From a Distance (22 page)

The working day in Mousehole was over, shop windows were being shuttered as side doors opened and families spilled on to the street. Here a woman sweeping a step, there a child pulling a wooden dog ran across the cobbled street. Michael breathed a deep sigh. The salty seaweed air in his nostrils tingled with exhilaration. Arthur was sunburned, his sleeves rolled up above arms that showed the strength his legs might have had. He rolled a cigarette and passed his tin to Michael. ‘You’ll be taking Felicity to the summer barn dance on Saturday?’

Michael looked up quickly. ‘Yes, of course. Yes, we’re going to the dance. Are you?’

Arthur sighed. ‘Hmph. That’s something. Me? Got no one to take. Got no missus, have I?’ He stood up and crossed the road to the quay. The fishermen had lifted everything that was coming off their boat into a small tender and were landing alongside the harbour wall. Arthur called to the younger one of them, and reached a hand for the rope.

‘Hey, Diccon, you got much of a catch today?’

‘Nothing to make a song and dance of, that’s for sure.’ Diccon had curly black hair and a red face, even redder than usual now after a day at sea. ‘What’s the plan for Saturday? You umpiring?’

Arthur grunted affirmation, the fisherman nodded back. ‘Tide’s in the morning, so I should be back for the second half if you need me?’

‘Come on, Diccon, we’ll never be home for tea if you keep us talking,’ the older man threw rope in a coil into the hull of the boat.

Michael shivered. The sea was swallowing the orange orb of the sun, and long shadows hung like cloaks on the hills above the village. He stood up stiffly, and took the empty glasses into the bar. Arthur had gone with the fishermen, hadn’t said goodbye, just wandered down the village street. He could see him now at the far end of the harbour, talking to Diccon and his brother outside a white painted cottage where they were spreading their net across the garden wall. He waved. Arthur waved back. It was time for him to go and talk to Felicity.

She wasn’t in the house or the studio. Michael stood in the room he’d made and looked around, his hands in his pockets, relishing the white light bouncing around him, the cat curled tight like an anemone on a cushion by the stove, and a spray of buddleia arching a silver green leaf towards the mauve spearhead in a jam jar on the windowsill. There was a smell of paint, and an acrid aroma of rubber, and on the table, daubed painted marks were building up a patina of colour on the worktop so the studio already had an atmosphere of industry. From where he stood he could see Felicity in the garden, hanging flapping bits of fabric on the washing line. Strung between the walnut tree and a post Michael had slammed into the ground with a mallet, the washing was not domestic. The swooping clothes line resembled a canopy from a medieval painting, hung with celebratory flags becoming bolder and more beautiful the more Felicity pegged out the fluttering squares of madder rose and indigo cotton she had made.

She secured the last one and turned to Michael. ‘Look, these are almost finished I think. I tried a new technique today and it worked!’ She came towards him for a kiss. He noticed her hair was held up by a small spear-like paintbrush.

‘Looks ready for a couple of knights to do some jousting,’ he joked.

‘Jousting?’ Confused, Felicity spun round. Michael pulled the brush out and her hair tumbled down her back with a swish that sent a shiver through him.

He waved the brush. ‘Yeah, you know, banners, this little miniature lance, colour, music, pageantry. It’s exciting.’

‘I’m your lady fair,’ Felicity danced a few steps and curtseyed to him, then rose and snaked her arm around his neck, ‘and you’re my valiant knight,’ she whispered.

Music curled out of the studio behind him, the click of the gramophone needle like a beat in time with the floating jazz hanging in the air. Michael wanted the moment printed on to his memory like one of Felicity’s linocuts. He needed it etched and pressed and stamped safe in his mind, where it would never fade, but would shape itself to fit him wherever he was and who ever he became, close to his heart, for ever. His pulse flew. He should have told her before. The beat of adrenalin opened a throttle, the muscles in his neck knotted, and he swallowed, pressing his lips to the top of Felicity’s head, touching the soft fragrant mass of her hair.

This was nothing like the bombast of war, nothing here to haunt him, and yet this anxiety was grimly familiar, tightening inside him, stringing his nerves like banjo wires, and unleashing his blood so it fizzed and pounded through his veins. He hadn’t realised how far he had moved from this old lurching pattern of fear and anticipation. Felicity had saved him, he could never forget that, and he was about to hurt her. His throat was dry, he wished he’d drunk more in the pub with Arthur. Brandy would have done the trick.

‘What’s the matter?’ Her face was lustrous, happiness chased in the delicate lines of her smile. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ Her hands were covered in ink. As usual. She leaned on him lightly, her chin on his shoulder, and rubbed her finger along the buckle of his belt. ‘Verity came up today with a pie she baked, so lucky, as I don’t know what we would have eaten otherwise, I’ve been lost in this all day.’

Michael pulled her against him, pressing his face in her neck, shuffling to be closer, her hip hard against him, her body fitting his like a glove. It was time. It wasn’t the right time, but it was time. ‘There’s something I should have told you, Felicity.’

She pulled away, arching her back to see his face, keeping close.

She smiled. ‘You look so anxious, darling, please don’t worry,’ she cupped his face in her blue-stained hands. ‘It’s funny you should say that, you know,’ she was whispering, her lips close to his ear, ‘because there’s something I should have told you too.’

Chapter 9

‘What the hell?’ Kit braked hard. He didn’t need roadkill on his conscience. A moorhen and her three chicks, black like ink blots, legs a red blur, dashed along the white line in the middle of the road before swerving into the undergrowth. He watched the leaves quiver and close behind her then a movement shimmered between the trees and he noticed cricketers spread in front of a rickety pavilion, and a mown pitch. He’d always liked the thought of village cricket, but he’d never got round to joining a team. Travel, work, running in circles just to keep up with life. It didn’t matter what the excuses were, he’d always been too busy, too keen on going it alone. Ironic, considering how much of his business was about building the team spirit. Hannah, his PA, never stopped arranging trips and bonding experiences for the employees of Lighthouse Fabrics. And here he was, by chance, at a Norfolk cricket match. Was this another epiphany? Why not? He’d stop and watch the game for a bit. Where was the harm?

Parking in a hedge opening, he wandered through to the cricket ground in time to see a wicket fall. The stumps flew and a beefy batsman trundled back to the pavilion, red-faced, hair flattened to his forehead under his helmet, the fractured smile of defeat shiny beneath a film of sweat. The next man walked out on to the pitch, clapping a friendly hand on the shoulder of his teammate. They nodded as they passed one another.

Kit had always subscribed to the belief that self-sufficiency was the ideal, but life had become solitary. He pulled a toothpick from a row of them clamped like a pointed fence in a cardboard packet and bit down. The cinnamon taste spread reassuringly, and he sauntered towards a cluster of people standing near the old shed. Sorry, make that the pavilion. Until coming to Norfolk to get to grips with his lighthouse, he’d been subconsciously shedding stuff. Possessions, even people. No girlfriend. Sure, there had been the odd date, an occasional weekend, but no one serious enough to introduce to his friends. He’d thought he didn’t want that intimacy. Couldn’t be bothered with it. He had felt comfortably selfish, securing himself, after Felicity had died, in a world where he called the shots and he knew the way.

His phone pinged with a text. Pulling it out of his pocket he squinted at the screen.

How old is your car?

It was from Luisa.

He typed
Very
, then added a kiss. Then deleted it again and sent the message. Another chimed back, straight away,
What do you know about rust?

‘Get off the pitch!’ A man in a white coat and brimmed hat gestured with his thumb, his facial muscles a shrug of astonished righteousness. Kit, legging it, almost ran straight into the next batsman walking in. It was Luca.

‘Hey,’ he put on his helmet, brushing Kit’s shoulder with a clumsy gloved hand.

‘Good luck,’ Kit turned on his heel to watch Luca take his place at the wicket.

Thank God he’d deleted the kiss from his message to Luisa, he thought, and sent another one:

At cricket with Luca. Why r u not here?

No going back from a sent text. The cinnamon taste in his mouth reminded him that there might be coffee here somewhere. His toothpick was chewed to a splinter, he spat it onto the ground, encountering a severe look from an elderly lady perching, parrot-like, on a red plastic chair. He nodded a greeting and hurried past her. At the pavilion, a line of chairs and a picnic rug were occupied by cricket bags, cool boxes and a few spectators. Luca faced his first ball and the crack of the bat rang out.

‘Don’t you think it’s a bit like duelling?’

‘Duelling?’ Kit repeated blankly. A woman in a yellow dress had got up from a rug to clap.

‘You know, two men face one another over a short distance and fire. I just thought the bat sounded like a shot. Of a gun.’ She swooped to pick up a daisy chain she’d dropped to clap. ‘Well done, Lux,’ she called as another shot cracked into the sky.

‘It’s a four.’ Kit clapped too. ‘I see what you mean,’ he agreed. ‘The clearing, the wooded surroundings. Should be pistols at dawn, but bats at midday is in the same spirit, I guess.’

A small girl cartwheeled on the rug beside Kit and pulled at the woman’s sleeve. ‘Mummy what did he do? Why didn’t he run?’

‘Oh, they’re always running or not running,’ murmured the mother. Kit stared at her dress. He blinked. Yellow crêpe de Chine, bright silk-covered buttons and tiny orange feathers tumbling across the fabric. Unmistakeable. And rare. It was a Lighthouse design from the 1970s. The woman caught him staring and held out her hand in greeting.

Kit shook it, her skin was cool. ‘Hi,’ she smiled. ‘I think you must be Kit? You’re Lou and Tom’s new friend.’

Kit must have looked surprised, she dropped her hand on to his arm, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just village life, we don’t have enough to talk about. I’m Dora, by the way, Tom’s sister.’

‘Tom? Oh yes. Luisa told me about you. Well they both did.’

In his pocket, his phone buzzed, he didn’t dare get it out, too embarrassing if it was a text from Luisa.

‘This might sound odd,’ he said, ‘but I’m curious about the dress you’re wearing. Where did you get it?’

Dora giggled. ‘That’s a new opening line,’ she said, and lowered her voice. ‘The old biddies are peering at us, I’m always in trouble for making too much noise, bet they think something worth watching is about to happen. Why d’you ask, by the way?’

Kit laughed. ‘It’s Seventies. My mother designed that fabric in collaboration with Biba. Not many were made. I gave one to the Costume Museum in Bath about three years ago. It was so tiny they had to use a child’s mannequin to show it. Silk crêpe, bias cut and far too many buttons for nowadays. Where did you get it?’

Dora looked down at herself. ‘I’m a props buyer, so I go to a lot of vintage fairs. Funnily enough, this came from one down in Bristol.’ She smoothed the dress over her hips and sucked her stomach in. ‘I love it,’ she said, then blinked at him. ‘You’re from that neck of the woods, Lou said?’

‘Yes, Penzance, bit further than Bristol,’ Kit said. ‘Makes more sense for one of these to appear in the west country than at a Norfolk cricket match.’ His mind raced through an imagined conversation between Dora and Luisa where he featured in an excellent light. Was she coming here?

‘Really? I love Bristol, don’t get anywhere like that much now.’ Dora raked a hand through her hair and sighed. Kit hoped she was not about to unburden herself, although there was the hope that she might talk about Luisa.

‘So you’re old friends with Tom and Luisa?’ he sat down on the rug beside Dora.

She raised her sunglasses and narrowed her eyes. ‘Old friends is one way of putting it. Or you could say, as I just did, that I’m Tom’s sister.’ The sunglasses clamped down again and she raised her chin. Clearly a girl who was used to having a man hang on her words.

Kit laughed, ‘Sorry, yes, of course, you did. I was side-tracked by the dress. So do you live nearby?’

Dora’s nostrils flared. He watched uneasily. She could go either way. Cross, or not. After a moment she sighed, and although she ignored his question, she didn’t appear actively cross. ‘Your mother was the designer? That’s fascinating. I’ve come across Lighthouse Fabrics a lot over the years. Tell me, though, how do you catalogue your archive? Luisa and I googled the company, but it was difficult to see it all.’

‘Luisa? Did she? I mean, did you?’ The nostrils flared again. Dora chewed her lip.

Kit realised he was sounding over-eager. ‘Yes, our archive. It’s a headache, frankly, but of course we do it. Next month, when I get back to Cornwall, we’ll be putting the whole thing in order. In a new order.’ A shout from the pitch flew high as a fielder lunged to catch a shot and landed heavily. Kit winced. ‘Ouch, seems a pretty hard-hitting match. Which team are you on?’