A Cornish Stranger Read online

  Yet hearing you sing makes me feel I am eighteen again, listening to my mother. It is such a foolish thing to do, to revisit the past. It is finished, but it calls to me like the river does.

  Gabe sat on a tree trunk near the creek, clutching her mug, listen­ing to a symphony of morning sounds just as she had spent most of the night listening to Jaunty’s uneven breathing. Gabe had held her own while waiting to hear her grandmother’s, which meant she’d had virtually no sleep and the first thing she had done when she’d woken, exhausted, had been her exercises to try and release the constriction across her chest.

  At least here in Bosworgy she wasn’t plagued by the nightmares that haunted her in London. The therapist had said that they might never go and that was when Gabe had given up therapy. She couldn’t see the point if it wasn’t going to help her sleep at night. In fact, the nights after a session had been the worst. Dragging the whole thing up, over and over, making her live through it again. Each time it was more dreadful than before and she hadn’t thought that was possible. Lying awake at night, not being able to fall asleep, reliving each moment, wondering whether, if she had done something differently, would it not have happened? So fruitless, because it had and it couldn’t be changed now.

  Here she would be able to leave it behind, begin again. Life was simpler at Bosworgy; well, at least Jaunty’s way of life was. Everything was pared down. No television, only the radio to bring the outside world into the cabin. Gabe sighed and let her shoulders relax.

  The air was thick with fog that hung a few feet above the creek and yet the water below was so clear she could see the rocks on the bottom and a small crab scuttling away. Swimming was her sanity; it had always brought clarity of thought. Discarding her towelling robe she went carefully to the steps. She was home again, and that’s all that mattered.

  Checking the thick rope was still sound and securely tied, she made her way down a few of the steep steps carved out of the rocks and dipped her foot in the water, wishing it were warmer. And while the wind blew gently from the south, it didn’t carry any heat at this early hour and so the air was cool too.

  The tide was on its way out but still high. Everything revolved around the tides living this close to the sea, she thought. She made circles with her foot in the water but there was no way to make this less painful so she took a shallow dive into the creek. The coldness of the water sucked the air from her lungs and she broke through the surface, gasping, then struck out in a fast crawl across the creek to the other side. The temperature really wasn’t too bad. In fact, she knew from experience that the river was at its warmest at this time of the year, but her body hadn’t believed that when she dived in.

  She swam back and forth until her tension disappeared, then flipped on to her back and floated while the current pulled her out into the river. She could hear the distant thud of a fishing boat engine and the cry of a gull above. Fog still hung heavily over the surface of the water, trapping the silence. She was fully out into the main part of the river and when she turned her head she could just make out Jaunty’s studio tucked in the trees. From this angle, the pines that protected it looked as if they were taking a bow.

  Gabe smiled then turned over again. With the tide on its way out, she would have a good workout to swim back to the steps, but she was looking forward to it. From an early age she had swum in the river, even if a wetsuit was needed at certain times of year. Her father had never worn one and called her a sissy, but she didn’t care. No matter what he said it was bloody cold in mid-January. Jaunty always stated it wasn’t that the temperature of the water changed so much during the course of the year, it was the air and the wind howling at you when you stepped out that made the experience painful. Gabe shivered at the memories of Christmas morning swims – always fun but often freezing.

  Kicking double time, Gabe managed to make the turn into the creek where the pull of the current was less intense. She was out of shape. How could two weeks of not swimming have made the tide so hard to beat? She didn’t know and on a peaceful morning she didn’t care. She changed to breaststroke and enjoyed the serene atmosphere. A cormorant dived towards the water but pulled up before it pierced it.

  Stillness enclosed the creek and she made her way past the steps and the quay in the silence. Branches hunched to touch the surface of the water, and in the low cloud Gabe imagined she could see ghosts lingering by the banks. The thud of the fishing boat’s motor grew louder.

  Something touched her foot and she squirmed, but knew it would most likely be one of the many grey mullet that lived in these waters. Halfway, she stopped and turned around, seeing that the mouth of the creek was now obscured by the fog rolling in, and everything was muffled. Magic. If only she could block out the rest of the world so easily. She shook her head and began a brisk crawl back to the steps.

  Out of the water and wrapped in her robe, Gabe stared at the river, watching the fog begin to dissolve as the sun grew stronger. It was going to be a glorious day. Hopefully the piano would arrive early and she could then go for a long, solitary walk. Her heart lifted as she climbed up to the cabin. The sky was blue, the sun was warm and the north shore was bathed in golden light. It was good to be home.

  Moving the sofa to the side of the room, Gabe pushed her hair out of her eyes. It just wasn’t going to work. No matter how she tried she wasn’t going to fit a grand piano into the sitting room unless she lost the dining table, which was too big for the small but functional kitchen. Everything about the cabin spoke about Jaunty’s practical way of life. The kitchen contained only what it needed, nothing more than a sink, a stove, a fridge and a large dresser. No space was wasted or overfilled. It was as though Jaunty’s surroundings needed to be plain to let her imagination soar.

  Although Gabe knew the cabin already existed when Jaunty had moved here after the war, it could have been designed for her grandmother. The kitchen and utility room were outside Gabe’s bedroom on the south side, while the sitting room was next to Jaunty’s bedroom on the north, and the cabin looked west with just a few small windows on the east side, which backed into the hill. Virtually everything about the place ­focused on the river, with almost every glance from the windows providing yet another view.

  Gabe leaned on the dining table and looked out at the bright day. It was so hot it could be midsummer. She opened a few windows and dodged a sleepy wasp. Turning, she sighed. The piano wouldn’t fit in here. There was, of course, Jaunty’s studio, perched on the edge of the cliff among the pines overlooking the river. It was almost as big as the cabin, but it hadn’t been used much recently and would most likely be damp. The question was how damp, because pianos and damp didn’t make good companions.

  This morning, sitting near the mudflats on the old quay, she had heard the music of the creek as the tide began to pull the water from the banks. It had soothed her as it tapped, gurgled and popped its way out to sea. The fog had trapped the sound, which clung to the shore like horns, muffled. She had lost track of the time, listening to the array of tones, and a composition had begun forming in her head, a sonata of the tides.

  Gabe shifted the small sofa slightly. Jaunty was dying and Gabe was OK with that. She swung around. No, she really wasn’t, but she had to be. Jaunty, at ninety-two, wasn’t going to live for many more years, probably only months, and Gabe would try and make them the best that they could be.

  In the kitchen the water for Jaunty’s egg had reached a fierce boil. For Jaunty the egg must be placed into the water only when it reached this point, then cooked for three minutes exactly. Gabe set the silly yellow duck timer she had given her grandmother the Christmas Gabe had been ten. Life was better then; she’d still believed in Father Christmas and her father had been alive. Innocence had not been lost.

  Gabe sighed. Some days she felt she’d been born under a bad moon. Her mother had died from an infection three days after she’d given birth to Gabe; when she was thirteen her father ha
d died; and four years ago, when her career was just about to make a giant step forward . . . well, she had walked away.

  The timer rang. She scooped the egg from the water and placed it in an eggcup, quickly covering it with a hat. She and Jaunty had made the hat together twenty years ago and she grinned, looking at the wonky shape. She had never been very good at crafty-type things but that hadn’t stopped her trying. Gabe placed the single egg, the china teapot, and toast on a tray, everything just as Jaunty liked it. Gabe couldn’t change her grandmother, but maybe if she built up Jaunty’s strength she would enjoy what time she had left.

  ‘Good morning.’ Jaunty walked from her bedroom into the sitting room, rubbing her hip joints, hoping they would loosen and ease her movements. Breakfast was on the table and Jaunty smiled, but Gabriella was wrinkling her nose, a clear sign that something was troubling her. She had done that repeatedly when her father had died and she was trying to be brave. When tears would threaten she would screw up her nose to hold them back and though Jaunty would say they were better out than in, the child had always tried to control her emotions. That self-control had not been a major problem at thirteen, but now it was.

  Just looking into Gabriella’s eyes sent Jaunty back in time but she needed to focus her mind on the present, she told herself. Yet everything about Gabriella tugged Jaunty backwards. She took so much from her great grandparents – her vibrant red hair was the same shade Jaunty’s father’s had been, and the purity of her singing came from Maria. All that was missing from Gabriella’s voice was the depth that Maria’s had had, the depth acquired from time and practice.

  Lowering herself into a ladder-back chair at the table, Jaunty could see up close how much Gabriella had let herself go. She took no time with herself. The glorious flame-coloured locks were scraped back in a careless chignon and the porcelain skin was dry for the lack of a bit of moisturiser. It was as if Gabriella were hiding. But how could a woman so ­naturally beautiful, so striking, hide? She had hair the colour of a sunset, yellow-orange eyes and a voice that could bring down God from heaven. Why was she concealing it all? There had always been an air of fragility about her – of course, losing her mother just after she had been born had not helped, but this – this carelessness of self had a deliberation about it that made Jaunty uneasy.

  ‘You slept in.’ Gabriella joined her at the table with a mug clasped in her hands. Chewed fingernails topped the long elegant fingers and Jaunty ran her own over the scars in the oak table top. In a previous life the table had been a door that someone had discarded but Jaunty had salvaged it, stripped it of its chipped paint, then waxed it until it glowed. It had served as the dining table, but more frequently as a work surface, and in the early years, before the studio was built, she had painted and sketched here.

  ‘I stayed in bed watching the morning light bounce off the north shore,’ Jaunty lied, but her room, in the mornings, with the sound of the gulls and the waves, was like being on a boat, something that soothed and stimulated at the same time. The water beckoned her, called to her in the way it could to one who had experienced its power. It had let her go all those years ago, but her time was coming to an end and it was demanding payment for the years of reprieve. Would her death pay her other debts? No.

  ‘Jaunty?’ Gabriella touched her arm.

  ‘Yes.’ Jaunty frowned.

  ‘I asked if you wanted any fruit this morning?’

  ‘Prunes, dear.’ Gabriella was lovely and always had been, ever eager to please. But something had happened to her, something that wasn’t good. Jaunty sensed it, but Gabriella never spoke of it – whatever it was. Everything was always ‘fine’, which said nothing at all. And though Gabriella worked like a demon on her music, it was not her singing but her music. When Jaunty listened it was beautiful and sad, but it wasn’t enough to sustain a passionate woman – and Gabriella was passionate, Jaunty knew it.

  She was, what, thirty? Jaunty wasn’t sure. She could be younger or older. Jaunty should know Gabriella’s age. Her daughter-­in-law had gone into labour a month early and it was so cold so it must have been winter. Philip, dear Philip . . . He had still been at sea on a rig somewhere and her daughter-in-law had died by the time he’d reached her. Heartbreaking.

  Jaunty puzzled how some events like Alex threading flowers through her hair in the summer of 1939 were so clear, but the date her only grandchild had been born had disappeared. Her mind was too full. A life too long does that and the brain picks and chooses what it wants to hold on to. She had no control. She still had her wits, but not all her memories, and certainly not all that she sought to keep. No, her devious mind had selected the memories to hold tight to and who was she to tell it it was wrong.

  Gabriella placed a bowl of prunes in front of her. ‘Is there anything in particular that you want to do today?’

  Jaunty raised an eyebrow. ‘Run a marathon?’ Gabriella knew there was little that Jaunty could do any more because taking anything but a few steps was too painful. However, Gabriella was putting a bright face on it as she had always done, and her smile lit the room.

  ‘The day is fine so I will sit on the terrace and watch the birds,’ Jaunty said. How they tormented her with their freedom. But this was not new. They had done this since the day she was plucked out of the sea by a fisherman and brought to Falmouth, to live thereafter in a cage of her own making.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Gabriella wrinkled her nose again.

  ‘Please stop that! You will give yourself unnecessary lines.’ Jaunty sucked some air into her lungs. She knew she shouldn’t snap, but her fuse had never been long. Her mother’s cautionary words about appearance and freckles echoed in Jaunty’s mind. Gabe mustn’t be so careless with hers.

  As Gabriella cleared the plates, Jaunty noted her granddaughter appeared almost hollow, a skeleton of the woman she used to be. Gabriella thought she was doing the right thing by coming here; she was good like her father and grandfather had been. But deep inside something had altered her. She lived alone and Jaunty knew she was lonely, which was one reason why she was here.

  But an old woman was not the company she needed. Jaunty’s fingers moved around the rim of the teacup, enjoying the delicate feel of something that, although beautiful, was robust enough to hold its scalding contents. Could Gabriella become strong again or would she let whatever had happened defeat her? Jaunty sighed inwardly. She herself had become resilient, but she had lost so much that wholeness was never possible, not when you were not who you said you were.

  ‘Wrinkles are good. Look at yours.’ Gabriella smiled and those beautiful eyes glinted with laughter.

  ‘I am an exceedingly old woman and I have earned mine. Gabriella, you are a woman in your prime – your face is as important as your voice or your hands.’

  Gabriella lifted her chin then turned away. This argument had been raised too many times. She hadn’t listened then and Jaunty knew she was a fool if she thought her granddaughter would now. She was a woman – a broken woman – not a child. Gabriella had matured into someone as stubborn as Jaunty had been. It would do her good to remember that, but her mind refused to accept it. Jaunty wanted Gabriella fixed and as whole as she could be.

  The dew soaked the bottom of Gabe’s jeans as she walked through the overgrown grass to reach the studio. The morning chorus was still in full voice despite the late hour and although the studio was only two hundred feet from the cabin, it felt to Gabe as if it was in a different county or even country. It was a place of magic. Blank canvases, sheets of paper, pieces of wood and even old cereal boxes were transformed into paintings of blue, green, grey, black, purple. Jaunty portrayed the water in every colour on the chart, each shade reflecting a mood, a moment, an emotion.

  Jaunty, too, altered the second she walked through the ­studio door. Her grandmother was like a patchwork quilt made of pieces of fabric discarded by others as unworthy of keeping, but salvaged by Jaunty, and in her t
hey became stunning. Jaunty’s nose was positively patrician, her hair was now white and downy but had been thick and black. Those eyes now somewhat clouded had been bright cornflower blue. But it was her voice, especially when she was painting, which didn’t fit her gypsy-like grandmother at all. When she was lost in her work her voice was cut-glass with impeccable diction, if she was interrupted and answered a question. But when she spoke in public, when she was aware of people near, her voice softened, her vowels became rounder. Only when she was transported by her art did she sound like an old-fashioned BBC newsreader.

  There seemed to be something about Jaunty’s hands flying across the canvas or paper that removed a filter, or maybe added one. Her hands never stilled when she was working, even if she held no brush, no palette knife, no charcoal. It was as though her movements were her brainwaves, creating the magic that would transform the canvas.

  Gabe closed her eyes and saw the flash of movement that always preceded each stroke of the brush. It was as if Jaunty was taking a practice swing in golf. Gabe smiled at the image in her head. Jaunty and golf didn’t go together. Philip, her ­father, had loved the game; indeed, a golf course was where he’d met Gabe’s mother and she wondered when he had learned to play. There were so many things she didn’t know. Maybe she should ask Jaunty now, before it was too late. In the past she had hesitated because it had felt like poking an open wound that had never healed. But time was running out. If she didn’t ask now, she would never know.

  The door to the studio didn’t open when Gabe released the latch. She wondered if it might be locked, but a shove with her shoulder released it. Inside, dust covered all the surfaces and the scent of turps still lingered in the air. Canvases were stacked against the far wall. When had Jaunty last been in here? Gabe looked around, noting the neatness, and it didn’t feel right. Yes, there was still paint splattered on the floor and even some on the ceiling, but it was old. The room looked like a museum exhibit, down to the half-finished painting on the easel.