are healed and ready.’
‘Maybe.’ Jenny smiled. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said. I feel guilty about leaving you to carry the main responsibility for everything on your own. The trouble with grief is it makes you self-centred without realising it. It’s like being in a bubble and nothing is real outside your bubble. If you truly do want to take a few of those sketches to show Antonio, go ahead. It won’t be enough to interest him, though. I’m just feeling my way back.’
Danielle gave
a whoop of gratitude. She had dreamt for a long time of a business union with Antonio.
She saw Jenny was grinning at her. ‘Do you fancy Antonio, Elle?’
Danielle changed colour. ‘Of course I do not! It would not make any difference if I did. It is you he has always had the eye for! You can do no wrong.’
‘What utter, utter rubbish you talk. He likes my designs, that’s all, and he was extremely kind to me after Tom died. He’s a really nice man.’
Danielle laughed. ‘Yes, he is. And he is going to be a very grateful one when I show him your ideas. You see.’
‘I won’t hold my breath. Come on, we’d better hurry and turn the oven up or we will incur Bea’s wrath.’
To their left the sun hung low, blood-red and dramatic over the sea as the day eased slowly into black and white.
That night, after Bea’s dinner and hours of inebriated charades, everyone stayed at Tredrea, squashed in organised fashion into all the bedrooms. Ruth woke in the early hours with the image she had fallen asleep with still embedded behind her eyes: Adam and Jenny filling the dishwasher together. She had entered the kitchen carrying plates to see them kneeling over the open door of the machine, faces close together, as they chatted and laughed about something. So easy with one another, so somehow intimate.
Harry had rushed in behind her with more dishes and the spell had been broken, but Ruth had seen them. Seen what? There was nothing to see. Ruth knew in the depth of her being that Jenny was taking Adam away from her; casually, with love and kind words. Deliberately, as she looked Ruth in the eye, Jenny was forming an impenetrable bond with her child.
Ruth got up in the dark and walked silently up the stairs to the next floor where Harry and Adam were sleeping in the attic room next to Jenny. Both boys were fast asleep, but Jenny wasn’t. She heard Ruth and pushed her door open. She was making a cup of tea on a tray in her room. ’Come and have a cup of tea. I’ve woken up early too,’ she whispered.
Ruth shook her head. ‘I think I’ll try and go back to sleep. It’s a long drive home to London.’
‘OK. Look, take a cup back to bed with you.’ Jenny handed her a mug.
‘Thanks. See you later.’ Ruth turned and went back down the steep stairs. She knew Jenny was watching her puzzled, maybe hurt, but she did not care.
FIFTY-NINE
I knew I should try to talk to Ruth before she went back to London.
I got my chance in the afternoon before they all left. Adam suddenly realised he needed a bird book for an English essay he was writing. Ruth drove Adam and I followed with Danielle and Flo so they could all head straight off on the dual carriageway back to London.
Ruth wanted to walk along the creek before the long journey home and we followed the path up to the stream, leaving Flo and Danielle reading the papers in the cottage.
I felt odd walking this path again. After a while we sat on a bench in the sun. The narrow twisting channels of mud the tide had left made the creek interesting for Adam. He watched the birds, passing his binoculars back and forth to me and Ruth.
To our left, on the foreshore, lay the old barn with the backdrop of trees behind it. I shivered involuntarily. I would not have come back here by choice. I saw Adam swing his binoculars towards the barn and I knew he must be remembering. Ruth too.
Adam glanced at her but she remained as silent and cold as she had been early that morning. Feeling the atmosphere, he took off, crunching along the foreshore to look around the lake.
I turned to Ruth. ‘Thank you.’
She looked at me curiously. ‘What are you thanking me for?’
‘For still being here. For not taking off and putting yourself and Adam a hundred miles from me. For letting Adam stay with me after all that happened down here.’
‘I certainly wanted to take off.’ Her voice was husky.
‘Do you still?’
‘Sometimes. I wish I could go back to how it was; the three of us, Peter, Adam and me in that house in Birmingham. Ironic that you don’t recognise contentment until you no longer have it.’
‘I’m sorry. I buggered up your life, didn’t I?’
She looked at me without smiling. ‘Well, I buggered up yours by appearing out of the past.’
A little flock of lapwings turned and swung into the sun, their white underbellies catching in a flash of white. Ruth’s voice was suddenly low, hoarse: ‘I wish we’d never met again on that train to Birmingham.’ It was like the suddenness of a slap. She was facing away from me towards the water.
‘I don’t know what to say. I thought it was working out for you in London. I thought you were happy.’
‘I love the job. I love working with Flo and Danielle, but neither of those things compensates me for not having Adam with me.’
I turned to face her, puzzled and annoyed. ‘You blame me for that? It was your decision to let Adam come to school in Cornwall because he was so thoroughly miserable where he was. It was your decision to work in London. No one twisted your arm. I only stepped in at the last moment when Adam threw a wobbly about boarding.’
Ruth turned to me, her face closed and hostile. ‘It was a done deal. Adam acquired a dead father who was a hero and a vital link with that father, you. He discovered your loving, warm family to identify with. What could I offer in comparison to all this…this Cornish paradise…?’ She threw her hands out towards the water. ‘This permanent holiday atmosphere, this seductive, safe dropping out. I could only offer a broken marriage, a city life with people he didn’t know. No competition.’
I was shocked by her bitterness. She could not look at me. She stood stony-faced, staring straight ahead at the mud and the water creeping in, and the sun sparkling on the incoming tide.
‘Why are you so determined to believe you’ve lost Adam? He could have been a boarder at Truro or any school. Would you have talked about loss then? How often did you have time to spend with him in the evenings in Birmingham? How much free time do you have in London? I know the hours we work, Ruth.’
I had touched a nerve and she turned angrily. She began to say something that sounded like It’s turned out all right for you. Then she stopped and started to stride away from me back towards the cottage.
I followed slowly, feeling miserable. I was worried that Adam might have heard us.
Suddenly she stopped walking and waited for me to catch up. She said in a quieter voice but with considerable effort, ‘I’m sorry. I’m tired and I’m hung-over. Look, I’m grateful for all you do for Adam. He’s happy and that’s all that should matter. Please let’s forget this conversation.’
‘Is it this place? Is it that you can’t forget what happened over there? Despite everything, do you think I’m still a threat to Adam? Do you think I’m still unbalanced or mad or something?’
Ruth stared down at me. ‘I’ve never, ever thought you were mad, Jenny. But you know what I do think? I think you’re not being honest with yourself. Adam is your last link with Tom. Each time you look at him you see the image of the man you loved. That’s why I feel threatened. He’s my son. My flesh and blood. Mine…’
Her voice broke, came so jaggedly from within her and was such a pitiful cry from the heart that we stared at each other in horror. A curlew rose up, giving its strange wavering cry, and we walked in a tense unfinished silence towards the cottage, where we could see Flo and Danielle coming towards us.
SIXTY
By Wednesday morning Danielle had had enough. She went to find Flo. ’I cannot stand much more of this, Flo. I am unused to moody people.’
‘Is Ruth still morose and monosyllabic? Oh dear. I’ve no idea what happened between her and Jenny, but it’s bound to be about Adam.’
‘I can see that it is hard for her. Jenny maybe has a blind spot over him, but he is a very contented boy. I thought the weekend was happy. I think she is making a problem…’
‘You want me to have a word?’
‘Yes, please, Flo. Her misery is affecting everyone. This has always been a
happy workplace. We are too small for bad atmosphere. Jenny was always like sunshine in this house. I like Ruth. She is very good at what she does, but I cannot be doing with undercurrents and atmospheres.’
‘I know you can’t, dear. I’ll try and catch her this morning.’
‘If I do it I will get it wrong. I am annoyed and do not feel sympathetic.’
Flo caught Ruth alone in her office at midday. ‘Have you got time for a quick word, Ruth?’
‘Of course. Would you like coffee?’
‘No, I can’t stay. Look, obviously something’s wrong. You’ve been upset since the weekend. Can I help?’
Ruth shook her head. ‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’
‘But you clearly are not fine and you are affecting the whole household. It’s making us all miserable and it can’t go on.’
Ruth coloured painfully.
‘Do you have misgivings about the arrangement you have with Jenny over Adam? If you have regrets, Ruth, if you think you’ve made the wrong decision or are unhappy with the way things have turned out, it’s never too late to do something about it. If living without Adam is too painful, perhaps you should think about being in Cornwall. Perhaps this is not the job for you after all.’
Ruth looked stunned. ‘But Flo, I love this job. I love working with you and Danielle. I’ve worked hard all my life for an opportunity like this.’
Flo stared at her in a way that made Ruth uncomfortable. ‘Most things in life have a price, Ruth. This job entails gruelling hours and a lot of travelling. You are away at least three nights a week. If Adam were here with you he would have been left in this house with Danielle and me, as well as contending with a new school. Adam seems happy. You can see him often. What more do you want? How else could you do a demanding job with us?’
Ruth shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I think you’ll have to try to curb your understandable jealousy about Adam living with Jenny if you’re going to have a successful career with us. Adam so obviously loves you. That’s never going to change. You have to adapt and move on. It’s the only way.’
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