Summer on the River (21 page)

Ben watches them with a queer mixture of envy and compassion. Jemima is so open, so funny, so easy to be with, and between the three of them runs a cheerful, jokey familiarity as if they have always known each other.

Claude and Evie seem to have entered into this strange conspiracy. The garden is the place where they all congregate each afternoon and where Jemima joins them, having come down on the Park and Ride or walked over from the office after work. She wanders amongst the sweet-smelling shrubs, asking Evie the names of the plants, drawing her fingers through the lavender, teasing Claude about his knowing the Latin names.

Ben pours tea, and later wine; sometimes they have supper there, on the top terrace. Behind the laughter and the jokes he sees the memories that shadow Evie's eyes, the anxiety that lingers at the edge of Claude's smile, the pain of Charlie's undeclared love. And at some point Jemima will push back her chair and say: ‘I must get back to poor old Otto,' and there are always protests of dismay, a plan for tomorrow, but it is always Ben who goes with her down through the garden, through the house.

‘I love your house, Benj,' she says to him, looking around the hall and up the elegant staircase.

‘Not mine, alas,' he says. ‘Evie's house. Charlie's one day. Not mine.'

She reaches up to kiss him goodbye and he sees that suddenly her eyes are full of tears and he just as suddenly hates it that she cannot be openly and happily with Charlie.

‘Dear Benj,' she says.

He likes it that she calls him Benj; as if she has known him from a child.

‘I'm driving you up to the Park and Ride,' he says. ‘No, it's no use being stubborn and independent. It's later than we usually are. Come on. Don't argue.'

Suddenly he feels angry with Charlie, who seems content to let things drift like this; who makes no move to push things to some conclusion. In silence he drives up Crowther's Hill, trying to conquer this resentment, knowing that part of it is rooted in jealousy. How easy it would be to fall in love with Jemima, to detach her gently from his cousin.

She sits beside him quietly, her blond hair falling down over her shoulders, her hands loosely clasped in her lap. She's wearing one of her pretty long skirts and a loose shirt with the sleeves pushed up over her rounded, creamy-brown arms.

‘Don't, Benj,' she murmurs.

He doesn't look at her. ‘Don't what?'

‘Be angry.'

He gives a little gasp of despair, of irritation, and she turns her head, studying him.

‘It's such a short time being all together like this,' she says. ‘It's so precious, Benj. So strange and magical. You and me and Charlie. Evie and Claude. It might never happen again quite like this. We must be happy while we can.'

‘And will that be enough for you?' he asks.

She is silent for a moment.

‘It might have to be,' she answers him at last. ‘It's not just to do with Charlie and me, it's to do with all of us. It works so wonderfully well; as if we're a real family. Oh, I know you and Charlie are cousins but there's such an odd bond between us all, isn't there? It's precious, Benj. Any kind of love is precious. We mustn't waste it by grabbing and snatching and smashing things. It's much too important for that. We'll all remember this regatta, when you were here with Charlie, and Claude was with Evie, and I happened along and got drawn into the magic circle. It's like that thing in Ecclesiastes, isn't it? “A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” Between us I suspect we've all been doing a bit of mourning and weeping one way and another, but just this week, well, this is our time to laugh, Benj, and to dance.'

He feels a bit choked up. ‘If you say so,' he says.

He pulls into the car park, sits staring out across the steering wheel, and she leans across and kisses him on the cheek. She smells of lavender.

‘See you tomorrow?'

He nods wordlessly and she hesitates, begins to get out of the car and suddenly stops.

‘I completely forgot. I've told Jane about you. My boss. She says she'd love to meet you and have a chat.'

‘Really?' He's shocked out of his emotional silence.

She nods. ‘Mm-hm.
Very
impressed she was when I told her about you. You know where the office is in Foss Street? Well, she said tomorrow morning after ten and before midday, if you're free.'

‘I certainly shall be. Will you be there?'

‘If you'd like me to be there to make the introductions I can do that.'

He thinks about it. ‘It might be rather good, if it's OK, but I can manage if you're busy.'

‘I'll be there first thing but I've got to go out to a cottage in Dittisham before lunch so the earlier the better. Ten thirty?'

He nods. ‘I'll be there.'

‘Good.' She slides out, waves a hand.

As he drives back home, gradually his resentment towards Charlie fades. Perhaps, like Jemima, Charlie is simply seizing his moment to laugh, to dance, without snatching and grabbing and smashing things up. Ben puts the car in the garage and goes inside. Charlie is in the kitchen making coffee, putting mugs on to a tray.

‘Hi,' Ben says. ‘I decided to drive her up to the car park. She's got an interview for me with her boss tomorrow morning. Pretty good, eh?'

Charlie looks at him with such pleasure that Ben is filled with all the old familiar affection for him. He picks up the tray and they make their way up through the garden to break the good news to Evie and Claude.

This is always the difficult bit: driving home on her own. Almost at once she is missing the heart-warming quality of deep affection that passes between them all and that, by some small miracle, has extended to include her. Jemima switches on the radio. Nina Simone is singing ‘Mr Bojangles' and in her mind's eye Jemima sees the melancholy clown-like figure, dancing, spinning, leaping to a background of county shows and fairgrounds, and she is seized with a nostalgic longing for childhood: for her younger self who could embark on relationships without worrying too much about the outcome. This attraction to Charlie is outside her experience: this sense of knowing and being known.

As she drives through the gathering dusk she tries to decide what the difference is between him and Benj. They are so alike, the ease of companionship is present with both of them, the ready humour, but as she listens to the haunting music she knows that it is Charlie's sense of joy that speaks so directly to her; his secret longing for the magical world beyond the everyday grind, and his readiness to believe that it still exists despite all the evidence to the contrary. It finds an echo in her: in her own determination to live alone in her odd little bit of a cottage because of its position; to take on Otto despite the inconvenience because she hates to be without the comfort and companionship of a pet; to refuse promotion or to relocate because the particular quality of how she lives is more important than money or prestige.

The difference between them is that Charlie will never be able to seize his dream. He is committed to his wife and children and she knows he will never leave them. His tragedy is that he's glimpsed the reality of the dream but either way he believes he can't win. It seems to him that if he grabs it the guilt might soon destroy him and if he turns his back on it he'll never get over losing it. Just for this week of regatta he has been offered an opportunity to enter into that magical world and revel in the freedom and joy of it and, because it is in his nature, Charlie has decided to seize the joy and make the most of it.

Jemima remembers how she first saw him, thinking he was Ben, and the way his face lit with delight as she approached him. It wasn't calculated – ‘This could be my lucky day' – or wary – ‘Who the hell does she think she's smiling at?' – it was the open, happy reaction of someone to whom a new experience, a smiling gesture, was welcome: it was serendipity. There was no awkwardness or embarrassment: just this weird sense of joy which has spread out during regatta week to include Benj and Evie and Claude.

Jemima parks in the little space beside her yard gate and lets herself into the conservatory. Otto comes wagging joyfully to meet her and she goes down on one knee to embrace him, allowing herself to be passionately licked. She drops her bag in the kitchen, slips her feet into sand shoes, grabs his lead and goes back out with him, through the little alleyway that leads down to the beach.

At once, the immensity of the shining seascape, the rhythmical hush and suck of the tide across the shingle, a solitary star in the western sky, all these calm her spirit, reignite optimism and restore peace. Tomorrow can look after itself.

‘What I want to know,' Claude says, as he and Evie descend the steep steps, unlock the door and let themselves in, ‘is what is going on?
Is
anything going on?'

Evie laughs at him, dropping her cashmere shawl on a chair, kicking off her shoes.

‘If you mean Jemima and Charlie, well, yes, a great deal is going on but not necessarily in the way you mean. Nothing clandestine is going on. They're not sneaking into bed together.'

Claude looks exasperated. ‘But what's going to happen, do you think?'

‘Very little, I suspect. Jemima makes him happy. He can be himself with her and she with him. They're two of a kind, soul mates, and they're just taking the opportunity to be happy together. I don't think bed is the main objective at the moment. And even if it were, well … I mean, it would be a bit tricky for Charlie, wouldn't it, with Ben in the same house and you and me across the road? We might report back to Ange.'

Claude snorts. ‘As if we would. Good grief, what does he take us for?'

‘Even so, it's not quite the normal set-up. And, anyway, I'm not sure that's an issue for them. I think they're just having fun.'

‘If you say so. And what happens after regatta?'

‘Ah, well, that remains to be seen. I'm probably being infected by regatta madness but I find I'm incapable of doing anything except encouraging them to enjoy this week of freedom.'

‘And then that will be the end of it?'

Evie sinks down on her big sofa and looks up at him.

‘You're still worried?'

‘Of course I am.' He sits down beside her, throws out a cushion – he hates cushions – and half turns towards her. ‘They remind me of you and TDF.'

She looks beyond him, into the past, smiling a little.

‘I suppose it is the same, in a way. It was the luck of meeting that really special person to whom you could say absolutely anything, who would completely understand, who got all those foolish lifetime references to books and films without saying “What do you
mean
?” all the time. It was as if we'd been brought up together and then separated for years and suddenly met up again. Oh, I can't explain it, Claude.'

He remembers how Jemima and Charlie stood together, as if separate from the crowd that swirled about them, and he feels infinitely sad.

‘And do you think that's how it will be for Charlie and Jemima?'

‘It might be, if Jemima is happy with it and if Charlie can compartmentalize his life in the same way TDF did.'

‘Why did you bother to get married?'

‘Once Marianne had died and he'd moved back to Dartmouth it seemed silly not to, and it was better for Charlie and Ange and the children and our friends, more conventional, but I'm not certain that we really felt we needed to emotionally.'

He slumps on the sofa. ‘Why can't I see it being so simple for Charlie and Jemima?'

‘For all those reasons you mentioned before. It's rather childish and pathetic but I just want them to enjoy this week before Ange stomps back into all our lives.'

‘Why do you think she suggested Charlie should stay here?'

‘I think she wanted someone reporting back; someone on the ground keeping a watching brief. Probably so that we still remember that Charlie has as much right in the house as Ben. Who can tell with Ange?'

‘I wonder what he's been telling her?'

Evie leans her head back on the cushions and closes her eyes. ‘Suddenly I feel very ancient, Claude. And melancholic. I want to cry a lot.'

He looks at her compassionately. With her head flung back and her thin hands clasped in her lap, she looks old and vulnerable and frail, and he is moved with love for her and fear for himself. He loves them all: Evie and Ben and Charlie. He loves them and needs them.

‘I'll make us some supper,' he says, getting up, ‘and then we'll go out on the balcony and watch the fireworks. Just relax and think about that next book you're going to write.'

She smiles, eyes still closed, but at once she looks young again, amused and viable: the old Evie.

‘Don't you start,' she says. ‘For me the War is over. Civil or otherwise.'

She doesn't tell him what they should eat or how to prepare it; she simply edges off her shoes, folds her legs up on the sofa, and relaxes into his care.

Ange phones whilst Charlie and Ben are getting ready to go down on to the Embankment to watch that night's fireworks. They've decided to get some fish and chips or something from one of the stalls; they can't be bothered to get supper for themselves.

‘Two lots of fireworks are quite a treat,' Benj tells Charlie. ‘We must make sure that Jemima comes in on Saturday night for the second display. We can give her some supper and run her home afterwards. Unless, you'd rather …?'

He hesitates, eyebrows raised and Charlie feels emotional again. He's grateful for the way old Benj is handling this and he can't help imagining what might have happened if he and Ange hadn't come down for regatta. Whether Benj and Jemima might have had a chance of getting together. He wonders how much Benj resents him.

‘To be honest,' he says, ‘I think we're both happier doing it this way. It's probably the cowards' way but we can just have this without doing damage. That's probably specious, of course. Just because we haven't been to bed doesn't mean that I haven't cheated, does it? I feel a bit badly, Benj, that I might have prevented you from … well, you know.'