He said, ‘Don't cry,’ and he came and put his arms around her and held her until the worst of the weeping was over. ‘Did you really give up a party, with Diana and Jeremy and all of them…for me?’
Searching for a handkerchief, she nodded. ‘That doesn't matter. It can happen another time.’ She blew her nose.
He said, ‘I don't like to imagine you driving alone, all the way back to Cornwall. At forty-five miles an hour.’
With her fingers, Judith wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘There's not much you can do about it.’
‘Yes, I can.’ For the first time, he smiled. ‘Just give me five minutes.’
They went west by way of Hammersmith and Staines, and so out onto the A30. Judith drove, because she thought that perhaps Gus might want to sleep, and anyway she was accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of Biddy's old car. Gus sat beside her and followed their route on a tattered road-map, and sucked boiled sweets because he said he was too well mannered to smoke cigarettes in somebody else's car. At Hartley Wintney, the last of suburbia slipped away behind them. After that the towns they drove through were country towns, with markets, and pubs called The Red Lion and The King's Head, and crooked red brick houses lining the main streets. Salisbury, Crewkerne, Chard, and Honiton. At Honiton they stopped the car, and while Gus filled the tank from the last of the spare petrol cans, Judith went in search of sustenance and returned with two dubious pasties and a couple of bottles of ginger beer. They ate this meagre picnic in the car.
‘Pasties,’ Gus said with satisfaction, and bit into his. He chewed for a moment, and then looked at Judith in some dismay. ‘This doesn't taste like a pasty.’
‘What does it taste like?’
He took another mouthful and chewed some more. ‘Mouse and mud wrapped in a face flannel?’
‘You can't expect a Mrs Nettlebed pasty. Not after six years of war. You need the best steak for a proper one, and most people have forgotten what steak even looks like. Anyway, this is Devon. In Devon, they're not called pasties. They're called tiddy-oggies.’
‘Where did you glean that bit of useless information?’
‘Anyone who's been in the Navy knows they're called tiddy-oggies.’
Gus said, ‘Well, shiver me timbers.’
They drove on. The London clouds had disappeared, and the evening was clear and cold. The winter sun, round and red as an orange, lay low over the hills of Dartmoor. Exeter. Okehampton. Launceston. Dark now, headlights full on, only the emptiness of the moor on either side of the narrow road.
Cornwall.
Gus fell silent. For quite a long time he didn't say anything, and then, ‘Did you ever have fantasies, Judith?’ he asked.
‘What sort of fantasies?’
‘Oh, you know. When you were a child, growing up. Galloping away through the desert on the saddle of a handsome sheikh. Or saving the life of a drowning yachtsman, only to discover he was your favourite film star.’
‘Not those, no. Not specifically. But I used to pretend that the Cornish Riviera was the Orient Express, and I was on my way to Istanbul with secret papers to deliver, and various sinister spies on my tracks. Agatha Christie stuff, frightfully exciting. How about you?’
‘Mine weren't nearly so adventurous. I don't think I was a particularly adventurous youth. But they were very real to me. There were three of them. Quite separate. One was that I would come to Cornwall, where I had never been, and embrace the life of a Bohemian painter. I would live in a white-washed fisherman's cottage with cobbles at the door, and grow my hair and wear a hat like Augustus John, and espadrilles, and a French workman's bleus. And I would smoke Gitane cigarettes, and have a studio, and amble down to some delectable pub where I would be so famous and revered that people would crowd around and buy me drinks.’
‘That's harmless enough. But why Cornwall, if you'd never been here?’
‘I knew it from pictures, paintings, works of art. Articles in The Studio. The Newlyn School. The Porthkerris School. The colour of the sea and the cliffs; the extraordinary quality of the light.’
‘As a painter you would have been a success. I'm sure of that.’
‘Maybe. But it was my little hobby. That's what my father called it. So it was Cambridge and engineering. A totally different direction.’ He paused, seeming to ponder something. ‘Perhaps ours is the last generation that will ever do what it is told.’
‘What were the other two fantasies?’
‘Pictures again. A Laura Knight, a print I tore from a magazine and framed, and took with me to school, home, University. A girl on a cliff. Wearing an old sweater and a pair of tennis shoes. Brown as a gypsy, and with a plait of russet hair falling over one shoulder. Beautiful.’
‘Have you still got it?’
‘No. Another Singapore casualty.’
‘And the third day-dream?’
‘That was less specific. Harder to explain. It was finding a place, a house; somewhere where I would belong. Be at ease with myself. Made welcome for no reason of background or affluence or reputation. Able to drop my guard and present my own face.’
‘I would never have thought that was a problem.’
‘It was, until I met Edward Carey-Lewis. After I met Edward, everything changed. Even my name. Before Edward, I was Angus. After Edward, I became Gus. We went on holiday to France together. And then he asked me to Nancherrow. And I'd never been to Cornwall, but I drove, alone, all the way from Aberdeenshire. And as I crossed the county border I was obsessed by this extraordinary feeling that I was coming Home. That I'd seen it all before. It was all entirely recognisable, and very dear. And when I got to Nancherrow, everything came together, as though it had been orchestrated. Contrived. Intended. At Nancherrow I found Loveday; and when Edward introduced me to his father, the Colonel said, Gus, my dear fellow. How pleased we are to see you. How splendid to have you here, or something like that. And they all stopped being fantasies and were real. All the dreams, just for a little while, were true.’
Judith sighed. ‘Oh, Gus. I don't know whether it's the house or the people who live in it. But you're not the only person who has felt that way about Nancherrow. And it's not all in the past. Edward has gone, I know. And I suppose, for you, Loveday has as well. But there's still the future. What is there to stop you becoming a painter? Living down here, getting a studio, working at a talent that you love, and perhaps should exploit. There's nothing now to stop you.’
‘No. Nothing. Except my own non-existent confidence. My lack of will. Fear of failing.’
‘That's just now. You've been ill. Now isn't going to last forever. You'll get better. Stronger. Things will change.’
‘Maybe. We'll see.’ He stirred in his seat, easing his cramped limbs. ‘You must be tired, poor girl.’
‘Not far now.’
He rolled down his window, and they were momentarily assaulted by a blast of cold, fresh air. He turned his face and took a huge breath of this. He said, ‘You know something? I can smell the sea.’
‘Me too.’
He closed the window. ‘Judith.’
‘What is it?’
‘Thank you.’
Holding a Wedgwood mug filled with strong, steaming tea, Judith knocked on the door of Biddy's bedroom.
‘Gus?’
She opened the door to a blast of icy-cold air. The windows were wide open, the curtains flapping in the draught, and the weight of the door was almost torn from her hand. She closed it hastily behind her, and the curtains subsided a bit.
She said, ‘You have to be freezing?’
‘I'm not.’ He was lying in bed propped up with pillows, with his hands linked behind his head. His pyjama jacket was blue, and the night's stubble showed dark on his chin.
‘I've brought you a mug of tea.’ She put it down on the table beside his bed.
‘You're a saint. What time is it?’
‘Half past ten. Do you mind if I close the window? The draught goes all the way through the house, and we're trying to keep
it warm.’
‘I'm sorry. I should have thought. It was just so good to feel the fresh air on my face. The hospital was grossly overheated, and London air always feels a bit heavy and stale, to say nothing of the noise of the traffic.’
‘I know what you mean.’ She closed the old sash window and stood for a moment looking out at the day. The sky was watery and washed with clouds. There had been a shower, and soon there would be another. Puddles glittered on pathways, and the bare branches of the trees dripped onto the shaggy winter grass of the lawn. The wind whined, thumped against the house, rattled the window frame. She turned and came back to lean on the brass rail at the foot of Biddy's double bed.
‘How did you sleep?’
‘Not too badly.’ He had pulled himself up into a sitting position, his knees drawn up beneath the covers, his long fingers wrapped around the warmth of the mug, a lock of black hair falling across his forehead. ‘It was still dark when I woke. I've been lying here watching the sky fill with light. Should I have been up at sparrow-fart, for breakfast?’
‘I told you last night, no. I only disturbed you now because I have to go to Penzance to buy some food, and I wondered if you wanted me to get anything for you.’
‘Cigarettes?’
‘Sure.’
‘And some shaving soap…’
‘Tube or bowl?’
‘Can you still get bowls?’
‘I can try.’
‘I'll need a brush.’
‘Is that all?’
‘I think so. I'll give you some money.’
‘Don't worry. I'll bill you when I get back. I shan't be long. Home for lunch. Phyllis has made a rabbit-and-pigeon pie. Can you eat rabbit and pigeon?’
‘If I can eat a tiddy-oggy, I can eat anything.’
She laughed. ‘Get up when you feel like it. Have a bath if you want. The morning paper's in the drawing-room, and I've lit the fire.’ She went to the door and opened it. ‘See you later.’
‘'Bye.’
When she returned, at a quarter to one, the kitchen was filled with the good smell of the rabbit pie, and Phyllis was putting a pan of Brussels sprouts on to boil. Judith set her laden baskets on the end of the scrubbed table and unloaded her loot. ‘I managed to get some fresh mackerel, we can have them for supper. And a marrowbone for soup. And our sugar and butter rations. They seem to get smaller every week.’
‘Has Mr Callender got a ration card?’
‘I'll have to ask him. I don't suppose he has.’
‘He's going to need one,’ Phyllis warned. ‘Man that size, he'll eat twice as much as we do.’
‘We'll have to fill him with potatoes. Is he up?’
‘Yes, up and about. Came in here to say hello, and then went out into the garden for a bit. He's in the drawing-room now, reading the paper. Told him to keep the fire up. Put a log on every now and again.’
‘How do you think he's looking?’
‘Some thin, isn't he? Poor soul. Doesn't bear thinking of, what he's been through.’
Judith said, ‘No.’ The last of the groceries were unloaded, and all that remained were the things that she had bought for Gus. She gathered them up and went in search of him, and found him looking entirely at home in the depths of Biddy's armchair, reading the paper. When she appeared, he set this aside.
‘My conscience is already pricking, because I'm being so lazy.’
‘That's what you're meant to be. Do you want a drink or something? I think there's a bottle of beer.’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Here are your things.’ She sat on the fireside stool and handed them to him one by one, out of a well-used paper bag. ‘Yardley's Lavender shaving soap in a cedarwood bowl, no less. They'd got them in for Christmas, and the chemist produced it from under the counter. And a badger brush. And cigarettes. And this is a present from me.’
‘Judith! What is it?’
‘Look and see.’
It was a large and quite heavy parcel, wrapped in white paper and tied with twine. He took it onto his knee and unknotted the string and tore away the paper, revealing the thick pad of foolscap cartridge paper, the box of H.B. pencils, the black enamel Winsor and Newton paint-box, the three beautiful sable brushes.
She said quickly, ‘I know you don't feel like painting just now, but I'm sure you will soon. I hope it's all right. I got it all in the art shop. The paper probably isn't the quality you'd like, but it was the best they had…’
‘It's perfect, a wonderful present.’ He leaned forward and put his hand on her shoulder and drew her towards him, and kissed her cheek. ‘You are the sweetest person. Thank you.’
‘I won't boss and interfere any more. I promise.’
‘I don't think I'd mind too much even if you did.’
They had lunch, the three of them, in the warm kitchen, and after the pie and bottled plums with top-of-the-milk cream, Judith and Gus put on waterproof jackets and went out into the windy, showery afternoon. And they walked, not down to the sea, but on up the hill from Rosemullion on the road that led to the moors. Then they left the road, and struck off across the waste of winter grass, brown bracken and heather clumps, taking the winding sheep tracks that led to the cairn on the summit of the slope. And cloud shadows chased them up from the sea. There were gulls and curlews flying about overhead, and when they finally scrambled up the rock and stood, braced against the wind, all of the country was spread about them, and they were encircled by the horizon.
They returned home by a different route which made it a very long walk indeed, and it was half past four and darkness had fallen before they finally turned in through The Dower House gate. Anna was home from school, diligently sitting at the kitchen table and struggling with her homework. As they appeared, wind-blown and exhausted, through the door, she laid her pencil aside and looked up, intrigued to meet at last the strange man who had come to stay, and about whom her mother had told her so much.
Phyllis had the kettle on, for tea.
‘You've been some time. You must be dead on your feet.’
‘It feels funny going for a walk without Morag. We'll have to get a dog of our own. Hello, Anna. This is Gus Callender. You haven't met him yet, have you?’
Gus, unravelling himself from his muffler, smiled at her. ‘Hello, Anna.’
Anna became suffused with shyness. ‘Hello.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Homework. Sums.’
He pulled up a chair and sat beside her. ‘Money sums. Those were always the most difficult…’
Phyllis was spreading slices of saffron bread with margarine. She said, not looking up, ‘Jeremy Wells rang, from Nancherrow.’
Judith felt her heart give an involuntary leap and was instantly much annoyed with it, for being so foolish. ‘What did he want?’
‘Oh, nothing much.’ Another slice and more margarine. ‘Just asking if you'd got back. Said you had. Said you and Mr Callender had gone for a walk.’
‘How did the coming-home party go?’
‘Mrs Carey-Lewis put it off. You couldn't be there and Walter had some business or other.’
Judith waited for Phyllis to elaborate on this, but she didn't. She was clearly still a bit peeved about the whole business of Jeremy. To placate her, ‘Does he want me to call?’ Judith asked.
‘No, he said not to bother. Didn't matter. Nothing important.’
Eleven o'clock, an hour from midnight, and still he had not returned.
Loveday, curled up in a corner of the sofa, sat and watched the face of the clock, and the slow minutes ticking by. The wind had got up, pouring in from the sea, to howl at the windows of the little house and set the doors rattling. From time to time, from the kennels, she could hear Walter's dogs barking, but did not venture out to investigate what had disturbed them. A fox, maybe. Or a badger, rootling around in the dustbins.
He had gone at seven. Finished the milking, washed up and changed, and was away in the car, not stopping even to eat the shepherd's pi
e she had made for his tea. It was still there, in the bottom oven, probably by now congealed and dried out. It didn't matter. She had let him go, holding a sulky silence, because if she had said anything, made objections, protestations, demanded explanations, she knew that there would be a blow-up — yet another row between them, concluded by the ear-stopping slamming of the door as he took himself off. They seemed to have nothing left to say that was remotely constructive, and all that was left were cruel and hurtful words to be exchanged.
Her mother's blithe invitation to Jeremy Wells's coming-home dinner party at Nancherrow had filled Loveday with something like panic, because, in his present state of mind, she could not trust Walter to put on his best face, and if he didn't, then her parents could not help but sense ill feeling, and would start to ask questions. Even telling Walter about the invitation needed a bit of courage, and it was almost a relief when he said he had better things to do than go to fancy dinner parties, and anyway, he had already made his plans for that evening.
‘You used to like Jeremy.’
‘He's all right.’
‘Don't you want to see him again?’
‘Will soon enough. And if he wants to see me, he can come up to the farm and find me here.’
So Loveday had telephoned her mother, with excuses for Walter, only to be told that the little party had been cancelled for the time being, because Judith couldn't come either.
‘What's she doing?’ Loveday had asked.
‘She's gone to London.’
‘London? What for?’
‘Oh, I don't know. Christmas shopping? Anyway, darling, it's all off for the moment. We'll have it another night. How's Nat?’
‘He's fine.’
‘Kiss him for me.’
So that was one thing not to worry about, but there was still plenty else.
Since the afternoon when Judith had come for tea, and Loveday had confided in her, relations between her and Walter had deteriorated at an alarming rate, and she was beginning to believe that he didn't just not love her any more, but actually hated her. He hadn't spoken kindly to Nat for four or five days, and if they did all sit down to a meal together, Walter endured it in silence, reading a newspaper or thumbing over the pages of the latest Farmer's Weekly. At first, she had tried asking questions about the farm and the animals — about all they had in common now — but he responded with monosyllables, and she was left defeated. Lately, she hadn't even tried to break through his sullen and quite frightening antipathy. She had the terrible feeling that, if she pushed too far, he might actually stand up and hit her.