Framed in Cornwall (3 page)

Was it too late? Wasn’t there something he could do? Of course
there was. He should not have allowed the pessimistic thoughts to arise.

Most days his staff would mind the shop whilst he paid a mid-day visit to Marigold in the hospital but he always spent a couple of hours with her again in the evenings. He pulled on his jacket. Tonight, once she became too tired to bear his company any longer, he would make his final attempt.

Fred Meecham locked the shop door knowing that things would turn out all right.

It had taken Martin most of Thursday to recover from his hangover. He spent the morning cleaning the caravan and washing out his socks and underpants. It was therapeutic, a way of cleansing himself, ridding his mind of the shame he felt at disgracing himself. They were chores which would have taken most people far less time but he always worked slowly and methodically, never undertaking more than one simple task at a time. He polished the windows inside and out, using newspaper soaked in vinegar as he had seen his mother do. As the morning wore on the chill of the past few days evaporated under a hot autumn sun. Martin removed the long seat cushions which doubled as mattresses at night and lugged them out to air, propping them against rocks.

In the afternoon he walked down to Hayle and cashed his unemployment cheque then bought a bagful of groceries, enough to last him the weekend. He got a cheap cut of meat, a loaf of bread and some fresh vegetables. It was after three when he had finished and he realised that he had enough money left over to repay his mother and just still be able to have a drink. Just one, he told himself. Hesitating only briefly he crossed the road, walked past the lane he should have taken to go home and went into the pub.

Glancing around he was relieved to see that there were only
three other people present, none of whom he recognised. The two men he had spoken to on his previous visit must have gone back to wherever it was they came from. They had not been local but he could not place their accent. Martin had not set foot outside Cornwall and things which occurred on the other side of the Tamar Bridge were of no interest to him. He decided they had been holiday-makers and left it at that.

He jangled the coins in the pocket of his jeans and resisted the temptation to buy a second pint of cider. He felt worse rather than better for the one he had drunk.

The walk home helped to clear his head. Instinctively his feet picked their way through gorse roots and scattered stones. For a big man he moved lightly and easily and all the walking kept him fit. He stowed his groceries in cupboards in the caravan then walked down to the house.

‘What’s up, son?’ Dorothy asked as soon as she saw his face. No answer was necessary, the way he was trembling and refusing to meet her eyes said it all.

‘Nothing, Ma.’

‘You’ve bin drinking again.’ It was a statement. She wiped her hands on a tea towel and studied him carefully before turning to stir something simmering in a pot. ‘You’ll end up in trouble if you don’t look out.’ Martin was not dishonest, nor was he a fighting man, but he was easily taken advantage of, especially when he had drink inside him. How unalike her boys were. Peter was much the brighter but he lacked compassion. Martin was insecure, easily hurt and quickly ashamed yet he intuitively offered comfort whenever it was needed.

Peter imagined that, because she insisted on his repaying loans, she thought the less of Martin. This was far from true. She was trying to teach him a set of values and how to look after himself financially, preparing him for the time when she would no longer be around. ‘Well, now you’re here you may as well eat with me. Cut some bread, son.’

Martin got out a loaf and hacked off four thick slices then they sat down to eat. Saliva filled his mouth as he took the first mouthful of beef stew. The remains from yesterday having been reheated, the flavours had mingled appetisingly. They ate in
companionable silence; they were close enough not to feel the need to make inconsequential conversation.

When they had finished Dorothy cleared away the plates and made tea. She wished she knew what was troubling her son.

‘Anyone been here?’ Martin asked so abruptly that she jumped and the tea leaves on the spoon scattered over the wooden draining-board instead of into the pot.

Dorothy bit her lip. ‘No,’ she said hesitantly for there were some things she did not want Martin to know, not just yet. ‘But Mrs Trevelyan’s coming tomorrow. Why?’

‘Oh, ’er’s all right. I mean anyone else?’

‘No. You know only Fred Meecham and Rose come, and Jobber Hicks to give me a lift now and then. What’s got into you, Martin?’

‘That’s all right then.’ He avoided an answer but seemed to be relieved as his shoulders unhunched and he pushed back a lock of brown hair. He drank his tea and thanked his mother for the meal then left by the back door, heading up over the rough ground in the direction of his caravan where he intended getting his head down for at least eight hours.

Dorothy remained at the table, her hands clasped around her pint mug as if she was cold. She felt vaguely sick. She had never lied to Martin before. There had been a visitor and she now understood what had brought that particular person to her door. Martin had not been able to keep his mouth shut. However, inadvertently he had done himself a favour and now Dorothy was returning it by keeping quiet.

Outside the night enveloped the house like a cloak. All that could be heard were the familiar creakings of the building. Through the kitchen windows the outlines of boulders became shadowy shapes until they merged completely into the blackness. Clouds hid the stars and there was no street-lighting for a long way. In a couple more days she would need to light a fire. There was a good supply of wood stacked against the side of one of the outbuildings. Martin had cut it for her in the spring and left it there to weather. Fresh wood with the sap still running burned longer but was no good for giving off heat. Dorothy smiled. She liked the winter when gales made the windows
rattle and the wind relentlessly but unsuccessfully pounded away at the house which had stood undamaged for the best part of two hundred years. Only once had she needed someone to come and replace a couple of roof slates.

When the dark evenings arrived Dorothy took herself to bed early and read, her mind always partly aware of the screaming elements outside. When a strong westerly brought rain it lashed against the bedroom window but the sound was comforting, a part of all she had ever known. She would lie contentedly beneath the sheet and blankets and the patchwork quilt her mother had stitched and give thanks for her life.

She was, she realised, a woman of extremes. She liked summer and winter, understood only good or evil and had no time for people who dithered because they couldn’t decide the best thing to do. Everything in life was black or white to her and this outlook reflected both her character and her surroundings. She loved the harshness of the scenery outside and could never have lived in one of the picturesque villages which attracted tourists. Even as a girl she had avoided crowds, walking the cliff paths alone or with friends from the village. They would lie amongst the rough grasses and the thrift, its pink flowers bobbing in the soft breezes, and plan their futures, futures modelled on their parents’ lives. They knew only open spaces and the moods of the Atlantic Ocean as it battered the coastline or caressed the golden sand. Time was measured by the storms and the baking heat of summer. Their food came from the sea and the surrounding farms, their bread from their mothers’ kitchens and their only entertainment was listening to the stories passed down through the generations or hearing one of the choirs sing in the church.

Progress, she thought. What has it brought us but people in a hurry with their fast cars and their televisions and computers which were called, she believed, technology communication? ‘Communication!’ she spluttered. ‘They things does the opposite. Nobody talks any more, not proper. Just tap, tap, tap in they machines. Bleddy tusses.’

She was still at the table, deep in thought, talking aloud as she often did lately. A knock at the door jerked her into alertness. Tap, tap, tap. The sounds were real, not an echo of her thoughts.
She was surprised to notice it was now completely dark. ‘I’m coming,’ she called as she pulled a cardigan around her shoulders and wondered if her visitor had returned.

Peter Pengelly worked on the railways and enjoyed the life although he was not sure how he felt about privatisation. He had recently been promoted to senior conductor on the Inter-City line from Penzance to Paddington although he never completed the whole journey. Mostly the trains changed crews at Plymouth or Exeter. They could manage on what he earned but with two school-age children it wasn’t easy, at least according to Gwen.

‘Why don’t you get a job?’ he had asked more than once. ‘Just something part-time. You’ll probably enjoy it, it’ll get you out of the house.’

‘I don’t want a job, I want to be a proper mother.’

He knew this was not the real reason. Gwen hankered after a life where money was no problem and where she could lord it over others. But she did not want to have to work for it. Sadder still, she had no real friends. Lately he had pressed her harder but she had given him one of her cool glances and made him feel inadequate again.

‘There isn’t much point now, is there? Your mother won’t last for ever. Think about it, Peter, it’ll make such a difference to our lives. We can have a bigger house and when all her bits and pieces have been sold –’

‘For God’s sake,’ he had hissed in exasperation, dropping his mug in the washing-up bowl before leaving for work.

‘I’ll never live out there. Never!’ Gwen had shouted after him, almost in tears. All she had ever wanted was a life to make up for her miserable childhood and Dorothy Pengelly was the only thing standing in her way.

That same morning Gwen drove into Truro and bought some new underwear. To her mind Peter was a highly sexed man and she thought she knew exactly how to get what she wanted.

At home, an hour before she was due to collect the children from school, Gwen pulled the flimsy garments out of their plastic
carrier and admired them. Her figure was good enough that they would flatter her. Once the children were in bed she would shower and dress in her new things then come downstairs, the lacy garments covered only by her thigh-length robe.

Rose finished the day’s work early and returned home at four. The light was blinking on the answering machine. She dropped her camera cases into an armchair and flicked the switch.

‘Rose, dear, is that you? It’s me, Dorothy. Can you bring some milk with you tomorrow? Oh, be quiet.’

Rose grinned. The short, sharp barks were unmistakably those of George, the Jack Russell. The greyhound, Star, whose name had been shortened from her racing name of White Star Dancer, did nothing but sleep or rest her lean, greying muzzle on your lap.

‘Anyway, if it’s not too much trouble. I’ll see you all right when you get here.’

Rose knew better than to refuse the money. She had no idea of Dorothy’s financial position but had learned her lesson some time ago when Dorothy had expressed her views on charity. She had, on that same occasion, rather slyly asked Rose’s opinion of a painting which hung on her bedroom wall. It was an original Stanhope Forbes and there were, she had hinted, one or two more by various members of the Newlyn School. She had come by them by way of her mother who had mixed with the artists and who had, according to Dorothy, known one or two of them intimately. In those days they had been regarded as bohemian and rather shocking with the women drinking and smoking as well as the men and with their unorthodox lifestyles. Now, of course, they were regarded with admiration. Rose wondered just how intimate the relationships between Dorothy’s mother and the painters had been and whether Dorothy might actually be the daughter of one of them.

The picture she had been shown was badly in need of a clean but Rose’s experienced eye saw immediately that it was worth a lot of money. It had struck her at the time that this might be
Dorothy’s way of saying that she could well afford to pay for her shopping. After that incident Rose had taken stock of the contents of Dorothy’s house and had realised that amongst the outdated junk there were some good pieces of furniture but her interest in antiques was limited and therefore she had no idea what their value might be. However, it was Dorothy’s company she enjoyed, not her possessions. She decided to ring her back.

‘It’s Rose,’ she said when Dorothy finally came to the phone.

‘Sorry to keep you, dear, but I was trying to find they blasted cats. Wild, they be, I don’t know why I bother with ’un.’

Wild is right, Rose thought, they would as soon scratch and spit as be touched. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine. A bit tired but the blasted wind kept me awake last night and my shoulder aches. Trouble is, I always fall asleep listening to the radio of an evening then when it’s time for bed I toss and turn all night. Makes me teasy, it does. But you don’t want to be listening to my moaning.’

Rose frowned. She knew Dorothy refused to consider the possibility that she might be ill. Not once in her life had she been troubled by anything other than minor ailments and she would not give in to them. No doctor had set foot in her house and a midwife had delivered her sons in the wooden-framed bed upstairs.

‘How’re the grandchildren?’

‘Don’t see ’em much, really,’ Dorothy admitted without self-pity. ‘Gwen leads what she calls a busy life, though how that can be with washing-machines and all is beyond me. They’re both at school now, and, selfish old woman that I am, I’ve never volunteered to look after them. Real modem kids they are, into the telly and computer games. They’d be bored silly out here with nothing but fresh air and God’s own country all around ’em.’

Rose laughed. She heard the irony in the words. She knew that Dorothy’s own children had been content to make their own amusement and had been allowed to run wild over the uninhabited countryside. In his teens Peter had taken to going to friends’ houses but Martin had always remained content with
his surroundings. Dorothy had shown Rose the treasures she still possessed; small things which Martin had carved out of wood although some of them were unrecognisable as objects.

‘Martin’s bin drinking more’n’s good for him,’ Dorothy said as if she had read Rose’s mind. ‘It’s not so much that which bothers me, my husband liked a drop hisself. Ah, well, not much to be done about it. How’s that young man of yourn?’

‘Jack?’ Rose laughed. ‘He’s not exactly young, and he isn’t mine.’