The Way We Were (17 page)

Tiggy takes a deep breath. ‘You're right. I've got to face it and make a decision. This would be a place to start. With the allowance I shall get for the baby I might be able to scrape by with some part-time work to begin with.'

‘I can help out with the baby.' Aunt Em continues to hold her. ‘Archie and I aren't far away. It'll be fun. You're not alone, Tiggy.'

‘I feel such a fool, you see. And now I'm causing trouble for my friends.'

‘But isn't that what friendship is about? It's like faith, isn't it? It only has meaning when the chips are down. If it isn't tested then it has no value. And how do you know that you're causing trouble? You might be offering me an opportunity to be useful, to share in your life and the life of your baby. Can you imagine how wonderful that would be for me?'

Tiggy puts both her arms around Aunt Em and hugs her tightly. ‘Thanks,' she says. ‘I don't know how to answer that.'

‘You don't have to. Let's go back and have some tea. You need time to think but at least you know you've got somewhere to go if you want it.'

‘So what did you think of it?' asks Uncle Archie.

He towers in the small kitchen, courteous and genuinely interested, whilst Aunt Em makes tea. Tiggy feels a wave of affection and gratitude: it is incumbent upon her to be positive.

‘I liked it,' she says. ‘I think it might work.'

‘Splendid.' Archie picks up the tea-tray and carries it out into the courtyard. Em follows with the teapot.

‘This is so different from Trescairn.' Tiggy sits down on a little wrought-iron chair and looks around her. Brightly coloured flowers tumble and trail from terracotta pots and valerian clings to niches in the surrounding wall. It is hot and sheltered here, the flagstones warm beneath their feet. ‘Don't you miss the space after Trescairn?'

‘No,' says Aunt Em firmly. ‘I do not. Nor do I miss the endless wind, the mists, the draughts and the dispiriting fact that hardly anything would grow in such inhospitable conditions.'

Uncle Archie grins at Tiggy. ‘Does that answer your question?'

‘Very definitely.' Tiggy grins too. ‘What about you?'

‘Well, I'm rather fond of the old place but I could see Em's point. When my tenant here died we thought it was an excellent moment to make a change. And Pete and Julia were looking for something bigger. Worked out splendidly, hasn't it, Em?'

‘Splendidly' agrees Em rather drily. ‘Though I had no idea how busy village life could be.'

Archie takes his tea from her and winks at Tiggy. ‘I neglect her,' he says. ‘It's terrible.'

‘That's why he hopes you like the cottage,' says Em, passing Tiggy her cup. ‘He thinks you'll distract me and I'll be too busy to keep on nagging him to stay at home more.'

Tiggy remembers what Aunt Em said earlier, about sharing in her life, and smiles.

‘Well, he could be right,' she says.

2004

Em put the tea-things on the draining board. It was odd that she should remember the little incident; strange that scent could be so powerfully evocative.

But after all, she reminded herself, it was hardly surprising that she should be thinking about Tiggy just now, when Caroline was expecting Zack's baby: Tiggy's grandchild, incredible though that was to believe. It seemed an impossible idea simply because Tiggy had not remained to grow old like the rest of them. Em knew that in her mind's eye Tiggy would always be young, hardly more than a child herself, just as she'd been on that May morning twenty-eight years before in the kitchen at Trescairn.

The scent of the
luteum
was all around her and Em, once again, saw Tiggy's anxious expression and the delightful figure of the little Merlin. Now, stacking the plates on the draining board, emptying the teapot, putting the remaining scones into a tin, Em racked her memory. There had been something familiar about the bronze – and whose signature was it that had been carved into its base?

The raucous ring of the telephone sliced across the tenuous link with the past and Em put the incident out of her mind, wiped her hands, and went to answer it.

CHAPTER NINE

2004

Back at Penharrow, Liv helped Debs to pack away the shopping and then went into the office. Chris sat at his desk, looking preoccupied. She murmured ‘Hi', and sat down at her own computer, not wanting to distract him. She had some new photographs to add to the website but she checked emails first: two new bookings and a nice message from a recent visitor who wanted to return in the autumn. Liv checked the diary, made notes, answered the emails. She wondered if Val had managed the laundry and done the ironing, and glanced across at Chris to see if she might ask him.

He was watching her with an expression that jolted her heart and sent the blood racing into her cheeks. Immediately he dropped his gaze to the computer screen, pretending to be absorbed, whilst Liv regained her composure.

‘Do you know if Val got the ironing done?' she asked. Her voice sounded normal; that was good. ‘Don't want to interrupt you or anything but I can get on with it now if she didn't.'

He pursed his lips, shook his head, keeping his eyes on his screen. ‘I really don't know. She had a headache at teatime but I've been here ever since then.'

Liv got up. ‘I'll go and see.' She went out into the yard, her heart still beating unevenly, but she didn't go into the house; she couldn't face Val just yet. Instead she went across to the laundry-room. It was clear that Val had been busy although there was still some ironing to be done. Almost thankfully, Liv switched on the iron and set to work. She felt confused and frightened; as if some mighty machine had been put in motion that could easily get out of control.

She remembered her mother's words: ‘It can be dangerous', and her own confident assertion that there was nothing to worry about, that she would never do anything to hurt Val. But what if Val insisted on hurting herself, damaging her relationship with Chris because of her obsessive need to control? The question was: how much effect was her, Liv's, presence having on the situation between Val and Chris? Did Chris depend too much on her support and approval when Val was being tiresome?

Liv banged the iron to and fro over the sheets and pillowcases, defending herself against the charge of taking sides. It was precisely because she hadn't wanted an unequal fight that she'd spoken to Val earlier, pointing out the dangers of her behaviour. Presently, piling the laundry into the big airing cupboard, slamming the doors, Liv decided to call it a day.

She went into the annexe, poured a glass of wine and sat down at her laptop. Andy's email was such a shock that she quite forgot Chris and Val and simply stared at the screen, rereading his message.

To: Liv
From: Andy
OK I might as well tell you before someone else does. Cat has come back into my life. I know! I know! But it's rather different now than when we were all kids. Anyway, she's fun and she sends her love. Says she'll look you up when she's down in Cornwall! Can we be adult about this? Please!

Liv was filled with a mixture of anger and dread. It was absolutely out of order that Andy should allow family loyalty to be elbowed aside for the beastly Cat and she wrote at once to tell him so.

To: Andy
From: Liv
I simply can't believe I'm reading this stuff. Right up to sixth form you utterly loathed her. We all did. She was always mean and spiteful and loved getting people into trouble at school. And remember what she did to Zack. You can't be that desperate, surely!

She took her glass and went to curl up on the sofa, feeling confused and miserable, yet a small part of her remained secretly elated by Chris's expression. As usual the panoramic view calmed her: the great curve of stormy green-black sea filled the whole of the horizon, its long curling breakers racing inshore to smash themselves into arcs of flying spray against the stony, unyielding cliffs. In the face of such elemental force, her problems and anxieties seemed puny.

Nevertheless, she went eagerly back to her laptop several times during the evening to check her emails but there was no other message from Andy.

1976

The thing that is the most difficult to get used to, once they've gone, is the silence in the house. There is no sound of the twins arguing over the Lego, Charlie's scribble-talk or Julia humming to her favourite Carly Simon album while she does the ironing; no plans made over breakfast; no voices singing along with Big Ted or the Wombles; no bedtime nursery rhymes.

The dogs follow Tiggy around, puzzled by the empty rooms but pleased by the extra walks they are getting.

‘It's something to do,' Tiggy tells Aunt Em when she comes for lunch one day. ‘I miss them all dreadfully.'

‘Julia was worried about you being alone so soon after your grandmother's death. She feared that you'd have too much time to think.'

‘She's right. I'm not quite as good at being alone as I thought I'd be.'

‘There are an awful lot of hours to be got through,' says Em. ‘I found from four in the afternoon till seven were the longest when Archie was at sea. But of course I had no children to keep me busy, though I sometimes worked part-time. I refused to do anything that might interfere with being at home when he was on leave. It restricted me but I did quite a lot of voluntary work.'

‘I miss teaching,' Tiggy says. ‘I've begun to see that having some kind of structure to the day is important. Children give you that. So do dogs, up to a point.'

‘When I was young,' says Em, ‘I looked after one of my elderly aunts. In those days, just after the war, it was perfectly reasonable to expect a younger member of the family to care for an older one and, anyway, I was constantly reminded that I was very lucky that they'd been prepared to look after me and that now it was my turn to repay the debt. Being at the beck and call of a self-willed, cantankerous old woman might have been exhausting but at least I never had to worry about how long the day was.'

Tiggy laughs. ‘It sounds awful.'

‘I spent my time daydreaming. I was physically busy but the inside of my head was mine. I used to make up long dramas that went on for weeks at a time. I was the heroine, of course, and some brave but weary fighter pilot or sailor back from the war would take a major role. It was all very romantic stuff, of course.'

‘Oh, I know exactly what you mean,' says Tiggy eagerly. ‘I was the same. I used to spend most of the holidays with my grandmother and I'd read and read – Georgette Heyer especially – and I used to make up stories about how one of those tough, strong-jawed types would find me and carry me off.' She shakes her head. ‘It sounds a bit pathetic, doesn't it? But it worked for you, Aunt Em.'

‘Yes, it worked for me. One day I met Archie at someone's bridge party and everything changed. Poor Archie. I sometimes wonder if he knew what hit him.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Well, it was so fantastic, you see; my dream actually coming true at last. I threw twenty-eight years of frustrated and unrequited love at him. In some ways I can see now that I needed him to be everything I hadn't had: mother, father, siblings, lover, husband. A lesser man might easily have crumpled beneath the weight. Archie managed to handle it, probably because he had time off when he went to sea. Luckily he's a very generous man and I've learned to be more rational. Not always, though: I still get resentful sometimes when he's busy and his time is taken up for some cause when we could be together. I feel I'm still trying to catch up on everything I missed. I suppose the sad fact is that however hard you try you can never replace a happy, balanced childhood.'

‘Tom used to talk about that. His parents were killed when he was very young and he spent most of his childhood away at school, including the holidays. He told me that he was always looking for someone that he could attach himself to, whether it was other boys and their families, one of the matrons or a master. He was very lucky when he went to his second school at thirteen to have a chaplain who understood how desperate he was and what he was feeling, and this man and his family really straightened him out. He told Tom never to use his lack of family as a hook to hang his failures on. It would become a habit, he said; an excuse.'

‘That's interesting,' says Aunt Em thoughtfully. ‘I think I see what he means. It's fatally easy to excuse a negative aspect of one's own behaviour by thinking that it's a result of not having had a normal childhood. I do it myself.'

‘Well, this chaplain said that simply being part of a family didn't necessarily guarantee a stable, happy future and that Tom must learn to see himself clearly and honestly.'

‘Not that easy,' murmurs Aunt Em.

‘Tom talked about it often. Obviously he was trying to help me come to terms with certain things, too, but it had made a very deep impression on him.'

‘The drawback with seeing oneself clearly and honestly is that it's such a devastating experience.' Aunt Em grins ruefully. ‘Rather shattering to the self-esteem.'

‘Ah, but the thing is that you have to be generous too. Tom made a point of that. The chaplain told him to look at yourself honestly, not with self-pity, but be able to forgive yourself – something like that, anyway. I wish I'd known him. I suppose one never knows how much is due to nature or nurture when it comes to character. Tom was great fun but he drove himself physically. He told me that he'd longed to have a family who would've come to school to see him play rugby or cricket and cheer him on like the other boys' families did. That's what drew Tom and me together: the lack of a family. By the time we met he was much more self-confident than I was. Having been at school and university for most of his life he was very self-contained too. But we sort of recognized each other.' She looks rather shyly at Aunt Em. ‘I had that feeling when I met you.'