The Way We Were (35 page)

She looks so shocked by the prospect that Em grins. ‘Well, I shall certainly be a septuagenarian,' she says cheerfully. ‘Now there's a sobering thought. Shall we drink to it now before we become too old and feeble to lift our glasses?'

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

2004

‘I'm glad you're here,' Julia said when Aunt Em arrived next morning. ‘I hardly slept a wink last night.'

Before Em could answer, the telephone rang. It was Zack: the visit to Boscastle was still planned and he and Caroline would be at Trescairn in time for tea. He sounded cheerful, happy to be home in time for the birth of his child, and Julia felt sick inside at the thought of him discovering the truth.

‘I must do it today,' she said to Aunt Em once she'd said goodbye to Zack. ‘But I've only just realized how difficult it will be to throw something off Glebe Cliff with crowds of holidaymakers looking on.'

Aunt Em looked serious. ‘I hadn't thought of that,' she admitted. ‘Yes, that's a problem. We don't want some busybody interfering because they think you're trying to get rid of a puppy or a kitten.' She glanced out of the window at the bright sunshine. ‘What's the weather forecast?'

‘Scattered showers late morning becoming heavy this afternoon. I checked it for obvious reasons. Do you think I should wait a bit?'

Aunt Em nodded. ‘Heavy rain will drive any but the most indefatigable of walkers off the cliffs. If Zack and Caroline aren't coming until teatime you've got plenty of time and it means that Cat will be well on her way to London.'

‘I should have done it really early, before anybody was around,' said Julia. ‘I thought about it but I wanted to feel certain that Cat had really gone. I know it's fanciful but I wouldn't put anything past her and I have a horrid feeling that she'll try to catch me out somehow. Of course, it might be a trick, anyway, about going back this morning. She might have said that to Caroline hoping she'd tell me and put me off my guard. I wonder how much trouble she could really make, Aunt Em? Supposing she dropped a hint to a journalist or something?'

‘There's hardly anything in today's paper,' Aunt Em told her comfortingly A tiny paragraph three pages in. I think you'll find that the big moment has passed and we can just be thankful that the trial is taking place in France and not here. The great British public isn't all that interested in art fraud and it isn't headline-grabbing stuff. And, after all, what could Cat tell anyone? That when she was four she remembers seeing something that looked like
The Child Merlin
at a friend's house? A valuable bronze knocking about in the kitchen or in a tent in the garden? Not much to go on, is it? Even Cat would fear looking a bit of a twit. I agree the risk is there but all we can do is get rid of the evidence and stonewall everything else.'

The morning passed slowly.

‘I think the forecast for scattered showers might be right,' Julia said just before lunch. ‘There are some rather black-looking clouds over the Camel estuary.' She frowned; the words seemed familiar.

The sunshine dimmed, disappeared, and the day grew eerily dark: brilliant stabs of lightning forked to earth and distant thunder grumbled.

‘I think I shall take a chance,' Julia said as soon as lunch was over. She pushed back her chair, picking up the tapestry bag, holding it for a moment. Aunt Em watched her, eyebrows raised. ‘No,' said Julia firmly. ‘You're staying here and so is Frobes. I'm not taking any unnecessary risks and, anyway, Zack and Caroline might turn up early.' She looked apprehensively at the darkening sky. ‘I rather wish they'd stayed put. I think there's bad weather coming.'

They were both startled by a sudden tattoo; a hollow drumming on the roof of the back porch. For a moment they stared at one another, puzzled, until Aunt Em said: ‘It's raining. It's absolutely pouring,' and Julia felt another tremor of déjà vu. She seized her bag and the car keys from the hook on the dresser, patted Frobisher, who opened an eye and thumped his tail.

‘I'm going now, Aunt Em,' she said, and bent to kiss her.

‘Be careful,' said the older woman anxiously.

She saw her go out, heard the back door slam, and just briefly she was transported twenty-eight years back in time and it was Tiggy and Julia going out together into the storm. Em stood at the window watching; she felt helpless and old and frightened.

Julia came out of the house and closed the door behind her. The little Merlin, wrapped in the handkerchief, was at the bottom of the bag. How heavy he was. She climbed into the car and put the bag into the well on the passenger's side. The rain came down in torrents, sizzling and bouncing off the earth so that soon the bare moorland looked as if it were covered in a low cloud of steam. Rain hammered on the roof and clattered on the leaves of the rhododendron bushes; it dislodged stones and washed the loose, dry topsoil away in rivulets of muddy water that poured down into the lanes. As she drove she was aware of Tiggy beside her, urging her onwards. She remembered that other fateful journey and was suddenly filled with terror.

Through the lanes and villages, she drove, glancing from time to time in her mirror to check that no small sports car was following her. The windscreen wipers thrashed rhythmically across the glass, yet she could barely see through the streaming water and she hunched in her seat, the tapestry bag a bright splash of colour at the edge of her vision. Through Tintagel where tourists fled for shelter, down the narrow little lane beneath the high stone-buttressed wall, past the rain-lashed church, and out on to the cliff. Once out of the car she was soaked in moments. Clutching the bag to her chest, slipping and stumbling, she made her way cautiously out to the point where once, on a bright September day, she'd scattered Tiggy's ashes.

At the edge of the cliff she sat down lest she should overbalance, glanced over her shoulder along the path, and took the bronze from its hiding place. The wind howled over the cliff, sweeping the heavy rain eastwards and the sun burst with startling brilliance from behind the clouds. Tunic swirling, chin up, with the little falcon on his wrist,
The Child Merlin
stared unafraid into the future.

Julia looked at him with sorrow and with love. ‘I'm so sorry,' she whispered. ‘So sorry.'

Taking him in a firm grip she swung her arm as far as she could and the bronze sailed out over the edge of the cliff and arced down into the surging seas. She thought she saw a flash of light and a spray of water as he disappeared, though her eyes were full of tears and she couldn't be certain. The sun vanished. Rain and tears poured down her cheeks, her hair was plastered to her head. She stood up uncertainly, taking small careful steps away from the edge of the cliff.

As she made her way back along the path she was gripped with a fearful premonition. Back in the car she took her mobile and dialled Zack: no reply.

‘Darling,' she said, her voice trembling, ‘just to say that I'm worried about you. The weather's awful. Don't think of coming out to Trescairn. If you've got to Boscastle then just go back home. Will you do that?'

She switched off and sat in silence, staring out through the streaming rain; she could barely see Tintagel Island or the entrance to Merlin's Cave but with her inner eye she saw them all; she and Tiggy and the children, with the two dogs and the van, on a summer's day long ago. She wept then; unrestrainedly, head resting on her wrists crossed on the wheel, she wept for them all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

2004

It was Liv who telephoned later with the first stories of the disaster.

‘Are you OK?' she asked anxiously. ‘Did you have that thunderstorm?'

‘We've had everything,' said Julia. ‘The roads are dangerous. Please stay put, Liv.'

‘I shall. The café's packed. There are some scary stories coming in about a flood at Boscastle.'

‘A flood?' Julia could hardly speak for terror.

‘The Valency's burst its banks,' said Liv. ‘I hope Zack and Caroline changed their minds when the rain started and went home.'

‘They were supposed to be here for tea but they're very late. I can't get hold of them on their mobiles but I think that might be because they're out of signal. They're not at home.'

‘Shit,' said Liv. ‘We'll just keep trying their mobiles. I'm sure they're fine, Mum. By the way, I've had an email from Andy. I gather you spoke last night? Well, he's feeling a bit of a twit and he's absolutely furious with Cat for harassing us all. He had no idea she was coming down to Cornwall and he's beginning to realize that she's still the same old Cat. I think we can feel pretty safe that it's all over.'

‘I was horrid to him,' said Julia remorsefully. ‘I did my voice. The one you all call my captain's wife thing.'

Liv laughed. ‘He'll survive,' she said cheerfully. ‘And try not to worry about Zack and Caroline.'

‘Let me know if they get in touch with you,' said Julia anxiously. ‘Bye, darling.' She put down the telephone. ‘The Valency's burst its banks and flooded Boscastle,' she said to Em. ‘It sounds like Lynton and Lynmouth all over again. Oh my God, I wonder where Zack and Caroline are. I do hope they won't risk coming out here. The lanes are in a terrible state.' At last she spoke her fear; the premonition that had been with her all day. ‘It couldn't happen again, could it, Aunt Em? Life couldn't be so cruel.'

She picked up her mobile and keyed in Zack's number: still no reply. Simply because she needed something to do, she put the kettle on the hotplate ready to make more tea. Em watched her, seeking for some kind of reassurance but finding no words that were adequate. When the phone rang Julia seized it anxiously: Zack's voice.

‘Mum,' he said. ‘Just to let you know that we're at Derriford. Caroline's in labour.'

‘Oh, darling.' She was weak with relief. ‘Oh, thank God. You didn't go to Boscastle after all?'

‘Yes, we did. And we managed lunch at The Wellington but then Caroline began to get pains so we just leaped in the car and headed for Plymouth. It all happened so quickly and the weather was appalling. I was terrified we weren't going to make it. I should have phoned but I'm afraid everything went out of my mind. I'm sorry, Mum. Look, I must go. I'll be in touch.'

‘Give Caroline my love,' she said. ‘Oh, darling, I'm so glad you're safe.'

‘Where are they?' asked Em. ‘I gather they're not in Boscastle.'

Julia sat down, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. ‘They were there for lunch but Caroline's pains started and they shot off to Derriford. Caroline's in labour but they're safe.' Tears spurted from her eyes and she put her hands over her face. ‘I was so afraid,' she cried. ‘I thought it was going to happen all over again. Just like me and Tiggy I've felt Tiggy with me ever since I came back from Hampshire, as if she was trying to tell me something. Oh God, it's been awful. And the real problem is that we can't draw a line under it, can we? We'll never know whether something else might pop out of the woodwork all the while this trial is running.'

‘Probably not, but we've done everything we can do to protect Zack. We can't legislate for every eventuality but we've done the best we can. You can't win with this one, Julia. By keeping your promise to Tiggy you have to keep the truth from Zack.'

‘But supposing he were to find out from someone else? It's like the adoption thing all over again, isn't it? Too soon and it might be damaging; too late and someone else might get in first. But this time I really feel I have no choice.'

‘If Cat hadn't jumped the gun, you and Pete would have told Zack he was adopted when you judged that he was old enough to deal with it, and maybe one day you will be able to tell him about this too, but there are times when the truth is better left untold. This is one of them.'

There was a little silence.

‘When I was out there on Glebe Cliff,' Julia said, ‘I remembered the day we went there together, me and Tiggy and the children. It was such a wonderful day and we were all so happy.'

She fell silent and Em got up and went round the table to her. She put her arm about Julia's shoulders and laid her cheek against her head.

‘My poor darling,' she said compassionately. ‘What a week it's been. I think the worst is over now. I'll make the tea and then we'll phone Liv and tell her that they're safe and ask her to send an email to Andy. After that you could text a message to Pete to tell him he's about to become a grandfather for the third time.'

They watched the news; silent in shocked horror at the images of the Boscastle flooding. The scene was one of devastation: the swollen river, with trees and rocks jammed in its roaring throat, and a bright red car that bobbed like a Dinky toy and wedged upended, lights still on, beneath the bridge; a father with his daughter, clinging together in mid-air, rescued from the rooftops by helicopter; a caravan, fragile as a cardboard box, bouncing backwards on the floodtide. The noise was terrific: the thundering of water and the thrashing of helicopter rotor blades, the shouting urgent voice of the reporter.

‘There were two miracles last night,' Em was to say the next morning to Liv. ‘One was that no lives were lost in the Boscastle flood and the other was Zack's baby.'

Zack phoned at a quarter to seven whilst they were still watching the news. His voice was jubilant.