Memories of the Storm (3 page)

'The photograph always fascinated me but she
simply refuses to talk about it. Can you imagine why
that should be?'

'It was a very painful time for her,' Hester replied
cautiously. 'Tell me, how is Lucy? Where does she
live?'

'In Chichester.' Jonah was reluctantly diverted.
'My parents have lived there all their married lives.
My father was a science teacher but he's got this
ghastly disease called lupus. Have you heard of it?
The body's immune system goes into overdrive and
attacks itself. It's pretty grim.'

'I am so sorry.' It was Hester's turn to be horrified.
'How frightful for him. And for poor Lucy.'

'She'll be amazed when she knows I've actually
been here. I hope she won't be upset. How long was
she here with you? I didn't realize that you were all
friends. I assumed it was just a normal evacuation
thing.' Jonah settled more comfortably in his chair,
ready for confidences. 'It must have been wonderful
for her to come here to you all, having just lost her
mother. Did my grandfather bring her down?'

Before Hester could answer, the door opened
and Clio put her head round it.

'I thought you'd be in the drawing-room,' she
said. 'Supper's ready and Jonah's bed's made up.
Come and eat.'

The breakfast-room was connected to the kitchen
by an archway through which the working area
could be glimpsed. The paraphernalia of cooking,
pots and pans and utensils hastily cast aside,
was prevented from intruding on the comfortable
simplicity of the room by the simple mechanism of
an amber-coloured velvet curtain twitched across
the archway after the last plate had been carried
through. Coming in from the small, cosy bookroom,
Jonah was struck by the light, uncluttered
space: honeysuckle-coloured walls, a stripped wood
floor with several blue rugs making deep pools of
colour, a square table covered with a cream oilcloth
patterned with tiny, dark green ivy leaves.

Clio appeared to have recovered from her fright
on the bridge. A smile of suppressed excitement
was pressed upon her upward-curving lips and she
was wrapped in a large apron that had 'Kiss the
Cook' printed across it. An enormous tortoiseshell
cat – so large that Jonah doubted he was real – was
curled in a basket chair.

'That's St Francis,' said Hester. 'He was called
Billy to begin with but his unusually philanthropic
attitude towards birds and rodents required some
kind of public recognition.'

'It doesn't matter what you call him,' said Clio,
noting Jonah's doubtful expression. 'He'll ignore
you anyway. I call him Frank.'

Jonah put out a cautious hand and stroked the
soft warm animal rather gingerly. St Francis stirred,
licked his left flank once or twice and resumed
slumber without acknowledging Jonah's caress.

'Told you so,' said Clio with some satisfaction.
'Come and sit down. I've made a mushroom omelette
and then there's a casserole.'

During supper it was easy for Hester to divert
the conversation away from the war to Jonah's
work: the scripts he'd written and the novel he was
presently adapting for television. Clio had seen one
of his plays, which they discussed at length, and he
entertained them with stories about productions
and famous actors. He was a witty raconteur,
making them laugh and encouraging their questions,
so that it was much later, when Clio was
stacking the dishwasher in the kitchen and Jonah
and Hester were still at the table drinking coffee,
that tension crept back to chill the cheerful atmosphere.

'It's stopped raining,' Clio called through the
archway, 'though there's a terrific gale blowing.
Listen to the river.'

She leaned across the sink and opened the
window so that the restless voice that had distantly
accompanied their supper was suddenly borne in
upon them on a wild rush of wind, clamouring now
with a renewed violence.

'Can we go out and see it?' asked Jonah. 'The
river must be pretty impressive after all that rain.'

To Clio's surprise, Hester rose and took him
out through the kitchen into the yard rather than
on to the terrace outside the drawing-room where
visitors were usually shown the river. A light outside
the door illuminated the courtyard and he
passed Clio's car and went on to the bridge. Hester
watched him from the doorway, Clio at her
shoulder. The noise of the water was overwhelming:
brawling, brutal, black and oily-looking in the darkness,
its sheer force was breathtaking. Branches
and other detritus swirled upon its swollen breast,
smashing against the stone piers of the bridge and
vanishing beneath the arch, and all the while the
river roared and thundered as it raced between its
imprisoning banks.

Jonah came back to them slowly, his face
clenched painfully as though his head hurt; his eyes
looked at them unseeingly. He staggered slightly as
the wind gusted even more strongly, and Clio put
out her hand and drew him into the warm shelter of
the house.

'I'll show you your room,' she said, concerned by
his expression. 'Let's get your bag. I left it in the
hall.'

They went upstairs together and Hester returned
thoughtfully to the kitchen to finish the clearing up.
When they reappeared about ten minutes later,
both looked equally strained.

'I'm sorry we didn't get round to talking properly
about Mum and the war,' Jonah said rather awkwardly
to Hester. 'I'd like to know more. It's odd
but I feel strangely affected by this place.' He
grimaced, as if embarrassed by his admission.
'Probably overwork. I think I'll turn in.'

Hester, who was not given to endearments or
shows of affection, touched him lightly on the
shoulder. 'We
will
talk, I promise. When the
moment is right. Sleep well, Jonah.'

He went away from them, up the stairs, and
Clio gave a little shiver. It was obvious that Jonah's
reaction had renewed her earlier anxiety and
convinced her that something mysterious was happening.
She came up close to her godmother,
looking seriously into her face, and Hester took a
deep, steadying breath.

'Who was it that he saw?' asked Clio. Her natural
poise had deserted her and she seemed vulnerable,
even frightened. Nevertheless, Hester decided that
this time she must answer truthfully.

'He saw his grandfather,' she said.

It was with an unexpected light-heartedness that
Hester woke next morning. The gale had roared
away to the east, leaving a freshly rinsed, clear
blue sky, and the air was cool and still. The weight
of premonition and anxiety that had arrived so
suddenly with the wild south-westerly wind had now
swept off with it, leaving Hester with an unfamiliar
sense of anticipation. This morning the bright sunshine
that glittered on the dripping trees and
gleamed over the rain-drenched garden mocked at
the fears and terrors of the night and dispelled the
shadows.

Hester, congenitally uncommunicative until after
her second cup of coffee, was relieved to discover
that Jonah was not inclined to early morning conversation.
He smiled at the two women, accepted
some coffee and picked up a section of the
newspaper. Clio, recognizing the familiar signs,
shrugged mentally and ate her toast in silence.
Jonah ate nothing, drank his cup of black coffee and
then went away to pack his overnight bag, which
gave Clio the opportunity of proposing her plan to
invite Peter down.

'Of course,' said Hester, pausing in her daily
battle with the crossword. 'It was so kind of him to
let you have the time off to look after me. By all
means invite him to stay. I should very much like to
meet him.'

She was aware of the sharp look Clio shot at her
but pretended to be absorbed again in her crossword.
She suspected that Clio was trying to decide
whether she should speak openly about her
relationship with Peter – about the personal aspect
of it – and Hester knew that such a disclosure
would require explanations, justifications, even
advice. She would prefer to wait until she'd met this
man with whom Clio had fallen so much in love
before she revealed her own fears. She'd been
in love, long years ago, with a married man: a
university lecturer with whom she'd had a brief
but passionate affair. The remembrance of it made
it difficult for her to criticize Clio's relationship
with Peter, especially as she had no idea how he
felt about his wife, although her instincts told
her that it would be Clio who would suffer most.
Hester had long been hoping that Clio would
open her heart, thus giving them both the opportunity
to speak truthfully but, with Jonah likely to
burst in at any time, this was certainly not the
moment.

Meanwhile her god-daughter dithered uncharacteristically
at the end of the table, holding her
plate in one hand and the marmalade pot in the
other, and they were both relieved when Jonah
reappeared, bag in hand, and paused to speak to St
Francis, who was washing himself in a slanting
puddle of sunlight in his favourite chair.

'My parents have a dog,' he said. 'She's a pretty
Sussex spaniel, very sweet, but I rather like this
enormous fellow.'

'I'm a dog person,' Clio told him over her
shoulder, removing her breakfast things and
picking up her car keys. 'But I can't justify having
one in London. Maybe, one day . . .'

'It's a pity you won't be here for Lizzie's event,'
said Jonah. 'I think it's going to be fun. Any chance
of getting more time off next spring?'

Clio grinned. 'Lizzie asked me the same question.
I don't think Peter is quite that philanthropic.'

'Peter?'

'Peter's my boss,' answered Clio. Her voice was
proud, defiant and tender, all at once, and Jonah's
eyebrows flicked upwards as if he'd made a rather
disappointing discovery.

Hester noted his expression.

'Come back again, Jonah. Come and stay,' she
said to him as they wandered out to the courtyard.
'You must speak to Lucy first to make sure she's
happy about it, and then come and stay and we'll
talk.'

'I'd really like that. It's taking time for me to get
my head round it all. That my grandfather was
actually here with my mother, I mean, and that they
were friends with your family.'

'Watch it, Hes. He'll be making up a story about
it if you're not careful.' Clio was standing by the car
with the door open, watching them with affection.
'He's a dramatist, remember.'

Hester gave a final wave as the car turned onto
the road, smiling a little. St Francis had strolled out
behind her and was now sitting on the bridge with
his tail hanging down, and she smoothed his hard
head. There would be no need for Jonah to invent
a story: the truth was more than enough to satisfy
his creative need. And how like his grandfather he
was: not very tall but neat and strong-looking. As he
and Clio had come in through the door last night,
his black hair plastered to his skull, his dark eyes
shocked and wide, her heart had somersaulted in
recognition. Just so had Michael looked all those
years ago, coming back into the house from the
dark, wild evening, with Eleanor's arm protectively
about his shoulders, soaked with the rain and dazed
with horror.

Leaning on the bridge beside St Francis, Hester
was uncomfortably aware that the memory of her
sister-in-law was still able to trigger a reaction of
animosity. From the very beginning, when Edward
had brought her home to meet his family, Hester
had disliked Eleanor. Standing in the sun, stroking
the cat's soft warm back, Hester wondered just
how much she would tell Jonah. Where would the
story begin? With the return to the family's fishing
lodge by the river Barle when their father died in
1936 and she was just eight years old? She could
remember the preparations for the long journey
to the West from Cambridge, one or two of her
father's colleagues from the university coming to
the station to bid them farewell: her mother, silent
with grief, and attended anxiously by her two older
children, Edward and Patricia, whilst their nanny
kept the three younger ones entertained.

She could remember, too, the terrible emptiness
and anguish in her own small heart. It was because
of the sudden death of her adored father that
she'd transferred her love wholesale to Edward,
who most resembled him, and why, five years later,
she had so resented Eleanor. Perhaps that was the
beginning: Eleanor's arrival at Bridge House with
Edward.

St Francis was purring with a kind of rumbling
growl, pulsating gently beneath her caressing hand,
and Hester chuckled suddenly with a swooping
uplift of the spirits. The prospect of revisiting the
past, exorcising the ghosts, filled her with an odd
kind of pleasure. It would bring release to relive
it. After all, there was nobody left to be hurt by
the story that she would tell Jonah: surely not even
Lucy could suffer now. Last night she'd been
fearful, infected by Jonah's reaction on the bridge
and anxious lest she might reveal secrets that his
mother had deliberately kept private. This morning
she wondered if she'd been foolish. If Lucy gave her
blessing to it then she would gladly tell Jonah their
story. Already her mind was fingering the past as
one might peruse an old book, turning the pages
and looking upon long-forgotten scenes.

She leaned on the sun-warmed stones beside the
cat and gave herself up to the luxury of remembering.

In the car the atmosphere was oddly strained.
Without Hester and her calm acceptance of the
previous evening's events, Jonah and Clio were
both suddenly rather shy.

'How different it looks this morning,' Jonah
was saying, clearly determined to play the part of
an appreciative guest. 'It's an extraordinary landscape.'

They were travelling beneath a canopy of bare
branches, the high wooded hill rising precipitously
to the right of the road; the misshapen woody roots
of massive trees grasped the mossy banks like prehensile
toes digging deep into a rich black mulch of
wet leaves and earth. Beyond the river to his left,
Jonah glimpsed bright, jewel-green meadows fringing
the further bank but, as the road climbed
steadily round the side of the combe, the noisy
torrent was left behind. Peering from his window,
Jonah could still see the glint of a small stream far
below as it curled and twisted along the valley floor
to join the Barle at Marsh Bridge.

Clio was wondering what to say to him that would
distract him from the unexpected drama of their
arrival. This morning, in the bright sharp sunlight,
the idea of an apparition seemed an impossible
one. Yet Hester had been firm: something from the
past had reached out to touch Jonah; that much was
clear.

'He saw his grandfather,' she'd said. 'Something
happened here that might well have left some kind
of emotional vibration' – and had been unwilling to
say anything else beyond expressing a hope that
she and Jonah would have a long talk together.

After that, Clio had taken refuge in thinking
about Peter and planning his visit. She'd decided
that the elemental wildness of the storm had
heightened reactions, normal feelings were clearly
out of control, and hoped that things would look
different in the morning. And so they did, yet it was
still difficult to think of just the right conversational
opener. As they passed over the cattle-grid onto the
open spaces of Winsford Common, Jonah solved
the problem for her.

'I'm sorry you won't be here for Lizzie's event,'
he said. 'Have you been taking a sabbatical from
work?'

'It's my holiday, actually. Hester's had a hip
replacement and though she was looked after by
the Social Services for the first few weeks, I thought
she might like someone with her until she could
drive again. Peter let me take my holiday in one
go.'

'Lucky for Hester. How did she come to be your
godmother? Do you mind me asking?'

'Not a bit. My mother was one of Hester's
students and my father was reading History at
Lincoln at the same time. Hester and my mother
developed one of those real bonds that occasionally
spring up between student and tutor and they
stayed closely in touch after Mummy graduated.
Daddy was doing his Ph.D. at Bristol when they got
married. He'd just heard that he'd got his MA when
I appeared on the scene. Hence the name: Clio was
the muse of history but not many people know that
these days. It's spelled with an "i" not an "e".
Anyway, Mummy asked Hester to be my godmother
and when I was little we usually spent part of the
long vac with her and other members of the family
at Bridge House. She always keeps my room for me.
My parents moved about rather a lot when I was
growing up, they're a peripatetic pair, and Hester
has been a constant in my life. It's been important
and special to have her there.'

'I envy you.'

Clio had the feeling that, although Jonah was
staring out over the sunlit spaces of gorse and
heather to the distant hills in the west, he was
seeing something else: a child arriving at Bridge
House, perhaps, and running up the stairs to make
sure that her little room was just the same.

'Jonah's brilliant,' Lizzie had said to her. 'He's
amazingly visual; so quick to see a scene or pick up
a nuance.'

Now, Clio believed that he was doing exactly
that. Glancing sideways at him, she saw that his
face was intent and his whole body tensed as if he
were watching a little scene of his personal devising
and hearing voices other than their own. His expression
reminded her of Peter's when he was
thinking through a new advertising campaign. She
knew better than to interrupt someone who was
working, and turned right at Spire Cross without
further comment, but she knew exactly the moment
when he returned to her, his attention once
more focused with them inside the car, and she
smiled.

'You'll see Winsford properly this morning. It's a
lovely little village.'

They were descending between high banks and
tall trees, down a narrow lane running between
whitewashed cottages and stone houses into the
village.

'It's great. Oh, and look! The river's come
back,' he said cheerfully as they sped away again up
towards the valley road to the moor. 'Fantastic!'

'Only it's not the same river,' she said. 'This is the
River Exe.
Our
river is the Barle.'

He laughed at that, as she had meant him to.
'Nice to have your very own river as well as your
very own room,' he commented. 'I rather envy you
Hester as well. My godparents have never shown
much interest in me. I like Hester. She has that
self-contained serenity of the true academic or,
perhaps, a nun.'

'How odd that you should say that.' Clio sounded
startled. 'Hester wanted to be a nun when she was
young, but somehow it didn't work out.'

'Really?' He was intrigued. 'I wonder why not.'

'I've no idea. She has a cousin, Blaise, who is a
chaplain to a convent of contemplative nuns in
the north of England. She adores him and I have
to say he is utter heaven. Anyway, after the war,
when Blaise took Holy Orders, I think that Hester
decided to try the contemplative life for herself but
she gave it all up before she'd finished her novitiate
and went to university instead.'

'And that worked for her?'

'Oh, yes. Her father was a Cambridge don and
her brother Edward and Blaise were at Cambridge
so you might say that academia was in the genes.
The whole family had a passion – well, Hester still
does – for the poetry of John Clare. She wrote quite
an important book about him back in the seventies
when he was still very underrated. There's been a
resurgence since, so I understand, but old Hes was
a real mover and shaker of her time.'

'Was she in love with Blaise?'

Clio glanced at him, almost shocked. 'I've no
idea. Why do you ask?'

'I don't know.' He hunched slightly in his seat, as
if thinking something through. 'It's just odd that
she should suddenly want to go into a convent, I
suppose, unless it was because he was unavailable.'

'She might have had a vocation.' Clio sounded
faintly defensive.

'But she didn't, did she? Or she'd have stayed.
I'm sorry if I sound inquisitive or rude. It's just that
I'm really hooked by all of it, I don't know why.'