Deep Water, Thin Ice (9 page)

Having shunned so many people, Alex was surprised at her pleasure in his company. Theo was easier to be with however. Unlike her friends and family, he didn’t overwhelm her by trying too hard. But in any case, she’d already found there was nothing simple or linear about getting through bereavement. For while one minute she wanted to be left in complete isolation to pick over the sores of her grief, the next she felt acutely vulnerable and bereft, desperate for human contact and support. Had she actually progressed in any way? It was hard to tell for her anguish seemed to ebb and flow like the tide.

Now Alex turned hesitantly on the Lodge doorstep and considered leaving. Why had she come? Because it was kind of Sarah Hellyon to ask her? Partly. Because Sarah was Theo’s mother and the courtesy of the visit thanked him in some way for his kindness? Undoubtedly she’d thought that too. But since there was no answer, Alex felt justified in leaving. With a sense of relief, she turned away from the door just as it opened soundlessly behind her.

‘Alexandra Brook?’

She jumped and span round.

‘Oh, Mrs. Hellyon, you’re there.’

‘Yes. Have you been waiting long? I’m so sorry. Won’t you come in?’

‘Thank you. It’s Alex, by the way. People call me Alex.’

Sarah was wearing a fine tweed skirt and a silk blouse. On her feet were neat court shoes; her hair was immaculate, her apparently casual blonde bob set into position with hairspray. She was smiling but it was as if the smile was fixed on some point slightly behind Alex’s head.

Alex was shown into the sitting room and offered a seat on the chintz-covered suite. Sarah disappeared to the kitchen to make coffee and Alex, ill at ease, wandered to the front window to look out. The view was a lower version of the one from the side window of her bedroom, over the drive and down towards the river Kella. She wandered across the room to the south window and found herself looking out over the gently rising ground towards her own home. An empty lead crystal glass had been abandoned on the window sill. Her unease thickened.

‘Are you settling in?’

Sarah entered bearing a tray and Alex quickly turned.

‘Yes…thank you.’ She hesitated. ‘Theo’s not here?’

‘No. He’s just started a job at a boatyard in Dartmouth, working for an old friend. Didn’t he say?’

Alex shook her head and moved to sit on the sofa, regretting the remark. She’d made it sound too important to her.

Sarah sat erect on the edge of her armchair and poured coffee from the percolator into china cups, inviting Alex to help herself to milk and sugar. She offered beautifully arranged biscuits from a matching plate and took one herself, nibbling it daintily. The offered hospitality was thorough and yet appeared to require effort. Conversation was slow and stilted. Sarah had the light, high voice of a teenage girl which seemed at odds with her prim clothes, aloof manner and considered phrases.

Was Alex thinking of staying and perhaps doing Hillen Hall up? Sarah eventually asked, her hazel eyes fixed on Alex while she waited for her response. When Alex admitted she would like to improve the place – it must have been a charming house and garden at one time – Sarah immediately fetched a photograph album and came to sit beside her. Alex glanced at her curiously. She must have been very pretty once, she thought. She had fine even features and the remains of a good complexion. But now, visible through her make-up, she had dark shadows under her eyes and a sallow colour. And, as Sarah leaned over the album at Alex’s side, the smell of whisky mingled unmistakably with coffee on her breath.

The photograph album was large and leather bound. There was one foxed sepia photograph from 1914, the family sombrely posed on the lawns in front of the Hall, their servants, equally severely lined up behind them. Time jumped on to the twenties: smaller groups, fewer servants, more informal poses and more casual clothes. Then the servants disappeared from the photographs and the family stood alone.

‘So, these would be Simon’s - what? – grandparents?’ said Alex, staring at a photograph of a sober couple standing erect, their two children in front of them.

‘Yes. That was Jonathan Hellyon and Frances, his wife. And that is Felicity…’ She pointed at the girl in the picture. ‘And that was Richard, Theo’s father, taken during the war. Everything changed then. Richard was only four when war was declared but he remembered them having some injured soldiers billeted here. He found it all rather disturbing I think. He was a sensitive boy.’

Alex glanced surreptitiously at Sarah’s face. There’d been something in her voice suggestive of disappointment. She studied the photograph again. The girl was noticeably taller than the boy.

‘But Felicity was older than Richard?’

‘Yes. There were three years between them.’

‘So why did Richard inherit the Hall?’

‘Oh, it was part of the terms of the trust,’ Sarah said dismissively. ‘It was thought important to keep the family name at the Hall so, for centuries, Hillen Hall went to the oldest male child.’

‘That seems unfair.’

‘Do you think so? Well, it was quite usual in important families at the time.’ Sarah gave a thin smile. ‘In any case, Felicity never showed a great deal of interest in the Hall. As you probably know.’

‘I never really knew Simon’s mother. She came to our wedding but she wasn’t in good health. I didn’t see her often after that and she was never well.’

‘No. Indeed. So she always said.’ Sarah lifted her chin a fraction.

Alex turned the page. There was a succession of photographs of soldiers with crutches and bandages smiling for the camera, each with a cigarette in hand.

‘It was Frances who started this album,’ said Sarah. ‘I think she was proud of her war effort in putting these chaps up. Not sure why she needed to put them in here though. Still, I suppose it’s part of the history of the house. Oh here,’ she said, becoming more animated. ‘This is a good picture of the Hall. See how the roses used to grow up the front there. And look at that hydrangea. It was wonderful then wasn’t it?’

Alex paused politely and turned another page.

‘And this is you with Richard? And that’s Felicity. I never met Simon’s father. He died before we started going out.’ She stared at the photograph. Jonathan and Frances stood immediately in front of the main door to the house with Felicity and her husband Brian on one side and Richard and Sarah on the other. Both women held a baby. ‘What a coincidence that you should both have your first child around the same time.’

‘Mm. We joked about who would produce first. Of course with a first child it’s hard to get the dates right. Phil spent a lot of her pregnancy lying down. Whether that was necessary or not, I couldn’t say.’ Sarah’s tone changed and she added, in a rare moment of flippancy, ‘Anyway, I won. Julian was born four days before Simon.’

The photographs continued to show the march of time. Richard and Sarah stood with their two sons while, at their side, Felicity and Brian posed with Simon standing casually just in front. Though still very young, Alex thought the resemblance between Simon and Theo was striking even then. Sarah had shoulder-length hair and a fringe, was heavily made up, wore a tight short-sleeved sweater and a skirt which finished above the knee. She looked stylish and, as expected, very pretty but Alex was more interested in Simon.

‘When was this taken?’ she asked.

‘Mm?’ Sarah leaned over and stared. ‘To judge from the age of the boys, mid-seventies I would say.’

‘I’d never realised,’ murmured Alex. ‘They were like brothers then?’

‘Not exactly.’ Sarah hesitated. ‘I mean, Phil and Brian lived in London. We only saw them occasionally.’

It wasn’t till the last filled sheet of the album that Alex found another picture of Simon. At the top of the page was a larger full length photograph of the three cousins, all wearing shorts and open-necked shirts. They were significantly older. Julian had grown rapidly and had the gawky limbs of adolescence; Simon had yet to catch up. Theo was the chunkiest of the three.

‘When they were older Simon came to stay a lot,’ said Sarah. She hesitated. ‘Then I suppose they did play together a bit like brothers,’ she relented.

‘It’s a nice photograph,’ remarked Alex, unable to keep the wistfulness out of her voice.

There was a chilled silence and then Sarah began to prise the picture from its mounts.

‘Here,’ she said, almost brusquely. ‘You can have it if you like.’ She arranged her mouth into a smile.

‘Really? Don’t you want to keep it?’

‘No, no. I have other photographs of the boys. I’ll put something else in its place. Take it.’

‘Well, if you’re sure. That’s very kind. Thank you.’

With the album completed, the conversation rapidly dried up. Alex thanked her hostess and left, clasping the photograph like some hard-won campaign trophy. Casual photographs of Simon were precious – most of the ones she had were posed and formal. Still, as she looked at it again before propping it up in her bedroom, she couldn’t help but wonder why he’d been so secretive about his holidays at Hillen Hall.

*

It was a passionate affair, our relationship, Alex thought defensively, as if she were countering an argument someone had presented to her. Passion in love and passion in anger. She and Simon had started having arguments almost as soon as they were married, arguments which were never resolved as such, they just stopped. Simon would retreat into his music, perhaps start playing the piano or the cello, and she would storm off.

She sat now at the scrubbed pine table and watched Liz Franklin as she pottered round the kitchen. A few days after having coffee at the Lodge, Liz had rung up to invite her for lunch and Alex had been surprised at how pleased she’d been to accept. After agonising for ages about what gift to take with her, she’d settled for predictable and brought flowers: roses, alstroemeria and gypsophila. Liz had been talking about Bill, prattling on comfortably the way she did, about their life together and their children. It sounded a genuinely domestic and harmonious scene.
Too
perfect, Alex thought bitterly, and inevitably drew comparison with her own marriage.

But what did she and Simon fight about anyway? Stupid things mostly. There’d been last minute job offers, accepted in haste, causing conflicting diary dates; they’d both been guilty of that. And Simon hated her to clean or tidy his study; his music always had to be left in exactly the same place. She’d complained once that he obviously didn’t even want her to go
into
his study, he was so precious about it. Then there’d been the time she’d been asked to sing somewhere at short notice and had forgotten a charity concert he was doing – he thought she’d slighted him. Then she’d been furious when he got so involved in composing one evening that he forgot to meet her for dinner after her concert, or the time he’d wandered out of the house, head in some symphony or other, forgetting to lock up. For God’s sake, how trivial it all seemed now. But did it all get to him, this constant string of pointless dissensions? Did he brood on it all and she never knew?

Liz brought quiche and salad to the table and Alex tried to distract the direction of her thoughts. She’d covered this ground so many times before and these questions led her nowhere.

‘Who are the elderly couple I see on the beach sometimes,’ she asked, ‘walking hand in hand?’

‘You must mean Minna and Harry Downes.’ Liz handed Alex a piece of quiche on a plate. ‘Help yourself to salad and bread, dear.’ She cut herself a slice and sat down. ‘They’re my neighbours at this end of Harbour Row. They’ve lived there ever since they were married I think, and that’s been more than fifty years. The rest of the Row are holiday cottages. But Harry’s not so well these days. He’s got Alzheimer’s you know, but they muddle along.’

‘Really? He doesn’t seem too bad. I’ve exchanged a few words with them a couple of times. He seemed quite friendly.’

‘He is. Well, they both are. But he has good days and bad days and Minna hides quite a lot you know. And she gets …well, shall we say…a bit touchy sometimes.’

Alex raised an amused eyebrow. Touchy? She suspected a genteel euphemism here.

‘She worries that someone will say she can’t manage,’ Liz went on, ‘and insist that Harry should be taken into care. But they aren’t likely to do that, are they? It costs too much.’

‘Have they got children?’

Liz shook her head and her wobbling chins gave an echoing denial.

‘No, they couldn’t apparently. Minna used to work up at your Hall, you know, as a cook, oh years ago. Then she worked at the school for ages doing lunches.’

‘At the Hall? Was that for Sarah Hellyon?’

‘I’m not sure. I suppose so. Minna never says much about it. Doesn’t seem to want to talk about it.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘No idea. Still it’s a long time ago. Of course Sarah Hellyon’s your neighbour now isn’t she? I can’t say I know her that well.’

They both fell silent for a few minutes, eating.

‘So what did Harry do?’ Alex pulled a piece off her crusty bread. ‘I see him sometimes down by the ferry.’

‘He used to be the skipper of the ferry. And he was a keen fisherman and sailor too. Worked long hours, especially in the summer. More quiche dear? No?’ Liz paused while she took more bread. ‘Minna says he misses it. Sometimes he wanders off and she often finds him by the quay, watching the boats. She doesn’t like to leave him alone much…well, you know…she’s nervous of where he might wander. He’s remarkably nimble on his feet considering, whereas poor old Minna’s riddled with arthritis and stiff as a board. I’ve offered to stay with him sometimes if he’s having a bad day and she needs to go out but she doesn’t often take me up on it.’