George walked up to Paradise as soon as he’d finished breakfast. A light south-westerly breeze was lifting and shredding the mist so that the sun gleamed fitfully between trailing skeins of candy-floss cloud, warming the black bare twigs of the thorn hedge to a ruddier hue and touching with a brighter gold the yellow daffodils blowing in the wet ditch below. He could hear a soft, piping note somewhere near at hand and presently saw a flash of coral and white as the bullfinch flew up into a holly tree.
He paused at the field gate. The donkeys were across the other side of the meadow, grazing quietly, and he stood for a moment watching them, deeply and gratefully aware of this new sensation of freedom but fighting a sense of guilt at having been presented with it so easily. Soon he would see Joss, able at last to tell her his true feelings, and – as nervousness and excitement twisted in his gut – he stretched suddenly, arms wide, as if this movement might expel the tension inside him.
Leaving the donkeys, he went on up the lane to Paradise, passing between the granite pillars on to the drive. Small clumps of snowdrops, heads drooped, glimmered moony-pale amongst the rhododendrons, and a tide of purple crocus flooded the small lawn with their darkly vivid colour. A blackbird flew out from the sturdy branches of the wisteria, piercing the silence with his stuttering, warning call, alighting for a moment on the top of the high stone wall before dropping out of sight.
Feeling that under the circumstances a certain formality was in order, George avoided his usual entry through the garden room and knocked instead at the front door. Emma answered it, opening it wide when she saw who it was, beaming at him affectionately.
‘How nice to see you, George,’ she said. ‘How are you?’
He kissed her lightly. ‘I’m so sorry about Mutt,’ he said. ‘I came to see if there was anything that I could do.’
‘That’s very sweet of you.’ A sudden flash of speculation quenched the sadness in her eyes and he instinctively braced himself so as to deal with her curiosity. ‘Is Penny with you?’ she asked brightly. ‘How is she? And Tasha?’
Joss had come out of the kitchen and was standing by the door in the shadows at the back of the hall, watching him. George met her eyes above Emma’s head and was shocked by the expression of anxiety on her face. Just for a moment they exchanged a long look, each probing and guessing at the other’s thoughts and emotions. With an effort, George turned his attention to Emma.
‘They aren’t with me,’ he answered shortly. The unexpected brevity of his reply resulted in a surprised silence and he raised his hands, as if making a reluctant decision. ‘You might as well know that Penny has taken Tasha back to New Zealand. She’s decided that they will be happier there.’
Joss had already turned aside, probably to hide her expression of relief, but Emma’s eyes were round with shock.
‘But, George,’ she gasped. ‘Gone back to New Zealand? My goodness, I can’t believe it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Coming on top of Mutt it’s a bit much, isn’t it? The trouble is, there’s no other way to break this kind of news.’
He glanced rather helplessly towards Joss, who came forward to put an arm about her mother. She smiled at him and he saw more clearly the pallor of her face and the faint wariness of her expression. He guessed that she didn’t want her mother to know that his news was not too much of a shock to her and smiled back at her with a tiny nod of complicity.
‘Come into the kitchen,’ Joss said. ‘We’ve only just finished breakfast – somehow we simply couldn’t get started this morning – but there’s some coffee in the pot.’
‘It’s Joss’s day off,’ said Emma, allowing herself to be led back into the kitchen, ‘and I was trying to persuade her to have the morning in bed. Oh dear, what a time we’re all having.’
‘I couldn’t rest somehow,’ said Joss quickly. ‘You know how it is? I’m too tensed up, I suppose, and I didn’t sleep very well.’
‘Perhaps a walk would do you good,’ George suggested, anxious to get her to himself, longing to explain the happenings of the last twenty-four hours. ‘We could take the donkeys. You know how they love a stroll.’
For one brief moment Joss’s face lighted with pleasure; from a child one of her greatest pleasures was taking the donkeys for a walk round the lanes and up the valley. It wasn’t so much of a walk but more a very slow amble, holding the end of their leading reins and waiting beside them patiently as they munched the wayside grass. As he watched her he saw the light die from her eyes and it occurred to him that she was taking her grandmother’s death very badly. He felt ashamed that he’d put his own needs before her grief but before he could make amends she smiled at him.
‘Perhaps later on,’ she told him. ‘That would be good.’
Emma, distracted but still curious, raised her eyebrows.
‘Why not now?’ she asked. ‘It’s so much brighter this morning and it would do you so much good. You don’t have to worry about me, you know. I’ve got plenty to do, clearing out and tidying up. And your father will be arriving later.’
George took his coffee, noticing that Joss’s hand trembled slightly. He looked at her, trying to catch her eye so as to exchange one of those private signals they’d shared since childhood, but she evaded him. It was as if the current of affection that flowed so naturally between them had been suddenly switched off and he felt a real sense of loneliness. It was clear that Mutt’s death had deeply distressed her, and his own news coming on top of it had now completely knocked her off balance. He realized just how important her reaction had been to him; that, ever since he’d left the cottage at Meavy, he’d been needing to share the news with her, to talk it through so that it could assume its proper proportions. He was passing through a period of transition and he’d hoped that Joss would make the journey with him.
He saw, however, that it couldn’t be quite as he’d imagined it and he quickly assessed this new situation.
‘Later will be fine,’ he agreed, as if Emma hadn’t spoken. ‘Meanwhile, there must be something I could do. How are you off for logs?’
Joss looked at him gratefully. ‘There are plenty in the woodshed,’ she said, ‘but we’ve used up all the smaller ones. Rafe usually deals with it but if you could manage to split some of the big ones … ?’
‘Not a problem.’ Maybe she would find the opportunity to come and talk to him while he was working. ‘I’ll finish my coffee and then get to it.’
‘I still can’t get used to the fact that we won’t hear her bell ring.’ Emma’s eyes filled with tears. ‘It just seems so impossible …’
Before either of them could comfort her they heard the sound of an engine, a car door slammed and the front door was tried by someone who clearly expected it to be unlocked. The knocking that followed was loud and impatient. Emma got up and hurried into the hall.
‘Ray!’ they heard her exclaim. ‘My God, what time did you leave? I wasn’t expecting you for another hour at least.’
George and Joss stood together in silence, listening.
‘I didn’t see much point in hanging around.’ His voice, booming round the hall and echoing up the stairs, was as insensitive to grief and death as his knocking had been and George felt Joss wince. ‘This damned fog held me up but it began to clear as I got nearer to the coast.’
‘I’ll crack on with the logs.’ George spoke quietly. He caught Joss by the shoulders and held them for a moment as if to reassure her. ‘You know where I am if you need me.’
He bent to kiss her cheek, reached for his jacket and slipped out through the garden door just as Emma and Raymond arrived in the kitchen.
Once he’d gone, Joss took hold of the back of one of the chairs as if for support. She hadn’t been prepared for the difficulty of seeing George again, knowing as she did now that she wasn’t the person she’d believed herself to be. It was as if, until this point, she and George had been all of a piece; not only because of similarities of mind and taste, and their love for this small valley hidden away on the north Cornish coast, but through blood and bone and family ties. Now, the truth divided them. Sympathetic though she felt towards her grandmother, still deeply moved by the thought of her letters, Joss was conscious that neither Mutt nor her descendants had any right here at Paradise and, the moment she’d seen George, she’d been struck by the utter impossibility of pretending otherwise. Even the news that Penny had gone didn’t have the power to affect her as it would have done forty-eight hours earlier. Only her mother’s grief and distress was preventing her from getting into her car and driving as far away from St Meriadoc as she could.
Yet she’d been so certain that the truth must not be told. Perhaps, after all, it was different for Bruno. Whatever the deception, he was at least a Trevannion and had every right to live here in the valley, in The Lookout: he belonged. As her parents came into the kitchen Joss braced herself anew to deal with the weight of her knowledge; with this requirement to look at every aspect of her life from a completely different point of view. She was hardly aware of her father’s brief kiss, seeing only his familiar, assessing glance around as he sat down at the table.
All this will soon be mine, his look seemed to say. There was a faint but unmistakable air of anticipation in his expression that made Joss shudder a little. His acquisitiveness had always repelled her; now, with her new knowledge, it appalled her.
‘When’s the funeral?’ he was asking. ‘You said the undertakers had been, dear?’
Joss stared at him. She’d always hated the way he called them both ‘dear’; there was a lack of intimacy about the word, as if he used it because he felt an endearment was appropriate to his wife and daughter without it really mattering what it was: she’d had bus conductors call her ‘love’ with more real affection.
‘I’ll make some fresh coffee.’ Emma hurried to the percolator.
Joss could see that her mother was slightly ruffled by his arrival, no longer at ease. Already she was less the Emma of Paradise, Mutt’s child, and more the compliant woman who was Raymond’s wife; even her attitude to Joss was undergoing a change. Joss recognized it at once. Emma was on edge, prepared for a falling-out between her husband and daughter, and instinctively adopting a cheerfulness that might, with luck, placate the two of them.
Joss was seized with remorse. She wondered just how much of her life her mother had spent being a kind of buffer and how different she was with Bruno and Mousie and those with whom she felt at peace. Joss bit her lips. Impossible, in that case, she told herself, to remove the comfort Emma received from these relationships.
‘The rector thought Monday but he’s going to telephone this morning.’ Emma paused in her coffee-making and shook her head. ‘I simply can’t take it in,’ she added miserably.
Raymond stretched out his large square hand and patted briefly the piece of Emma he could reach.
‘She’s had a good run for her money, dear,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘At least she hasn’t suffered.’
‘She suffered quite a bit in the last few weeks, actually,’ Joss said. ‘The break was quite a bad one.’
Her father smiled. ‘I’m sure you were a great help,’ he said, as if she were ten. ‘All that expensive training must have come in very useful.’
‘She was wonderful.’ Emma was defensive. ‘Mousie said so.’
‘Ah.’ His eyes became watchful. ‘And how is Mousie?’
Emma looked so uncomfortable that Joss was puzzled.
‘She’s fine,’ her mother answered briefly. ‘So how long did the drive take you?’
The question was so clearly meant as a diversion that Raymond didn’t bother to answer it: his fingers tapped out a rhythm and his eyes were speculative.
‘Did you manage to get a look at the will?’ he asked, following out his own train of thought.
‘No.’ Emma glanced uneasily at Joss. ‘No, of course not. Won’t it be with Mutt’s lawyer?’
She managed to sound quite indifferent and Raymond frowned.
‘It might be anywhere,’ he answered irritably, ‘but I’d like to see it all the same.’
‘Why?’ Joss couldn’t contain herself. ‘Do you think Mutt might have left you something?’
He looked at her consideringly, as if reminding himself that she was grieving for her grandmother, recognizing – but indifferent to – her contempt. Emma stood between them anxiously but neither of them looked at her.
‘I have to look after your mother’s interests,’ he answered almost genially. ‘Surely you must see that?’
Various retorts jostled at Joss’s lips but now none of them was relevant. She let go of the chair-back and smiled at her mother.
‘No more coffee for me,’ she said. ‘See you later,’ and, taking up her plaid shawl, she let herself out quietly, closing the door behind her.