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The silver handle of the cake slice was tarnished. Another job she could sort out for them. She had no idea how long she would be here, but the up-side of her situation was that she could be of use. She cut herself a big slice. This cake represented her childhood. Her life then had been divided into squares, time with Mum, time at school, time at Boskenna and time at friends’. The only misrepresentation was the size of the squares. The school and Boskenna squares should be larger. Now of course her life in cake would be far from neat. It would have a soggy bottom certainly and only one flavour.
Her mouth watered as she used the dainty cake fork. At least these were pristine. The explosion of sugar took moments to hit as it reached her empty stomach and blended with the caffeine. Over Gramps’ shoulder she could see dust collecting in the corners of the bookshelves. Mixed among the local history books behind him were some of her favourite children’s books. The cake dried in her mouth as she thought of her grandmother in bed upstairs.
‘Tell me about Gran.’
He picked up his cup. ‘It’s not good.’
There was nothing Lottie could say. Gramps looked into his coffee. His hand shook.
‘Doctor doesn’t say much.’ He turned to the view. ‘She’s eighty-five . . .’ Out of the window she could see Gribben Head basking in the sun. Lottie had never known a summer like it. The atmosphere in London had been so close, but here the air was fresh with the scent of the sea.
‘But she seemed fine a few months ago.’
‘True.’ His voice was wistful, and Lottie leapt to her feet.
She knelt at his side. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Me too. Me too.’ He patted her hand.
Her mother walked past the door without looking in the snug. Lottie stood.
‘I hope she’s OK.’ He gave her hand a squeeze. ‘Go to her.’ His voice was gentle, but Lottie understood. Gramps knew things weren’t easy with her and her mother, or for that matter between her mother and Gran. He was very intuitive. He’d read people well, especially Lottie.
‘Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’m just going to check on your grandmother. The nurse won’t be in for a bit,’ he said, pushing himself out of the chair then giving her an encouraging hug to send her on her way.
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Lottie (#ulink_00e0239a-87ba-5a7b-841c-abc74b41b868)
3 August 2018, 4.30 p.m.
Walking out the front door, Lottie noted a sea mist creeping across the lawn. Gribben Head had disappeared, the wind had dropped, and the air was still. In the past, she’d always felt that the world stopped when this happened, but looking ahead her mother hadn’t. She stole through the gates and down the lane. Lottie raced after her.
‘Mum?’
She glanced over her shoulder at Lottie, nodded, but didn’t speak. Even at a distance Lottie noted the shadows under her dark eyes. Where had her mother been recently? It always took her time to decompress after each assignment. Lottie knew enough not to speak. She was simply grateful her mother was here too. Her feet slowed, expecting her mother to turn towards the beach, but she continued up the lane towards St Levan’s Church.
She went straight to the small graveyard at the side of the building. There weren’t many graves. For years it had been a private chapel to the big estate. She stopped in front of a plain granite stone.
Allan Edward Charles Trewin
Born 4 August 1926
Died 5 August 1962
Loving husband and father.
Thirty-six, just. So young. Allan Trewin was her grandfather and she had been to the grave before, but this was the first time with her mother. That fact felt wrong, but she could count on one hand the number of times that her mother had been to Boskenna. She closed her eyes. Now was not the time to dwell on the past, but that was challenging in a graveyard filling with mist. It had covered Porthpean and was now depositing minuscule drops of water on everything around them. They softened each surface, including her mother who appeared out of focus.
She turned to Lottie. ‘Who put these flowers here?’
Lottie shrugged. Fresh flowers were always here, from what she remembered. Today they were bright blue hydrangeas with spiky red crocosmia. The one thing she was certain of was that it couldn’t have been Gran. It wouldn’t be Gramps. Why would he put flowers on the grave of his wife’s first husband? People were weird but not that weird.
‘Lottie?’
She blinked. ‘I don’t know.’
Her mother turned back to the grave.
‘Why are we here, Mum?’
Her mother sighed and said, ‘It’s almost the anniversary of his death.’ She traced her father’s name then the dates. It must have been awful to have lost her father when she was eight, but at least she’d had him. Lottie had never had a father. Well, there had to have been one in the picture in some form or another but not one that her mother had chosen to share with her. Foolish, but Lottie was jealous her mother had a gravestone to acknowledge that she’d had a father. In fact, although her mother didn’t like Gramps, she had a stepfather too. Lottie loved Gramps, but her mother didn’t care for him. Well, that was the polite way to describe her attitude. Lottie had never figured out why. From what she knew, Gran had been a widow for thirteen years before she remarried. Lottie’s mother was twenty-one then and no longer a child. But, maybe, for some things everyone was forever a child.
She peered through the mist at her mother who was still focused on the gravestone. Nothing made sense, especially being here now. Gran was dying, and her mother was standing in a damp churchyard touching a moss-covered stone. Lottie cleared her throat.
Her mother looked up, her eyes guarded. Lottie had seen that expression before. It was when she would lock things away inside, like all the horror she saw in the course of her work. She reached out and touched her mother’s hand.
‘Some things never leave you.’ Her mother’s voice was strangled. ‘Everything changed.’
Lottie clutched her mother’s long elegant fingers, so unlike her own small ones. As her mother glanced at her, Lottie caught pain in her eyes before she hid it again.
‘I’ve looked into the past and I see so little.’
‘Oh, Mum.’ She took a step closer to her. ‘Have you asked Gran?’
She nodded. ‘She won’t talk about it.’
‘It must be painful for her.’ Lottie pictured the frail woman upstairs in Boskenna now, who looked nothing like the vibrant woman in the black and white photographs in the house, with hair swept up, revealing a classic face. The clothes were elegant, and the makeup was so Sixties and Seventies. There were no pictures of Allan Trewin that Lottie had ever seen. His death must have been awful for Gran and her mother. Gramps didn’t seem the sort to fuss about pictures of his predecessor being around. He was just Gramps, so easy. She swallowed the smile that came to her at the thought of him.
‘I can look at this,’ her mother pointed at the carved slate. ‘With clear-sighted adult eyes and know my father died in a tragic accident.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But something eats at me.’
‘What are you saying, Mum?’
She shook her head and glanced at the grave. ‘I have only one strong memory.’
‘What’s that?’
She smiled, and her face became younger, lighter, happier. ‘You know. I’ve told the pirate story many times.’ She turned away from the gravestone. ‘I can’t picture any more than that, and that bothers me.’
Lottie looked down at her hand holding her mother’s. Lottie’s skin a smooth olive and her mother’s an embattled English rose. Lottie’s appearance spoke of somewhere else, but she didn’t know where. Her father had never appeared, no matter how much she wished he would.
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Joan (#ulink_ef3c4878-4a64-5503-ad9f-e6af10689247)
3 August 1962, 4.35 p.m.
The flowers are arranged, and I’d reviewed bedrooms for the final time with our housekeeper, Mrs Hoskine, and still Allan and Diana aren’t back. Sighing I walk to the end of the garden and stand by the gate to beach path. Below Diana is skimming stones with Allan laughing beside her. She picks up a pebble and holds it out to him. He examines it carefully before handing it back and watches her form as she throws. It bounces twice then drops out of sight. He turns to the American woman, Beth, and her husband speaks to Diana, touching her shoulder. I frown. Allan isn’t paying attention and he should be. He’s become engrossed in conversation with Beth and his smile gleams. Something twists inside me. Why did he bring these strays into our world? Is he just filling the void again?
‘Joan, that’s a fierce look.’
At the sound of a familiar voice, I look up through my eyelashes and my stomach tightens. ‘Tom.’ I grin. ‘You’re early.’ I kiss his cheek and step back to study him.
‘Problem?’ He raises an eyebrow.
‘Never.’
‘Good.’ He studies my face. ‘Not sleeping?’
I touch my cheeks. The powder I applied this morning must require another application. ‘Can’t fool you?’ I turn back to the view.
‘I should hope not.’ He laughs then asks, ‘New friends?’ He opens his cigarette case, the one I gave him for his thirtieth birthday. It’s inscribed with one word, Always. That was years ago and the feeling hasn’t changed. Never have we ever crossed that line, but I don’t know if that is true of Tom and Allan.
He lights a cigarette and hands it to me. I take it while he lights one for himself then squints into the distance. ‘They don’t look local,’ he says.
Exhaling, I watch the smoke swirl. ‘American.’ I turn to him, noting the tell-tale darkness under his eyes. It only serves to enhance the blue of his irises. They remind me of a Cornish sky on a perfect summer day.
‘Interesting.’
‘Indeed, they are joining us for dinner tomorrow, so you can discover for yourself.’
He frowns. ‘George Russell arrives tomorrow around noon.’
‘Everyone will hopefully be out enjoying the sun they are promising.’ I look at the darkening clouds. ‘Which should give us some time alone.’
‘It will be like old times.’ He rubs his chin and a boyish grin appears.
‘Yes.’ I take his arm and we walk together towards the house. However it could never be like old times and we both know that.
We reach the front door where he picks up his bag asking, ‘Usual room?’
I nod with my mind on the Venns then what he’d said sinks in. ‘Sorry, Tom, not the usual room. Due to numbers I’ve had to move you into the little one by my parents’ old room.’
He smiles. ‘Downgraded, eh?’
‘Sorry.’ I raise my shoulders.
‘How many guests?’
I shake my head. ‘Too many.’
‘Allan?’ He holds out an arm directing me to enter first.
‘Yes, ever the host.’ I check my watch.
‘Some things never change.’
‘True.’ I chuckle. ‘Shall I show you up?’
‘No need, you are tight on time. I’ll see you,’ he pauses, ‘just before drinks?’
‘Diana,’ I say. ‘She comes to tell me about her day’s activities then.’
‘Ah, yes.’ He turns away. ‘A bit later then.’
He walks through the dining room to the far staircase and I remember the past. Things could have been so different. The scent of the roses in my trug catches the breeze. I pick up a bright red bloom and bring it to my nose. Its fragrance is a heady damask touched with spices. Arabia. Rose water. Souks. Innocence. A thorn pierces my index finger and I squeal, dropping the flower. Pulling the thorn out, I watch the blood pool then drip into the basket before I put my finger into my mouth. The blood tastes metallic. Memories . . . sailing and catching my finger on a splinter, Tom coming to the rescue, removing the bit of wood and placing my finger in my mouth. As I did that, he stared at me with such intensity, I shiver even now. Those intelligent blue eyes have haunted me ever since. I shake my head and dismiss the past, I have work to do.
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Lottie (#ulink_c40c7efd-bb76-57df-b0ff-eed14487ad19)
3 August 2018, 5.00 p.m.
Just as they went through the gates and onto the gravel parking area, her mother’s phone rang. It sounded important. Lottie prayed it wasn’t some world crisis that needed her mother’s award-winning reporting. Her mother veered back towards the gates where the phone signal was stronger. Inside the house Lottie checked downstairs for Gramps, but there was no sign of him. He must be with Gran or maybe taking a walk in the garden but she doubted that, with the fog. She couldn’t see past the end of the lawn.
In the snug she found an old wooden tray resting against Gramps’ chair and loaded all the tea stuff onto it. The small kitchen revealed more evidence of the neglect she’d noticed earlier, and her heart sank. She had been so bloody self-involved she hadn’t realized what was happening here. Rerunning the phone calls in her head, the conversations followed a normal course . . . the garden here, the weather, but mostly it had been about the collection she had been putting together for exhibition of young designers at the V&A. They were both so proud of her and had planned to come to London for the opening of the exhibition in the new year. She held her breath for a moment as a sharp pain pierced her temples. There was no sense in dwelling on what was lost. In all those calls they never mentioned Gran’s health, but there were things she’d never said either. She checked her phone: nothing.
But looking around there were signs of distress. Dishes and pans were washed but not put away. It wasn’t just breakfast things either but items from the night before. Opening the fridge, she saw ready meals. This wasn’t how her grandparents lived. Her heart sank further; she should have been here, no excuses.
After washing and clearing, she glanced out of the kitchen window towards the small walled garden. She would cut some flowers for Gran and the rest of the house. It might give her an indication of the amount of time her grandmother had really been ill. She knew Gramps wouldn’t tell her. He might be American, but through Gran or maybe just his own nature, he did the stiff upper lip thing rather well.
Both her grandparents adored the garden, be it the special camellias or the vegetables. They grew most of their own produce so if the vegetable patch wasn’t in good shape then they had been keeping Gran’s illness from her for a while.
Out in the courtyard, the mist swirled across the cobbles – blazing sun to impenetrable fog in the same day. She smiled, pushing open the gate and thinking of all the happy hours spent here with both of them. Vegetables, roses, and in the glass-houses, peaches and tomatoes. Her nose twitched anticipating the smell.
Hearing a noise, she looked to the nearest glass-house and gasped. She had been prepared for anything but what she saw. Alex Hoskine, her first love, stood with hose in hand watering the tomatoes. She hadn’t conjured him out of her memories earlier. It had been ten years almost to the day since she’d last seen him. And during those years he’d haunted her dreams and she woke wanting to say so many things. Now she was standing here with her mouth open and her vocal chords seemingly disabled. Memories raced around in her head, from their first kiss to the last angry words she said to him.
He looked up and squinted at her. Damn. This wasn’t going to be easy. She needed to apologise, but she also wanted to know what the hell he was doing here at Boskenna working in the kitchen garden. Where to start?
‘Lottie.’ His voice had become deeper since she’d last seen him. Back then he’d been twenty, lean and fit as hell, but now the promise of youth had been fulfilled and then some. Her mouth dried. She couldn’t still be attracted to him, not after all this time, but her body was telling her years made no difference. She was standing in front of her first love and her body remembered each and every caress, whether she wanted it to or not. This was not convenient. Her focus must be on Gran and Gramps not on her romantic history.
He turned the tap off and put the hose down. ‘Your grandfather mentioned he’d called you.’ He walked towards her but stopped just short. This was awkward. How did she greet him after all these years . . . a handshake?
‘Yes, this morning.’ She looked down.
‘She’s been ill for a while.’ He turned from her, giving her his back.
That said it all. She’d been too self-absorbed. ‘How long?’
‘There’s been a sharp decline these past few weeks, but it’s been months.’
She should have known. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, trying to think clearly.
He picked up the watering can. ‘Where have you been? They needed you.’
‘I didn’t know.’ She clenched her fist.
He looked up with a dismissive glance. ‘You haven’t changed then?’
