Sail Upon the Land (20 page)

It was post-church coffee time at the Wednesday Evensong at St Anthony the Great, Belgrave Square, always a very sociable occasion but not at all alarming. Munty found parties difficult, but church was different. The vicar knew his circumstances, and had been the first person that Munty had ever talked to properly about Melissa. Apart from the police of course, and the coroner. And he had not revealed the depths of his despair and sense of failure to either of them. The vicar had not said much, but had listened, sighed and said, ‘Well, she’s gone to a better place.’ Where that was Munty didn’t know, but it was comforting if he didn’t think about it too much.

At St Anthony’s, everyone was kind and helpful, and Munty was made to feel completely at home. The vicar was a Hon and Munty’s wasn’t the only or even the grandest title in the pews.

‘Ah! Munty. You must meet Mrs Mullins. Her daughters are about the same age as yours, I think? Mrs Mullins? This is Lord Mount-Hey.’

In the warm post-service glow, Munty found himself looking down at a pretty round face with a small retroussé nose. Her lips were painted a soft glossy pink, which was appealing. She had thick golden hair pushed back with a padded velvet Alice band and was wearing a navy blue pleated skirt, navy shoes with a gold bit across the front, navy tights and a white blouse with a bow at the neck.

‘How do you do?’ He held out his hand.

‘Very well thank you,’ she smiled, taking it, and then hesitated before saying: ‘This is Clarice and this is Eunice,’ waving a hand at her daughters.

‘Mrs Mullins has joined us from St Peter in Chains, in Nottingham,’ said Harold. ‘One of our outreach churches, so she knows the form.’

‘Ah,’ said Munty, a bit lost. Then he tried a safe topic. ‘Have you moved to London, Mrs Mullins?’

She was smiling at him, and said, ‘Oh yes. Lock, stock and barrel. After my husband died, there was nothing for us up there. No family you see, and it would be more fun for the girls to come to London.’

‘How sad for you,’ he said, but she looked surprised, and he wondered whether the death of Mr Mullins was not quite such a terrible loss as his widowing had been.

The girls nodded. Munty could see they were around the same age as Damson, although they looked very different from his daughter. He wished she was with him, but she was away at school and never came to church on Wednesdays in London with her father. He had slipped into the habit, while she was boarding at prep school, of coming up to London from Monday until Friday during term time. Getting away from Castle Hey was a relief. He stayed in a bed and breakfast in Pimlico, from which he could walk both to Westminster and to church as well as to P&Q where he was still a director. If he was required to sit in on board meetings of the various companies of which he was chairman, then that was convenient too.

A fellow peer he had met in the Bishop’s Bar at the House of Lords had introduced him to St Anthony’s and his social life such as it was revolved entirely around the kind, impersonal people he had met there. Otherwise he would have been entirely bereft in the long sad years since Melissa had abandoned him. Castle Hey was much the same as it had been when she died. He hadn’t had the heart or energy to go on with the restoration, let alone fulfil their plans for turning it into a moneyspinner. He had the great Gothick bed dismantled and sent to auction. The room was locked up and he never intended to use it again.

He had to suppress his memories of the last time he had seen Melissa or he would weep even now. He had bent over the coffin in the undertaker’s chapel of rest and kissed her smooth white forehead. To his lips it was rock hard and freezing cold.

Damson was even more lonely once Clarice and Eunice had moved into Castle Hey after their parents’ wedding. They briskly instructed her to call them Clarrie and Noonie ‘as all our friends do’ but that didn’t help. Already very pretty and vivacious at fourteen, they didn’t mean to make her feel so dumpy and dull. They were sort of kind in a detached way, but turned inward towards each other in a flurry of private jokes, shared giggles and seamless communication. She told herself they were twins, they couldn’t help it.

She longed for fun and parties, and their presence only highlighted how tedious home life was in the holidays. She was worried that they might be bored, and she tried hard to make friends with them and start up conversations. That just seemed to make them curl around each other like two little cats leaving Damson out in the cold. Her skin itched and prickled with embarrassment.

When Margaret was sharp with her, which she quite frequently was once the first novelty of the marriage wore off, Damson sensed Munty’s discomfort. He didn’t intervene, although she had seen him retreat from the scene when Margaret was telling her off for being lazy in the house. This felt so grotesquely wrong, but she didn’t know how to complain, or who to. Granny looked disapproving when she tried to raise the subject.

Damson knew she could be rude and difficult if she didn’t get her own way. She was uncomfortable about this and felt that Munty was only too happy to let someone else deal with her. Pauline had never made Damson lift a finger or told her off. Damson knew when Pauline was cross because she looked disappointed and refused to talk to her. Hugs and kisses and pleadings saw Pauline eventually forgive her.

Damson was lying on her bed reading the latest
Angelique
from the library after lunch one Sunday when someone knocked on the door. She didn’t answer. There was no one in the house she wanted to talk to.

‘Damson, I know you’re in there. What are you doing?’

It was her stepmother’s voice.

‘I’m reading.’

‘But we all need to clear up lunch, don’t we? Come on Damson, please unlock this door and come and help.’

Damson unlocked the door and stood sulkily in her room, staring at the wooden floor. The room where she had been born, unchanged since.

‘Thank you, Damson. Now, I think we need to have a little talk about manners and helping around the house.’

The girl cringed, as her stepmother let her know exactly what she thought of her behaviour. She realised it was fair, but it was excruciating to have it spelt out. Particularly as the twins in their odd twinny way often cheeked their mother and ran off without helping, and got away with it. Perhaps Margaret worried that they wouldn’t love her if she told them off. She clearly had no such worries about Damson.

‘I know you’ve never known a mother, but I’ve been here for six months now and you’ve never even looked at me. Please look at me, Damson. Look into my face.’

Damson slowly raised her eyes and looked at her stepmother. She saw a woman not much taller than herself at fourteen. She was wearing pink lipstick. Damson scanned her stepmother’s face, hating the colour of her foundation, an orange shade that came to a halt at her chin.

When she was cross her voice changed. Damson didn’t know anyone else who spoke like that.

‘I said look, don’t stare.’

Damson lowered her eyes.

Damson had been invited to the party as a job lot with the twins. The hostess, whose sixteenth birthday it was, was at Farningham with her stepsisters. Damson was not at the same school as the twins. She went to a more academic girls’ school nearer to her grandparents. Her school looked down on Farningham, where the girls were told not to bother too much with exams and so on, as it was implied that they would all make ‘good marriages’. Damson, determined to follow her grandfather into medicine, found this odd and old-fashioned.

She was nervous at the idea of meeting some boys. Bubbles popped in her tummy at the thought of kissing. It sounded disgusting, tongues and so on, but she was determined to do something about still being ‘sweet sixteen and never been kissed’.

They’d all gone by train, clutching their sleeping bags, jewel-coloured taffeta party frocks stuffed into one suitcase between them. The only parties she’d been to so far had been schoolfriends’ girly sleepovers. There had been the odd brother lurking around, covered in spots and embarrassment, sneering at his sister yet hovering close to the hormonal soup.

She hadn’t been to any that included boys before the twins came, as Munty seemed to have no idea how to make friends with neighbours who had children the same age as his daughter. At least the twins had shaken things up a bit.

All the teenage girls were changing together on the attic floor of the big farmhouse occupied by their hosts. Noonie did Damson up when she found her clutching her dress helplessly and roaming the corridors. It had thin straps that you needed to cross over and tie at the back. It wasn’t a dress you could manage by yourself.

‘Would you like some help with your make-up?’ she asked. Damson shook her head, and put on a little mascara and lip gloss. Then they all huddled into their Huskies and Barbours, and climbed into a blanket-lined trailer behind a tractor to be towed across the freezing fields towards the barn where the party was to be held. The huge door was open and golden light flooded out on to the frosty grass. As they bumped closer, wood smoke met their eager senses. For ever afterwards, Damson associated the scent with anticipation.

The two-storey barn had a beaten earth floor which had been partly covered with drugget. In front of the fireplace was the traditional Snog Pit, where cushions and rugs were piled up for people to sit on. As the evening wore on, the space became full. It was a badge of honour to snog someone at any party, and Damson longed to join in.

She had been hovering upstairs, talking to some schoolfriends, but not having a very nice time at all as they were picked off by the circling males. She stood by the buffet and nibbled bits of the huge chunk of cheese that had been served with French bread and pickle.

She was tired of trying to look pleased and happy despite the crawling embarrassment of not being a chosen one. As they were in the farm buildings, there was nowhere she could go and hide from the merciless exposure. She had not danced even once.

She saw someone detach themselves from a group on the other side of the dance floor and walk through the prancing throng towards her. She stopped picking the cheese and stood waiting to see what would happen next.

The music changed tempo, always the worst moment for the abandoned, when everyone was paired off and slow dancing. ‘Turned a whiter shade of pale,’ wailed Procol Harum. Then a boy was standing in front of her, smiling down at her. He took her right hand in his left and led her gently on to the dance floor. There he put his arms around her, encouraging her to put hers around his neck, and began to sway to the music, the length of his body pressed against hers. It had happened so quickly she hadn’t had time to see what he looked like, although she knew he was very tall. She rested her head against his chest, which smelt of Eau Sauvage, and gave herself up to the music and the swaying sense of unreality.

After a while, she peeped up at the underside of his chin. He sensed that she had moved and looked down at her and smiled. He had a sweet smile, his skin looked very white with dark freckles showing up in the ultraviolet disco lights. His hair stood out like an aureole of dark gold frizz. He had very full pink lips, a shapeless wodge of a nose and pale eyes with dark lashes. He dipped his head and kissed her upturned mouth.

This is it, I’m being kissed. And then, at last. His lips parted and she felt his tongue against her teeth. What to do now? Oh well. She opened her mouth a bit and let it happen. A bit yuk, but not sweet sixteen any more, thank goodness.

The music stopped, and the couples left the dance floor dreamily hand in hand, some to the bar for more cider, others downstairs to the Snog Pit to carry on horizontally what they had been doing vertically.

‘What’s your name?’ asked her rescuer.

‘Damson. What’s yours?’

‘Tamsin?’ He had an American accent.

‘No, Damson. Like the fruit.’

‘That’s kind of unusual. I’m Daniel.’

She smiled and let him lead her downstairs to the Snog Pit. But he didn’t take her there, he led her through the door and out into the chilly starlit night.

‘Where do you come from?’ she asked.

‘Canada. I’m here studying for a term on an exchange programme.’

She was a little sad that it wasn’t likely she would see him again, but so taken up in the moment of being chosen that it didn’t register. They walked a little way from the building and the noise, and he just stood, holding her hand and staring upwards at the sky. As they were out in the country the stars showed piercingly bright against deepest blue.

He sighed.

‘Damson,’ he said. ‘My host family gave me something called damson jam. I had no idea what it was, but it was a kind of confiture. I like this peculiar English damson.’

Then he asked her if she was warm enough.

Damson had no experience of boys, let alone of one being kind, and she fell into bliss as if down a well. She was desperate to kiss him again, and she wanted to look at him properly.

She pulled away from his encircling arm and turned towards him, looking at his face. He wasn’t handsome exactly, his light eyes were small and creased up as he smiled at her so sweetly.

He flung his arms around her and kissed her upturned mouth, out there, under the reeling stars. The vast and endless chill of space above their warm teenage heads.

The sun streamed through the ogee-arched hall windows as Damson crept towards the front door. Beside it was a little mahogany and glass box into which the letters cascaded every morning. She had spent about seven slow minutes sitting at the top of the stairs before venturing down to meet her fate in the letter box. No one else was about, the house was very quiet. Only the tock of the grandfather clock, with its engraved brass face, disturbed the peace.