On the day before the eclipse the weather broke. Unrelenting rain beat down, turning the fields and the lane to mud and the tents to soggy masses of canvas. The skies remained heavy and grey as the forecast had predicted. General disappointment, as well as being continually wet, subdued the visitors.
On the morning itself, however, people rallied. Even if they missed the actual eclipse they were going to enjoy themselves and there was always hope the weather would blow itself out in time. Charlie directed his campers to various different beaches and coastlines, for then at least some of them might glimpse the actual event they’d travelled so far for.
Most of the village trailed under the grey sky along the coastal path which ran parallel to the Ellis’s land and down to the cove. The beach near Elan, locally known as Cow Beach, was also popular as it was more accessible than the cove where Shadow and Gabby walked and swam.
There were various parties going on in the village, but neither Charlie, Gabby nor Nell felt up to joining in. They were still shaken, and although they had all spoken to Josh on the phone once he was back in Kuwait, such was their level of terror over the four days he was missing that it was no longer easy to relax back into a normal routine.
The amount of people who had flooded the village and countryside, the unaccustomed noise and air of expectancy, disturbed Gabby. It felt as if she had entered a nightmare, and when she’d woken up her world had changed and the isolation she depended on had disappeared and been replaced by a strange circus. All she wanted was to have her quiet and steady world back, to see and touch Josh so that she knew he really was all right; safe and himself.
She walked with Nell and Charlie down to the cove although the cloud did not look as if it would clear. Elan was going to watch it from his cottage on the hill.
‘It is a pity,’ Nell said, ‘when it has been so hot and clear.’
As they descended the cliff path they saw a mass of small boats in the bay that had sailed and motored round from the harbour. There were bright-coloured sails everywhere and the small day ferries were full of visitors who wanted to watch the eclipse from the water.
It all looked so festive and celebratory that Gabby stopped and stared around her at the cheerful excited little groups waiting by the ocean.
Why could she not feel happy and jubilant? Why wouldn’t this tension leave her? She had spoken to Josh that morning. He was going about his normal duties after only forty-eight hours. But today he had a day off and he and some friends were driving off to some beach to drink beer and swim.
England and the eclipse seemed so far away, he told Gabby. Like another world. He was looking forward to some leave. It felt bizarre to Gabby. Days before his life had hung in the balance and twenty-four hours later he was going on as if nothing had happened.
‘Well, that’s the army isn’t it?’ Nell had said crossly.
Gabby moved away across the sand to stand on her own. She needed space between herself and other people. As the eerie darkness approached and the sun was eclipsed, the sea birds fell silent and the water lay in front of her like molten glass. People gazed upward through glasses, the small boats were still and silhouetted into black and white, captured like an aged photograph.
It all felt surreal; the silence of the birds; the darkness. Gabby felt caught and trapped in an unmapped landscape. She felt an unnatural lament begin low and deep inside her. It burrowed up from somewhere unknown and seemed to encapsulate not only the anguish of Josh’s capture but all the moments of isolation and fear and unknown dread that had lingered like some shapeless and malignant shadow on the pathways of her life.
Josh was safe. But the fear, the terrible presentiment of disaster remained lingering and clutching at her entrails, nebulous and unformed. The reality of his release and safety could not touch her yet. Overwrought, she remained in a state of inner terror.
She tried to subdue this chilling sound inside her, moved further towards the rocks. The cloud cover had hidden the sight of the eclipse from the watchers gazing skywards in the cove, and a small sigh of disappointment filtered like a rippled echo along the shoreline.
When the wounded sound escaped from Gabby it came as harsh as a seagull’s cry. She terrified Charlie and Nell who jumped and turned towards her in horror as Gabby crumpled onto the sand. Gabby was aware of nothing, no one; she was that primitive howl of despair, enveloped inside it to the exclusion of all else.
Nell moved quickly over the wet sand and bent and held Gabby to her, but the painful racking sound only increased. Charlie stood ashen, embarrassed, watching Gabby lose complete control. He was appalled and frightened for Gabby and for the effect that rhythmic sobbing started to have on his own self-control.
He could feel the tears begin to choke him; for Gabby’s distress, for his own, and for the crisis they had just been through together. For the son they had so nearly lost. He walked across the sand and put his arms around Gabby, and Nell, surprised, moved away.
‘Enough,’ Charlie said softly. ‘Enough, Gab. It’s all over now. Gabby … it’s over.’
Nell saw how choked he was, fighting with his own emotions, and she turned and left them in a little crumpled heap on the wet sand. She laboured up the cliff path feeling very old.
A little group of neighbours caught her up and she was touched to see how concerned they were, carefully circling Charlie and Gabby.
‘Poor little thing.’
‘Dear of her.’
‘Your Charlie will see she’s right.’
‘Thank the Lord it ended well, Nell.’
‘Very best to that grandson of yours when you next talk, Nell.’
‘Shaken up, I’ll bet he is, poor soul.’
And so Nell reached the top of the cliff path, glad to be reminded of the kindness of strangers as she headed for the blessed stillness of her cottage.
Gabby turned close into Charlie like a child and let him hold her. She could feel the hammering of his heart and his own sniffing. At this moment he was the only person in the world who knew exactly how she felt, who could share this with her, and she clutched him until she was calm. When they both looked round the cove it was completely empty of people and of boats. They were completely alone.
Charlie kissed her forehead. ‘Better?’
Gabby nodded and looked at him, and it seemed to her she had not looked at him for a long, long time. She could not read his eyes, they were dark and careful; wary, maybe. She kissed him gently on the mouth and Charlie kissed her back, and they went on kissing and suddenly they were on their backs in the sand, desperately pulling at each other’s clothes, unaware of anything but the need for the other. It was fast and passionate, both of them active and involved in a way they had never been in the whole of their married life.
When it was over they looked at each other rather shocked, and laughed, embarrassed, adjusting their clothes, brushing the wet clinging sand from their limbs. Then they climbed up the path together in silence, feeling strange.
Gabby could feel Charlie looking at her sideways, but he said nothing. She moved closer to him as they walked, puzzled about her own feelings, and Charlie jumped as she brushed against him, moved imperceptibly away, yet Gabby felt it.
She thought suddenly, blindingly, it is like two strangers having sex. Afterwards they are awkward and have nothing to say to each other, and the man wonders, What demands is this woman going to make on me now?
She stopped on the path and turned to look at him, and Charlie stopped too and could not meet her eyes. She wanted to laugh gently and say, Don’t worry, Charlie, I am not going to cling and demand and change the order of our undemanding marriage. You are safe.
But what she actually said was, ‘Shall we ring Elan, cook that goose, open a good bottle of wine and then the four of us can have our own little eclipse party, to toast Josh?’
Charlie grinned, relief lighting his face. ‘Good idea. We’ll knock on Nell’s door as we pass.’
Gabby turned the Aga up high and went to have a bath. From the bedroom she looked over the waterlogged fields. The clouds had lifted and the evening looked like a vast watercolour painting. She did not know how long she stood there. She did not consciously think at all, just let what she had learnt today settle and filter through her into a form of understanding.
There were some things that did not translate immediately; they needed to lie still in some inner place until she could fathom the full implications. Gabby knew she hurt because of this new abrupt understanding of Charlie, and yet in a strange way the pain was welcome because it put everything else into context.
It pared away this mellow sadness. For a moment, maybe that was all it had been, a moment, she had felt down there in the cove that there was something left for her and Charlie. On the path home she had looked into his eyes and realized it was not true. It had all been illusory, the rawness of heightened emotion. It felt, in the second Charlie could not meet her eyes, like a slap in the face.
Gabby pulled on clean jeans and a shirt and went down into the kitchen and placed the goose into the oven. Charlie was nowhere to be seen. She peeled potatoes and washed vegetables then she laid the table with all the best silver, glass and linen. She went into the garden and picked bright nasturtiums for the table. She placed candles alongside them. She leant against the sink and viewed the kitchen, full of warm cooking smells. The round table looked as good as a Sunday-supplement photograph. The room was reflected in the window. Outside the sun set, and she could see Charlie and Matt talking behind the cows.
Under her feet, the huge slate flagstones of the old farmhouse. Gabby swallowed. This perfect scene was the one she always used to strive for. Perfect marriage. Perfect home. Welcoming and secure for Josh. Without love it was as unreal and as fleeting as this afternoon.
A mirage, too easily created by superficial things without any real substance or painful hard work. Flowers on a bright tablecloth, glass and silver. A lamp shining into dark corners where the dust collects.
A deception. A revelation.
It hurts. Because I made this whole flimsy fantasy my life’s work.
She watched Nell walking from her cottage in a new dress, saw her stop and talk to Matt and Charlie and then move across the yard towards the back door. Gabby’s heart ached, for Nell would see this as the celebration it was meant to be and not the goodbye Gabby knew it really was.
She left the room and climbed the stairs with her mobile phone. In her room she dialled Mark’s mobile number, not knowing if he would be there or whether he would have flown back to Canada.
She trembled as it rang. The longing to hear his voice was overpowering. At last he answered and she could not speak.
‘Gabriella? Is that you, my love?’
The strength, the warmth behind his voice made her collapse on the bed.
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘Oh, how good to hear you!’
‘And you. Oh! And you.’
‘I am so, so glad Josh is safe. Are you all right, sweetheart?’
‘Just. Mark, I need to see you.’
‘I’m here.’
‘I’m very muddled.’
‘I’m not surprised!’ There was laughter in his voice and Gabby smiled.
‘I thought of coming … maybe tomorrow …’
Nell called up the stairs.
‘Mark … I have to go.’
‘Just e-mail or ring with train times and I’ll meet you, my Gabriella …’
‘Goodnight,’ she whispered.
‘Goodnight … I love you so very much.’
Just hearing Mark’s voice again took Gabby back to a point of safety.
Charlie would never know how willing she had been as she lay on the cold wet sand, how willing, as they engaged each other physically and emotionally for the first time, to try anew, to make solid and tangible the fleeting act that had been the only real and true moment in the whole of their detached and undemanding marriage.
In that second of complete clarity, as Gabby felt Charlie withdraw from her in embarrassment, she had understood that it was not that Charlie did not want to give emotionally. It was simply that he did not love her.
She ran down the stairs. Tonight would not be a charade, for every person in the room was a part of her. She wanted to remember and be remembered for the evening of the eclipse, when Josh was safe, drinking beer in some Middle Eastern resort, and she and Nell, Charlie and Elan were last all together in the life she and Charlie had grown out of.