Polly (35 page)

‘Are you looking to rent or buy?' William asked him, as he laid the table for lunch and removed a peeled clove of garlic away from Genevieve's eager reach.

‘I know a gorgeous sail loft in Downalong that's available,' Chloë added, tucking her wayward corkscrew curls behind her ears so she could bend low over the soup to taste it.

‘To rent or buy?' Max asked.

‘Rent,' Chloë said.

‘Shame,' said Max.

Soup was dished out and contented slurping confirmed its excellence.

‘Are you leaving London,' Chloë started tentatively, ‘because you want to live in Cornwall—'

William finished her sentence for her: ‘Or are you buying in Cornwall so you don't have to return to London.'

‘Ay, there's the rub,' Max said, nodding slowly and concentrating hard on the salt and pepper which were contained in the tiniest bowls he had ever seen.

And there's the nub
, William and Chloë told each other in silent glances.

‘No hassles this end,' William assured Max, passing him more bread and butter.

‘You stay as long as you like – we love having you, you're part of our family,' Chloë added, giving him a gentle poke in the ribs.

‘She's called Polly and I love her and I hate her and I've no fucking idea what to do,' said Max loudly, poking Chloë back before taking another slice of bread.

Whether in utter pity for his plight, or pure disgust at his language, Genevieve suddenly threw up copiously. A flurry of activity followed. Only once the three adults had brandished damp cloths and sympathy, and Genevieve had fallen asleep while William carried her upstairs, were they able to retire to the sitting-room with huge portions of treacle tart and a mammoth scrabble session. Max's revelation was left well alone.

‘Polly,' Chloë said quietly in the garden two days later, as if considering the aural qualities of the word alone.

‘Fenton,' Max elaborated, taking the hammer from Chloë and fixing the gate himself with a couple of very forceful, well-aimed clouts.

‘Does Polly Fenton know you're in Cornwall?' Chloë persisted with effective artlessness.

‘Nope,' said Max, bashing fence posts that were just fine. Gently, Chloë took the hammer from him and gave it to Genevieve who lugged it off to the studio where her father was at his potter's wheel. Chloë and Max heard a faint ‘Ow – careful!' from William, and they laughed.

‘Shall we go and see what the sea's up to?' Max suggested.

‘Heavens,' Chloë said with elaborate gravity, ‘I haven't checked on it since yesterday lunch-time. We
must
. Quick.'

They walked with purpose through the garden and out to the cliffs beyond.

‘Well, that's a relief,' said Chloë, regarding the shimmering water below. They sank down on to a knoll of downy grass and watched the gulls play.

‘Peregrine!' Chloë gasped.

‘Where?' Max replied, swivelling his neck and searching hard.

‘Gone,' said Chloë.

‘What the fuck am I going to do? Jesus. Fuck it,' said Max.

‘Get a cure for your Tourette's?' Chloë reprimanded gently.

‘I'm sorry,' said Max with a shrug, ‘I don't really swear much, actually.'

‘Just on special occasions?' Chloë asked with kind leniency.

‘Special,' Max said softly.

‘Want to talk?' Chloë asked.

Max snorted again, shook his head and regarded her directly. ‘That's what
I
usually say – I've never been asked that question because I've never needed it.' Chloë cocked her head and nodded, to comfort and encourage. ‘Know something?' Max continued, holding on to her eyes in earnest. ‘People presume me to be stronger than perhaps I am.
“Want to talk?”
– those words! How often have I offered them to a troubled friend with a beseeching face? And how great is the responsibility to be good old strong Max!'

Chloë looked at him and nodded her head. ‘Well?' she said.

‘Well what?'

‘Talk? Want to?'

He smiled at her with gratitude laced with an air of resignation. ‘I am not allowed to feel weak. Not me.'

‘Allowing yourself to feel vulnerable is a massive statement of strength,' Chloë responded, laying her hand on his shoulder. ‘Do you denigrate your friends for being feeble when they come to you in times of need? Do you denounce them as weak? Is weakness a failing?'

‘A friend in need—' Max started, ‘is a burden!'

‘Bollocks!' Chloë exclaimed to Max's surprise. ‘And I rather think you'd employ that very word if one of your friends said that to you.' With that, she evidently found something of utmost interest on the horizon and Max was afforded a few moments' reflection.

‘Chloë, I wouldn't know where to start,' he said resignedly, his head dropping visibly under the weight of it all.

‘Try a single word,' she suggested.

‘Difficult.'

‘Another?' she persisted.

‘Polly.'

‘Fenton?' she asked, as if to double-check as much as to elicit.

‘Yup,' Max confirmed.

After half an hour, Max could manage sentences of four to five words. An hour later, he had furnished Chloë with all the facts, and quite a few of the associated feelings.

‘What
is
it that you want, Max?' Chloë asked.

‘I want to feel strong again – because, and it's bloody difficult for me to admit, I
was
weak – weak-willed.'

‘And strength comes only with solitude and a small Cornish cottage all to yourself?'

Max did not respond. He stared down at the sea and imagined he saw dolphins.

Yes, actually. Maybe. I like being here. Away. I like it that Polly's not here – I like it that I'm so much more than just her boyfriend and Dominic's brother here.

‘What is it that you'd like to happen?' Chloë asked after a careful silence.

‘She's extraordinary,' said Max, as if it was quite a reasonable answer to Chloë's question.

‘You want to be back with her,' Chloë said quietly, as a statement.

‘America has changed her,' Max said despondently.

‘You sure?' Chloë probed, ‘I don't think so.'

‘How would you know?' Max retorted, snatching at the grass and finding it too short and tenacious to pull up. ‘You don't even know her.'

‘No,' Chloë conceded measuredly, ‘but I have a hunch that it might only be a phase, a temporary aberration. It's not America's fault – though her being there may have expedited it. Anyway, what about bad patches in the past? How did you deal with them?'

Max jerked and frowned. He had no answer. Chloë laughed. ‘You hadn't encountered any bad patches before?' she said incredulously.

‘No,' Max said slowly, suddenly just as incredulous. ‘No. I suppose not.'

‘Might not this be all it is?'

‘I don't know,' he shrugged, a certain light now filtering from behind his eyes and smoothing the creases on his brow. ‘How would I know? What I do know is that my proposal of marriage – too bloody hasty in retrospect – seems to have had the opposite effect of the secure, happy-ever-after seal I presumed it was to provide.'

‘But marriage aside, Max,' said Chloë, physically brushing the notion away, ‘are you content to let the relationship lie – more than lie,
die
completely? Without finding out? Without another try?'

‘No!' Max exclaimed, holding hard on to a tuft of grass to steady himself against a strong sensation of falling. ‘But look what I've found out.'

‘Well,' Chloë triumphed, ‘I think you're extremely lucky that, in all your years together, this is the first bad phase. Heavens, boy, seal it up and use it as a stepping stone to a higher plane – use the knowledge, the experience, to strengthen your relationship from hereafter.'

‘You sound like a preacher,' Max teased, running his fingers through the grass as he did Polly's hair.

Just as shiny. As soft. But green, of course.

‘Well,' said Chloë, plucking a single blade with ease and sucking its sweet shoot, ‘if proclaiming what you believe is preaching, then yes, I bloody well am.'

‘Don't swear.'

‘Sorry.'

‘How do
you
know?' Max asked, regarding her slyly, ‘how can
you
be so sure?'

‘Know what?'

‘About all – this—' he said, waving his hands impatiently and pulling a rather fetching grimace, ‘stuff. You know: love, loss, loathing, lust, and all the other “L”s in between?'

‘How do you
think
?' Chloë laughed. ‘From experience, of course.'

Max looked at her, stupefied.

‘Experience?'

‘Heavens, I had practically packed my bags for Scotland, never wanting to see William again and vowing only ever to use
plastic
crockery –
that's
how bad things had become.'

‘You and
William
?' Max stared at her, his eyes darting all over her face in utter disbelief.

‘The Max and Polly of West Penwith,' Chloë shrugged. ‘Us. The very same.'

‘Exactly,' said Max.

‘Exactly,' said Chloë.

‘Um, exactly what?' Max asked after a pause.

‘Doesn't that make you feel better, more positive, hopeful?'

Max considered quietly before humming and nodding and beaming a strong smile at Chloë which she had hitherto never seen, but of whose existence and capability she had remained quietly confident. Max stood up and breathed operatically. He turned to Chloë and held his hand out for her. She took it gladly and he shook it gratefully.

‘Thanks,' he said.

‘What are friends for?' she replied, brushing his gratitude away along with one of her auburn curls. As they headed back for the cottage and lunch, Max asked about the bad patch she and William had gone through.

‘I refused to marry him and he refused to live together.'

‘And you're now living together happily unmarried,' Max marvelled.

‘Exactly,' said Chloë, ‘blissfully.'

‘Now there's a thought,' Max said as they neared the kitchen door. ‘One more thing – Genevieve – was she planned or, um, flunked?'

Chloë laughed. ‘Meticulously – flunked.'

Max stayed on for a few days more. He stopped looking at the property section and, when he wasn't wedging clay for William, or helping Chloë, or conversing at length with Genevieve, he drew. He went through pencils at an alarming rate, often resorting to biro and the backs of shopping lists, not from choice but necessity. Max drew the cliffs, the goat called Barbara, the corner of the kitchen, Genevieve asleep, the back of Chloë's head, William working at his wheel. He drew his car, Chloë's bicycle, his healed feet, Genevieve's hands. He constructed still-life arrangements: one featuring his walking boots, Genevieve's teddy and an onion; another, a selection of broken pottery, the telephone and a banana. He went to Mousehole and drew boats. He went to Penzance and sketched tourists. He went to a play at the Minack Theatre and filled a sketchbook with drawings of the actors, the spectators and, later, the entire story of the play itself. He drew fish. He drew gulls. He drew a puffin with fish dripping from its beak, from memory.

Drawing was both cathartic and liberating. It was something Max had put on hold, that he had deemed an unaffordable luxury once he had left college and become a graphic designer. His only enduring concession to his love of drawing had been in relabelling himself a draughtsman. If he drew, in recent years, it had been only as rough preliminaries for commissions. Now Max was drawing again; subjects of his choice, on a scale in size and time which he defined. Some vast sketches he completed in ten minutes (Genevieve shell seeking); others little larger than envelopes took whole days (the puffin). All were united by his free and lucid style, their construction grounded in intuition as much as technique.

On the morning he left Cornwall, Max gave a drawing to each member of the household, including Barbara the goat. He and William shook hands firmly, laid a hand on each other's shoulders and then fell easily into a close embrace. He kissed Chloë gently, his hand in her hair, his cheek pressed against hers.

‘Keep drawing,' she said.

‘I will.'

‘Come and see us again,' she said.

‘I will.'

‘Bring Polly next time,' she said.

All the while, Genevieve clung to his left thigh and it took both her parents and the promise of chocolate to prise her away and unravel her clenched fists into farewell waving for Max.

‘Don't fuck off,' she sobbed after him.

But it is indeed time to leave, Max concedes out loud to his car as they cross the border into Devon.

‘I mean, poor Dom. And Megan. And my clients.'

And Polly.

How are we going to get you two together again?

Bloody Polly Fenton. I've been cursing you for not being more like Chloë – all serene and calm and measured in emotional output. I've been wishing you could smile gently instead of grinning like a child; that you might laugh softly instead of so hysterically that you snort. I've been bemoaning the fact that you're not taller, more substantial, more, I don't know, proper-grown-up-woman. And yet I'm not thinking specifically about Chloë, certainly not about Jen to whom I have given very little thought.

I'm talking about your scampering and sudden tears, the way you squeal and become overexcited or overtired. Recently, I have wanted you to trade your fluffy bedsocks and what you call your ‘bunny jimjams' for black lace and painted toe nails. God, sometimes it feels like I'm with a little girl. We shouldn't talk in baby voices, it's pathetic and nonsensical. Why are you so Marmite-centric in your taste? Couldn't you develop? And I wish you wouldn't love your bloody cat quite so obsessively.