She waited until the sound of the engine had dwindled before she went back into the cottage. Without Michael at her shoulder she hoped to find it easier to reconnect with the past, to conjure up old memories, and as she stood in the sitting-room she tried to ignore the makeshift furniture so as to see it as it had been thirty years before.
The cottage is empty of furniture, yet it has a welcoming atmosphere and she falls in love with it at once. It is clean, its stone walls whitewashed and the slate-flagged kitchen floor is swept: even the old cream-coloured Rayburn has been polished so as to look its best. As she walks from room to room, noticing the threadbare but serviceable carpets and doing sums in her head, her heart thumps with the excitement that builds inside her at the prospect of owning this perfect little place. Trying to contain her excitement she makes an offer and, as soon as it is accepted, she plunges headlong into mortgages, solicitors, surveyors, and all the other horrors of house-buying, never doubting for one moment that anything can possibly go wrong.
Mark has already begun his submariners’ course, Perisher, and it is left to Kate to complete the purchase. As soon as it is truly hers she scours the Pannier Market and the second-hand shops in Tavistock for bargains, thrilled by the discovery of some threadbare armchairs, a deal table and – a real find – an old Welsh dresser. She spends many happy hours searching for pieces of pretty china to display upon its shelves. The armchairs are surprisingly comfortable, though they need brightly coloured rugs to hide their faded covers, and the deal table and the rickety chairs require much polishing. The final result, however, is all of a piece with the cottage.
During a visit on one of his home leaves, her brother, Chris, puts up shelves in the alcove beside the fireplace. He often comes to her rescue, doing jobs in the cottage and the garden, helped by the twins, who enjoy being his assistants simply because he makes them feel necessary and important, whether it is in the building of a bonfire or measuring up to make some shelves. It seems odd to Kate that Mark never takes any part in creating his home. Neither in his letters nor when he’s on leave does he take much interest in it. Rather to the contrary, he coldly points out on numerous occasions that he’s a submariner: he is not a carpenter nor is he a gardener nor, indeed as far as she can see – though she never dares to say this aloud – is he useful in any kind of way outside the Navy. In any event, he makes no lasting impression on the cottage.
Despite her expectation that he will reveal himself to her as they grow together, Mark remains self-contained and private. He needs to be in control – using his cruel tongue and cold anger to achieve it – and Kate is unable to persuade him that their marriage could be a partnership in which both are equals. Nevertheless she writes long letters to him, describing her finds in the market and how the cottage is looking and, when he manages a weekend in Devon before going to Faslane to join the submarine chosen to carry out the Perisher running, she is hopeful that he will show some enthusiasm for their new home.
His interest in the cottage and her achievements are cursory, however, and he’s not even much interested in how the twins are settling in at Meavy School. He looks strained and pale and is smoking very heavily. His preoccupation with his crucial performance on Perisher is patent. She feels anguish for him, knowing that so much is in the balance here, career-wise, but as usual she is held at arm’s length by his inability to trust her love and loyalty. Perhaps he fears that, if he opens himself to her, she might demand more than he is prepared to give in return. Studying this unsettling character mix of vulnerability and cruelty she is beginning to believe that she is the stronger character – yet she fears him.
When she has the telephone call from him telling her that he’s passed Perisher she is so relieved that she is unable to speak for a few moments.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she cries at last. ‘It’s terrific, fantastic! Oh, I’m so proud of you. You deserve it. Well done.’
‘There’s one thing, though,’ he says. ‘We’ve each been told where we’re going. It’s typical! I’ve been given a boat in Dolphin.’
She is hardly able to contain her dismay: she has been hoping that, if he passes, he’ll be given command of a boat running out of Devonport so that they can stay here in their new home. A boat in the submarine base in Dolphin means that they’ll have to let the cottage and find a naval quarter or a hiring in Gosport or Alverstoke again. Resolutely she masters her disappointment.
‘You’ve passed,’ she tells him, ‘and that’s all that matters.’
‘I knew you’d see it like that,’ he says ebulliently. ‘I don’t care where it is. I’ve got a boat and that’s all that matters to me.’
The turning point in their marriage comes when he refuses to allow her and the twins to join him in Gosport when he takes over his new command. She is unable to believe that he means it. This is the first real reward of his naval career and she wants to share in it – Cass is right when she says that by this stage the wives have earned a bit of glory too – but Mark makes it brutally clear that he doesn’t want the distraction of his wife and children. It doesn’t occur to him that she has any feelings in the matter.
‘After all,’ he says cheerfully, ‘if I’m driving a boat I’m damned if she’s going to spend much time sitting beside the wall.’
‘But you’ll have to be in sometimes,’ she protests. ‘Surely it would be fun to be together then? There’re bound to be parties and things on the boat and in Dolphin.’
His smile vanishes abruptly and she is exposed to the chilling effect of the outward manifestations of his displeasure: the familiar closed expression, the droop of his eyelids over the light grey eyes.
‘Not if I can help it. It’s not some bloody Sunday school picnic. When I’m on leave I can come home. It’ll be much nicer for me to come here than to be stuck in Gosport in a quarter. If there’s anything special on you can come up for it.’
She gives in knowing that, if she insists on going with him, he is more than capable of turning it into a hollow victory. She can easily imagine the tiny public snubs and put-downs of which he is a master, and which are so damaging to her confidence. Anyway, she has no desire to go where she is so obviously not wanted. She puts a brave face on it to her friends, saying that she’ll be happier in the cottage, with the twins settled in school, than in some quarter in Gosport with Mark away at sea the whole time. Only Cass and her father, the General, know the real truth.
It is the General who is her greatest comfort during the following months. It is to him she opens her heart and voices her anxieties, knowing that, whilst he is both fair and sensible, nevertheless he is on her side. This is especially comforting during these lonely days when her mother, increasingly unwell, makes the journey up to Devon less often and Kate, frightened by her fragility, is reluctant to burden her with her own problems.
It is the General who breaks the news of her mother’s death. He arrives unannounced only moments after she has got home, tired and dispirited, from a weekend in Dolphin. It is only on this one occasion that Mark has invited her to a party on the boat and he makes it clear by his behaviour to her that he feels he has been obliged to make the invitation yet he is resentful that she has accepted it. He alternately ignores and humiliates her and only the embarrassed courtesy of the first lieutenant makes the evening bearable.
Glad to be home, waiting for the kettle to boil, she is delighted to see the General. He follows her into the kitchen and takes her hands in his.
‘You must be very brave, my darling,’ he says. ‘Your father telephoned me earlier when he couldn’t get an answer from you. Your mother died this morning . . .’
Shocked and uncomprehending, she is unable to contemplate a world that no longer contains her mother or to imagine how she will manage without the solid wall of unconditional love and support that has been at her back since memory began. She recalls to mind the beloved face, worn with pain but still serene, and remembers the feel of her mother’s hand holding her own, touching the twins: soothing pain and drying tears. This news, coming so swiftly on the heels of such an unhappy weekend, undermines her strength and courage.
‘What shall I do?’ she asks helplessly. ‘I need her,’ and the General puts his arms around her, consoling her as though she is one of the children.
‘You are stronger than you can possibly imagine,’ he says. ‘And I am here. For the moment that will have to be enough.’
* * *
Abruptly Kate turned aside and wandered out into the hall. This journey to the past was not going according to plan. She hadn’t asked to keep the key of the cottage so that she could brood on the death of her mother or the failure of her marriage to Mark Webster: the cottage had been the refuge to which she’d eventually returned after her separation from Mark and the place where she and Alex had been so happy. It was that year with Alex that she wanted to relive, not the misery of the final period of her marriage. Perhaps, out in the garden, she might find what she was looking for: that golden thread that would connect past and present and future, enabling her to take the next step forward, showing her the way. Hesitating in the doorway, listening to the robin’s song, the sun warmed and eased her; she raised her face, eyes closed, remembering. In the heat wave of 1976, a year after her separation from Mark, she’d spent most of her free time in this garden.
She’d met Alex three years earlier, going into his bookshop in the hope of finding an antiquarian print of Plymouth Hoe for Mark’s birthday present. It was clear that he’d been attracted to her but clear too that he’d understood that she was married. In the ensuing months she’d seen him from time to time in the Pannier Market and, on one occasion, he’d persuaded her to join him for a cup of coffee in The Galleon, where they’d talked about his trade in antiquarian books and pictures. Though she knew nothing of his work they’d passed a very happy half an hour but the next time they’d met each other she’d had the twins with her and merely exchanged a friendly greeting.
After the final break with Mark, returning to the cottage that had been let for the last year, she’d needed to assess the new situation carefully. Mark had been ready to agree to pay a monthly sum for the twins’ upkeep – he had his own reasons for keeping the separation from being made public – and was ready to continue to top up the school fees, two-thirds of which were paid by the Navy. Kate had no wish to create problems at school for the twins by plunging into divorce proceedings – they were settling down well and their friends were all the children of military families – but she’d needed to feel free. At last she’d persuaded her father to lend her enough money to buy Mark out of the cottage – this far, she could be independent of him – but now she must begin to earn enough to support herself and repay the loan. Then she’d seen Alex’s advertisement for an assistant in the Tavistock Times.
Even now Kate could recall the trepidation with which she’d answered it and how amazed and delighted she’d been when he’d accepted her application. Six months later she’d begun to fall in love with him.
Sitting on the little bench in the sunshine, Kate took a deep, expectant breath. The tight knot in her heart seemed to loosen a little: this was what she’d hoped for, this unravelling of the events that might help her to understand why something so wonderful had ended so abruptly.
How gently it begins, how kind he is and – oh, what a luxury – how easy to talk to. After the years of silence with Mark, it is Alex’s interest in her that is the most seductive element of their relationship. They speak the same language, share the same interests, laugh at the same things and she falls in love with him before she realizes it. She catches herself watching his hands as he touches the old books, looking at his mouth as he talks and smiles, and she begins to experience strange and disturbing emotions.
It becomes clear to her that she hasn’t been in love before; that her feelings for Mark have been a romantic reaction to the combination of his darkly handsome looks and the glamour of the whole naval scene of which, elegant in his uniform, he is only a part. The strength of her passion for Alex comes as a shock and she is fearful that rumours of an affair might give Mark grounds for taking the twins away from her: she knows how careful she must be.
Alex goes out of his way to enable her to keep up with the work, taking on part-time assistants so that she can spend the school holidays with the twins, and understanding her problems with balancing the dogs’ needs. She is grateful, not only for his kindness but also for his friendship, and she is afraid that he might guess that she is falling in love with him, although it is very clear that he is by no means indifferent to her. Her confusion is made worse, however, by the fact that Alex is divorced and very popular with a number of women – and one woman in particular – who make no secret of their interest in him.
All through that hot summer holiday Kate holds the twins as a shield between her and any possible developments in her relationship with Alex, yet she longs for him dreadfully. His presence has become necessary to her wellbeing and she misses their companionable chats, the shared excitement at the discovery of a valuable old book or print, and those lunchtimes when they would shut up shop and stroll over to the Bedford for sandwiches and beer.
Even the moor brings her no comfort. The drought transforms it into a scorched wasteland: cracks and fissures open in the ground, the streams dry up, and the ponies and sheep crowd into the few remaining areas of shade beneath that shimmering, pitiless glare. Even the skylarks seem to lose heart and only the ravens are in evidence as they strut over the parched grasslands, their stiff-legged gait slow and purpose- less, before taking to the airless heights with dispirited wing-beats. Kate is grateful for the coolness provided by the thick-walled cottage. She and the twins, with the dogs, spend a great deal of time lying on the grass beneath the apple trees. It is a relief when the heat wave ends and the heavy rains fall at last.
The evening of Cass’s party: that is when the affair truly begins. How fearful Kate is of appearing in public with Alex as her partner, knowing that so many of the guests will be Mark’s fellow officers with their wives, and how persuasive Cass is! When Kate opens the cottage door to see Alex waiting for her, elegant, tall and unfamiliar in his dinner jacket, she is panic-stricken, feeling ill-at-ease at being thrust back into the social world as an unattached woman: still fearful that rumours will reach Mark.
When she says lightly: ‘You look very dashing,’ and he replies thoughtfully: ‘And you look just as I thought you would,’ she immediately feels gauche and underdressed in her black velvet skirt and silk shirt. She thinks again of his reputation, of those women who pursue him, and wishes that she’d taken Cass up on her offer of a new outfit. It is so easy, she reflects, to carry the hang-ups of a first relationship into the next one. The comradely atmosphere of the shop has fled and she is supersensitive to his glance and touch.
At least, she thinks, there will be plenty of people. Safety in numbers.
She is right: typically of Cass there are plots and counterplots, flirtations and all kinds of subterfuge, and Kate and Alex have no chance to be alone together.
‘Well, they certainly know how to give a party,’ Alex says afterwards as he drives her home. ‘It was so nice to be with you in a non-working situation. May we do it again?’
‘It was fun,’ Kate admits. Pleasantly relaxed, having had rather more than usual to drink, her emotions are heightened and disturbed by the atmosphere of the party. For a blissful moment she forgets about being married, forgets about her reputation or how gossip or divorce might affect the twins. She touches his knee lightly. ‘Thank you for coming.’
He covers her hand with his own and holds it. ‘It’s a wonderful night,’ he says. ‘The moon’s up. We could take the Princetown road and go up on to the tops. The moor looks so unearthly by moonlight.’
They drive in silence until Alex stops the car on Walk-hampton Common and switches off the engine. The flat white disc of the moon bleaches everything of colour: the boulders and the grass, sparkling in the grip of frost, create a silvery white background against which gorse bushes and thorn trees are etched black.
‘Shall we get out?’ he suggests. ‘I’ve got a rug somewhere. You could wrap yourself in that. The air will be unbelievable.’
They climb out of the car and he folds a rug about her, holding her close against his side; their breath smokes in the sharp, singing air and the stars glitter with such brilliance that it seems that they too must be touched by the frost.
‘I can’t imagine a better time or place to tell you that I think I love you,’ he says. ‘I know you’re not free. I know there are all sorts of problems. But do you want to try to resolve them so that we can have a chance? Or is it still too soon for you?’
Her teeth chatter – partly from the cold, partly with excitement – and he holds her closer, turning her chin up with his free hand.
‘I’m afraid,’ she says, almost inaudibly. ‘If I start, I’m afraid I shan’t know how to stop.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ he says. He bends to kiss her, and the rug and her shawl fall unheeded to the ground as they hold each other. They are disturbed when a heavy lorry lumbers by on the road below them, the driver banging derisively on his horn, and at last they draw apart. She begins to laugh, her eyes blind with moonlight, shivering in her thin silk shirt, and Alex picks up the shawl and rug, wrapping them around her.
‘Come on,’ he says. ‘I’m going to take you home.’
The insistent double ring announcing a text message on her mobile telephone wrenched Kate out of her daydream and she sat quite still for a moment, resentful at being disturbed at such a moment, just when she’d begun to find her way back into the past. She took her phone from her pocket and read the message. It was from Gemma.
‘How R U. Wd it b OK 4 U 2 have the twins 4 the w/e.’
Kate stared at the message, frowning a little. It was not unusual for her to look after the twins but such a request was not normally made with such brevity. Anxiety began to crowd out her memories and she put the phone back in her pocket and got to her feet. She would come back later, she decided, after she’d spoken to Gemma and dealt with Michael.
Perhaps she could persuade him to allow her to keep the key for a little while longer. She locked the front door carefully, testing the handle so as to be certain, and paused at the gate to look back at the cottage as though promising herself that she would return soon.