The Shell Seekers

  “Come with you?” He was so taken aback by her suggestion that he made no attempt to conceal his astonishment.

  “It would be company.” That sounded pathetic, as though she were lonely. She tried another tack. “And it might be fun for us both. I don’t regret many things in my life, but I do regret never taking you all to Porthkerris when you were children. But I don’t know; things just never worked out that way.”

  A faint embarrassment lay between them. Noel decided to turn it all into a joke. “I’m a bit long in the tooth for sand-castles on the beach.”

  His mother was not particularly amused. “There are other diversions.”

  “Such as what?”

  “I could show you Carn Cottage, where we used to live. Your grandfather’s studio. The Art Gallery that he helped to start. You seem so interested, all of a sudden, in his pictures, I should have thought you would be interested in seeing where it all began.”

  She did this sometimes; delivered a glancing blow, right beneath the belt. Noel took a mouthful of whisky, composing himself. “When would you go?”

  “Oh. Soon. Before the spring is over. Before summer comes.”

  He knew relief at having a watertight excuse. “I couldn’t get away then.”

  “Not even for a long weekend?”

  “Ma. We’re up to the eyes in the office, and I’m not due for leave until July at the earliest.”

  “Oh well, in that case it’s impossible.” To his relief she abandoned the subject. “Noel, would you be kind and open a bottle of wine?”

  He got to his feet. He felt a bit guilty. “I’m sorry. I would have come with you.”

  “I know,” she told him. “I know.”

  By the time Antonia reappeared it was a quarter to ten. Noel poured the wine, and they all sat down to eat the shepherd’s pie, and the fresh fruit salad, and biscuits and cheese. Then Noel made coffee for himself, and, announcing that he was going up to the loft to give it a preliminary once-over before starting work the next day, took himself off upstairs, bearing his coffee with him.

  When he had gone, Antonia, as well, rose to her feet, and began to stack the plates and glasses, but Penelope stopped her.

  “There’s no need. I’ll put it all in the dishwasher. It’s nearly eleven, and you must long for your bed. Perhaps you’d like a bath now?”

  “Yes, I would. I don’t know why, but I feel frightfully dirty. I think it’s something to do with being in London.”

  “I always feel that way, too. Take lots of hot water and have a good soak.”

  “That was a lovely dinner. Thank you.”

  “Oh, my dear…” Penelope was touched, and all at once found herself at a loss for words. And yet there was so much to be said. “Perhaps, when you’re in bed, I’ll come up and say good night to you.”

  “Oh, will you?”

  “Of course.”

  When she had gone, Penelope slowly cleared the table, stacked the dishwasher, put out the milk bottles, laid the breakfast. Upstairs, in this house where sounds echoed through open doors and wooden ceilings, she heard Antonia run the bath; heard, high above, Noel’s muffled footsteps as he edged his way around the cluttered loft. Poor man, he had taken on himself a gargantuan task. She hoped that he would not lose heart half-way through and that she would not be left with an even bigger muddle than before. The bath-water, gurgling, ran away down the waste-pipe. She hung up the tea-towel, turned off the lights, and went upstairs.

  She found Antonia in bed, awake, and turning the pages of a magazine Penelope had left on the bedside table. Her bare arms were brown and slender, and her silky hair spread itself out over the white linen pillowslip.

  She closed the door behind her.

  “Did you have a good bath?”

  “Blissful.” Antonia smiled. “I put in some of those delicious bath salts I found. I hope that was all right.”

  “That was what you were meant to do.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s done you good. You don’t look so weary.”

  “No. It’s woken me up. I feel all alert and chatty. I couldn’t possibly go to sleep.”

  From overhead, beyond the beamed ceiling, came the sound of something being dragged across a floor.

  Penelope said, “Perhaps that’s just as well, with the din that Noel’s creating.”

  At that moment, there was a thud, as though some heavy article had been inadvertently dropped, and then Noel’s voice. “Oh, bloody hell.”

  Penelope began to laugh, and Antonia laughed too, and then quite suddenly was not laughing any longer, for her eyes were filling with tears.

  “Oh, my dear child.”

  “So silly…” She sniffed and groped for a handkerchief and blew her nose. “It’s just that it’s so wonderful to be here, with you, and be able to laugh about silly things again. Do you remember how we used to laugh? When you were staying with us, funny things happened all the time. It was never quite the same after you left.”

  She was all right. She was not going to weep. The tears had receded, scarcely shed, and Penelope said gently, “Do you want to talk?”

  “Yes, I think I do.”

  “Do you want to tell me about Cosmo?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was so sorry. When Olivia told me … I was so shocked … so sorry.”

  “He died of cancer.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Lung cancer.”

  “But he didn’t smoke.”

  “He used to. Before you knew him. Before Olivia knew him. Fifty a day or more. He kicked the habit, but it killed him just the same.”

  “You were with him?”

  “Yes. I’ve been living with him for the past two years. Ever since my mother remarried.”

  “Did that upset you?”

  “No. I was very happy for her. I don’t much like the man she chose, but that’s beside the point. She does. And she’s left Weybridge and gone to live in the North, because that’s where he comes from.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He has some sort of woollen business … worsteds, weaving, that sort of thing.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “Yes, I went the first Christmas they were married. But it was dreadful. He has two of the most ghastly sons, and I couldn’t wait to get out of the house before one of them actually raped me. Well, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but that’s the reason I couldn’t have gone to my mother after Daddy died. I just couldn’t. And the only person I could think of who would help me was Olivia.”

  “Yes, I see; but tell me more about Cosmo.”

  “Well, he was all right. I mean, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him. And then, about six months ago, he started this horrible coughing. It used to keep him awake at nights, and I’d lie and listen and try to tell myself that it was nothing very serious. But finally I persuaded him to go and see his doctor, and he went into the local hospital for an X-ray and a check-up. He never, actually, came out. They opened him and removed half of one of his lungs and then closed him up again, and said that he’d soon be able to come home, but then he had a post-operative collapse, and that was it. He died in hospital. He never recovered consciousness.”

  “And you were alone?”

  “Yes. I was alone, but Maria and Tomeu were always around, and I never imagined such a thing was going to happen, so I wasn’t actually all that worried or frightened. And it all happened so quickly. One day, it seemed, we were together, at Ca’n D’alt, just the way we’d always been, and the next day he was dead. Of course it wasn’t the next day. It just seemed that way.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Well … it sounds dreadful, but we had to have a funeral. You see, in Ibiza only the shortest time can elapse between death and the burial. It has to happen the very next day. You wouldn’t think that, in a day, on an island where practically nobody has a telephone, the news would get around, but it did. Like bush telegraph. He had so many friends. Not just people li
ke us, but all the local people as well, men he’d drunk with in Pedro’s bar, and the fishermen down in the harbour, and the farmers who lived around us. They were all there.”

  “Where was he buried?”

  “In the graveyard of the little church in the village.”

  “But … it’s a Catholic church.”

  “Of course. But that was all right. Daddy wasn’t a churchgoer, but as a child he’d been baptized and received into the Catholic Church. As well, he’d always been very friendly with the village priest. Such a kind man … enormously comforting. He conducted the service for us, not in the church, but by the graveside, in the sunlight. By the time we left, you couldn’t see the grave for flowers. It looked so beautiful. And then everybody came back to Ca’n D’alt, and Maria had made some things to eat, and they all had some wine, and then they all went away again. And that was what happened.”

  “I see. It all sounds very sad, but quite perfect. Tell me, have you told Olivia all this?”

  “Bits of it. She didn’t really want to hear too much.”

  “That’s in character. When Olivia is deeply touched or distressed, she hides her feelings away, almost as though she were pretending to herself that nothing had happened.”

  “Yes. I know. I realized that. And it didn’t matter.”

  “What did you do when you were with her in London?”

  “Not much. I went to Marks and Spencers and got myself some warm clothes. And I went and saw Daddy’s solicitor. That was a pretty depressing interview.”

  Penelope’s heart sank for the girl. “Did he leave you nothing?”

  “Virtually nothing. He had nothing to leave, poor darling.”

  “What about the house in Ibiza?”

  “That never belonged to us. It belongs to a man called Carlos Barcello. And I wouldn’t want to stay there. Even if I did, I couldn’t pay the rent.”

  “His boat. What happened to that?”

  “He sold that soon after Olivia left. He never bought another.”

  “But the other things. His books, and furniture and pictures?”

  “Tomeu has arranged with a friend to store them for me until such time as I need them, or can bear to go back and get them.”

  “It’s hard to believe, Antonia, I know, but that time will come.”

  Antonia put her arms behind her head and gazed at the ceiling. She said, “I’m all right now. I’m sad, but I’m not sad that he didn’t go on living. He would have been ill and frail, and he wouldn’t have lasted for more than another twelve months. The doctor told me that. So it was better that he went the way he did. My only real sadness are the years that were wasted after Olivia went. He never had another woman. He loved Olivia very much. I think, probably, she was the love of his life.”

  It was quiet now. The thumpings and footsteps from the loft had ceased, and Penelope guessed that Noel had decided to chuck his hand in and had taken himself back downstairs.

  After a little, she said, choosing her words with some care, “Olivia loved him too, as much as she has ever been able to give her heart to any man.”

  “He wanted to marry her. But she wouldn’t.”

  “Do you blame her for that?”

  “No. I admire her. It was honest, and very strong.”

  “She’s a special person.”

  “I know.”

  “She just has never wanted to marry. She has this horror of dependence, and committal, and putting down roots.”

  “She has her career.”

  “Yes. Her career. That matters to her more than anything else in the world.”

  Antonia considered this. She said, “It’s funny. You could understand it better if she’d had a miserable childhood, or suffered some dreadful trauma. But with you for a mother, I can’t imagine anything like that ever happening to her. Is she so different from your other children?”

  “Totally.” Penelope smiled. “Nancy is the very opposite. All she ever dreamed about was being a married woman with a house of her own. A little bit The Lady Of The Manor, perhaps, but what of it? She does no harm. She’s happy. At least, I imagine she’s happy. She’s got exactly what she always wanted.”

  “How about you?” Antonia asked. “Did you want to be married?”

  “Me? Heavens, it’s so long ago, I can scarcely remember. I don’t think I thought very much about it. I was only nineteen and it was wartime. In wartime, one didn’t think very far into the future. Just lived from day to day.”

  “What happened to your husband?”

  “Ambrose? Oh, he died, some years after Nancy was married.”

  “Were you lonely?”

  “I was alone. But that’s not the same as being lonely.”

  “I never knew anyone who died before. Not before Cosmo.”

  “The first experience of losing someone close to you is always the most shattering. But time passes, and you come to terms with it.”

  “I suppose so. He used to say, ‘all life is a compromise’.”

  “That was wise. For some, it has to be. For you, I should like to think that there was something better in store.”

  Antonia smiled. The magazine had long since fallen to the floor, and her eyes had lost their feverish brightness. She was, like a child, becoming drowsy.

  “You’re tired,” Penelope told her.

  “Yes. I’ll sleep now.”

  “Don’t wake too early.” She got up off the bed, and went to draw back the curtains. The rain had ceased, and out of the darkness came the hoot of an owl. “Goodnight.” She went to the door, opened it, turned off the light.

  “Penelope.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s just so lovely to be here. With you.”

  “Sleep well.” She closed the door.

  The house was silent. Downstairs, all the lights were out. Noel had obviously decided to call it a day, and gone to bed. There was nothing more to be done.

  In her room, she pottered about, taking her time, cleaning her teeth, brushing her hair, putting night-cream on her face. In her night-dress she went to draw back the heavy curtains. Through the open window a breeze stirred, cold and damp, but smelling earthily sweet, as though her garden, with spring nearly upon them, was stirring, woken from the long winter sleep. The owl hooted again, and it was so quiet that she could hear the soft whisper of the Windrush flowing on its way beyond the orchard.

  She turned from the window and climbed into bed and turned off the light Her body felt heavy and tired, grateful for the comfort of cool sheets and soft pillows, but her mind stayed wide awake, because Antonia’s innocent curiosity had stirred up the past in a disconcerting and not wholly welcome fashion, and Penelope had answered her questions with some caution, neither lying nor telling the whole truth. The truth was too confused to tell, devious and long ago. Too long ago to start unravelling the strands of motivation and reason and the sequence of events. She had not talked of Ambrose, nor mentioned his name, nor thought about him, for longer than she could remember. But now, she lay open-eyed, gazing into the gloomy darkness that was not truly dark, and knew that she had no option but to go back. And it was an extraordinary experience; like watching an old film, or discovering a dog-eared photograph album, turning the pages, and being amazed to find that the sepia snapshots had not faded at all, but had stayed evocative, clear, and sharp-edged as ever.

  8

  AMBROSE

  The Wren Officer squared her papers and unscrewed her fountain pen.

  “Now then, Stern, what we have to decide is which Category to put you in.”

  Penelope sat on the other side of the desk and looked at her. The Wren Officer had two blue stripes on her sleeve and a neat crop of hair. Her collar and tie were so stiff and tight that they looked as though they might choke her; her watch was a man’s, and beside her, on the desk-top, lay her leather cigarette case and a hefty gold lighter. Penelope recognized another Miss Pawson and felt quite kindly towards her.

  “Have you any qualifications
?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Shorthand? Typing?”

  “No.”

  “University degree?”

  “No.”

  “You must call me ‘Ma’am.’”

  “Ma’am.”

  The Wren Officer cleared her throat, finding herself disconcerted by the guileless expression and dreamy brown eyes of the new Wren Rating. She wore uniform, but somehow it didn’t look right on her; she was too tall, and her legs were too long, and her hair was a disaster, soft and dark and bundled up into a loose coil that looked neither neat nor secure.

  “You went to school, I presume?” She half expected to be told that Wren Stern had been educated at home, by a genteel governess. She looked that sort of girl. Taught a little French and water-colour painting and not much else. But Wren Stern said, “Yes.”

  “Boarding school?”

  “No. Day schools. Miss Pritchett’s when we were living in London, and the local Grammar School when we were living in Porthkerris. That’s in Cornwall,” she added kindly.

  The Wren Officer found herself longing for a cigarette.

  “This is the first time you’ve been away from home?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must call me ‘Ma’am.’”

  “Ma’am.”

  The Wren Officer sighed. Wren Stern was going to be one of those problems. Cultured, half-educated, and totally useless. “Can you cook?” she asked without much hope.

  “Not very well.”

  There was no alternative. “In that case, I’m afraid we’ll have to make you a Steward.”

  Wren Stern smiled agreeably, seeming pleased that they had at last come to some decision.

  “All right.”

  The Wren Officer made a few notes on the form, and then screwed the top back on her pen. Penelope waited for the next thing to happen. “I think that’s it.” Penelope got to her feet, but the Wren Officer was not finished. “Stern. Your hair. You must do something about it.”

  “What?” asked Penelope.

  “It mustn’t touch your collar, you know. Naval regulations. Why don’t you get the hairdresser to cut it off?”