Coming Home

  ‘Nothing much. Innocent fun. The best was sleeping in the darkness with the doors and windows open and listening to the sounds of the night. Sometimes it got bloody cold. One night, there was a thunderstorm…’

  He was so close, she could have reached out and laid her hand on his cheek. His skin was smooth and coppery, his arms downed with fine golden hair, his eyes the same blue as his cotton shirt, the lock of fair hair flopped across his forehead. She sat hugging herself, saying nothing, relishing his beauty, listening to his voice.

  ‘…lightning split the sky. There was a ship wrecked that night, off Land's End, and we saw the flares bursting in the sky and thought we were seeing comets…’

  ‘How strange…’

  Their eyes met. He said, ‘Dear Judith. You've become so lovely. Did you know that? And I did miss you.’

  ‘Oh, Edward…’

  ‘I wouldn't say so if I didn't mean it. And I find it particularly nice, just sitting here, together, un-surrounded by hordes of other people.’

  She said, ‘I have something to tell you.’

  His expression, subtly, altered. ‘Important?’

  ‘I think it is, to me.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well…it's about Billy Fawcett.’

  ‘The old goat. Don't say he's raised his head again.’

  ‘No. He's gone. Gone for good.’

  ‘Elucidate.’

  ‘You were right. You said I needed a catalyst, and it happened. It changed everything.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  So she told him. About Ellie and her horrid experience in the cinema. About Ellie's tearful confession to the Warrens and Judith. About Mr Warren's rage, and their subsequent visit to the police station to make the formal charge against Billy Fawcett of indecent behaviour and harassment of a junior. ‘It all took ages. The wheels of officialdom grind very slowly. But it was done.’

  ‘Good for you. And about time too, the rotten old bugger. What'll happen?’

  ‘I suppose the case will come up at the next Quarterly Assizes in Bodmin…’

  ‘Meantime, he's stewing with apprehension. That alone should keep his hands off little girls.’

  ‘It made me feel very strong, Edward. Very positive. Not afraid any more.’

  He smiled. ‘In that case…’ He put out his hands and laid them on her shoulders and leaned forward across the little space that lay between them, and kissed her mouth. A gentle kiss that swiftly became passionate, but this time she neither drew away nor rejected him, because to let him have his way was all she wanted, and as she opened her mouth to him, it felt as though an electric current streamed into every nerve end she possessed, and her entire body seemed to leap into life.

  He stood, and put his arms around her, and lifted her, and laid her down on the bunk where she had been sitting. He sat at her side and arranged cushions behind her head, and stroked her hair away from her face, and then, gently, began to undo the small pearl buttons which fastened the front of her cotton dress.

  ‘Edward…’ Her voice was no more than a whisper.

  ‘Loving doesn't stop here. This is just the beginning of loving…’

  ‘I've never…’

  ‘No, I know you haven't. But I have. I have been before, and I shall show you the way.’ He gently pushed her dress down from her shoulders, and then the white satin straps of her bra, and she could feel the cool air on her naked breasts and he put his head down and buried his face in the smooth skin that lay between them. And she wasn't frightened in the very least, just peaceful and excited all at the same time, and she took his head between her hands and gazed up into his face. ‘I love you, Edward. I want you to know that now…’ And after that there was neither time, nor opportunity, nor need to say anything more.

  A buzzing sound. Not the bluebottle this time, but an enormous droning bumble-bee, dizzy with nectar. Judith opened her eyes and watched it lumbering about in the small pitched ceiling, finally settling, to cling to one of the dusty window-panes.

  She stirred. Beside her, on the narrow bunk, Edward lay, his arm beneath her, Judith's head pillowed on his shoulder. She turned her head and his brilliant eyes were open, and startlingly close, so that she could see, in each iris, so many variations of blue that it was a bit like looking into the sea.

  He said, very gently, very quietly, ‘All right?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Not battered, bruised or wounded?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘You were exceptional.’

  She smiled.

  ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘Sleepy.’

  She laid a hand across his naked chest, felt the bones of his rib-cage beneath the firm sun-tanned flesh. She said, ‘What time is it?’

  He raised his arm to look at his wrist watch. ‘Half past three.’

  ‘So late.’

  ‘Late for what?’

  ‘I thought we'd only been here for a moment or two.’

  ‘As Mary Millyway is prone to say, time flies when you're enjoying yourself.’ He sighed deeply. ‘Perhaps we should stir ourselves. We have to show up at the picnic, otherwise a thousand probing and awkward questions will be asked.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose. I know.’

  He kissed her. ‘Lie there for a bit. We're not in that much of a hurry. Raise your head and let me loose. I'm getting cramp.’

  Which she did, and he extricated himself and sat up, with his back to her, and pulled on his shirt and his shorts, and then his trousers, standing to shove in the shirt-tails, deal with his zip, buckle the plaited leather belt. In the orchard, beyond the opened door, the breeze stirred the branches of the apple trees, and shadows flickered on the log walls of the cabin. She heard the blackbird's song, and distant gulls, and from far off, the sound of a car, chugging up the hill out of Rosemullion. Edward left her then, and went through the door, reaching in his trouser pocket for cigarettes and lighter. Judith turned on her side and watched him; his cigarette going, he moved to lean a shoulder against the wooden post of the small veranda, and she thought that his back view looked a bit like an illustration out of a Somerset Maugham story, one of the Malayan ones. A bit dishevelled and deliciously decadent, with his bare feet and his tousled hair, and the worldliness of his cigarette. At any moment a dusky maiden, wearing a sarong, would come prowling up out of the jungle (the orchard) to entwine herself seductively in his arms and murmur words of love.

  Edward. She could feel the smile creep into her face. Now, there could be no going back. They had taken the final step, and he had been wonderfully sweet, claiming Judith for his own in the most complete of ways; choosing her; loving her. They were a pair. A couple. Sometime, somewhere, they would be married, and together forever. About this there was no shadow of doubt, and the prospect filled her with a warm sense of continuance. For some reason, the social rites of this state — proposal, engagement, wedding — never entered her head. They were simply trimmings of convention, unimportant and almost unnecessary, because she felt as though, like pagans, she and Edward had already made their vows.

  She yawned and sat up and reached for her own clothes; pants and bra, the cotton dress retrieved from the floor. She slipped it over her head and fastened the buttons and thought that she should comb her hair but she had no comb. Edward, finished with his cigarette, flicked it away and then turned and came back to her, and sat down once more, and they faced each other, just as they had done before, an hour ago, an age ago, a world ago.

  She did not speak. After a bit, he said, ‘We really should go now.’

  But she didn't want to go just yet. There was so much to say. ‘I do love you, Edward.’ That was the most important. ‘I suppose I always have done.’ It was wonderful to be able to say the words, not to have to be shy or secretive any longer. ‘It's like suddenly having everything come true. I can't imagine, ever, loving anybody else.’

  He said, ‘But you will.’

  ‘Oh, no. You don't understand. I never could.’ br />
  He repeated himself. ‘Yes. Yes, you will.’ He spoke very kindly. ‘You're grown up now. Not a child, not even an adolescent any longer. Eighteen. With the whole of your life ahead of you. This is just the beginning.’

  ‘I know. Of being with you. Belonging with you.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. Not with me…’

  Confusion. ‘But…’

  ‘Just listen. What I'm saying doesn't mean I'm not enormously, intensely fond of you. Protective. Tender. All these things. All the right words. All the right emotions. But they belong to now. This moment, this afternoon. Not exactly ephemeral, but certainly not for always.’

  She listened, and heard, and was stunned with disbelief. He didn't know what he was saying. He couldn't know what he was doing. She felt the warm certainty of being loved, beyond all else, forever, drain slowly from her heart, like water streaming from a sieve. How could he not feel as she felt? How could he not realise what she knew beyond all doubt? That they belonged together. They belonged to each other.

  But now…

  It was more than she could bear. She searched frantically for loopholes in his argument, reasons for his excuses, for his perfidy. ‘I know what it is. It's the war. There's going to be a war and you're going to have to go and fight with the RAF, and you might be killed and you don't want to leave me all alone…’

  He interrupted her. ‘The war has nothing to do with it. Whether or not there is a war, I have a whole life to live before I commit myself to a single person; settle down. Have children. Take over Nancherrow from my father. I'm not twenty-two yet. I couldn't begin to make a long-term decision if somebody put a gun to my head. Maybe I will marry someday, but not until I'm at least thirty-five, and by then you will have gone your own way, and made your own decisions, and be living happily ever after.’ He smiled at her encouragingly. ‘Singapore. You're going to Singapore. You'll probably marry some enormously wealthy taipan or tea-planter and be living a life of tremendous luxury, with all the riches of the East, waited upon by soft-footed servants.’

  He sounded like a grown-up trying to coax a sulky child into a good humour. ‘And just think of the voyage out. I don't imagine you'll get as far as the Suez Canal without at least two dozen proposals…’

  He was talking rubbish. She lost her patience, and rounded on him.

  ‘Don't joke about it, Edward, because it's not in the least funny.’

  Wryly, ‘No. I suppose it isn't. I'm whistling in the dark, because I hate to hurt you in any way.’

  ‘What you're saying is that you don't love me.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Not the way I love you.’

  ‘Perhaps not. Like I said, I feel ridiculously protective about you, as though I were in some way responsible for your happiness. Like Loveday, and yet not like Loveday, because you're not my sister. But I've watched you growing up, and you've been part of Nancherrow and the family all these years. That incident with the wretched Billy Fawcett brought it all home to me. How alone you are, and how vulnerable. It made my flesh creep to think of you being traumatised by that bloody old man. I couldn't stand thinking of it happening again…’

  She began, at last, to understand. ‘So you slept with me. You made love to me. You did it.’

  ‘I wanted to lay his ghost forever. It had to be me, not some incompetent, lusty lout relieving you of your sweet virginity, giving you a miserable time, and destroying all the joys of sex.’

  ‘You were doing me a kindness. You were sorry for me. A good deed.’ She realised that her head was starting to ache. She could feel the pain, like tight strings pulling behind her eyeballs, a throbbing in her temples. ‘A good turn,’ she finished bitterly.

  ‘Darling Judith, never think that. Give me the benefit, at least, of loving you with the best of intentions.’

  But that wasn't enough. Would never be enough. She looked down, away from his eyes. Her feet were still bare. She stooped and picked up one of her sandals, and began to put it on, buckling the leather strap. She said, ‘I seem to have made a terrible fool of myself. But perhaps that's not surprising.’

  ‘Never. Not that. It's not foolish to love. It's just pointless giving all your love to the wrong person. I'm not right for you. You need somebody quite different from me; an older man who'll give you all the wonderful things you rightly deserve, and that I could never find it in my heart to promise you.’

  ‘I wish you'd said all this before.’

  ‘Before, it wasn't relevant.’

  ‘You sound like a lawyer.’

  ‘You're angry.’

  She turned to him. ‘Well, what do you expect me to be?’ Her aching eyes were hot with unshed tears. He saw these and said, in some alarm, ‘Don't cry.’

  ‘I'm not crying.’

  ‘I can't bear it if you cry. You'll make me feel such a shit.’

  ‘So what happens now?’

  He shrugged. ‘We're friends. Nothing changes that.’

  ‘We just carry on? Being tactful and not allowing Diana to be upset? Like we did before. I don't know if I can do that, Edward.’

  He stayed silent. She began to fasten the other sandal, and after a bit, he shoved his bare feet into his shoes and did up the laces. Then he stood, and went to close and latch the windows shut. The bumble-bee had flown. She got to her feet. He went to the door and stood, waiting for her to go out before him. As she did so, he stopped her with his arm, and turned her to face him. She looked up into his eyes, and he said, ‘Try to understand.’

  ‘I do understand. Perfectly. But that doesn't make it any easier.’

  ‘Nothing's changed.’

  Which Judith thought was perhaps the most stupid, untrue thing she had ever heard any man say. She pulled away from him and plunged out into the orchard, running through the grass, ducking beneath the branches, and willing herself not to burst into tears.

  Behind her, he closed and carefully locked the door. It was done. It was all over.

  They returned to Nancherrow in a silence that was neither painful nor companionable. Sort of half-way in between. Certainly this was not the moment for small talk, and Judith's headache had reached proportions which rendered her incapable of any conversational effort, however trivial. She was beginning to feel a bit nauseous and there were strange tadpole shapes swimming about in her line of vision. She had never had a migraine, but girls at school sometimes had them and had tried to describe the symptoms. She wondered if she was starting a migraine now, but probably not, because she knew they took ages, sometimes days, to develop, and hers had struck out of the blue, like a hammer blow.

  She thought, with sinking heart, of the next stage of this endless day. Arriving home, and then starting out once more, to join the picnic party down at the cove. Walking down the garden, through the gunnera, across the quarry; emerging onto the cliffs, and seeing below them the others, camped upon the traditional rock. Brown bodies, oiled against the sun, brilliant towels spread about the place, straw-hats and abandoned clothes left lying where they had fallen. Voices raised, and the splash as someone dived from the high rock above the pool. And above everything, the glitter of light, the unrelenting brightness of sea and sky.

  All too much. As they approached the house, she took a deep breath and said, ‘I don't think I want to come to the cove.’

  ‘You must come.’ Edward's voice was edged with impatience. ‘You know they're expecting us.’

  ‘I've got a headache…’

  ‘Oh, Judith…’ He clearly thought this was some excuse she had invented.

  ‘I really have. It's true. My eyes are hurting and I can see tadpoles and my head's torture and I feel a bit sick.’

  ‘Really?’ Now he was concerned. He turned his head to look at her. ‘I must say, you do look a bit pale. Why didn't you say?’

  ‘I'm saying now.’

  ‘When did it start?’

  ‘A bit ago,’ was the best she could come up with.

  ‘I am sorry.’ He was truly contrite. ‘P
oor Judith. In that case, when we get in, why don't you go and take an aspirin or something and lie down for a bit. You'll feel better before long. We can go down to the cove later. They won't be packing up until at least seven o'clock, so there's hours yet.’

  ‘Yes.’ She thought, with longing, of her own quiet room, the curtains drawn against the unforgiving light, the coolth of soft linen beneath her throbbing head. Peace. Solitude. A little space of time in which to gather up her dignity and lick her wounds. ‘Perhaps I will. You mustn't wait for me.’

  ‘I don't want to leave you on your own.’

  ‘I won't be on my own.’

  ‘Yes, you will. Mary's gone to the cove with the others, and Pops will be doing his Sunday circuit of the farms with Mr Mudge.’

  ‘Your mother will be there.’

  ‘She's ill.’

  ‘I'll be all right.’

  ‘But you will come, when your headache's gone?’

  It seemed important to him. To save an argument, she said, ‘Yes. When it's cooler, maybe.’

  ‘An evening swim will do you all the good in the world. Chase the miseries away; clear your head.’

  And she thought how wonderful that would be, and if only it were possible. But whatever you did, the inside of your head went on churning away, and you couldn't get away from the treadmill of remembering things that you longed to forget.

  They were back. Edward drew up outside the open front door, and they got out of the car and went into the house. There, on the table in the centre of the hall, stood the picnic basket, packed with tin boxes and Thermos flasks. But as well, neatly folded on the top of these, were two red-and-white-striped towels, Edward's trunks and Judith's bathing costume. Beside the basket, weighted down with the brass letter-tray, was a note from Athena.

  Don't say we don't think of everything.

  Bathers at the ready to save you time.

  Come right away. No hanging about. X. Athena.

  Edward read this aloud. Judith said, ‘You'd better go.’

  But he clearly felt guilty about leaving her on her own. He put his hands on her shoulders and gazed down into her face. ‘Are you sure you'll be all right?’