Gull Island (39 page)

The hotel where Luke had booked a room was not grand. He had chosen a quiet place not too close to the centre of London and having
travelled
there by train, he showed her to her room and left her to bath and change. They arranged to meet in the dining room.

‘I hope it’s all right with you, Martine,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t book anything for tonight. I thought our greatest need would be to talk. Tomorrow we’ll go out on the town. Shops, dinner and a theatre, whatever you wish.’

‘
Parfait, mon petit
Luke.’ Although her smile was as warm and loving as always, there was something in her eyes that made him suspect that all was not well.

‘There is something wrong?’ he asked later, when they sat eating fish à la Bretonne, fish in a delicious sauce containing celery and leeks and carrots.

‘I am so very ’appy to see you again, why should there be something wrong?’ she asked. ‘Are you not pleased I am ’ere?’ Her accent was more pronounced; she took time finding the English words.

‘Delighted, my dear Martine,’ he said. ‘I hope to persuade you to stay for ever.’

‘For ever, it is a long time, yes? Time changes everything, us included.’

‘We’ve grown older.’ He smiled. ‘At least, I have. You look the same as when I said goodbye, so long ago.’

She touched his arm affectionately. ‘
Merci, cherie
,’ she whispered.

They spent five days in London admiring the splendid buildings, many still wearing the scars of bombing, they wandered in the parks and along the Serpentine and the majestic Thames. The afternoons were spent at
exhibitions
, evenings at the theatre, but whatever they did there was an atmosphere of strain. Luke knew without being told that Martine wished she were somewhere else. His enthusiasm was false; Martine’s was soon abandoned completely.

‘Shall we forget the rest of the week and go straight to Cardiff?’ he suggested as they pushed their way through the crowd around Buckingham Palace. ‘London can be very tiring and perhaps five days is enough at one time.’

‘Luke,
mon cher ami
, I ’ave enjoyed everything you ’ave planned for me.’

‘But?’

‘I think I should go back to France.’

‘Go back? I was hoping you’d stay longer, not go back sooner. In fact, I’d hoped you’d never go back.’ But even as he spoke, he knew he was deceiving himself.

‘It’s best that I go.’

Arguing seemed pointless; she was only saying what he had detected. She no longer felt comfortable with him and it was best they faced it. The love and affection they had once held for each other was no longer there.

Changing her ticket was easy and he saw her off on the train that would take her to Dover with mixed feelings. There was disappointment but more than that, there was a sense of failure. He had failed to make her see him as the same person who had left France ahead of the German advance twelve years before.

Yet there was a sense of relief too. He had been showing a tourist around London, nothing more. Once she had gone, he spent the days searching bookshops and by Saturday he had gathered an alarmingly large collection. He thought he would stay over the weekend and see another play. It was a long time since he had treated himself to a holiday and Martine leaving was no reason to abandon this one.

Late on Saturday afternoon, he changed his mind and, struggling into a taxi with his books packed in boxes, he went to Paddington and caught the train for Cardiff. He would arrive late but he would have a lazy day on Sunday to recover. He remembered his invitation to Richard and Rosita to meet Martine. He would have to cancel, but there was plenty of time. A whole week.

He felt unashamedly lighthearted as he travelled home and stepped inside his house, where the spare room had been decorated for Martine’s visit. New covers on the bed with curtains to match had been chosen by his housekeeper. A freshly washed rug beside the electric fire. Flowers in a vase were drooping but he knew they would have been changed in time for Martine’s arrival. He took the sour stems from the water and threw them into the bin. A funereal bouquet for a dead friendship.

On Sunday he felt restless. His intention had been to rest but he woke early and dressed before seven o’clock. He was in limbo, having planned to visit a few places with Martine until the following weekend and arrive back in time for her to meet Rosita and Richard on the seventeenth. Now, with a week in which to inform them of the change of plan, he wandered around the house unable to decide how to spend the day.

He was tired, but he couldn’t sit still. Eventually, after a light lunch he
set off for the cottage. It was a way to use up the afternoon. Tomorrow he would go to the shop and see what had happened during his absence. His mind wandered over the books he had bought. They would need pricing and entering in his catalogue, the titles checked to see if any were on customers’ request lists.

He was surprised to see Rosita’s Anglia parked near the beach. Getting out of the car, he looked around for a sight of her. The tide had parted, leaving access to Gull Island free but he didn’t even consider her walking across on a day like this, with low cloud shortening the day and the island half lost in mist. She wouldn’t have gone there, not after her last experience.

He went to the cottage and as soon as he stepped inside he knew she had been there: perfume on the air and a chair slightly out of place. But where was she now? Unable to see her, he walked briskly up to the end of the lane and with increased anxiety, ran to the station and phoned Richard.

‘Isn’t there something very secret going on this afternoon?’ Richard chuckled. ‘Rosita only hinted – you know how difficult she finds it to keep some things to herself. I understood she was meeting you and Martine?’

‘Not today.’

‘But I got the impression she was meeting you on the island.’

‘In this weather? It’s lost in mist and very cold. What gave her the idea that …’

There was no time to waste on words or theories. ‘I’m on my way!’ Richard said.

Luke ran back to the beach and in the gathering gloom could just make out a figure approaching the beach of the island. The figure wore trousers but he knew it was Rosita. What on earth was she thinking of? Before he began to follow, or even call out, another figure emerged from the shadows and began to move after her. It could hardly be Richard. So who was it?

Rosita stopped and looked towards the island. There seemed to be a pile of wood on the beach. She bent over to continue the half walk, half crawling movement towards it. The stones were covered in green slimy weed and the shallowest pools were already rimmed with frost. She was beginning to feel very cold. She stood and looked towards the pile of wood. So that was it. Luke was building a shelter. Was there going to be a party on the island for their engagement? What fun, so long as he waited until the weather was kinder. But where was he? Why didn’t he and Martine show themselves? This was getting silly!

It wasn’t like Luke to let her come out here on her own. If he were there, why didn’t he come and help her? Perhaps there were others too. Perhaps Richard was in on the surprise and they were about to jump out and cheer
as she reached the grassy level. Imaginings urged her on. And her implicit trust in Luke.

She stopped more frequently, trying to warm her hands under her arms as they stiffened with the cold. As she drew nearer she saw that the wood was nothing more than debris brought in by tide and wind. For the first time she began to feel anxious. Had she misread the letter? She did things in such a rush these days. Could she have mistaken the date? She turned and looked back. A figure dropped low and lay still. From where she stood, the shape appeared as inanimate as the rocks around it.

Luke watched from the beach. He knew that, used to the rocks as he was, he could make the journey to the island in half the time taken by Rosita and the person following her. He waited until both shapes had reached the beach and climbed up onto the grassy plateau then he hurried in their wake. Running, leaping with the confidence of familiarity, he set off across the causeway, cautiously watching, ready to drop out of sight the moment one of them looked his way. For the moment he didn’t want to be seen by either. Without risking Rosita’s safety, he wanted to find out exactly what the other person was planning.

Rosita heard footsteps and turned with a smile of relief. ‘Luke! I was wondering where you – Idris? What on earth are you doing here?’

‘I want to talk to you.’ He took her arm and led her forcibly up towards the cliff edge on the other side of the island.

She began to struggle and he slapped her, the shock confusing her and allowing her to be dragged faster.

‘Richard refuses to re-employ me. I think you should persuade him to take me back.’

‘Why should I do that?’ Confidence was growing, but then she saw how close they were to the edge, the sea below moving against the cliff edge, innocent and quiet.

‘Be careful, Idris! Don’t push me too close to the edge!’

He pretended to slip and pushed her to the edge of the dangerous drop. They were out of sight from the land and alarm bells were ringing in her head. Alone here with Idris, and her feet slipping on the surface, the sea waiting greedily below. He eased his grip and she moved away, down towards the beach. Idris ran to her, dragged her back and pushed her again, and this time there was no mistaking his intention. His jaw was thrust forward, his eyes cold, his practised charm no longer evident.

He was forcing her towards the sea far below them. She screamed, although it was a reflex action; there was no one to hear her and come to her aid. But miraculously, someone did. Luke appeared and with a growl of
rage, he pushed Idris out of the way and grabbed Rosita as she began to stumble.

‘Thank goodness you came at last,’ she sobbed as, ignoring Idris’s frantic denials, she clung to him in relief.

Recriminations and denials, accusations and bluff filled the air as the three people hurried across the rocks to the safety of the land. Idris walked away from them, determined to get to his car, but Richard had raced down the lane and slewed his car across in front of his. Richard stood facing him as he tried to manoeuvre it past.

‘I think you’d better explain what you were doing following Rosita and trying to push her over the cliffs,’ Luke shouted, so Richard had an idea of what had happened.

‘I wanted to talk her into pleading with you to give me a job, that’s all,’ Idris said. ‘Honest, that’s all.’ Richard was ominously quiet. ‘For Kate and the girls,’ Idris added. ‘I did it for Kate and the girls.’

‘He was going to kill me,’ Rosita said, in a voice that trembled. ‘He was forcing me over the edge.’

Richard took a step towards Idris, who ran past, pushing Rosita and Luke aside. He waded, then swam in the icy water out to where Luke’s rowing boat was bobbing gently in shallow water and before any of them reached him, he was pulling on the oars, heading for the dangerous water swirling around the island. The boat caught in a sudden movement of wave crashing against wave and they lost sight of the man inside.

In the alarm of the new disaster, questions and answers were spasmodic and brief. It was clear to both men that Idris was involved and, with Rosita safe, that was enough for the moment.

Rosita borrowed a couple of Luke’s pullovers and lit the fire while Luke and Richard searched the dark sea for Idris. At six o’clock, when it had been dark for more than two hours, there was still no sign of him.

Rosita went to tell Mrs Carey what had happened. Luke telephoned the police and the coastguard and reported him missing, presumed drowned. They all knew that in these temperatures he wouldn’t survive very long without help.

‘B
UT WHERE CAN
he be?’ Mrs Carey walked up and down in the small living room, her eyes hollow, the creases on her face deepening into a mask of despair. It was after 2 a.m. and since Rosita and Luke had seen him rowing the boat towards Gull Island in the fading light the afternoon before, they had heard nothing of Idris. With Rosita and Richard, she was listening for the arrival of a police car with dread in her heart. Her lovely golden boy was dead, she just knew it.

‘He’ll be safe, Mam,’ Richard said automatically.

‘No thanks to you if he is!’ She glared at her son. ‘Fancy accusing him of trying to kill someone! First you say he stole your money and now this. What’s got into you? That’s what I want to know.’

‘Auntie Molly Carey, we didn’t say he was trying to kill me,’ Rosita protested. ‘But he was making me walk close to the edge and I was feared for my life.’

‘Teasing, that’s all that was, for sure.’

‘If I’d slipped I’d have been in the sea,’ Rosita murmured, but she didn’t have the heart to argue strongly, to tell Idris’s mother the truth. Idris was probably dead and that was enough for the old lady to cope with.

The waiting continued and at five in the morning, Mrs Carey looked at the chiming clock that had followed her from home to home all her married life. ‘Where is he?’ she wailed. ‘If he’s safe then why doesn’t he come home?’

As she was being comforted, no one heard footsteps approaching, or the door being opened. ‘Idris
is
home and has been all night,’ Kate said, coming into the room. ‘I’ve just had the police around to see if I – as his estranged wife – could help in the search for him and he’s fast asleep in bed after arriving frozen and soaked through. What’s been happening, Mam?’

‘Wouldn’t I like to know!’ Mrs Carey glared at Richard and Rosita.

‘Idris said he saw Rosita crawling across the rocks to the island and was worried about her.’

‘What was he doing there?’ Richard demanded.

‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’ Kate asked in her quiet way. When she was told that Idris was accused of trying to push Rosita over the cliff she said very little, but showed a marked coolness towards her half-sister.

‘Whatever he does, Idris will always be the innocent with Kate and your mother, won’t he?’ Rosita whispered to Richard when Kate left to open the Station Row shop.

For the next week Idris enjoyed the tender loving care of his wife, who found it impossible not to forgive him for past deeds when he’d arrived after his untimely swim. Kate was angry with Rosita and disbelieved her accusation, but she continued to work at the Station Row shop, for which Rosita was grateful. She hurried home at lunchtimes to feed Idris and bank up the fire, and to make sure he had all he needed. At the end of the week, she went home one lunchtime to find him gone.

There was no note, the bedclothes were thrown back as though he had just risen and left. His shoes were by the bed. Wherever he had gone, he’d worn slippers. The phone was off the hook, lying on the hall table. He had obviously left in a hurry. She rang Mrs Carey and tried a few friends but no one knew where he was.

She thought of the island. The place seemed like a part of their lives, drawing them to it like a magnet. She remembered that for the Careys it had been home for many years; perhaps that was the reason for its
importance
. Could Idris have gone back there? Wearing slippers? He might be delirious – but she didn’t dare speak to the police again, they’d think the family were all crazy. She wondered if Idris
was
a bit mad. Losing his job might have unhinged him a little. There was a bit of a
tawch
about his explanation of why he was at the island, but that was probably a woman again. She sighed and wondered whether to look for him or wait for him to come home, or change the locks on the doors once again.

It had been a phone call that had made Idris leave so hurriedly. Hattie was in labour and Barbara was unable to drive. The farmer she worked for was away at some market and Barbara insisted the responsibility was his – he had to get her to hospital. Idris had plenty of nerve, but he didn’t think it wise to put that in a note for his wife!

The drive to the hospital was terrifying. Hattie was making such a noise; crying, complaining, accusing him of everything and screaming with the pain. Her full, rounded face, so like Graham’s, was bright red with the
exertion
of dealing with pain and perspiration streamed down her cheeks.

Idris was frantic to be rid of it all. He drove recklessly until Barbara told him to slow down or he’d crash and they’d be delivering the baby in a field. That thought added to his fear. Where babies and pain and blood were concerned, he wanted nothing to do with it. His blue eyes were wide open
like a victim of shock, which was what he was. He had imagined a gentle ride to the hospital, everyone smiling, Barbara and Hattie calmly thanking him for his trouble and then returning home in time for Kate to get him some lunch. He wasn’t expecting anything like this!

The pregnancy had made Hattie very unhappy and she had put on a lot of extra weight. Eating was solace for her. For most of the months of waiting, she had felt frightened and full of regrets, blaming Rosita for her misfortunes on the grounds that Rosita had boasted about seeing what she wanted from life and going all out to get it. Well, she had wanted Idris and see where that had got her! Racketing along country lanes with Idris finding every pothole, and with pain burning her up like a boil about to burst.

When they reached the hospital in a quiet backstreet not far from the centre of the town, Barbara eased her daughter from the car and helped her towards the doors.

‘Go on ahead, Idris, and tell them we’re coming, will you?’ she asked. There was no reply and she turned to see that Idris had reversed the car and was speeding back down the road.

The staff smiled encouragingly, muttering soothing reassurances, and led Hattie away. Barbara sat on a seat in the corridor to allow her heart to stop racing. She was trembling now the need for calmness was no longer
important
. As she sat there, people came and went, giving her nods and smiles but no information. From the way Hattie had been behaving, she had expected the baby to have arrived within minutes of their reaching the hospital, but three hours later, she was still waiting.

Idris drove to the Pleasure Beach and sat in the car, trembling with shock. The very thought of Hattie going through a birth horrified him. He had kept well away when Lynne and Helen had been born, happily letting Kate and the medical staff deal with it all. He had gone back to live with his mam for a couple of weeks until Kate returned from hospital. Best thing too. And Kate hadn’t made all that noise. He puffed nervously at a cigarette as he began to think of the pain. He was a shaken man. He hadn’t realized it could be like that.

Barbara sat outside the ward and waited patiently all afternoon and all evening for news of her grandchild. When nothing had happened by midnight, she found a hotel that would take her and slept until 7 a.m. Then she went back to the hospital and sat through a second day, occasionally going in to see her distressed daughter. At four the following morning she saw her grandson, who Hattie had said would be called David, for the first time.

After looking at the tiny, scrunched-up little face for a long time, she went to the Careys’ but she didn’t go in. It was still very early and no one would be awake. Besides, she didn’t want to talk to anyone, not yet.

She walked through the streets oblivious to everything and everyone, and stopped again outside Rosita’s Newsagents, Tobacconists and Confectioners, in Station Row. She didn’t go in there either. She walked on, uncaring about direction, and found herself on the way to the beach near Gull Island. She sat on the cold rocks for a while, unaware of hunger or even thirst, then walked back to town.

At 5.30 that evening, when the roads were busy with cars taking workers home from their businesses and shops were preparing to close, she went to the building site where Richard’s firm was preparing the ground for a small estate of ten houses. Ignoring the mud that rose about her ankles and threatened to suck the shoes from her feet, she made her way to the site office, a wooden shed from which telephone lines and electric cables sprouted.

There was no one there and she hesitated, wondering what to do next. She looked around in that gentle way she had, moving her eyes slowly. She cast her gaze over the untidy mess within the building and felt an urge to tidy it up. Coffee cups, including a battered enamel mug that was fit for the ash bin, were spread over every surface, holding down assorted papers, some of which were plans, some of which were the day’s copy of the popular newspapers on which horse races had been marked in pencil. How could something so orderly as rows of perfectly built houses be born out of such a mess?

She heard footsteps squelching through the mud but didn’t turn around. She seemed as if she were in a daydream, until Richard said, ‘What are you doing here? Don’t you know you aren’t allowed on site? It’s dangerous, there are – Barbara? What on earth are you doing here? Looking for me, were you?’

‘I don’t know who I want really,’ she said in a whisper.

Richard saw that she was upset. ‘What’s happened?’ His guess was that she had been to see Rosita and had been rebuffed. ‘Come on, sit down and I’ll make us some coffee.’ He looked around the office in the hope of finding a clean cup.

‘I don’t want anything, I just want to sit for a while.’

More for something to do than actual need, Richard picked up the battered mug he’d used since starting to build his first house. He poured hot water onto the powder, added milk from a bottle, sipped and pulled a face. ‘Best you don’t have coffee after all.’ He smiled. ‘It’s awful. Now, tell me what’s upset you.’

‘I’ve just seen the baby. Hattie’s baby. It’s a boy and she wants him called David.’ She spoke in a monotone and he had difficulty hearing her.

‘That’s good news, isn’t it? David …’ He savoured the name. ‘I like that. Is he all right? The baby? There’s nothing wrong?’

‘David is strong and they’re satisfied with him, but Hattie—’ She broke down then and cried as she said, ‘My poor Hattie is dead.’

Richard’s first thought was to get Barbara to his mother. She needed a sympathetic soul like Mrs Carey to help her now. His second thought was that Rosita and Kate had to be told immediately. He offered his arm and walked the sobbing Barbara to where his new Vauxhall stood, helped her in and drove to his mother’s house.

‘Molly, it’s my Hattie. She died after bringing her baby into the world,’ Barbara sobbed as her friend came to greet her. ‘Couldn’t stop the bleeding, they said.’

‘Oh, my dear girl!’ Mrs Carey’s arms enfolded her friend.

‘What will I do?’ Barbara repeated again and again.

‘Do? You’ll stay here with me until things are sorted. And they will be, believe me they will be. Now, just sit and warm yourself while I find you something to eat. I bet you haven’t eaten for hours.’ Chattering away, soothing and comforting, Mrs Carey eased Barbara into a chair near the fire and wrapped a blanket around her. ‘And get them shoes and stockings off, you’re frozen stiff,’ she scolded.

She hugged Barbara, then busied herself getting more warm blankets and slippers and soon had Barbara comfortable, with a steaming bowl of soup placed in front of her.

Richard left them and went to find Rosita. She was just putting the finishing touches to her evening meal of a beef casserole that had been gently simmering since midday.

‘Richard! There’s a lovely surprise! Will you join me? I seem to have made enough for an army.’

‘Rosita, I have some very bad news. Hattie’s baby was born today and—’

‘Oh, that’s good news, isn’t it? As long as he’s all right?’ She looked at him and at once saw that all was far from right. ‘What is it? The baby? Is he—?’

‘The baby is fine, but it’s Hattie. She died soon after giving birth.’

‘What? But how? Why?’

‘I don’t know the details. Post-partum haemorrhage I think they said when I rang the hospital. Apparently it happened suddenly, without warning, and although she was attended to at once, there was no way they could save her. Your mother came to the site and told me. By the state she was in and the fact that the baby was born at four this morning, I think
she’d been walking for hours. It was almost six this evening when I found her.’

‘Where is she?’

‘With Mam. I didn’t know what else to do. She needed someone to comfort her.’

Rosita threw the plate of food aside and reached for her coat. ‘I have to see her,’ she said.

The need to comfort her mother over the death of her half-sister was instantaneous yet, as Richard stopped the car outside his mother’s house, Rosita was trembling. She hadn’t spoken or had any contact with her mother for years. How could she expect to give comfort now? How could her mother greet her with anything but scorn for arriving at such a time? Mam would think her hypocritical, coming to mourn a half-sister she hardly knew and certainly hadn’t liked.

She needn’t have worried. As she stepped into the room, which had already taken on the atmosphere of grief, Barbara stood up and opened her arms. It was as if the years between hadn’t happened, as mother and daughter embraced and cried on each other’s shoulder. With a nod to his mother, Richard took her arm and went to find Kate.

Finding themselves alone, for a long time neither spoke, then, as Rosita began to say she was sorry, Barbara touched her lips gently with her fingers and shook her head.

‘Let’s not try and explain away all that’s happened, let’s just start again, from now. But first we must grieve for Hattie and that little boy who was orphaned when he was only minutes old.’

They held each other and Rosita’s mind took her back in a cavalcade of scenes, half-remembered but returning with new vividness. How she had loved to cuddle into her mother’s neck like this. Barbara had always smelled deliciously of wood smoke and freshly baked bread. The
remembered
scents were always a part of her childhood memories of a mother she had lost when she was five.