Summer on the River (24 page)

Evie sits, finishing her tea, one hand in her pocket unconsciously smoothing the tender acer leaf. Her companion, the blackbird, hops amongst the ivy, perches on a slender branch of a climbing rose and then flits away. Pale petals tremble and fall, drifting down to the dark, dank earth, but there are still a few buds on the prickly stems. Evie stands up and cuts one perfect bud; she wraps it carefully in a piece of tissue and puts it into her pocket with the acer leaf.

She feels Tommy's presence in the garden this afternoon. Memories flit in the long shadows and the warm sunshine, so that when her name is called, for one heart-stopping moment she imagines that it is Tommy who is coming up through the garden.

It's Ben, of course. He's enjoying working on the new brochure. It's a big job but he's still managing to keep up with his other work. Carrying a mug of tea, shouting a friendly greeting, he climbs up to the top terrace and stands the mug on the table.

‘I guessed you'd be here,' he says. ‘What a day. I've been out taking photographs of a cottage at Prawle Point. Gosh, it's really warm. Makes you forget all that rain, doesn't it?'

She's recovered, ready to listen to the events of his day, and to make plans for Claude's visit.

‘I've had a thought,' he tells her. ‘I've got a photo-shoot in Salisbury on Wednesday and I wondered if Claude might like a lift down. I can go over to Winchester and pick him up when I've finished.'

‘That's a brilliant idea,' Evie says. ‘He was saying that he might have to drive this time, since he's coming for much longer than usual, but I'm sure he'd love a lift though it means that one of us might have to get him back to Winchester again. That shouldn't be a problem and it saves having to worry about the parking of an extra car. I'm sure he'll love having the company.'

‘That's all good then.'

Ben sits at the table, legs stretched out, and breathes in the peace. Evie watches him; she longs suddenly to be able to confide in him, to say, ‘How would you feel, Ben, if you knew that this house should be yours? That a miscarriage of justice deprived you of an inheritance?'

Instead, she says, ‘How would you feel, Ben, if I were to suggest that I moved across here for the winter? I'm finding it a bit miserable in the afternoons and evenings down in the boathouse, and I'm getting a bit weary climbing up and down all those steps. What d'you think?'

There is no flicker of disappointment at the prospect of this intrusion, not even surprise in his face.

‘I think it's a really good idea,' he says. ‘I've told you that I think this house is much too big for one person. It's great when you come across for supper and then stay over. Why not? Apart from the fact that it's your house and you don't actually have to ask. But what about half term?'

‘Oh, no.' She shakes her head. ‘I'd wait until Charlie and Ange have gone and, anyway, I've got Claude staying until Christmas. No, I was thinking about after Christmas once Claude has gone back. Always so gloomy then.'

‘I'm looking forward to Christmas,' he says. ‘Listen. Why don't you and Claude stay over here for Christmas? It'll be much more fun than all the coming and going across the road. We'll get some logs for the drawing-room fire and have a tree.'

‘It does sound rather fun,' she admits. ‘I might take you up on that.'

There's a companionable little silence.

‘It's a weird set-up, isn't it?' he says suddenly. ‘Me living here and you across the road, and Charlie and Ange coming down again. And Claude. I suppose it's rather like a commune.'

Evie laughs; pleased at the idea. ‘I suppose it is. But it works at the moment. Though I still feel it's rather a shame, having invited you to stay here, that we all do use it rather like a hotel.'

But Ben shakes his head, almost impatiently. ‘No, no. That's the whole point, you see. I love this house but I'm not sure I'd want the responsibility of it. Such a worry, isn't it? Must cost a fortune, keeping it in good nick. No, I just love having the chance to live in it, treat it like home, have people coming in and out, but not worrying about it all the time.'

She watches him thoughtfully. ‘Is that really how you feel about it? I thought you loved it.'

‘Oh, I do,' he says. ‘I love it for all sorts of reasons. Because it's beautiful and there are lots of memories and it's part of the family. But I'd rather share it than own it. TDF must have spent a fortune on it when he did those alterations, and putting shower-rooms in a Grade II listed house must have been a nightmare. All those rules and regs.'

‘It wasn't straightforward,' she agrees. She's still aware of Tommy's shade, as if he is close by, listening to them, encouraging her. She takes new courage.

‘So,' she says, ‘if I were to leave the house to you in my will, are you saying you wouldn't want it?'

He stares at her with such amazement that she bursts out laughing.

‘You can't do that,' he says firmly, almost anxiously.

‘Why not?' she counters. ‘It's my house. I can do what I like with it.'

‘Yes, but it's always come down on Charlie's side. It wouldn't be right at all.'

‘Why not?' she asks again. ‘Don't you think Charlie has enough?'

Ben looks uncomfortable. ‘That's not the point. It's the whole tradition thing, isn't it? It's important to Charlie. Apart from anything else, he'd be hurt, wouldn't he? Why should you choose me over him? He's TDF's son.'

‘But it might so easily have gone the other way, mightn't it?' she suggests recklessly. ‘Suppose your great-grandfather had inherited instead of Charlie's?'

To her surprise, he bursts out laughing. ‘Oh, that's easy,' he says. ‘In that case there wouldn't have been anything left to inherit anyway. No, no.' He shakes his head. ‘My side of the family would never have been the custodians that Charlie's were. They grafted and they deserve it. Let them keep it. I'll just enjoy the fruits of their labours for a little while.'

Another silence.

‘Very well, then,' she says. ‘I've got another idea. Supposing I leave the Merchant's House in trust to you for your lifetime and then, when you die, it would revert back to Charlie or to his estate?'

He stares at her, frowning. ‘Could you do that?'

She shrugs. ‘Why not?'

‘So I could live here but Charlie would have it – or his children would – ultimately.'

‘That's about it.'

He turns to look down across the garden to the house, as if he's never seen it before.

‘Could it work, d'you think?' he asks at last.

‘I don't see why not. They could all come and stay if you wanted them. It could still be a family house. You wouldn't be able to sell it or raise money against it but you could be here, enjoying it.'

‘It sounds rather too good to be true,' he says at last.

‘Of course,' she adds drily, ‘I'll have to die first but meanwhile – here you are and here you can stay.'

‘I don't think I quite know what to say.'

‘Then don't say anything. And this is strictly between ourselves. I'm off. I'll phone Claude and make a plan about you picking him up. See you later.'

‘Yes,' he says, almost mechanically. ‘See you later.'

Back in the boathouse, in the dim, watery light of her big room, Evie walks across to the glass windows and gazes at the river. On the hill, Kingswear is still in sunshine: pretty houses and steep streets, crowding down to the marina with its dense thicket of masts.

She puts her hands in her pockets and her fingers encounter the rosebud and the acer leaf. She brings them out carefully.

So
, she says silently to Tommy.
Did I do the right thing?

Suddenly she remembers the etchings and how she'd planned to find new frames for them so that the two cartoons could be put back into the originals. She smooths the acer leaf between her fingers, puts it on the table and finds the cut-glass specimen vase for the rose. Then she goes into her study and takes down the two etchings from the wall. Putting them on her desk, she removes the pins and carefully edges the backing and the frames away.

As she puts the separate pieces out on the desk she sees that behind each of the etchings is a carefully folded sheet of blue airmail paper. Picking one up, she unfolds it and stares at Tommy's tiny writing. There is a 2 at the top of the page so she picks up the other:

1

So this is my ‘letter in a bottle', darling Evie. Probably madness but worth a try. If you're reading it then I am not around and you've probably decided to put these original frames back on the cartoons. I wonder why. Perhaps you want to rehang them? Perhaps someone's missed them? I know what a shock it will be to you when you find out that I've left the Merchant's House to you. I always wanted it to be there for you, Evie; your house, your home, for whenever you might need it, to live in it and be happy in it when the boathouse is a bit beyond you. That's what is most important to me and why I'm not just going to leave it in trust for you. It's no good discussing it with you. You'll refuse it, you'll say it belongs to Charlie, to the family. But it's your home, Evie. And after that, well, I have a feeling that somehow the future will reveal the solution but maybe I'm just passing the buck.

2

And maybe it's not you reading this, but someone down the years who doesn't know us. What an unsettling idea. When we sat on the top terrace on your birthday and you opened these little presents I thought of you at some future date taking them apart, removing the frames and finding my ‘letter in a bottle'. I had a strong sense, then, that all would work together for good. Blessings, my darling, and thank you.

Evie holds the thin sheets of paper in her hand. They bring Tommy so near to her; she can hear his voice in the words. It's as if he has presided over the afternoon in the garden, and has confirmed the things she said to Ben, so that she is filled with relief and with confidence.

So this is why he left her the house: not so as to avoid taking a decision between Ben and Charlie but so that she might feel that the house is hers to move into, to live in, to look upon as her home. Still holding his letter she glances around her study; at the bookshelves, the cupboards, her desk with its laptop and its Anglepoise lamp. Now that it is no longer inhabited with the ghosts of her characters, the desk is bare of documents, lists and reference books. There is an odd kind of emptiness, an impersonal atmosphere. She leaves the etchings on her desk and takes Tommy's letter into the big room where she reads it again, thinking of him holding it, and then lays it down with the acer leaf.

She longs for him: for the touch and the smell of him; for the sound of his laugh and the sight of his eyes smiling into hers; his voice calling to her, ‘What's the plan?'

Her heartache is intolerable, but she has a plan. The plan is that Claude is coming to stay, Charlie and Ange will be down for half term, and then there is Christmas. Perhaps Ben is right to suggest that she and Claude should spend Christmas in the Merchant's House. It is something to plan for: the first step in making the move.

And there is Mikey. She's had two cards, both pretty watercolour sketches of Bristol scenes, from him; rather formal, informative up to a point, as if someone – Jason? – was looking over his shoulder: school is good, it's the rugby term, they're beginning rehearsals for a big choral Christmas concert in the cathedral. He put his home address at the top right-hand corner of the card so she replied to it, taking her tone from his: Dartmouth is very quiet after regatta, she'd taken a river-boat trip to Totnes, perhaps she'll see him at half term? The second card was along much the same lines, he was home on an exeat weekend, but added that they would be in Dartmouth for half term and were looking forward to seeing her and the boathouse.

Evie looks around the big room. She hopes that Mikey isn't just being polite, that he really would like to come here to see her again. It's odd how touched and pleased she was to receive these cards; that he took the trouble to write to her. It's as if – and she knows she's being foolish – as if she is being forgiven for her youthful indifference: for her selfishness in ignoring Pat's feelings and for her refusal to give financial help for Jason's school fees.

Russ and Tommy. They were alike in their ability to compartmentalize their emotions, in their enthusiasms and in their absolute respect for her own work. Perhaps it was because they were both older than her by a decade that they had the kind of confidence and experience that the men of her own age seemed to lack. Or perhaps it was – more simply – that she'd fallen in love.

The sun has disappeared, Kingswear sinks into shadow, and cold river-light trembles on the ceiling and the walls. It is time to light the lamps.

Ben picks up the mugs and stands in the garden, looking down towards the house, aware of the gathering twilight and the atmosphere of warmth and security between the high, sheltering walls. He goes down the wide shallow steps, carrying the mugs, trying to contain an up-welling of joy and excitement. He longs to share this amazing news with someone; to tell somebody that he has the right to stay here for all of his life. It is an extraordinary sensation.

When he walks into the kitchen he looks around him as if expecting that the room will look different; that this new sense of belonging will manifest itself in some different way. Yet everything remains comfortingly the same – nor would he wish anything to change: he would simply like to share this revelation with somebody special.

He rinses the cups and stands them beside the sink, thinking about Kirsty and what she would say if he could tell her. Suddenly he misses her: or rather he misses that old, easy intimacy of a long relationship, the ability to put his arms around someone and hug them, to share with them. Well, that's all over now: finished. He wishes that Laura would come walking in – ‘Hi, Dad,' she'd say. ‘How're you doing?' – but even then he couldn't tell her. Evie said that it must be between the two of them and that's how it will be. Oh, but it will be hard not to share this with Laura.