As El drives towards Postbridge she notices the change in the seasons. When she drove down to bring the glad tidings of her exam results it was very hot. The countryside was languorous, dozing in the heat; tall foxgloves glowing against granite walls, creamy cow parsley nearly head high, sheep seeking shade under a thorn tree; the white vapour of a plane smudged across the blue board of the sky. Today the landscape looks as if it has been chalked in with a casual hand – dusty golds, faded pinks, bronze – and tattered clouds race before the strong south-westerly winds.
She drives through the village, passing the old clapper bridge, remembering journeys with her father, walks, picnics. In earlier days these had included her mother and Freddie, and it was odd and rather nice, after the divorce, to find that Pa was such a good companion, such fun to be with. Without her mother’s controlling influence, her irritation at any kind of foolishness, he was relaxed, funny, always ready for an unexpected jaunt.
Cloud shadows race across the tors and a flurry of crows disappear into Bellever Woods. El drives warily, always aware of the grazing sheep, the ponies cantering amongst the boulders at the road’s edge. She leaves Princetown away to the left and heads towards Tavistock. Soon she will turn off into smaller lanes and then she will be home. Her hands grip the wheel a little tighter. Angus’s text is comforting – Here if you need me – but she has to do this on her own. She doesn’t want to put on a brave face for Angus’s benefit; she needs to be able to react naturally.
She leaves the high moorland road behind her, passing between dry-stone walls and banks of furze, and now she is here, turning into the gateway that serves both properties, and then into the yard beside the Pig Pen. She parks in the small open-fronted barn, switches off the engine, opens the door and climbs out. It’s only a few weeks since Pa’s funeral but already everything seems different. There’s nothing now to distract her from the fact that she is here alone, the Pig Pen is hers, and she will never see Pa again.
She turns the key in the back door and lets herself into the utility room. It leads into a hall that divides the two bedrooms, each with its loo and shower. The Pig Pen and the Hen House were built as holiday lets and are practical and convenient. El drops her case just inside her bedroom, picks up some letters from the mat inside the front door, and climbs the wooden staircase that rises up to the big room, which is kitchen, dining-room and sitting-room. Its high roof, criss-crossed with heavy beams, has Velux windows, which fill the big space with light, and at the end is a sliding glass door that opens out on to a large paved area. At this end the ground floor of the house is built against the bank and there are steps leading down from the terrace into the small garden. Everything is paved to make upkeep simple, but the dry-stone walls support foxgloves, stonecrop, ivy-leaved toadflax and ferns, and the orchard with its old apple trees is a delight.
El stands beside the long wooden table separating the kitchen from the sitting-room, looking around her. Nothing has been changed since Pa died. Her own things, belongings that she’s left during the few years he has lived here, are here too. Her books are amongst his on the shelves, some pottery she bought at the Pannier Market in Tavistock is on the table, her shawl thrown across one of the two sofas. Oddly, her first reaction is a sudden weariness. It occurs to her that she has been fighting for years: fighting for her right to see Pa; fighting the pressure to accept her mother’s viewpoint; fighting the insidious feeling that she is disloyal. And all the while she’s had Pa at her back to lean against. Now she has the odd sensation that she is falling. Desolation seizes her and she feels afraid. What made her think she could do this? Is it simply stubbornness that led her to announce she intended to live in the Pig Pen; to try to make a life for herself here?
El looks up at the massive beams supporting the roof and then out on to the terrace where Pa has filled big terracotta pots with shrubs and bulbs. She glances down at the letters she is still holding in her hand: the usual circulars and advertising leaflets, Pa’s Dartmoor News magazine. One, however, is handwritten and addressed to her, so she drops the others on to the table and tears open the envelope. The address at the top of the single sheet of paper is ‘The Old Rectory’ and underneath is a telephone number. She reads the words.
‘Don’t be lonely, El. We would love to see you. We miss him, too, so stay in touch. Very much love, Tom and Cass xx’
El gives a little gasp – something between tears, laughter and relief. These are her father’s old friends, people that he loved and who loved him. She looks at her phone and rereads the text from Angus. Suddenly she is filled with courage. Presently she will make a plan: go shopping for supplies, let people know she is here. She turns and fills the kettle and switches it on. She is home.
The lunch party at the Bedford has reached the possibility of a pudding stage.
‘You haven’t told us how Plum is,’ Cass says. ‘Has Ian seen the Appointer yet?’
Angus lays down the menu. He’s delighted with the news that his son-in-law is to be posted back to the West Country, to Devonport, but ever since Plum told him the news he’s been turning an idea over in his mind. He wonders whether to share it with these two friends; to ask their advice.
‘He has. They’re coming back,’ he tells them. ‘Plum is so pleased. She’s coming down tomorrow. They wondered whether to let the London flat but I think now that they’ve decided to keep it for long leaves and for when the girls are home, and to look for somewhere small to rent down here. I had this idea that they could stay with me. After all, the house is plenty big enough so it’s silly for them to be renting. Ian will be at sea a great deal so it seems the obvious thing. What d’you think?’
‘I think it’s great that they’re coming back,’ answers Cass at once, ‘even if it’s just for a couple of years. That’s really good news. Why don’t you suggest that they stay with you until they find a place of their own and then let it gradually dawn on them that it’s not worth moving out? Especially if they’ve still got the flat in London to dash away to when he’s on leave, or for the theatre or to meet up with the girls.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ agrees Kate. ‘They won’t feel pressured and then they’ll begin to see that they have the best of both worlds. It’s like me. Living down on my rock in Cornwall and then coming back to stay with Cass and Tom when I need to party and see the family.’
‘How devious you are,’ observes Angus admiringly. ‘I would have just come straight out with it and put them on the spot.’
‘Will they be home in time for Christmas?’ asks Cass.
He nods happily. ‘It’s going to be a good one. They were still out in Washington last Christmas so we’ve got to make up for lost time.’
‘Excellent,’ says Kate. ‘It’s the sensible thing for them to come to you for Christmas and then you just let things take their course. There’s always my cottage, remember, if they decide to rent. I haven’t got new tenants yet.’
‘We must have a party,’ says Cass. ‘All of you and all of us…’
‘Not forgetting El,’ adds Kate, ‘though she might go back to her own family, I suppose.’
‘We must still make sure she knows she’s invited,’ says Cass firmly.
‘I think we need several parties,’ suggests Angus, entering into the spirit of this idea. ‘Plum is first class at parties.’
He thinks how wonderful it would be to have her back, filling his big, quiet house with her life-affirming presence, with her friends and their children. Plum is so positive, so all-embracing.
‘I think it’s the perfect answer all round,’ says Cass. ‘Ian will be off to sea and Plum will be missing both her girls now that Lauren’s gone off to uni, and didn’t you tell us that Alice is flat-sharing with a friend? Plum will be suffering from empty-nest syndrome. Anyway we need something to keep Tom cheerful. He’s doing his GOM thing about downsizing and it’s driving me mad.’
‘GOM?’ Angus is puzzled.
‘This man is hopeless,’ says Cass to Kate. ‘First FOMO. Now GOM. We need to take him in hand.’ She turns back to Angus. ‘Grumpy old man, darling. I can’t believe you didn’t know that.’
‘That’s the trouble with living with sailors,’ says Kate, smiling at Angus’s expression. ‘Have you never heard the definition of a conversation in the Mess? Insult, followed by personal abuse, followed by physical violence, but don’t take my word for it. Ask Plum or Ian. Now then. Who’s having a pudding?’