The Kissing Gate Page 3
Thaddeus Stevens took his dog a little way off and then waited politely while the animal lifted a leg. Father Martin said, ‘A difficult situation … yes, we find ourselves in a difficult situation. We can arrange a very nice memorial service, if that would be acceptable to you?’ He did not wait for a response. ‘It need not be too soon. Some people in similar circumstances wait a whole year, you know!’ He gave a sort of guffaw at this. ‘There will be a great deal for you to do. Of course there will. You will probably wish to see the actual place—’
Ned interrupted fiercely, ‘A memorial service is being arranged. On the site. By the ambassador, I believe. We are in touch with friends over there.’
‘Wonderful. Of course. But your friends here will want to have the opportunity to remember them. As I said in my short homily this morning, they were our pride and joy and we cannot let them go without some kind of formal – well, actually fairly informal – farewell.’
Ned said something incomprehensible, Gussie said, ‘Thank you, Father.’ Jannie said tearfully, ‘That is just lovely. They were so modest, you know. They would love to hear that they are a pride and a joy. Of course, they will always be a pride and a joy to us …’ the tears were overflowing. ‘… when you said about Daddy being a wonderful sculptor and Mummy a wonderful human being I knew you had understood them. Everyone thought Daddy was a wonderful human being because of having no legs, and of course he was, but he was always a slave to his stones. That’s how he put it, didn’t he, Gussie? Didn’t he, Ned? A slave to his stones!’ She choked on a laugh then pressed on fiercely, ‘But Mummy put her heart and soul into being a human being. And she was.’
Gussie said fervently, ‘She was the best human being I know.’ And Ned was suddenly overcome and turned away.
Father Martin stopped being an Anglican priest for a moment and gathered them all to him with unexpectedly long arms.
‘My dears,’ he said, ‘we are all victims of the human plight, you know. We’re in it together. Remember that. We’re all in the same boat!’
He was not to know that he was using such a very apt metaphor, and when Jannie made a little owl-hoot of pleasure at the coincidence, he thought she was about to weep again. He had another more conventional service in Carbis Bay in half an hour, so he said quickly, ‘God bless you all.’
As he peeled away, leaving them with Thaddeus and his dog, Ned said quietly, ‘And the boat we sail in.’
Thaddeus looked at Jannie and nodded. ‘Well may you laugh, child. ’E means well, ’owever. I do assure you of that. Difficult for ’im ’cos ’e’s supposed to love us all an’ ’e offen dun’t find us very lovable.’
He poked at the dog, who had lifted his tail and squatted. ‘Cain’t do your business ’ere, me ’ansome. Come on ’ome now.’ He started down the slippery grass towards the thin neck of land joining the Island to the town. ‘Got ’is own latrine in the yard,’ he called back. ‘Saves me getting down to pick up you-know-wot.’
They watched him till he got to the gate where he called something back.
‘What was that?’ Gussie asked.
Ned had not heard either but Jannie, sharp of eye and ear, said flatly, ‘What everyone says. Take it day by day.’ She shook her head despairingly. ‘As if it might get better.’
‘It will.’ Gussie and Ned spoke automatically and together, and because it was spontaneous they looked at each other and laughed.
‘It’s all right for you two!’ Jannie screamed at them like a fishwife. ‘You’ve still got a father and you’ve got a mother!’ She stabbed an angry finger at each in turn. ‘I haven’t got anyone!’ And she was gone, hurtling uncaringly towards the gate, skidding and recovering and going on.
Ned said, ‘Oh God. She hasn’t got a key to get into the house. Come on.’
Four
THEY HELD THE second farewell service in the parish church at the end of the month.
None of them felt able to go on with their lives; the television news showed repeats of the disaster day after day and the body count went up and up. As Jannie said, ‘We need closure. Father Martin might be able to give us that.’
The other two looked doubtful but agreed. When she went shopping Gussie was usually accosted by friends, and complete strangers, for ‘the date of the funeral’. She said to Jannie, ‘It’s not only the three of us who need closure. The artists … they’re putting flowers all around the sculpture shed.’
Ned said gloomily, ‘The new chairman of the Trust – what’s-his-name – Harry McKinnon – he telephoned. He wants to take over the shed. Didn’t mention money but the implication was there.’
‘We don’t need money,’ Gussie said. ‘And anyway, I thought he was in hospital when it happened. Appendix?’
Ned shrugged. Jannie said, ‘It’s not only the artists who are keen, is it? Jem Maddern’s father used to play with Dad when they were kids … those people in the Tregenna shop who ordered the special sweets he chewed when he was working … the Fishermen’s Lodge. It’s no good you two holding back, we’ve got to do something.’
So they talked to Father Martin and the service was arranged for 29 September, which was a Saturday. That very morning a letter came from a Reverend Eric Selway in Sussex. He had been sent their address by the chairman of The Spirit of America as being ‘victims of the recent terrorism’, and as he and his wife were arranging to take a group to New York as soon as it was possible to get near the site, he was extending an invitation to the three of them to join various family groups from all over the British Isles in a short service of remembrance.
Even Jannie looked startled at this. But when the other two shook their heads decidedly she had second thoughts.
‘Actually,’ she frowned prodigiously to stop her usual tears, ‘don’t you think, perhaps, we need to see … where it happened? Father Martin seemed to think we would.’
‘I don’t,’ Ned said definitely.
Gussie was less certain. ‘Will it help? Perhaps after this service today, we’ll have had enough.’ She touched Jannie’s arm reassuringly. ‘Even good things can be overdone. Remember Dad with the clotted cream?’
Jannie spluttered a laugh and then mopped her eyes. ‘It was so not like Dad to take that last spoonful. But, actually, he never had clotted cream again, did he?’ She frowned once more. ‘Listen. I should be in Exeter right now starting my third year. Gussie, you should be doing the Musgrove Estate—’
‘I gave the project to Heritage Gardens. They’ll do a good job. I can’t work, not yet.’
‘That’s what I mean. Ned should be in Bristol and he’s not. We have to get to a point where we can go on again.’
‘And you think a trip to New York will do it?’ Ned snorted a laugh.
Gussie said, ‘Be fair, Ned. It might be the right thing. Shall we talk about it after this service?’
He looked at her and then nodded briefly.
The congregation overflowed across the road and into the Garden of Remembrance. The atmosphere was warm, a mellow warmth that melted any resistance the Briscoes might have felt. It wrapped around them. This service had been intended for other people, people who needed to remember Mark and Kate Briscoe before they went on with their own lives. The siblings had seen it as a duty. Now they saw it as a comfort.
But a week later they were still in the cottage; Gussie said she was cleaning every inch of the house, Jannie said she was planning her dissertation, Ned began on the repairs he should have started in August when he’d first arrived.
The second letter from the Reverend Eric Selway said they had been offered an hour as near to the site of the Twin Towers as was safe. He had not heard from the Briscoes so was unable to reserve them seats on the chartered flight or rooms at the hotel, but if they wished to join the others for the service they would be very welcome.
They passed the letter from hand to hand. ‘We’re like old-fashioned invalids,’ Gussie said. ‘Have you noticed how slowly we do things now?’
‘I can’t get
started on my diss,’ Jannie told her miserably. ‘I’ve got notes galore on approaches to teaching children with physical difficulties and I keep reading them and not being keen … I was keen, you know I was.’
Ned looked at the letter. ‘I wonder whether we should give this a try. I wish Mitch was still holding the reins. We’d go like a shot then.’
‘I could telephone the new chairman, McKinnon – Harry McKinnon; ask his advice,’ Gussie suggested doubtfully. ‘He might tell us to wait for a while until the general climate cools down.’
‘In other words, he won’t want us cluttering up his place.’ Ned made a face.
‘We wouldn’t stop with them, Ned! We’d go to the old Palace Hotel on Times Square. We could walk in Central Park. Do you remember the carousel, Jan?’
Jannie looked at her, then Ned. ‘No. And I need to. Ring Mr McKinnon, Gussie. Please.’
Gussie worked out the best time to ring and did it the next day. The others sat either side of her at the table in the kitchen, which had been Mark’s flat when Etta, whose house this had once been, was alive.
Gussie cleared her throat. ‘Am I speaking to Mr McKinnon?’ A long pause, then she said, ‘Oh … sorry. Is he there? Yes? OK. Thank you.’ She covered the mouthpiece. ‘It was the butler, I think. He’s going to connect us.’
‘Butler?’ Jannie looked at Ned. ‘Mitch didn’t have a butler, did he?’
‘No. I think this chap has serious money.’
Gussie waved a hand. ‘Yes, Mr McKinnon. Gussie Briscoe here. We have been contacted by the organizer of a religious service for British relatives to be held at the site of the Twin Towers. We don’t know whether or not to join his group.’
There was another pause, much longer, while she listened, nodding now and then and making little noises into the receiver.
‘Well, yes. We are able to come. But not if it is going to be … you know …’ She waited again and said, ‘Can you explain? I’m sorry I didn’t quite catch … yes, I do understand that you have to get back into harness. Of course. We don’t expect you to put off the trip. But you think this sort of thing is worthwhile? Lots of these services? Carefully managed? Well, we would like to meet you and your wife too, but we have no idea what the itinerary might entail.’ She frowned with concentration as his voice took over again. Then she said, ‘Listen, we’ll try and get you on the phone from the Palace Hotel. It’s where we stayed with Mum and Dad; we know it well. Yes. It’s a Friday – yes, the twenty-sixth of October. Yes. Perhaps. Yes.’
She waited, then put down the phone. ‘Looks like we’re going. Couldn’t hear very well but I don’t think we’ll see him because they’re off to California soon. He’s quite keen about something – didn’t get it.’
Jannie said, ‘Neither did I, and I can usually pick up the main points of someone else’s conversation.’ She grinned. ‘So be warned! But he sounded … bossy.’
‘Yes.’ Gussie spoke slowly. ‘But he was all for it. He kept saying we could make it. He said it several times.’ She looked at Ned. ‘Let’s go,’ she said suddenly.
Ned booked a flight from Heathrow to JFK. They would arrive the day before the service and spend two days afterwards revisiting places that held special memories for them. Jannie started a list with more enthusiasm than she had felt for her college work. Gussie rang Eric Selway to ask whether they could join his party for the actual service. He said he would send them the itinerary and they could fit in when and where they wished.
‘He sounds all right,’ Gussie reported uncertainly. ‘Very sort of middle-of-the-road. But all right.’
Ned was reassuring. ‘We don’t need him to be inspirational. In fact, if he starts anything inspirational it will interfere with what we need … We just need to be where Mum and Dad were. So that we can see it. Maybe understand it. A bit.’
‘They are all going back the day after the service – overnight flight. They will have been there a week. He suggests we meet for dinner the day we arrive. He’ll book three extra places. At the Florabunda. Just off Fifth. We can get a cab.’
Ned nodded. ‘Sounds a bit formal. Never mind, we’ll show our faces.’
Jannie spoke without thinking. ‘If I’d got that dress from Truro I could have worn it.’ Then she looked aghast as her own words hit her and said, ‘Oh my God!’
They reached for each other as they did so often. And then Ned released the girls and stood up. ‘Time for a cup of tea. We’re going to New York where it happened. We obviously need to.’
Five
BEFORE THEY LEFT, Uncle Rory came to see them. He had married Daddy’s sister, then discarded her and gone to live abroad for years. At the time of this marital disaster, Ned had wondered aloud whether divorce could be genetic. But Aunty Rosemary had lived at home and had been indispensable when it came to looking after her parents. Now she lived quietly in Bristol. She never visited her brother but entertained the whole family in the big old house whenever they needed to ‘do business’, as she put it. Ned maintained that Rory had broken her heart and was thankful they never saw the man, even when he was home and living in Trewyn Place, which was oftener after his father died. Gussie might have met him half a dozen times in her life; he had come to Jannie’s christening. He ignored Ned; Ned was irrelevant.
It was Ned who opened the door that dismal October morning. He recognized ‘Uncle Rory’ but did not stand aside to let him in.
‘How may I help you?’
Rory stood there, saturnine, somehow aggressive. ‘I am Rory Trewyn. I suppose I’m a sort of uncle to the three of you. Great-uncle. In-law. Twice removed. Something like that.’
‘Do you want to see Jannie?’
‘I’m assuming she is back at Exeter. Her final year, I believe. I came to see August, actually.’
Gussie spoke from the yard below him. She had a basket of laundry ready to peg out on the crisscross of lines.
‘I’m down here …’ She saw who it was and for the life of her couldn’t remember his name. ‘Do go into the parlour. I won’t be long.’
Rory, who must be well over seventy, grunted and swung himself over the railing and into the yard. Gussie gasped; Ned said, ‘Christ!’ but the railing held and Uncle Rory looked mightily pleased with himself.
‘Used to do that when I was a kid and went out in the Forty-Niner with Philip Nolla. I could always find him down here, mending his bloody nets.’
Gussie was angry. ‘You could have killed yourself! Damaged the cottage too!’
She dumped the basket and looked at him. He was crouched over his knees, breathing audibly. ‘Are you all right? Can you get into the kitchen?’
‘You mean the cellar?’ He straightened. ‘God, you sound like Etta Nolla.’
He walked carefully through the door, cast an eye around the converted pilchard cellar, still hung about with nets and floats, and sat himself at the table.
Gussie glanced up at Ned and made a face. ‘Thank you,’ she said drily to her uncle’s back. She had not known the Nollas but her father had shared his memories. He had always remembered them with love and gratitude as his benefactors, but there were others who had called Etta lesser names. Shrew. Even witch. Ned made a face back and Gussie grinned as she went into the half-light of the kitchen.
She said briskly, ‘You’ve only just caught us, actually. Jannie is joining us tomorrow and we are taking the sleeper to London.’
‘I heard.’ He looked at her. ‘You’re a woman.’
‘True. Do you want some coffee?’
He shook his head and produced a hip flask. ‘How old are you, August? Thirty? Thirty-five?’
‘Thirty, and please do not call me August.’
‘I almost called you Zannah. You’re very like her, you know.’
‘Everyone says I look like my father.’
‘Well, they’re wrong. You’ve got legs, for a start. Good ones.’
She flushed with anger. ‘No prizes for good taste, Uncle. But then, no prizes for much really.’
Gussie looked at him with disgust. ‘I didn’t expect anything at all. Not from you, of all people. Anyway, your rather strange condolences are accepted and as we are going away tomorrow, we can say goodbye.’
‘Hey! Hang on, woman! I came to tell you something.’ He swigged again. ‘Zannah telephoned. I knew by then. She’s pretty cut up. You haven’t been in touch.’
‘I wrote to her, Rory. I’ve heard nothing.’ She sat down heavily.
‘Oh, she’d had that letter, yes. But she expected you to go and see her. You know your father was everything to her.’
‘That’s why she buzzed off when I was eight years old, was it?’
‘You were a difficult child.’
‘What?’ But even as she exploded with incredulity she was thinking, Was I? Was that why Zannah needed space? Did I make her claustrophobic?
She said, ‘You can’t know anything about us – you were never around. You and Dad never got on.’
‘Zannah talked to me. I knew her father, Gerald Scaife. He talked too.’
‘Why would either of them talk to you?’
‘It was my bucolic period. People talk to drunks because they’ll forget.’
Gussie looked at him, saw the shift in his eyes. She said slowly, ‘You slept with her, didn’t you? She was one of your many so-called conquests.’
‘Ro had left me. Sauce for the goose … you know the old saying.’
‘I heard you threw Aunty Rosemary’s stuff out of the house.’
He gave an impatient gesture, sweeping her words into the past. ‘The thing is, you should go and see your mother. You’re not the only one grieving, you know. Take Jannie with you. I hear she’s taking it badly. You’ve still got a mother, after all – go and see her.’
‘I think you should leave. Now. If Ned comes down he won’t stand for—’