Coming Home (70 page)

He listened patiently to all this until Athena finally ran out of breath. Her outburst was followed by a long silence. Then she said, sounding sulky, ‘I told you it was a silly reason.’

‘No,’ Rupert told her, ‘not silly at all. But I think you concentrate on inessentials. I am talking about a lifetime, and you are jibbing at a single day. A tradition. I think, the way the world is going, we are perfectly entitled to throw tradition out of the window.’

‘I hate to say it, Rupert, but my mother would be devastated.’

‘Of course she wouldn't. She loves you, and she'll understand. Now, we've talked it all through, pros and cons. And as for a wedding, when it comes to the push, nobody really needs to be there except you and me.’

‘Do you really mean that?’

‘Of course.’

She lifted his hand and pressed a kiss on it, and when she looked up at him again, he saw that her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

‘So silly to want to cry. It's just that I never thought this could happen. That you could have a best friend and a lover all rolled in one. You are my Scotch Corner lover, Rupert. It sounds like something to eat, doesn't it? But the best-friend bit is the most important, because that's what lasts for always.’

‘That's right,’ Rupert told her, and he had to make something of an effort to keep his voice steady, so touched was he by her tears, and so filled with protective love. ‘That's what's really important.’

‘Have you got a handkerchief?’

He gave her his clean one, and she blew her nose.

‘What time is it, Rupert?’

‘Just about noon.’

‘I wish it was lunch-time. I'm starving.’

It was not until the Saturday, the final day of her stay in Porthkerris, that Judith set off for Pendeen to see Phyllis. The reasons for the delay were various. It wasn't that she didn't
want
to see Phyllis, nor felt that in any way she was performing a duty, it was just that there was always so much going on, and the days raced by with alarming speed. As well, there was the complication of communication, and the amount of time it took to get in touch by letter. Judith had sent Phyllis a picture postcard, suggesting one or two dates, and finally had received Phyllis's reply, written on lined paper torn from a notebook.

Saturday would be best come around three and well have tea. Im about a mile beyond Pendeen. Row of cottages on the left. Number two. Cyrils on weekend shift at Geevor but Anna and me will be waiting. Love Phyllis
.

Saturday. ‘It's my last day!’ she protested to Heather. ‘Oh, bother, I wish we could have fixed it before.’

‘Doesn't matter. Mum wants to go to Penzance and buy a hat for Daisy Parson's wedding, and if I don't go with her she'll come home with something that looks like a po. You and I can do something in the evening. Get Joe to take us to the Palais de Danse.’

And so, Saturday afternoon and she was on her way, driving up the hill and out of the town. Past shops, her old school; between terraced rows of stone houses, each one step higher than its neighbour. The bay, the harbour sank down behind her, and she reached the cross-roads and took the turning for Land's End.

The weather was still fine, hot and sunny, but a brisk wind blew in from the sea, and the Atlantic was freckled with white-caps. Clouds sailed across the sky, and as the car ground its way, in third gear, up onto the moor, she saw their shadows bowling across the russet hills. At the summit, the view was spectacular — the shelf of green farmland, distant cliffs, yellow gorse, jutting headlands, the clear horizon and the indigo sea. For a moment she was tempted to draw in to the side of the road, roll down the window and just sit and look at it all for a bit, but Phyllis was waiting and there was no time to be wasted.

Im about a mile beyond Pendeen. Row of cottages on the left.
Phyllis's directions were not hard to follow, because once through Pendeen, and past Geevor Mine, where poor Cyril was, at this moment, labouring deep underground, the countryside abruptly changed, becoming bleak. Primeval; almost forbidding. No more pretty little farms set in green pasture fields, patchworked by stone walls dating back to the Bronze Age; and not a single tree to be seen, however stunted by the wind.

The terrace of mining cottages, when she came upon it, stood isolated, reasonless, in the middle of nowhere. It resembled nothing so much as a row of upended bricks, cemented together and then dropped, haphazard, and abandoned where they had fallen. Each brick had a window upstairs and a window downstairs and a doorway, and all were roofed in grey slate. They were separated from the roadside by a stone wall, and then small, downtrodden front gardens. The garden of number two boasted a patch of rough grass and a few pansies and a lot of weeds.

Judith got out of the car, collected up the sheaf of flowers and small packages she had brought for Phyllis, opened a rickety gate and started up the path. But she was only half-way before the door opened and Phyllis, bearing the baby Anna in her arms, came running to greet her.

‘Judith! Been looking out the window, waiting for you to come. Thought you might have got lost.’ She stared out at the road, her face incredulous. ‘That your car, is it? I couldn't believe it when you said you'd come in your own car. It's lovely. Never seen anything so
new
…’

She had changed. Not aged, exactly, but lost weight, and with it some of her bloom. Her skirt and knitted jumper hung about her, as though once they had belonged to a much larger person, and her straight hair looked dry as straw. But her eyes shone with excitement, and nothing could stop her smile.

‘Oh, Phyllis.’ They hugged. All those years ago it had been Jess in Phyllis's arms who had impeded their embrace. And now it was Anna who got in the way, but not enough to matter except that her expression was deeply disapproving.

Judith laughed. ‘She looks as though we're doing something dreadfully wrong. Hello, Anna.’ Anna stared balefully. ‘How old is she?’

‘Eight months.’

‘She's wonderfully chubby.’

‘Got a mind of her own. Come on inside, the wind's teasy, and we don't want to stand here with the neighbours watching…’

She turned and went back in through her front door, and Judith followed, walking straight into a small room which was clearly the only living space. Little light penetrated the window, so it was a bit dark, but a Cornish range kept it warm, and one end of the table had been carefully set for tea.

‘I've brought you some bits and pieces…’ She unloaded the packages onto the free end of the table.

‘
Judith.
You didn't need to do that…’ But Phyllis's eyes gleamed with happy expectancy at the thought of surprises in the offing. ‘Just hang on a mo, till I get the kettle on, and then we can have a cup of tea.’ Hoisting the baby to her shoulder, she went to do this, and then drew out a chair and sat down, with Anna on her lap. Anna reached for a teaspoon, and stuffed it, dribbling, into her mouth. ‘She's teething, the little love.’

‘Perhaps we should put the flowers in water.’

‘Flowers! Roses! You know, I haven't seen roses in years, not like these. And the smell. What can I put them in? I haven't got any vases.’

‘A jug would do. Or a jam jar. Tell me where to find one.’

Phyllis began, gently, to unwrap the tissue paper from the long-stemmed buds. ‘There's an old pickle jar in that cupboard. And the tap's out the door at the back, in the wash-house. Oh, just look at those! I'd forgotten how beautiful they are.’

Judith went to open the cupboard door, unearthed the pickle jar, and carried it through the door at the back of the room, down two steps and out into a cavernous wash-house, a double-height lean-to, tacked on to the back of the two-room cottage. This had a flagged floor and flaking whitewashed walls, and smelt of household soap and the soggy wood of the draining-board. Gold and damp struck chill. In one corner, like a great monster, brooded a clothes-boiler, and there was a clay sink with a tin-bath tucked beneath it. The sink had one tap, and a flight of open wooden stairs led to the upstairs room. The baby clearly slept with her mother and father.

At the back of the wash-house was a half-glassed door, ill-fitting and the source of a sneaky draught. Through this could be seen a cement yard, a washing-line strung with blowing nappies and work-shirts, a rickety perambulator, and a sagging privy. This dismal spot was probably where Phyllis spent much of her time, lighting the fire under the boiler to deal with her family wash, or carrying a kettle of hot water through from the range in order to wash a sinkful of dishes. Imagining the hard labour involved simply to deal with the ordinary chores of everyday life caused Judith some distress. No wonder Phyllis looked so thin. What was almost impossible to understand was how any person could have put up such a house in the first place, without thought for the woman who was going to have to work in it. Only a man, she decided bitterly.

‘What are you doing?’ Phyllis called through the open door. ‘I'm going mad, waiting.’

‘Just coming.’ She turned on the lone tap, filled the pickle jar and carried it back to the front room, closing the door firmly behind her.

‘Gloomy old place, that wash-house, isn't it? And it's icy in winter unless you've got the boiler going.’ But Phyllis said this quite cheerfully, and clearly did not think that there was anything untoward in such primitive conditions. She placed the roses, one by one, into the pickle jar, and then sat back to admire them.

‘They change everything, don't they, flowers? Make a place look quite different.’

‘Open the other things, Phyllis.’

It took some time, with Phyllis unknotting string and folding paper, to be put aside for use at some later date. ‘Soap! Yardley's Lavender. Just like your mum used to use. I'll save it for best. Put it in a drawer with my knickers. And what's this then?’

‘That's for Anna.’

‘Oh, look. A little coat.’ Phyllis held it up. ‘She's hardly ever had a new thing for herself, been living in hand-me-downs since the day she was born. Look at it, Anna. Isn't that lovely? You can wear it next Sunday when you go to see Gran. And so soft, that wool. Like a little princess, you'll be.’

‘And this is for Cyril. But you eat them if he doesn't like them. I thought about cigarettes, but I didn't know if he smoked.’

‘No, he doesn't smoke. Has a glass of beer, but he doesn't smoke. Gets to his chest. Coughs something awful. I think it must have something to do with working down the mine.’

‘But he's all right?’

‘Oh, he's all right. Sorry about him not being here today. You never met him, did you, not even after all that time I was with your mother?’

‘I'll meet him another day.’

‘In a way,’ said Phyllis, ‘it's easier without him. We can have a proper chat.’ She took the wrapping-paper from the final parcel. ‘Oh, my life. Chocolates. Cyril's mad on chocolate. Look, Anna, at the ribbon and the pretty box. See the little kitten and the puppy in their basket? It's lovely, Judith. It's all lovely. Some kind, you are…’

She smiled, dizzy with delight, but there was the shine of tears in her eyes, and Judith was filled with guilt. Such small things she had brought with her, and here was Phyllis almost weeping with gratitude.

She said, ‘I think the kettle's boiling,’ and Phyllis said, ‘So it is,’ gathered Anna up and leaped to her feet to rescue the spitting kettle, and to make the tea.

Over the years, they had always kept in touch, if sporadically, by means of letters and Christmas cards, but still, there was much to talk about, and details to be filled in. Uppermost, however, in Phyllis's mind was the fact that Judith, at eighteen, was actually the owner of a car. And could drive it! To Phyllis it seemed little short of a miracle; undreamt of. She couldn't get over it.