George woke early, pulled on the long tartan dressing-gown that hung behind the door, and went downstairs. Rafe was already up, making coffee, drawing back the curtains.
‘Weather’s changed,’ he said. ‘Pity. I was enjoying the nip in the air and the sunshine. Did you manage to sleep?’
‘On and off.’ George took his mug of coffee gratefully. ‘The trouble is that this problem gets between me and everything else. I worry at it like a terrier at a rat-hole.’
‘That sounds reasonable under the circumstances.’
An uneasy silence fell between them. Rafe swiped at the draining-board with a cloth, screwed the top on to the jar of coffee, aware of his helplessness. Pamela, he felt, would have had the key word, the right phrase, to help George through to some kind of conclusion or at least convey sympathy and encouragement. He, who had spent his life teaching and enabling, felt at a loss to help his own son.
George sensed his father’s frustration and felt equally impotent. He swallowed some coffee and went to look out of the window, racking his brains for some light-hearted remark that would ease the tension. The sea slopped untidily at the cliffs; grey and unfriendly as dish-water, it heaved itself up against the land and slithered back from it again as if finding the effort too great. Presently it turned its back on the unyielding coast and began to slip gently away.
‘I was wondering if I might get a sail in while I was here.’ George said the first thing that offered itself. ‘Sailing helps to clear the mind somehow.’
Rafe came to stand beside him at the window, as if considering the possibility.
‘Not much wind.’
‘No, and anyway I ought to be getting back.’ Rafe was silent. ‘It’s just, you know … not much point in hanging round here …’ George stopped. ‘I don’t mean that. It’s always great to see you both. But I think I’ll go back and tell Penny that the deed is done. She’ll be wondering how you are …’
‘My dear fellow, you must do exactly what’s right for you.’ Rafe slipped an arm along his son’s broad shoulders, gave him a brief hug. ‘You know you are always welcome here. Just stay in touch.’
‘Of course I will.’ George finished his coffee. ‘Will Ma be OK?’
‘Your mother will be fine. She wants what is right for you, that’s all.’
‘If only we knew what that is it would be a start. Relationships are so complicated.’ He shook his head as if baffled. ‘I keep wondering why, you see. She seemed quite happy in London with all her friends. She’d settled in so well, had a good job. Perhaps I should never have asked her to give it all up.’
‘But you’d hardly have seen each other,’ Rafe pointed out. ‘And she seemed very ready to marry you and move down here.’
George nodded, shrugged. ‘Well, that’s how it seemed to me. She got on very well with some of the other wives too, although very often when we were at sea she’d go back to London to see her friends. Of course, having Tasha made that more difficult, but then she decided she wanted to be out of the city and I thought that having the cottage would settle her, you see. Her heart was so set on it.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Rafe carefully, ‘she was trying to distract herself. Perhaps it was her way of trying to make things work; to take her mind off … whatever his name is.’
Some odd kind of delicacy made him unwilling to name Penny’s lover but George had no difficulty with this.
‘Brett,’ he said, supplying the name without any particular emotion. ‘You could be right. I was angry because it seemed that the minute he appeared on the scene she gave in at once. Now I’m beginning to believe that he’s been around for longer than I realized.’
‘Is that likely?’ Rafe remembered the theory he’d put forward to Pam last night. ‘You wouldn’t have suspected something?’
George shrugged. ‘Why should I? You don’t naturally assume that your wife’s having an affair with a former lover, do you? Especially when you think he’s thousands of miles away.’
Rafe studied him. There was no sign in his son’s face of any real jealousy: no bitterness. He was reminded again of the rugby match tickets and Jeremy MacCann: George, once more, was suffering from a sense of being hard done by at Penny’s hands whilst at the same time feeling sympathy for her.
‘What do you really want, George?’ he asked involuntarily. ‘Given a free choice?’
George chuckled. ‘How do you spell it, Pa?’ he asked. ‘First things first. I want to make certain Penny and I have done everything we can before we chuck it in.’
‘And then what?’ asked Pamela from behind him.
‘I’ll take that step when it comes.’ He bent to kiss her. ‘Good morning. I’m going to dash off, Ma. I want to tell Penny that you’ve been told, as she asked me, and that you are very sad but not angry. The last thing I want is for her and Brett to feel they’re star-crossed lovers, defying the world. They need to see that it’s all quite depressingly ordinary and nothing special.’
‘You’re clearing the decks,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘If you like.’ He looked amused at the expression. ‘Will you tell Joss I’m sorry not to have seen her?’
‘Joss?’ she asked quickly.
There was a brief silence.
‘And Mousie,’ he said evenly, ‘and Bruno and Emma. And Mutt, of course. I just have this feeling that I mustn’t allow any time to be wasted. I’ve got a few days’ leave, that’s all.’
‘You must do whatever you have to,’ she said, putting her arms around him. ‘Just stay in touch, my darling. Give our love to Penny and Tasha, and remember that we’re here if you need us.’
‘I know that.’ He held her tightly for a moment. ‘Thanks, Ma. I’ll phone when I get home.’
He disappeared upstairs whilst Pamela stood quite still, her head bent thoughtfully.
‘I was just bringing you some coffee.’ Rafe spoke normally, an ear cocked towards the stairs. The bathroom door closed. ‘What did you mean,’ he lowered his voice, ‘about clearing the decks?’
‘Just a feeling I have.’ She held out her hand and he put the mug into it. ‘He never did like muddle, did he? He always wanted things cut and dried, and hated anything that wasn’t above board. Well and truly off with the old before on with the new.’
‘Any more clichés?’ Rafe asked drily. ‘You sound surprisingly cheerful about it this morning.’
‘Oh, Rafe, I think I am,’ she answered. ‘I think … oh, dear, I can feel another cliché coming on. I think I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.’
‘Or a cloud with a silver lining?’ he suggested cheerfully. ‘Well, thank God. When he’s gone you can tell me what it is because I’m damned if I can see it.’
At The Lookout, Emma was staring miserably at the fire, her arm round Nellie, who sat beside her on the sofa.
‘So suddenly,’ she murmured. ‘I can’t believe it. And poor darling Joss there all alone with her.’
Bruno didn’t correct this impression. He, too, had been making coffee but Emma’s stood untasted on the table.
‘It could have been much worse,’ he said, hearing the conventional uselessness of the words but too tired to think of anything original. ‘And wonderful for Mutt to slip away like that without pain.’
Tears streamed down Emma’s cheeks and she wiped at them with the back of her hands.
‘I wish you’d woken me up,’ she said. ‘When you went.’
‘It wouldn’t have mattered,’ he told her. ‘I didn’t see her alive either.’
‘I must go and see Joss.’ She made as if to move but sank back again, as if defeated by the heaviness of grief.
‘I told you that she’s asleep,’ he reminded her. ‘Mousie will get her off to work but she needs to rest.’
‘Surely she doesn’t have to go to work,’ protested Emma. She laid her cheek against Nellie’s head. ‘They’ll understand, won’t they? Poor Joss …’
‘She’ll want to go.’ Bruno had never been able to convince Emma of the work ethic. ‘And quite right too. Work is the best thing for her. It’ll take her mind off things. Why don’t you go up to Paradise and see how Mousie is coping, and then you’ll be able to have a word with Joss when she wakes up?’
‘I’ll do that.’ Emma pulled herself together. ‘Mousie will have telephoned the doctor and I suppose one of us will have to contact the undertaker …’
‘There’s a lot to be organized,’ he agreed. ‘I need a shower and a shave and then I’ll follow you up after I’ve told Rafe and Pamela.’
She glanced at him, grateful for his presence. ‘You look exhausted,’ she told him anxiously. ‘Could you snatch an hour’s sleep? Why don’t you try?’
‘I might,’ he said. ‘I’ll see how I feel after I’ve showered. As long as you’re OK?’
She nodded, although her lips trembled a little. ‘It’s just so hard to believe she isn’t there any more.’
‘You’re allowed to cry,’ he told her gently. ‘You don’t have to be brave with me.’
‘I know that,’ she said. ‘But you’re right about being busy. It distracts. I’ll go and get dressed and then get up to Paradise. It’s not right to leave it all to Mousie and, anyway, I want to say goodbye properly to Mutt. Oh God! I can’t believe it.’
He watched her go out, mopping her eyes, and then drank his coffee in one gulp. Bending to stroke the recumbent Nellie, he wondered if Joss might think about the letters; whether she’d have the opportunity to move them to a safer place. Taking the mugs into the kitchen, letting Nellie out, all the while he was thinking of how and when he might transport the letters away from Paradise.