Chapter Forty-Three
Last time I was going to Cornwal , it seemed as if winter would never end. This time, it is glorious. We speed out of London and the trees are thick with new buds, sprouting like green fingers. There are even a few lambs in the fields, and white blossom smothering the black hawthorn branches.
The countryside through the southernmost Somerset Levels is bright green, with a kind of alertness to it, as if everything is quivering with new life.
I stare out of the window watching the countryside unfold, coming awake again. I am the sole occupant of my table, as it turns out, but at the next table an uneasy silence reigns. The Bowler Hat reads the paper, Guy hunches over, writing notes on an auction catalogue, and Louisa puts her reading glasses on and shuffles through a file of papers on the launch of the foundation. My mother is sitting upright, her eyes closed, but I know she’s not asleep.
Somewhere around Glastonbury, Louisa puts her pen down. ‘Should we talk about what’s going to happen?’ she says. ‘I mean, I’ve deliberately kept this easy to manage, and of course Didier is real y responsible for it al —’
‘Didier?’ I ask.
‘Didier du Val on,’ Louisa says. ‘He was Franty’s – he was your grandmother’s dealer.’
‘Darling Didier,’ Mum murmurs, her eyes stil closed. Louisa ignores this, and shuffles the papers again. I can see she is flustered. ‘Of course, it’s primarily the launch of the foundation at the house today, of course.’ She blushes at her repetition and it is strange to see her so unsure of herself. Normal y she’s good at being in charge: organising trips to the beach, scooting people into cars, sorting out the house, the funeral. ‘There wil be a few art critics there, a few local papers, some local friends, you know.’
‘No national papers?’ Mum opens her eyes. ‘I would have thought—’
‘It’s a six-hour journey to Summercove from London,’ Louisa says firmly. ‘And this isn’t the retrospective we’re announcing, anyway. You know that. It’s too soon after Frances’s death to have organised a proper exhibition: this is just a taster, the paintings Didier and the family had, and so forth . . . That’l be in London, in 2011. Won’t it?’
She looks at Mum for confirmation of this. Mum shrugs. ‘I suppose so,’ she says grandly. ‘Archie and I need to discuss it.’
‘Wonderful,’ Louisa says, slightly thin-lipped. ‘So, the schedule is as fol ows: One p.m., arrive at Penzance, where Frank and I wil pick up our hire car and go to Summer-cove—’ She turns to Mum. ‘Miranda, Archie is picking you up, and you’l both go and col ect Arvind from Lamorna House. OK?’
‘Mm,’ says my mother. I real y can’t see how she can find fault with this. She’s being incredibly childish. Guy is stil pretending to make the odd note here and there but I know he’s taking it al in.
‘Great,’ I interject, smiling at Louisa with my usual ‘She’s not normal y like this!’ smile, which won’t work with my mother’s own cousin of course, but sometimes helps. ‘Then kick-off is at—?’
‘There are drinks, and then your mother makes her speech at three-thirty,’ says Louisa. ‘Just welcoming everyone, explaining the aims of the foundation as set out by her parents, and talking a bit about Aunt Frances.’
Mum points to her bag. ‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘My moment in the spotlight.’
Guy does look up then. He stares thoughtful y at her, then flicks a glance at me. I suddenly feel rather sick, as if the three of us are bound into this thing together.
When we pul in to Penzance a few hours later, my stomach is grumbling, so close to lunchtime. It is a long journey. There are fresh, frothing waves bouncing on the blue sea, St Michael’s Mount is glowing in a windy sunlit bay, and when we step off the train a warm wind – not tropical, but not icy
– nearly knocks me sideways. I forget how windy it can be down here. When I was little, a gust of wind whipped my ice-cream out of my hand and into the sea at Sennen Cove, and I was so shocked I nearly fel in after it.
We make a strange band, the five of us, emerging out of the station. We are polite to each other but the oddness of the situation increases, as though we are inexorably tumbling towards the heart of something, the nearer we get to Summercove. The closest way I can think of to describe it is on Christmas Day, when you’re al standing around in your best clothes, rather awkwardly waiting for something else to happen and it’s a Thursday, and you suddenly remember that and think how odd it is. The Bowler Hat strides off to the car-hire place, and Guy goes with him. He has barely spoken a word the whole trip. I glance at my mother.
‘When did you get back then, Mum?’
‘Oh, late last night,’ she says. ‘We got delayed, a problem with some of the stuff we’d bought in a market in Fez. Fez is wonderful, darling, you must go there.’ Suddenly her face lights up. ‘There’s Archie!’
I want to say, I don’t bloody care about bloody Fez! What the hel are you talking about! I want to know about the diary, about you, about what you think of al of this! Jesus! H! Christ!
But Louisa is with us and Archie is approaching, so I just say, ‘Hm, how interesting. Mum, can we talk later, please?’
She pretends not to hear. ‘Archie, darling!’ She hugs him. ‘Mum –’ I say loudly. ‘You’ve been away for two weeks and there’s a lot we need to discuss. You know there is. I said, can we talk, please.’
Louisa looks over at this, and even I am surprised at the tone in my voice.
‘Yes, yes,’ Mum says, over Archie’s shoulder, and she steps back. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’
She smiles and Archie looks at me, instantly defensive of anyone chal enging his sister. They are side by side, the grey sea turning behind them, and for a second they are the people in Cecily’s diary, and I can’t help staring at them. They are so eerily similar, their green eyes flashing, their dark hair shining, the same height, the same expression. I can see now, what has kept them so close al these years, closer than any romantic relationship. It’s Mum’s face as she sees him approach. How good it is, I think guiltily, that she has had one person in her life with whom she can completely be herself, Archie too: he’s never as stiff and awkward around her.
‘Hel o, Natasha. We’l see you at Summercove,’ Archie says loudly to the others – the Bowler Hat and Guy are
