A Handful of Pebbles (14 page)

No
, it wasn’t cold feet, it was not like Helena. Poor Finn; he sounds distraught.

‘
Look, Finn, let’s be realistic. Helena is not going to change the course of her marriage and her future based on a comment by someone else. People just don’t work that way.’ She pauses. ‘I think you boys must decide what is real. Helena loves you, and that is real, Finn. Joss is your brother, that, too, is real. Joss and you have all your lives ahead of you and it will be better to have a brother by your side than not. So any argument between Helena and Pru needs to be smoothed over so you can continue to be brothers and not be dictated to by ...’ She nearly says ‘by the women’ but quickly corrects herself and finishes ‘by anyone.’

She has the attention of them both
, so she adds, ‘Great men are forged in fire and lesser men light the fire.’ She waits to see their reactions, and they both nod wisely. Laurence even looks up from the paper he was surreptitiously reading, folded on his knee.

The pool brings a harmony of sorts to her sons, with Finn bombing Joss and Joss responding with his rarely seen childish side and splashing back. Laurence, who had stayed inside on his laptop, comes out, blinking in the sun.

‘Who fancies an evening on a yacht?’ he asks, his laptop balanced on one arm.

‘
You boys have not been sailing together since, since when?’ Sarah pauses, her hand rubbing her head. ‘Before Joss left home.’

‘
We were lucky living on the Isle of Man, sea all around us. The nearest bit of water now is the Thames estuary,’ Finn says. ‘You still a member of the yachting club, Dad? Come to that, I take it you still have the dinghy?’

‘
In the end garage. Haven’t been out on it for years.’ Laurence glances at Sarah. Sarah tried but never found her sea legs and although the idea appeals, the reality of being on something that is rocking and bobbing about does not suit her. The boys pull themselves from the pool and Sarah throws towels to them as if they are children.

‘
I don’t suppose we will actually get to sail her. It is an evening trip along the coast from Saros to the next town, but at least we will be on the water, dine where we dock, and return late. What do you think?’

Sarah feels the dark weight in her stomach turn and tries to ignore it as she flings on her sarong. Why shouldn
’t the boys go out with Laurence, doing something they enjoy?

‘
Will you come, Mum, just this once?’ Finn asks.

She shakes her head.
‘I’ll come to Saros with you, but then I think I’ll look around the shops.’

‘
If you dine out, you could hang around to give me and Finn a lift back?’ Laurence asks.

‘
I’ll give you a lift back, Laurence,’ Joss says. Sarah wishes he would call him Dad.

‘
Is it okay if I stay again tonight, Mum?’ Finn asks, a sad edge returning to his voice.

‘
Of course; you don’t need to ask. Don’t worry, Joss, I’ll hang around, find somewhere nice to have dinner and a café for a sweet. How many hours is the trip, Laurence?’

He peers at the computer, trying to put it in the shade of his body so the screen does not reflect.
‘It’s only three hours, one there, one back, and an hour to eat.’

‘
Yes, you should go.’ Sarah finds her benevolent self. She can easily spend three hours just looking around the shops. There is also an old mosque that she might be able to visit, and there is the castle. The idea begins to appeal.

‘
I’ll get dressed.’

She waves the boat off, pleased to see the three of them looking happy. There are five other people taking the trip as well and they move cautiously, as if they have never been on a boat before. A couple stand at the prow, lost in the romance of it all. The skipper is unhitching ropes and organising life jackets. The last mooring line is freed, and they motor away from the pier. Presently, the sail unfurls, flapping wilfully in the light breeze then pulling taut, filling with the wind and causing the craft to lean. Sarah knows that they are all happy and Finn will have a break from thinking about Helena and Joss about Pru. If he ever does think about Pru. She turns on her heel and decides to start with the shops in the main square. The establishments on the water’s edge are all restaurants and bars. There is an open area, almost a square, facing the jetty. Here, the outside eateries sport linen tablecloths, candles, and waiters in well-fitting waistcoats and bow ties. The napkins are folded into fans and the place looks so civilised. It is much calmer than the bustle further down the harbour, where the cliental seem younger and the music louder.

‘
Hey Sarah.’ Liz doesn’t sound in the least bit surprised to see her. She is sitting at one of the tables, a waiter behind her ready to serve, two bottles of wine on the table and one glass.

‘
Liz? Where’s Neville?’

‘To hell with Neville,’ she slurs, her Irish accent strong.

‘
Liz!’ Sarah looks at the waiter, whose eyes are glazed with boredom.

‘
Come on. Come and sit down.’ Liz pulls a chair and it leans over backwards. The waiter leaps into action to save the chair from falling. He rights it and offers the seat to Sarah.

‘
What’s going on?’ Sarah hisses, one eye on the dark green wine bottles, trying to work out how full or empty they are, how much Liz has drunk.

‘
He called her.’

‘
Who called who?’ Sarah asks.

‘
He called his ex-wife.’

‘
Oh.’ Sarah stops looking at the bottles and looks into Liz’s eyes. The agreement that they do not talk about each other’s husbands seems to have dissolved. Nevertheless, she is not sure she even wants to ask this next question but does anyway. ‘To say what?’ She puts her hand up to ask the waiter for a glass, but he has pre-empted her. A glass is brought and filled for her.

‘
She’s to move in, take over his mother’s rooms.’

‘
Oh Liz, I am so sorry. Is it really definite?’

‘
Neville said he could not do it to his children. "To leave her unattended is to leave her to die alone."‘ Liz mimics Neville’s slow enunciation. ‘"What sort of man would that make me in my children’s eyes?"‘ She completes her quote.

‘
What sort of man would expect his second wife to look after his first?’ Sarah asks. ‘What would he do if you threaten to leave him?’

‘
Huh?’ Liz says and then hiccups and smiles at her own behaviour. ‘I have not had your luck Sarah. I was left no house. I get no monthly rent. If I left him, how would I make a living now?’

‘
If you divorced him, you would get a settlement.’ Sarah is aware the meagre rent she gets from her mum’s house in Ireland would be nowhere near enough to pay the rent on a place on the Isle of Man or in the UK, let alone allow her to live to a civilised degree.

‘
He wanted to—you know—make me sign a pre-natural.’ She makes hard work of the word. ‘Pre-nuptial thingy. But I wouldn’t. You remember that time we went to Egypt, went to the Valley of the Kings, that long drive to Luxor?’

‘
Yes, I remember.’ Sarah recalls the air was so hot, the ceiling fan in the hotel made no difference at all. She lay on the bed looking up at it, unable to move with the heat.

‘
That was when he took out the pre-neptune thing.’

‘
What, on that holiday? He took it with him?’

‘
Um hum.’ Liz nods. ‘But I said if he loved me and trusted me, why would he need it? He said it was to show I loved him. But I said no, all or nothing. Do you know,’ she raises a finger to emphasise her words but it sways around Sarah’s face to such a degree, Sarah worries for her eyes and puts her own hand over it, pulling it down to their laps. ‘That was why we didn’t get married in the same year as you and Laurence, why he waited two more years. He thought I would give in and sign it, but I didn’t.’ She taps her nose.

What she is hearing does not altogether surprise Sarah. Neville is shrewd, always has been, a bit tight even, but what does amaze her is that Liz did not tell her this, that she kept the pain of it all to herself. How much else has she suffered in silence? She has never said much about nursing his mother
; instead made it seem like it was a small but irritating job, but surely there was more to it than she let on. Sarah suddenly feels out of the loop of Liz’s emotions.

‘What are you going to do? Are you going to leave him?’ Sarah’s hand goes to her stomach, calming the knot, her other onto Liz’s knee, stroking, reassuring.

‘
No.’ It is almost a wail. The waiter breaks from his stare and takes a step forward to see if everything is okay. Sarah waves him back.

‘
Shh Liz, shh, it’s okay. Look, we can sort this out.’ But Sarah doesn’t feel half as confident as she sounds.

Liz calms herself before she speaks again.
‘You remember back at the golf club, the day after the night club?’ Sarah nods. ‘I didn’t tell you this but halfway through lunch, when I got up to go to the loo, so did Laurence.’ Sarah watches Liz’s mouth as it moves. ‘He stopped me on the way there, did he ever tell you? Stopped me to say that Neville really liked me and that although he liked me too, he would never get in Neville’s way and that I should give him all my attention.’ It sounds sad the way she tells it, as if she is trying to build up her own ego. Laurence has told Sarah this, but the version she heard was that he found Liz too strong, with her low-cut tops and her red hair. Laurence’s version, told in bed one night before the honeymoon period waned, was that he didn’t fancy Liz, so he steered her to Neville to ‘clear the way’ as he put it, to her. Now she is not sure which version is the truth.

Probably neither.

‘Neville wanted me,’ Liz concludes, far too loudly.

‘
Where is Neville?’ Sarah asks. Liz would be best off home in bed with a coffee.

‘
I left him at home.’

‘
Has he called you?’

‘
I switched off my phone.’

The waiters are moving about around them
. Liz’s voice is carrying over the whole square.

‘
Can I have the bill please?’ Sarah asks.

‘
What, are you going?’ Liz murmurs.

‘
No, we are going.’ Sarah stands and pulls Liz to her feet. Staggering a little, Liz upturns her bag onto the table and plucks out a handful of notes, which she thrusts at the waiter. He counts them out and lets a few drop back onto the pile of stuff Liz has released by her dramatic gesture. Sarah puts the mess back into Liz’s bag before pulling Liz out from under the umbrella shades.

‘
Where are we going?’ Liz asks.

‘
For a walk.’ Sarah keeps hold of Liz’s sleeve.

The sun is beginning to set
. The sea reflects the orange and pinks in the sky; the hills on the other side of the bay have turned an inky blue.

Liz teeters near the harbour
’s edge. Sarah pulls her back and links arms with her, putting her on the inside for safety.

‘
When did you last eat?’ Sarah asks.

‘
Neville made me some drop scones when I got up.’

‘
What time was that?’

‘
About three.’

Sarah does not want to know if that is the time she normally gets up, but she is getting the impression it is. How can she expect reasonable behaviour from Neville if she does not behave reasonably herself? Liz hiccups. But then
, maybe Liz’s behaviour is a response to Neville’s misplaced concern, putting other people before his wife. However, with this stalemate before they got married over a prenuptial agreement, it seems the whole situation has been brewing for a very long time. Neville will not be quick to divorce her if it means he will lose half his wealth.

‘
I think a walk to the end of the harbour and back and then we go and eat something, okay?’ It’s not really a question. Her phone beeps. Sarah drops Liz’s arm to retrieve it, but she is too late and it clicks off. She does not recognise the number. ‘You okay if I return this call? I have no idea who it is.’ Sarah asks. Liz nods and turns away to look over a makeshift table covered with a velvet cloth on which twisted silver wire jewellery is displayed. The girl minding the display eagerly watches as she plays with the ring through her lip with her tongue.

‘
Hello, I missed a call just now from this number.’

‘
Oh, hi Sarah, it’s Helena. I must have sat on my phone by mistake.’ Sarah breaks into a smile, delighted to be in contact even if it was a mistake.

‘
Hi Helena, are you okay?’

‘
Fine. A little surprised not to hear from Finn.’

‘
Oh, no, he is desperate to call you, but he didn’t know if you would want to hear from him. He was so upset, and I have been trying to keep his mind off everything. He spent the day with Joss and tonight, he has gone sailing with Laurence.’

‘
Oh, he’s not too upset then?’

‘
No, that’s my point. He is so distraught I—we were trying to keep his mind from it all, give him a little breathing space, re-charge his batteries. How are you, Helena?’ Sarah fumbles, she can suddenly see how it must seem from Helena’s position. He has made no effort to fight for her at all.

‘
Do you like this?’ Liz holds something up. Sarah puts her finger over her other ear and turns away.

‘
Helena, Finn is heartbroken, he believes you will not marry him and the whole thing has been called off. He is distraught. He believes there is nothing he can do to make it better.’

‘
He can try!’ Helena almost snaps.

‘
Helena, he is a man. He has no idea what to try to do.’