As they drive to The Keep in Sam’s Mini the following morning Cara is rather quiet. A westerly is driving tattered clouds before it, whirling the autumn leaves high into the sky, flinging handfuls of rain across the windscreen.
‘Everything OK?’ asks Sam, glancing sideways at her.
She doesn’t answer straight away but sits slightly hunched, with her arms crossed, frowning, as if she is considering his question.
‘I think so,’ she says at last. ‘To be absolutely honest I was rather surprised at Judith’s reaction to us going. It was almost as if she didn’t want me to go, which is a bit surprising. I don’t mean to sound rude or anything but I thought she might be quite pleased to see the back of me for a few days. She seemed almost put out.’
Sam nods. ‘I know what you mean. I noticed it but didn’t give it much thought.’
‘And Max seemed a bit twitchy too, as if he half expected Judith to go off on one. It was like he was edging her away from something. I suppose I might have upset her somehow without meaning to, and she’s cross and he was trying to keep the peace. It wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘The good thing about a big family like ours,’ says Sam, ‘is that there’s plenty of us to deflect rows and arguments so it never gets too intense. By the way, Fliss says she’s putting you in Lizzie’s old rooms so I hope you’ll be comfortable. They’re in the west wing so they’re best in the late afternoon and evening, though especially lovely in the spring.’
‘And you’re happy with that?’ Cara asks. ‘I know Lizzie’s very special to you.’
‘It will be nice to know they’re being used,’ he answers. ‘The thing with a house as old as The Keep is that the rooms have always belonged to someone else at some time, if you see what I mean. Did you enjoy the party?’
‘Yes,’ she says at once. ‘Yes, it was fun. Especially when all Jack’s friends came and joined in. I loved that. I was sorry that Cosmo couldn’t make it, though. Amy didn’t seem too upset but I wasn’t sure if she might just be putting on a brave face. I hope not.’
There’s a little silence.
He glances sideways at her. ‘You don’t trust him, do you?’
‘No,’ admits Cara. ‘I suspect him, but I’m not sure of what, and I don’t want Amy to be hurt. I’ve nothing to go on except … nothing. Just an instinct that he’s not playing straight. Did you find out why he had to rush away so suddenly?’
He shakes his head, slightly taken aback at her honesty.
‘No. Amy texted him but got no reply. I suppose it might depend on the nature of the emergency.’
Cara makes a little explosive sound of disbelief.
‘And the young man Amy spoke to at the pub?’
Sam begins to laugh. ‘Quick, aren’t you? His name is Al and he stands in when Cosmo’s not there. His parents own the house and the dog.’
She nods, as if she knows it already.
‘Odd, though, isn’t it,’ she says, ‘that Cosmo was called away in such a rush that he couldn’t warn Amy, but he still had time to organize Al and do the handover?’
Sam makes a little face. He can’t deny it. ‘You’re not very pleased with Cosmo, are you?’
She stares out of the window, biting her lip, almost as if she is going to tell him something, confide in him. Then she shakes her head as if deciding against it.
‘It’s none of my business,’ she says. ‘But I’m very fond of Amy and I don’t want her to get hurt.’
‘Neither do I,’ he says.
It surprises him how strongly that came out, how important Amy is becoming to him. Cara looks sideways at him, and she smiles.
‘Good,’ she says. ‘That’s very good. So let’s forget the wretched Cosmo and talk about your family. Explain who it is I’m going to meet and their exact relationship to you, and remember, I’m a complete stranger.’
When they arrive at The Keep it’s clear that celebrations are taking place. A television series is going to be filmed locally and Jolyon, Hal’s son, has suggested to the producer that The Keep might be the perfect location for some of the scenes. Cara is slightly alarmed by the whirl of family life but is caught up by the excitement of it all. Jolyon is very like his father, and Cara takes to him at once.
‘So are you, by extension, Sam’s godmother or his godsister?’ he asks her. ‘I’ve been trying to work out the relationship.’
She shakes her head. ‘I take no responsibility for him at all.’
Jolyon laughs and introduces her to his pretty wife, Henrietta, his small son, George, and the baby, Alfie. Fliss and Hal are preparing a big Sunday lunch. Honey patrols, on the watch for titbits, and Cara settles happily at the big kitchen table, listening whilst the discussion continues about the prospective TV series.
‘It’s the perfect time for The Keep,’ Jolyon says. ‘The eighteen hundreds, when dear old however-many-greats-grandfather Edward was restoring it from an old hill fort and then adding a couple of wings. It’s not going to be the main location for the series but it should earn you some money and it’ll be fun.’
‘And do Fliss and I get to be extras and dress up as Victorians?’ asks Hal, putting glasses on the table and picking up a bottle of wine.
‘Definitely not,’ says Jolyon at once. ‘That would be just so embarrassing, Dad.’
Hal winks at Cara, shows her the bottle, and she nods.
‘Yes, please,’ she says. ‘But maybe Honey will get a part, like the dog in Downton.’
At the sound of her name, Honey looks up to gaze across the room at Cara, and then small George puts his arms around the dog’s neck, hugging her.
‘So what d’you think of our latest addition?’ Sam asks Jolyon.
‘She’s great,’ he answers. ‘It’s good to see the dog basket occupied again.’
Hal nods. ‘Absolutely. Nice to have someone else in the doghouse for a change.’
There’s more laughter, more jokes, and Cara sips her wine, fascinated as always by the behaviour of a large family en masse. It’s outside her own experience and she envies them their shared past and the ease that goes with it.
‘Come and see your room,’ Fliss says. ‘Lunch isn’t quite ready.’
She picks up Cara’s small bag and leads the way along passages, up the stairs and along the corridor to the west wing. The rooms look down into the orchard, across the kitchen gardens, away to the west.
‘They’re quite small,’ says Fliss, almost apologetically, ‘but at least Lizzie had a little sitting-room so she could have some privacy when she needed it. And there’s a shower in this cubbyhole, with a loo, but if you want a bath you’ll have to muck in down the corridor. It wasn’t easy to drag The Keep into even the twentieth century so this is as good as it gets.’
Cara looks around at the simplicity of the two small rooms, the pretty French furniture, the watercolours on the walls.
‘It’s perfect,’ she says. ‘Thank you very much. It’s so kind of you, Fliss.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ says Fliss. ‘We love having people here. You’re welcome to stay for as long as you need to. It must be incredibly difficult to try to decide where you want to be when you’ve never had a settled base. The navy was like that, but I always had The Keep to come to whenever I needed it.’ She glances round as if to make sure everything is in order and then smiles at Cara. ‘Come down when you’re ready,’ she says, and goes out.
Cara picks up her bag and puts it on an old pine trunk at the foot of the bed. Then she crosses to the window. She imagines the orchard foaming with blossom in the spring; the kitchen garden, surrounded by its rugged stone walls and crisscrossed by grassy paths, filled with produce. She tries to imagine what it must be like to live with such continuity, the changing of the seasons, a sense of belonging.
She turns back into the room, opens her bag and takes out a few things. A mirror with a mahogany frame hangs above the small chest of drawers. Cara brushes her hair without looking herself in the eye. She can’t bear to do that, to see the other self, the disapproval looking back at her. She prefers others to be her mirror so that she can imagine herself as they see her, not as she really is. She remembers how she danced before the mirror at the house in Sussex, how she talked and laughed with her mirror-image, her friend. How long it’s been since she could look at her reflection and not see the accuser looking back at her.
She turns away, wondering what Philip would have made of Hal and Fliss. She is certain that he and Hal would have got on very well. They would have exchanged yarns of life at sea and in embassies in foreign countries. Philip had a knack of putting people at ease, creating a convivial atmosphere; he would have felt at home here at The Keep. She wishes he could be here with her, sharing this as they’d shared so many things. They’d had so much in common. He was a lonely only child, with a father in the army, and he’d enjoyed the companionship he found at school, especially with Max.
She can remember when she first realized, had known for certain, who Philip’s true love was. They were in Copenhagen when Max’s ship came into harbour for a Show the Flag visit. He’d grabbed a taxi and come straight to their flat much earlier than expected. She let him in, hugged him, then Philip came out of his study and stopped in surprise. The expression on his face – joy, love – showed her everything, explained so many things. How odd that she hadn’t minded: that it simply brought them all even closer. These two men had been the constants in her life and she loved them both. After Philip died, when she was packing up in London, she’d found a photograph tucked between the pages of one of his books. On the flyleaf was a brief inscription: ‘Philip. Congratulations. Max’ and a date, July 1970: the summer before Philip went up to Cambridge to read History. The book was a copy of 1066 and All That. In the photograph, the two young men stand together. Max, slightly taller, has propped his elbow casually on Philip’s shoulder and is smiling nonchalantly at the camera. Philip is looking at Max with an oddly touching mix of affection and admiration. Somehow the photograph says it all.
Now, Cara picks up a bag that has a box of chocolates in it, a little present for Fliss, and makes her way downstairs and back to the kitchen.
After lunch, leaving Hal to fill the dishwasher and Henrietta to settle the baby down for his nap, the others take Honey and set off for a walk on the hill. Jolyon and Sam walk on ahead, with Honey close at heel as usual, despite their efforts to make her run freely. Fliss and Cara follow more slowly, battling into the strong westerly wind.
‘So was it a good party last night?’ Fliss asks. ‘Sam seems to have enjoyed himself.’
Cara guesses that Fliss is trying to find out a little more about Sam’s activities in Salcombe and wonders how much he’s told her about Amy.
‘It was a birthday party,’ Cara tells her. ‘Jack Hannaford. He’s one of Max’s friends. They go sailing together. He’s interesting. Gave up a teaching career to go self-employed as a decorator. He brought me over to see The Magic Flute and Der Rosenkavalier at Dartington. His daughter’s about Sam’s age, Amy. She works with him but she’s spreading her wings a bit, from what I can gather. Starting to source things for clients, that sort of thing. Beginning to be a bit of an interior designer.’
Fliss smiles. ‘Perhaps that’s why Sam enjoyed himself so much. He’s been a bit quiet lately, a bit introspective. Perhaps Amy is helping him out of it.’
‘They seem to get along very well together,’ Cara says. ‘I think you’d like her a lot, but I wouldn’t want to say that it’s anything more than friendship.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ says Fliss.
They walk for a while in companionable silence, heads bent against the wind and the little splatters of rain. Ahead of them, Jolyon and Sam turn and start back towards them.
‘It’s going to start chucking it down in a minute,’ Jolyon shouts, gesturing at the banks of clouds massing along the horizon. ‘Time to go home.’
Cara is glad to turn her back to the wind and be almost carried down the hill. When they get back, the fire has been lit in the hall and Hal is sitting on one of the long sofas, reading newspapers, with George at his feet surrounded by toys. Cara guesses that these are family heirlooms: a wind-up jack-in-the-box, some rather battered Dinky cars, an old teddy, his fur rubbed thin with much hugging. Henrietta is sitting on the sofa opposite, the baby asleep beside her. Hal looks up.
‘It must have been chilly out there. I can hear the wind rising,’ he says. ‘Come and get warm.’
They take off their coats and boots and go to sit by the fire. Fliss kneels down beside George, showing him how to wind up the jack-in-the-box. Hal clears a space beside him on the sofa and smiles at Cara.
‘Just as well you’re not going back.’ he says. ‘It’s going to be a stormy old night. Though you might get a bit of a battering up there in the west wing.’
‘There’s something rather nice,’ she says, ‘about listening to really wild weather when you’re tucked up safe and warm inside.’
She sees Sam take his phone from his pocket and glance at it. A smile touches his lips and instinctively she knows that the text is from Amy. He looks up, catches her eye and grins at her.
‘All quiet on the Western Front,’ he says, and she wonders if that means that Amy still hasn’t heard from Cosmo.
She wonders what will happen when Cosmo returns to Salcombe, and gives an involuntary little shiver. Hal turns to look at her.
‘Cold?’ he asks. ‘It wasn’t the best afternoon for a walk. How about some tea?’ He gets up, scattering newspapers. ‘Come on, Sam. You can help me carry.’
Cara sits quietly listening to George and Fliss chattering together on the rug at her feet whilst Henrietta and Jolyon talk in quiet voices on the sofa on the other side of the long low table, and Honey stretches out before the fire. How peaceful it is. This is what a real homecoming must be like. Returning to the people you love best, in the home you’ve known for ever. Suddenly the baby wakes and begins to cry, and the dynamic changes as Henrietta picks him up. Fliss is asking if she needs anything; George takes some of the toys to show Jolyon. Tea arrives and is set out on the low table. Cara is absorbed by the life around her. She can’t remember when she’s been so happy.
The next few days are filled with companionship; walks on the moor, trips with Sam to do outside recces of two flats in Dartmouth, and a visit to Dartington Hall, where she is introduced to Fliss’s younger sister, Susanna, and her delightful husband, Gus, who live in the village. As Cara works in the kitchen garden with Hal and Fliss, she wonders why she should feel so relaxed with these people she’s known for such a short time. They have a stability, a rootedness, that she’s never known in her own life, and at this time of loneliness and adjustment it’s very comforting.
‘We just wanted to say,’ Fliss says after lunch on Cara’s last day, ‘that you’re always welcome to stay here. Don’t let the pressure of finding somewhere to live get to you. We can imagine that it might get a bit cramped in Salcombe after a while, but we’ve got so much space here and we’re used to having people around.’
A north-westerly is buffeting The Keep’s strong walls, there’s a sudden clatter of rain, and Hal comes into the kitchen with Honey, brushing the water from his jacket, kicking off his boots. Sam follows him, getting Honey’s towel and rubbing her dry.
‘We didn’t quite make it,’ he says. ‘There’s a real old gale blowing up. I think I’ll light the fire in the hall.’
‘Good idea,’ says Fliss.
Hal and Fliss begin a conversation about one of their children and Cara slips out and goes upstairs to her room. It’s colder today and she needs a warmer jersey. She’s packed one of Philip’s, a soft cashmere, warm and oversized, and she shrugs herself into the comfort of it and shuts her eyes just for a moment, acknowledging all that she has lost. She wraps her arms around herself, remembering his kindness, his sense of fun, their own ways of intimacy and love.
‘I never guessed,’ she said to him, after that visit in Copenhagen, ‘that it was Max whom you loved.’
Philip was sitting reading the newspaper and she can remember his swift upward glance, the anxiety and guilt in his eyes. She went to him, kneeling beside him and putting her arms round him. Philip held her tightly, his face hidden.
‘I love you, too,’ he said, muffled. ‘You know that.’
‘It’s OK,’ she reassured him. ‘I love him, too. If you have to love somebody I’m glad that it’s Max.’
Cara stands up. Pausing at the bedroom window, she sees that the rain has stopped although the sun is almost obscured by the mist over the moor. To the south storm clouds are building, towering and toppling over the hills. She hears her name called and then a knock on the door. She calls a response, the door opens and Sam sticks his head around, eyes alight with amusement.
‘Fancy an adventure?’ he asks.
Cara laughs. ‘That depends on what sort of adventure you have in mind,’ she answers. But Sam has already gone.
‘Bring a coat,’ he calls.
Catching up her fleece jacket, she hurries to the door.
‘Come on,’ he calls impatiently from further down the corridor. ‘We haven’t much time!’
She goes after him along the passage to the big central landing and, as he turns left and climbs the stairs, Cara follows, keeping close to the wall. She hasn’t been up to the third floor before. Something about the wooden stairs and banisters has seemed forbidding, unsafe, but Sam is climbing and she has to follow him. Here the building is less well decorated, less lived in. Even on this floor the ceilings are high, so much higher than in her cosy rooms in the west wing. There is a sense of space, of grandeur. The pictures on the walls here are fewer, and the paint on the walls is rougher, peeling in places. She is not surprised. After all, Hal and Fliss have no need for this extra space; its maintenance would not be a priority. On the top landing she looks around. There are several doors, which she assumes lead to bedrooms. Indeed, as Sam makes his way down the passage he gestures at an open doorway.
‘That’s my room,’ he says, but clearly this is not his destination.
He is leading her towards an oddly narrow door at the end of the corridor. He has a large key in his hand, which he puts into the lock.
‘Boxroom,’ he says briefly, and pushes in.
She follows. The smell is enticing: warm and dusty and dry, scents of different kinds of wood, of old lavender. Around the room are piles of boxes, furniture, even paintings stacked against a wall. It is a treasure trove of the old and neglected, cast-offs of a long established family. In the wall opposite the door is a small window so covered in grime and cobwebs that it is difficult to see the countryside beyond. It doesn’t cast much glow but Sam has flicked on a switch, and a bare bulb, hanging from a long cloth-bound cable, supplements the weak natural light.
As Cara takes it all in she is aware that Sam is busy. He has found a long, oddly shaped pole, which he carries into the corner on her left, which is clear of shelves and boxes. Here he reaches up with the pole to a latch in the ceiling.
‘Keep back,’ he warns, and with practised ease he flicks the catch to allow a long panel to swing downwards on sturdy hinges. There is a little shower of debris as the panel swings back and forth above their heads. Sam is still working; from the corner he collects a long, sturdy wooden ladder, which he lifts into place below the hatch. She can see that on the ends of the struts there are large brass hooks that match with eyes that are set in the wooden beam above their heads. Sam slots the ladder into place and turns to grin at her.
‘Give me a moment,’ he says.
He puts his hand in his pocket, rooting around for something, and draws out a small old-fashioned key. Holding it in his right hand, he puts a foot on the ladder and climbs quickly and smoothly to the top.
His head, shoulders and arms disappear from view and he stands still for a moment. Then he places one foot higher on the ladder and, with an audible grunt, he springs upwards. As the hatch opens high above, daylight floods into the room. Sam comes back a few steps so he can look down at her upturned and anxious face.
‘I was fifteen before I could get that hatch open,’ he says, grinning at her. ‘Don’t tell Fliss. Come on, Cara. You’re going to love this.’
He springs back up the ladder, into the light, until he disappears from view.
Cara moves forward slowly, her heart speeding, her thoughts a jumble of tension, fear and determination. She does not want to climb that ladder. The wood seems solid but she doesn’t trust in it. And yet neither can she bring herself to quit, to give up on Sam and let him down. He is so keen, so enthusiastic, and this is so obviously a gift he is offering her. How can she refuse him; how can she cope with admitting her fear to him? She is trapped, and so she touches the ladder gingerly, places a foot on the first rung. Clinging to the wood, she begins to climb.
It is a long way up. She stops twice, willing herself to go on, to put one hand above the next. Sam is calling, ‘Come on, Cara, you’ll miss it!’ and for a moment she feels like the little girl she once was; that it is Max above her, transformed back into an eager youth, urging her to conquer her fears, and she climbs on, not daring to look down, until her head reaches the hatchway.
Above her, Sam stretches for her hand, grasps it, and half pulls her up, into the light and the wind. Cara steps up off the ladder, Sam’s arm around her, steadying her. She looks out, across the gently sloping roof to the east, to the tiny towns, and to the distant sea, a sliver of blue, flashing and glinting in the setting sun. The wind whips at her clothes as she gasps in astonishment at the panorama all around her. And then Sam lets go and she is left unsteady, balanced precariously beside the hatch, as he saunters across the roof into the wind, towards the west and the setting sun. As she watches him he turns to face her, whooping in delight, revelling in the wind and the light. Laughing, he turns again and moves closer to the crenellations that surround the roof, facing into the brilliance of the sunset.
‘Sam!’ she shouts. ‘Don’t. Please don’t, it’s not safe.’
But he can’t hear her because of the wind, which catches her voice and tosses it away. Around the base of the crenellations is a low terrace, a walkway from which a watcher might see whomever is approaching the house. Sam jumps on to it with practised ease. Now Cara is terrified for him.
‘Sam!’ she calls out urgently.
He turns to face her, his face bright with pleasure. Turning back to face the sun, he flings his arms up and wide and shouts at the top of his voice, ‘Welcome to my kingdom, Cara!’
A huge blast of wind strikes the rooftop and, as Cara starts towards him, there is a tremendous echoing crash and she screams. She covers her face and screams again. In that brief moment the scene around her dislimns, past and present collide, and it is as if she stands once more on the landing of the old town house in Rome. Joe is facing her. He’s laughing, protesting at her foolishness: ‘Cara, bellissima Cara, where are you going, Cara?’ His arms are stretched towards her, detaining her, and she raises her handbag as a shield between them. He pretends to be frightened of her anger, throws up his arms in mock defence, ducking back against the banister. There is a splintering, cracking sound, the banister disintegrates and he is falling back. His hand flails out, catches the railing, but it breaks off as he grasps it. Gracefully he topples backwards into the stairwell. She screams his name, rushes forwards, hears a sickening crack, and his shout abruptly cut off. Standing precariously by the broken banister, looking down from the top landing, she sees him three floors below. His neck is crooked at an impossible angle and a pool of blood is spreading from beneath his head. She leaps down the stairs, her bag still clutched in one hand, her case in the other, and crouches to look into his sightless, half-open eyes. A door opens at the end of a passage behind her, she hears voices, and then she is running; running away into the hot, noisy city.