The Emerald Valley (53 page)

All these minor anxieties paled into insignificance, however, beside the one great worry which was so enormous and horrifying that she could bring herself to mention it to no one.

For some time now, Charlotte had been worried about Noël, Dolly's baby, who in her opinion was not developing as he should. The suspicion woke her, sweating, in the middle of the night and started a sickness in the pit of her stomach whenever she peered into his cot.

At first she told herself she must be mistaken. It was probably merely impatience which was making her think that Noël should be responding more – grasping a finger, focusing his eyes and managing a bright, gummy smile. Memory always played false with these things and her other grandchildren had probably been just the same as babies. But all the while a small voice deep inside kept saying she was
not
mistaken – there
was
something different about that flaccid stare and the droop of the mouth issuing its constant stream of dribble. Even the shape of him struck her as vaguely wrong somehow – his head seemed to be growing at a faster rate than the rest of him.

Charlotte watched him with gnawing anxiety as winter eventually gave way to spring and spring to summer. In June, when he was six months old and still showing no signs of doing any of the things she felt sure he should be doing, Charlotte decided she could bury her head in the sand no longer.

‘I'm worried about our Noël,' she said bluntly to Dolly one day when she and the boys came to visit. It was a perfect June afternoon – the sky a soft deep blue, the warm air heavy with the smell of the tar-spraying machine in the road outside and, closer by, the delicate perfume of the lavender bushes where bees hovered and buzzed. ‘Aren't you worried about him, Dolly?'

Dolly's blue eyes became guarded. ‘Why should I be? He's ever such a good baby.'

‘That's just it,' Charlotte said. ‘He's
too
good. And he doesn't seem to take any interest in anything. Now I'm sure that by his age our Bob and Fred …'

‘You can't compare them!' Dolly cut in sharply. ‘It does no good to try. They're all different, you should know that.'

‘Of course I know it,' Charlotte agreed, ‘but he should be taking more notice than he does.'

Dolly picked Noël out of his pram and settled him on her ample lap. His head lolled forward and a stream of dribble ran onto his knitted matinee jacket.

‘Well, you're the only one to ever suggest such a thing, Mam,' Dolly said, sounding hurt. ‘If you haven't got anything nice to say about Noël, you'd do better to say nothing at all.'

Charlotte sniffed. If Dolly was closing her eyes to all the signs at the moment, there was nothing she could do about it.

‘We'll just have to hope I'm wrong, Dolly, that's all. But if I'm not … well, the sooner you get the doctor to have a look at him the better, in my opinion. And remember, I'm always here if you need me.'

‘Thanks, Mam.' Dolly's lip wobbled suddenly and Charlotte thought: She has her doubts, just like I have. She's only trying to pretend otherwise.

The confirmation made her go cold inside, turning the nightmare dread into reality. What would they do? How could they cope? How survive the shame? A grandchild of hers and something wrong with him! For a panicky moment the future swam before her eyes, like a churning sea seen from a boat-deck in a storm. Then cold common sense threw her a lifeline.

It's our Noel, she told herself. He's still our Noel, no matter what. And anyway we might both be wrong.

The figure of a girl turned the corner of the Rank, walking along towards them and momentarily all thoughts of Noel and his possible disability were driven from Charlotte's mind.

Rosa Clements. What was she doing home? She came sauntering up the Rank, the summer breeze blowing her short pleated skirt against her legs and moving her fashionably bobbed cap of raven hair.

‘Hello, Mrs Hall. Hello, Dolly. I'm glad I've seen you. I was going to knock at the door anyway.' Her tone was light, conversational, denying the antagonism which had always existed between them, but there was a note of something Charlotte could not quite understand. Jubilation?

‘Why's that then, Rosa?' Charlotte asked coolly.

‘I had a letter from Ted at the weekend.'

‘Really?' Ted was in Ramsgate for the summer, working as a bathing-chair attendant. ‘Well, you're highly honoured, Rosa, I must say.'

Rosa ignored the jibe. ‘He wants me to go down and see him.'

‘Oh; does he indeed?'

‘Yes, and I'm going down next week. Just thought I'd tell you, in case you want me to take anything for him.'

‘We'll let you know. Thanks, Rosa.'

When she had gone Dolly and Charlotte exchanged looks.

‘Do you think anything's going to come of that in the end?' Dolly asked.

And Charlotte remembered that Ted was yet another of her children she worried about – footloose, seemingly the eternal rolling stone, drifting from one job to another, one place to another.

‘There's nothing I would like better than to see our Ted settle down,' she said thoughtfully, ‘but I might as well tell the truth, Dolly – I hope it won't be with Rosa.'

Rosa was looking forward to the weekend. Since Christmas, when she and Ted had reached an understanding of sorts, their relationship had changed subtly. To the outside world their lives were continuing much as always – Rosa still living and working in the Post Office Stores at Withydown, Ted in Ramsgate for the summer – but they were in regular contact and whenever she could Rosa travelled down to spend time with him. Slowly, oh so slowly, they had become more committed, looking towards a future together, though at present they had no definite plans.

Ted's precarious occupations would not support a wife, that much was certain, but Rosa had begun to feel that one day something would turn up and to be less fearful that he might find someone else.

The day after she visited Greenslade Terrace, her spirits were high. As she worked she pictured him working too on the busy beach, his skin tanned golden brown from constant exposure to sun and salt, his hair bleached even fairer than usual. Her heart turned over with love for him. She imagined the room in his lodgings where they would be together – small, cramped, with a worked sampler over the bed, rag rugs on the floor and faded cretonne curtains at the window that overlooked a row of identical houses in a narrow back street. But the impersonal dinginess of the room meant nothing to her. It was made beautiful because was where his arms would be around her again, glorified by the aura of romance that surrounded every moment they spent together.

I love him, Rosa thought. I love him and I truly believe now that he loves me. He is a rover, but in his way he really cares. The thought warmed her, lightening the mundane everyday tasks, speeding and yet slowing the moments before she would be with him again until time seemed a stupid, topsy-turvy thing.

She was serving a customer when the cold suddenly hit her and for a moment she stood stock-still, her heart almost stopping as the sharp, shaft of unexplained dread ran through her like an electric shock and the chill it left wherever it touched made her tremble.

Ted, she thought. Something's wrong with Ted!

The customer was looking at her curiously and she tried to push the weight of the premonition away from her, but it was useless. Useless too to pretend she was being foolish and over-imaginative. Over the years Rosa had come to know and trust her own intuition; never had it let her down. She remembered now that other time, years ago, when she had known Ted was in danger. He had been in France then and with men falling all around, it had not been so strange to feel suddenly that something was desperately wrong with him. Nevertheless, she had been right; she had realised afterwards that the fear she had experienced then had coincided more or less exactly with the moment when he had fallen. Now this same certainty shook her, dispelling every scrap of happiness and replacing it with foreboding.

But what could she do? It was years now since Rosa had made any attempt to use ‘the power'she had once felt was within her. Now, as she sought frantically for some way out of the slough of terror that enveloped her, she remembered it. Had she ever really possessed any power? She didn't know, but in her helplessness she knew she had to try at least.

As the customer left the shop she crossed to the door on urgent, shaking legs and turned the sign to ‘closed'. Then she ran up the stairs to her own flat. She had nothing to aid her but her own intuition now; there was no time to go to the woods or the open country as she had once done. With trembling fingers she pulled from the drawer the one thing which made her feel close to Ted – a photograph he had sent her, showing him standing beside a beach hut clad only in a pair of rolled-up trousers. A further rummage produced the nearest thing to her old closeness with nature – a necklace she had once made for herself from empty acorn shells and dried berries. Then she sank to her knees with the photograph on the ground in front of her, the necklace clasped between her hands. When she closed her eyes the strength of her emotion seemed to close in around her, a suffocating blanket which cut off breath, and she summoned within herself every ounce of will … concentrating, concentrating, while the room retreated from her and she became an island, a small powerhouse of indescribable force.

Let Ted be all right.
The words came from deep within her, a silent shout that echoed within every vein and pervaded her whole being.
Let Ted be all right.
The world shrank with it, reverberated to it. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed.

For long, timeless moments she remained there, no longer even wondering what was wrong, thinking of nothing but the need to find a way of helping, even at this distance; some way of mustering the fates to avert disaster.

How long she remained there, motionless, she never afterwards knew. Only at last, exhausted by the effort, she opened her eyes. The acorns on the necklace had cut deep into her hands, leaving sharp scarlet imprints; she felt numb and weak; her head throbbed and her eyes were heavy.

Had she done any good? She had no idea. The fear was still there, and her own helplessness depressed her.

If the power had ever been there, it had deserted her now. Weak and shaking, Rosa pulled herself to her feet. The shop downstairs had to be attended – she couldn't stay up here. Somehow she had to carry on.

Mustering the last dregs of her will-power, Rosa left the privacy of her room and went back down the stairs.

It had been a routine morning for Ted – as routine as life as a bathing-chair attendant ever could be.

The weather was good, warm and clear in spite of a strong breeze coming off the sea, and the beach was packed with holidaymakers – men snoozing in bathing chairs, their heads covered by knotted handkerchiefs; women holding up their skirts around their legs to reveal glimpses of pink bloomer legs, paddling in the breakers at the water's edge; children digging in the sand and filling moats with toy tin buckets of greyish sea water. But there were few swimmers. The red warning flags were out, fluttering at either end of the beach, and the few bathers there were kept cautiously to the shallows. The currents were dangerous here and from time to time there was a fatality, but for the most part holidaymakers respected the sea and its moods.

Towards lunchtime, during a lull, Ted wandered along to the refreshment stall for a cup of tea. Tom Bargett, who shared lodgings with him, worked on the stall and they chatted idly as Ted drank his tea and bit into a warm but tasty pork pie.

‘I told you Rosa's coming next weekend?'

‘Yes. Nice girl. You're lucky there, Ted.'

‘I know. Some day I'm going to marry her.'

‘Marry? You? You're mad. Stick with your freedom, lad, and have the best of both worlds.'

‘That's all very well, but I can't keep her hanging on for ever.'

‘I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry if I were you.' Like Ted, Tom was a free spirit. All the lads who worked on the beach were the same. ‘Have some fun first!'

‘I've done that, Tom. I've had my fun and sometimes I think it's time I settled down. But it's not that easy. What have I got to get married on?'

‘Who wants anything?'

They remained in companionable silence, Ted leaning against the refreshment stall and surveying the beach casually. All these people enjoying themselves. All these people, their hopes and dreams shelved temporarily while they took a holiday, or even just a day away from reality.

Suddenly he stiffened, seeing that a small crowd had collected at the water's edge, looking out to sea. A child's scream carried on the stiff breeze above the crying of the gulls. The atmosphere, relaxed and normal a moment ago, had changed dramatically now and there was a chill in the warm sun. Something was happening – something was very wrong …

‘Swimmer in trouble!' The shout was relayed up the beach, passed like an eddying ripple, charged with the high tension generated by the realisation of imminent tragedy.

The two men at the refreshment stall strained their eyes out to sea.

‘Bloody fool! Surely he must have seen the flags flying!'

‘Yes – there's always one though that thinks he knows better.'

‘Look – there goes Seb!'

Seb Murphy, the lifeguard, was another friend of Ted's and during the long summer evenings they often shared a pint in a sea-front bar. Big, brawny, a fine swimmer, he attracted a great deal of attention on the beach, drawing the girls like wasps to a jam-jar. Now he ran on pumping, athletic legs, darted through the watching crowd and splashed into the breakers. As Ted and Tom watched, the water swallowed him so that they could see nothing but his head and his arms, executing a perfect crawl stroke as he made for the distant and wildly-waving figure of the bather in trouble.