There was still light in the evening sky when Hanna and Jazz left the library. Hanna paused for a moment to check that she’d set the alarm properly, then ran down the steps to the flagged courtyard. Linking arms, she and Jazz went through the arched gateway into Broad Street.
This gate had been the entrance to the school, though the nuns themselves had never been known to use it. They had moved through private doorways linking the school to the convent, which in those days had been an inviolate sanctum. The idea that Jazz now had an office there was extraordinary to Hanna, but Jazz saw nothing strange in it. Neither, of course, thought Hanna, did any of that generation: the changes that had come to Finfarran in only a few decades were immense.
Edge of the World Essentials, the organic cosmetics company Jazz worked for, had been one of the first start-ups to rent in The Old Convent Centre. Jewellers and other craft workers, artisan chocolatiers, artists, and picture-framers had followed, filling what had once been classrooms, the nuns’ parlour, and their dormitories. Since then the domestic-science rooms had been refitted for a residential cookery course, and the upper storeys of the two buildings were still being redeveloped.
Hanna asked what Jazz had thought of the film.
‘I liked it. D’you reckon she was right to get on the boat and go back to the guy she’d married over in Brooklyn? Or should she have stayed in Ireland and built a new life?’
‘Well, that’s the eternal dilemma, isn’t it?’
‘Knowing the right thing to do?’
‘Well, yes, but not just that. Actually having the courage to choose.’
Jazz linked her arm through Hanna’s. ‘So, what are we going to eat?’
‘Smoked salmon.’
‘Yum. With potato salad?’
‘No, but I did make brown bread.’
‘And, while I think of it,’ Jazz turned back the flap of her bag to reveal a cardboard box, ‘I got cheesecake from the deli. A slice of salt caramel and one of Morello cherry. We can arm-wrestle for them, if you like, or chop them into trendy tasting-portions.’
‘Or, in my case, put some away for tomorrow.’
‘Don’t be such a wuss! I bet you haven’t eaten since lunchtime.’
Looking at her daughter’s slender wrists and the bony shoulders under her expensive T-shirt, Hanna wondered when Jazz herself had last had a proper meal. Sustenance, she suspected, had become a matter of sandwiches wolfed at meetings, and far too much coffee. But, at twenty-three, Jazz could still revert from competent executive to stroppy adolescent so, wary of saying the wrong thing, Hanna laughed.
They drove in convoy through the streets of Lissbeg where the first of the season’s tourists were out seeking pub music. Then they made their way along country roads to the clifftop field where Hanna’s house was. It was after ten o’clock in the evening and the edge of every fluttering leaf was still clear against the sky.
The low stone house with its little rear extension stood at the top of the field, its back to the road and its front door facing the ocean. The narrow plot sloped steeply down to a boundary wall beyond which a grassy path followed the curve of the cliff: the path was only a few feet wide and the sheer drop to the waves below was breathtaking. Rounding the gable end of the house, Jazz called over her shoulder, ‘It’s still a lovely evening. Shall we eat outside?’
‘A bit chilly now the sun’s set. Let’s take some wine down to the bench first, though.’
In the distance gulls were coasting on the wind and the faint trace of the lost sun glimmered on the horizon. As Hanna fetched wine from the kitchen, Jazz wandered down the field and climbed the stile to the wooden bench at the far side of the wall. Following with the bottle and glasses in her hands, Hanna watched her daughter settle on the bench and tip back her sleek head. With her hair streaming sideways, tugged by the wind from the ocean, Jazz’s thin shoulders visibly relaxed as she raised her face to the sky.
Later, having sauntered back up the field, they sliced salmon and brown bread, piled salad onto plates, and sat down to eat. In addition to the small built-on bathroom and utility area, Hanna’s house consisted of just two rooms: her tiny bedroom and this open-plan living space with its kitchen at one end, fireplace at the other, and a table under the window looking out at the huge sky.
Squeezing lemon juice onto a sliver of salmon, she looked across at Jazz. ‘How’s Louisa doing in London?’
‘Fine. I spoke to her this morning. She’s been networking with investors. In a nice Home Counties way, of course, and interspersed with visits to John Lewis’s.’ Jazz buttered a slice of bread. ‘Gosh, this is gorgeous. I’d no idea I was so hungry.’ Taking a large bite, she spoke with her mouth full. ‘She doesn’t seem to be seeing much of Dad.’
‘But isn’t she staying with him while she’s over there?’
‘Mm. But she’s always out doing things. Bank manager. Chatting up contacts. All good stuff. And brilliant from Dad’s point of view because he doesn’t have to be bothered with her.’
‘Oh, come on! She’s his mum and he adores her.’
Jazz made a cynical noise and speared a slice of salmon. ‘So long as she needs no attention when he’s otherwise engaged.’
Hanna gave up. Jazz was right. Malcolm did love his mother, just as he loved his daughter, but essentially he was selfish through and through. Yet despite all the revelations and recriminations they’d been through and dealt with as a family, she still felt Jazz should be spared that unvarnished truth.
Jazz shrugged. ‘Look, Dad’s a demanding little boy disguised as a high-profile barrister. I know that. Granny Lou knows it. We all do, Mum. It’s cool.’
Recognising a warning to back off, Hanna said it was great that Louisa was lining up investors. Jazz added a squeeze of lemon to her salmon. ‘Who knew that she’d turn out to be such a sharp businesswoman? At her age! And how lucky am I that she decided to set up Edge of the World Essentials. I mean Granny Lou! Twinset and pearls and croquet on the lawn!’
The company had been set up by Malcolm’s widowed mother, who’d decided her English country home was too big to live in alone. The decision had astonished Jazz, to whom Louisa had just been a granny. But Hanna hadn’t been surprised. She’d known there was far more to her ex-mother-in-law than her genteel appearance might suggest.
It was Louisa who’d laid the social foundations for Malcolm’s stellar career as a London barrister by inviting the right people to the charming manor house in Kent, and creating a necessary network of obligation and support. It was a subtle process, requiring shrewdness, tact, and hard work. No one knew that better than Hanna, on whom the role had devolved as soon as she’d married. Giving up her cherished dream of being an art librarian, she’d spent most of her time supporting and advancing her husband’s career – until she’d found Malcolm sleeping with a woman she’d always believed was her friend.
There was no doubt that Louisa was enjoying her new role in business, but Hanna knew that her taking it on hadn’t been entirely a matter of choice. Louisa could easily have retired in comfort on the proceeds of the sale of the manor, but instead she’d set herself the task of establishing yet another career. It was a duty as well as a pleasure, she’d told Hanna confidentially, crossing her elegant ankles and folding her hands in her lap: Malcolm’s disgusting behaviour had left Jazz rootless, and his late father would have wanted that put right.
Jazz transferred a cherry tomato straight from the bowl to her mouth. ‘Oh, Mum, I never said. Dad’s put the London house on the market.’
‘What?’
‘I know. Weird. He must be having a midlife crisis. Louisa says he wants a flat in a glass box near the Tate Modern.’
‘But – he’s selling the house? How do you feel about that?’
‘Me? Fine. Why should I care?’
Dozens of answers jostled in Hanna’s mind. Because it’s your home. The house you grew up in. Because you still have a room there – okay, a room where you probably keep three jackets and a hairbrush. But it’s your room. I painted the walls for you. I sang you to sleep there at night.
It was she who’d found the tall Georgian house in the first place, and tirelessly worked to turn it into a home. She’d installed the oil-fired range in the basement kitchen and planted espaliered pear trees in the brick-walled garden, envisaging tea and sponge cake by the range on winter evenings, ice cream and lemonade on a sunny bench in summer.
That work had been an act of faith in the first year of her marriage, after she’d miscarried a baby she and Malcolm had longed to have. She’d needed to believe she’d get pregnant again, and that next time things would be perfect. For months she’d scoured salvage yards, finding cast-iron baths and fire grates, a deep butler’s sink and cut-glass doorknobs. The reception rooms were hung with hand-printed paper, and the curving mahogany banister was sanded till it felt like silk, then polished with beeswax. It had taken nearly a year for the house to be ready, and by the time they moved in, Hanna had been in love with it.
On their first evening there, she and Malcolm had wandered hand in hand till they came to the master bedroom, where Hanna had chosen soft grey fabrics to go with the sage-green walls. When Malcolm opened the door she’d seen a bottle of champagne in a silver wine cooler standing on the bedside table. He’d laughed at her astonishment.
‘Doesn’t it fit? It’s supposed to be Georgian.’
It was, and it was perfect. As he’d poured the champagne, he’d told her how much he loved her, and the following morning he’d cancelled a meeting and they’d stayed in bed till noon.
They’d been in their early twenties then, and it had taken eleven years and many tests and interventions before Hanna conceived again. Yet she hadn’t become obsessive or disheartened. Instead she’d devoted herself to supporting Malcolm – caring for the house, where she threw networking dinner parties, and finding a cottage in Norfolk where his colleagues could come and spend relaxing weekends. In all that time she’d never questioned his love, or doubted that one day they’d have a child.
She’d been sitting in the moonlit garden one night when Malcolm came home with a bouquet of white jasmine from Louisa. Hanna had breathed in the scent, and shown him the blurry scan she’d been given that day at the clinic. And together they’d decided to name their daughter Jasmine.
Long afterwards, putting two and two together, Hanna had realised Malcolm’s affair had begun in the weeks when she herself had been choosing paints and fabrics for the London house. She’d found them there in bed together when Jazz was sixteen.
‘Mum?’
‘What?’
‘You’re worrying about me, aren’t you?’
For a moment the vivid, accusing face looked exactly like Malcolm’s.
‘How many times do I have to say that you did the right thing? You found out Dad was a lying cheat so you grabbed me and whipped me off to Ireland. Okay, maybe it was a bit sudden, like The Bolter in a Nancy Mitford novel.’
‘Hang on, I was nothing like The Bolter. She was married about seven times!’
Jazz giggled. ‘Whatever. It’s ages since I read the books.’
‘Where did you find them anyway? We didn’t have them at home.’
‘I dunno. I expect Granny Lou had them in Kent. Anyway, the point is that you made the right choice and it didn’t blight my life. And if I fussed a bit at the time, Mum, I got over it. So I wish you would.’
Hanna hardly knew whether she felt like laughing or crying. Leaving Malcolm hadn’t been part of a conscious, responsible plan. She’d simply found him in her bed with Tessa Carmichael, one of his colleagues, and left for Ireland that evening with no plan at all. It was later that she’d discovered how long Malcolm had been cheating on her with Tessa, and realised there was no way back.
But, whatever the provocation, plucking a teenager out of her home and school had been reckless. To make matters worse, she’d tried to conceal Malcolm’s betrayal from Jazz for far too long. Whatever Jazz might say now, the whole mess had been traumatic. And, no matter how much she’d wanted to, Hanna hadn’t been able to fix it: it had taken Louisa’s intervention, and the establishment of the business, to give Jazz her present sense of being rooted here in Finfarran.
So, yes, she did worry, and often she felt guilty. But neither worry nor guilt had flooded her mind just now. Instead she’d seen sage-green painted walls, smelt beeswax, and remembered moonlight. The thought of her perfect bedroom and of blossom shining on the pear trees had, for a moment, blotted out all sense of the years in between.