Coming Home (36 page)

The following afternoon, Aunt Louise drove Judith back to St Ursula's. Judith was dressed once more in school uniform, and the mid-term break was over.

‘Hope you've enjoyed yourself.’

‘Very much, thank you.’

‘It was just unfortunate I had to leave you on Sunday, but I know you've never been a child who needs company all the time. Just as well. Can't stand demanding children. Pity about Heather Warren, but we'll make some plan during the Easter holidays.’

Judith did not want to think about the Easter holidays.

She said, ‘I really like my bike.’

‘I'll keep an eye on it for you.’

She couldn't think of anything else to say because the bike was really the only good thing that had happened during the weekend, and all she wanted, now, was to get back to normality, to the routine and the familiar surroundings of school.

The only thing that she really regretted was that she had never gone to call on Mr Willis. There had been time and opportunity that morning, but she had made excuses to herself and let the chance slip. Friendship, she knew, should be constant, but somehow Billy Fawcett had spoiled even that.

St Ursula's

March 8th, 1936.

Dear Mummy and Dad.

I've missed a week again, because I was with Aunt Louise for half-term. Thank you for your letter. I am longing to hear about Singapore and your new house in Orchard Road. I am sure it will be lovely, and you'll soon get used to it being a bit hot and steamy. It will feel funny having yellow Chinese faces around you, instead of black Tamil faces. And at least Mummy won't have to drive a car, ever again.

The weather at the weekend wasn't very good. Aunt Louise bought me the bicycle. It is a green Raleigh. On Sunday she played golf with some friends, so I biked to Veglos Hill with a picnic. There were lots of primroses. I telephoned Heather but didn't see her because she was going to Bodmin to stay with her gran.

So much for the weekend. Nothing more that could be safely told. But the letter was not yet long enough, so she ploughed on.

It was quite fun coming back to school and seeing Loveday again. Her sister Athena has come back from Switzerland and was at Nancherrow for the weekend. She brought a boyfriend with her, hut Loveday said he was dreadfully dull and not nearly as nice as Jeremy Wells.

Sorry this is such a short letter but I have to go and swot for my History Test.

With love from

Judith

Louise Forrester's golfing friends, Polly and John Richards, were an ex-Naval couple, who, on retirement, turned their backs to Alverstoke and Newton Ferrars, and instead bought a solid stone house near Helston, with three acres of garden and commodious outbuildings. Polly Richards' father had been a successful brewer, and some of his wealth had obviously trickled down to her, for they enjoyed a far less penurious lifestyle than most of their pensioned contemporaries, and were able to employ a couple to care for them, a daily cleaner, and a full-time gardener. The couple were an ex-chief petty officer and his wife who rejoiced in the name of Makepeace, and the gardener was a silent, morose man who worked from dawn to dusk, when he put away his tools and sloped off to his badger's holt of a cottage tucked away beyond the glasshouses.

Untrammelled by domestic chores, the Richards were able to enjoy a packed, active social life. They kept a yacht at St Mawes, and the summer months were totally occupied in sailing this craft around the inland waters of southern Cornwall, and racing her in various regattas. All through the year they had a stream of visitors to stay, and when they were neither sailing nor entertaining, they headed for the fairways and the bridge tables of the Penmarron Golf Club. It was thus that they had met Louise, and it was over many friendly tussles on the links that they had all become well acquainted.

Polly telephoned Louise. After a few pleasantries, she got down to business.

‘Frightfully short notice, but you couldn't come and play bridge tomorrow evening, could you? That's right, Wednesday the twenty-second.’

Louise consulted her diary. Apart from a hair appointment, it was blank.

‘How very kind. I'd love to.’

‘You are a brick. We've got an old chum of John's staying, and he's longing for a game. Could you be here at six? It's a bit early, but then we can have a rubber before dinner, and you won't be too late getting home. It's a hell of a drive, I'm afraid.’ Polly's breezy language went with her sailing, and she was legendary for the oaths that were clearly audible as their craft headed for some marker buoy, scudding, close-hauled, across the choppy grey waters of the Falmouth Passage.

‘Don't worry your head about that. I shall look forward to it.’

‘See you tomorrow then.’

And without further ado, Polly rang off.

It
was
a long drive, but worth the effort, as Louise knew it would be. A splendid evening. John Richards' friend was a Royal Marine General, a handsome man with a wicked eye, and plenty to say for himself. The drinks were lavish. The dinner, and the wine, excellent. As well, Louise held good cards all evening, and played them impeccably. With the last rubber played, the score was settled and small amounts of money changed hands. Louise found her purse and stowed away her winnings. The clock on the mantelpiece struck ten o'clock, and she snapped shut the clasp of her handbag and announced that it was time for her to set off for home. They pleaded with her to stay, to play one more rubber, to have one for the road, but, though tempted, she stuck to her guns and refused their kindly offers.

In the hall, John helped her into her fur coat, and after goodbyes had been said, accompanied her out into the dark, wet night, and stowed her safely in behind the wheel of her car.

‘You'll be all right, Louise?’

‘Right as rain.’

‘Drive carefully now.’

‘Thank you so much. A splendid evening.’

She drove, with her windscreen wipers pumping to and fro, and the road ahead shining wetly in the beam of the headlights, black as satin. She went by way of Marazion, towards Penzance, and as she approached the turning that led onto the main highway for Porthkerris, decided, impulsively, that the night was so unpleasant and the drive so long, that she would take the shorter route, the narrow lane that led up and over the moor. It was an awkward road, high-hedged and winding, with blind corners and summits, but she knew it well, there would be no traffic and it cut at least five miles off her journey.

The decision made, she turned left instead of right and, moments later, turned again, up the steep, wooded incline that led to the empty downs. The sky was black and there was not a star to be seen.

Four miles ahead of Louise, and travelling in the same direction, Jimmy Jelks, at the wheel of a ramshackle truck, was on his way back to Pendeen. His father, Dick Jelks, farmed a down-trodden smallholding in that neighbourhood, kept pigs and hens, grew potatoes and broccoli, and was renowned for having the muckiest farmyard in the district. Jimmy was twenty-one and lived at home, bullied by both his parents and the butt of every cruel joke, but as he lacked either the wit or the expertise to go courting, it seemed unlikely that he would ever escape.

He had driven to Penzance early that afternoon, with a load of broccoli to sell at the market. He was meant to return as soon as this was safely accomplished, but his father was in a dirty temper, and so, with cash in his pocket, Jimmy was tempted to put off time, drifting around the market, and having a crack with any person who could be bothered to talk to him. Eventually, craving company, he had yielded to the temptation of the open door of the Saracen's Head, and there stayed till closing time.

His progress, now, was not speedy. Beneath him the old truck rattled and shook. Dick Jelks had bought it, fourth-hand, from a coal merchant, and from the start it had suffered from every sort of mechanical complaint. Windows, once opened, refused to close; handles fell from doors; the mudguards had succumbed to rust, and the radiator grille was tied on with binder twine. Starting the engine was a recurring battle of wills, involving a cranking handle, enormous physical exertion, and often painful injuries, such as sprained thumbs or agonising clouts over the knee. Even when it finally shuddered into life, the truck stayed resolutely uncooperative, refusing to go into any forward gear higher than second, frequently boiling, blowing its ancient tyres, and backfiring with such explosive force that any person unfortunate enough to be standing nearby feared an instant heart attack.

Tonight, having stood in the rain all afternoon, it was behaving in a more pig-headed fashion than usual. The headlights, never very bright, seemed to be losing heart, achieving only a candle glow to show the way ahead. And from time to time the engine coughed, like a consumptive, and faltered, threatening to stop altogether. Painfully grinding up and down the undulating moorland was almost too much for it, and after hauling its way up a steepish hill and achieving the level ground which lay beyond it, it finally gave up the ghost. The lights died, the engine, coughed its last, and the wheels, exhausted, rolled to a sudden stop.

Jimmy pulled on the handbrake and cursed. Outside, all was blackness and rain. He heard the thin keening wind; saw the pinprick light of a distant farmhouse, and knew that it was too far away to be of any use to him. He turned up his coat collar and, reaching for the starting handle, clambered down onto the road and went around the front of the truck to do battle. It was only when he had been cranking for five minutes, injured his shin and bloodied his knuckles, that the truth dawned on his fuddled brain. The battery was flat and the bloody bitch of a truck was not going to move again. Almost in tears of rage and frustration, he flung the starting handle back into the cab, slammed the door shut, and with hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the rain, set off to walk the seven miles back to Pendeen.