The Shell Seekers (55 page)

"Like what?"

"An exercise to plan, or a report to be written?"

"No. The rest of the day is my own."

They began to walk. A thought struck Penelope. She said, "I hope your Sergeant doesn't get into trouble. I'm sure he's not allowed to carry people's shopping in his Jeep."

"If anybody gives him a rocket, it's me. And how are you so sure?"

"I was in the Wrens for about two months, so I know all about rules and regulations. I wasn't allowed to carry a handbag or an umbrella. It made life very difficult."

He appeared interested. "When were you in the Wrens?"

"Oh, ages ago. In nineteen-forty. I was in Portsmouth."

"Why did you leave?"

"I had a baby. I got married and I had a baby."

"I see."

"She's nearly three. She's called Nancy."

"Is your husband in the Navy?"

"Yes. He's in the Mediterranean, I think. I'm never very sure."

"How long is it since you've seen him?"

"Oh ..." She could not remember and did not want to. "Ages." As she said this, high above, the clouds parted for an instant, and a watery gleam of sunshine broke through. The wet streets threw back the reflection of this light, and stone and slate were washed in gold. Amazed, Penelope turned up her face to this momentary brilliance. "It really is clearing. Mr. Penberth said it would. He listened to the weather forecast and he said the storm would blow over. Perhaps it will be a beautiful evening."

"Yes, perhaps it will."

The sunlight disappeared as swiftly as it had come, and all was grey again. But the rain had finally stopped.

She said, "Don't let's go up through the town. Let's go by the sea and up by the railway station. There's a flight of steps that comes out exactly opposite the White Caps Hotel."

"I'd like that. I haven't really found my way around yet, but I suppose you know it like the back of your hand. Have you lived here always?"

"In the summer-time. In winter we lived in London. And in between we went to France. My mother was French. We had friends there. But we've been in Porthkerris ever since the outbreak of war. I suppose we'll all stay here till it ends."

"How about your husband? Doesn't he want you around when he conies ashore?"

They had turned into a narrow lane that ran alongside the beach. Pebbles had been flung up onto this by the high tide, and scraps of seaweed and a ravelled end of tarry rope. She stooped and picked up a pebble and slung it out into the sea. She said, "I told you. He's in the Mediterranean. And even if I could be with him, I couldn't, because I have to take care of Papa. My mother was killed in the Blitz in nineteen-forty-one. So I have to stay with him."

He did not say, I'm sorry. He said again, "I see," 'and sounded as though he really did. 

"It's not just him and me and Nancy. We've got Doris living with us and her two boys. They were evacuees. She's a war widow. She never went back to London." She looked at him. "Papa liked talking to you that day in the Gallery. He was cross with me because I couldn't ask you for supper ... he said I was very rude. I didn't mean to be. It's just that there wasn't anything I could think of to eat."

"I much enjoyed meeting him. When I knew I was being sent here, it crossed my mind that perhaps I might see the famous Lawrence Stern, but I never really imagined it would happen. I thought he'd be too old and frail to go out and about. When I saw you first, up on the road outside HQ, I knew at once that it had to be him. And then, when I walked into the Gallery and you were actually there, I could scarcely believe my luck. Such a painter, he was." He looked down at her. "Have you inherited his talent?"

"No. It's very frustrating. Often I see something that is so beautiful it hurts, like an old farm building, or foxgloves growing on a hedge, blowing in the wind against a blue sky. And I wish so much that I could capture them, put them on paper, keep them for ever. And, of course, I can't."

"It's not easy to live with one's own inadequacies."

It occurred to her then that he did not look a man who knew what the word "inadequate" meant. "Do you paint?"

"No. Why do you ask?"

"Talking to Papa, you sounded so knowledgeable."

"If I did, it was because I was brought up by an immensely artistic and creative mother. As soon as I could walk, I was marched around every gallery and museum in London, and made to go to concerts."

"It sounds as though you might have been put off culture for life."

"No. She did it quite tactfully and made it all immensely interesting. Made it fun."

"And your father?"

"My father was a stockbroker, in the City."

She thought about this. Other people's lives were always fascinating. "Where did you live?"

"Cadogan Gardens. But after he died, my mother sold the house because it was too big, and moved into a smaller one in Pembroke Square. She's there now. She stayed there all through the bombing. She said she'd rather be dead than live anywhere but London."

Penelope thought of Dolly Keeling, snug in her little bolt-hole at the Coombe Hotel, playing bridge with Lady Bloody Beamish and writing long loving letters to Ambrose. She sighed, because thinking about Dolly always made her feel a bit depressed. There was always this guilty feeling that Dolly should be asked to stay at Cam Cottage for a few days, if only to see her granddaughter. Or that Penelope should suggest visiting the Coombe Hotel, taking Nancy with her. But both prospects were so appalling that she never found it too difficult to put them hastily out of her mind, and start thinking about something else instead.

The narrow road leaned uphill. They had left the sea behind them and now walked up between rows of whitewashed, terraced fishermen's cottages. A door opened and a cat emerged, followed by a woman with a basket of washing, which she proceeded to peg out on a line slung across the face of her house. As she did this, the sun came out again, quite strongly now, and she turned a smiling face upon them.

"That's a bit better, isn't it. Never seen such rain as we had this morning. Be lovely before long."

The cat wound itself around Penelope's ankles. She stooped to stroke it. They went on. She took her hands out of her pockets and unbuttoned her oilskin. She said, "Did you join the Royal Marines because you didn't want to be a stockbroker, or because of the war?"

"Because of the war. I'm known as an Hostilities Only Of-ficer. I always think it sounds a bit derogatory. But neither did I want to be a stockbroker. I went to University and read Classics and English Literature, and then I got a job teaching little boys in a Prep School."

"Did the Royal Marines teach you how to climb?"

He smiled. "No. I was climbing long before that. I was sent to a boarding school in Lancashire, and there was a Master there who used to take a gang of us climbing in the Lake District. I got completely bitten at fourteen years old, and I just went on doing it."

"Have you climbed abroad?"

"Yes. Switzerland. Austria. I wanted to go to Nepal, but it would have meant months of preparation and travelling and I never could spare the time."

"After the Matterhorn, the Boscarben Cliffs must look easy."

"No," he assured her drily, "no, they are not easy."

They continued on their way, ascending, taking the hidden, twisting lanes that the visitors never found, and mounting flights of granite steps so steep that Penelope was left with no breath for conversation. The last flight zigzagged up the face of the cliff between the railway station and the main road, finally to emerge directly opposite the old White Caps Hotel.

Warm with exertion, Penelope rested, leaning against the wall, waiting to catch her breath and for her heart to stop pounding. Major Lomax, coming behind her, appeared to be unaffected. She saw the Marine on guard eyeing them dispassionately across the road, but his expression gave nothing away.

When she could speak, she said, "I feel like a bit of chewed string."

"Small wonder."

"I haven't come that way for years. When I was small, I used to run up all the way from the beach. It was a sort of self-imposed endurance test."

She turned, leaning her arms on the top of the wall, and looked down the way they had come. The sea, ebbing, was calmer now, reflecting the blue of the clearing sky. Far below, on the beach, a man walked his dog. The wind had dropped to a fresh breeze, scented by the damp mossy smell of gardens soaked by rain. It was a smell loaded with nostalgia, and for once Penelope found herself caught off-guard, and was suffused with a mindless ecstasy that she had not known since she was a child.

She thought of the last couple of years: the boredom, the narrowness of existence, the dearth of anything to look forward to. Yet now, in a single instant, the curtains had been whipped aside, and the windows beyond thrown open onto a brilliant view that had been there, waiting for her, all the time. A view, moreover, laden with the most marvellous possibilities and opportunities.

Happiness—remembered from the days before the war, before Ambrose, before Sophie's shocking death. It was like being young again. But I am young. I am only twenty-three. She turned from the wall to face the man who stood beside her and was filled with gratitude, because in some way it was he who had wrought this miracle of deja vu.

She found him watching her, and wondered how much he perceived, how much he knew. But his stillness, his silence gave nothing away.

She said, "I must go home. Papa will be wondering what's happened to me."

He nodded, accepting this. They would say goodbye, part. She would go on her way. He would cross the road, return the salute of the man on guard duty, run up the steps, disappear through the glassed door and perhaps never be seen again.

She said, "Would you like to come to supper?"

He did not instantly reply to this suggestion, and for a dreadful moment she thought he was going to refuse. Then he smiled. "That's very kind."

Relief. "This evening?"

"You're sure?"

"Perfectly. Papa would so like to see you again. You can continue your conversation."

"Thank you. That would be delightful."

"About seven-thirty, then." She sounded horribly formal. "I'm . . . I'm able to ask you because for once we've got something to eat."

"Let me guess. Mackerel and tinned peaches?"

Formality, restraint melted. They dissolved into laughter, and she knew that she would never forget the sound of it, because it was their first shared joke.

She found Doris agog with curiosity. "Here, what's going on? There was I, minding my own business, and this smashing Ser-geant turns up at the door with your baskets. Asked him in for a cup of tea, but he said he couldn't stay. How did you pick him up?"

Penelope sat at the kitchen table and told the whole story of the unexpected encounter. Doris listened with eyes growing round as marbles. When Penelope finished, she let out a screech of coy delight. "Ask me, and it looks like you've got an admirer ..."

"Oh, Doris, I've asked him for supper."

"When?"

"This evening."

"Is he coming?"

"Yes, he is."

Doris' face fell. "Oh, hell." She sat back in her chair, the very picture of despondency.

"Why hell?"

"I won't be here. Going out. Taking Clark and Ronald over to Penzance to see the Operatic Society do The Mikado."

"Oh, Doris. I was counting on you being here. I need someone to help me. Can't you put it off?"

"No, I can't. There's a bus organized, and anyway it's only on for two nights. And the boys have been looking forward to it for weeks, poor little blighters." Her expression became resigned. "Never mind, can't be helped. I'll give you a hand with the cooking before I go, and get Nancy to bed. But I'm not half vexed that I'm missing all the fun. Hasn't been a proper man in the house for years."

Penelope did not mention Ambrose. Instead she said, "What about Ernie? He's a proper man."

"Yes. He's all right." But poor Ernie was dismissed. "He doesn't count, though."

Like a couple of young girls kindled with innocent excitement, they set to work; they peeled vegetables, made a salad, buffed up the old dining room table, gave little-used silver a cursory clean, polished the crystal wineglasses. Lawrence, alerted, heaved himself out of his chair and made his way cautiously down to the cellar where, in happier days, he had stored his considerable stock of French wine. Now, there was little remaining, but he returned bearing a bottle of what he termed Algerian plonk and, as well, a dusty bottle of port, which he proceeded, with the utmost care, to decant. Penelope knew that no greater tribute could be paid to a guest.

At twenty-five past seven, with Nancy asleep in her bed, Doris and the boys departed, and all as ready as it would ever be, she fled upstairs to her room to do something about her own appearance. She changed into a clean shirt, pushed her bare feet into a pair of scarlet court shoes, brushed her hair, plaited it, wound it up into a coil, pinned it in place. She had no powder, no lipstick, and had used the last of her scent. A long and critical gaze in the mirror afforded small satisfaction. She looked like a governess. She found a string of scarlet beads and fastened them around her neck and, as she did this, heard the gate at the bottom of the garden open and click shut. She went to the window and saw Richard Lomax making his way up the fragrant garden, up the stepped path towards the house. She saw that he, too, had changed, from battledress to the semi-formality of khaki drill and a chestnut shining Sam Browne. He carried, discreetly, a wrapped parcel that could only contain a bottle.