The Carousel (3 page)

"Thank you."

"And Phoebe used to tell me about you when I went to see her. It's lovely going to tea with her, because it's not like being with a grown-up person and I'm allowed to go on my own. And we always play with the carousel that used to be a gramophone."

"That was mine. Chips made it for me."

"I never knew Chips. He was dead before I can remember."

"And I," I told her, "never knew your mother."

"But we go and stay with Granny most summers."

"And I am usually there at Easter, or sometimes for Christmas, so our paths have never crossed. I don't think I even know her name."

"It's Annabelle. She was Annabelle Tolliver. But she's called Mrs. Collis now."

"And do you have brothers and sisters?"

"One brother. Michael. He's fifteen. He's at Wellington."

"And the boiler at Wellington hasn't blown up?"

It was an attempt to add a little levity to the conversation, but Charlotte did not smile. She said, "No."

I studied the menu and thought about Mrs. Tolliver. My memories of her were of a tall, elegant, and rather chilling lady, always immaculately turned out, her grey hair neatly groomed, her skirts pleated and pressed, her long, narrow shoes polished like chestnuts. I thought of White Lodge, where Charlotte was going to stay, and wondered what a child would find to do in those neatly manicured gardens, that quiet and orderly house.

I looked across the table at the child and saw that she, too, with furrowed brow, was trying to decide what she would have for lunch. She seemed a sad little person. It couldn't have been much fun, being sent home from school simply because the boiler there had blown up.

Unexpected and probably unwanted, with your mother abroad and no person to take care of you. It couldn't have been much fun, being put by yourself on a train and shunted off to the end of the country to visit your grandmother. I wished, all at once, for Mrs. Tolliver to be dumpy and cosy, with a round, warm bosom and a passion for knitting dolls' clothes and playing Clock Patience.

Charlotte looked up and saw me watching her. She sighed hopelessly. "I don't know what I want." 

I said, "A moment ago you told me you were feeling very hungry. Why don't you have everything?"

"All right." She decided on vegetable soup, roast beef, and ice cream. "And do you think," she added wistfully, "there might be enough money over for a Coca-Cola?"

What is there so magical about travelling by train to Cornwall? I know I am not the first person to have known the enchantment as the line crosses the Tamar by the old Brunei railway bridge, as though one were entering the gates of some marvellous foreign country. Each time I go I tell myself that it cannot be the same, but it always is. And it is impossible to pinpoint the exact reasons for this euphoria. The shapes of the houses, perhaps, pink-washed in the evening sun. The smallness of the fields; the lofty viaducts soaring over deep, wooded valleys; the first distant glimpses of the sea? Or perhaps the saintly names of small stations that we rocket through and leave behind, or the voices of the porters on the platform at Truro?

We reached St. Abbatt's Junction at a quarter to five. As the train drew alongside the platform, Charlotte and I were ready by the door, with our suitcases and my bunch of chrysanthemums, by now distinctly worse for wear. When we stepped down from the train, we were assailed by a blustering west wind, and I could smell the sea, salty and strong. There were palm trees on the platform, rattling their leaves like old, broken umbrellas, and a porter opened the door of the guards' van and manhandled out of it a crate of indignant hens.

I knew that Mr. Thomas was going to come and meet me. Mr. Thomas owned the only taxi in Penmarron, and Phoebe had told me over the telephone that she had engaged his services. As we walked up towards the bridge, I saw Mr. Thomas waiting, bundled up in an overcoat as though it were winter and wearing on his head the hat that he had bought at a jumble sale and that had once belonged to some noble chauffeur. When he was not driving a taxi, he was a pig farmer, and for this occupation he had another hat, felt, and of great antiquity. Phoebe, who had a Rabelaisian wit, once wondered what sort of hat he wore when he was getting into bed with Mrs. Thomas, but my mother had pursed her lips and lowered her eyes and refused to be amused, so Phoebe had not wondered it again.

There was no sign of Mrs. Tolliver. I could feel Charlotte's anxiety.

"Perhaps your grandmother's waiting on the other side of the bridge."

The train, which never stopped long anywhere, drew out. We scanned the opposite platform, but the only person who waited was a fat lady with a shopping bag. Not Mrs. Tolliver.

"Maybe she's sitting in the car in the station yard. It's a cold evening to be standing about."

"I hope she hasn't forgotten," said Charlotte.

But Mr. Thomas was to reassure us. "Hello, my dear," he said to me, coming to meet us and to relieve me of my case. "How are you? Nice to see you again. Have a good journey, did you?" He looked down at Charlotte. "You're Mrs. Tolliver's little girl, aren't you. That's right. My orders are to pick up the pair of you. Take the little girl to White Lodge, and then you on to Miss Shackleton's. Travel together, did you?"

"Yes, we did; we met on the train."

"Your aunt would have come, but she can't drive her car with that dratted arm of hers. Come on now," he turned to Charlotte, "give me your case, too, easier to carry two than one . . ."

And thus burdened, he trudged up the wooden steps and over the bridge, and Charlotte and I followed him. Settled in his taxi, which had moulting leather seats and always smelt faintly of pig, I said, "I hope Mrs. Tolliver hasn't broken her arm, too."

"Oh, no, she's lovely." In Cornwall, lovely means well. "Nothing wrong with her. But didn't seem much point two cars coming . . ." And with that he started up his engine, and the taxi, after backfiring twice, ground into gear and shot forward up the hill that led to the main road.

I sat back and felt annoyed. Perhaps it was the most sensible thing to do, arranging for Charlotte and me to share the taxi, but it would have been more welcoming if Mrs. Tolliver had come to the station to meet Charlotte herself. It was, after all, a drive of only two miles. Charlotte was looking away from me, out the window, and I suspected that once more she was fighting tears. I didn't blame her.

"That was a good idea, wasn't it, for us to share the taxi?" I tried to sound enthusiastic, as though I approved.

She did not turn round. She said, "I suppose so."

However, we had arrived. We were here. Along the main road on that windy afternoon, and down the hill beneath the oak trees. Past the gates of what used to be the Squire's house, and then into the village. Nothing ever seemed to change. Up the hill again, past the cottages and the shops, an old man walking his dog, the petrol station, the pub. We turned down the road that led to the church and the sea, the copse of ancient oaks, the farm with its slated steadings, and so to the open white gates of White Lodge.

Mr. Thomas changed down with a hideous clash of gears and turned into these gates. We came up the short drive, between overhanging trees, and I saw the swept verges and the fading banks of hydrangea. We rounded a clump of these and drew up on the gravel sweep in front of the house. It was a stone house, whitewashed and solid. A wisteria clambered up the wall to the upstairs windows, and a flight of stone steps rose to the closed front door. We all got out of the taxi, and Mr. Thomas went up the steps to ring the bell. The wind suddenly blew up a gust and swept a scatter of dead leaves into a whirlpool at our feet. After a short wait, the door was opened and Mrs. Tolliver appeared. She looked just the same as I had remembered her and came down the steps towards us with her smoothly coiffed grey hair and her slender, elegant figure. Her face was neatly arranged in a smile of welcome.

"Charlotte. Well, here you are." She stooped to kiss the child briskly. She straightened up. I am tall, but she was taller. "Prue. How very nice to see you. I hope you didn't mind sharing the taxi."

"We didn't mind in the least. We met on the train in London, so we've travelled all the way together."

"How very nice. Now, Charlotte, is this your suitcase? In you come. There's just time to wash your hands, and then we'll have tea. Mrs. Curnow's made a sponge cake. I expect you like sponge cake."

Charlotte said, "Yes." It did not sound convincing. She probably hated sponge cake. She would much have preferred fish fingers and chips. 

"... And Prue, I hope you find Phoebe well. Perhaps you'll come for lunch one day. How is your mother?"

"She's well."

"I'll get all the news some other time. Come along now, Charlotte."

"Good-bye," Charlotte said to me. "Good-bye, Charlotte. Come and see us." "Yes, I will."

I waited by the taxi until they had gone up the steps and through the door. Mrs. Tolliver carried the suitcase, and Charlotte, still clutching her comic, trod cautiously at her heels. She did not turn to wave. The door closed behind them.

It seemed all wrong that Charlotte should have been given a reception of such little warmth, while I, twenty-three years old and perfectly able to stand on my own two feet, had Holly Cottage waiting for me, and Phoebe. At Holly Cottage there was no driveway; just a patch of gravel between the gate and the house. At Holly Cottage the garden was a mass of dahlias and chrysanthemums, the front door stood open to the evening breeze, and from an upstairs window a pink cotton curtain blew in the wind, like a person waving a cheerful greeting. No sooner was the taxi turning in at her gate than Phoebe herself appeared. Her left arm was strapped up in a bulky white plaster cast, but her right arm signalled its own exuberant welcome, and she came running forward so unexpectedly that Mr. Thomas very nearly ran her over.

Before the car had stopped, I was out of it and into Phoebe's one-armed embrace. The one I gave back to her did double duty for both of us.

"Oh, my darling," she crowed, "what an angel. Never thought you'd be able to come. Couldn't believe it. I'm going nearly insane trying to get myself about. Can't even ride a bicycle. . . "

Laughing, I let her go, and we stood back and looked at each other with the greatest of satisfaction. Looking at Phoebe is always a pleasure. Unpredictable, but always a pleasure. She was at that time well into her sixties, but it has always been impossible to equate Phoebe to the passing years.

I saw the thick stockings, the stout boots, the worn and faded blue-jean skirt. Over these she wore a man's shirt and cardigan (probably inherited from Chips); there were gold chains about her neck, and a tartan scarf, and on her head, inevitably, a hat.

She always wore hats, broad-brimmed, deep-crowned, rather dashing. She had taken to wearing them to protect her eyes, while painting out of doors, from the cold, white glare of the Cornish light, and they had become so much part of her that she very often forgot to take them off. This one was a rich brown, decorated with grey gull feathers stuck into the ribbon band. Beneath its kindly shade, Phoebe's face, the skin netted with lines, twinkled and smiled at me. The smile revealed teeth that were even and white as a child's, and her eyes were the deepest speedwell blue, their brightness challenged only by the turquoise-and-silver earrings that dangled on either side of her face.

I said, "You're a fraud. You may have broken your arm, but you're as beautiful as ever."

"What rubbish! Do you hear that, Mr. Thomas, she says I'm beautiful. She must be either mad or blind. Now, what's this? Your suitcase. And what are the dead flowers for? I don't want any dead flowers . . ." Holding the poor things, she began to laugh again. "Now, Mr. Thomas, you'll have to send me a bill. I can't pay you just now— I've mislaid my handbag."

"I'll pay, Phoebe."

"Of course you won't. Mr. Thomas doesn't mind, do you, Mr. Thomas?"

Mr. Thomas assured her that he didn't. He got back into his taxi, but Phoebe pursued him in order to put her head through the window and ask after Mrs. Thomas's bad leg. Mr. Thomas began to tell her, at some length. Halfway through his dissertation, Phoebe decided she'd had enough. "So glad she's better," she said firmly, and withdrew her head from the window. Mr. Thomas, halted in full spate, was not in the least disconcerted. It was just Miss Shackleton, and heaven only knew, she had some funny ways. The old taxi was set into motion once more and the next moment had sped away, scattering gravel through the gate and up the road.

"Now." Phoebe took my arm. "Let's get indoors. I want to hear all the news."

Together we went through the open door and into the house. I stood in the hall, looked about, and loved everything for being the same. I saw the polished floors scattered with rugs; the uncarpeted wooden staircase that led to the upper floor; the whitewashed walls hung, haphazard, with Phoebe's tiny, jewel-bright oil paintings.

The house smelt of turpentine and wood smoke and linseed oil and garlic and roses, but its greatest charm was the effect of airy lightness engendered by pale colours, lacy curtains, straw rugs, and polished wood. Even in the middle of winter, it always felt summery.

I took a deep breath, savouring it all. "Heaven," I said. "Heaven to be back."

"You're in the same old room," said Phoebe and then left me, heading for the kitchen. I knew she would spend some time trying to resuscitate Nigel's poor flowers, even though she had more than enough of her own. I picked up my case and went upstairs,to the room that had been mine since I was a very small girl. I opened the door and was assailed by a gust of cold air pouring in from the wide open window. I shut the door, and everything stopped billowing. Putting down my case, I went to the window and leaned out to gaze at the familiar view.

The tide was out, and the evening smelt of seaweed. You were never far from the sea smells at Holly Cottage, because the house had been built on a grassy bluff overlooking a tidal estuary, which penetrated inland like a huge lake and was filled and emptied each day by the tides.