Chloe (40 page)

‘No it's not!' he chided gently.

‘Yes,' assured Chloë, ‘it is. Actually. He's meeting me here, we're going to rummage together, you see.'

‘Rummage!' laughed William.
God, her skin really is like porcelain.
‘Indeed?' He brought over two mugs of strong tea and heaped a spoonful of sugar into both. Chloë thought it rude to inform him that she took her tea weak and unsweetened but was pleasantly surprised at how quickly his brew warmed and revived her. And she didn't want to offend him; not least because he was friendly and open. And rather attractive too. She'd stay awhile, wait for Mac here with him. They sipped in silence, smiling occasionally over the rims of their mugs.

‘So,' said William once he had drained his, ‘who, exactly, are
you
?'

The humming girl did not answer; she was miles away. She was gazing full force at the corner of the room and, as he watched, the colour slipped from her face and faded away.

‘Hullo?' he said. She did not hear. His gaze followed hers and alighted on his tall coiled urn, presently home to an umbrella and the raffia mat on which he had sunbathed away many a summer afternoon. She looked quite shocked; a tiny, lovely dent in her brow spoke of it; her eyes, fixed and wide, proclaimed it; her silence and sudden deafness emphasized it. Tentatively, he walked his fingers over the table and touched her knuckles lightly.

‘Hey?' he said.

She looked at him, her face giving nothing away. She caught hold of his eyes and refused to let them go, burrowing into them, trying to make sense of it all.

Could it be? Could it really be? Him? This chap? Was it? Now? How come?

What lovely eyes, she thought.

What did I think he'd look like!

Fresh and handsome, she observed.

I never stopped to think!

This couldn't be happening, this couldn't be real. Blink, girl!

Slowly, Chloë's flat expression softened and the corners of her mouth lifted easily.

‘Hey!' he welcomed.

‘Hey!' she replied.

‘Who are
you
?' he asked again.

‘I'm Jocelyn's god-daughter,' she informed him with a spirited smile, ‘and you,' she proclaimed, squeezing his wrist quickly, firmly, ‘
you
are William Coombes!'

William's face was wide open, his lips parted and his eyes would not keep still.

She knows
me?

Oh yes!

She
knows
me
!

She does indeed.

The humming girl?

The very same.

With the freckles and the porcelain skin, the beautiful neck and eyes of mahogany?

And the tresses of burnished auburn that have lingered with you so.

In my kitchen?

Right here.

And
she
knows
me?

‘You
are
William Coombes,' pleaded Chloë, her brow twitching and magnetizing William's senses, ‘aren't you?'

Suddenly she so wanted it to be him that she found herself terrified that perhaps it was not. He had said his name was William. Don't let coincidence ruin the possibility.

‘I am he,' he declared softly.

‘Hey,' said Chloë through her smile, ‘I'm Chloë. Cadwallader?'

After the penny had dropped, they dissolved all formality in a round of unfettered laughter and Good-Lording.

‘Would you like to see the studio?' William asked, still shaking his head slightly.

‘Would I!' Chloë grinned, offering her mug for a refill.

There in the studio, his heaven and hers, he stood back while she inspected. Traversing the room in a world of her own, she ran her eyes and her fingers over all that greeted her; she smelt the clay, spun the banding wheel, examined the tools and held little pots of glaze pigment up to the light. She flipped through books and dipped her fingers gingerly, before dunking them entirely, into a small bowl of
terra sigillata
that had the entire workbench to itself. She sat quietly astride William's wheel. Motionless, she gazed out to the cliffs and beyond.

William watched her all the while. Here was the humming girl, right here, whom he had known so well for almost a year yet never met. Reality had not let the day-dream down and the flesh was as enchanting as the fantasy. The very stuff of his late-night last thoughts was now rummaging about his studio in front of him. She was lovely and real and ingenuous.

Might she?
William wondered silently, hoping that she would. Commanding all powers of telepathy, he implored her to do it; hum.

Don't!

Do!

Chloë didn't need to be asked, aloud or otherwise. He watched her gather her hair back, dip her face in and out of the vessels, trailing her hands over them, brushing her forearm against one surface, pressing her cheek against another, making small music all the while. She declared that this piece sounded so much lower than the range of the Ballygorm urns, that one there just a tone or two higher. She told him of the tune they had made, of the comfort and pleasure they had given her in Ireland. That they looked beautiful in the luminescent Antrim spring, that she still thought of them; standing intimate, united and timeless. But William was too overcome with the luck of it all even to take the compliments on board, let alone graciously. He just nodded and said ‘Oh' and did not think to tell her that they had been sold as a set and that he had been commissioned for more.

Chloë understood it as modesty and liked him all the more for it. He sat in the slip-splashed Windsor chair while she perched neatly on the end of the trestle; they chatted and smiled and marvelled to themselves that they should have met. The humming girl and the lone potter.

It was late afternoon. Chloë was just recounting the story of Mrs MacAdam and Fraser's shoes to William, when the prefix of the landlady's surname reminded her why she was at Peregrine's Gully and put a temporary hold on her train of thought.

‘Mac,' she murmured, a little alarmed, her eyes searching William's for the course of action.

‘He said to meet him
here
?' asked William. ‘For a
rummage
?'

‘At elevenses,' confirmed Chloë to stress the authenticity of the arrangement and the urgency of the situation.

‘What were you to rummage for?' William enquired, keeping his own curiosity at bay lest it should unnerve her.

‘The key!' announced Chloë.

‘To what?' asked William.

Chloë sighed and squeezed a lump of terracotta clay. ‘I have absolutely no idea.'

William phoned Mac who claimed to have had a funny turn, deary me. Whatever could he have been thinking? Gracious, please forgive – damned dementia! The key? But of course, right here in the cutlery drawer. Of course. Where else? Come and get it. No, not now. Tomorrow, a cup of tea? For two? Ah! For three! See you then. Oh, and lovely sandwiches, thank you.

William walked Chloë to her bicycle. The afternoon had been treated to a glorious burst of sunshine; the sun itself a distant pink lozenge that proffered little warmth but invested the land with a clear, crystalline light. He heard himself suggesting they could walk together to Mac's the next day.

‘I mean, if you like. Er, if you'd like some company.'

‘Heavens yes! I mean, thank you.'

Although impressed by Chloë's conscientious acquaintance with much of the north coastal path, this would be a section she would not have explored and William found himself keen that she should not tread it alone. Or at least, not without him.

‘So much nicer to share,' said William, not actually to Chloë but out loud, none the less.

‘Tomorrow, then,' said Chloë, suddenly unable to regard William directly though she knew she'd curse herself later for forgoing such an opportunity.

‘Yup,' William affirmed, kicking a clod of grass and grinning at Barbara.

C
hloë cycled appallingly to Peregrine's Gully, her knees as much a-quiver as her senses.

I wonder if he'll be as handsome today!

She very nearly parted company with her bicycle twice but her desire to arrive in one piece, unflustered, and with her hair almost in place, was far stronger and she arrived at William's late but unscathed.

Heavens, he is. What am I thinking! He's a stranger – and he's probably utterly psychotic or else madly in love with someone else anyway.

William, whom thankfully we at least know to be single and sensible, sat Chloë at his table with a mug of sweet tea. Worrying that she might chill, he disappeared to fetch a thick jumper. He took the stairs two at a time and wondered why his heart was racing when he was actually rather fit.

I'm probably falling for something. The flu. A cold.

He walked back down to the kitchen measuredly, bundled the pullover into her arms self-consciously, and blew his nose sonorously. On their way out, he introduced Chloë formally to Barbara, reading and then ridiculing any significance in the goat's acceptance of and apparent affection for her.

‘Where are you from, Chloë Cadwallader?' he asked as he guided her to the far end of the garden and straight out towards the cliffs under a scatter of kittiwakes. ‘Where do you live?'

‘I'm not sure really,' pondered Chloë, hoping it did not matter. ‘How long have you lived out here at Peregrine's Gully?' she digressed half presuming him either to say he was xenophobic or that he would be moving in with some girlfriend soon.

Girlfriend?

Well, look at him! Isn't he bound to have one? And I suppose it'll make things easier if he does.

William, however, informed Chloë that he and Barbara had lived there for almost seven years.

As they walked past Pendour and Porthglaze coves, William regaled her with shamelessly embellished tales of smuggling days and was charmed by the way she marvelled and said ‘Really? Heavens!' with such wide eyes. He cupped her small shoulders in his hands and turned her gently inland to face the mountains of West Penwith, pointing out the rocky hills of Hannibal's Carn and Carn Galver, explaining that unfortunately the latter obliterated the lonely chimney of Ding Dong Mine from view.

‘Maybe you'd like to visit it one day?'

‘Yes, I would.'

‘Maybe I could take you?'

‘Oh! I'd like that. Thank you.'

‘Not at all. Soon, perhaps?'

‘Soon as you like – shifts permitting.'

‘Oh? Where do you work?'

‘The Good Life – in St Ives, it's a wholefood café.'

‘You don't!'

‘I do!'

‘A-bloody-mazing.'

Tramping onwards, slaloming through the gorse, Chloë told William about Skirrid End, about Table Mountain and the Sugar Loaf and she remarked that though these Cornish hills were undeniably lower, they were certainly not lesser. She declared them to retain the quintessential grasp of mountains; a remoteness, a stillness, a solemnity and grandeur.

‘Do you know, they remind me of Wales, of Scotland – an irrefutable Celtic tone, I think, underlining and uniting.'

Heavens, am I prattling? Does he even find me interesting?

While Chloë racked her brains, accordingly, for another topic of conversation, William interjected: ‘Actually, my father lives in Gwent, quite near Crickhowell.' William liked very much the way Chloë spoke of the land with such reverence. Wasn't that rare for a woman? Or those he had known at any rate.

‘Crick?' Chloë murmured. ‘That was just around the corner.'

‘Before your sojourn in Northern Ireland?' William reminded himself out loud, chancing too upon the image of the pony-trekker with Chloë's hair, of the brooch in the fruit bowl at the farmhouse.

It couldn't have been! Could it?

‘Yes,' confirmed Chloë, ‘before Antrim and most recently, bonny Scotland.'

‘And which place did you like the best?' asked William, wondering where he had put the letters she had written him from Ballygorm. ‘Which is your favourite and to which will you return?'

‘I loved them all,' she sighed a little sadly, ‘and hope to go back to each some day. For a visit. A holiday.'

‘To live?' furthered William, presuming that she'd say ‘Scotland'.

Probably has some bloke waiting for her, kilt and all.

An image of ‘Loop Loop Go Home' daubed on the redundant grain silo near Ballygorm shot across Chloë's mind. Home? Where? She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. William was surprised by his relief and hoped it was not audible.

‘And Cornwall?' he said softly after a quiet moment, not wishing to press, not wanting to pry, but oddly keen to know everything right now.

‘Cornwall is last on Jocelyn's itinerary,' Chloë explained.

‘And do you like it here?' he asked, gazing over the sea as if her answer would not matter. He did not like the ensuing silence. And the fact that he did not like it alarmed him rather.

‘Yes,' replied Chloë, glancing at William's cheek and repressing a startling urge to touch him. ‘I do like it here. I think. So far.'

William strode on ahead, walking backwards and grinning at Chloë.

‘Do you believe in fairies, Cadwallader?' he called, thrusting his hands into his pockets and springing lightly on the spot. ‘In pixies and the little folk?'

Chloë caught up with him and wiped her nose briskly on the borrowed jumper, squeezing her thumb and forefinger into the corners of her eyes to pinch away the tears elicited by the wind.

‘Why yes,' she said gravely while the sunlight spun copper from her hair and brushed gold and pink over the right side of her face, glinting in the rivulet coursing down her cheek, ‘I rather think I do.'

‘Good,' declared William, who would have liked to kiss her but walked on staunchly instead, forwards this time and in the right direction, ‘Mac
will
be pleased.'