Memories of the Storm (6 page)

Her own work – reviewing, writing articles, assisting
her ex-pupils in their research – was still a very
important part of her life.

Now, as she waited for her computer to boot up,
she took a notebook from a drawer and a pencil
from a black ceramic jar that had once held cheese.
She began to make headings, to jot down names
and dates, and was absorbed with her work when
the study door opened.

'Oh, Clio.' She turned quickly, glancing at the
clock. 'Are you back already?'

Clio stood in the doorway: her lips were pressed
together, her chin tilted, and Hester got up at once.

'What is it?' she asked. 'Not an accident?'

'No, not an accident.' Clio's voice was brittle as
glass. 'I picked up a message on my mobile on the
way to the station. Peter can't come. He says that
something's come up and he can't get away.'

She repeated his words with a deliberately inflected
irony and, watching her, Hester could see
that Clio was torn between an automatic desire to
defend him and a very real need to submit to her
disappointment. It interested her to see that, at
some level, Clio clearly did not believe in Peter's
reason for cancelling his visit, though it might
be considered a quite reasonable one. The brittle
voice, the flush on her cheekbones were the outward
and visible signs of an inner resentment and
humiliation. Hester wondered how best she might
help her without trespassing.

'Of course, you did say that the agency was
having difficulty with a client's account.' She offered
it as a kind of stepping-stone out of the shoal waters
of indiscretion and back to the more solid ground
of Clio's self-esteem. 'You'd know all about that.'

'Oh, yes. I know all about that and I don't believe
it.'

Hester was silenced for a moment by this flat
statement. Yet there was an air of unhappiness –
even fear – beneath Clio's angry reaction that
forced Hester into a more open approach.

'You think it was for personal reasons?'

Clio glanced at her, as if assessing Hester's
motives, and looked away again. 'Yes I do. I think
he's got problems at home and he chickened out.'

'Well, asking him down here was a very significant
step,' said Hester thoughtfully.

'Was it?'

Clio sounded so anxious that Hester was seized
with compunction. 'It was a reasonable request, but
think about it, Clio. You were asking him to leave
the safe, neutral ground of your relationship and
come to meet your family. Think how it must have
seemed to him.'

'But I didn't mean it like that. He wanted to see
me and I thought, Why not here? I thought you'd
get on well together. There was no way you were
going to ask him his intentions or embarrass him.'

'But did
he
know that?'

Clio, remembering her conversation with Peter,
bit her lip. 'I told him you weren't in the least
that kind of person. I thought he'd be able to
handle it. He's very good at keeping his relationships
separate. Why make a big deal over a trip
down here? He comes to my flat.'

'But does he meet your friends there? Or family?'

'I don't have any family besides you, do I? Mum
and Dad can never be persuaded to leave their olive
grove in Greece and I hardly know my cousins. Not
much risk of running into family.'

'So this was his first opportunity.'

Hester hadn't meant her remark to sound so
brutal but Clio flushed and turned away.

'I'll go and organize some lunch,' she said. 'And I
hope you're up for dinner at Woods tonight, Hes.
I'm damned if I shall cancel the table.'

Lucy Faringdon was eating chocolate cake in St
Martin's Tea Room. The atmosphere of the café,
with its cheerful log fire and low-beamed ceiling
and the busy traffic of people in the narrow lane
beyond the window, all added to her enjoyment of
the rich, sweet cake. The true, deep-down source
of her happiness, however, lay in her sense of
freedom. This morning a very good friend, who
had worked with Jerry for the last twenty years at
Chichester College, had come to see him and she'd
been able to leave them contentedly together and
come out into the town.

She sipped at her latte and then sat for a moment,
simply relaxing gratefully into this moment of
respite. Here, sitting by the fire, she felt an
irresponsible light-heartedness that she knew from
experience would be very short-lived. Nevertheless,
she set herself to extract every moment of present
pleasure – the melting texture of the cake on her
tongue, the taste of the coffee – whilst also dwelling
on the future promise of some shopping: nothing
necessary or dull, just a few little treats. Deliberately
putting away from her all the usual anxieties
relating to Jerry's deteriorating health, she continued
to plan her happy morning, thinking about
the walk she would have with Tess, the Sussex
spaniel, who was waiting patiently in the car. Maybe
they would drive down to Bosham and walk by the
sea, or go inland, perhaps . . .

'Lucy, my dear, how are you?' Someone bent over
her, swinging between her and the window, and she
gave a tiny cry of alarm – quickly stifled.

'Jennifer! How nice to see you. No, of course you
didn't startle me. Not really. I was miles away, that's
all.'

'You looked it. Nobody with you?' Jennifer Bryce,
who had once taught Jonah at school, indicated the
empty chair. 'May I join you?'

'Of course.' Lucy's smile hid her sense of
disappointment: her lovely moment of peace was
shattered. Now she must be polite, answer
Jennifer's questions. Quite incapable of snubbing
her or simply making some excuse to hurry away,
she sat quite still as the older woman ordered
coffee, refused cake, and then turned her large,
pale, inquisitive eyes on Lucy. It seemed to her as if
Jennifer was reading her expression eagerly, checking
it out for weakness or despair. Deliberately Lucy
schooled her face into a mask of polite nothingness,
remembering how patiently and unwaveringly
Jonah had disliked Jennifer Bryce through five
long years of geography classes.

'And how is poor Jerry?' Her voice was thick with
a treacly sympathy: a special hushed voice. 'The last
time I saw you – goodness, it must be months ago
– he'd fractured his back again and had been
re-admitted to hospital.'

'It's all to do with this ghastly lupus. Poor Jerry.
He's been on so much medication – steroids,
warfarin, morphine, you name it – and he reacts so
badly to some of them. Then, when he has to come
off them, he has terrible withdrawal symptoms.'

Lucy tried to speak lightly, unable to bring herself
to describe to this inquisitive woman the real
humiliation and anguish of Jerry's ongoing pain –
the swelling joints, constant fatigue, ulcers and the
terrible breathlessness – nor the agony of watching
someone she loved suffering so bravely.

'However do you manage, Lucy?'

Before she could answer, the waitress arrived
and Jennifer leaned back in her chair to allow
her coffee to be placed in front of her. Her square
ugly hands opened her bag and reached for her
tube of sweeteners. She dripped one into the liquid
and began to stir the coffee whilst Lucy watched
her.

However do I manage? she asked herself silently.
How do I manage when I lie beside Jerry at night
and I wake with a shock because quite suddenly he
stops breathing and begins to gasp wildly for air?
And each time I think, Is this it? Sleep apnoea, they
call it. It's frightening and exhausting. His lungs
are shrinking. We hold on tightly to each other and
make silly jokes. 'You're through, Commander Air.'
However do I manage? How does he?

'I'm not sure, to tell you the truth,' she said
aloud. 'How does anyone?' She suddenly saw
Jennifer as a gaping, ghoulish tourist, visiting her
life with Jerry, staring in at it with avid interest but
no true wish to understand. This image gave Lucy
the courage to resist her. 'Look, Tess is in the car
and I've already been far too long. It's lovely to see
you but I must dash.'

'Oh, well, if you must . . .'

Lucy willed down guilt – her natural response
to someone's disappointment or reproach – and
smiled firmly.

'I really must. Poor old Tess will be crossing her
legs.'

And now, she told herself as she went out into St
Martin's Street and headed for the car park, I
shan't be able to have a lovely browse in Between
the Lines, just in case she comes out and sees me.
And I wanted to get some cards and some candles.
Damn, damn, damn.

Tess was waiting, nose against the glass, her
tail wagging, and Lucy couldn't resist opening the
hatch for a moment and burying her face against
the soft warm dome of her head.

'What should I do without you, Tesskins?' she
murmured. 'Where shall we go?'

Briefly she felt that she was in flight: from
Jennifer, from her own responsibilities, from herself
even. Where could she go to recapture that
brief sense of freedom that she'd experienced
earlier?

Suddenly she knew the place: a bridle path where
Tess could run between pale, chalky fields, following
the scent of a fox or putting up a pheasant
with a whirr of its indignant incandescent wings.
Tess's bright, rust-gold coat would be a clear note
of colour amongst the dun-coloured countryside:
bright as the honeysuckle's berries and the bloodred
rosehips.

* * *

The damp air was cool and soft. Behind smoke-grey
cloud the pale gold disc of the sun showed faintly,
hard-edged as a metal coin. Cobwebs as big as tea
plates, slung between twigs and branches in the
straggling hedge, caught and reflected back the
luminous shimmering light. Their hump-backed
occupants crouched watchfully, racing out at the
lightest vibration of a silvery filament to capture
their unwary prey. Hands in pockets, Lucy followed
in Tess's excited wake, looking for treasures that
she might take back for Jerry. His painful joints,
coupled with a severe reaction to insect bites, had
begun to make country walks an anxiety rather than
a pleasure but he liked to enjoy them second-hand,
and she was learning to make a little excitement out
of them for him rather than feeling guilty that she
was still fit and free.

Guilt and fear: all her life she had wrestled with
these demons yet, though she had never conquered
them, she refused to abandon the struggle. Lately,
as Jerry tried to come to terms with his illness, so
she had begun to analyse her own character in the
hope of becoming stronger through understanding
rather than simply condemning herself for her
failures. The shock of finding that she must be the
carer and that Jerry – who had always taken control
and been her refuge – should now look to her for
mental and physical assistance had been terrifying.
In attempting to deal with this role reversal she
was making a greater effort to combat her own
weaknesses.

Just lately, during those wakeful nights lying
beside Jerry and willing him to breathe peacefully,
she'd begun to look back at that part of her life
she had so carefully concealed, searching for clues.
Now, she was trying for a more positive approach.
She'd started to realize that her own negative
reactions to her fear – 'Oh, why are you always such
a fool!' or 'Why don't you grow up!' – merely served
to diminish her already low self-esteem. Against her
will, instinct was forcing her back into her past as if
the answers might be somewhere there. Cautiously,
as if bracing herself for what she might see,
she'd allowed tiny glimpses to show themselves. She
could believe, at least, that it was partly due to her
mother's influence that she'd grown up to become a
superstitious child.

At first it is a silly game, hopping across the London
pavement, holding Mummy's hand: 'Don't walk on
the lines, darling, or the bears will get you.' 'See the
magpie, Lucy? Only one. "One for sorrow." Oh,
quick. Look for another one.' 'Touch wood . . .'
Her mother never goes anywhere without her little
carved bird mascot, kissing her daughter three
times for luck, and, though she makes these little
rituals into a game, deep down there is a hint of
something else: fear. When she dies, killed by a
bomb whilst playing at a lunchtime recital, Lucy's
first terrified thought is that some good-luck
formula must have been neglected. Nobody ever
finds the little mascot and the small Lucy makes
the inevitable connection. So it begins – that first
insidious need to feel protected from an unseen
adversary.

Her father is strong, and she clings to him, yet
even he is not powerful enough to protect himself
and, in the end, succumbs to the invisible power of
evil: blown to pieces whilst attempting to defuse
an unexploded bomb. After that, as indelible as
pokerwork, three things remain burned into her
memory.

The first, a whisper – a woman's voice, urgent
and needy: 'It's because of Lucy, isn't it? If it
weren't for her we could get away. You're a fool,
Michael. Something terrible is going to happen and
it will be because of Lucy . . .'

The second, Jack showing her the Midsummer
Cushion: 'But you must never, never touch it, Lucy.
It's very old and precious and Nanny says if we
touch it something really bad will happen.'

Her first reaction is disappointment. It is not a
cushion at all but a tapestry, framed and hanging
on the wall in Hester's bedroom. Her initial surprise,
however, is swiftly replaced with delight.

The Midsummer Cushion – oh, how beautiful;
how magical to the eyes of a small child. A tapestry
of every imaginable wild flower – ox-eye daisies,
scarlet field poppies, yellow rattle and golden
buttercups, eyebright and purple self-heal, all
threaded through with long green grasses –
lovingly traced in silk. Beneath the protecting glass,
dried flowers have been gently placed beside
the silken ones so that the whole effect is of a
hayfield in June. She is drawn back to it again
and again, creeping into Hester's bedroom to gaze
enraptured at the pretty thing in its golden frame.
One wild autumn evening she climbs onto the little
stool and, on tiptoe, leans to look more closely at
the tapestry. Losing her balance, she puts out a
hand to save herself, catching at the edge of the
frame. It comes crashing down, glass splinters
all over the rug and the polished floorboards, the
dried flowers crumbling instantly to dust. She has
broken the Midsummer Cushion and retribution
will surely follow swiftly. When the third thing
happens, guilt and fear fuse into a single terrified
reaction.

'
Something terrible is going to happen and it will be
because of Lucy
.'

'
If we touch it something really bad will happen
.'

The voices have prophesied truly: murder
happens and, in its wake, betrayal and loss of trust.

Lucy stood watching a flock of seagulls wheeling
above the new-ploughed field. Against the soft grey
sky the white under-feathers shone with a startling
purity. Then, all in a moment as they dipped and
turned, they were invisible, grey on grey. The
voices had ceased to haunt her, though she could
still recall the tense atmosphere and the little
tingle of terror that had accompanied them. She'd
long since realized that the first was the voice of
a manipulating and determined woman, pleading
with her reluctant lover, and the second was simply
the repetition, by a little boy, of something he'd
been told many times. Yet they'd had their effect
on her, reinforcing the superstitious tendencies
inherited from her mother. Even after all these
years she felt the twist of guilt, the clutch of fear,
when things went wrong or people weren't happy.
It was an instinctive response, due to an odd kind
of early conditioning involving both nurture and
nature: because of her, or something she'd done,
someone had died and lives had been wrecked.
Yet much worse even than the breaking of the
Midsummer Cushion had been the loss of faith in
the two people she'd loved and trusted most: her
father and Hester.

Lucy reached up to pick a late-flowering crown of
pale honeysuckle and a spray of rosehips. Added to
a twig of golden birch leaves they looked charming.
She'd put them into a vase for Jerry and tell him
about the gulls whilst she made their lunch.