The Fire Child (28 page)

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Authors: S. K. Tremayne

BOOK: The Fire Child

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Summer

Morning

David set down his teacup on the sill, and looked through the leaded windows, at Jamie. The boy was playing in the sunlit gardens with Rollo – his old schoolfriend – throwing a half-deflated ball for the dog to catch.

The boys laughed, loudly, as the puppyish terrier caught the ball, and started shaking it: as a proper terrier should. Believing it, no doubt, to be some kind of rat.

David sighed. ‘Look at that. A dog. A pet dog makes him happy. After everything he’s seen.’

Oliver nodded. ‘Should have got him a dog before.’

‘I know, Oliver, I know. But there it is. What can you do?’

David spoke over-firmly. The guilt never left him, for what he’d done. Acting like his father: brutish Richard Kerthen. But crucifying himself with guilt, however justifiable, was not going to help Jamie, or Eliza. So David was determined to see the positive. There was no choice. A year and a half had passed. It was time to look forward, as Rachel was doing.

What had happened had happened. It was all family history now.

If the family endured another century or two – and why should they not, given that they had endured a thousand years, already – the strange story of Nina Kerthen, and of Jamie’s real mother, would become just another piece of folklore. Another part of the legend, recounted in the pub. That was what David fervently hoped. Otherwise the remorse threatened to overwhelm him.

Oliver spoke, cautiously. ‘Isn’t it a bit odd, coming here – to see Jamie?’

‘Odd?’

‘Now that you don’t live here, I mean.’

‘No,’ David answered, truthfully. ‘I didn’t fight the divorce for a reason. I realized I could never be happy in Carnhallow. And after what I’d done, I deserved to lose it, anyway.’

Oliver gave David a hard stare. Assessing him. Probably Oliver was thinking how diminished David looked, how much older, quieter, greyer. So be it. It was the price he’d paid, along with giving the house to Rachel. And he’d been happy to pay it, because he also gained: David Kerthen was stripped of his past, but also of his cares. His money provided upkeep, his son and daughter would inherit, but David would never again reside in this house where so many awful things had happened.

He didn’t have to live within sight of Morvellan mine, and Zawn Hanna, and the cliffs at the end of the valley. The beach where they had all nearly drowned; where David had saved the life of his son and his son’s mother, when it was almost too late. So close to total tragedy. They had come so very close. It could all have been very much worse.

He had lost almost everything. He had been a brutal fool. And he was lucky.

Out in the garden, Jamie, his friend and the dog had all moved on, romping towards the woods. Oliver finished his tea, and said ‘One of Rachel’s friends – Jessica – she was asking questions over dinner last night.’

‘She was?’

‘About you and Nina. And the surrogacy. I’m never quite sure what to tell people when they ask. There’s still a lot of curiosity.’

‘The truth,’ David answered, ‘Tell them the truth. I was totally in love with Nina. An outright obsession. And she was rhapsodically in love with me, likewise. I could never give her up. She couldn’t give me up. But she couldn’t have kids.’

‘Sure, but—’

‘You know what I was like back then. A Kerthen of Carnhallow, the name meant everything.’ David gestured at the grandness of the room in which they stood. ‘Could I have let the line die, would I have been content to die without issue? It was a terrible choice. I either had to give up Nina, and find a different wife, or I got to keep Nina – but then I’d have to accept I would never have my own kids. And so a thousand years of Kerthens would terminate: with me.’

Oliver frowned. ‘But Jessica’s point is that most people would adopt. That’s what everyone does.’

‘Hell with them.’ David returned the frown with a shrug. ‘I was too proud to adopt; I wanted my own genetic offspring. And Nina wanted to do it: it was originally her idea, even if she went through Edmund and his friend Philip. She made
all
the decisions, she paid people to look for someone desperate, and for someone who resembled her. She made sure neither of us knew the mother’s real identity. To keep the distance.’

‘Yes, I know the
story
,’ Oliver interrupted. ‘What bothers people is all the deceptions, and the consequences. You deceived me, for one. It was a friend of Edmund’s that introduced me to Rachel. Years ago. And I had no idea!’

‘Nor did I, Oliver.’

‘But then you deceived everyone else. Telling the world Jamie was Nina’s, telling
Jamie
he was Nina’s. Jamie will spend his life knowing that Nina came to regret it, felt jealous of you, having a stronger bond, all that—’

David was unfazed. ‘All true. But if we hadn’t done the surrogacy, then Jamie wouldn’t even exist. Which is quite an argument. Isn’t it? Anyhow’ – David checked his watch – ‘I don’t live here any more. I’ve said goodbye to Jamie, and I want to put some flowers on Mummy’s grave before I get home, and Nina’s grave, too. Zennor will be full of traffic, all the tourists coming for lunch, at the Tinner’s.’

Oliver nodded.

David asked, ‘Any idea where Rachel might be? Must thank her. She’s not obliged to let me into Carnhallow, it’s not in the settlement.’

‘Last seen in the Old Hall, ordering builders around.’

His goodbyes made, David did a brisk search of the house, stepping aside for workmen wielding planks, and electricians adjusting stepladders. The Old Hall was especially busy, a bustle of carpenters and decorators. This austere space was to be the centre of the Retreat. Where artists could show the paintings, sculptures, photographs they had completed during their stay in the West Wing, which was now entirely separate from the family rooms.

It was Rachel’s idea: she was bringing the house to life, making it pay for itself, and doing it in a way that David would never have considered. She was saving the place, so it might stay in the family for another thousand years: so that Jamie and his sister would inherit a thriving business, as well as an exquisite home.

Rachel Kerthen was truly a survivor, and David respected her all the more for it. Her rare case of pre-partum psychosis had worsened after that terrible Christmas morning, and she had been hospitalized for several weeks. But now she had made a complete recovery. And as long as she had no more children, she should, the doctors said, be fine.

He found her in the kitchen. She was feeding their daughter, Eliza, crooning a song, and swaying gently, to calm the baby. The sun that streamed through the window made her look, momentarily, like a Renaissance Madonna. Raphael, maybe.

There was a cold and significant distance between them now, but that was only right. The important thing was that there was no distance with his kids. David took Eliza in his arms, and kissed her gently on the forehead – then handed her back to her mother. Their baby was pretty.

‘I’d better be going. Thanks for letting me come and see Jamie.’

‘It’s fine. Jamie likes it.’

She looked at him, her face blank, dispassionate. Then they both fell quiet. And Rachel’s attention drifted to the windows, and the view – of the gardens sloping to the cliffs, and then to Morvellan. David followed her gaze: down to the mines. It was hard not to look at them.

But then she turned and gave him a brisk little smile, and the spell was broken. David said goodbye, and walked to the door.

The scent of flowers in the gardens was heady. The bluebells glimmered in Ladies Wood, like a cool flame of blue, licking on green. He felt a momentary surge of sadness, the love and the guilt that would never go away – like shadows and light in the rose gardens. So much had been lost. But then he climbed into his car, and realized: he was looking forward to getting home, to his little cottage in St Ives. It was good for access to Jamie, and no trouble to maintain. And the view from the cottage was pretty, and very paintable: gazing right over Porthmeor Beach. Without a single mine in sight.

Afternoon

My weekend guests have all gone now. Jessica was the last to leave. The builders have likewise departed. David has had time with Jamie. Rollo’s mum has picked up her son with an invitation to come over, next week, for supper.

Carnhallow is restored to its rightful occupants: me, my daughter, Cassie. And Jamie. The special silence of the house fills the rooms, as does the sweet smell of new paint. The sea is talking to itself: Carnhallow is talking back. The sunlight catches fire on scarlet rugs, on the raspberry red walls of the kitchen garden. It shines on the white tobacco plants under the windows.

I love this place more with every day: as it grows beautiful again. I only wish Juliet could have lived to see it. We all miss Juliet.

Eliza is settled and happy; my daughter sleeps most afternoons around this time, five or six o’clock. It gives me precious time to sit down at the kitchen table with a cup of tea.

Jamie comes running into the kitchen, tanned, in a T-shirt.

‘Rachel, I want to talk to Daddy this evening, is that OK?’

‘Of course it is. You can call him anytime you like.’

The further words go unspoken.
Yes: you can see your father every weekend, phone him every evening. But he’s never sleeping in my house again.
I don’t have to say this, though: we all know it.

Jamie nods. ‘Thanks. What time is supper?’

‘Whenever Cassie gets back from the shops.’ I look at my watch, ‘Pretty soon, I should think.’

‘OK.’ He is lingering in the kitchen doorway, a thoughtful expression on his face. Locks of black hair stray over his violet-blue eyes. As I look at him – my son – I like to imagine him playing, one day, with his sister: in Ladies Wood, on a summer’s day like this, years ahead. All the windows of the house will be open, and I will sit here and listen to their laughter, as my little girl romps barefoot through the fernstrewn glades, chasing her big brother. She will have the happy childhood I didn’t. Or that is what I hope. But no one can predict the future.

Abruptly, Jamie runs over, and gives me the fiercest hug. Burying his head in my neck. He doesn’t say anything. He hugs me, then he turns and runs out of the back door of the kitchen, into the kitchen garden, and on to the lawns beyond, calling out for the dog: we’ve named him Jago.

Then I sit here, content to do absolutely nothing. Watching Jamie play on the grass, with Jago, and the cat, Genevieve, watching the waves play on the rocks, in the distance.

As I sip my tea, stray thoughts occur. Random memories. Anecdotes about the mines, Carnhallow, Cornwall.

I remember a story Juliet once told me about the coastal mines. How, on the very darkest and wildest nights, the wives and mothers of the miners would stand on the cliffs, with candles stuck in treacle tins, making a choir of tiny gleaming fires, like a constellation of stars. They did it to guide their husbands up the cliffs from the mines, so they would know where to climb. It must have been an oddly beautiful sight: an expression of love, in light.

And then, as the sun slants over Morvellan, setting fire to the waters, I listen to my daughter sleeping, and my son playing with the dog, and I think about the tunnels. Those tunnels that go under the sea.