A Week in Winter: A Novel (19 page)

The next day was Saturday and the town was busy. Melissa strolled along Station Road and crossed the bridge, pausing to watch the river flowing beneath it, past the now defunct wheel on the Mill. The lovely old stone building housed a craft shop, as well as an exhibition gallery and café, and she’d decided to have some coffee there before she set off to Tavistock. As she mingled with the locals she was aware of a delicious sense of anonymity; a release from responsibility. It was a holiday feeling, and a few early daffodils growing beside a cottage wall promised that spring was at hand, despite the icy breath of wind on her cheek. Beyond the trees and the huddle of roofs, the high shoulder of the moor made an impressive backdrop; serene and lofty, its stony peaks touched by sunlight, it lent a protective presence to the bustle and activity of the small town.

Melissa browsed for a while in Cottage Books, bought some chocolate for the journey at Mann’s delicatessen and retraced her steps to the Mill. Despite the sunshine it was not warm enough to sit at one of the tables in the courtyard and, glancing in curiously through the windows which showed tantalising glimpses of the craft shop and the current exhibition, she headed for the café doors, suddenly needing to be inside in the warm. Choosing from the delicious array of cakes, asking for some coffee, took several minutes and by the time she looked about her she saw that all the tables were occupied. She hesitated, dismayed, balancing the tray in her hands, until she saw that only one person was sitting at the table by the window. She threaded her way between the morning shoppers and paused hopefully. The girl was young, twenty-ish, and rather striking. Her narrow eyes, honey brown beneath the heavy fall of shiny dark hair, were bright and interested, and she gestured readily as Melissa asked if she might share with her.

‘Of course,’ she answered. ‘It’s rather busy this morning. Everyone’s coming in to get warm.’

‘The sun deceived me,’ said Melissa cheerfully, putting her plate and
her coffee on the table. ‘I didn’t realise how cold it was. Oh! How lovely the river is.’

Below the window the water raced by, silvery bright, glinting and dazzling. On the bank opposite, trees leaned over the river and a grey wagtail scurried and bobbed amongst their roots. A bluetit clung to the nut container which hung from one of the branches, eating busily, whilst a rival contender watched from a neighbouring twig.

I’ve written down the bluetits and the wagtail,’ said the girl. ‘I always hope I shall see something really bizarre but I never have.’

Melissa looked puzzled and the girl pushed a diary towards her. Under each day’s heading, sightings were noted down by visitors and she saw, now, that a pair of binoculars stood on the window sill along with several reference books.

‘What a nice idea,’ she said. ‘I hope I see something. Only I’m not very good about birds. I know a robin when I see one but I wouldn’t have a clue about wagtails.’

‘There are other things too. Water voles and mice. Of course, some people like to be funny. Someone’s written “the
Titanic,
sinking” and “Free Willy” and things like that, but there’s a really nice one here. “My darling wife, Anne, on our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary who, after thirty-five years and five kids, is still the best bird around for me.” Isn’t that lovely? Fancy having that written about you after all that time. Wouldn’t it be brilliant?’

Looking into the younger girl’s glowing face, Melissa felt a sudden, devastating, overwhelming sensation of loss. There could be no such epitaph for her. No one would ever write of her in those terms; there would not be the length of years to build so strong a bond. She broke the piece of sponge apart with her fork, pretending to be speechless at such charming devotion, trying to smile. The girl was leafing through the diary and, watching her, Melissa was aware of an odd feeling of… of what? She frowned, trying to define it, swallowing some coffee in the hope of easing the constriction in her throat. The girl smiled across at her and Melissa felt absurdly touched, as if she had been offered something vital, included within a tight-knit circle of affection and kinship, and her sense of loss was diffused in the warmth of the girl’s smile.

‘You might see a dipper if you were really lucky. Or a kingfisher.’

‘That would be wonderful.’ Melissa began to eat her cake. ‘Are you a local?’

‘Sort of She sounded defensive. ‘My grandmother lives here so I’ve been coming to Bovey all my life nearly. My parents live in London but I’m doing a theatre studies course at King Alfred’s in Winchester.’

‘What fun.’ Melissa had regained her composure and now studied her companion afresh. ‘Are you going to be an actress?’

The dark girl shrugged. ‘I don’t know really. I wish I did. It’s awful not knowing what you want to do. People expect you to have a vocation from the age often, these days, and you feel a bit of a failure if you don’t.’

Melissa chuckled mischievously. ‘Perhaps you want five children and a husband that writes nice things about you when you’re sixty.’

‘That’s the trouble. I probably would but it wouldn’t do my street cred any good to admit it to my mates.’

‘Have you anyone particular in mind?’

‘No, not really. Well, there’s someone I go riding with but he’s much older. He’s nice, though. He was in love with someone but in the end it didn’t work out and he’s never found anyone else. I’ve always had a thing about Hugh from when I was a little girl but it’s not really serious. I can talk to him, though. He really listens, if you know what I mean. Not just surface stuff, but properly.’

She sighed, propping her elbows on the table, chin in hands, and Melissa felt another wave of what she could only describe as an intense familiarity; a deep sense of comradeship. Before she could speak, however, the girl straightened, her eyes fixed on something beyond the window.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘There’s the nuthatch. Isn’t he brilliant? I love the way he really goes for the nuts, as if he has to kill each one before he can eat it.’

‘And upside down to boot,’ agreed Melissa. ‘He’s very handsome, isn’t he? Shall we put him in the diary?’

‘You can have him,’ the girl said generously, pushing the book across the table. ‘Go on. Are you staying in Bovey?’

‘Just overnight.’ Melissa was busy writing. ‘I’m on my way to Cornwall. House-hunting.’

‘Oh, really?’ She sounded interested but before she could pursue it, someone called ‘Posy’ and she turned. ‘It’s my grandmother,’ she said. ‘I have to go. I hope you enjoy Cornwall. ‘Bye.’

‘It’s been so nice to meet you … Posy.’ Melissa watched as the girl collected her belongings and, with a farewell smile, made her way between the tables. She saw her greet the tall, elderly lady and, when they’d disappeared
Melissa turned back to the scene outside the window feeling foolishly bereft.

‘Posy,’ she murmured. It was an unusual name and she decided that she rather liked it, that it had suited the dark girl who had been so friendly. Her spirit was brushed again with a sense of loss; a tiny ache was located in her heart. Posy’s warm vitality and youth had underlined her own sense of frailty and as she finished her cake, her eyes still on the nuthatch, Keats’s well-loved words drifted in her thoughts. This poem, his ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, had comforted her during those earlier, terrible months and now, today, they haunted her again; pointing a bitter-sweet contrast, between herself and Posy.’ ‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness, That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees … Singest of summer in full-throated ease … Tasting of Flora and the country-green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South! … That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim … Away! away! for I will fly to thee … on the viewless wings of Poesy … Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! … Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! …’

Odd that the girl’s bright, young, eager face should make her own dark, cruel, secret terror easier to bear; an assurance that, in some future unknown world, they might be together.

Melissa thrust aside such fanciful imaginings and brought her energy and mind to bear on the journey ahead. It was a wonderful day for a drive over the moor and, with luck, she’d be in Padstow by teatime. She picked up the diary again, her spirits rising, and wrote beneath her earlier entry: ‘Met a great chick called Posy.’ Perhaps she’d see it and it would make her smile, next time she came in for coffee. It wouldn’t make up for the thirty-five years of marriage and five kids but it was better than nothing. She hesitated for a moment, the pencil still in her hand, and quickly, lest she should change her mind, wrote a few more words. ‘Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!’ Gathering up her bag, shrugging herself into her ruana, she hurried out into the cold spring sunshine.

I’ll drop you at Trendlebeare,’ said Maudie, clearing away the breakfast things on Sunday morning, ‘and take Polonius for a walk while you’re riding. You mustn’t be too long or you’ll miss your train.’

‘Just an hour,’ said Posy. ‘I warned Hugh that it would be a short one. Are you sure you’ll be OK?’

‘Quite OK. I shall have some coffee at the Roundhouse. Don’t worry about us.’

‘I feel a bit guilty about you missing church.’

‘Posy,’ said Maudie warningly, ‘I thought we’d agreed about the G-word. No more guilt. I shall go to Evening Prayer when you’re safely on your way to Winchester. Now just get a move on and stop fussing.’

Posy grinned and disappeared in the direction of her bedroom. Maudie gave a sigh of relief and carried the tray into the kitchen, followed closely by Polonius.

‘You know you don’t get leftover toast,’ she murmured. ‘The birds need it more than you do. Oh, well, perhaps a crust…’

Polonius crunched happily, licked his chops and looked hopeful.

‘No more,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s it.’

She began to wash up and he pottered off into the hall where he lay down, waiting for Posy to appear. Twenty minutes later all three of them were in the car. As she drove up the hill past Forder, Maudie was pleased that Posy would have the opportunity to confide in Hugh if she needed to talk about the situation at home. Since Christmas there had been a tacitly
agreed avoidance of the subject and, apart from the hint that things were much better now, Maudie had no idea what might be happening between Patrick and Selina—although Posy had warned her that Selina’s heart was still set on having Moorgate. She knew, however, that, since she’d been quite small, Posy had found it easy to unburden herself to Hugh. Maudie could understand that; there was something comfortable and reassuring about Hugh, underpinned with an unusual wisdom which made him a natural confidant. He was also good-looking and rather sexy which, in Maudie’s book, was a delightful bonus.

‘Don’t you find it extraordinary,’ she said, following this train of thought, ‘that that girlfriend of Hugh’s gave him the push?’

‘Yes,’ said Posy after a moment, somewhat startled by this unexpected question. ‘Well, I do, actually. You know about the girl who died? And he thought it was all his fault and he couldn’t get over it? Well, Lucinda—that’s his girlfriend—got fed up with it and took a job abroad.’

‘I know about that,’ assented Maudie, slowing down as the car approached Shewte Cross, ‘but Pippa told me that she came back. The trouble was that she simply couldn’t face the thought of living in the middle of Dartmoor running an adventure school so she went off again.’

‘It’s really sad.’ Posy looked quite distressed. ‘He couldn’t bear to give it all up, you see, but having to go through her leaving him all over again really screwed him up. It was like losing her twice.’

‘I suspect that it became a test. Each wanting the other to give in and admit that love was greater but neither of them could.’ Maudie sighed. ‘Well, all I can say is that it’s a terrible waste of a rather delicious man.’

Posy chuckled and then fell silent, frowning. It always confused her that, whilst she found it rather funny when Maudie spoke like that about men, she simply hated it when her mother did the same. It embarrassed her horribly and she felt hot and cross. Maudie, sensing a change in the atmosphere, searched for a different subject.

‘Isn’t it amazing,’ she asked randomly, ‘how quickly nature recovers from disaster? You’d hardly know the moor was burned so badly just a few years ago here, would you? It’s probably done it the world of good, actually. What a simply glorious morning. I hope Polonius is feeling energetic’

‘Polonius always feels energetic,’ said Posy, good-humour restored. ‘You’ll tire before he does.’

Squashed in the back, Polonius whined briefly, longing for freedom.

‘Nearly there,’ said Maudie, as the car swung right over Haytor Down. ‘I
shan’t come in, Posy. I know Pippa’s got a houseful this weekend ready for half term. I’ll be back in an hour. Give them all my love and enjoy yourself

Posy stood for a moment in the road, waving after them, before setting off down the track. At the gate she paused. In the yard a minibus had been stacked with canoes and she could see Max’s tall, lean form, firm as a rock, about which swirled an excited jumble of small boys. Rowley’s blond head bobbed amongst them, organising them into the bus, whilst Pippa loaded a box containing packed lunches into the boot.

Posy thought: What fun it is. How wonderful to live here, out on the moor, instead of being stuck in the City doing some boring nine-to-five stuff in an office.

Hugh was coming towards her, leading two horses, and she went to meet him.

‘Wonderful day,’ he said. ‘Let’s get going while we can. Max is muttering about leaving all the real work to him and accusing me of sneaking off and so on.’

Posy hesitated, one foot in the stirrup. ‘Are you sure it’s OK?’

‘Of course it is.’ Hugh grinned heartlessly as he swung himself into the saddle. ‘He’s always like this with a new intake. After all, he’s got Rowley. He just likes to make a point. Max never changes.’