The bus was late. The traffic in Exeter had been appalling. The Markhams had dallied in the shopping centre, and the others had gone on to the minibus and had to wait almost an hour until Jennifer and Stanley arrived, dishevelled, hot and bothered, and without the interesting bags of lingerie Jennifer and Margaret had bought between them.
‘We just had to see the cathedral!’ Jennifer explained. ‘We must have left the bags in that little chapel – was it the Lady Chapel?’
‘Almost three hundred of our precious pounds!’ Sven said, his benevolence deserting him. ‘Just so that you two idiots can clock up another venue!’
Margaret held his arm and said warningly, ‘You know very well Stanley is interested in churches, and he trailed with us through the shops long enough! We can go back via the cathedral – the bags will be there.’
Amazingly, they had been. But the detour added another twenty minutes to the delay, and even Nathaniel’s patience was thinning by the time they pulled into the lay-by.
Judith and Sybil settled into their front seat. Sybil whispered, ‘Stanley looks like a cat who is very well pleased with himself!’ Judith glanced back and saw the tiny grin on Stanley’s normally expressionless face. The two women started to giggle.
It was good to trundle over the causeway and take the much shorter flight of steps up to the big front door. Nathaniel said loudly, ‘It’s like coming home. Imagine that. Coming home to a castle.’
‘An Englishman’s home is his castle,’ Sybil put in unexpectedly, smiling at him without irony. ‘A castle for the master and a nest for the mistress.’
‘Wonderful, dear lady!’ He took her arm and piloted her towards the sitting room. ‘And how did your day go?’
She began to tell him. She was unbuttoning. Before Judith’s very eyes, she was doing exactly what she should be doing. Nathaniel would pick something up, surely … and he would pass it on to Robert. Judith climbed the stairs slowly, the muscles in her legs protesting vigorously. The sheer rightness of Robert Hausmann and Sybil Jessup was incredible. For once, the right time, the right place and, above all, the right people. The others were still in the lobby, milling around ordering trays of tea to be sent upstairs. She would make her own and lie down. Behind all the thoughts that had possessed her today, she knew that the ache was still there, between her eyes. But it had been so worth it.
She saw from the first landing that Hausmann was waiting for her outside her room, and her heart sank a little. It would be best if she did not see him until Sybil had been unmasked, as it were. She did not quite trust herself to keep Sybil’s secret. She trudged on, smiled as she came to the top step, spoke as normally as she could.
‘Lynmouth was wonderful. You should go and look at it.’
‘I painted Lynmouth some years ago.’
She tried to gauge his mood from his face, but it was difficult. Unless he actually smiled he looked perpetually grim. Something else was added now; was it nervousness?
‘It is a gem. Your sort of gem.’
‘I want to talk to you. This morning I told you.’
She knew already that his tone was not meant to be peremptory, but she was tired and some of the afternoon’s euphoria was wearing off. And perhaps he was already suspicious about Sybil and wanted to sound her out. Besides all that, she was emotionally drained and exhausted.
‘Not now, Hausmann. I must lie down.’
He nodded once, turned round, opened her door, went through and held it open for her. She was astonished.
‘Hang on. I locked that door this morning!’
‘I borrowed the master key once more.’
She went into the room and looked around. Her thermos was on the table. The bed had been beautifully made, but it was evident someone had since been lying on it. He followed her outraged gaze.
‘I, too, was tired. I was out all morning and a coachload of people were here to see my work when I returned. They tried my patience, and eventually I turned them out. Your room is just the other side of the gallery doors. I am sorry, Mrs Jack. I can see you are annoyed. I did not go through your things.’
She stood by the bed, her back to him. What was this Mrs Jack stuff? It side-tracked her fury slightly.
She said, ‘So. There has been a row? More ammunition against you, Hausmann?’ She turned round. ‘When are you going to get it together? Bart would let you use this venue permanently, you know that. Irena’s OK really. She just doesn’t want you to drag your brother down too far – natural, surely?’
He said nothing; stood in front of her, arms hanging helplessly, his dark face darker still, with what she took to be a hangdog expression.
She sighed theatrically. ‘Listen. Make some tea, will you? I have got to lie on this bed even if you had dirty boots when you did so.’
Before she had scuffed off her trainers, he was at the kettle. She lay down, adjusted the pillow, sniffed suspiciously, closed her eyes.
‘There is a smell of paint, yes?’
‘That’s what it is. I don’t mind that. Two sugars. A dash of milk.’
‘A biscuit?’
‘No. You can have both packets. I had mussels at the hotel and a cake with my cup of tea at the Lantern Inn.’ She relaxed. ‘Oh, Hausmann, it was beautiful. You should have been there.’
‘If you had asked me, I would have come. And then there would have been more trouble still. Apparently I had promised to do the exhibition and be nice to everyone.’ He mimicked Irena’s voice and Judith laughed.
She heard him put two teacups on the bedside table, and opened her eyes a slit. He drew up a chair and sat down.
She said, ‘Well?’
‘Drink your tea first. It is difficult.’
She pushed herself further on to the pillows and reached round for her cup. The tea was as she liked it: fairly strong and very sweet. She held it between both hands and let the steam soothe her eyes. The knot between them began to relax very slightly. If only he would leave quickly she knew she would sleep until their evening meal. The silence stretched out.
He said abruptly, ‘That idiot driver, Martin Morris, he told me you were Jack Freeman’s widow. I did not know he was dead.’
It was as if he had hit her in the stomach. She leaned over, holding the cup so tightly she thought it might break.
He said, ‘Don’t speak. I knew Jack for a time. I went to Australia two months ago. Got lost in the bush. Jack’s brother came and found me. Jack was visiting. I saw his stuff, he saw mine. I loved him and I thought he loved me. He did in a way. He kept calling me a “poor bugger”. If anyone else had called me that I’d have done them an injury. But not Jack. Whatever he thought of me, I still loved him. I had some kind of fever, and he sat with me all one night and talked about you.’
She straightened her back slowly; her eyes were wide.
He said, ‘When I saw you first I didn’t realize … He didn’t describe you very well at all. But he told me – when he said goodbye – that he had been talking about his wife.’ He looked up from his own cup. His eyes were full of tears.
‘He was a marvellous man. I’ll always love him. I knew him for just over a week and saw that he too was as sick as I was. We helped each other. If there is anything – anything at all – I would be honoured to help you, Mrs Jack.’ He stood up, put down his cup, walked to the door, and left.
She watched him go. He was slightly crouched and looked like a bear. When the door closed she watched that too, and in her mind she saw him shamble down the landing and into the gallery. Jack had sat with him all one night, and because he was a stranger and probably delirious, Jack had talked to him. About a woman.
At last she put her cup next to Hausmann’s, turned carefully, and lay on her side. After a time she began to weep.
Everyone was very quiet that evening. Nathaniel expounded on the cathedral and its golden colour and Sybil mentioned a train journey from London to Penzance when the red sandstone became very obvious along the Dawlish coast. Martin Morris joined them and told them about the Dorset coast and its plethora of fossils. Judith noticed that when he said that word – plethora – his top denture fell slightly. She would have glanced at Sybil except that she was no longer certain how she could help her. When the trolley came round Judith was conscious that Sybil glanced at her, and she wondered why. Then she realized. The starters were mussels in white wine. She gave a brief upward smile.
At the other table almost total silence prevailed. Jennifer and Margaret did their best discussing the relative merits of shops in Bristol and Exeter but this came to an end when Margaret said very definitely that Stockholm beat both places for shopping.
‘I just wish you two would come and stay with us for once,’ she said. ‘Especially at Christmas. It’s magical. And of course the people are wonderful.’
‘We couldn’t possibly Christmas anywhere except home!’ Jennifer looked at Stanley and he smiled. Yes, that was how the Cheshire cat did it – a disembodied smile. She smiled back. Intimately. Margaret looked annoyed and Sven put his arm across her shoulders. Judith wondered fleetingly and without much interest what on earth was going on there.
After the meal they congregated in the sitting room at Bart Mann’s request. Judith almost excused herself on the grounds of her headache, but then the thought of her room and its solitariness on that second landing made the sitting room full of disparate people seem attractive.
She sat in a corner of the sofa and Sybil joined her. For a few minutes they were alone while the others found seats and Bart set up a sort of screen next to the television. Under cover of the general settling-down, Sybil said, ‘I don’t know what has happened, Judith. You were so different this afternoon. Now you are not. Are you sure you’re not ill?’
‘I’ve got a nasty nagging pain between my eyes. I get it when I am tired and, lately, I seem always to be tired.’ She smiled as she spoke. She wondered whether Sybil had guessed at Judith’s wild and stupid plans to act like some old-fashioned matchmaker – she despised herself. Oh God, who was the woman Jack had described to Hausmann? If it had been her he would have started off with, ‘She doesn’t like being called a blonde bombshell but …’ Her heart started to pound; was this the beginning of madness?
Nathaniel came and sat next to Sybil, and Martin Morris squashed in beside him. Sybil whispered, ‘Just stay for this, there’s a dear. It’s the talk that Robert was meant to do this afternoon in the Long Gallery, and apparently he made a mess of it. Give him a chance now. Can you manage half an hour?’
So Sybil had definitely come to see Robert Hausmann. Perhaps to pick up on their shared memories of the past? With a view to a relationship? Judith nodded but closed her eyes as she pushed herself against the arm of the sofa.
When she opened them the screen was lit, the other lights dimmed and Hausmann was skulking behind the television, using it as a surface for some notes. He clicked a switch and the screen was filled with a view of Lundy Island.
‘Historically, this was a vital defence site for the West Country, and indeed for Wales.’ His voice took on a certain drone. He ran through a list of events obviously taken from a guidebook, but included exciting stories of pirates and sieges and royal edicts. Unfortunately, without any expression in his voice, it remained just a list of events. After a full ten minutes of this, he paused, switched again and they were confronted with a scene of a Welsh castle. He started droning once more.
The slide lecture lasted an hour. There were no personal reminiscences of the work behind each painting. When he paused for questions, Sven said, ‘Was it raining when you painted the Devon seascape? I could see no horizon.’
‘I can’t remember. But if there had been a horizon I would have painted it.’
‘Then I will assume it was raining.’ Spoken in Sven’s very precise English, the words sounded heavily sarcastic. Sybil’s hand, which was suddenly covering Judith’s, tightened convulsively.
Hausmann clicked back to the painting, looked at it and droned, ‘A realistic assumption.’ Then clicked off.
Nathaniel said, ‘What makes these paintings so amazing is their attention to every detail. I wish you had talked us through some of that, Robert.’
Hausmann said, ‘Good old Nattie! You should have been in the diplomatic service. Isn’t it enough that they are there – every bloody detail – for you to see for yourselves?’
Nathaniel stuck to his guns. ‘I want to know how you go about these things – is it just me? Am I being too inquisitive? Is that something entirely private to the painter?’
Hausmann looked across the television. ‘To be honest, Nat, I don’t know. Perhaps I am unable to make myself so vulnerable – honesty is vulnerability, is it not?’
Stanley Markham cleared his throat and everyone looked at him. He said, ‘I think it is more basic than that. Mr Hausmann can paint. He can find ways of showing us exactly what we are missing when we look at things. But … perhaps he cannot find the words to tell us. Perhaps someone else might do that. A poet?’
The silence was one of sheer astonishment. Stanley had spoken at last.
Hausmann said nothing. The silence was broken by Sven. ‘A poet? Or perhaps a teacher like yourself? What is your so-realistic saying in England? “If you can’t do it, teach it!”’
The silence changed and became apprehensive. Sybil’s grip was painful and Judith could see that in the chairs opposite the sofa, Margaret and Jennifer were also holding hands. She looked across at Hausmann. He was bending down unplugging the projector. He straightened slowly and began to wind the cable on to a spool.
‘I think you are right, Mr Markham. I have no words. My eyes and hands are what I use.’ Suddenly and unexpectedly he looked round the room and gave a mighty grin. ‘I am not known for tact – that was always the area of my good friend Nathaniel.’ He made a little bow towards the sofa, and for once Nathaniel Jones was silent.
Everything changed. There was much laughter, congratulations for Hausmann, a general discussion about his work, during which he seemed enabled to talk about the process of painting. Irena brought in coffee, cheese and biscuits. Bart produced chocolate mints again.
Judith said, ‘I’m going to slip away. Thank you for today, Sybil.’
‘Shall we do it again tomorrow? Perhaps Porlock?’
‘I … I don’t know.’
‘I could persuade Robert to come with us. I might tell him who I am.’
‘Oh … oh. I really don’t know. Honestly.’
‘Sorry … don’t mean to pressure you. See you at breakfast. Yes?’
‘Yes. Yes of course.’
She escaped and made for the stairs. Once in her room she locked the door carefully and leaned back against it, steeling herself physically not to cry.
Then she emptied her bag on to the bed and found her address book. She skipped through it and found the private number of the Magnet’s editor. William Whortley. She propped the book against the two teacups, which were still on her bedside table, and sat on the edge of the bed.
Almost automatically she looked to see what the last call to her mobile had been. She started to write it down and then stopped in mid-flow. It was her home number. She held the receiver away from her, staring at it. Then rang it back. She counted eight rings and then her own voice said, ‘Can you leave us a message, please? We’ll ring you back as soon as we can.’ Jack had wanted her to do it – friendly but firm, he had said. Short and to the point. Keep it short, Jude, don’t use two words when one will do.
Nobody left a message and the phone sang emptily into her ear.
She sat still for some time, wondering whether she should ring enquiries. One of Jack’s golfing companions lived on the same road and was a policeman. She could tell him where she kept the spare key. It took an age to get the number, but eventually she was able to tap it out. There was no answer, not even a machine. She remembered him saying to Jack that his private phone was his private phone. Jack had kissed her later and told her never to be as precious about the English language. ‘It’s not only that he was stating the obvious – it’s because if he really wanted privacy he’d go ex-directory!’
And then she suddenly had a wonderful thought. Jack was the only one who had a key, and even if he’d lost it he knew that she kept a spare one underneath the third rock in the rockery. It must have been Jack. Jack must be alive.
She sat on the edge of the bed, eyes closed, so deeply thankful she almost forgot that he had left her for another woman. Even when she did, the thankfulness did not go away. She didn’t care – for the moment – that he might love someone else. The fact that he was still on this earth was enough.
After some time, she stood up, collected her things and went to the bathroom, showered, and returned to her room. And then, and only then, did she ring William Whortley.
The phone in the Surrey house – genuine Elizabethan with stables at the back – rang a lot of times before the answering machine kicked in. She left a brief message asking whether William had any idea of Jack’s whereabouts. No mention of the rerun of his cartoon strip. Just a bare question with her phone number. And then she went to bed.
She slept fitfully. She thought at one stage that someone tried her door, but she had locked it and left the key in. She slept again. This time she dreamed of Matt. He was asking someone where Toby had gone. And then he was running along a road, absolutely straight with no beginning and no end. He was wearing shorts, and she watched his beautiful legs pumping rhythmically and his arms punching the air with each stride. He looked round and saw her and shouted, ‘I’ll find him for you, Mum. He’ll be with Dad!’
She woke up sweating and lay straight, telling herself over and over again that it was a dream, absurd, ridiculous, like all dreams. It was no good, she could not sleep. She got out of bed intending to make some tea. The phone rang.
‘Judith. My dear. We’ve just come in from the theatre and I listened to the messages. I hoped you knew where Jack was. I have no idea, and I am worried about him because he hasn’t been himself, has he? I’ve emailed him, sent him texts.’
She said blearily, ‘I think he’s with Toby – one of our sons – not sure. If he is he won’t be able to text. Poor signal.’
He laughed; a gust of relief that filled her ear. ‘Thank God. Judith, I can tell you now. I thought he might be on his deathbed! I expected something to come through from him: a skull – alas, poor Yorick – you know the sort of thing. Your message sounded desperate, somehow.’
‘Bad hair day.’ It was one of Jack’s sayings, and convinced him more than anything. He became bluff and avuncular.
‘Don’t worry, my dear. You know what he’s like. First one to hear from him gets in touch, all right?’
‘Sounds good.’ She was responding like Jack again. He said goodnight, and she said, ‘Sleep tight’, and they rang off. She sat on the edge of the bed. It was just past midnight. The Whortleys had come in from the theatre and would be having nightcaps and going to bed. And she had done with sleeping, yet was still tired.
She made the inevitable tea and drank it slowly, remembering her dream and the rattle of her bedroom door before that. Hausmann had got away from all the sudden interest in the sitting room and followed her to make sure she was all right. She pictured him cradled in Jack’s arms, ill and haunted by ghosts. He had probably run to Australia in search of solace, and had found it with Jack. Jack was good at solace. Jack had always been good at solace.
She refused to weep; weeping could become a habit. And she refused to stew in her own juice. She put on her dressing gown and then wrapped herself in the duvet, suddenly realizing how cold it was. Then she pocketed her key and went along the landing towards the Long Gallery. The heavy old double doors were unlocked. She pushed them open clumsily, duvet slipping down, another rush of cold air finding her shoulders. She got through somehow and closed the doors carefully, then hoisted the duvet almost over her head. She looked down the length of the gallery; it was flooded with moonlight. It was breathtaking.
She waited for some time, not even looking, simply waiting for her perceptions to settle into this new dimension. Nothing was defined. Because she already knew that the display units were set at angles and that every flat surface held the Hausmann paintings, she could start from there. But the silver-grey light showed few details; the Long Gallery itself was what she was seeing, the zigzag of the units was its artery system, the unseen paintings its nerve-ends.
She held the duvet tight to her shoulders, and the corner that had shielded her head fell back. She could hear. She listened.
There were myriad sounds and she was alarmed, wondering whether someone else was in the gallery; Hausmann himself, perhaps. But he – anyone – would have made themselves known when she had opened the doors. These sounds belonged to the castle itself. The wind pressed against the windows and the walls breathed it in. Timbers expanded and contracted as if the gallery were the prow of a ship; an old sailing ship, rising and falling in a swell. And the tiny sounds … were they mice who had lived behind the wainscoting for years and rightly considered the gallery to be theirs? She smiled, thinking of the stories she would have made from these sounds when the boys were small. Easier to think of mice dressed in Beatrix Potter ginghams than rats seeking refuge from the full tide. She began to move away from the door.
The sofas were placed back to back for easy viewing; there were three pairs, one commanding each alcove of paintings. She sat in every one of them, looking through the moonlight, identifying the pictures, feeling again the ineffable sadness of something that was perhaps as relatively ephemeral as a moth’s wing. Yet at the same time seeing the amazing and glorious hope that Hausmann was offering – perhaps unknowingly. Humankind … nesting … in the face of chaos? She remembered her sketches; yesterday’s, today’s. The battling cliffs and insidious seas. Then the tiny haven of the Lantern Inn set among pillows of trees.
She came to the last of the squashy sofas and sat very still, no longer looking, sensing the moonlight bathing her, incorporating her into the gallery. She saw that her terrors were now separate from herself. Toby was looking for Jack, and Matt was close behind. Everything was out of her hands: the human plight and the domestic one. She surrendered, curled herself into the back of the sofa, tucked her head against the arm and went to sleep.