Читать книгу I Remember You - Harriet Evans - Страница 18

The trip to Italy was the central plank of the Langford College Classical Civilization course. Around half the class were going; it justified the high fees and it emphasized that which could not be said out loud—that this was a course without qualifications, with a nice holiday at the end of it. Of course, it would be nice, no, desirable, to come out of it with a working knowledge of Rome and her Empire, and the miracle that was fifth-century BC Athens, but if you were aiming to be the next Erich Segal or Sir Kenneth Dover, you wouldn’t come to Langford College.

It seemed to be coming around incredibly quickly. One moment it felt as if Tess had been back for just hours; after Will’s visit she realized it was nearly four months since she’d returned to Langford. The feeling of shiny newness she’d had was starting to leave. She was in a routine.

But Langford was so beautiful, this time of year. How could she have lived in the city for so long, knowing what spring was like in the countryside? Sometimes, Tess felt almost drunk on its beauty. The frothing cow-parsley in the hedgerows, the birds that sang outside her window in the morning, the bright green of the lanes, cowslips and primroses and everything in bloom, the riotous signs of life bursting forth everywhere. In the town, people opened their windows and let down the striped awnings of their shopfronts; pots filled with geraniums appeared outside the pub, and the tables and chairs. Dark green bunches of asparagus were everywhere in the shops; cool, sweet winds blew through the backstreets, into dark rooms dusty from the winter. The town was coming alive again; she felt it, Tess felt it more than anyone.

‘Are you doing something different with your hair, dear?’ Jan Allingham asked Tess, a week afterwards, as she was wiping down the whiteboard. The class had broken up and her students were dispersing slowly, grey and ash-blonde heads grouped together, clutching their textbooks and notepads, talking earnestly, nodding to one another.

Tess turned around, the cloth in her hand. ‘Me? No, nothing. Literally. It’s far too long. I must get it cut, actually.’

‘I did wonder.’ Jan bobbed up and down on the balls of her feet, and touched her top lip with her tongue. ‘It’s grown really fast, hasn’t it!’ She smiled at Tess. ‘And that’s a lovely jumper.’

‘Thanks!’ said Tess, touched. ‘I bought it—’

‘Is—is it from Marks?’ Jan said. ‘I think I have it in blue.’

‘Yes,’ said Tess. ‘It is.’

‘Great class today, Tess, thank you,’ said Andrea, popping up behind Jan, while Tess clutched at her hair and looked down at her jumper. ‘So interesting. I can’t wait to tackle my essay on Dido. Marvellous stuff!’

Next to her, Diana Sayers rolled her eyes. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I said I’d walk home with Carolyn. She’ll be waiting.’

‘Carolyn?’ said Andrea. ‘Carolyn Tey? Huh.’ She shook her head.

‘Ooh, Andrea,’ said Jan.

‘What’s wrong with Carolyn Tey?’ Tess asked, curiously.

‘Nothing, dear,’ said Jan. ‘Andrea’s just being a bit childish, that’s all.’ Tess followed her gaze out over the old polished floor of what once had been the Great Hall of the house, and saw Carolyn helping Leonora Mortmain out of the door. As usual, Leonora Mortmain carried no books, no notepad. She didn’t do any of the coursework, she didn’t answer any questions or contribute to any debate. She just sat and stared at Tess, almost unblinking, with a dark-eyed intensity written on her still, hawk-like face that Tess could neither become used to nor fathom.

The other members of the course were half locals, half actual real people, as Tess had started to think of the other hapless students who were unconnected with Langford. And the majority loathed Leonora Mortmain, her superiority and coldness, her seemingly callous determination to rip the heart out of the town. Carolyn Tey, whose father had been her local solicitor, was practically the only person in the class who would talk to her. But Carolyn was a dreadful snob, as Diana was always pointing out. Wasn’t her father the person who, fifty years ago, bought old Mr Crispin’s place Apple Tree Cottage, and renamed it Apple Tree House? People had long memories here.

‘Childish?’ Andrea exploded. ‘Childish, is it, Jan Allingham, to care about what happens to your bloody town? I don’t think so! The planning meeting’s next Monday, and you know what she’s trying to do? That woman? Move it to when we’re all supposed to be in Rome, on our trip and send her solicitor along instead! She’s said she has a minor operation on the original day. My eye. So either we cancel the trip, which is all paid for, or we miss the meeting.’ She fingered the poppers on her quilted jacket. ‘Honestly, I don’t like to speak ill of anyone, but that woman—!’ She paused, and said petulantly, ‘Why’s she coming on the trip anyway?’

‘She’s on the course, like you all are, she presumably wants to see Rome.’

‘I don’t believe it, I’m afraid,’ said Andrea. ‘She wants to cause trouble. And ruin everyone else’s fun.’

Beside her, Diana nodded in sympathy, and Jan, who was rather bossy but liked to think of herself as fair to her fellow man and woman, looked thoughtful, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to say next. Tess clutched her cloth, not sure if it would be rude to go back to wiping the board, as the rest of the class milled slowly out. Deep down, though, she couldn’t help but agree with Andrea. Why was Leonora Mortmain coming to Rome?

‘Well,’ Jan said, after a pause. ‘I very much like your jumper, dear. I might have to get another one, in green.’

‘Oh—thanks.’ Tess patted the jumper awkwardly. She wasn’t any good at accepting compliments, and indeed she wasn’t sure this was one, really, since it was a fifty-five-year-old woman telling her she wanted to copy her style. Still, it was sweet of her. ‘Remember, next week I want those last essays about Augustus in!’ she called to the retreating backs of her pupils, glad of the chance to change the subject.

‘Bye, Tess!’ Liz called, slinging her bag over her shoulder. ‘Great class. Maybe see you in the pub over the weekend?’

Tess found Liz’s friendly behaviour daunting. ‘Sure!’ she called back. ‘Thanks, Liz!’

‘Well, I’m off.’ Diana appeared, winding a silk scarf around her neck. ‘Thank you, Tess, that was very interesting.’ She glanced at Jan and at Andrea, who was still muttering mutinously next to them. ‘Carolyn’s obviously gone on. I’ll walk out with you, shall I?’

‘Oh, thanks,’ said Tess, gratefully. She grabbed her bag.

‘We’ve got committee tomorrow,’ Andrea was saying to Jan. ‘Are you still coming?’

‘Of course I am!’ Jan cried indignantly. ‘Andrea, we need to stand shoulder to shoulder! Not face each other as enemies, like…that Roman general, at the gate! Oh, I’ve forgotten his name.’

Tess rolled her eyes and followed Diana towards the door.

‘I saw Adam last week,’ Diana said unexpectedly, as they walked down the drive, Diana pushing her bike. ‘He told me he spent last Friday being your paramour.’ Tess smiled.

‘He told you that?’

‘I’m his godmother, Tess. I do occasionally speak to him, you know. The old boyfriend turned up then, did he?’

Her tone was sympathetic. Tess said, ‘Yes. I owe Adam, big time I owe him.’

‘That’s what friends are for, I suppose,’ said Diana, in a curious voice. ‘Do you miss him?’

‘Adam? I—’

‘No, Tess! I meant the old boyfriend.’

Tess considered for a moment, the only sound around them the dripping rainwater of the recent shower along the driveway, and their steps towards the main gate. ‘Miss him? Not really. I miss the other things.’ She gestured with her hands, rather awkward at saying this to Diana Sayers. ‘You know.’

‘Well,’ said Diana, with her simple, disarming honesty. ‘Isn’t that nice? Not to miss him.’

‘Oh,’ said Tess, taken aback. ‘Yes. I suppose so, yes.’

‘So, how are your parents?’ said Diana, switching topic abruptly. ‘I must ring your mother, it’d be lovely to see them.’

‘I’m going down week after next, that’s funny,’ said Tess. ‘On the Saturday, just for the night.’

‘Isn’t that Adam’s birthday?’ Diana said. ‘He was talking about it the other day. Said he was going to have a barbecue, up at the cottage.’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’s good for him to have people round. I worry he doesn’t…’ She trailed off, wrinkling her forehead.

Tess remembered, with slow horror, that Adam had mentioned the barbecue to her the previous weekend, not once but twice. But, in the way that two sides of your brain can happily know that you’re doing two totally separate things and never does one talk to the other, now she realized with horror she’d booked the train tickets down to Devon, and happily agreed with Francesca that they’d go to Adam’s birthday together…Damn.

‘Oh. God, that’s so annoying,’ Tess exclaimed. ‘The tickets are booked—I have to go—God! Why don’t I think!’ She tapped herself on the forehead.

‘Don’t worry,’ Diana said, in quelling tones. ‘It’s Francesca Adam was worried about, you know.’

‘Yeah…’ Tess began, knowing that her not taking Francesca would be a big deal; he treated her a bit like a child, sometimes. When he wasn’t shagging her, that was, she thought meanly. She opened her mouth to try and explain this but then, from out of nowhere, a black Jaguar drove silently past them. Tess and Diana both craned their necks to see who was in it.

‘Well, I never,’ said Tess. ‘What’s Mrs Mortmain doing in that incredible car with that man?’

He was a large man, sleekly tailored in an effort to hide his burgeoning stomach, and he stroked his black hair back from his face as he leaned forward towards his fellow passenger, smiling ingratiatingly at her. She, however, sat upright, her mouth set.

‘Oh, Tess,’ said Diana, with a sigh. ‘He’s Jon Mitchell, the developer. He’s the one who wants to buy the water meadows. He owns Mitchell’s. That chain of DIY stores.’

‘My goodness!’ cried Tess. ‘That’s him?’ She watched the car disappear, and then said, darkly, ‘I don’t know how she lives with herself, that woman. I really don’t.’

‘It’s easy to have principles when you don’t have to apply them,’ said Diana softly. Tess spun round to look at her.

‘What do you mean? You can’t say you agree with her? With—what she’s trying to do to the town?’

‘Tess, the last new shop to open here was a tea shop, called Ye Tudor Tea Shoppe,’ said Diana, and there was a note of sharpness in her voice.

‘So?’ said Tess, who liked Ye Tudor Tea Shoppe. It had waitresses in old-fashioned uniforms, and everyone spoke to each other in a hush. ‘It’s Langford! What’s wrong with that?’

‘What’s wrong with it is that there’s no community hall here, and it costs four pounds to buy a pint, and if you grew up here and you want to buy a house, forget it, because a two-bed cottage costs about three hundred thousand pounds, and there are coach parties wandering the streets practically twenty-four hours a day,’ said Diana. ‘Look, I run a B&B in the summer, I’m as guilty as the rest of them. But we live in a community, not a heritage site, and I can’t one hundred per cent blame Mrs Mortmain for trying to breathe a bit of life back into the town, even if it is going to end up driving some of the tourists away.’ She paused. ‘Don’t tell the others, but I don’t care if I never see another tourist again.’ She gestured out, towards the water meadows. ‘I’d rather there was a supermarket and a John Lewis out there. I’d be able to get some decent curtains, for starters. And my godson and his friends—they’d have jobs, for another thing.’

Tess had never heard the usually reserved Diana talk like this before. So she thought Adam didn’t have a job because there wasn’t an out-of-town shopping centre here? Tess didn’t know what to say. She looked out towards the disappearing car, the gates of the college. ‘I—I just don’t see why it has to be on the water meadows. And why we can’t act better as a community, that’s all. It’s nice living here,’ she said weakly, thinking of what she’d left behind. ‘It’s safe and cosy and—and nice.’

Diana gave her a strange look. ‘Nice? It’ll be dead in a few years if we’re not careful.’ She shook her head. ‘Forget I spoke. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Just tired, I expect.’ She collected herself, almost as if she was aware she’d said too much, and then got on her bicycle. ‘Bye, Tess,’ she called, leaving Tess in the middle of the driveway, holding her bag of books. She watched her go, bemused, and then set off back to Easter Cottage.

Tess told Francesca about this conversation, as Francesca mashed up the ingredients for mojitos in a large mixing bowl. ‘Well, she’s right, I don’t think all that tourism is good for the town in the long run. But who knows what the future holds,’ Francesca said, licking mint and sugar off her fingers. ‘But I’m telling you, when my six months is up, I’m not going back to work in the City, that’s for sure. Not that there’ll be any jobs there anyway.’

‘No?’ Tess handed her a glass, watching her curiously from the doorway of the kitchen.

‘No way,’ said Francesca. ‘Mmm. That’s nice. I’m staying right here. Trouble is, there’s nothing to do round here if you’re not a tourist or someone who wants to study stupid things like History of Art or Roman Civilization…’ She smiled. ‘I’m joking. But there is nothing else to do. So actually, I did something about it today.’

‘Really?’

‘Yep.’ Francesca’s eyes sparkled. ‘I’m helping Ron and Andrea with the campaign, volunteering. You know I actually trained as a lawyer.’ Tess nodded. ‘Long before I got sucked into the evil world of finance. I’m looking at the legality of what they’re proposing to do, because I’m sure there’s something fishy going on.’

‘Wow.’ Tess clapped. ‘That’s brilliant. Er—have you told Adam?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Don’t know why,’ said Tess. ‘It’s just—he’s so weird about the campaign. Have you noticed?’ She felt as if she were betraying something as she said this, but it was true.

‘He’s weird about it because he’s behaving like an adolescent,’ Francesca sounded firm. She poured a large slug of rum into the bowl. ‘You know, I love Adam.’ She paused. ‘I don’t mean like that. I—’ She smiled, mistily. ‘I really like him. But he’s got to grow up. Fine to stay here all your life, but not fine to use it as a stick to beat other people with when they dare to disagree with you about anything connected with Langford.’

Francesca had a way of saying things which summed up what Tess wanted to say so perfectly but couldn’t articulate without using five times as many words. Tess laughed. ‘I’d love to hear you say that to him.’

‘I have,’ said Francesca, and she smiled her cat-like smile. ‘He knows I’m right, he just doesn’t see it yet. But he will.’ She nodded and for some reason Tess shivered, as if a goose had walked over her grave. ‘I’ve got him where I want him. He just doesn’t realize it yet.’

‘Oh, Francesca—’ said Tess, not sure what to say next, because she knew Adam well, so well, knew how stubborn he was, how little he liked being told what to do, manipulated, which was why she thought he was such a bloody-minded idiot, still living in his mother’s house, still working shifts at the pub and the museum. ‘Please don’t get your hopes up with him. He’s…’ She said frankly, ‘He’s never going to change. He’s so stubborn.’

Something flickered across Francesca’s lovely face, but she said nothing. Tess got up. ‘What are we having tonight?’

Francesca looked blank. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, as well as the mojitos,’ Tess said. ‘Not that they won’t be lovely…’ She trailed off.

‘Dunno,’ said Francesca. ‘I haven’t cooked, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve made cocktails and it took bloody ages. You could have a bit of appreciation for what I’ve done, thank you very much.’

Tess ran over to her and hugged her, feeling her bony arms, her hand on her back. She was fragile, she thought, she’d be so easy to crush. ‘I do have appreciation for what you’re doing. I just assumed—completely insanely, obviously, that you’d made supper as well.’

‘No,’ Francesca said. ‘My plan was, we get trashed and then do karaoke with these cool new karaoke DVDs that I ordered from Amazon.’

‘Great idea,’ said Tess. ‘And we can have the rest of that shepherd’s pie I made yesterday. I’ve got some peas in the freezer.’

Francesca rolled her eyes, opened her mouth as if she would say something, then shut it. She smiled at Tess. ‘Bless ye, old lady. Come on. Give me your glass.’