CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Bertie sat beside the small bouncy chair, ears cocked, staring at its occupant who gurgled and waved its starfish hands. The small bare feet kicked energetically and Bertie took an experimental lick at the tiny curling toes, retreating swiftly as the feet thrashed even more wildly. Tilda smiled at his reaction.

‘I miss having dogs around,’ she said to Gemma, as they sat in the sunshine together outside the cottage door. ‘David and I had decided that we were going to get one as soon as Jake was born. We were hoping to buy a little house in Marlborough . . .’

She paused, biting her lip, and Gemma, her quick sympathy aroused, put her hand briefly on Tilda’s.

‘It’s just so wretched for you,’ she said. ‘Everything blown apart, having to leave all your chums.’

Tilda glanced at her, surprised. ‘Not many people understand that. They can’t see that it’s just not the same to hang around on the edge of your old life, pretending that you’re still a part of it, especially when that life was the army. You simply don’t belong any more. Oh, people are kind, they make an effort to begin with, but it’s quite frightening how quickly you begin to feel like some ghastly dependant who’s being invited to parties and dinners on sufferance. And being a widow – especially a young one – has a kind of dampening effect on things. I was telling Piers last night that nobody likes to be reminded of their mortality and I began to dread that change of expression, that wariness, that friends would adopt as soon as they saw me. They’d nudge one another so that nobody would say anything tactless but then conversation would become terribly forced and it was clear that most of our friends were frightened to talk about David.’

‘I can understand it,’ said Gemma thoughtfully. ‘It’s not easy to find the line between an apparent indifference and that kind of awful sympathy. You know? When people put on special hushed voices and their faces lengthen and go all dejected but underneath there’s a horrid prurient nosiness.’

She made the sort of face she’d described and, despite her misery, Tilda burst out laughing.

‘That’s exactly it. You’ve got it perfectly . . . but why can’t people simply be natural about it?’

Gemma took her cigarettes from the table and shook one from the packet, frowning consideringly. ‘I think it’s because they have this superstitious fear about death,’ she said at last. ‘You know how people like to brag about knowing someone rich or famous, as if simply knowing them – or even something remote like seeing them in a shop – bestows some magic on their own lives? Well, I think death has the opposite effect. There might be something unlucky about the person whose life has been touched by it. That kind of thing.’

She lit her cigarette, elbow cocked on the table, turning her head sideways to blow the smoke away from Tilda and Jake.

‘But you don’t feel like that?’ asked Tilda.

Gemma shook her head. ‘Not at all. Someone like David would be impossible to forget. He was so much larger than life, wasn’t he? You’d still feel he was around and he’s still a part of your life. Yours and Jake’s. Jake is going to want to know about his father and, anyway, Tilda, you couldn’t just pretend that your marriage was a brief interlude, something that happened between growing up and the rest of your life. You and David go back to babyhood, like me and Guy. It must be impossible for you to take it in, especially now that you’re back at Michaelgarth. I expect you think he’s simply going to stroll in with one of those devastating remarks of his. God, he used to make me laugh.’

‘I do feel like that about him,’ agreed Tilda, struck by Gemma’s ability to understand. ‘I miss him so terribly but here at Michaelgarth I feel that he’s close to us. Oh, I can see that you can’t live in a time warp and make your life some kind of shrine to the past but I hate this “Now you must put it all behind you and make a new start” stuff.’

‘I can’t imagine Piers being like that,’ Gemma tapped the ash from her cigarette, ‘nor your mother, come to that.’

‘Piers isn’t,’ agreed Tilda. ‘Piers is simply brilliant and I think he feels just like I do about David. I can’t tell you how lucky we are, Jake and me, to be here. Mum’s a bit more like it.’ She glanced almost slyly at Gemma. ‘I think she’d like to see me getting together with Saul.’

At the mention of her brother, Gemma’s eyebrows arched disbelievingly: she stared at Tilda with an amused, speculative gaze.

‘Seriously? With dear Saul?’ She took a deep breath, pursing her lips. ‘Well, I’m probably not a good judge, being his little sister and all that, but I can’t quite see Saul in David’s league.’

‘I’m very fond of him,’ Tilda felt a need to defend David’s closest friend, ‘and he’s been terrific—’

‘Oh, I can believe that,’ interrupted Gemma impatiently. ‘Saul’s a kind person . . .’ She hesitated. ‘But that’s the trouble really, isn’t it? David was all sorts of things but “kind” isn’t the adjective which leaps at once to mind.’

Tilda was taken aback. ‘Well, he’s . . . he wasn’t kind in the way Saul is, I suppose.’

‘Come off it.’ Gemma grinned at her. ‘Who needs kind? The unknown quality, that’s what we want and that’s what David had.’ She drew on her cigarette reflectively. ‘I’ve always liked your mum,’ she said. ‘She’s fun. I expect she just wants to see you and Jake looked after, that’s all. Didn’t you say that she was coming for lunch?’

‘I did.’ Tilda glanced at her watch. ‘I must get back. Are you sure you won’t come and join us. She’d love to see you again.’

‘I simply can’t.’ Gemma stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Sophie’s coming over. We’ve got so much catching up to do since her wedding . . . but give your mum my love.’

Tilda looked about for her bag whilst Gemma went to crouch by the little chair, studying the sleeping Jake.

‘He’s going to be just like David,’ she said. ‘He’s beautiful, Tilda. David would have been very proud of you both.’

She stood up and put her arms about the older girl and Tilda felt a moment of enormous comfort in the warm embrace.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘For the coffee and everything. You know where we are if you need us but you’ll come for supper on Friday when Saul’s at Michaelgarth, won’t you?’

‘Of course we will. I’m only sorry that we shall miss Piers’ birthday.’

‘So am I,’ said Tilda sadly, picking up Jake’s chair. ‘It would have been such fun to have you both with us but the next lot of people will be coming into the cottage on Saturday afternoon and, what with Saul and Felix and Mum all staying overnight, we’ve got a full house at Michaelgarth.’

‘It doesn’t matter a bit. This week’s been such a bonus that I’m certainly not complaining. We’ll look forward to Friday but I expect I’ll pop in before then.’

Gemma went with her to the car, helped her to settle Jake and blew her a kiss as she drove away.

Bertie wagged his tail, looking eagerly down the road, hoping for a walk, but Gemma shook her head.

‘Later,’ she told him. ‘Honestly. We’ll have a lovely walk over the moor just like yesterday – but not quite yet.’

She went into the cottage, grimacing a little to herself, wondering if she’d gone too far with Tilda: speaking as she had about David and Saul. She’d always rather admired Tilda, and until recently been rather in awe of her. At school she’d been two years ahead: head of house, with a very direct way of dealing with her peers and the younger girls. Her extreme good looks, combined with a willingness to listen, had saved her from being either resented or despised and she’d been popular amongst the older girls and admired by the little ones. It was later, once Saul and David became good friends, that Gemma had come to know Tilda better.

‘But not as well as I knew David,’ she murmured to the attendant Bertie. ‘That was a bit of a close one, my boy.’

She took her mobile from her bag whilst Bertie watched, tail drooping. He wondered if this meant another day sitting patiently in the back of the car, in some shady and deserted spot, waiting for that moment of freedom.

Gemma bent to fondle his ears. ‘Good job you can’t talk,’ she murmured as she punched in some digits. ‘Hello? Did it go OK? Was Marianne back before you? . . . What a relief. No, no problems here. So where shall we meet today?’

Bertie lay down, resigned, nose on paws, and closed his eyes.