Chloe (28 page)

‘You'll live alongside me?' asked Fraser quietly, keeping his eyes away.

‘If I may,' said Chloë sweetly, ‘for the summer. If you'll have me.'

Fraser regarded her quizzically, quietly acknowledging her link with Jocelyn. A distant cuckoo clock informed them that it was midnight and Fraser dipped his head slightly at each chirp. Chloë noticed how nicely his hair spun itself into whorls here and there. She pulled her fingers through her own locks in a patient but futile exercise in detangling.

‘When I was sixteen, seventeen,' he explained, drawing breath and then taking a hearty gulp from the glass, ‘I was right down there,' he pointed well beyond the floor. ‘I was troubled and confused – and utterly alone. I could speak to no one for what I had to say I believed to be unutterable. Despicable.' Chloë kept quiet and sipped her whisky, running her eyes along Fraser's slender hands. He was obviously not a farmer. Or a sculptor.

‘Jocelyn,' he continued, absent-mindedly twisting a spiral of Chloë's hair between his fingers, ‘came on one of her visits – she'd come each season, you know?'

‘Because “Scotland's beauty remains constant”,' paraphrased Chloë mistily, ‘despite season, time of day, the weather?'

‘Aye!' laughed Fraser, giving Chloë's hair a gentle tug. ‘You'll be her god-daughter all right!'

‘I'm sorry, I interrupted you.'

‘Not at all! Anyway, she could tell something was amiss – when I was sixteen, seventeen – that I needed to talk but was unable to ask. She took me out for the day on some pretext or another. We skimmed pebbles, talked idly, ate rock cakes she'd baked. My tongue was tied, there was lead in my belly. It was excruciating. It was when I said should we head back that she turned to me and put her hand on my cheek. Here,' he took Chloë's hand and placed it against his face, ‘right here. She said to me – I remember it word for word – “Whatever you do, wherever you'll go, whoever you'll be, we will never cease to love you.” How did she know? Hey?'

Chloë's eyes were wide. How did Jocelyn know indeed, she wondered, and what was it that she knew? Fraser scanned her face, Chloë searched back.

‘Gay?' he suggested quietly.

Chloë's eyes did not widen but she nodded her head to say ‘Ah ha! I see!' She let her hand stay against his cheek.

‘I'm gay,' Fraser said openly and most mundanely, ‘but however did she know? Back then?'

‘Jocelyn had a gift,' said Chloë after a moment's reflection, ‘an intuitive – I don't know –
feeling
for the soul, an innate understanding of the psyche – anyone's! She always knew when I was out of sorts – no matter how brave a face I pulled, how strong a voice I used.'

‘Was it not just that!' Fraser agreed taking her hand from his face and holding it tightly between his. ‘And you know, I think it was her unconditional acceptance that helped my father to embrace it too. She made sure I told him just before they went off for a day out together. When they returned, he held me – he rarely did – as if I were a wee one, and told me he was proud of his son.'

‘I'm sure he was,' said Chloë warmly. They sat and sipped in an easy silence until the cuckoo announced one o'clock.

‘You must be ex
-haust
-ed!' Fraser proclaimed, enunciating the ‘h' again.

‘I am a little sleepy,' conceded Chloë.

‘Christ if I've not even made up your room!' wailed Fraser, clasping his brow.

‘Don't worry,' said Chloë, ‘I mean, you were hardly expecting me. Besides, I feel I could sleep anywhere!'

‘With me?' Fraser asked logically with an open face. Chloë looked up to his amiable eyes glinting warmly, and down to his beautiful hands cupping the empty glass.

‘Fine,' she declared before giggling an aside: ‘It seems I'm destined to have a bedfellow in every country I visit. And you're hardly likely to jump me, are you!'

They unbuckled their tired bodies into Fraser's bed which was old, wooden and vast, and said good-night to each other. Just before sleep took her, Chloë found herself speaking abruptly and very loudly.

‘Fraser!'

‘Hmm?' he managed.

‘The wedding,' she asked, suddenly envisaging bridal underwear in her rucksack, ‘here? But Braer House is
not
a hotel?'

‘Not a hotel,' confirmed Fraser woozily, ‘but my inheritance. I was living in Glasgow up until my father died. An old friend of his – an aunt of the bride – asked if he wouldn't mind
hosting
the wedding – you know, opening the house. It was agreed months ago, you see. I could never have reneged.'

‘Of course not!' said Chloë, realizing that she was quite thankful to have arrived on such a day.

They stopped talking and sleep hovered once more.

‘Who's Maggie?' she asked suddenly, knowing sleep was impossible without an explanation. ‘Fraser?'

‘I put an advert in the local paper for a waitress to help with today,' he explained patiently, in a flat voice edged with slumber. ‘She answered. In fact, she was the only respondent. I've not met her; she's away at school, you see.'

‘Why didn't she turn up?'

‘Because her parents got wind of where she was going.
Who
she'd be helping. I don't know them – but they obviously know
me. Of
me. Of my despicable,
queer
type. My bent, faggoty
species
!'

‘God, really?' said Chloë aghast. ‘Do you seriously come up against such prejudice?'

Fraser sat up in the darkness for he knew he would have no peace from his bedmate just yet.

‘It's funny,' he explained, ‘I'm tolerated by some of the most unlikely people – and yet loathed by many I would have credited with open minds.'

‘The lady,' exclaimed Chloë, a sudden clarity washing the furrows from her brow, ‘in the multi-purpose post office?'

‘Ho!' laughed Fraser. ‘Molly! Now, Molly thinks I'm
diseased
,' he explained while Chloë winced, ‘and yet she adored my father – deceased!' he smirked. ‘Anyway, when she found out that the poor man's son was a “
you-know-what
, one of
those
”, she never again charged him for his daily paper – as a perverted gesture of condolence! Oh, we laughed long about that one.' Chloë laughed alongside him. ‘Now I have trouble even
buying
a paper from her. To say nothing of stamps!'

With pressing questions answered satisfactorily, further elaboration could well wait until morning. They bade each other good-night once more and Fraser wished Chloë sweet dreams. On waking the next morning, she could not remember if she had dreamt at all, never mind how sweet or otherwise they had been. She glanced over to Fraser who was still asleep. She was not surprised to see him and was happy that he was there. Noiselessly, she crept out of bed and tiptoed downstairs in search of her rucksack. She rescued the Andrews from the deluge of lacy lingerie which swamped them. Mr Andrews looked decidedly flushed from the ordeal and cleared his throat vociferously.

‘Seems like a nice chap, that Fraser,' whispered Mrs Andrews, digging her husband sharply with her elbow for bristling slightly.

T
he Cornish summer blessed its visitors and its natives with consistently sunny, balmy weather. Skies of ultramarine were interrupted only in a most photogenic way by wisps of high cloud filtering across in the mid-morning and late afternoon. If it rained, it did so unobtrusively at night. The landscape remained verdant, the gorse dazzling and fragrant, the sea warm, and the cream clotted until it was positively brick-like. The sheep and dairy cows grew plump while the hotel owners and cream-tea sellers became quite fat from the rewards of tourism. William's summer was going spectacularly. He had finished a series of tall bottles with long, slender necks and tiny openings that made them ideal for single roses or vinaigrette. They were easy and satisfying to throw and the people who came to purchase his pebble pieces for their gardens often bought such bottles for their mantelpieces or kitchens too.

Living off the beaten track had its advantages, for caravan trails rarely blemished his view. Likewise, the dearth of fish and chips and fudge outlets in his vicinity allowed it to remain relatively unscathed by those holiday-makers dependent on such victuals. Though the popular National Trust coastal trail passed within yards of the boundary of Peregrine's Gully, William saw this as a boon. He was quick to deduce that the calibre of visitors who preferred to stride the path from Zennor to St Ives, rather than pack themselves into the south beaches and broil, matched exactly potential patrons of his pottery. He had thus erected a small but enterprising, carefully calligraphed wooden sign on the edge of his land which proclaimed ‘Ceramics' with an arrow, and had since welcomed a steady stream of inquisitive walkers with a penchant for pottery. Such people were rarely ‘just looking' or, if they were initially, they soon found that they passed William their money most willingly. William would chat quite affably about glazing and the weather, while packaging the wares in wadges of bubble wrap bought in bulk on a whim the previous winter; keeping them safe for collection later, when his clients had traded walking boots for sundresses and sandals.

When they drove to pick up their purchases in the evenings, William surreptitiously arranged other complementary pieces to solicit their eyes and their purses; it was rare indeed for him not to hear ‘Oh go on then! I'll have that small dish too!' While smiling pleasantly, he silently trebled an already excessive figure in his head, transferred it on to paper and then added a most courteous fifty-percent discount in red ink. The fact that he would elaborately discount his carefully inflated price tags, further aided sales. William was welding a new-found awareness of marketing with a recently uncovered trait of Cornish shrewdness. He even thought to send his CV with small, complimentary bowls to
Country Living
and
Crafts
magazines and was rewarded with short but illustrated listings for his effort.

After the last of the day's sales had been collected and William had exchanged pleasantries and shaken hands energetically, he added names and addresses to a somewhat haphazard mailing list. He thought he might send out cards at Christmas illustrating new works (with prices inclusive of postage and packing). It occurred to him that he marketed his wares just as well as Morwenna but remained thirty per cent richer at all times. Not to mention fathoms happier and more relaxed on both emotional and physical counts. At last he was catering for his public, and serving them well, without compromising his artistic needs. He still made mugs and teapots, bowls in sets of six, but he made them to his own specifications, and his anomalously healthy bank account was proof of their success.

Barbara found her master's countenance infectious and was pleased to play soppy nanny goat whenever be-ruck-sacked folk appeared at their gate. She even wore a bell on an embroidered collar so that William could hear precisely when to leave his studio, emerge into the garden and brandish his most welcoming smile from his clay-caked smock.

By early August, having confirmed that most pottery patrons walked and bought in the early afternoon, William could afford to take the odd morning off and would stroll to Mac's once a week for coffee and an animated exchange of their increasing fortunes.

‘I'm clean out of medium bowls now and am selling as many bottles as an off-licence!'

‘Well, I've been averaging twenty piskie mugs a day – sales that is – but only manage to make half that amount. Demand, you could say, is outweighing supply!'

The clientele of the local bed-and-breakfast establishments and holiday bungalows raved for Mac's pixie-embellished pottery, often buying a mug each for the whole family as well as other items that would do nicely as Christmas presents.

‘Piskies see,' Mac would say with a burr and a wink that made tourists melt, ‘are peculiarly Cornish!'

He was even in cahoots with a local fudge maker who piled squares of his confectionery into Mac's small bowls, doubled the price that each fetched separately and then halved the proceeds with Mac. They sold well, so well that William reserved his kiln on Sundays as an overflow for Mac.

Mac was delighted to witness William's change of fortune and the resultant effect on the boy's psyche. He saw how the sun had streaked blond into William's hair, had tanned his skin nicely and deepened his eyes to conker brown. He also reflected on the strange irony that it appeared to be a certain deficit in the love department that had in fact reinstated the spring in William's step, the glint in his eyes and the enthusiasm infusing his days.

‘Ever see that Saxby woman?' Mac enquired nonchalantly.

‘Who?' smiled William, twitching his eyebrows most becomingly.

Mac found he could even ask quite openly after the health of William's father, and was informed that, once the deluge of tourists subsided, William would visit him again. Perhaps in a month or so.

An incident on the cliffs in mid-August hastened William's return to Wales.

Whilst walking to Mac's he came across his mother, or at least a carbon copy of her for she had been dead some six years. A young boy and his father were deeply involved in an intricate hybrid of volleyball and soccer using an old green tennis ball; their border collie acting as both goalie and referee. All three had concentration etched across their brows, their breathing short but elated. Every so often a peal of laughter accompanied by an abrupt bark rang out as a particularly skilful tackle or blinding goal was executed. They were playing on a perfect pitch provided by nature where the coastal path had climbed to the cliff head and spread out into a downy plateau.

William had fixed on them from far off. As he approached he heard the tight grunts and clipped laughter of excitement. Nearing, he saw flushed cheeks, watering eyes, hair sticking in shards to the back of the neck and forehead. He caught hold of their expressions of determined enjoyment and observed that the game was as important and satisfying to each of them – the father was not humouring the son and the dog was not a nuisance but an integral part of the game. It
was
a game, it was
play
, and yet the resolute effort of the players suggested it was something more as well.