The Day of the Storm

  Just like something out of a magazine. With a bed that’s a sort of sofa and masses of cushions and things and a log fire.

  But it was just the way she had said. As I came up the last stairs, my fleeting hope swiftly died. And there was something closed-in and secret about it, with the ceiling sloping down to the floor and a dormer window set into the gable with a seat below it. I saw the little galley, enclosed behind a counter, like a bar, and the old Turkish carpet on the floor, and the divan, red-blanketed, pushed against the wall. As she had said, it was scattered with cushions.

  Joss had put down my basket and was already divesting himself of his wet clothes and hanging them on an old-fashioned cane hat-stand.

  “Take your things off before you die of cold,” he told me. “I’ll light a fire…”

  “I can’t stay, Joss…”

  “No reason not to light the fire. And please, take off that coat.”

  I did, unbuttoning it with frozen fingers, pulling off my damp woollen hat and shaking my plait down over my shoulder. While I hung these up beside Joss’s things, he was busy at the fireplace, snapping twigs, balling paper, scraping together the ashes from some previous fire, lighting it all with a long taper. When it was crackling he took some pieces of driftwood, tar-soaked, from a basket by the fireplace, and stacked them round the flames. They spat, and spluttered, and swiftly caught. And the room, by firelight, sprang to life. He stood up and turned to face me.

  “Now, what do you want? Coffee? Tea? Chocolate? Brandy and soda?”

  “Coffee?”

  “Two coffees coming up.” He retired behind his counter, filled a kettle and lit the gas. As he collected a tray and cups, I went over to the window, knelt on the seat and looked down through the fury of the storm to the street below, washed by spray as the waves broke over the sea wall. The boats in the harbour bobbed about like demented corks, and huge herring gulls floated over their swinging mastheads, screaming at the wind. Absorbed in the task of making our coffee, Joss moved with economy from one side of the galley to the other, neat-fingered and self-sufficient as a single-minded yachtsman. So occupied, he appeared harmless enough, but the disconcerting point about Andrea’s revelations was that they all seemed to contain an element of truth.

  I had known Joss for only a few days, but already I had seen him in every sort of mood. I knew he could be charming, stubborn, angry, and downright rude. It was not difficult to imagine him as a ruthless and passionate lover, but it was distasteful to imagine him with Andrea.

  He looked up suddenly and caught my eye. I was embarrassed, caught with my thoughts. I said, quickly, to divert us both, “In good weather you must have a lovely view.”

  “Clear out to the lighthouse.”

  “In the summer it must be like being abroad.”

  “In the summer it’s like Piccadilly Underground at rush hour. But that only lasts for two months.” He came out from behind his counter, carrying a tray with the steaming cups, the sugar bowl and the milk jug. The coffee smelt delicious. He pulled forward a long stool with his foot, set the tray at one end of it and himself at the other. Thus, we faced each other.

  “I want to hear more about yesterday,” said Joss. “Where did you go besides Falmouth?”

  I told him about St Endon and the little pub by the water’s edge.

  “Yes, I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never been there. Did you get a good lunch?”

  “Yes. And it was so warm that we sat out in the sunshine.”

  “That’s the south coast for you. And what happened then?”

  “Nothing happened then. We came home.”

  He handed me my cup and saucer. “Did Eliot take you to High Cross?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see the garage?”

  “Yes. And Mollie’s house.”

  “What did you think of all those elegant, sexy cars?”

  “I thought just that. That they were elegant and sexy.”

  “Did you meet any of the guys who work for him?”

  His voice was so casual that I became wary.

  “Who, for instance?”

  “Morris Tatcombe?”

  “Joss, you didn’t ask me here for coffee at all, did you? You’re pumping me.”

  “I’m not. I promise I’m not. It’s just that I wondered if Morris was working for Eliot.”

  “What do you know about Morris?”

  “Just that he’s rotten.”

  “He’s a good mechanic.”

  “Yes, he is. Everybody knows that, and it’s the only good thing about him. But he’s also totally dishonest and vicious to boot.”

  “If he’s totally dishonest, why isn’t he in jail?”

  “He’s already been. He’s just come out.”

  This took the wind out of my sails, but I soldiered bravely on, sounding more sure of myself than I felt.

  “And how do you know he’s vicious…?”

  “Because he picked a quarrel with me one night in a pub. We went outside and I punched him in the nose, and it was lucky for me I hit him first, because he was carrying a knife.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you asked. If you don’t want to be told things, you shouldn’t ask questions.”

  “And what am I meant to do about it?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m sorry I brought it up. It was just that I’d heard Eliot had given him a job and I hoped it wasn’t true.”

  “You don’t like Eliot, do you?”

  “I don’t like him, I don’t dislike him. He’s nothing to do with me. But I’ll tell you something. He picks bad friends.”

  “You mean Ernest Padlow?”

  Joss sent me a glance that was full of reluctant admiration.

  “You don’t waste much time, I’ll say that for you. You seem to know it all.”

  “I know about Ernest Padlow because I saw him with Eliot that first night when you gave me dinner at The Anchor.”

  “So you did. That’s another rotten egg. If Ernest had his way the whole of Porthkerris would be bulldozed into car parks. There wouldn’t be a house left standing. And we would all have to go up the hill and live in his fancy little semis which in ten years’ time will be leaking, leaning, cracking up and generally bagging at the knees.”

  I did not reply to this outburst. I drank my coffee and thought how pleasant it would be to have a conversation without being instantly drawn into longstanding vendettas which had nothing to do with me. I was tired of listening to everybody I wanted to like running down the reputations of everybody else.

  I finished my coffee, set down the cup and said, “I must get back.”

  Joss, with an obvious effort, apologized. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “For losing my temper.”

  “Eliot’s my cousin, Joss.”

  “I know.” He looked down, turning his cup in his hands. “But, without meaning to, I’ve become involved with Boscarva, too.”

  “Just don’t take your prejudices out on me.”

  His eyes met mine. “I wasn’t angry with you.”

  “I know.” I stood up. “I must go,” I said again.

  “I’ll drive you back.”

  “You don’t have to…” But he paid no attention to my protest, just took my coat from its hook and helped me on with it. I pulled the wet woollen hat over my ears and picked up the heavy basket.

  The telephone rang.

  Joss, in his oilskin, went to answer it, and I started downstairs. I heard him call, just before he took the receiver off the hook, “Rebecca, wait for me. I won’t be a moment…” and then, into the telephone, “Yes? Yes, Joss Gardner here…”

  I went down to the ground floor and the shop. It was still raining. Upstairs I could hear Joss deep in conversation.

  Bored with waiting for him, perhaps a little curious, I pushed open the door of the workshop, turned on the light, and went down four stone steps. There was the usual confusion, benches, woo
dshavings, scraps, tools, vises; over all hung the smell of glue, of new wood, of polish. There was also a clutter of old furniture, so dusty and ramshackle it was impossible to tell whether it was of any value or not. A chest of drawers missing all its handles, a bedside cupboard without a leg.

  And then, at the very back of the room, in the shadows, I saw them. A davenport desk, in apparently perfect repair, and alongside it a chair in the Chinese Chippendale style, with a tapestry seat, embroidered in flowers.

  I felt sick, as though I had been kicked in the stomach. I turned and went up the steps, turning off the light and closing the door, going through the shop and out into the bitter windblast of that wicked February day.

  My workshop’s in a dreadful mess, I’ll show you that another time.

  I walked and then found that I was running up towards the church, into a warren of little lanes where he would never find me. I was running, always uphill, encumbered by the shopping basket, heavy as lead, and my heart pounded in my chest and there was the taste of blood in my mouth.

  Eliot had been right. It was too easy for Joss and he had simply taken his chance. It was my desk; it was my desk that he had taken, but he had taken it from Grenville’s house, flinging the old man’s trust and kindness back in his face.

  I could imagine killing Joss, and it was easy. I told myself that I could never speak to him, could never bear to be near him again. I had never been so angry in my life. With him; but worse with myself, for having been taken in by his empty charm, for having been proved so totally wrong. I had never been so angry.

  I stumbled on up the hill.

  But if I was so angry, then why was I crying?

  10

  It was a long and exhausting climb back to Boscarva, and I have never found it possible to sustain extreme emotion for more than ten minutes. Gradually, fighting my way up the hill against the weather, I calmed down, wiped my tears away with my gloved hand, pulled myself together. In an apparently intolerable situation, there is nearly always something one can do, and long before I reached Boscarva I had decided what it was. I would go back to London.

  I left the shopping basket on the kitchen table and went upstairs to my room, took off all my drenched clothes, changed my shoes, washed my hands, carefully re-plaited my hair; thus calmed I went in search of Grenville and found him in his study, sitting by the fire and reading the morning paper.

  He lowered this and looked over the top of it as I came in.

  “Rebecca.”

  “Hallo. How are you this wild morning?” I sounded determinedly cheerful, like a maddening nurse.

  “Full of aches and pains. The wind’s a killer even if you never go out in it. Where’ve you been?”

  “Down in Porthkerris. I had to do some shopping for Mollie.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Half past twelve.”

  “Then let’s have a glass of sherry.”

  “Is that allowed?”

  “I don’t give a damn if it’s allowed or not. You know where the decanter is.”

  I poured two glasses, carried his over and set it carefully down on the table by his chair. I pulled up a stool and sat facing him. I said, “Grenville, I have to go back to London.”

  “What?”

  “I have to go back to London.” The blue eyes narrowed, the great jaw thrust out; I hastily made Stephen Forbes my scapegoat. “I can’t stay away for ever. I’ve already been away from work nearly two weeks, and Stephen Forbes, the man I work for, he’s been so good about it, I can’t just go on taking advantage of his kindness and generosity. I’ve just realized that it’s Friday already. I must go back to London this weekend. I must be back at work on Monday morning.”

  “But you’ve only just come.” He was obviously thoroughly disgusted with me.

  “I’ve been here three days. After three days fish and guests stink.”

  “You’re not a guest. You’re Lisa’s child.”

  “But I still have commitments. And I like my job and I don’t want to stop working.” I smiled, trying to divert him. “And now I’ve found the way to Boscarva, perhaps I can come again, when I’ve got more time to spare, to spend with you.”

  He did not reply but sat, looking old and grumpy, staring into the fire.

  He said dismally, “I may not be here then.”

  “Oh, of course you will be.”

  He sighed, took a slow, shaky mouthful of sherry, set down his glass, and turned to me, apparently resigned.

  “When do you want to go?”

  I was surprised, but relieved, that he had given in so easily.

  “Perhaps tomorrow night. I’ll get a sleeper. And then I can have Sunday to get myself settled into my flat.”

  “You shouldn’t be living in a flat in London on your own. You weren’t made for living alone. You were made for a man, and a home, and children. If I were twenty years younger and could still paint, that’s how I’d show you to the world, in a field or a garden, knee-deep in buttercups and children.”

  “Perhaps it’ll happen one day. And then I shall send for you.”

  His face was suddenly full of pain. He turned away from me and said, “I wish you’d stay.”

  I longed to say that I would, but there were a thousand reasons why I couldn’t. “I’ll come back,” I promised.

  He made a great and touching effort to pull himself together, clearing his throat, re-settling himself in his chair. “That jade of yours. We’ll have to get Pettifer to pack it in a box, then you can take it with you. And the mirror … could you manage that on the train, or is it too big? You ought to have a car, then there would be no problems. Have you got a car?”

  “No, but it doesn’t matter…”

  “And I suppose that desk hasn’t…”

  “It doesn’t matter about the desk!” I interrupted, so loudly and so suddenly that Grenville looked at me in some surprise, as though he had not expected such bad manners.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “It’s just that it really doesn’t matter. I couldn’t bear everybody to start quarrelling about it again. Please, for my sake, don’t talk about it, don’t think about it any more.”

  He regarded me thoughtfully, a long unblinking stare that made me drop my eyes.

  He said, “You think I’m unfair to Eliot?”

  “I just think that perhaps you never talk to each other, you never tell each other anything.”

  “He’d have been different if Roger hadn’t been killed. He was a boy who needed a father.”

  “Couldn’t you have done as a father?”

  “Could never get near him for Mollie. He was never made to stick to anything. Always chopping and changing jobs and then he started that garage up three years ago.”

  “That seems to be a success.”

  “Second-hand cars!” His voice was full of unjustified contempt. “He should have gone into the Navy.”

  “Suppose he didn’t want to go into the Navy?”

  “He might have, if his mother hadn’t talked him out of it. She wanted to keep him at home, tied to her apron strings.”

  “Oh, Grenville, I think you’re being thoroughly old-fashioned and very unfair.”

  “Did I ask you for your opinion?” But already he was cheering up. A good argument was, to Grenville, like a shot in the arm.

  “I don’t care whether you asked for it or not, you’ve got it.”

  He laughed then, and reached forward to gently pinch my cheek. He said, “How I wish I could still paint. Do you still want one of my pictures to take back to London with you?”

  I was afraid that he had forgotten. “More than anything.”

  “You can get the key of the studio from Pettifer. Tell him I said you could have it. Go and nose around, see what you can find.”

  “You won’t come with me?”

  Again the pain came into his face. “No,” he said gruffly, and turned away to take up his sherry. He sat, looking down at the amber wine, turning the glass in his hand. ??
?No, I won’t come with you.”

  * * *

  At lunch he broke the news to the others. Andrea, livid that I was going back to London while she had to stay in horrible, boring Cornwall, went into a sullen sulk. But the others were gratifyingly dismayed.

  “But do you have to go?” That was Mollie.

  “Yes, I really must. I’ve got a job to do and I can’t stay away for ever.”

  “We really love having you here.” She could be charming when she wasn’t aggressive and possessive about Eliot, resentful of Grenville and Boscarva. I saw her again as a pretty little cat, but now I was aware of long claws hidden in the soft velvet paws, and I knew that she had no compunction about using them.

  “I’ve loved it too…”

  Pettifer was more outspoken. After lunch I went out to the kitchen to help him with the dishes, and he minced no words.

  “What you want to go away for now, just when you’re settling down and the Commander’s getting to know you—well, it’s beyond me. I didn’t think you were that sort of a person…”

  “I’ll come back. I’ve said I’ll come back.”

  “He’s eighty now. He’s not going to last for ever. How are you going to feel, coming back and him not here, but six feet under the ground and pushing up the daisies?”

  “Oh, Pettifer, don’t.”

  “It’s all very well saying ‘Oh, Pettifer, don’t.’ There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “I’ve got a job. I must go back.”

  “Sounds like selfishness to me.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “All these years he’s not seen his daughter, and then you turn up and stay three days. What sort of a grandchild are you?”

  I didn’t reply because there was nothing to say. And I hated feeling guilty and being put in the wrong. We finished the dishes in silence, but when they were done and he was wiping down the draining board with a damp cloth, I tried to make my peace with him.