Читать книгу Love Always: A sweeping summer read full of dark family secrets from the Sunday Times bestselling author - Harriet Evans - Страница 13

Chapter Five

Without the setting, Summercove would still be a beautiful house. With it, it’s – well, it’s jaw-dropping. To me, at least. Maybe it’s not to everyone’s taste. I don’t care. To me, it’s the place I’d rather be, more than anywhere else. Always.

Off a small lane, covered in foliage in summer so green and dense it’s almost dark, you turn down a driveway and suddenly the house is there, at the edge of a lawn that slopes gently towards the cliffs. There is a proper garden at the back, manicured grass, rows of lavender, rose bushes climbing up the side of the house, a table and chairs for tea or for lounging in. There are even palm trees – they grow everywhere in Cornwall. But at the front of the house is a terrace with simple stone steps leading to the lawn. At the other end is a beautiful tiny gazebo, like a glass carousel, where you can sit and look out to sea. Next to the house by the lane is a gate, which opens onto a tiny path with high hedgerows that in summer are smothered in orange kaffir lilies, ivy, brambles, full of noisily chirping crickets. The path gives way to grassy moors and stony rocks, from where the rest of the coast suddenly opens up in front of you, the foaming cerulean sea, the blue, blue sky, the wild flowers dotted all around, and if you’re lucky and it’s a clear day, you can see across to the Minack Theatre one way, and almost to the Lizard the other. You have to be careful as you clamber down, holding on to a rope chain, as the path has been cut through the rocks and is frequently slimy and damp. You must move slowly, surely, taking care not to slip. You climb down, down, down, and you’re on the beach, where the sand is custard yellow and there are flat black rocks to lie on. And there’s no one else around. Just us, our own private beach, leading down from the house.

Summercove was built in the 1920s, for a millionaire’s son who wanted to be an artist (along with roughly twenty per cent of the people who come to Cornwall). It wouldn’t look out of place in Miami – a low square art deco house with round edges, studded with big rectangular suntrap windows and gracefully settled in the incline of the land before it dramatically drops away to the cliffs. The sitting room has French doors which lead out onto the terrace, the bedrooms upstairs have wide window seats.

It is not a mansion, but it is big, and airy, and light, and always warm, built in concrete and brick to withstand the rough sea winds. My room, which I shared with Octavia for the week or so that our holidays coincided but usually was lucky enough to have to myself for most of the summer, was small and would have been pokey had it not looked out to sea. It was my mother’s room when she was younger. The curtains were 1950s, Heal’s, pale grey, tiny patterns dotted over in blue, green, yellow, red. The furniture is darling, two small beds with dark wooden frames pale pink silk goose eiderdowns, a bookcase also in dark wood stuffed with my mother’s books from when she was little: My Friend Flicka, Swallows and Amazons, the Narnia books, Jane Austen, and – my favourite of all – a tiny low armchair on brass wheels, covered with a sturdy navy hessian studded with pink polka dots. It is worn in parts but still intact, and I used to sit either there or in the window seat for hours.

I was a dreamy, withdrawn child, extremely awkward, a sad contrast to my glamorous, confident mother. I don’t have time for people who claim special privileges because they suffer from crippling shyness. We all do, I believe, we just learn to carry it off in different ways. My mother is, I think, also shy and awkward, but she gets past it by assuming a persona, that of the mercurial beauty. But I remember in particular that when I was twelve or so, and life seemed overwhelming – at my new scary secondary school, with my mother, with my growing awareness of my place in the world – my room at Summercove was an absolute refuge to me.

The Hammersmith flat was boiling in summer, freezing in winter, with paper-thin walls that meant everyone knew your business. Here, by the sea, I was private. Even for the brief time that Octavia and I were both there together, she’d spend most days outside, down on the beach and in the garden. Whereas I could sit in my room and sketch for a whole afternoon, or stare out at the horizon, or write terrible poems about how no one understood me, all the while flicking my hair from one side to the other, eyes filling with tears and sighing about the awfulness of my life. I was probably ghastly, I’m afraid to say.

Poor Octavia. I’m so sure I’m right and she’s the ghastly one, it has never really occurred to me that it’s most likely the other way round. I don’t remember her ever having a tantrum or gazing moodily out of the window for hours on end.

Now, in late February, the branches are almost bare and so the lane leading to the house is lighter, though the road is muddy and full of mulch. The huge wheels of the car crunch as we turn into the drive and I crane my neck to catch a first glimpse of the house once more. A curving, white shape slips into view before us, and I see the green of the field and the blue of the sea beyond. I steel myself for what’s coming.

‘So, Natasha, what time is your train tonight?’ Archie says loudly. He turns off the engine. ‘Have you heard this?’ he says, looking at my mother.

Oh, God.

‘Tonight?’ my mother squeaks, climbing out of the car, one long leg at a time. She peers into the back where we are sitting with Arvind. ‘You’re not going back tonight.’

‘I am, I’m afraid,’ I say, sounding ridiculously formal. ‘I’m sorry. I have to – I have a meeting tomorrow.’

‘Natasha! You can’t!’ Mum’s mouth is pursed like a child’s.

‘We are here,’ Arvind says suddenly. ‘We are at home again.’

‘Yes, Dad,’ Mum pats his arm briskly, as if pushing him away. She is still pouting. ‘Natasha?’

‘I know it’s ridiculous,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry. But I really can’t miss it. The meeting.’ I know I sound as though I’m lying, and I can’t help it.

‘What, it’s so important you have to leave your grand-mother’s funeral early?’ she demands, her voice stringent and high. ‘You can’t stay with us for just one night? Natasha, honestly.’

She’s right, and I don’t know what to say. I look away from her and up at the house, tears stinging my eyes. I should have cancelled, I know. But if I cancel, that’s my last chance gone, really.

If Oli were here . . . things would be different. Everything would be different if Oli were here, but he’s not, because I asked him to stay away from Granny’s funeral, screamed at him to, in fact, laughed at him for daring to make the request in the first place. If Oli were here I wouldn’t hate myself, for wondering about money, for wondering what’s gone wrong and where, for how I’m going to get myself out of it. The truth is, I’m not wondering about money so much as worrying about it, frantically, obsessively. If Oli were here with me I wouldn’t need to. At our wedding, in a sunny garden by the Thames, the registrar asked us, For richer, for poorer? In sickness and in health? Forsaking all others, till death do us part? Yes, we said. Yes to all of that, yes yes yes and I remember looking over his shoulder, at my mother, my grandmother, in shade under the canopy, watching with pride, and thinking, I’ve done it, we’ve done it. We’re our own family now.

And now that Granny is buried, in the ground, the earth piling up over her as we stand here and talk, everything looks different. It is strange how often I’ve caught myself wondering if she’d like something I’m doing, these last two weeks. Makes me realise how much I wanted her to like it to begin with.

‘It’s for work. It’s—’ I can’t tell her. ‘It’s really important.’

‘More important than this?’ Mum waves her arms around the car. I don’t take her bait, though she’s right to be confused, upset. My voice sounds childish as I say, ‘No, of course not, but I’m here, aren’t I? I just have to go back early.’

‘It’s bad enough Oli not being here as well,’ my mother says. ‘Now you’re racing off as soon as you possibly can, and—’ She drops her hands by her sides, as if to say, This daughter of mine, what can I do with her?

There is a pain in my heart. I wish I could tell her. I wish she was the kind of mother I could tell.

‘Help me, Archie,’ Arvind tells his son, and this creates a diversion, as Uncle Archie gently helps him down from the car. They walk behind us, slowly, Jay following in silence, and we walk towards the open front door. The wind creaks around us, but there is no rustling sound from the bare trees.

Mum is still staring at me. She says slowly, ‘You know, Natasha, I’m really very upset with you.’

I nod, unable to speak suddenly as we walk across the threshold. The lovely fifties Ercol sideboard has flowers on it, white lilies that are just starting to die; the smell is cloying. Granny must have bought them. Her presence is still here, the last tasks she performed still evident.

There are clanging sounds as we turn left into the kitchen;

Louisa is already in residence, assisted by Mary Beth and Octavia, who are taking out trays, fetching glasses, spooning out hummus from plastic tubs into my grandmother’s favourite porridge bowls. Again, it looks all wrong, this activity. Normally it would be Granny, pottering slowly but surely about her kitchen, calmly putting things together, in her domain. This whirlwind of activity is for her, for her funeral. I close my eyes.

‘And there’s another thing.’ Mum is still talking furiously. I am the one who has ignited the smouldering grief and anger she has been suppressing all day. ‘While we’re on this subject, Natasha. How come your own husband can’t even be bothered to come to Mummy’s funeral, doesn’t even write or ring to apologise? Doesn’t he care at all?’ She turns and faces me, her cheeks flushing dark cherry, her green eyes huge in her lovely face. I stare, she is so like Granny, so beautiful, always has been. ‘At all?’ she repeats.

Louisa looks up. ‘Miranda,’ she says briskly. ‘Ah, you’re here at last,’ as if Mum had stopped off for a facial and a manicure on the way. ‘Can you please unpack the nibbles in those cartons there?’

Mum simply ignores her; if this were a different situation I would love how much my mother and her cousin loathe each other, really so much that sometimes it’s a wonder they don’t simply take their shoes off and wrestle on the floor. Mum turns to me again. ‘Really, darling. I mean, he’s your husband.’

There is a rushing sound in my head again. I look up to the ceiling.

‘He’s not any more,’ I hear myself say. ‘What?’ she says. ‘What?’

The rushing is louder and louder. ‘I’ve left him. Or rather he’s left me. That’s why he’s not here.’

They all turn to me. I feel myself going red, like a child caught doing something they shouldn’t. It’s weird. They look at me, Mum’s jaw drops open and the silence stretches out till it is overwhelming, until Mary Beth helpfully drops a glass on the floor. It shatters, which at least gives us all something to do.

Mum flattens herself against the wall, away from the path of glass which has splintered closest to her, and pushes shards towards the centre of the room with one velvet toecap. ‘Oh, my gosh,’ says poor Mary Beth, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘Darn it.’ She crouches on the ground and Louisa flies in with a dustpan and brush screeching, ‘Don’t touch the glass! Careful!’

There’s a brief moment’s silence. I watch them, watch the splinters and the stem of the glass, rolling slowly around the lino on its side.

‘Nat?’ Jay is still behind me, I hadn’t seen him. ‘You’ve left Oli? What? Why?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I say, and then helpfully, the floor feels liquid beneath my feet and is rising up to meet me. I step back, away from the glass, and shapes and colours swim before my eyes and it is almost a relief when gradually, everything goes black, and I sink to the ground in a dead faint.