The Sea House (21 page)

30

Nick was on the M25 when Lily got through. ‘What the fuck!’ he said. ‘I thought you were dead.’

‘Sorry, no. I’m not.’

‘You could have been anywhere, fallen into the river, down a well, Christ… I even started thinking the wife-beater might have got you, I actually knocked on his door.’ Nick laughed, furious, and Lily felt goose bumps spring up along her arm.

‘I decided to go camping.’ She had to say something. ‘There’s a little campsite, on the beach, and I thought, for a change…’

‘The beach? But I looked on the beach!’

‘Well, it’s further along, in a hollow. You wouldn’t know, really, unless you knew…’

There was silence then. Just the shooting hiss of cars. ‘I’m really sorry…’ she pleaded. ‘Nick? I wasn’t expecting you… We said next Friday… If I’d known’ – guilt seeped into her voice, forcing it up high – ‘obviously, I would have stayed in.’

‘I wanted to surprise you.’ He sounded sad. ‘Well, I suppose I did.’

‘You surprised the postman anyway,’ she said, ‘with your note.’ For a moment they both laughed. ‘So… next weekend… if it hasn’t put you off…?’

‘We’ll see.’ He gave a great, tired sigh. ‘Actually the drive isn’t too bad, now I’m getting used to it, and you know… last night as I was walking round, looking for you in ditches, I did see… There is something about it… the village, maybe it’s just the darkness, being without street lights… hearing the waves, there is something…’

Lily was shivering. ‘Yes.’

‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should take more time off. Maybe… Ahhh, BOLLOCKS.’ There was a pause and a compression of air. ‘Shit, I’ve just been photographed by a speed camera. That’s another six points on my licence.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault.’

‘Next Friday?’ she said gently, ‘and I’ll ring you before?’

‘All right. But Lily…’ He was struggling, she could hear it in his voice. ‘I didn’t know you had a tent.’

‘I bought one. There was a fête in the village hall, to raise money for missionaries, of all things, and I… it only cost three pounds.’

‘Bloody hell, what’s it like?’

‘Well…’ Lily looked out of the window and rolled her eyes, although there was no one there. ‘It’s… You know those green canvas boy scout tents that you have to lace up to close the door? The ground sheet isn’t even attached, so in the morning my clothes were all scattered around outside.’ God, what was she talking about? ‘But Nick’ – she caught sight of the flashing row of O’s – ‘I’m sorry, my money’s about to…’ She started scrabbling. ‘It’s about to –’ The line went dead.

The phone call had cost more than the imaginary tent. She wandered up to the shop and looked into the window. But there were no adverts for tents. Only a row of holiday houses, all sweetly porched, climbing with vines, to let.

Lily added to her basket as she waited in the narrow aisle. Biscuits and tea-bags and a newspaper with a photograph of a young Palestinian, tranquil and dark-eyed, and another of the carnage in a Jerusalem street after she’d killed herself and seven passers-by.
IS THERE ANY HOPE FOR PEACE
? the headline read, and underneath in smaller, greyer type a description of what the Israeli army were planning in order to exact revenge. What was she going to do about Nick? she wondered, but instead of deciding she leafed through the thin sheets. Home News and International. Enough disease and drought and violence to wipe out most of a continent, even without a world war.

Grae had set his workbench up outside the hut and was building a set of steps. He’d made the structure, free-standing, triangular sides to hold it in, and now he was sanding it down.

‘Sorry,’ Lily said. ‘I got delayed.’ She spread her newspaper over the table and set out lunch. Bread, ham, olives, cheese. Red and yellow tomatoes steaming up the inside of their plastic box.

Grae stopped sawing. ‘Thankyou.’ He looked at her as if no one had ever done a kind thing for him before.

Lily smiled. She wouldn’t mention Nick. ‘When are the girls back?’ she asked instead, and he tore off a piece of bread.

‘Teatime, Sue’s going to have them every other weekend from now on.’

Instinctively Lily looked at her watch. It was only one.

‘She’s got a job. Assistant to the pig man over at Uggleswade.’ Grae gave a snort. ‘It means she’s up at five and can’t take them to school.’ He twisted his mouth into a smile, as though this in itself were good.

‘Is she from round there?’

‘Yes, grew up on a farm, gone now of course. Sold off.’

Lily made herself a sandwich. She was so hungry the insides of her stomach contracted with the promise of food. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if no questions needed to be answered, nothing ever asked? They ate in silence. Breaking the crusts with their fingers, tearing at the ham and cheese.

‘Is there a campsite round here?’ She wiped pips away with her arm.

‘Yes, there’s one just over the river. Why, is all this comfort getting to be too much?’

‘No, it’s just… I wondered.’ There was water on the table and she took a long warm gulp.

Grae looked at her. ‘The old lady who runs it, Dolly, she’s… Well… Since she turned eighty it’s not so easy to get a pitch. She’s switched currency, gone back to old money. If you’re lucky, you can stay a week for two-and-six.’ He got up and carried on working, knocking nails in with small clean taps. Lily closed her eyes. She could see his outline through the red glow of her lids. ‘Sometimes she just takes against you.’ He was talking to himself. ‘Sue once offered her ten shillings, but no, she said, the campsite was full.’

When Grae had given the wood a coat of bright blue paint, they walked along the beach towards the power station. It shimmered at them from the curve of the coast, its dome white and thin as pearl.

‘What’s it like there?’ she asked. ‘Do you wear masks and protective suits?’

‘No.’ He hesitated, ‘But I’m sworn to secrecy. I had to sign a pledge before I was allowed in.’

‘Really?’ She looked at him, alarmed.

‘No. Don’t be ridiculous. Anyway, I only worked in the canteen.’

They wrapped their arms round each other and walked on, trudging through soft sand and moving pebbles, climbing up the sheer wall of shingle, up to where the ground was hard. It was windy here and they kept their heads down, forced to walk in single file, the grasslands below them, the sea rushing in on their other side. ‘Here.’ Grae reached for her hand, and they ran down towards the river and crossed over the bridge to the mill. The mill water was low. The path around it spliced with little cracks. White butterflies skittered just above the bracken, so close it seemed you could reach out and catch one in your fist. Lily stretched out on the granite wall. Question after question rose up in her mind and each time she caught herself, just in time, and pushed it down. Grae came and sat beside her. He eased out the salt strands of her hair.

‘We should get back,’ he said, ‘if I’m going to drive out to the farm.’

‘Oh, I thought she was bringing them here.’

‘No.’ He stood up. ‘That’s why I got myself a car.’

‘Right…’ There was a small hard grit of silence as they walked back the way they’d come.

Lily picked a frond of grass and swiped at the stalks along the path. ‘Sorry.’ Grae reached back for her. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s still… It’s… difficult.’ He kissed her, his eyes softening into hers. ‘Here,’ he was nodding sideways, ‘what do you think?’ and there beside the path was a clearing, a den under the low-hanging branches of a tree.

Lily looked around. ‘No,’ she said, but she didn’t know quite why. Grae slid a hand under her shirt, denting the crevice of each rib, smoothing his thumb along her side, up and over the smooth curve of her breast.

‘Come on,’ he said and, bending low, he led her under the canopy of branches, the gnarled arms of the tree, the hardening leaves. It was dark inside and cool. They kissed again, and this time she let herself breathe in the hotness of his breath, keeping her own eyes open while his eyelids closed, his face furrowing in concentration as he pressed her hard against him, holding her steady, unbuckling his belt.

Dear Cathy and Clare
… The problem page letter came to her as she rearranged her clothes. Her legs were trembling, one buttock indented with shards of bark, one arm grazed and numb.
Is it possible to get pregnant if you do it standing up?

‘
YES IT IS
,’ the magazine replied and she’d wondered even then, aged fourteen, at the unique force of gravity of sperm.

‘Are you all right?’ Grae was calling to her. He had backed out of the cave and was dusting himself down.

‘Yes.’ She clambered out to join him. He took her arm and they walked on, their limbs loose and carefree, the syrup of their closeness welding them together at the hip. They reached another bridge and hesitated – whether to go down to the sea, or take the path that led inland, where the grass grew so tall it closed over their heads. They stooped and ran along the white bed of the tunnel, tumbling out on to a bridle path, where mud had hardened into dust-brown mountains, crumbling at the top. They stumbled over it, slipping occasionally into horseshoe craters, laughing and pulling each other out.

‘You can hear nightingales in these woods, just for a week or so at the end of May,’ Grae told her as they walked into a copse of trees, stopping to admire the great gnarled trunks, the huge horizontal branches, the deep colour of the leaves that blocked out the light. ‘Shh.’ They listened, although it was months too late for nightingales, and there somewhere beyond them was the unhappy roaring of a car. Grae looked at her. ‘Someone’s stuck,’ he said, and running towards the start of the track he leapt over a gate. Lily followed. The car was stuttering now, catching, then shrieking like an animal in pain. Lily jumped down from the gate and there ahead of her was an old grey Morris.

‘Are you all right, mate?’ Grae was calling, and Lily reached him just as he began to push. ‘Turn it, to the right,’ Grae called, and the driver, only his legs visible, twisted the wheel. They put all their weight behind the car and then with one great sudden jolt it jumped out on to the lane.

‘Thankyou.’ The man unbent himself from the car. He was middle-aged, fifty, with thick grey hair and eyebrows that needed to be smoothed.

‘My God,’ Lily started, ‘it’s him.’

‘Who?’ Grae turned to her, but the man was walking towards them. ‘Mr Lehmann?’ she said. ‘I didn’t know that you were here. Sorry, you don’t remember me.’ She put out her hand, ‘Lily Brannan. I’m doing the thesis… You sent me the letters?’

Mr Lehmann looked at her, nodding his head. ‘You’re being most unusually thorough coming here.’

‘Yes, well…’ She laughed, not wanting him to know the opposite was true. ‘I wanted to see the house that… Lehmann… The house that he designed. And then, well’ – she cast a glance at Grae – ‘I got distracted.’ She stopped, hopeful he might offer something more, but he said nothing, just looked back at his car. ‘Thankyou so much for sending those last letters,’ she went on. ‘It helped so much. The house. It’s beautiful. I even looked inside.’

Lehmann sighed. ‘I have a photograph, taken just after it was built.’

Grae was shifting from foot to foot. ‘I should go,’ he said. ‘If I’m going to be on time.’

‘I’ll see you later?’ Lily touched his arm. ‘Tomorrow?’

Grae turned away. ‘OK.’

‘I mean… If the girls…’ But he was striding fast up through the allotments, towards the village hall.

Mr Lehmann was holding open the door of his car. ‘If you’d like to see?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘the photo,’ and she climbed in.

Lehmann drove with extreme caution along the rutted lane. No one, she told herself, could be a danger to women who drives at five miles an hour. Eventually they turned into The Street and then, as Lily knew he would, into the gravel drive. The new building on the corner had made considerable progress since she’d last really looked. Its walls had raced up to the second floor and the wooden beams of the roof were being laid. A man in a hard hat, weatherworn and strong, nodded to their car. ‘Alf.’ A. L. Lehmann braked. ‘How are you?’ He leant out through the window and his whole face changed.

‘I’m all right.’ Alf put his head on one side, and the two men looked at the building, almost sorrowfully. ‘Really, my friend’ – Alf spoke slowly – ‘it’s not going to look so bad. You did the right thing, selling the land.’ His face broke into a smile. ‘But you’re never going to guess what the blasted fellow wants us to put in now? Listen to this, Bert. A heating system that can be operated from London. When he sets off for the weekend, he’ll just flick a switch and by the time he gets here the whole place will be toasty warm.’ The two men looked at each other in disgust, and Lily thought of Nick and how much he would approve.

Bert! Lily thought, Albert Lehmann, and they drove in silence down the lane, curving at the end and turning on to the small grass bank beside Marsh End. ‘How long,’ she asked him, ‘have you lived here?’