An Enormous Yes (29 page)

‘E
ACH TIME
I see this place, I love it more.’ Felix stood back to assess the chapel’s austere and simple façade. ‘Its very plainness is attractive, don’t you think – nothing fancy or frivolous?’

‘Yes, it appeals to my abstemious nature.’

‘There’s nothing abstemious about you, darling, except for your Catholic conditioning. And,’ he added, as they slipped round the side of the building, to explore the former graveyard, ‘I didn’t see much trace of the good little convent girl last night. That sketch you did of my cock was utterly
shameless
!’

‘Blame it on George’s wine! Wasn’t it exciting, though, going back from the party and drawing each other naked?’

‘I’d say! I’ve never known you so brazen – scrutinizing every nook and cranny of my body, genitals included, without so much as a blush!’

‘Yes, but watching you get bigger and stiffer really turned me on – all the more so because we knew we couldn’t touch each other until we’d finished our sketches.’

‘I’ve never worked so fast in my life,’ Felix quipped, giving her a quick, passionate kiss once they were hidden from the road. ‘Perhaps we should frame the drawings and put them up in the chapel.’

‘Lord, no! Wesley would turn in his grave.’ And
she
would be seriously embarrassed. Felix had penetrated so intimately with his pencil, he had made her seem audaciously available, so that anyone looking at his portrayal would feel like a voyeur. ‘By the way, talking of graves, I’m glad they’ve got rid of them here. I’m not sure I’d like to live surrounded by the dead.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. A ghost or two might be interesting.’

Maria shivered suddenly, aware of Silas’s ghost still haunting her, until his funeral in just four days’ time. To distract herself, she inspected the window ledges, checking on the condition of the stone. ‘It’s a good thing the
owner doesn’t live on the premises or he might think we’re snooping – I mean, coming back a third time, on our own.’

‘’Course he won’t. He’ll just know we’re keen.’

Keen, most certainly; convinced less so. She had promised to give Felix her decision tomorrow evening, yet she still hadn’t quite succeeded in banishing her scruples. ‘Let’s go for a walk to the sea,’ she suggested, almost wanting to remove herself from the source of so much conflict. Never in her life before had she viewed a house for sale, or been consulted as to its purchase, and although the experience was empowering it triggered all her worries again.

‘OK, we’ll leave the car here and go on a circular tour – down to Par Sands and back. I should remember the way, because I did that walk when I came in June.’

They set off, arm in arm, towards the church, pausing to greet an elderly couple, approaching with their dog.

‘This place was once on the sea itself,’ he told her, once the trio had passed, ‘with fishing boats and a ferry and a really busy harbour.’

‘How weird! So where’s it disappeared to?’

‘Well, the estuary gradually silted up and, over the years, there was so much sand and muck and stuff, it was no longer navigable. There was also a big medieval priory, which stood roughly where this church does now. But Henry VIII dissolved it, along with hundreds more.’

‘My mother detested the man! Not only for his immoderate number of wives, but because of all that destruction.’ Although it was her father, not her mother, who was actually on her mind, as they stopped to look at the war memorial just outside the church. A heroic and unselfish man, who had sacrificed his life for others, might be deeply disappointed in a daughter tempted to desert her grandchild and embark on a life of self-fulfilment.

‘Well, lecherous Henry apart, I have to say I enjoy living in a place with so much history. Tywardreath is mentioned in the Domesday Book, so George says. And it’s directly on the Saints’ Way, which means we’re walking the exact same route as the early Celtic saints. They thought nothing of travelling from here to France with no map or compass, in a flimsy open boat. In fact, one of them sailed right across the Irish Sea on nothing more substantial than a leaf – or so they say! I’ve been reading up on all that stuff and it seems miracles were two a penny then. There was a hermit who lived on a self-renewing fish and every time he ate a slice for dinner the piece grew back, ready for the next meal. And a saint who calmed a raging sea just by making the sign of the cross over the fifteen-foot waves.’

‘Felix, you’re beginning to sound as pious as my mother!’

‘Oh, I love that sort of thing – so long as I’m not expected to take it
seriously
.’

‘And
I
love being in a village again. Everyone we’ve passed so far has stopped to say hello, whereas in London they’d look through you.’

‘We’re still foreigners, though, to them. Even George is still regarded as an incomer and he’s lived here thirty years.’

‘It’s a bit like that in
my
village, but it doesn’t mean we’re not friendly. And I do relish the peace and quiet here – no planes or sirens or traffic.’

‘Don’t speak too soon,’ he laughed, as a noisy tractor came chugging up the street. ‘Wait a sec – I need to check this road … Yes, it’s Well Street, which leads into Tywardreath Hill, so we go all the way down to the bottom and that should take us to Par Sands.’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said, as they strolled along in the sunshine, ‘about my mother’s cottage. Or
my
cottage, I should say, now that probate’s come through. If I do move here, what on earth should I do with it?’

‘Let it?’ Felix suggested.

‘But that’s such a hassle, and difficult to do long distance, if I’m living in Cornwall, five hundred miles away. Anyway, I’m not sure I’d ever get tenants, unless I spent a fortune first doing the whole thing up. Frankly, I’d rather sell it and put the proceeds into the chapel. In fact, I like the thought of having some real stake in it.’ Guilt stabbed and stung again. Hadn’t she planned to make the cottage a country retreat for her grandchild?

‘Then, if you wouldn’t mind,’ she continued, as if attempting to excuse herself, ‘I could invite Amy and the baby to stay for occasional holidays.’ Couldn’t the chapel be the new country retreat? It was far superior to the cottage, in terms of its amenities and size, and would also symbolize a complete new start; a break with all the sadness of the past. The south should be gentler and kinder than the north.

‘Of course I wouldn’t mind, darling. In fact—’ He broke off as a car came speeding round the narrow bend of Tywardreath Hill, and quickly yanked her out of its path. ‘I should have warned you, this is a dangerous road, what with no pavement and blind corners and crazy drivers like him!

‘Don’t forget,’ he continued, as they proceeded, with more caution, down the steep incline, ‘the chapel already has planning permission for a garage at the back, so if we need an extra bedroom and bathroom, those could be built on top.’

She gave a noncommittal grunt, cursing herself for having broached the subject prematurely. If she were planning to have Amy to stay, he would assume the matter was settled and that she had dismissed her former
doubts. If only there weren’t other people involved – not just the living, but the dead. She could almost feel her mother’s disapproval at the very prospect of selling the cottage when it had been their home and sanctuary since 1946. And another continuing source of guilt was the loss of the Treasure Box. The police had failed to catch the perpetrators, let alone retrieve the stolen goods.

‘Look ahead,’ Felix urged, once they had crossed Polmear Road and turned onto a footpath, ‘for your first glimpse of the sea.’

She gazed out at the expanse of deep-blue water; the foam-flecked waves glittering in the sun. ‘Oh, it’s beautiful,’ she said.

‘Well, you may be disappointed. There’s a clay-works on the beach, although it’s not visible from here, and also a rather hideous caravan park, but that’s conveniently hidden by the dunes. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself in a sec, because this path brings us straight onto the sands.’

Once they were facing the whole wide sweep of the bay, she felt no trace of disappointment. A lone horse and its rider were cantering along the shore; people walking dogs and flying kites, and a posse of gulls swooped and soared in the generously blue sky.

‘I
like
the clay-works,’ she said, as they swung along the sand in the
direction
of the tall white chimneys. ‘They add a bit of character.’

‘Well, we’ll have a better view of them if we walk to the end of the beach. Then we can return to Tywardreath a different way and finish up at the pub. Hey, talking of pubs, Daniel said there’s a new gastro-pub in Fowey, with pretty decent food. And, as tomorrow’s our last night, I’d like to take you out to dinner there and maybe drive on afterwards to Readymoney Cove. Emily’s doing a series of watercolours, with different views of the cove, and I’d rather like to see it for myself, especially in moonlight.’

‘Felix, a moonlit sea is far too romantic for
you
, for goodness’ sake!’

‘Well, I’m sure I could make it suitably stark, if I decided to paint it myself.’

He stopped a moment, to look out at the sea, screwing up his eyes against the glare. ‘See that ship, far out on the horizon?’

She looked where he was pointing, but it was hard to make out anything beyond a blurry shape, veiled by the shimmering heat-haze. Her future, she realized, was equally vague and indiscernible; nothing settled, nothing certain, only nebulous hopes, fluid possibilities, unresolved temptations.

Yet, when she switched her gaze to the sand, everything immediately shifted into focus: clear, distinct, substantial and gloriously bright. And she was suddenly aware how futile it was to waste these last two precious days
on creeping guilts and uneasy speculations. She must enjoy the shining moment, as she had done at George’s supper party, and leave her decision till the latest possible point, tomorrow night.

‘T
HAT GREAT SHINING
path across the sea looks incredibly romantic. Even you can’t deny that, darling!’ Maria gazed out at the scene: the waves shimmering and rippling beneath an almost-full moon; their frills of foam embroidered with a silver sheen; light and darkness swirled together in the part-luminous, part-sombre sky. This cove was like their own private beach, deserted at the midnight hour; the dark hulks of sentinel cliffs rearing up on either side, as if to ensure that no intruder invaded its
seclusion
.

Felix turned her round to face him and looked deep into her eyes. ‘Yes, it’s wonderful,’ he whispered, ‘and tonight I’m a true romantic. I haven’t brought you here to get ideas for my work, but to ask you, officially and solemnly, if you’ll agree to share my life.’

Instantly, she tensed; her decision still not made. Was it even possible to make so difficult a choice, when whichever way she decided would involve heartache and regret? The soft sssshh-ings of the waves seemed to fill the silence with an uneasy, threatening roar, and it wasn’t hard to imagine this sultry summer night suddenly being riven by a storm.

Slipping from his embrace, she tried to focus on the beach, if only to still her mind by noting tiny details, like the artist she was meant to be: the tangled skeins of seaweed festooning the murky sand; the two sets of
foot-prints
stretching back behind them; his larger and more emphatic than her indeterminate ones. Then, moving her gaze outward again, she looked beyond the pool of glittering moonlight to the ocean’s furthest edge. It seemed jagged and serrated, as if it had ripped itself from the black seam of the sky, in a last bid to remain unattached and separate.

‘Maria,’ Felix prompted, approaching tentatively, yet linking his arms tight around her waist, ‘I’m not asking you to marry me – that’s far too conventional for a woman as unique as you. I’m asking you to live with me, down here, and commit to me, as I promise to commit to you.’

She could feel his chest pressing against her back; his warm, solid hands clasping her cold fingers. How extraordinary that, despite the warm night air, she should be shivering all over, as if battling through a force-ten wind.

He bent his head to her shoulder and spoke softly into her ear. ‘I
understand
how difficult this is for you, so I’ve tried not to pressure you. But before we leave tomorrow, I’d like to put in an offer on the chapel, so you do really need to tell me, is it yes or no?’

All at once, she knew one thing at least: her answer had to be instinctive, to issue from her heart. She had agonized too long already; tried and failed to make a rational, measured choice. She also knew that whatever words might spring to her lips would somehow be the right ones – that she trusted totally – yet still she wasn’t sure what form those words would take.

The pause seemed endless; no sound except her slight, nervous cough, as she tried to clear her throat, and the ever-insistent swish-swish of the waves. The sea didn’t care which choice she made; the barren moon was utterly indifferent; the clouds more intent on their own languorous, nocturnal movement.

At last, she swivelled round to face him, about to speak in the same soft tone as his, but the words erupted in a triumphant yell – a yell so loud the whole Cornish coast must hear. ‘Yes!’ she shouted. ‘My answer’s yes – “an
enormous
yes”, just like you wanted me to say. I’ll live with you and share the chapel. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
yes
!’

Suddenly, she was racing towards the sea, he pelting in pursuit, the pair of them whooping and hollering like Gillian’s madcap kids. And, even at the water’s edge, they stopped only to kick off their shoes and tear off their clothes in a fever of excitement, before wading into the jolting cold. She caught her breath as the water, with its fierce caress, began creeping up her legs, fondling her thighs; lapping against her belly; lingering across her breasts; a skilled and sensuous suitor, exploring every curve and hollow of her body.

She, the greedy woman, who had opted for pleasure and excess over the leaden chains of duty, was now revelling in two simultaneous lovers: the icy grope and tingle of the sea and Felix’s scorching bush-fire of an embrace.