CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Knowing that her father-in-law was a man who liked a quiet start to his day, Tilda made sure that she did not interfere with his routine. As usual, when Jake woke just after six o’clock, she changed and fed him and then went down to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea, which she took back to her big bedroom on the north-west corner of the west wing. She loved this room with its views over Porlock Bay and delighted in the fact that it was hardly changed since it had belonged to David. From a small boy he’d loved the idea of sleeping alone in this wing, of having this floor of the house to himself: these were his own quarters and the bedroom his private sanctuary. Sue had redecorated it once he’d gone to Sandhurst, covering the scarred, Blu-Tacked walls with a warm cream paint and buying new thick rugs in shades of terracotta to hide the worn, stained carpet. She’d sanded down and re-polished the old mahogany desk, which had belonged to David’s great-grandfather – and after whom he was named – and consigned the war-weary crew of Action Men and their weapons to a wicker basket at the back of the big cupboard, which doubled as a wardrobe. This was as much as she was allowed to do (‘For God’s sake, Mother, don’t go all girlie on me!’) and Tilda was comforted to see his battered old tuck-box stuck about with labels, and the bookcase holding the familiar titles sharing the shelves with the dog-eared comics that he’d loved so much. Even the double bed had been David’s, for he’d fought against it being changed for a single one when he’d inherited the room at eight years old.

‘I like having lots of space,’ he’d pleaded earnestly with his father. ‘I can play really good games in that bed and you never know who I might want to share it with. Mummy doesn’t seem to understand that.’

Piers had glanced briefly at Sue and then back at the anxious face of his son.

‘To be honest, old son, I think that she understands only too well,’ he’d said – but David had kept his bed.

Now, Tilda carried her tea – and Jake – back to David’s bed. She talked to him and cuddled him, comforted by his small, wriggling body, and presently they both fell asleep, waking again at about eight o’clock. Knowing that Piers would be finishing his breakfast by now, she showered and dressed and carried Jake downstairs.

Piers, who had already finished eating, smiled at both of them and continued to read the newspaper whilst Tilda put bread in the toaster and fastened Jake into his bouncy chair. A murmur here and a comment there, interspersed with periods of silence, slowly lengthened into a more regular exchange until conversation was flowing along its usual lines.

‘Gemma was in good form last evening.’ Piers folded the newspaper. ‘I gather Guy’s got some sailing planned. Is Gemma coming over later?’

‘We talked about lunch. She wanted to meet at a pub or in Minehead but it’s not quite that easy with Jake. I expect she’ll phone later on but I shan’t hold my breath. Gemma’s very laid back and likes to play things by ear.’

‘Well, that’s fair enough when you’re on holiday. I expect she’s enjoying a break from the twins.’

He hesitated, about to observe that Guy seemed very proud of his children, realizing that this might be a painful topic of conversation for Tilda. He liked Guy, found his keen wit very amusing, but he sensed a well-controlled personality firmly banked down beneath the quiet, polite exterior. It would be difficult to get close to him. Gemma, with her open, friendly, flirtatious ways, was so startlingly different that Piers wondered how they’d ever found any common ground on which to begin a relationship. He understood that, rather like Tilda and David, they’d grown up together so this must mean that they knew each other pretty well, but he’d been aware of some undercurrent that made him feel uneasy.

‘Busy day?’ enquired Tilda, standing up to pour herself a glass of milk.

Piers forgot about Guy and Gemma, swallowed the last of his coffee and glanced at his watch. ‘Pretty standard. I shall be in the office this morning but I’ve got a survey to do on a house in Lynton after lunch. It shouldn’t take long, and then I’m going on to an equestrian property over near Exford. Quite an interesting problem with a right-of-way, I gather.’

Jake began to chunter, waving his fists, and Tilda sat down again, murmuring to him, spinning one of the little toys that were strung across his chair. Watching her, Piers had a recollection of Sue, sitting at this same table, feeding David. A wrenching misery twisted his heart and, sensing some change in the atmosphere, Tilda looked across at him questioningly. They did not speak but a wave of awareness passed between them, as though each acknowledged the other’s sadness and was comforted. Tilda gave the toy another twirl and picked up her glass.

‘Did you notice anything odd about Felix last night?’

As a change of direction it was effective. Piers hesitated in the act of piling his breakfast things together and frowned.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, he was kind of distrait, wasn’t he? Like he was listening to something we couldn’t hear. It was so real that I found myself wondering if I could hear Jake crying. He had an abstracted look about him.’

Piers put his porridge bowl on the draining board, his cup and saucer beside it.

‘I thought he was a little . . . distracted.’ He gave a kind of mental shrug: raising his eyebrows, turning down the corners of his mouth. It was a familiar expression that Tilda knew was not dismissive.

‘I felt it was more than that,’ she insisted. ‘There was something almost . . . well, fey about him.’

He turned to look at her. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

She ignored the irritation in his voice; just as she recognized the facial shrug for what it concealed, she knew that his irritation covered a similar sense of anxiety. ‘I just feel worried about him, that’s all. It was rather like you hear about people who have this premonition that some disaster’s going to happen. Do you know what I mean?’

‘No, I don’t.’ He sounded cross. ‘Are you telling me that you think something might have happened to him?’

‘I don’t know.’ She stared up at him, the dark blue eyes wide with anxiety. ‘I don’t know what I mean. It was just a feeling that he knew that something was going to happen.’

Piers’ irritability increased. ‘You realize that I’m going to have to phone him now? Although I don’t know what on earth I shall say to him at this time of the morning. We never speak much before half-past nine and I don’t want him to think we’re fussing about him. He’d hate that.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Tilda bit her lip. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. Honestly, it’s probably just me being peculiar.’

‘Very likely it is; but he has just had major surgery and you’ve put a doubt in my mind.’ Piers hesitated, remembering the drive back to Dunster and his father’s last words to him. Panic edged in, quickening his pulse. ‘He was a bit . . . quiet.’

‘I’ll phone him,’ said Tilda quickly. ‘I’ll say that I’ve got to come into Dunster and can I take him out for coffee. How about that?’

‘And given that we were there on Saturday morning,’ Piers still sounded irritable, ‘what would you be going for?’

‘I’ll think of something. You can give me details about that book and I’ll go and see Adrian. Anyway, Felix won’t ask. He’s not like that.’

She grinned at him and his irritation dissolved: he couldn’t resist Tilda’s smile.

‘Well, telephone me at the office as soon as you’ve spoken to him.’ He bent to kiss the top of her head, waggled his fingers at Jake and went out.

‘He gets rattled,’ Tilda told Jake, ‘but he doesn’t like anyone to know.’

She sat with both elbows resting on the table, the glass held between her hands, and fought down her desolation. Sitting in this familiar kitchen, looking upon a scene that she had known all her life, sometimes made things worse. The Welsh dresser held china that had belonged to four different generations of women: an oval willow-pattern Wedgwood dish, more than a hundred years old, sat elegantly beside a stylish piece by Clarice Cliff whilst an art deco dinner plate, octagonal in red and orange, nudged a primly pretty Royal Doulton cereal bowl. On a lower shelf Peter Rabbit jostled the mice of Brambly Hedge and Tilda’s blue and white Spode mugs hung in a row above the large breakfast cup that Piers used for his coffee. At one end of the large square table newspapers and magazines, letters and bills were divided roughly into two piles. The notice-board on the door of the big, walk-in larder had notes and photographs pinned to it, various garments hung on the airer over the Aga, and Joker’s bean bag still lay beside it, beneath the window.

The kitchen looked west towards Dunkery and east into the garth. From her chair at the table, Tilda could see the windows of Piers’ study and the well into which David had always threatened to throw her when she got stroppy. They’d ridden their bicycles over the cobbles, shouting and squabbling, and later, much later, she’d sat here talking to Sue while David fiddled with the engine of his latest car in the open-fronted barn. It seemed impossible that he wouldn’t stroll in now, as he’d done then, throwing himself down on a chair, tilting it on to its back legs – ‘Don’t do that!’ Sue would cry – telling them jokes, teasing his father. He would listen intently to small anecdotes, helping the teller to embellish the story – ‘What, really ugly? Seriously ugly? Bulldog-eating-a-wasp ugly?’ – whilst eating a biscuit, cutting a piece of cake, never quite motionless. He’d given the impression of always being tensed for action and Tilda missed his vitality, his insouciance, though she still felt the backwash of that love of life with which he’d imbued their relationship.

It got her up on to her feet, now, blinking the tears from her eyes as she cleared the table. Talking to Jake whilst she stacked the dishwasher, which Sue had installed, going through to the scullery to set the washing machine in action, Tilda wondered how she might earn a living.

‘I don’t want to leave Michaelgarth,’ she’d explained to Piers at the weekend, ‘and I certainly don’t want to let anyone else look after Jake yet, but I need to know where I’m going.’

Piers thought about and rejected several suggestions. ‘You know that it was my grandparents who turned Michaelgarth into one property,’ he’d said at last. ‘The hall naturally divides the house into the two wings and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t convert it back again.’

‘But I like it the way it is,’ she’d said. ‘Unless you’d rather . . . ?’

‘No, no,’ he’d said quickly. ‘I’m very happy. But there might come a time when you need more privacy.’

She’d shaken her head quickly. ‘It’s not that. It’s just I need something to concentrate on. I want something to work for.’

‘I can understand that,’ he’d said at once – and she’d known that he was thinking about Sue leaving him; the emptiness echoing in the old house without her life-force to fill it to the brim with energy. Like her son, Sue was always busy, never still: always with a new idea, never without an opinion. They could be exhausting people but, with them around, life was never dull and Tilda was learning that it took time to adapt to a different pace.

Tilda could see that Piers had not only adjusted to being alone but had created his own rhythm. Despite his natural grief for the loss of his son, there was nothing sad about Piers – yet Tilda knew that there was something unresolved between him and Felix; something that preyed on his peace of mind and destroyed his tranquillity. David had dismissed it as a simple lack of communication.

‘It’s a generation thing,’ he’d said. ‘They’re all so buttonedup. It’s not done to show emotion or discuss things. Fathers and sons and that stuff.’

‘But Felix isn’t like that,’ she’d said. ‘Not really. Nor is your father.’

‘Not with you,’ he’d said. ‘But you’re not their son, are you?’

‘But you are,’ she’d said.

‘Oh, I just won’t let them get away with it, that’s all,’ he’d answered with the confidence of youth. ‘Life’s too short.’

It had been one of his favourite sayings: with that phrase he’d refused to let resentment or anger or disappointment cloud his optimism or corrode his goodwill. How prophetically he’d spoken!

Swallowing hard, Tilda glanced at the clock and went to the telephone. Felix answered almost immediately and she gave a quick gasp of relief. She explained her mission, arranged to meet him at half-past ten, hung up and immediately telephoned Piers to tell him that all was well. Collecting Jake she went upstairs to get them both ready for their date with Felix.