Flight (12 page)

Phoebe flips several pieces of bread out on to the counter and starts to make sandwiches. ‘You’ve got exactly two minutes!’ she shouts after him. ‘Two minutes!’

When Wren thinks back to those early months in Tegh Cottage, her clear-headed activity seems akin to the natural rhythms of nesting she observes from her window view each springtime, the focused industry of securing a habitat, a nest sturdy enough to endure new seasons, new life.

When she first arrived, the cottage was solid with age, but work was needed to replace the rotted window frames and shore up a section of loose tiles on the north side of the roof. She needed new locks on the doors and windows and someone to check out the chimney to ensure she’d be able to run a fire throughout the cold months. When the foundations were secured, she spent days on end whitewashing every room, unscrewing the damp-spotted bathroom mirrors and putting them out with the rubbish, creating a blank canvas of the walls, erasing the past. With startling ease she relinquished all thoughts of those she had left behind, as she fortified her new home and stocked up for the dark days ahead. In the local village, the shopkeeper arranged a delivery of long-life supplies – cans of fruit, beans and soup, toilet rolls, soap, porridge oats, salt – delighted with the large and unexpected order during his out-of-season sales trough. She established a firm monthly routine, visiting Constantine for any provisions she couldn’t stock long-term, and using the cashpoint there to draw out enough cash to cover her everyday expenditures like paying Arthur for coffee and eggs.

Early on, after a chance meeting on the beach path, Arthur became her first port of call for all things practical:
where can I buy my log supply? How often does the bus run into town? Do you know a good locksmith? A carpenter? Where can I buy a chest freezer?
He never asked questions, never accepted her clumsily offered twenties for dropping off the sacks of bird seed and garden manure that she’d paid for at the garden centre she’d visited on foot but had no way of transporting home. Once her vegetable garden was thriving, Wren was able to repay him in some way, delivering small bundles of earthy goods to his kiosk on the beach and listening to him talk about the ways his wife had cooked the last batch. The rhubarb was the sweetest he’d tasted, the lettuce the most crisp. These exchanges were simple and good; he knew no more about her than she knew about him, and there was a peace in that.

Laura is sitting at the kitchen table, clicking and unclicking the catch on her leather satchel. Beyond the windows the light across the bay is dimming rapidly, as the tide broils up and heavy clouds blow in. Wren wishes she could sit and watch the storm tide alone, just she and the dogs, but she has retained enough social awareness to know she can’t, not with this unexpected guest in the house.

Out on the beach, when she’d recognised her as Laura, Wren had packed up her binoculars and climbed down the rocks with Willow and Badger, her first instinct that of flight. But, as she reached the tide-soft sand at the foot of the rocks, Laura was already there, waiting at the water’s edge like a girl at a bus stop, hands in pockets, feet planted wide. She looked older and yet still so young, Wren thought, a strange
recognition washing over her as she took in Laura’s fur-lined parka, the scuffed Doc Marten boots, her unruly waves of red hair. Different, and yet so very much the same.

‘What must I look like?’ was the first thing Wren could think to say, and she hated herself for it. God, she hadn’t given a thought to her appearance in over twenty years, and here she was now, apologising for it.

‘You look just fine,’ was Laura’s reply, and they’d walked together in silence, along the beach path, up across the
wind-beaten
meadow and in through Wren’s back door.

Now, Wren makes herself busy, filling the kettle, wiping out clean mugs and running a cloth over the scarred wooden work surface. She has already built a fire up in the lounge, lingering over the task too long, trying to delay the moment when she would have to return to the kitchen and face Laura. The fire took immediately, the rising wind drawing ravenous flames over the kindling to send orange sparks skittering up the blackened chimney. Every now and then she risks a sideways glance at Laura, who sits on the one kitchen chair fiddling with the strap of her bag, her mouth slightly open as if she’s constantly on the verge of speaking. Outside, the male blackbird has found this morning’s breadcrumbs and stands alert, his handsome orange beak thrust resolutely against the darkening clouds as he calls to his mate.

Wren clears her throat, pats the side of the kettle to check it’s working.

‘Do you get many visitors?’ Laura asks, just as Wren has fixed on leaving the room in search of another chair.

She pauses in the doorway, one hand on its painted frame, trying to form an answer. Laura’s expression is nervous, and Wren realises it’s because she’s scowling hard at her, as her
mind races to process the rhythms of conversation, a skill she’s long forgotten. ‘No,’ she replies simply, and she heads for the back room to locate an old wooden stool she found there when she first moved in.

The cool of the room is instantly comforting and she quietly pushes the door closed and stands quite still in the muted light. She inhales the earthy scent of garden manure and bird seed, her eyes darting over the pile of throw-outs she was sorting through just this morning, and the storage trunk with its few totems of the past contained within. A surge of shame engulfs her: what if Laura were to enter now, to see these things from a forgotten time – the blouse, the shoes, the handbag – useless, meaningless things that somehow link them to a shared past, a past that might be forgotten entirely if the things could be vanished away? Perhaps Wren will just open up the lid of the wooden chest and curl inside, drawing herself into its reassuring darkness and shutting the room and the world out… shutting Laura out.

Willow scratches at the door, whining softly to be let in, shaking Wren from her thoughts.

‘I’m coming,’ she says to the little dog, and lifts the
three-legged
stool out into the living room, shutting the door and its contents from view. She looks at the stool in her hands. ‘Three is the Magic Number’ – it springs to mind instantly, the lyric from the De La Soul track Laura would sometimes put on when she came to stay with them in Peynton Gardens at weekends during the year or two after Wren and Rob were married. With the edge of her sleeve Wren wipes the dust from the seat, turning with a start to find Laura standing behind her, holding two steaming mugs.

‘Hope you don’t mind – I went ahead and made the tea.’ She holds one out to Wren.

Wren nods, feeling as if Laura has heard it all,
eavesdropped
on every lurching recollection that’s just tumbled through her mind. She takes the mug, noticing for the first time the dark, earth-stained colour of her own hands, starkly contrasting against Laura’s smooth white fingers and neat, square fingernails. They face each other across the lounge: Wren with the mug in one hand, the stool in the other, Laura, standing firm, silently urging Wren to say something, to say anything.

‘You can’t stay here,’ is what comes out, harsh in tone, in a voice Wren doesn’t recognise as her own. Outside, the howl of the wind is directly above them, whistling down the chimney and sucking at the swelling flames in the grate.

Laura’s eyes expand, wounded. She looks around the room, at its small sofa and throw-draped armchair, at the untidy stack of books that render the mantelpiece unbalanced, the rag rug beside the fireplace – a craft project Wren had set herself soon after her arrival at Tegh Cottage, something to occupy her hands in the cold, quiet evenings. Wren watches Laura’s eyes as she takes it all in, the room’s lack of frill or pretension, the absence of a television or a telephone or radio. ‘Have you been here – ’ Laura tries to ask, only to be sharply cut off.

‘There’s only one bedroom,’ Wren says firmly, and she brushes past Laura to set the stool down beside the kitchen table.

Laura follows her in, pulling out her chair roughly. ‘Can we sit down, Wren?
Please
. You’ve hardly even looked at me since I got here.’

Wren lowers herself on to the stool, focusing on the cup of tea in her hand, still unable to meet Laura’s gaze full on. She must appear like a petulant schoolgirl, she knows.
She must snap out of it, remember how to behave, face up to what’s going on here. Be a grown-up. ‘There’s only one bedroom,’ she repeats.

‘Then I’ll sleep on the sofa.’

Laura’s not taking no for an answer, and Wren’s slipping control is a slice of terror. ‘I don’t have any bedding. I told you, I don’t have visitors.’

From across the table, Laura leans in and chucks her under the chin as she used to do when she wanted her attention. The intimacy of it takes Wren’s breath away, and she’s forced to meet Laura’s full gaze, to stare into those eyes she knows so well, those eyes so like Robert’s that it’s like having him in the room. ‘I’ve got a blanket in the car,’ Laura says. ‘I’ll be fine. But, Wren – ’

Wren can’t look away, can’t speak. She feels as powerless as she did as a child, sitting at the dining table with neatly folded hands, listening to her mother’s opinions; fearing she had no voice of her own.

‘Wren, I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying until we’ve sorted things out.’

The first time she took Robert home, Wren’s mother phoned the flat ahead of time so that she could interrogate her to find out a) what he liked to eat (in order to impress him with her cooking), b) what his parents did for a living (so she could make relevant conversation), and c) his political and religious persuasions (so as to avoid difficult subjects over the dinner table). She had always been nothing if not precise in all things convivial, so it had seemed only natural when she had taken up with Siegfried soon after Wren’s father’s death, by way of filling the social gap that opened up like a
crater when a beloved couple of friends became a bereaved single. Siegfried was also widowed, some years before, and so their union was equal, both in terms of marital situation and of independent finance. Their separate circles embraced each newcomer, and Eliza Adler’s life began anew.

Once Eliza had Siegfried, Wren had realised with relief that she wouldn’t need to worry about her mum when she went off to college a few years later. And Eliza Adler hadn’t needed to worry about the cost of Wren’s expensive boarding school education, as their financial future was secure. ‘Life goes on,’ she’d said, smiling, as she’d delivered the news of her and Siegfried’s impending wedding. Just like that, her mother had transformed from grieving widow to blushing bride. ‘It all works out in the end,’ she’d said, reaching across the coffee table for the large onyx cigarette lighter that Dad had brought back from Tunisia, clearly relieved to have got it off her chest.

As for the first supper with Robert, her mother was charisma personified, serving up steak and potato
gratin
, and asking carefully rehearsed questions about his life as the son of a grocer. ‘I suppose your mother never got caught wanting for a pint of milk!’ she joked as she passed him the salad. After dinner, Rob told Wren that he thought her mother was adorable. And after he’d gone home, Eliza told Wren that she thought she could do better.

At first light, Wren slips from the house, noiselessly steering Willow and Badger through the back door while Laura sleeps. The high winds of the night before have torn through the sea-whipped garden, knocking out bamboo canes and plant pots and tossing up the pile of dead leaves she recently
raked back against the yew hedge. She’ll have to leave the clearing-up till later, she decides, as she makes her way through the meadow and out on to the coastal path; later, when Laura has gone.

Last night, after Laura had returned from the car with her overnight bag and blanket, they’d spent an uncomfortable hour or so skirting around the strangeness of their reunion, avoiding both questions and explanations, with Laura haltingly providing most of the small talk. Wren had made it clear she wasn’t ready to talk at any length, or depth, instead busying herself with the task of making omelettes, using Arthur’s eggs and home-grown beans from her large stock in the freezer.

‘Lovely orange yolks,’ Laura had said as Wren cracked an egg into the jug.

‘I buy them from the man on the beach,’ she’d replied.

‘Arthur?’ Laura asked, and Wren returned a curt nod, feeling curiously aggrieved that Laura had managed to establish his name after just one brief conversation. They’d eaten a silent supper, and not long after eight o’clock Wren had announced that she and the dogs were going to bed. Leaving Laura sitting alone on the sofa in the tan light of the bellowing fire, she had secured herself behind the barrier of her closed door, feeling sick with anxiety at the presence of another person sleeping under her roof. She’d pulled the covers over her head, drawing the dogs close, and tuned in to the moan and keen of the storm as it passed overhead, thrashing at the roof tiles and bulldozing flat the grass of her tidal meadow. On nights like this, the wind was a friend.

Wren is thankful that it’s too early for Arthur to be out yet, and she walks directly down to the shoreline, where dense, dark tangles of sea lace and thongweed coil along the water’s edge, their spidery ends trailing back and forth with
the flow of the tide. Badger bounds ahead to attack an empty milk carton which sails in and out on the wave, resting long enough for him to circle it once before the water tugs it back out again. He barks furiously, raising his hackles as the hollow container courses towards him again on the incoming surge, while Willow sticks to Wren’s side, one ear inclined as she watches her brother’s display of bravado.

Today, rather than walking to her usual viewing point, Wren heads for the caves. Laura’s arrival has stirred up so many memories in her, and now thoughts of her parents rise up as she imagines this coastline seen through their eyes. They had honeymooned in the area, somewhere around St Ives, and shortly before his death Dad had been planning a family visit for that coming summer, to introduce Wren to the sights, to tour along the north coast, from Tintagel to Land’s End and back home along the south coast via Lizard Point and Looe. He had painted a romantic picture of golden sands, luminous blue skies and storm-hollowed caves, and Wren had been sleepless with anticipation of the holiday to come. Already she was in love with the sounds of the places, the roll of their shapes on her tongue, and she’d begun writing a packing list in anticipation of their great adventure. But after the accident the trip was never mentioned again. On the morning of the funeral, her mother handed Wren a Rupert Bear annual, one Dad had found in a second-hand book store off the King’s Road just hours before his accident, and which had subsequently lain undiscovered in the fog of the week that followed. Despite being almost fourteen, Wren had spent hours alone poring over the pages of her new book, losing herself in the reassuring tempo of its rhyming couplets, in its tales of enchanted crystal kingdoms and golden gnomes, of dark, barnacled rock pools and
stalactite-festooned
caves, of magical seaweed and secret passages. She’d imagined Cornwall this way, and in her grief she had almost allowed herself to believe the book was some kind of message from Dad, from beyond the grave. Silently, she had vowed that some day she would see Cornwall for herself.