Deep Water, Thin Ice (16 page)

Theo folded his arms and stuck his hands under his armpits, looking around with a rueful expression.

‘I haven’t been up here for years,’ he said. ‘It’s a shame to see it falling down.’

He moved suddenly and took a couple of steps towards where the altar would have been and then crouched down, sweeping leaves and rubbish away from one of the stones.

‘What is it?’

Alex came up behind him and looked over his shoulder. He pointed at the worn chiselling on the surface of the stone.

‘Somebody’s gravestone. It’s too worn to read. Some hermit or priest or something.’ He straightened up and he was looking down on her, serious suddenly. ‘We used to reckon that there were probably lots of graves around her. These sites are passed on as holy from generation to generation aren’t they, going back millennia? We used to talk about digging around here, finding all sorts of grave goods. We never did of course. We always treated the chapel with a bit of respect. Simon especially used to love it.’

‘Really?’ Alex glanced round, surprised. Simon had never been a church goer. ‘Who does it belong to, the Church?’

‘Don’t think so. No idea really. The chapel dates back several hundred years originally, though it’s been rebuilt a few times. It’s not been used ever since I can remember. I guess no-one wants the expense of looking after the place so it’s just falling apart.’

‘Mm. Shame.’

They went outside again.

‘It wouldn’t be such a bad place to be buried at that, would it?’ Theo said softly, sweeping his arm to indicate the tussocky grass. Thrift grew amongst it, the pink flowers rocking in the breeze off the sea. ‘Peaceful, great view.’ He nodded, unusually introspective. ‘No, I think I might put it in my will that I’d like to be buried up here.’ He looked up at the sky which was deep blue with white scudding clouds and his mood brightened. ‘Looks like the forecast was right for once. Let’s move on.’

‘What about the tide? How will we get back?’

‘If it’s too far in we’ll cadge a lift from Andy on the ferry. Come on. If we take the coast path there’s somewhere along there with a great view where we can stop for lunch.’

Alex glanced back once more at the old chapel and then followed him.

*

‘Mother?’ There was no answer and Theo walked through into the sitting room. Sarah was lolling in the wing-backed armchair, her head resting sideways on the wing. Her eyes were closed and her breathing heavy. On the small side table sat an empty cut glass tumbler. A book had fallen from her lap to the floor. ‘Mother?’ he repeated sharply.

He walked across, retrieved the book and threw it down on the coffee table. Sarah woke up with a start as it slapped down on the glass surface. She stared at him blearily and then smiled as she realised who it was.

‘Theo. You’re back. Have a nice day darling?’

‘It went well…mostly.’

Sarah frowned, licked her lips with a dry tongue and straightened up in the chair.

‘What do you…?’ she began but Theo cut her off impatiently.

‘Really mother, you need to be more careful.’

‘Careful? What do you mean by that darling?’

‘Apparently when Alex showed you round the house you made a big point of talking about Julian’s room.’

‘I did?’ Sarah’s frown deepened.

‘So inevitably she started asking me all about Julian.’

‘Does that matter?’

‘It is too soon to be talking about Julian, you do see that don’t you?’

Sarah struggled to straighten herself in the chair and glanced at Theo with a frown, trying to clear her head.

‘I don’t know what you mean. I said all the things you told me to say when you phoned me. I wrote them down on the pad as you were saying them.’ She extended one hesitant index finger towards a notepad on the sideboard by the phone. ‘I told you already: I talked about you and Kellaford Bridge, who she’d been talking to, her sister, her plans…’ She counted off the subjects on her fingers as she went. ‘I don’t think I said much about Julian; I just mentioned that the end room was his bedroom…and it was.’

‘Well something about your manner made her think. She particularly wanted to know how he died.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘I told her the truth or part of it anyway. I told her that he was crossing the stones when the tide was already too high and he fell in and was carried away and drowned.’

‘That’s all? You didn’t mention Simon?’

‘It works to our purpose if she continues to adore Simon. I remind her of Simon.’

Sarah’s face crumpled into another frown.

‘I really can’t think why.’

‘Because I make sure I do,’ he replied crossly. ‘Really mother, you must understand and keep to the plan. If you try to make her think badly of Simon at this point you’ll jeopardise the whole thing.’

‘All right, all right,’ she said huffily, pushing herself carefully to her feet. She reached down and picked up her glass. ‘I won’t say anything else about him.’ She crossed to the sideboard and picked up the decanter of whisky, looking at its remaining contents reproachfully as if they had gone down while she was asleep.

‘Don’t drink that,’ Theo said, coming across to her and taking it out of her hand. ‘I’ll make you some tea. You should be starting to cook for dinner soon anyway.’

‘Are you in for dinner this evening?’ she asked, her expression changing to childlike expectation.

‘I will be if you’ll cook it.’ Bob Geaton was going away again this weekend but it was only Friday; Theo could visit Helen the next day. He put his arm round Sarah’s waist and squeezed her, unable to stay cross with her for long.

‘Come on Sally,’ he said, shepherding her towards the kitchen. ‘Make me a big dinner.’

‘You say it went well though?’ she asked, craving his reassurance.

‘Yes. We went up to the old chapel by Dolphin Point. Simon loved it up there remember?’

‘Did he?’ She turned round with a puzzled expression as they reached the kitchen.

‘Of course he did. Don’t you remember? That was one of his favourite places; he said it was really peaceful.’ He paused and made sure he had her full attention. ‘That’s why I knew she’d want to see it: because Simon liked it so much.’

‘Oh.’ Sarah nodded, a light frown still puckering her brow. ‘I see.’

September already. Alex stood in the middle of the sitting room and surveyed it. Drawing room, she corrected herself. That’s what Theo always called it and with its grand dimensions and now freshly decorated, she supposed the title suited it better. It was nearly finished. It had taken three weeks altogether, three weeks of patchy solitary work, helped on odd evenings and weekends by Theo, to transform the dingy, disintegrating décor into something she could live with. All that remained to do was to get fresh curtains made and choose some new furniture. Gone was the blousy pink rose patterned paper which Sarah had chosen all those years before, and the heavy burgundy damask which had hung below the dado rail, to be replaced by a delicate blue-grey bamboo pattern on the upper part of the walls and a fine-striped blue paper below. The woodwork was finished in white satin and the wood-block floor, courtesy of a local company, had been thoroughly sanded and resealed a gleaming honey colour. A couple of rugs set it off nicely. The grandfather clock which she’d left unwound for weeks had been repositioned again and now ticked reassuringly as if it had never done anything else. She’d consigned the night-time episode of the frozen hands as the result of a bad dream and what Victoria had once described as her ‘wild fancies’. ‘Too much time spent in that fantasy music world of yours, daydreaming,’ her mother had gone on to say. It hurt to admit it but maybe she was right.

In between decorating, when, tired of dust and paint fumes and wallpaper paste, she’d needed a break, she’d walked down to the nature reserve. It was especially quiet there at the moment. The birds had finished nesting, some had gone, a few would be feeding up ready for the autumn migration, and those who would over-winter were yet to arrive. The margins of the ditches rocked with late summer flowers: yellow bur-marigold and purple loosestrife and pinkish-white sprays of water plantain. In response to her questions, Mick had told her all their names.

He was taking advantage of the low water levels and lull of activity to clean out some of the ditches and cut back sections of the reeds. ‘Management,’ he called it, in one of his more talkative moments. ‘Left to themselves the ditches will silt up and the reeds would choke, dry up and slowly become scrub. The birds will look after themselves – any wildlife will - but you have to give them the right habitat and that requires planning and management.’ He showed her how, over the years, he’d dug and shifted the earth to form bunds and channels, installed basic sluices to control the water levels and made a couple of suspended board walkways to allow him to cross the water to the far side.

Visiting the reserve was like stepping into another world, with none of the grief-ridden baggage which weighed down her own. On odd occasions Mick was almost amiable and then seemed obliged to compensate by being grumpy or at best distant, but at least he made no attempt to draw her out or ask intrusive personal questions. With her increasing familiarity there, she regularly took refuge in a succession of jobs which, out in the murmuring, rustling wilderness, threw a soothing blanket over thoughts she preferred not to pursue.

She’d kept her promise and not told anyone she went there though she was happy to keep the two existences separate anyway. But disguising what she was doing wasn’t always that easy. On her way back from The Grenloe one day, having been helping Mick clean out some of the reed bed, Liz Franklin called her over to the garden where she had just invited Minna and Harry in for tea and insisted that Alex join them.

As they sat down to home-made scones and jam, Alex noticed Liz’s gaze rest for a moment on the bits of stem, leaf and earth sticking to her tee-shirt. To avoid comment, she began asking Minna about the time she’d worked at The Hall for the Hellyons. Behind round, strong glasses, Minna’s eyes were sharp and bright but she dismissed her memories as ‘Not too good any more. It was such a long time ago.’ Harry, on the other hand, appeared eager to talk but his speech was fitful and muddled and he became frustrated and then distressed. It was painful to see. ‘He’s rather tired; he didn’t sleep well,’ Minna said defensively and took him away suggesting he needed to rest. Not wanting a probing tête à tête with Liz, Alex made her escape too. Walking back up the hill, pulling a stray piece of twig from her hair, she wondered if there was another way she could get down to the reserve without going through the village and being seen.

But none of these activities could fully distract Alex from the increasing awareness that there were choices she had to make. Autumn was coming on and she’d been in Kellaford Bridge five months already. Sooner or later she would have to decide what to do about the house in London. In any case, Erica wouldn’t let her forget. Since the awkwardness of their parting in July, they had managed to reinstate a relationship of sorts. They talked on the phone, each on their best behaviour, talking mostly about Ben or items in the news. But recently Erica kept dropping hints. ‘I went to a performance of Fauré’s Requiem the other day,’ she said one evening. ‘Quite good but I’m afraid the soprano was a bit disappointing. Her Pie was nothing like yours.’ And, another night: ‘I bumped into Ros yesterday. She said that people were asking when you’d be back on the circuit again.’ Alex refused to get drawn in. Erica mentioned the house regularly too; she would drop it into the conversation, assuming a casual tone. ‘Should I get the boiler serviced? With winter coming on, you’ll need it seen. It’s under contract isn’t it?’ or, more peevishly, ‘There’ve been a lot of burglaries in your road recently. It’s a terrible worry Alex, looking after your house.’

‘I’m sorry Erica but I never intended you to have to look after it.’

‘What else am I going to do? I’m your sister.’

‘When I left I didn’t really expect to be away so long. I wasn’t thinking straight.’

‘Well, now you need to decide what you want me to do about it. I mean it’d be nice to know when you’re thinking of coming back.’

‘I know. And I appreciate you worrying about the house,’ Alex had said, meaning it, but evading the issue. ‘But I really don’t expect you to do anything with it. Though I suppose it’s not wise to just leave it empty and uncared for like that. Perhaps I should get an agency to look after it.’

‘Oh no.
I’ll
do it.’

Alex felt she was in a permanent revolving loop with Erica. If she allowed her to continue checking on the house, she was exacerbating Erica’s sense of grievance; if she used an agency, Erica would feel spurned and inadequate. And clearly this spiralling, confusing interdependence was nothing new; it was just that she had been too blind and swept up in her own affairs to see it like that before. Or perhaps she hadn’t wanted to see it. Still she knew it wasn’t fair to impose on Erica. She wondered if everyone’s sibling relationships were complicated like this.

She put the thought aside but still the issue remained: what to do with the London house? Did she want to keep it? Could she imagine going back to live there? She tried to picture it. London; people she knew; pressure; journalists; intrusion and questions. The Underground. Her stomach turned in knots at the thought of returning. Perhaps she could rent it out while she decided? Could she face letting it out to strangers? And wasn’t putting the decision off just cowardice anyway? Surely it would be better to make a crisp decision one way or the other, for while she prevaricated it was difficult to settle in Devon, to make plans or go ahead with renovations. She was effectively preventing herself from moving forward. A voice in the back of her head suggested tauntingly that that was precisely why she did it.