Memories of the Storm (4 page)

Clio shook her head. 'I think you can see a play
coming out of it. Or a treatment. Or whatever you
call it.'

Jonah grinned, seized by the mysterious, magical
excitement of a new creation revealing itself to him.
'You could be right,' he answered, and then leaned
forward in his seat as the car turned off the lane
and into the drive, which wound across the wild
open heath.

Michaelgarth stood high above them, strong and
invulnerable on the bracken-covered slopes, looking
beyond Porlock Common to the sea.

'It's wonderful, isn't it?' asked Clio, following his
gaze.

He nodded. 'We were all rather surprised when
Lizzie decided to move to Exmoor,' he told her. 'A
lot of people split their lives between town and
country, of course, but Lizzie seemed so settled in
her little house in Bristol. I believe she still uses it
when she's working but it came as a shock to hear
that she was going to marry a man who lived and
worked on Exmoor and was planning to spend all
her spare time there. Now I can understand why
she loves it here so much. It's not just the house, is
it? The whole place is just magic.'

'I quite agree but we mustn't forget that Piers
has something to do with it too,' said Clio mischievously.

She drove through the archway into the old
garth and parked the car in the open-fronted barn.
Michaelgarth had been built on the ruins of an old
priory. High walls connected the house to the
stables and barns so that the ancient cobbles were
enclosed and the whole was possessed by a sense of
peace and timelessness. Climbing out of the car,
Clio and Jonah crossed the garth and went together
into the house.

As soon as she had deposited Jonah safely with
Lizzie and her other guests, Clio asked if she
could make a telephone call. She knew that Peter
would be at the London flat, his habit being to stop
there for coffee and what he called a 'Russian five
minutes', after travelling up from the country.
He was rarely in the office before ten o'clock but
when he did arrive he was utterly focused on the
day ahead; his family life carefully filed away into
another, separate compartment.

He answered on the second ring, his voice sounding
rather flat.

'It's Clio,' she said. She no longer said 'It's me'
ever since he'd once mistaken her voice for that of
his eldest daughter and she'd never forgotten the
tiny shock of hearing the unfamiliar tone of protective
tenderness with which he'd spoken to her,
thinking she was Sarah.

'Darling,' he cried now, as if he were drowning
and she were a lifeline flung to him unexpectedly.
'Where are you? Did you get my letter?'

'Yes. Yes, I did. Listen, I'm at a friend's house so
I can't be long. I had this idea about us meeting up.
Why don't you come down here for a couple of
days? Down one day and back the next. I could pick
you up from Tiverton Parkway. Hester's less than
half an hour away.'

'Hester? Your godmother?' He sounded baffled.
'Are you actually suggesting that I should meet your
godmother, sweetie?'

'Why not? I've asked her if you could stay with us
and she says she'd love to meet you. It would be
fun.'

'Would it?' He sounded frankly sceptical. 'Are
you serious, Clio? I think I'd feel just a tad nervous
under an old biddy's beady eye.' He chuckled,
inviting her to share the joke. 'Can't you just see it?
I'm a bit old for creaking floorboards and being
sized up by an elderly matriarch.'

Clio was taken aback, almost affronted by his
assumptions about Hester. She'd given him credit
for a more imaginative attitude. She realized with a
pang of horror that he'd disappointed her but she
refused to accept his stereotypical viewpoint simply
for the sake of harmony between them.

'Hester's not a bit like that,' she said stiffly.
'You've got quite the wrong idea about it all. I
hoped you'd see it as a visit to someone who is very
special to me. Her age isn't relevant. Hester isn't
the judgemental type – and there's absolutely nothing
maternal about her.'

'Sorry. Sorry, Clio.' He backed off at once. 'If you
think it'll work, then I'll fix it up when I get into the
office. I'm missing you terribly and there's a panic
on about the Harrison account. Twenty-four hours
with you would suit me splendidly.'

She was touched as always by his readiness to
retract from a position gracefully, though her confidence
was slightly shaken.

'I really think it will work, Peter.'

'Of course it will. Take no notice of me. I've only
just got in and I haven't made the transition yet. To
tell the truth I'm having a bit of a domestic crisis.'

'Oh.' She was alert, fear speeding her heart. She
could never decide how much Louise knew about
Peter's London life. 'Nothing too serious?'

'We'll see. Anyway, nothing for you to worry
about.'

Clio could tell that he was regretting the slip: he
must be rattled to let his carefully segregated lives
collide so casually.

'That's OK then.' She knew better than to
question him further. 'Will you let me know when
you can get down? Any day this week will be fine for
us.'

'Sure. Down tomorrow back on Wednesday would
be the best bet, but I'll have to check the diary.'

'It seems odd, doesn't it, that I don't know what
your engagements are?'

'Oh, my darling, it's just such a total desert
without you around.'

'Good,' she said cheerfully. 'Just don't get used to
it.'

'No chance of that. Look, I'll leave a message on
your mobile as usual, shall I? I know you can't get a
signal at Hester's but you can pick it up later on.'

'That's best. I'll be taking some people back to
the station later this morning and I'll check for
messages on the way home. There's no signal here
either.'

'It sounds rather medieval,' he said. A twinge of
doubt returned to colour his voice. 'Are you sure I
shall like it?'

'Quite sure.' Her confidence had resurfaced. 'You
can trust me.'

'Don't I know it, sweetie.' He was laughing again.
'Can't wait to see you. Bye.'

Sitting on the seat in the cloistered way outside
the hall, which had once been the chapel, Clio
thought about Peter. A few late roses still bloomed
on the high stone walls; Lion, Piers' golden retriever,
lay somnolent on the cobbles. Clio relaxed.
The murmur of conversation and occasional bursts
of laughter, Lizzie's voice reciting something and
then breaking off short – all seemed to come from a
great distance away. Much more real to her was the
idea of Peter: his crisp fair hair standing up like an
animal's fur as he came out from the shower; his
long strong legs and broad brown hands with the
nails always clean and pink as if they'd just been
scrubbed. She could imagine his arm along her
shoulders as he sat beside her, his breath against
her cheek, the smell of his skin, and the other
million scents and images and sounds that meant
Peter to her.

The shutter in her mind, behind which all
thoughts of Louise and the children were locked,
lifted a fraction. She heard Louise's confident
drawl and the higher, fluting voices of his children.
She remembered them arriving unexpectedly at
the office, during a trip to London to buy school
uniforms, and how surprising it had been to see
him so natural and easy, joking and letting his
small son twirl in the big leather chair, before he
whisked them all off to tea without a glance in her
direction. Louise, darkly glamorous, had nodded
to the members of Peter's staff with all the pleasant
indifference of one brought up with servants,
seeing them as so many useful appendages, rather
on the level of the computers and the telephones:
necessary but uninteresting. He'd made no
mention of it afterwards – and neither had Clio.

A door opened, the voices came closer; the
meeting was breaking up. Clio sat forward on her
bench, checking automatically for her car keys and
glancing at her watch: plenty of time for the train.
She took a breath and straightened her shoulders.
Perhaps tomorrow Peter would be on his way to see
her.

'I hope you'll be around when I come down to see
Hester again,' Jonah said, as they waited on the
platform for the train from Plymouth.

'So you'll definitely be back?'

'Of course. I'm hoping that I'll be able to
persuade my mother to talk about the war. I think
that Dad being ill has changed certain perspectives
for her and I know that sometimes she's a bit
lonely. It's not easy being a carer. Unlike your
parents, mine have been very sedentary: living
in one place for all their married lives, very
dependent on each other and a few close friends. I
think Mum's feeling vulnerable and she might be
more ready to talk about the past. Perhaps it's time:
she wouldn't have mentioned Hester otherwise. I
feel it is.'

'I hope you will come back,' said Clio impulsively,
'but perhaps we can meet up in London sometime.'

He looked pleasantly surprised. 'I thought you
were . . . uh, you know?'

'I still spend time with my friends,' she answered
rather crisply. 'Shall I give you my mobile number?'

He dug in his pocket for his mobile, tapped in
her number with a pen and said, 'Ah, here's the
train.'

His travelling companions joined them, bags
were collected and farewells were said.

'Thanks for taking me to meet Hester,' Jonah
said, leaning from the window for a moment. 'It's
meant a lot.'

Walking back to the car, Clio checked her mobile
for voice mail. Peter's message was short but clear.

'Catching the nine fifteen from Paddington. Will
be arriving at Tiverton Parkway at eleven o'clock.
Returning to London late afternoon Wednesday.'

She made a note of the train times, telephoned
Hester to tell her that Peter would be with them in
twenty-four hours and got into the car.

As she drove up the dual carriageway past
Tiverton, she was already making plans for the next
day: pick Peter up and take him home to lunch at
Bridge House, then perhaps a trip over the moor to
the sea and back in time for tea. In the evening it
might be a good idea to go out to dinner, just the
two of them, to Woods. Peter would like Woods,
with its bistro atmosphere and delicious food –
assuming, of course, that she could book a table . . .

Clio applied the brakes sharply as a pheasant
careered into the road, racing dementedly in front
of the car's wheels before launching itself into a
wild steep flight upwards into the beech hedge.

'Crazy bird,' she muttered, startled out of her
preoccupations. 'You were nearly lunch.'

Letting in the clutch, speeding off again, she
tried to visualize the contents of Hester's freezer,
wondering if there might be something good for
tomorrow's lunch; Peter loved his food. Perhaps,
just to be on the safe side, she'd stop off in
Dulverton and go into Woods to ask Will, the bar
manager, about booking a table. Then she could
see what the delicatessen could provide: or perhaps
she might buy a rack of lamb from the butcher? She
drove over Barle Bridge, along the High Street,
veered left into Fore Street and parked in an empty
space outside the library.

* * *

When Clio arrived home she found Hester seated at
the table in the breakfast-room with several large
photograph albums in front of her. Clio dropped
her parcels at the other side of the table and went
to peer curiously over Hester's shoulder. The small
black-and-white snapshots had faded writing beneath
them and Clio bent closer to read the words.

'When you telephoned to tell me about Jonah, I
remembered that these were in the cupboard in the
book-room,' Hester told her. 'I hadn't looked at
them for years. It's odd to see them again after
all this time. How poignant old photographs are,
aren't they? I can hardly believe that I was once
the person I see here; I've been looking at me,
wondering who I was and how I felt. It's the same in
reverse, of course. When we are young we know that
one day we will be old but it seems quite unreal.
The old woman you see ahead of you, way down the
road, is a stranger who could never be connected
with how you feel now, at this moment: invincible,
immortal.'

'That's true,' admitted Clio, thinking it over. 'I
know that one day I shall be old but at the same
time I feel that old age will be happening to a
different Clio. It's not really anything to do with the
me who is here now, today.' And suddenly she
thought of Peter, and of making love with him, and
knew that she needed him quite terribly, here and
now, as a warm, vital talisman to ward off that cold,
unimaginable future.

'Blaise was the keenest photographer of the
family, and after he went away to the war Patricia
took on his mantle.' Hester's calm voice acted as a
remedy against Clio's sense of panic, rather like
a cool hand on a hot brow. 'This one might interest
you.'

She turned over the stiff grey pages and pointed
to an outdoor photograph of three young men
standing together rather self-consciously but
smiling good-naturedly at the camera. Their hands
were stuck casually in the pockets of their flannel
trousers and two of them wore Fair Isle pullovers in
that oddly shrunken style that seemed so much part
of the pre-war age.

'"Edward, Blaise and Michael."' Clio read the
caption aloud. '"Summer 1938 at Bridge House."
Who's Michael? He looks faintly familiar.'

'He's Jonah's grandfather,' answered Hester,
smiling to herself. 'Alike, aren't they?'

'Good grief !' Clio bent even closer, scanning the
face more closely. 'So you actually knew him? Really
knew him?'

'He was at Cambridge with Edward and Blaise,
though Blaise was older. They were all great
friends. Michael married first, though we never met
his wife. By then the war had started and he didn't
come here again until he brought Lucy down in
1944. By then, Edward was married too.'

'And Blaise?' Remembering Jonah's theory
Clio watched Hester's face. 'He didn't want to get
married?'

Hester seemed to withdraw: she didn't move but
her expression fell into aloof, almost severe lines.

'No, Blaise didn't want to marry. At least, not
in the conventional way. He fell in love very early in
his life and he never wavered from it.'

'Fell in love? With whom?'

'With God and with the whole of the human
race.' Hester looked both bleak and envious. 'That's
why he took Holy Orders. You know all this, Clio.'

'I don't,' she protested. 'Well, I know bits of it, of
course, but none of it properly. Obviously I know
Blaise became a priest after the war but that's not to
say that he might have married. I just wondered,
that's all.'

'Wondered?'

'It was just seeing them together like that. It
made me wonder. Blaise is so human, isn't he? He
isn't all sanctimonious and distant. Actually, looking
at this, he must have been pretty hot stuff when
he was young.'

Hester chuckled. 'Oh, he was,' she agreed. 'Pretty
hot stuff, as you say.'

'Well, then.' Clio breathed more freely, relieved
to see Hester smiling. 'That's all I meant.'

'There was a moment,' said Hester, after a little
hesitation, 'when I wondered if he might manage
both God and a wife but it came to nothing.'

Clio looked away from the expression of puzzled
pain on her godmother's face: it was both moving
and discomforting. She could think of nothing to
say and was grateful to St Francis, who chose to leap
suddenly upon the table all amongst the books,
scattering the loose snapshots.