On the morning of Max’s departure for Oxford, Sam suddenly raises concerns about using Cara’s car for their house-hunting expedition.
‘After all,’ he says as they sit at breakfast, ‘you don’t know your way around this area and you need to be getting a good idea of where you might like to live. How can you do that if you’re driving? I suggest I go home and pick up my car. I didn’t drive it over because parking is difficult in Salcombe, but now I can use Max’s space in the boatyard.’
There is a short silence. She glances at Max, who is considering this plan but without any kind of alarm and anxiety. Cara is relieved. She has no idea what kind of driver Sam might be, or what kind of car he might own.
‘I think that sounds very sensible,’ Max says to him. ‘These lanes can be pretty scary for anyone who hasn’t grown up around them, and Cara won’t get much idea of the country whilst she’s trying to follow directions and avoiding tractors. Tell you what, why don’t I drop you off at The Keep on my way upcountry? After all, it’s hardly any distance off my road, is it? Then you can drive back? Is that a plan?’
‘It’s a very good plan,’ says Sam enthusiastically. ‘And Cara can come with us and meet Fliss and Hal.’
Just for a moment Cara experiences a little flick of panic.
‘But if you’re leaving in the next hour, Max, I think that’s a bit unfair to Fliss and Hal, don’t you?’ she suggests. ‘They’ll have hardly finished breakfast.’
‘You won’t faze them,’ answers Sam confidently. ‘I’ll call them now and give them a heads-up.’
He pushes his chair back from the table and disappears downstairs. Max grins at Cara.
‘Definitely a leader of men,’ he says. ‘Are you OK with this?’
‘If you’re sure they won’t mind,’ she replies, still trying to subdue the foolish panic. Suddenly she feels fearful at the thought of Max going. The now familiar sense of being untethered, of being utterly alone, assails her. ‘It just seems a bit impolite.’
‘Honestly,’ he tells her, ‘there won’t be a problem. Sam will handle it.’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes, I’m beginning to think you’re right.’
Soon they are travelling out of the town, heading for Dartington and The Keep. Cara tries to get her bearings, gazing out at the countryside, questioning Sam about the little villages, and before too long they are climbing the hill and driving in beneath the arch of a gatehouse, into the courtyard of The Keep. Sam told her that it was built in the 1840s from the ruins of an old hill fort. Cara stares at it in delight: a central castellated tower three storeys high, two wings, set back a little and obviously added at a later date, high stone walls encircling the courtyard.
Sam jumps out and dashes in to announce their arrival, and almost at once Hal and Fliss come hurrying out. Max remains only long enough to say ‘hello’ before driving away again and, whilst Sam goes to get his car from the garages built into the gatehouse, Fliss and Hal take Cara into the house, through the great hall with a huge granite fireplace, along a slate-floored passage to the warm kitchen with its Aga. She looks around at the pretty patchwork curtains, and at the built-in dresser bearing delicate survivors – rose, blue, gold-leaf – from long-forgotten dinner and tea services. There are two windows set in the far wall and Cara is drawn towards them. Looking out, she gives a little gasp of delight. The hill slopes away so steeply that the kitchen seems poised high up in the air. She can see birds circling below her, and the great sweep of multicoloured fields and small rounded hills unfold, distance upon distance, into a misty blue infinity.
Hal and Fliss brew coffee and make her feel welcome, batting away her apologies, sympathizing with the problems of house-hunting, reassuring her that Sam will love showing her the South Hams. She suggests that they must be very proud of him, passing the AIB, and they agree that they are. They are an attractive couple. Hal, tall and grey-haired, wears an old Guernsey with his faded cords whilst Fliss, small, fine-featured, is dressed in jeans, a shirt, and a gilet.
‘Neither my children nor Hal’s went into the navy,’ Fliss says, as they sit around the long refectory table, ‘so it’s rather nice that Sam will be following the family tradition. And in Mole’s footsteps, too, of course.’
She looks at Cara enquiringly, wondering if she understands this, and Cara says cautiously that Max has told her something of Sam’s history.
‘With Mole,’ says Fliss, ‘it was a passion from childhood upwards. He wanted to be a submariner more than anything else in the world.’
Cara glances at Hal. ‘And was it a passion for you, too?’ she asks.
Hal shakes his head. ‘Too long ago to remember,’ he says ruefully. ‘Probably. Not submarines. That was never my idea of fun. But yes, I suppose it was the only thing I wanted to do back then. Sam must have been pretty convincing, too, or the Board would never have passed him. You’ve really got to want it. It’s a pity he couldn’t go straight in. I think he’s feeling a sense of anticlimax after the excitement of passing so it’s good that he’s able to be of use to you with your house-hunting.’
Cara begins to talk about some of the properties she and Sam have looked at on Max’s laptop.
‘So are you going to be looking at any today?’ Hal asks, reaching to pour some coffee as Sam comes in and drops some letters on to the table.
‘Postman’s been,’ he says. ‘No. We won’t be viewing anything today because there hasn’t been time to make appointments.’ He sits down and takes his mug. ‘Thanks. Though we might do a few external recces. But I do think it’s an opportunity to show Cara some of the area. We might go back through Dartmouth and along to Torcross.’
Cara smiles at Fliss and shrugs. ‘He’s the boss.’
‘I envy you,’ Fliss answers. ‘How wonderful to be seeing the South Hams for the very first time.’
‘And are you a town mouse or a country mouse?’ asks Hal.
Cara laughs, remembering the Beatrix Potter book. ‘Sam asked me that question and I know it sounds crazy but I really don’t know. I suppose it all depends on the town and on the type of country. We stayed with Max and Judith in Salcombe on the occasions when our leaves matched up, which wasn’t often, but it seems odd to imagine myself living there. But then it’s odd to imagine myself living anywhere for any length of time.’
‘Service life syndrome,’ observes Hal. ‘I know lots of friends who still feel that they should move house every two years.’
‘Apart from which,’ adds Sam, ‘Salcombe has some of the most expensive real estate in the country.’
‘Yes, Max did well to buy when he did,’ agrees Hal. ‘It’s been a great investment.’
‘We need to get moving,’ says Sam, finishing his coffee. ‘We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.’
‘And if you need a change from Salcombe,’ Fliss says, as they all walk out across the courtyard, ‘you would be welcome to come and stay with us. The important thing is that you don’t rush into buying something that doesn’t suit you.’
Cara climbs into Sam’s blue Mini feeling warmed by Fliss’s kindness.
‘How sweet they are,’ she says to Sam as they drive away through winding lanes towards the main road. ‘And what an amazing house. It’s like a little castle.’
‘Well, when Judith gets back you can come over and stay,’ he answers.
She hears the amusement in his voice, as if he guesses that she and Judith don’t hit it off too well, and she glances at him sharply.
‘I might just do that,’ she says, and then settles back to look around her.
‘You’ll only get a glimpse of Totnes,’ he says, ‘because I want to get on. But we’ll come back and do a proper recce.’
‘Fine by me,’ she says. ‘But when you say you want to get on, do you have a particular destination in mind?’
He nods, smiling. ‘My favourite place in all the world,’ he says.
She laughs, hearing all of his childhood in those words.
‘Not the Naval College?’ she queries teasingly, and watches with interest as his smile turns into surprise, almost as if he has forgotten such a place existed.
‘No,’ he says, giving a little shake of the head. ‘Not the College, though you’ll see that, too. Or as much as you can from the road.’
She looks around her as they skirt Totnes, glimpsing the castle crouching on the hill, and then they are out into the countryside once more. He gives a little running commentary as he drives along but she can feel that he is intent upon his destination. They turn on to the road to Dartmouth and he begins to tell her a little of the history of the town. Suddenly, away across the farmland, there is a dazzle of silver, brilliant in the autumn sunshine. She gives a little gasp, and there it is again, as if a mirror were reflecting the sunlight.
‘The sea,’ she cries. ‘Look at the sea!’
He glances briefly, nodding, acknowledging it.
‘You just wait,’ he says, driving on. ‘We’re nearly into Dartmouth now and then you’ll see the College, on your left as we go down the hill.’
She sees the great wrought-iron gates first, with the words ‘Britannia Royal Naval College’ arched above them, glimpses of the imposing building half hidden behind the trees. Suddenly she remembers Philip bringing her to the Passing Out Parade, the proud young men in their uniforms, and the band of the Royal Marines playing on the quarter deck. Afterwards she and Max and Philip went out on a boat on the river. It was a little motor boat and Max and Philip joked and laughed, and argued as to who should steer. Somewhere upriver they berthed it by a pontoon and went ashore to have tea in the pub. She hasn’t thought about it for years but she has a little vision of tiny creeks, wooded banks, and reflections on the water.
As they drive down the hill and along the embankment, Sam continues his running commentary, and Cara exclaims in delight at the sight of the river with the castle guarding the entrance to the harbour, and another little town perched on the opposite hill. More memories come flooding back to her. She thinks about Philip, how he picked her up in London in his mother’s Hillman Imp and drove her down to this delightful town. How happy she was to be with him. He was so dear, so familiar. He organized everything and she was so excited. Back then he still seemed to be like Max: a kind, elder brother.
Now, she peers around, trying to remember where they stayed.
‘Aren’t we going to stop?’ she asks, disappointed, as they turn into roads that lead away from the river and out of the town.
‘Not today,’ Sam says. ‘But we’ll come back, I promise.’
She is amused by his single-mindedness, touched that she is to see this place that is so special to him. And then her breath is taken away by the scene ahead of them: the sea, vast, infinite, rolling as far as she can see and, inland at its nearest shores, coves and beaches curving away to a distant headland where she can just make out the tiny shape of a lighthouse.
‘Start Bay,’ says Sam with satisfaction.
In steep-sided meadows that plunge to the sea, sheep cling toe to toe with their long shadows, small villages perched high above them, and Cara leans from her window, gazing down at the half-hidden, rock-sheltered coves, at the tall pines and deep-clefted valleys.
‘Oh, this is amazing,’ she says. ‘However do you get to those beaches? Only by boat, I suppose?’
And even as she asks the question, Sam swings the car off the road on to a metalled track that runs between some tall shrubs, and into an almost deserted car park. He parks, switches off the engine and smiles at her.
‘Come and see,’ he says.
They sit at one of the wooden tables outside the Venus Café, waiting for their breakfasts to arrive. Sam watches Cara, delighted with her reaction to this very special place, happy to be sitting here in the warm early October sunshine. He looks around him, at the two cliffs that enclose the cove, the stretch of golden shingle, the tall pines that lend an almost Mediterranean feel to this enchanting beach. He tries to imagine seeing it through her eyes for the first time, watching the sea curling round the rocks, the little pools, the way the stream that runs down from the valley carves a runnel across the sands to the sea.
‘It’s perfect,’ Cara says. ‘And I can see now why you wanted to get here.’
‘Well, that’s just so that we were in time for breakfast,’ he says. ‘They stop serving it at eleven thirty. We were in such a hurry this morning that I’m starving.’
She laughs at him. ‘I don’t believe a word of it. Fliss would have given you breakfast. But I don’t blame you. It’s beautiful here. I love it. I’d want to share it, too.’
She turns in her seat to watch a dog racing across the beach to retrieve a stick its owner has thrown and, though her delight is evident, he’s aware of a sadness and he remembers that she is newly widowed, that her sense of loss must be sharp, fresh. After so many years of marriage he imagines that she must miss her husband terribly and he feels guilty that he’s briefly forgotten it.
Sam knows deep down that it is right to bring her here. This is a good place to be: it’s a healing place. Here, his own loneliness recedes, the sense of emptiness draws back. Some instinct told him to bring Cara here and he can see by her face that the magic is working. He’s been to Blackpool Sands often in the last few weeks, when this new sense of confusion and the pressing in of the past has weighed upon him. He’s walked on the beach, watching families having fun, and tried to imagine what it must be like to have parents, people to call ‘Mummy’ and ‘Daddy’. He’s wondered what kind of shot he might make at being a parent and he suspects that part of the attraction of teaching is bound up in his own sense of loss.
It was here that he came last year after his incredible experience in Shanghai; to find the privacy he needed to come to terms with his unhappiness. The pain has faded, the world restabilized. He no longer yearns to see her, to feel her in his arms. He can even say her name – Ying-Yue, ‘reflection of the moon’ – without the spasm of pain that used to assail him. Here, on this beach, he is not the Gwailou, the Ghost Man. The foreign devil so despised by Ying-Yue’s parents. There was never any possibility of bringing Ying-Yue home, of showing her this precious place. They were irrevocably separated by culture and distance, but he loved her with a passion.
Sam realizes that Cara is looking at him and he flushes slightly, uncomfortable under her scrutiny. He’s relieved when the waitress arrives so that he can cover his lapse of concentration with the organization of the table, sharing out the cutlery, and with the process of eating.
‘Lizzie used to bring me here,’ he tells Cara, ‘when I was very small. Me and Rufus.’
‘Rufus?’ queries Cara, buttering some toast.
‘He was our dog back then. He used to love it here, chasing stones, rushing in and out of the water. I would hide my eyes and Lizzie would hide chocolates in the sand. Those round chocolates wrapped in gold paper. We pretended they were doubloons. Treasure trove. I had to find them.’
‘Just you and Lizzie? And Rufus?’
He nodded. ‘Mostly. Fliss would come sometimes. Her children, my cousins, were all grown up by the time I arrived. Jamie and Bess are in their forties now.’
‘I hope you realize,’ Cara says, ‘that everything after this is going to be an anticlimax. Unless you’re suggesting that I live here on the beach. Didn’t I see a little cottage way over there? A pink one? And one further up the valley?’
He smiles, shaking his head. ‘No, no. This is just to get you into the mood. To give you an idea of what the South Hams can offer. The Salcombe estuary is only the beginning.’
‘So where next?’ she asks, finishing her bacon and eggs, pushing her plate to one side and picking up her coffee cup. ‘What’s the agenda for the rest of the day? I still feel that after this everything is going to be a let-down.’
‘I think we’ll drive back into Dartmouth,’ he says, ‘and have a walk around the town. You can get the feel of the place and we can look at some of those properties we printed off.’
‘I hope you’ve got a map,’ she says. ‘It’s a long time since we stayed with Max and did some sightseeing, and I’ve lost my bearings completely. I mean, where are we in relation to Salcombe? I feel as if I’ve gone through the looking-glass at some point this morning and I’m in another country.’
Sam picks up the little satchel he brought with him from the car and opens it. He draws out an Ordnance Survey map and the print-outs of the properties in Dartmouth.
‘Have a look at these before we go,’ he says. ‘Here’s the map. You see we’re not very far round the coast from Salcombe.’
He spreads out the map and Cara leans over it.
‘Will we come back here?’ she asks almost wistfully.
He grins at her and decides to try a little tease. ‘Probably. On the way home we’ll drive along to Slapton Sands and if you’re good I’ll buy you an ice cream.’
She bursts out laughing. ‘One with a chocolate flake in it?’
He laughs, too, relieved that she isn’t offended. ‘Only if you’re very, very good. Come on. Let’s get going.’
After Sam and Cara have gone, Fliss and Hal wander back across the courtyard. Fliss pauses to fix back some trailing stems of the clematis that grows against the old stone wall, stepping carefully into the border beneath it, reaching up to weave the stems on to the wires that support it. Hal watches her, thinking about the past. It was their grandmother who was firm with him when he wanted to marry Fliss all those years ago when they were both very young. Freddy Chadwick didn’t approve of first cousins marrying, and Hal’s mother agreed with her. Reluctantly he was prevailed upon to establish his career, to see the wider world – and then he met Maria, pretty, sexy, and he fell in lust. He sighs, thinking back over the drama that was his marriage to Maria. How long ago it all seems.
Fliss steps out of the border, scrapes her muddy shoe on the grass and smiles at him. He smiles back at her, grateful for these last twenty years they’ve spent together.
‘I liked Cara,’ Fliss says. ‘Did you? Not what I expected at all. I hope you didn’t mind me inviting her out of the blue like that. I just felt she must be feeling pretty vulnerable and buying a house is such a big decision.’
‘I like her, too,’ says Hal. ‘And of course I don’t mind. She’s good value. Sam must bring her over for lunch. She’ll be good for him. He still seems to have something on his mind.’
‘I know.’ Fliss catches his arm as they stroll, frowning. ‘I thought it was to do with Lizzie going but I’m beginning to think it’s more than that. The trouble is, it’s difficult actually to confront him. He’s so like Mole. So self-sufficient.’
‘Of course, it might just be that he’s slightly daunted about going to Dartmouth. He’s had too long to think about it. It was better in the old days when you just left school in July and started in September.’
Hal stands back to allow her to go into the hall but once inside she pauses to look around her, and he wonders if she is remembering past times.
‘What’s up?’ he asks. ‘Seeing ghosts?’
She looks surprised at his perceptiveness, and gives a little laugh.
‘I still can’t get over it being only us,’ she admits. ‘There were always so many people. Grandmother and Uncle Theo. Ellen bustling about, managing everything. Caroline looking after me and Mole and Susanna.’
‘And don’t forget old Fox living in the gatehouse.’
She shakes her head, sighs. ‘And now it’s just you and me and Sam, and he’ll be gone soon. Perhaps we should start a B and B.’
‘Give me a break,’ he protests. ‘The problem is, when all the family come home we need the space. You’d hate it if we had to say “no” to any of them. There were sixteen of us last Christmas.’
‘Yes, I would,’ she admits. ‘I love it when they come.’ She chuckles. ‘And I love it when they go! Even so, we’re really going to miss Sam.’
‘So what’s the plan for the rest of the day?’ asks Hal. ‘I’m going to get some logs in.’
‘I shall do a bit in the garden,’ Fliss tells him. ‘Don’t forget that they’re bringing the dog to meet us this afternoon.’
‘How could I forget?’ asks Hal.
He’s looking forward to having another dog at The Keep. It’s been too long without one – more than a year – and the house needs a dog. As he walks along the slate-flagged passage to the garden room his thoughts slip back to Sam and he remembers Cara’s question: And was it a passion for you, too?
Hal still can’t find an answer to that question. His grandfather was killed at the Battle of Jutland and his own father’s destroyer was torpedoed with no survivors in the Second World War. Uncle Theo was a naval chaplain. Somehow joining the navy seemed the obvious thing to do and Hal’s never regretted it.
As he kicks off his shoes and thrusts his feet into his boots, he wonders, just briefly, whether Sam has ever thought that it’s somehow obligatory to follow in Mole’s footsteps; that it will help him come to terms with his father’s death. He knows what Fliss means about it being difficult to know what the lad is thinking, or to ask him a direct question. There’s something about Sam that makes you hold off, as if you’re invading his privacy. In some ways, just as Fliss reflects her grandmother’s personality, Sam reflects Mole’s. There’s strength there, but also a vulnerability.
Hal sighs. He wishes he were better at this: better at drawing Sam out and helping him when times were hard. He remembers how pleased he and Fliss were last year to have Sam home from China; how delighted they were to see him again after his year away, and how they knew at once that all was not well, that something was deeply troubling him. They could do nothing to help. Fliss was sure that it was about a girl and Hal trusted her instincts. Sam returned to Durham a few weeks later but though he talked about Shanghai, about how he loved teaching the children English, he never once spoke to them about the thing that seemed to be diminishing him, weighing him down. They both ached with the need to comfort him.
But at least, thinks Hal, he seems OK now.
He pulls on his jacket and looks around him. The garden room is almost unchanged since his grandmother’s time: the big deal table with small pots of plants needing attention; the small sink with a cold tap plumbed in by Fox, who also built in shelves to hold reference books, jars containing labels, seed packets and spools of string. Hal is comforted by the sense of continuity, grateful for the small unexpected joys that reveal themselves, and he goes out to move logs.
Fliss puts the mugs into the dishwasher, washes out the cafetière, and mentally reviews the options for lunch. Hal’s right about the ghosts. Some days they seem more than usually present all around her: benign, comforting, bringing so many memories. Here, in this kitchen, so many dramas have been played out under the watchful eyes of Ellen, the housekeeper, who nurtured and loved them all: tutting when Fox came in from his outdoor labours without removing his boots; rolling her eyes when Kit, Hal’s twin sister, sat in the dog basket with whichever dog was in residence. Ellen’s comment, always muttered just below her breath, ‘Whatever next, I wonder’, had become a catchphrase with them all.
The dog basket is still there, unoccupied except for its clean rug waiting for the next occupant. Honey, a golden Labrador, is needing a home since her elderly owner died. She’s well trained, wonderful with children, the rescue lady tells them, but the younger members of the family are too busy to be able to look after her so she has to be rehomed. Fliss thinks that Honey sounds ideal and she’s hoping that she’ll approve of The Keep. The whole Chadwick family, children and grandchildren, are waiting with expectation.
Fliss can hear Hal bringing the logs into the hall ready for the winter ahead, piling them into the inglenook. She’s glad that Sam will be with them until after Christmas. She just wishes she knew what is behind his preoccupation. Perhaps he will talk to Max about it, or even to Cara. He seems to have taken to Cara, to be enjoying this new role of chauffeur and guide. Fliss glances at her watch and sees that it’s nearly lunchtime, and she has an idea. Hal has nearly finished piling up the logs and he glances round as she comes into the hall, giving a groan as he straightens up.
‘I should have left this for Sam,’ he remarks. ‘I must be a masochist.’
‘Keeps you fit,’ she says. ‘You need the exercise. But I’ve had an idea. Why don’t we go to The Cott for lunch?’
‘Now you’re talking,’ he says appreciatively. ‘Give me a few minutes to tidy up and I’ll be with you.’
‘As long as we’re back by three for Honey,’ she reminds him.
‘And is there Honey still for tea?’ he murmurs, and she laughs at him.
Suddenly she feels cheerful again, more confident that things will work out for the best for Sam: for them all.