by Jane Jesmond
Then, eighteen months ago, when Ma’s debts had grown too big even for her to pretend they were irrelevant, she’d asked us for help. So Kit and Sofija went down to Tregonna to prepare her for the inevitable sale of the house.
The phone call had come a couple of weeks later. Kit’s voice had been flat like the surface of a millpond hiding the power of the underwater currents. His calmness unnerved me. Would I get one of the local estate agents round to value his flat? He and Sofija had had a brilliant idea. He couldn’t think why he hadn’t come up with it before. There he was, with all the money from the sale of Skyhooks and, by the terms of the sale agreement, not permitted to work in the same industry for two years. It had come to him all in a flash. He was going to sort Tregonna out once and for all. Put an end to all the piecemeal repairs and get the place completely sorted. Then he and Sofija were going to open it as a year-round learning and conference centre. Ma had loads of friends who ran meditation retreats and art courses and that sort of stuff. And he could organise adventure holidays and outdoor pursuits. Walking holidays. There was nowhere more beautiful than this part of Cornwall, was there? He could even offer it as a centre for people planning expeditions. It would be like the old times when Tregonna was full of Pa and his colleagues arranging the early group tours up Everest and planning to conquer unclimbed routes in Nepal and Pakistan.
What could I say? Kit, I thought, had things leftover from childhood that tied him to Tregonna and Cornwall. Things to do with his memories of the days before Pa left. I’d told him to leave Tregonna alone. Tried to explain Tregonna was no longer the golden place of our childhood, that the romantic myths Ma had spun about the Hammett’s ancestral home were just that – myths. But, even then, I’d known there was no point. Tregonna had him in its claws.
He and Sofija sold up and moved with baby Rosa to Cornwall. I stayed in London. I left them to get on with renovating Tregonna. Bored and restless, I started playing the Game with Grid, Vince and Ricky and I never even told Kit when I sped past Craighston on my way to whatever spectacular climb one of us had chosen. It was the beginning of my mad time and we slipped further away from each other until the drifting apart culminated in a total breach after Grid’s accident, when Kit hurled insults at me outside the hospital.
‘Let’s get out of the car.’ Sofija said. ‘We won’t be long, skupa moya,’ she gave Rosa a biscuit.
We got out and stood where the rock protected us from the worst of the wind. Dusk wasn’t far away, I realised. The grey light was fading into dark.
‘Kit?’ I said.
‘We’re in a bit of a mess,’ he said in the end.
I blocked out Sofija’s presence and waited for Kit to explain the problem and the solution. Kit only dealt in solutions. Plans and solutions. He was a much better climber than I was in that way. He could look at a rock face and plan the route up. When we were young I used to climb for Kit. He’d teach me the route then set me at the slope like a hunter sending his dog after a rabbit. The thrill for him was in the planning. That was where Kit fought and conquered his climb and I guessed that was why he’d been able to walk away from climbing without regret.
‘For God’s sake, Kit. Tell her.’ Sofija’s voice shredded the air. ‘If you won’t, I will.’ She turned to me. ‘It’s your mother. She’s conned us.’ Kit opened his mouth. ‘Yes, she has, Kit. It’s a con. A complete con. You just don’t see it.’
Kit’s face emptied and he leaned back into the rock.
‘It’s not that simple, Sofija.’
‘Yes, it is. She’s taken all our money to sort Tregonna out. Every penny we had. She’s ruined us.’ Sofija’s voice rose slowly in pitch. ‘And now she wants us out. Now we’re finally finished, she wants to see the back of us.’
‘We aren’t quite finished. There’s still…’ Kit stopped, as though he could see it was pointless continuing. His eyes were fixed on Sofija and his expression was hopeless, as though her rage was more than he could take.
‘Kit?’ I said, but before he could speak, Sofija continued.
‘Kit’ll say it’s not true. He’ll say I’m imagining things. But it is true that she won’t lift a finger to help us. Isn’t it, Kit? Even though we’re drowning in debt. Even though our cheques bounce and I have to beg the hotel for time to pay for some catering equipment we bought off them. Even though Kit won’t answer the phone in case it’s someone we owe money to.’ Sofija clenched her fists and pushed them into her thighs, then slowly relaxed them. ‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘You tell Jen your own way. I don’t see what she can do anyway. I can’t leave Rosa alone in the car any longer and I’m due at the hospice. You two sort it out.’
And with that she got into the car and drove away. I’d never seen Sofija lose her composure before. I darted a quick look at Kit but he was staring into the distance, his mouth set in a tight line.
‘Hospice?’ I said as the car disappeared.
‘Yes. The one in St Austell. Nursing Assistant. She does a couple of shifts a week. Bit of a waste of her talents but there’s not much work around. It helps anyway.’
‘And Rosa?’
‘Ma looks after her if I can’t. It’s the only thing she does do. Let’s walk into Craighston. We can go to the pub. I need to move.’
We tramped down the road to the village without talking. Both lost in our thoughts. As we got to the outskirts, lights were coming on in the houses and it looked almost welcoming. But I wasn’t fooled. There was nothing for me behind those glowing windows, except more of the same old, same old shit. No one ever did anything except get up, go to some boring job that was probably tiring and draining, come home, clean, eat and grunt at each other. Their only escape was gossip and speculation or endless harking back to the glory days of Cornwall, when it was a land apart with its own language and identity and a love/hate relationship with the sea that surrounded it and provided food and jobs. The sea defined Cornishmen. It soaked into them. It belonged to them. They fought the excise men to use it as they chose, refusing to pay taxes on the contraband they smuggled over its waters. Why should they? The sea was theirs in the same way that an Englishman’s back garden belonged to him.
Except, of course, it was a load of rubbish. And I’d got sick of it. Sick of the romanticism that tied them to the past. Four and twenty ponies trotting through the dark. And all that sort of crap. I hated that poem.
There was no one in the pub. Kit had to call before the barman emerged from a back room, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and bringing the smell of salty, greasy chips with him.
‘Half of bitter and…’ Kit looked at me.
‘A tomato juice and some crisps. Three packets, please.’
We sat in a corner and Kit told the barman to go back to his meal. We’d call if we wanted anything. I took a mouthful of the juice and opened my first packet of crisps. Cheese and onion. I devoured them while Kit sipped his beer and scratched at the grease spots on the table.
‘It is money, Kit, isn’t it?’
And suddenly Kit looked swallowed up and defeated.
‘Yes. It’s money.’ He sighed a big gusty breath. ‘We haven’t got any money left. In fact, we’ve got less than none. We owe money to everybody.’
He sank back into the high-backed bench.
‘But how?’ I said.
‘Jen, you have no idea what it’s like renovating a house the size of Tregonna. You think you’ve got it covered: quotes for everything, allowances for extras. Then you discover that there are things you didn’t know needed doing. Drains and pointing. Access for people in wheelchairs. Landscaping the gardens. And the further in you get, the more horrors you discover in the house. And then Ma orders stuff without you knowing, or changes things. And Sofija changes other things and then that, in turn, affects other things and on and on and the total spirals and spirals ever upwards until you don’t dare look. And then you don’t have time to look
because everybody needs you to decide something. And then one day there’s no money left and the bills keep on coming in. And Sofija –’
He broke off and bit the inside of his mouth. I wondered if it was Sofija’s stress even more than the money that had brought him so low. I thought about the money and started on the second packet of crisps. We’d sold Skyhooks for close to £800,000. A third to me and two-thirds to Kit, which was more than fair. It was his baby and relied on his sort of expertise. I’d ended up with just shy of £200,000 after lawyers’ bills and taxes and stuff. Kit must have had twice that. I’d paid off some of my mortgage. It was the only sensible thing I’d done. I’d bought my car and taken a lot of holidays. None of which were particularly sensible. I’d frittered most of the rest away on partying. On cocaine and partying, if I was going to be brutally honest. The last of it had paid for the weeks in rehab. It wasn’t cheap. So I could understand how Kit’s money had disappeared. Mine had seemed like a fortune at first but it had slipped away as fast as water going down a plughole.
‘All of it?’ I couldn’t stop myself asking. Kit nodded. ‘The money from your flat too?’ He looked down. I took that as a yes.
‘No one has spent any money on the house for years, you know, Jen. Just buying it took every penny Pa had. And it was falling apart then. So everything needed doing. When I still had grand ideas, I spoke to an architect and he quoted me a thousand pounds per square metre to renovate it. Well I laughed at him. And sacked him. I thought it was bound to be cheaper than that. But you know, he wasn’t far wrong.’
The pub was chilly. The radiator nearest me was lukewarm at best.
‘I wrote to Pa.’ The words jerked out of him. ‘But I haven’t heard from him. He’s away until the New Year.’
Pa was somewhere in South America with one of the firms that run climbing expeditions for wealthy people. It had to be bad for Kit to think of asking him for help. Things between them had been tricky for years. Kit had changed his name to Hammett. My relationship with Pa was non-existent, but I couldn’t be bothered to change mine.
‘So can you lend me some money?’ he said. ‘I hate to ask. Absolutely hate it. But there’s nothing else I can do. I can’t see any other way out.’
He smiled an odd sort of smile. Almost like a child handing over the last sweet in a packet.
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘You don’t know how much. Wait until you know how much.’
The figure would have shocked me into silence if he hadn’t warned me. He needed £80,000 and he needed it straightaway.
‘Of course,’ I said. Nothing mattered except bringing the old Kit back. The one who laughed with me. The one who understood how I felt without me having to explain. My mind reeled. How could I get money? Sell the flat? Too slow. But I could borrow against it. Still too slow. I would have to sell it anyway. Couldn’t afford it now I was unemployed.
The car. I’d sell the car. My beautiful Aston.
‘Of course,’ I said again.
He looked unsatisfied. I had agreed too quickly. Leaped into it, he would have said.
‘After all, Kit, I’ve only got money because of you.’
‘Not true. You worked for it as much as I did.’
He gulped his beer and wiped the froth from his mouth.
‘And then I need you to help me with Ma.’ The words tumbled out of him in a rush. ‘I need her to sell the land on the other side of the road and give me the money.’
Years ago, the county council had wanted to eliminate a dangerous bend on the coast road and the owners of Tregonna at the time – a school, I think – had been more than happy to sell them a strip of land that cut through the estate.
As soon as she was mistress of Tregonna, Ma conducted a campaign to get the road returned to its original route and, as she put it, mend the gash ripped through the land. It was, of course, impossible. The county council solicitors had ensured the sale of the land was properly conducted and the things Ma considered important – reuniting the trees that once were part of the same forest and keeping the estate how it looked on early maps of the property – were meaningless as reasons to reroute the road. But it had festered with her ever since and I knew Kit didn’t stand a chance.
‘Is the land worth anything?’
‘Since they decided to build along that side of the road, yes. A small, no, a large fortune.’
‘Build? Does Ma know?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve got no chance then, Kit. She won’t want to sell it anyway. But sell it so someone can build on hallowed Tregonna land … Forget it. Look, you don’t have to pay me back any money. I’ll give it to you.’
He sighed. ‘The £80,000 is to stave off the immediate threats. It’s a drop in the ocean compared to what we owe.’
I couldn’t bring myself to ask how much. He gave in first and named a sum that took my breath away.
‘You owe that much!’
‘Not all of it. But I need the rest to get the place finished. We can’t open without all sorts of approvals. Health and Safety. Fire precautions. Disabled access. It goes on and on.’
He stumbled through what I thought was a sort of prepared speech. How when the money started to run out, he’d thought the bank would lend him some. But they wouldn’t. Instead they’d shut down the overdraft facility he’d negotiated. They didn’t think his business plan would work. He was bitter about that. Couldn’t see why they wouldn’t understand he was a successful entrepreneur. He’d started one company from scratch and sold it at a massive profit. He could do the same again. But as he spoke I understood why they’d turned him down. Tregonna would never be able to pay back the vast sums he’d invested in it.
‘Why not walk away from it?’ I said to Kit in the chilly pub as I opened my last packet of crisps and his hands, the hands I remembered deftly and firmly tying knots and hauling rope, shook.
‘Last I knew, you can’t walk away from your debts.’
‘Well, Ma’ll have to sell Tregonna.’
‘You don’t understand, Jen. The debts are mine. The house is Ma’s. If we went to court we might win something but we might not. And it would cost a fortune. And, anyway, I can’t take Ma to court. No. The only solution is to get her to sell that bit of land. If you talk to her about it, I think she’ll come round. It’s the logical solution.’
So I said I would.
Obviously.
Although Ma had never been one for logical solutions.
‘But not right now, Kit. I need to think about how to speak to her. You know how difficult she is.’
‘OK, but when? You’re not going to go back to London?’
‘No. I’ll go back to the hotel.’
‘Why did you stay there, Jen? Why didn’t you come to Tregonna?’
I couldn’t tell him I’d had second thoughts about seeing him so I spun some half-truths.
‘I couldn’t get hold of you. Your phones were turned off and I didn’t want to turn up out of the blue. I’ll stay at the hotel tonight and come over tomorrow.’
I was desperate not to go to Tregonna and drown in the floods of tension that seemed to have engulfed my family. I wanted some time to myself to think about last night and what, if anything, I’d learned at the lighthouse.
‘We were in Plymouth,’ Kit said.
‘What?’
‘Yesterday afternoon. That’s why you couldn’t speak to us. And our phones were switched off.’
‘Oh.’
Kit leaned over and put his hand over mine.
‘We went to Seb’s grave yesterday. Mark asked us if we wanted to go.’
‘Seb’s grave!’ Horror washed through me. Surely he didn’t mean my friend Seb from school, the same Seb who’d been one of my closer friends in London until Grid’s accident.
‘Seb Vingoe? Seb the journalist? That Seb?’
Kit nodded.
‘Seb’s dead?’
‘Didn’t you know? How could you not know? Where have you been, Jen?’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you. But later. Tell me about Seb. How did he die?’
‘A stupid accident. Parkour. Free running. He slipped and fell, leaping between two buildings. Broke his neck. Never stood a chance.’
I thought of Seb. Dark and intense. With the black hair and skinny frame of a typical Cornishman. He’d have looked like one of those taciturn little miners in the old photographs at the museum in St Blazey when he grew old. If he’d grown old. But Seb hadn’t been destined for mining tin and no one could call him taciturn; he mined words and shaped them into poetry and stories. Flitting from subject to subject according to his passion of the moment. One summer it had been Cornish legends and we’d sat round illicit campfires on the beach at night with Seb, his face changing shape in its flames, as he entranced us with stories where men were turned into stone and demons seized lone travellers in the night. Another time he’d fallen in love with astronomy, persuaded his mother to buy him a telescope and spent all summer sleeping during the day and staring at the night skies before he lost interest and flung himself into something else.
‘I remember him talking about parkour,’ I said. ‘I thought it was for something he was writing. But I didn’t know he did it. Not Seb. Not free running. It’s not his sort of thing… When did it happen?’
‘A few weeks ago.’
Seb had died while I was in rehab and I hadn’t known. Somewhere among all the emails, texts and voicemails there’d been when I turned my phone back on there must have been one telling me about it, but there’d been so many I’d only opened Kit’s.
‘And the funeral?’
‘We didn’t go. No one went. His parents didn’t want anyone there except family. His mother – you can imagine how she was. Just family, she said. No friends. No lovers, past or present. She especially didn’t want anyone there who had anything to do with climbing and free running. She blamed us all for not stopping him.’