The Path to the Sea. Liz Fenwick
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a child, she could be gracious. ‘Can I help?’
‘I’ve sliced some lemon for your gin, but I’m afraid I can’t manage that as well with the stick.’ He raised it off the floor. ‘Can’t carry too many things at once.’
‘I’ll grab the lemon.’ She watched him head to the drawing room then went into the small kitchen. For twenty-eight years since his retirement George and her mother had rattled around in this huge house. She’d never understood why they hadn’t sold it years ago. They lived in such a small part of it, especially in winter. Four rooms out of twenty-four, if she had remembered them all – plus the caretaker’s cottage, the lodge, the stables and a few barns. It was all too much for them and had been for a very long time. But her mother would never discuss it, so Diana had let it drop.
The lemon slices were in a shallow crystal bowl. Living here they had managed to hold onto the gracious past. How George would cope in Boskenna on his own was a mystery. For once, she felt sorry for him and that was a real change.
He’d entered her mother’s life and had taken it over. She’d been twenty-one when they had married. It bothered her, he irritated her even now, which was ridiculous. Her feelings hadn’t dulled with time as they should have. How could her mother replace Diana’s father with him? Back then she had seen nothing of value in George Russell, but looking again at the lemons he sliced for her, she could now admit he wasn’t so bad. He was thoughtful and he’d shown this in the past, but she hadn’t wanted to see it.
Lottie hadn’t appeared yet and George was free-pouring the gin into a glass as she walked into the drawing room. The size of his measure hadn’t changed either. It had been a hot June evening in the small flat in Chelsea when her mother had dropped the bomb that she was marrying him the following day. Speechless couldn’t begin to describe how Diana felt. George, sensing her anger, had immediately poured drinks – large ones – so that at the register office wedding the next day, Diana had a terrible hangover that had soured an already frightful situation. She’d been a right cow to her mother. But her inner child had been striking out. Looking back, she saw that her mother’s marriage meant that she would have even less of her than she’d had before, which hadn’t been much.
George took the lemons now and added a slice to her drink.
‘Thanks.’ Her hand wasn’t as stable as she would have liked. Being here was getting to her. It was a place that should feel welcoming, but everything annoyed her because it wasn’t familiar in the way it should be, despite her repeated dreams. A room like this spoke of family gatherings, Christmas carols around the piano and shared history with the portraits on the walls. Maybe they had had that once, but she couldn’t recall. All she had was a sensation like something she might have witnessed on television and not in person. Among her old diaries and journals, she still had a letter from Mrs Hoskine, the housekeeper, saying how much she missed her, and that she understood how hard it must be for Diana not to come home to Boskenna. That implied that she had loved this place once.
‘So, George, how long has my mother been ill?’
He looked up from his whisky, startled. ‘I would imagine the cancer has been there silently for years.’
‘She’s done nothing?’ The first sip of the drink tasted mostly of gin. The alcohol hit the back of her throat and her eyes watered.
‘No.’
Part of her rebelled at this news but another part respected it. ‘Hospice care here at Boskenna?’
‘Yes.’ His shoulders fell.
George and her mother had been married for forty-two years. He would be, and probably was already, devastated. Grieving could start before the loss. This she knew too well.
‘How often do the nurses come?’
‘Mostly twice a day now.’ He looked out to the garden.
In the infrequent phone calls with her mother, George’s devotion to the garden, and especially his passion for the camellias, always came up. Diana recalled he’d cultivated a few new ones.
‘Have they said how long?’ She glanced at him regretting she had phrased the question that way. He wasn’t a warlord but a frail old man.
‘I haven’t asked.’ His hand clenched the silver fox head on his cane. His knuckles went white.
‘What will you do?’
Sad eyes looked at her and despite her dislike, her heart reached out to him.
‘I don’t know, I honestly don’t know what I’ll do without her.’
Diana swallowed and looked away. She didn’t want to feel for him. She didn’t want to care. She had done that once before. Not caring was the only way to cope.
3 August 1962, 5.45 p.m.
Below on the edge of the lawn, Tom and Allan are side by side, their stance so similar. Allan’s hair is darker with more wave than Tom’s mid-brown straight fringe which falls onto his forehead if he hasn’t tamed it with hair crème. Both still whippet-thin, not yet touched with the fullness of middle age, unlike many of their peers. Allan is the more handsome of the two, also the more charming. But Tom’s eyes, their deep Cornish sky blue, are the more compelling. They take a step away from each other. Discord. In the past they had moved in unison and I was the third wheel, or so I felt. But now Tom plays that role happily, maybe even more comfortably.
He opens his cigarette case and Allan leans in to offer him a light. Allan’s fingers brush Tom’s. There is still a look in Allan’s eyes when he watches Tom. I’m sure Tom was his first love, as he was mine. My passion for Tom was years ago and yet it lives under the surface of our friendship giving it an edge. But Allan was never one to be held in check, and Diana was the result. The memory of our first kiss still stirs me. I stand here loving two men, differently . . . one always from a distance.
As they turn to look at the view their faces are no longer visible, just their broad shoulders. A hunger creeps across my skin as Tom shifts his weight from one foot to the other and Allan mimics him. It has always been this way since the first time I saw them together. I’m not sure what I will do if Tom finds love and marries. I’m a strange creature, loving what I can’t have. But my heart is filled with love for Allan and that is enough.
My husband’s hands caress the air. What are they discussing? Both look solemn, with none of Allan’s boyish charm on display. Diana runs up to them and Allan scoops her into his arms and Tom hands her a package. Even from here I can hear her delighted whoop of joy. She is a blessing and I never believed that would be the case. How wrong I was.
Turning from them, I walk to the dress hanging on the outside of the wardrobe. People will be arriving soon so I can’t slip downstairs and join Tom and Allan. Hopefully there will be an opportune lull in the evening when I can talk with Tom. There is so much that I don’t know, and my imagination is making things worse.
I pull the sleeveless shift dress over my head and the green silk reminds me of shallow waters on a bright summer’s day. Like the ones when Tom, Allan and I sailed. I was nineteen and – against my mother’s wishes – I had joined them sailing to the Scilly Isles. I was free as I never had been before. No school mistresses, no hovering mother or aunt. Simply me and two beautiful men in love. Innocent and free. Well, that will never happen again but at least I have those memories.
As I try to pull the zip up, I recall that it was then it was decided by the three of us that I should apply to a vacant secretarial post at the embassy in Aden. Tom thought I would be a shoo-in with my language skills, and of course the fact that Daddy was an ambassador wouldn’t hurt either. I knew the ropes already, so to speak. I had completed finishing school the month before and Mummy wanted me to marry right away. The problem, aside from the