As he goes up the path he stiffens, tense. He calls out quietly but with such urgency that she comes at once: ‘Frieda! Frieda!’
She appears at the door, squinting a little against the sun.
‘Come here. No, not that way – come round by me. Look! Can you see her?’
Frieda pads lightly across the hummocky grass and potato hills. She looks where he points, and her tawny eyes dilate. A little slim black and yellow adder has poured herself up from a crack in the wall and is coiling on a warm stone. Her blunt head makes soft stabbing motions into the air, butting against its new summery warmth as a lamb butts the udder playfully before it seizes the nipple.
‘Ah, she is beautiful!’ breathes Frieda.
He watches, and frowns. ‘There may be a nest of ’em in under the wall,’ he says dryly. ‘Should you like that?’
‘I have never seen one so close. See! There is her tongue.’
‘William Henry would tell me to poke out the nest. There’s a plague of adders on these hills. They bite the sheep.’
‘Sheep!’ exclaims Frieda scornfully. ‘Often I think I should like to bite a sheep myself, they are so stupid.’
The little adder flicks her tail lightly to and fro.
‘She knows we’re near,’ says Lawrence. ‘She can sense us.’
The warm wind stirs again, carrying a dark brown spice of wallflowers.
‘Smell those gillivors,’ he mutters. ‘They always make me think of my mother’s garden. She would stop still and shut her eyes to smell them.’
He is back in the small dark-soiled garden in Eastwood, treading the cinder-path to where his mother stands stock-still and oblivious of him. Her white apron blows in the spring wind, and the noise of the pit’s winding-gear grates through the piping of a robin hidden in a blackberry-bush. In a minute she’ll turn and see him.
‘Mother!’
But he has not spoken aloud. Frieda leans against him, watching the snake as she coils again, showing her belly, her deaf body uneasy as she picks up the vibration of their voices.
‘She’s going.’
The snake’s body elongates like water, tilts and disappears. Frieda steps over and lays her hand on the stone where the snake has been, but there’s nothing but the stone’s own warmth and smoothness. She looks up at Lawrence and laughs. Her face is flushed from stooping and from the excitement of the snake, and her eyes glow.
‘Lorenzo, do you know who she reminded me of, that snake?’
He smiles, and shakes his head.
‘Katherine. Don’t you think so?’
Her mention of Katherine presses lightly on the bruise of anger he still feels towards both the Murrys after their rejection of Zennor. But Frieda is beautiful in the sunshine.
‘I suppose Katherine might be an adder. Slim, and quick, and a bit wicked.’
‘And her black hair, so sleek and smooth.’
‘Yes. It’s true that she likes to be by herself. She hates people to touch her except when she chooses.’
‘Or she will bite.’
‘She can certainly bite. Frieda, you know that girl I was telling you about – Clare?’
‘Yes? Why?’
‘You will like her. I am sure you will like her.’
His face is warm and eager, but Frieda is cautious. Will this be another of these girls who sit at Lorenzo’s feet and wonder why Frieda is not safely out of the way doing the cooking?
‘She needs to meet a woman like you,’ he goes on. ‘It will open her eyes.’
‘Oh,’ mocks Frieda, opening her own fierce eyes wide. ‘Is that what it will do?’
Reluctantly, he grins back. She tucks her hand into his arm and pushes back the hair which is always breaking into curls on her forehead.
‘I’m glad you called me to see the snake,’ she says.
The wind blows at night, but by day it’s calm. The weather is extraordinary: everyone remarks on it. In London, ladies note it in their diaries. Perhaps it’s something to do with the war. Or perhaps it’s just that people notice things more now, when they are living in a time out of time? In the parks the wounded lie out on chairs in their blue uniform with red ties. Three men hop on their crutches, swiping at a rag ball which rolls and bounces between them. They have three legs between them. The spare leg of their blue uniform trousers is pinned neatly at the top of the thigh. They look just like crickets, thinks a nursemaid as she pulls a dense creamy fold of new wool blanket up to the lips of her charge. She pats the warm hump of his bottom. He sleeps on, whole and perfect from his bunched fists to his dwindling, purple-blotched legs. She’ll take him back another way, so as not to go past the men on crutches again. There is something frightening to her in their nimbleness. And there’s the way they look at her as she sways past them pushing the perambulator, her white skirt creaking faintly under its tight belt, her cheeks pinkening. There’s a flat, dark look in their eyes, as if they do not see her, or as if they do not like what they see. She will go round here, and back by the pond. The extra turn will be good for baby.
Eight
Clare snaps fully awake at quarter to six in her dark room. She’s had to change her white lace curtains for chenille because of the war. No one must show a light to U-boats lying out in the Channel, sinking ship after ship after ship, creeping in at night to refuel at secret dumps along the miles of toothed coastline, fed by the Unseen Hand of German collaborators, a cancer working in the body militant, a nest to be smoked out by every observant man, woman and child. Or so they say. Clare hates the blotting out of her landscape of clouds and sea. The chenille is stuffy and faded, and, even though she aired the curtains in the sun for a full day before hanging them, a smell of must seeps out of them and taints the room.
She pads round her bed and swishes the curtains right back. There it is, her bowlful of sky and sea. The sun has risen behind the house, throwing long shadows down the hill in front of her. Everything is moist, fresh, dipped in new light. There are still some curls of mist over the sea, but they are clearing fast. It’s going to be hot again. There’s dew on her lettuces in the little kitchen garden over the lane, and her marigolds are already lolling open where the morning sun touches them. They look ripe, like fruit. Sheba picks her way immaculately through the wet grass, her tail twitching. She senses the movement of Clare in the window and looks up, then steps off again, lightly, as if she’s just confirmed her opinion that Clare is not worth bothering about. At the horizon the sea is purple, but within the bay it is a dark, breathing blue. The tide’s still going out. Clare clatters the sash window up and leans out. There’s the milk-cart labouring its way up the hill, with Joss walking at Sally’s head, talking to her so that the mare won’t notice how steep a climb it is, how often she’s done it, how tired she is. The white spots on his red neckerchief stand out like daisies on a lawn. Sally has her head down, shuddering, bracing herself. She’s getting too old for this, but you can’t get a decent horse for love or money, not with what he can afford, not with the war, Joss says each morning as he pours a long white tongue of milk into Clare’s jug.
Clare will go out. She can’t wait to be out of the house, away from this frowst of curtains and stale air. Down there to her right all the cottages hump, still sleeping. No, not quite all. The first smoke goes up from a stubby chimney wedged into a slate roof. Father’s still asleep, in his dark red bedroom at the back of the house, closed in against the rising sun. He has had black shades fitted to his windows, because his eyes are sensitive to light. He won’t get up for hours yet, and when he does he’ll meander down to the kitchen in his Paisley silk dressing-gown (because it isn’t one of Hat’s days) and make tea for himself, whistling between his teeth, book in one hand. He doesn’t sleep well, and Daylight Saving makes it even worse for him. She never sees him before eight, and it will be later today. She didn’t hear him come in last night, even though she lay there, half dozing, half waiting, on edge. But before the door snicked she fell asleep, into heavy confused dreams which still
hang about her now.
She stretches to shake away the dreams. The clean wooden boards under the window feel cool and smooth to her bare feet. She’s glad she got rid of her childhood oilcloth. Now she is flooded with quick relief at simply being awake in her plain white room, with the breeze stirring just a little and the summer air flooding in. She pours water into her ewer and swooshes it over face and neck. It’s silky. She soaps her arms and breasts and rinses them with her flannel while her night-dress slowly slithers past her waist and buttocks and into a heap around her feet. She catches sight of herself in the glass: her pinkish nipples are stiff from the cold water. Real red-head’s nipples, Hannah calls them. Her breasts are mapped with blue veins. Clare has never liked to ask if this is ugly, or not. Her shoulders please her, and her neck, and the small delicate moulding of her collar-bones. But she is not sure about her breasts, and perhaps her arms are too thin.
Today, though, her face is at its best. Her cheeks are firm, with all the contours perfectly in place, not squashed or swollen, or somehow disfigured as they are on bad mornings. She’s even got a little colour. It’s only from the splash of cold water, but it suits her. What a pity no one else will see it. By the time she goes downstairs, she will be back to smooth pallor. She must remember to put Vaseline on her lashes tonight, to make them grow thick. She keeps forgetting. This is Peggy’s tip: it will work wonders, she says, and it’s much cheaper than Lasholene. Clare leans in close to her looking-glass and stares into her own eyes. Yes, it’s a very good day. Today you could call her eyes blue. Dark blue. It’s because she has some colour in her cheeks. Perhaps she ought to rouge – girls do now, and no one notices. But how lovely it is this morning to be Clare Coyne. She hugs herself tightly, crossing her legs for a faint, familiar stir of pleasure. She rubs her face against the inside of her arm where her flesh is silkiest. The smell of her skin pleases her, with its trace of night-warmth under the fresh soap. It’s a shame to put on clothes on a day like this. And she has nothing right for summer. Everything is worn out, after three years of war and pinched income and rising prices. If only she could cut out like Hannah. A cream flannel skirt four inches above the ankle, with a broad scarlet leather belt and a tussore-silk blouse… But that one outfit would cost more than Clare spends on clothes in a whole season. And scarlet would clash with her hair. She scrambles into her old navy middy blouse and navy skirt and twists her hair into a knot without plaiting it.
Nothing can weigh down her lightness this morning. This old skirt fits perfectly, showing off the narrow waist which is one of her good points, making her aware at every moment of her young, firm body. She bends to pick up her hairbrush with a flourish of suppleness. Thank God for a body which is beautifully balanced and will do everything she wants. She makes her morning offering swiftly, obliquely. Should you thank God for the size of your waist? Why not? Maybe He’s glad of it too. There are enough thick waists in this world and Heaven too, surely, thinks Clare.
The beach is ridged and wet with retreating sea. A black-headed gull glides, stabs at something behind the rocks, then wheels up, crying mournfully. Clare walks down towards the softly collapsing waves. Everything gleams like pearl, like the beginning of the world. Now she has her back to the land, and there’s nothing between herself and the sea. The sun is warm on her back. She has eaten and drunk nothing. She is purified and ready to receive. The little waves come to the turn, bow down, come to the turn, bow down. Their lace spreads fan-like around her scuffed boots. She wants nothing but this, to stand by the slowly falling sea and watch black glistening humps of rock appear like seals’ heads, streaming with weed and water.
‘It’s Clarey, isn’t it?’
It’s John William. She should have known it was bound to be him. The jolt in her heart was recognition, not shock. It’s like this when you’ve known all along someone will come. For a moment she can’t speak. He comes up alongside, very close to her, and she moves half a step away. He is huge. Even on the wide beach he crowds her.
‘How are you, John William?’
He smiles at her. The points of his teeth show. He’s so close that she sees how his eyes are mazed with tiny red blood-vessels all around the iris.
‘I’m not so clever this morning,’ he says. ‘We made a night of it last night, me and Albert and Jo and George.’
‘What time did you get in?’
‘They set off back around midnight. To be skinned alive by Aunt Annie, I daresay. I went walking.’
‘You haven’t been to bed?’
No, he hasn’t. Those prickling red eyes, too steady and bright. His hair’s matted, not combed. And he smells of beer and smoke. He never used to drink beer. It was always cider with the boys, when they could get away from Grandad.
‘I don’t know where I went,’ says John William. He rocks on his boots, staring, pleased with himself, stiff and rigid as a dummy in that carcass of a uniform, stinking of drink. Pleased with himself he might well be, thinks Clare, crashing his way across the countryside thinking of nothing and no one but himself. Yes, he’s got that look on him. A pinched yellow look round his nose. A couple of years ago that would have meant a fight, but I suppose now he’s had enough of fighting.
‘You should take more care,’ she says sharply. ‘It’s a miracle you didn’t fall over the cliffs.’
John William glances round the bay. ‘Here’s your miracle, if you want miracles,’ he says.
She knew he would feel it as she does. How often have they come down here, John William barefoot, before anyone else was awake, to fish off the rocks?
‘Why should I be here?’ he asks, staring round him. ‘Can you tell me that, Clarey?’
‘Why should anyone?’ she says. ‘But you are here.’
Still she is not sure. Is he? He doesn’t seem very present. He is as temporary as a ghost.
A ghost let in, touched, talked to. Let in once a year to eat food put out by the family. There is no sense in it. How can we still have leaves and train time-tables and welcomes? How can we expect to be glad when everyone we love is going to be dragged away from us?
‘I went somewhere high up, I do remember that,’ says John William.
‘What, last night?’
‘Yes. I can hear it now. There was a noise of sea in front of me, and something else behind me. A woman’s voice, singing.’
‘You’d been drinking. Or else it was a mermaid.’
‘No, it didn’t come from the sea,’ he says. ‘It came from the land behind me. I couldn’t hear it quite clearly. It was a thin little voice – a foreign voice.’
‘Where had you got to? You ought to know that.’
He smiles. ‘I do. But I thought that if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.’ Now he sounds like himself again. The bragging note has gone out of his voice.
‘Where?’
‘Above Pendour Cove.’
She laughs. ‘However in the world did you get up there?’
‘Looking for something I’d lost.’
‘Were you? What was that, John William?’
‘Why didn’t you come down last night, Clarey? I was looking out for my little cousin, and then you never came?’
His voice blurs sentimentally. She looks at him and realizes he’s still slightly drunk, even now after what must have been a fourteen-mile walk. That’s why he’s talking so much. Perhaps it’s why he came to talk to her in the first place. That’s why he went to Pendour Cove to look for the mermaid.
‘You ought to get to bed, John William. You need some sleep.’
‘I can’t sleep,’ he says. His eyes are suddenly empty of life. He sways a little. A small wave rushes around their boots, the last try of an ebbing tide.
‘Waste of time to sleep anyway,’ he goes on. ‘I’ve only got forty-eight hours at home. Let’s sit down by the rocks.’
The rocks are warm already. They sit facing the sea, with a pool below them where pale red anemones pulse and fray in the current of falling water. The sun falls delic
iously on Clare’s face. She’ll freckle without her hat. Never mind. She shuts her eyes. This is just like when they were little, stealing out of Nan’s with the boys, to hunt in the rock-pools at low tide when she was supposed to be going to bed.
But John William is restless beside her. He hoists himself down to the pool and kneels beside it to cup sea-water in his hands and sluice his face and the back of his neck. His hair is cut brutally short, bristling and stubby around the nape, a stubble through which she can see his scalp. All his beautiful soft black hair chopped to nothing. And all its shine is gone. It looks dead. He grins up at her.
‘That’s better!’
‘They cut your hair too short,’ she says. ‘It’s a shame.’
‘You wouldn’t say that, if you saw the lice we have out there. When you wash your clothes, you have to press all along the seams – like this – so it kills them.’
‘How horrible!’
He laughs. ‘It’s just the way it is. Better’n getting typhoid.’
She looks down on him, hunkered by the pool, splashing himself and puffing out sea-water. He is busy and blind as a badger. The spread of his back and haunches looks scarcely human. He’s undone his collar and rolled up his sleeves. His arms are brown, with fine black hair on the backs of them glistening with water, and his neck is pale where the deep line of tan stops. He’s darker than she’s ever seen him, but it’s not the fine-grained salt and air tan he gets from working up at the farm with Albert and Jo and George on summer Sundays, helping with the hay harvest. Now his colour is mahogany, rich and somehow crude, as if it’s a boot-polish he’s rubbed into himself. His clear Red Indian look is blunted by the filling out of his face. His head looks small somehow, and again, animalish, quick and a bit frightening on his thick shoulders. She would not want to touch him now. His white teeth show as he calls up, ‘Feels a treat!’