Memories of the Storm (2 page)

'Doctor,' Clio corrected him. 'Hes was the Professor
of Nineteenth-Century English Literature at
Lincoln University. She's been retired for a while
now.'

'I see.' Jonah wanted to ask lots of questions but
suddenly felt rather shy of this practical, quickwitted
girl. 'It's very kind of her to ask me to stay.
After all, she doesn't know me.'

A particularly savage blast of wind battered the
car and he recoiled in his seat. Clio seemed unmoved,
driving with speed and efficiency.

'You're not quite a stranger,' she said. 'She knew
your mother and she's known Piers and his family
for ages.'

'Even so . . .' Jonah was beginning to be aware of
a heightening of tension, of some approaching
calamity. The headlights of a wide, high vehicle
travelling in the opposite direction blinded them so
that the car swerved a little as the lorry rocked and
splashed past them.

'Sorry about that.' Clio's laugh was a little shaky.
'He seemed to need rather a lot of road. Not far
now. This is Winsford.'

Twinkling lights shone comfortingly through
the rain-streamed windows; cottages clustered in
around them and then fell away behind as Clio
changed gear and the car began to climb. They
seemed to be on open moorland now and, so great
was the wind's force, it was as if some giant fist were
pressing down upon them. Suddenly there was
the rattle of a cattle-grid beneath their wheels and
then they were plunging downhill again through a
great avenue of trees; drifts of sodden beech leaves
gleamed wetly at the sides of the road. Gradually
Jonah became aware of another sound beyond the
howling of the gale and the hiss of rain and the
rhythmic swish of the wipers: a growling, roaring,
restless voice that seemed to be travelling with
them.

'Can you hear the river?' cried Clio. She seemed
almost elated by the wildness.

A stone wall loomed up in the headlights' beam
and the car began to slow.

As they turned onto the narrow bridge, Jonah
saw a figure of a man leap out of the darkness: he
was signalling them to stop, his mouth wide open as
if crying for help. It seemed that Clio would drive
right over him and Jonah shouted and caught at
her arm, trying to wrench the wheel.

'What is it?' Her voice was high and frightened.
'For God's sake . . . !'

He felt the juddering of metal on stone as she
slammed on the brakes and the car scraped the
wall but he was already undoing his seatbelt and
fumbling with the door catch. The rain beat down
on him, plastering his clothes to his back, as he ran
back over the bridge. His voice was caught and
flung away on the wind, drowned by the insistent
roaring of the water, but there was no sign of any
man. Clio was beside him, grasping his arm.

'What was it? What did you see?'

'There was a man. You must have seen him.'

'No, there was nobody. The headlights must
have played some trick with the shadows. There's
nobody here. Come on, we're drenched. Let's get
inside.' And, still holding his arm, she led him
across the bridge and into the house where Hester
was waiting.

Later, upstairs in her room at the end of the house,
Clio sat on the tapestry stool and stared at her
reflection in the ancient spotted looking-glass. It
creaked and protested in its mahogany stand as she
tilted it a little, before picking up her brush. She
was still shaken by Jonah's violent reaction and
by the jarring physical shock of the car hitting
the bridge. No real harm had been done but she
was confused, not only by Jonah's insistence that
he'd seen someone but also by Hester's behaviour.
Instead of reassuring him by telling him that there
could have been no man on the bridge, she'd
watched him with a kind of anxious compassion
that had made Clio feel quite angry, possibly
because of her own fright.

'The bridge leads only to the house and the
garden,' she'd said, sounding cross in her attempt
to rally Jonah. 'It doesn't go anywhere else. It's
private. Hester's already told us that she's been
alone all day. Why should anyone hide on the
bridge in this weather just to jump out at us and run
away?'

She'd looked at Hester, seeking confirmation,
but Hester's eyes had been fixed on Jonah's face.

'I saw him,' he'd repeated stubbornly.

'I think we need a drink,' Hester had said – much
to Clio's relief – and Jonah had swallowed two
fingers of Scotch and begun to pull himself
together. At this point Clio had left them, coming
upstairs to make up his bed.

Now, as she brushed her hair, Clio's attention was
caught by the glimmer of a white envelope propped
against one of the pretty hand-painted glass candlesticks.
Because this small room, with its one electric
socket, was difficult to light adequately, Clio had
placed candle-holders in every possible place: two
shallow pottery bowls on the high, narrow mantelshelf
above the tiny Victorian grate, one tall brass
serpent on the small bamboo table beside the bed,
and four in different styles of glass on the polished
Edwardian washstand that served as a dressingtable.
She'd lit them all as soon as she'd come into
the room and immediately had grown more calm,
soothed by the familiar pattern of objects and the
sense of security this little room always projected.

Putting down her brush, Clio reached for the
envelope and studied the impatient, curling writing.
Oh, how well she could imagine him, crouched at
his desk, fielding interruptions, dashing down the
words. Quickly she tore open the envelope and
unfolded the sheet, her whole attention fixed on his
message to her.

Honestly, darling, I can't believe that I ever
agreed to let you go. Not even for a whole
wilderness of godmothers who have had hip
replacements. I simply can't do without you a
moment longer. I know that these four weeks are
part of your holiday but the place is in chaos;
nobody understands how I
work
and no quiet
sanctuary to flee to at the end of the day.

Can we meet somewhere?
Please!
Bristol?
Exeter? I suppose you couldn't escape to London
for a few hours? Please, Clio, give your mind to a
meeting next week, however brief, or you won't
have a job to come back to because the agency
will simply have ceased to exist. You are essential
to it and to me.

His signature was unreadable. Clio pressed the
paper to her face, hunched on the stool, longing
for him. Falling in love with him had ruined
everything: all her well-laid plans, her sensible
goals for the future, smashed by her absolute need
– and his.

'This is Peter Strong,' her boss had said, introducing
them. 'This is Clio Taverner, Peter. Clio
runs the place actually, but don't tell the MD I said
so. I wish I could take her to Boston with me, but
there we are.'

'We can't talk here,' he said – and took her out to
lunch, bombarding her with questions about the
advertising agency, her PA work, herself. To begin
with she was mesmerized by the sheer force of his
personality but as she grew accustomed to him –
and with the assistance of a large glass of Sauvignon
Blanc – she began to enjoy herself: responding and
expanding under the warmth and intensity of his
concentration.

She was so sure, so joyful in this new and
overwhelming love that possessed her, that when
she heard about his wife and his brood of children
she was certain that there must be some mistake:
not just for the obvious reason – that she did not
want to see him as a philanderer – but because
he was so
not
the ordinary sort of man who had
those kind of dependants. His character was an
interesting mix: single-minded toughness and a
brilliant flair for words combined with minute
attention to detail and an amazing memory for
small sweet things. He never avoided mentioning
his family if the subject were relevant but he talked
about them as if they existed in a different sphere
that was quite remote from his work and his
relationship with Clio. He separated his life into
watertight compartments and, because this was
perfectly natural to him, she seemed able to accept
it too. When she tried to rationalize this to herself
she realized that his sense of urgency, of
immediacy, made anything other than the present
dimension unreal. When he was at the agency his
work was of paramount importance; when he was
alone with her
she
was all he saw or heard or
wanted, and she found it impossible – almost
foolish – to worry about anything beyond her
delight in his company. She'd never been so concentrated
on before and she was bewitched by
it. His attitude seemed all the more reasonable
because his family lived in Hampshire, where his
wife ran a livery stable, and Peter stayed in London
four nights each week. It underpinned the ability to
compartmentalize that came so readily to him.

He liked Clio's tiny slice of a house – three rooms
on three floors – much better than his rather bleak
apartment though he always returned to it each
night, however late.

Before too long reality asserted itself. She
became accustomed to weekends without him, outings
put off at the last moment, the unexpected
arrival of one or other of his family at the flat; and
yet the sheer quality of the time they had together
cancelled out the loneliness. She kept up with her
friends, went skating, to Pilates, to aerobics classes,
knowing that she would see him each weekday
morning and that his eyes would light with a kind
of relief and joy.

'Aaah,' he'd say – as if she were a long, cold
refreshing drink. '
There
you are.'

Clio put the paper back into its envelope and
resumed the hair-brushing but her thoughts were
busy. For the first few weeks after the operation,
Hester had been looked after professionally. It was
Clio who'd suggested that she could take four weeks
of her holiday time to be with her until she was
strong and self-sufficient again. Peter had agreed to
it, and there was only one more week to go, but it
would be heaven to see him briefly. How could they
meet – and where? An idea so simple that it took
her by surprise suggested itself. Why not invite him
here, to Bridge House? It would be interesting to
see Peter and Hester together: Peter so vital and
intense; Hester so intelligent and detached. Clio
laughed aloud at the prospect, and wondered how
her godmother was getting on with Jonah. She
hoped they were having a good heart-to-heart
about the war. Remembering that she was supposed
to be making up his bed, she went out onto the
landing and along to the airing cupboard to find
some sheets.

'I remember your mother very well,' Hester was
saying. 'Such a pretty little girl. We were all very
fond of her.'

She realized that she was making an effort quite
as much to raise her own spirits as to distract Jonah
from his preoccupation. She knew, too, that she
could not take him into the drawing-room. After
her day-long premonition had culminated with
such violence in his experience on the bridge, her
usual detachment and common sense had deserted
her: the drawing-room held other vibrations to
which, in his present state, he might respond.
Instead, she poured him another Scotch and led
the way out of the large square hall, with its
inglenook fireplace and comfortable chairs, into
the book-room where she had been sitting earlier,
beside a small wood fire.

'Mum never talks about the war,' he answered,
looking around him appreciatively, taking in the
book-lined walls, the small revolving table beside
the wing-chair, the chaise longue under the window.
'She's got a thing about it. I suppose that
losing both her parents gave her a horror of it all. I
knew the name of your house from some photos we
have at home of my mother when she was little.
She's made a bit of a mystery of it all, to tell you the
truth, and when she mentioned your name I felt as
if an opportunity I'd been waiting for had suddenly
come. And then that thing happened on the
bridge.' He glanced at Hester apologetically. 'I'm
behaving like an idiot but it was very real, you
know. I
saw
him . . . Sorry. This is an amazing
room.'

She acknowledged his attempt to pull himself
together and gestured to the other armchair.

'Sit down,' she said. 'This was my mother's
favourite room. She said that it was the only room
in the house where you couldn't hear the river.'

Jonah sat down and stretched out his legs
towards the fire. 'Didn't she like the noise of
water?'

'She found it rather relentless. There are
moments, you know, when you want to turn it off,
just for a moment; to shout at it to be quiet.
Especially at this time of the year.'

'I wondered what it was,' he told her. 'When
we were in the car, I mean. I could hear it in
the background, like some growling, angry voice.
Rather menacing. I can understand how your
mother must have felt about it. It must be rather
frightening sometimes.'

'Towards the end she found it so. Especially at
night. She seemed to hear voices in its roaring.' She
fell silent, sipped at her Scotch, trying to see her
way ahead.

'Voices?' His own voice was reflective as if he were
imagining it. 'Particular voices, d'you mean, or
what?'

Hester hesitated. 'She wasn't quite herself at the
end. My two brothers were killed early on in the war
and the eldest, Edward, was in Singapore in 1942
and taken prisoner by the Japanese. She adored
her sons and the shock of losing them weakened
her. She was never particularly strong and she
just seemed to lose interest in living. Worse
than that, she had no desire to live in a world where
such appalling things were happening. Edward's
capture was the last straw. She couldn't co-exist with
the thought of his imprisonment. She died in the
autumn of 1942. Sixty years ago.' She nearly added,
'This very night,' but felt that this would simply add
to the emotional tension.

'How terrible for you to lose your brothers and
your mother within such a short time.' His horror
was genuine. 'You must have been terribly young.
Was my mother here then? Was she evacuated?'

'She arrived later in the war.' She responded
instinctively to his sympathy, abandoning some of
her caution. 'Your grandfather Michael and my
brother Edward were at Cambridge together. They
were very good friends and, when your grandmother
was killed, Michael asked if he could bring
Lucy to us.'

'So you knew him? You actually knew my grandfather.
He came here to this house. How amazing!
So you really do remember my mother?'

Hester hesitated again for a brief moment, then
reached into her pocket and drew out a small
snapshot. 'I thought this might interest you.'

Jonah bent over it eagerly: two figures posing just
outside French windows opening on to a sunny
lawn. The bigger girl with short dark hair was
kneeling beside a small child. One arm was round
the little girl, the other gesturing towards the
camera as if to fix her attention. 'Look,' she might
be saying. 'Look, Lucy. Smile.' On the back in
fading ink were the words: 'Hester with Lucy in the
garden at Bridge House. June 1945.'

As he looked, a memory, whole and complete,
slid into his mind. He was standing at the door of
the small attic room watching his mother searching
for something in a chest. The musty scent of old
clothes and books was in his nostrils and the
unshaded bulb glimmered weakly, lighting pieces
of broken, dusty furniture but leaving cobwebby
corners unlit and rather menacing. His mother
wrestled with the drawer, tugging at it sharply so
that it slid out suddenly and a big envelope with old
snapshots came spilling to the floor.

He ran forward and caught at one of the snapshots,
peering at the small figures before turning
it over to see the names written on the back:
'Lucy with Robin and Jack at Bridge House. August
1944.'

'Who are these children?' he asked his mother
curiously. 'Lucy. That's you, isn't it? But who are
these little boys?'

'I don't know.' She took the photograph from
him quickly and put it back into the envelope,
shoving it into the drawer and closing it. 'It's all too
long ago to remember.'

An atmosphere of fear and distress alerted him,
young though he was, and later he crept back to
look at the snapshot again: the three children
captured in the grainy texture of the past, beaming
at the camera, and the name typed on the big buff
envelope: 'Major Michael Scott', his grandfather's
name.

Now Hester watched him as he turned the snapshot
over and he glanced at her almost unseeingly
and shook his head.

'This is extraordinary,' he said at last. 'This
reminds me of the one we have at home except
that, in that one, it's my mother with two little boys.
Jack and Robin. Their names are written on the
back of the snapshot just like this.'

'That would have been my nephews. My sister,
Patricia's, two little boys,' said Hester. 'Jack and
Lucy were very close friends.'