Summer on the River (33 page)

And there is a space almost opposite the house. Her heart knocking about madly in her breast, her knees trembly, she puts the windows down a few inches for Otto and locks the car. Glancing each way, she crosses the road, and seizes the knocker.

Benj answers almost immediately, opening the door, gazing down at her as she waits there full of anticipation, beaming happily. He guesses straight away.

‘He's gone,' he says.

She stares at him, her smile slowly crumpling into disbelief: ‘Gone? What, gone already?'

He takes her arm, pulls her inside and slams the door behind them.

‘I thought you knew,' he says, almost angrily. ‘He said he told you they were going to Polzeath.'

She can scarcely answer him; her disappointment chokes her and the illusion of the bright morning folds gently, like a magician's coloured cardboard props, and collapses into dust and ashes.

‘He did,' she says dully, ‘but I didn't quite believe him. I didn't want to, I suppose. I thought he'd stay, like at regatta. And, anyway, I didn't realize they'd go so early.'

Benj leads her into the breakfast room and she stumbles along behind him as if she is suddenly old. He pushes her down on to a chair.

‘Damn,' he says quietly. ‘Damn and blast.'

She puts out a hand to him. ‘Sorry, Benj,' she says. ‘I'm such a fool. Don't be angry. I thought I was OK with it, I really did.'

‘I'm not angry,' he answers, with weary exasperation. ‘But do you realize how hard this is? First Charlie, then you. What the hell am I supposed to do?'

He kneels beside her and puts his arms round her, and she leans against him, too shocked to cry or complain.

‘I was so sure, you see,' she mutters into his shoulder. ‘I really believed he would be here.'

And then she does begin to cry: she weeps as if she will never stop. Her disillusionment is simply too much to bear, and Benj is so kind that it makes it even more difficult to pull herself together.

‘Come on,' he says at last. ‘I'm driving you home. We don't want Claude or Evie seeing you like this. I can get the bus back but we need to get you home. Give me your car keys.'

As they drive the familiar coast road she tries to control her tears, even to smile when Benj says, ‘Get a grip, you're frightening Otto,' but she sees now how foolishly she'd hoped for some recreation of regatta, some special magic that would materialize just for her and Charlie.

‘Sorry,' she keeps saying, wiping her eyes. ‘I'm really sorry, Benj. I thought I'd come to terms with it,' and he reaches out to hold her wrist tightly for a moment.

When they get indoors Benj fills the kettle whilst she goes upstairs to wash her face and make repairs. She looks a complete mess; staring at herself in the little glass she is shocked by her shadowy, drowned eyes, her straggly hair streaking over her wet cheeks, and her grim, down-turned mouth.

I look old, she thinks. Old and haggy.

She tidies up, brushes her hair, and by the time she's finished, Benj has carried the coffee up to her little sitting-room with two glasses of red wine. Her heart swells with gratitude and affection for him and suddenly she remembers Evie saying: ‘What a pity it isn't Ben.'

‘The bottle was open and I thought it might help,' he says.

She sits beside him on the sofa, takes a sip of coffee and then picks up the glass: the mouthful of Merlot is smooth and delicious.

‘I feel such a complete fool,' she tells him. ‘It's like when I saw him in the town with Ange, isn't it? Every time I think I've got it under control it all starts up again. I'm really sorry to keep draining down on you, Benj.'

He slips an arm along her shoulders, gives her a hug. ‘Stop saying sorry. It's OK. I just wish I could think of something helpful to say. I feel so damned helpless.'

‘We both need you,' she says, leaning against him gratefully.

‘What a hopeless pair you are.'

He smiles down at her, taking any sting from the words, and he looks and sounds so much like Charlie that when he kisses her she responds readily, almost with relief. This time neither of them draws back – and so it begins.

Mikey waits nervously outside Evie's door. Ever since he phoned, and they arranged to meet at the boathouse again, he's been wondering exactly what he should say: how he should explain this sudden change of plan. Now that he knows what his father thinks about Evie it's going to be almost impossible to be easy and relaxed with her.

‘Be nice,' Dad said, just like he did before, and Mikey felt confused and angry. He wanted to shout, ‘The other day you said you'd like to break her neck,' but he can't because of Aunt Liz and because he's beginning to be afraid of his father.

And here is Evie, opening the door and smiling at him.

‘This is kind of you, Mikey,' she says. ‘I'm so glad you've managed to dash over before you go.'

‘My aunt's come down,' he says, following her inside, amazed again by the light and the reflections. ‘She had to see someone about the flat so we're going back with her. We came on the train. We've got a car but it's old and a bit dodgy.'

He feels better now he's with her again but he still can't get his father's remarks out of his head.

‘I'm glad your aunt is here,' she says. ‘We wondered when we saw Jason whether he is quite well. He seemed very stressed.'

Mikey feels his face go hot and scarlet; he is ashamed and miserable.

‘I think it's to do with Mum dying,' he mumbles. ‘He has tablets for depression and sometimes he doesn't manage very well. That's why I phoned Aunt Liz because he was … well, like you said. That's why she came.'

‘Jason doesn't like me very much,' says Evie, and he stares at her in surprise. ‘Well, he doesn't, does he? Your grandfather and I were very close friends, perhaps too close, and your grandmother – Jason's mother – wasn't very happy about it. She was an invalid in a wheelchair and he probably still feels angry on her behalf.'

Mikey nods, still taken aback by Evie's honesty. ‘He did say something about it.'

She looks so kind and understanding that he wants to tell her everything: about how Dad's always been like a child, needing looking after, how he rages and loses it. But it's being disloyal, which he knows is wrong.

‘Sometimes,' she says, ‘when people aren't well, or grieving like your father is, they need something or someone on which to project their anger and grief and pain. It gives all those emotions a different direction and it can be a huge relief. Probably, seeing me again after all these years, that's what's happened to Jason.'

Listening to her Mikey is filled with a sense of understanding. Since Mum died he's experienced all sorts of things: anger, fear, guilt, misery. It would be good, sometimes, to let it all out in a huge fit of rage.

He nods. ‘I get that. Even so, I wish it wasn't you.'

She smiles. ‘So do I,' she says cheerfully. ‘Will you write to me, Mikey, and let me know how things are with you? From school this time, perhaps?'

And then he smiles too, and nods, because it's as if she really does understand what it's like and how Dad watched him write the letters.

‘Good,' she says. ‘Let's have something to eat and drink, shall we?'

Later he walks back to the flat with a greater sense of security, believing that he has a friend who is grown-up, responsible, and asks for nothing but his friendship.

‘Come back and see us soon,' Evie said, and he promised that he would. Some instinct tells him that this place will always be special to him.

Mikey glances at his watch and hurries his pace; they want to be off before lunch. He takes one long last look across the Boat Float out towards the river and turns back into the town. The holiday is over.

DURING THESE SHORT
late autumn days that topple down so quickly towards the end of the year, the best time in the garden is in the morning. Low sunshine slants across the roofs, dazzles on the water, touches the untidy mop-heads of the hydrangeas. Evie leans against the table and wraps cold hands around her mug of hot coffee: even on the coldest day, as long as there is a gleam of sunshine, she cannot resist the garden. She hears the blackbird rustling amongst the ivy, foraging along the wall, swooping down to peck up some crumbs she's provided for him. He has his gold-rimmed eye on the spring, protecting his familiar territory, which has provided such a perfect breeding site for his young.

As she looks around the quiet, sleeping garden, Evie finds it almost impossible to imagine it in blossom again, the borders full of colour, the scent of lavender drifting in the warm, still air. She and Claude have been happily settled in the Merchant's House for several weeks, adapting to the change of routines, enjoying the novelty: it's rather like being on holiday in familiar surroundings. After all, neither she nor Claude is a stranger to the Merchant's House.

It was odd at first, though, to be back here without Tommy; odd to be using their bedroom and half expecting to see him coming out of the shower or propped up against his pillows in bed, reading. To begin with it was very painful, as if she were coming to terms with losing him all over again, but gradually she grew used to it. There were so many good memories, small things she'd almost forgotten. He was always the first up – all those years of being early at the office – dragging on his dressing gown and going downstairs to make coffee. In the kitchen he'd switch on Radio 4 so that by the time he returned, carrying the tray, he was able to tell her various items of the day's news.

‘Do I want to know?' she'd mutter, hardly awake, hauling herself upright. ‘Can't it wait until after breakfast?'

He had an almost childlike fascination with disasters: tsunamis, hurricanes, floods. These terrible things gripped his imagination and occupied his mind.

‘Appalling,' he'd say, sitting on the bottom of the bed, his face grave. ‘Simply awful. All those poor souls. We'll need to get on to ShelterBox and see if they're doing anything about it.'

On sunny summer mornings he'd insist that she had her coffee up in the garden.

‘Up you come. Up you come,' he'd say, as if she were a recalcitrant horse, pulling back the bedcovers. ‘It's a glorious morning. Much too good to be lazing in bed. You know you'll be glad when you're up there.'

And she usually was, though she was not by nature a lark; she was an owl: late to bed, late to rise. Before she moved into the Merchant's House with Tommy after they were married, it was during those deliciously lazy hours between waking and rising that she'd think about her day's work: plotting and planning, imagining scenes and conversations. Sometimes she did some work on her laptop before she got up; sometimes she'd make coffee and take it back to bed whilst she brooded on the story she was telling. Her life with Tommy changed things, she learned to adapt, and she never regretted those happy years with him.

She knows that Claude is remembering the past, too. They both are certain that Tommy would be pleased to see them all together here in his beloved Merchant's House, planning for Christmas. Charlie will be coming for two nights just before Christmas, but there has been no question of Ange or the girls accompanying him and Evie is relieved. She thinks that Ange has accepted Ben's rights to be here at the Merchant's House and, even if she had any suspicions about Jemima, that extraordinary encounter in Alf's went some way to allaying them.

Evie sips her coffee thoughtfully, thinking about Jemima and about Ben. Recently she has noticed a change – infinitesimal, carefully concealed, but a change – in their friendship: a new awareness flowing between them. There is something new, too, in the way that Jemima greets Evie: all the old affection, yes, but a new constraint as if Jemima fears a plunge into intimacy during one of their conversations. There is a brightness, lots of jokiness, a tendency to skitter away from more personal subjects. Evie watches this with interest – and anxiety: to her experienced eye Jemima looks like a woman who is having an affair. She remembers Jemima sitting on the balcony at the boathouse saying, ‘I always say I'm mistress material.'

Ben, on the other hand, is quieter. There is a physical wellbeing about him yet he too is slightly cautious with Evie, lest he might reveal something he wishes to keep hidden. He makes no secret of the fact that he spends time with Jemima, and she still drops into the Merchant's House for a mid-morning cup of coffee or a cup of tea after work, but the old easiness between she and Ben has been replaced by something more knowing; a different level of intimacy that must be constantly monitored. The old innocence has vanished.

The blackbird swoops down to seize a crumb and Evie drinks the last of her coffee. She hears Claude calling to her from the house below and she goes down through the garden to meet him.

As Claude unpacks the shopping he gives thanks that Charlie is coming down by himself just before Christmas. Though Claude knows that Ange has never accompanied Charlie on the Christmas run there's always the fear of hearing that this year she's changed her mind. It was a huge shock to Claude when Evie told him she showed Ange the papers from the cartoons.

‘It was the only way to get her off our backs,' Evie said. ‘I think you'll find everything will be easier now.'

‘You make it sound like blackmail,' he grumbled, trying to imagine the scene between the two women.

‘Oh, it is,' said Evie blithely. ‘You see, she might have always thought that I'd invented them. There would have been that tiny doubt in her mind. So I showed them to her and told her how I'd left things in my will, whilst implying that it all depended on her behaving herself. She quite understood that, she's not an idiot, but she'll feel happier now that she knows that the Merchant's House will go back to her children eventually. Though she nearly had a fit when I told her that you'd read them.'