Hidden away in the lanes above Buckfastleigh, in the pretty little Georgian house at the end of the mossy drive, Davy Callaghan strides up and down the old-fashioned square kitchen, pausing at intervals to grip the back of the Windsor chair at the head of the old farmhouse table so as to emphasize a point.
‘It’s just silly of you to go on being so stubborn,’ he cries. ‘The job might be made for you, Jules. At least let me put your name forward. You were brilliant at presenting Cakes and Ale. What’s the matter with you?’
He stares crossly at Julia as she continues to roll out pastry, chop ingredients, pauses to brush back a strand of hair with a floury wrist.
‘I’ve told you,’ she says patiently. ‘I’ve done it. Been there. Got the T-shirt. I’m tired of sitting in meetings with mere children who say, “It’s so last year to have a brain, darling. Just look everything up on Google.”’
‘I don’t believe you,’ he answers flatly. ‘You love it. It’s something else. These last few months you’ve been in the dumps. You can’t just sit around out here in the middle of nowhere staring at the wall.’
‘I don’t intend to. I’ve always been freelance and I shan’t change now. I intend to write some articles on famous local people for Devon Life.’
‘It’s been done,’ he says flatly.
‘OK.’ She laughs at him. ‘Then I’ll think of something else.’
‘And meantime you’ll just live here on your own?’
‘I’ve got the boys,’ she counters.
He snorts. ‘Only in the holidays. Remember, they’re both away now, not at school any more. They’ll be off any time soon. I can’t think why you haven’t married again. It must be nearly ten years since poor old Bob got written off in that awful crash.’
‘You know why I don’t,’ she says calmly. ‘I told you once before that I lose my half of his naval pension if I marry again and I haven’t met a man yet that’s worth it.’
‘Haven’t you?’ he asks, watching her. ‘I’ve sometimes wondered if that’s absolutely true.’
She turns her back on him, washing her hands at the Belfast sink, drying them on a towel and hanging it back on the Aga rail.
‘Don’t tell me. The famous Callaghan intuition at work again?’ she asks lightly. ‘Doing your Mystic Meg thing?’
He pulls out the chair and sits down in it. He looks serious, even anxious.
‘Are you sure you’re OK, Jules?’ he asks. ‘I’ve been worried about you this last couple of months.’
She leans back against the Aga, smiling at him. ‘Perhaps you’re right and it’s empty-nest syndrome. Ollie going off to uni this term. Laurence joining his regiment. It’s odd here without them. Don’t know what I’d do without Bertie.’
At the sound of his name the big golden retriever, lying in his basket, thumps his tail a few times, and Davy shakes his head.
‘Isn’t that just what I’m saying?’ he asks irritably. ‘That’s why I thought you’d be pleased. The timing of this new production is perfect.’
‘Don’t go on, Dave,’ she says.
Her voice has changed, not light-hearted now, and he looks at her quickly.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘Forget it. Now. I’m taking you out to lunch. No arguments.’
‘No arguments,’ she agrees. ‘We’ll go up to the Church House at Holne. But first, have some more coffee and tell me all the goss!’
As she watches and listens to him, smiling in all the right places, Julia’s thinking of Martin: of his quick wit, his sense of fun, his readiness for a jaunt. She wishes that she’d told Davy about Martin way back so that she could have the relief of talking about him now, but she and Martin agreed that nobody should know. Martin was protecting El and she was protecting her boys. Ollie and Laurence would have been shocked to think of another man taking their father’s place. They idolized their father. There were photographs everywhere of him in uniform, on the aircraft carrier, beside his helicopter. And she sympathized with Martin about his reluctance to tell his daughter that there was another woman in his life. He was honest about the reasons for his divorce: how he’d been unfaithful to Felicity on one brief occasion with an old friend. She was grieving, her husband far away, and he was lonely. Although this moment of mutual comfort and affection was immediately regretted by both of them, it was enough to show Martin the emptiness of his marriage. When, a few months later, he told Felicity that the marriage was over, his wife assumed he was having an affair and he made no attempt to deny it although it wasn’t true. He moved out whilst the divorce was going through and it was at that time that he and Julia met.
‘El’s been so loyal since Felicity and I separated,’ he told Julia, ‘and I can’t quite bring myself to explain it all to her. She believes that I had an affair and it was just a short-term thing. Maybe later on I’ll tell her the truth…’
She was quick to agree with him, imagining the boys’ faces if she tried to talk to them about Martin. And so the time passed. They made a pact that they would tell them all once Oliver went off to university. Then all three of them would have started their own lives and should be able to accept that their parents had needs of their own. Except that it hadn’t worked out like that.
Davy is watching her, looking quizzically at her, and Julia guesses that she’s missed her cue and he’s noticed that she’s not concentrating.
‘There’s something wrong,’ he says. ‘I know it. All I’m saying is that I’m here when you’re ready to talk about it. No pressure. Just putting it out there.’
‘Thanks, Dave,’ she answers. ‘The truth is, it’s not just my secret. Maybe one day…’
Treacherous tears are rising, her throat is closing up. It’s terrible to miss someone so much but to have no right to express her grief. They were so successful at keeping their love a secret. It almost seemed a part of its charm. Silly messages, coded texts, random meetings: it was like a game. Yet their feelings for each other were so strong: that irresistible fusion of compatibility, of being totally understood, totally known.
‘It’s like being recognized at last after years of being alone,’ Martin said. ‘And being appreciated. It’s like I’m being allowed to be me, even encouraged, instead of living in an atmosphere of permanent disdain. Like sunshine after years and years of rain.’
‘I know.’ She held him tightly, wondering how she would cope with the boys, with everyone knowing.
He let her go and smiled at her. ‘Felicity has wanted to move back to Dorchester for a while and now she has the perfect excuse. But she’ll never forgive me. If I’m truthful I don’t want her to. We should never have married. She knows that. Secretly she despises me. But she would hate to stay around here and face the reaction of her friends. Felicity hates failure.’
‘So what is she going to do?’
‘Her mother died last year. She’s going back to Dorchester to be with her father, who isn’t terribly well. Freddie’s at uni and El is at boarding school, so I hope it won’t be too traumatic for them.’
Now, aware that Davy is watching her, Julia blows her nose and tries to smile at him.
‘Don’t say anything,’ she says. ‘I promise that when I feel ready to talk it will be to you. I know it’s girly and boring being like this but…’
‘OK,’ he says. ‘But remember I’m always here if you need me.’
His kindness touches her and quite suddenly she gives in.
‘Oh hell,’ she says. ‘OK. There’s been this man for years now but we had reasons for keeping it secret. He died a couple of months ago, unexpectedly.’
It’s odd that now she’s spoken the words she feels calmer. Davy, on the other hand, is looking horrified.
‘My darling girl,’ he says, stretching a hand across the table to her. ‘How unutterably bloody. And you haven’t said a word. For Christ’s sake, surely you could have told me?’
She squeezes his hand and lets it go. ‘I could have, but when I found out, Laurence was just back from Sandhurst and Ollie was around all the time and I just didn’t dare let myself go. I knew if I told you I’d be all over the place. I’ve been here before, remember, and I know how hard it is for other people.’
Sensing the change of atmosphere, Bertie heaves himself up and comes across to lean against her chair and Julia digs her fingers into his thick ruff. She knows that Davy is one of the few people she could confide in without risking the pitfalls that go with sharing the pain of bereavement. He won’t over-emote or do that awful competitive grieving thing, he’ll just be there, but even so she needs to feel strong. It’s odd that it’s so easy to feel even weaker after sharing these feelings than before, and it’s perilously difficult to get the timing right.
‘It’s complicated,’ she says. ‘Nobody knows about us. I didn’t even know he was dead until I saw his obit in the Western Morning News.’
Davy buries his head in his hands. ‘Jesus!’
‘I know.’ She sits in silence for a moment. ‘I went to his funeral in Tavistock.’
Davy raises his head and stares at her. ‘Seriously?’
She nods. ‘All the details were in the paper. I just slipped in at the back of the church when a group of people were going in and sat behind a pillar. I had to, Dave. I just needed to say goodbye, I suppose. And even then I could hardly believe it. It happened so quickly. We’d made a plan to meet and he didn’t turn up, but even then I wasn’t too worried. He didn’t get much time off except at weekends and I just thought something had cropped up. You know?’
‘I’m trying to imagine it,’ he answers.
‘I know it sounds bizarre,’ she says, ‘but we both understood it. To begin with we were both in the same boat with children to think about and then it kind of morphed into a pattern.’
‘And nobody recognized you? At the funeral?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not like I’m famous or anything. I’ve only done very local stuff.’
‘Cakes and Ale was very popular.’
‘Yes, but luckily it was nearly a year ago and my hair’s shorter now. It was a very hot day so I could wear dark specs. Afterwards I waited till nearly everybody had gone before I came out of church and then I just slipped down the side path and vanished away into the town.’ There’s a little silence. ‘Sorry,’ she says at last. ‘Honestly, Dave, I didn’t mean to drain down on you.’
He shakes his head. ‘It seems to me that some people get all the shit.’
‘You’ve had your share, too. When Phil walked out on you.’
‘Yes, but that was different. Phil and I were like an ongoing sitcom. Everyone knew about it. They were taking bets about how long we’d last.’
She turns to smile at him. ‘You’re better off without him.’
He gets up, walks round the table and holds his arms out.
‘Come here,’ he says. Bertie gets up, too, and butts his head against their legs. ‘You, too, Bertie. Group hug. Are you sure you’re up for the pub?’
She nods. ‘We’ll give Bertie a walk in Hembury Woods on the way.’
But she holds on to him for a moment longer, feeling comforted by his presence. It’s impossible to think she won’t see Martin again, share the jokes, talk about books, walk together on the moor. It’s different somehow from Bob’s death. He took risks, accidents happened, and she was always braced for the news of disaster. Martin was a country solicitor: a gentle, quiet, scholarly man. This sudden dramatic ending seems so out of character for him.
She lets Davy go but she can see that he is wrestling with what she’s told him. His thin eager face is alive with speculation.
‘So are you telling me that you have no contact at all with anyone? Not a single soul? You must have phoned him? Texted him? It’ll be there in his phone.’
He’s hit on her one real anxiety. She thinks of all the texts: plans to meet.
‘Even with that we were careful,’ she says. ‘We kept it brief, almost in code. They might have been from anyone.’
‘But the number,’ he insists. ‘Your number and your name will be in the phone. So no one’s contacted you?’
She shakes her head. ‘We just used our initials. Martin had a work phone. I know that. But I don’t know what happened to his private one.’
‘So what if you get the call one of these days and somebody says, “Hello. I’ve got your number here. Who are you?” what will you say?’
She groans. ‘Don’t. You can’t imagine how awful it is. The terrible finality of it and having no rights. Sometimes I just long to hear from his daughter. He loved her so much. Part of me thinks that she’d understand how it was, but another part of me fears that she might be upset that he kept our relationship a secret. Or perhaps she might be jealous. I have no idea how this works. But the silence is odd because I assumed that she’d contact everyone in his address book. I’ve been on tenterhooks.’
‘It’s a reasonable assumption,’ agrees Davy. ‘My poor old darling. This is hell for you.’
‘Oh, don’t, Dave,’ she says. ‘Don’t be kind or I’ll start crying and then I might never stop. Let’s go for that walk.’
He begins to clear the coffee things, stacking them on the draining board, and she feels a rush of affection for him, and gratitude. Now she doesn’t feel quite so alone. She knows she can trust Davy and, even more importantly, she has someone to whom she can talk about Martin.