Buried in Cornwall (5 page)

Daniel went to the back to open the wine for Julie who had just arrived and had begun to take the foil off the trays of food. This was Stella’s night, she must be allowed to enjoy the credit due to her whilst he and Julie handed around the food and drinks.

Spotlights had been switched on and the early arrivals, glasses in hand, wandered around admiring the paintings. Rose stopped in front of
one she particularly liked. If only, she thought, almost able to feel and see the waves as they crashed over the headland.

‘You will.’ Stella, having silently positioned herself behind Rose, seemed to have read her mind. Ash from her cigarette sprinkled the front of Rose’s blouse as Stella placed an arm across her shoulder. ‘It’s in you. Really it is. Of course there’s a long way to go yet, and a lot of hard work in store for you. It isn’t that easy to make it to the top.’

Rose nodded. Could it be possible that one day she would be in Stella’s position? She was about to answer when she saw Nick’s lanky figure duck through the doorway. He came straight over to her and Rose was glad there was a partition between her and Maddy and Jenny who were in conversation on the other side of it. His face lit up. ‘I didn’t say I was coming because I wasn’t sure I could make it. Once you said you’d be here I had to come.’

‘She’s good, isn’t she?’ Rose ignored the compliment because there was a sudden silence on the other side of the partition.

‘Better than she realises. You like this one?’

‘Very much.’ Rose accepted her second drink and took a canape from one of the trays Julie was handing around.

‘How’re you getting home?’ Nick didn’t seem at all interested in the exhibition but he had probably attended so many, including his own, that it wasn’t much of a thrill for him.

‘I’ve got the car.’

‘Ah. Never mind. Are you all right? After yesterday, I mean?’

‘Yes. Must’ve been my imagination.’ She paused, and was unsure what then made her blurt out, ‘I’m going back tomorrow if the weather’s fine. I really want to finish that painting.’

‘Yes, you must,’ Stella insisted, having heard the last remarks as she approached them.

Rose moved away, intent on seeing the rest of Stella’s new work. Nick followed, knowing that two pairs of eyes were on their backs.

Rose stopped to admire a small canvas, as yet unframed. It was an amusing piece showing a half-naked woman of a certain age; a little raddled, a little overweight but, judging from the smirk on her Picasso-style face, completely uncaring as she painted her own portrait from a full-length mirror. Rose wondered whether Stella intended it to make a statement or whether it was a work of pure fun. Her own smile faded as she overheard Jenny’s words.

‘Oh, there’s no doubt about it, he’ll have
to take me back. How can he not? I am his responsibility, after all.’

‘Is that what you
really
want?’ Maddy asked, her voice clipped. ‘Think about it, Jenny. You’re the one who’s always saying there’s no going back. And there’s … well, there’s you know who to contend with.’

Rose felt suffocated and wanted to leave. With a determined stride she went out to the little kitchen and placed her glass on the fridge and her paper plate and serviette in the bin-liner put there for the rubbish, before returning to thank Stella and Daniel for inviting her.

With what she hoped was a cheerful wave to the others she walked out of the shop and straight back to the car. He’s making a fool of me, she thought. And for the first time since she had met them Rose felt that maybe she didn’t fit in with these exotic people after all, that there were things about them she didn’t understand, and that she had no desire to join in their sexual games. For a moment she felt a pang for the faithful, reliable Barry Rowe who had yearned for her since before she had met David but who could never be more than a friend. Like Laura, he had been neglected lately and Rose wondered if she was becoming selfish. By the time she
pulled into her drive she realised she was being melodramatic, that what had happened at the mine shaft had left her edgy and more than a little suspicious. On the other hand Nick had offered no more than friendship and if it was Jenny he wanted they could still remain friends. Rose had done nothing to jeopardise his relationship with the younger woman.

Both Laura and Barry had been delighted that she was finally doing what she had been born to do. She was not deserting them, she was simply picking up a career where she had left it off.

Turning her key in the lock she decided she was glad to be home.

Jenny Manders was one of the last to leave the gallery. She was quietly seething. How dare Nick be so obvious about Rose in front of her and the people who had known them as a couple. Maddy hadn’t wasted any time before making one of her bitchy comments. And what did Rose Trevelyan have that she didn’t? She could paint, that was all. I may only be a model, Jenny thought, but I’m fifteen years her junior and better looking. But despite an excess of wine which had made her bitter, she acknowledged the unfairness of her thoughts. Rose was a nice woman. Even Alec Manders, her father, known for his taciturnity and meanness of manner, had seemed drawn to
her on the one occasion all three had met in the street. And who the hell does Maddy think she is to be so judgemental when all she produces is tat for the tourists, and she has the gall to imagine she’s one of us.

Jenny’s pride in her roots was genuine. Unlike many of her contemporaries she had tried life in London and had also spent two months in Paris, mixing with artists on the Left Bank and posing for them. Something in her cried out to be accepted by such people. Although she recognised that she had no talent herself, she fed on those who did. Disappointment had followed disappointment. The Frenchman with whom she had lived for seven of those eight weeks had thrown her out as soon as he was satisfied with the work he had produced using Jenny as his model. Good work, too, for which she would get none of the credit. She had sat shivering for hours in the daytime and shared his bed at night, and all for nothing. With Nick, because it was the longest relationship she had sustained, she had believed it would be different, that he would eventually marry her or at least keep her as his mistress. She would have had the best of all worlds; being amongst the people she admired and both working for and living with
an artist, one who could provide a proper home for her.

Her mother had disappeared when she was three years old but she did not learn of the circumstances until she was seventeen. Renata Trevaskis was a beauty, descended from true Romany stock. She had married Alec Manders on her eighteenth birthday but soon became restless and dissatisfied with married life and a small child whose upbringing was mostly taken over by her mother-in-law with whom they had had to live. She started drinking, encouraged by Alec’s mother who had never liked her. A year later rumour had it that she had run off with another man, a holiday-maker from somewhere up country. It had surprised no one, knowing the awful restrictions she had had to live under in the strict Chapel environment of the Manders’ home.

Agnes Manders was a martinet and had brought her son up to attend two church services every Sunday. He had, over the years, acquired his mother’s views and opinions on everything. Oddly, considering that he believed that women should obey their menfolk, he had always been dominated by his mother. She was the strong one, the one who put food in their mouths and clothed them after his father had died in a mining
accident. Because she told him so often, he had grown to believe that she was almost a saint.

Jenny, too, had been brought up on discourses of her grandmother’s virtues along with constant reminders of how much she resembled her own mother and that, therefore, she had bad blood in her.

‘Why did you marry her, then?’ she had asked her father defiantly when she was told her mother’s history. The reply had come in the form of a stinging blow across her cheek. Her grandmother, who had been in the room, had hands like steel hawsers.

Once Renata had gone, Jenny’s father and his mother tried to curb her natural exuberance but no punishment worked for long. Apart from the time she spent in school she mostly roamed the streets, avoiding the house whenever possible. She suspected it was a relief to both of them when she went away.

As she strolled up the hill, moonlight shining on the cobbles, Jenny pictured her father. He was a squat but well-muscled man, handsome in a lived-in sort of way. A bit like Charles Bronson, Jenny thought, having recently seen a video of one of his films at Stella’s. It was easy to see why Angela Choake, a divorcee, had been attracted to
him. As soon as Alec’s mother had been buried she had moved into the house as her father’s wife. Jenny was still in Paris at the time. She had not returned for the funeral, neither had she grieved. She had not loved her grandmother and knew that her own existence had been a thorn in the old woman’s side.

Jenny had tired of the sanctimonious ramblings knowing that, for a very long time, it had been her father who was the real provider. He had turned his hand to anything; fishing, mining and back to fishing until he had finally established himself as a reliable jobbing builder.

It was not until a fortnight after her return to St Ives that Jenny learnt that her father had been seeing Angela Choake for many years, but until the demise of her grandmother they had not been out together in public. This led Jenny to understand the power the old woman had had over her son. She had alienated him against his wife and his own daughter. Angela, she thought, was all right. She could have done far worse for a stepmother. Naturally her father had legalised the relationship before allowing Angela to move into the house.

Jenny’s return to Cornwall had not been a success. She had moved in with a friend and her
husband but, uncomfortable in the midst of their obvious happiness, she left after a month, taking work wherever she could find it and sleeping wherever there was an available bed, occupied already or not.

Then she met Nick and life took an upward turn. That, too, had ended in disaster. She was penniless once more but too proud to let on that she was sleeping in a squat with three other homeless people whom she barely knew. Jenny did not blame anyone else for her position, nor did she blame herself. She put it down to fate. If she could just get some work things might be better. Work – or a man who was prepared to keep her, that would be even more favourable. All she required was a bit of comfort. But maybe it wasn’t too late with Nick. He had not ignored her tonight and was usually friendly if they met by chance and he had gone out of his way to ask how she was. After Rose Trevelyan had left, it was true, but perhaps that meant more than if he had done so whilst she was present. Failing Nick she would fall back on her original plan.

Jenny had drunk all that was offered and had filled up on the food, which solved the problem of that evening’s meal. Leaving the gallery she had decided to go and see Nick, a decision she
would not have taken with less alcohol inside her.

In the shadows of the old, cramped buildings she felt buoyant. Not one, but two choices, she thought, and clutched her woollen charity shop coat closer to her as she made her way through the deserted streets. Her long skirt flapped around her ankles as the wind funnelled down the narrow alleys she had to negotiate to reach Nick’s house. The night held no fears for her; not once had she felt afraid in the place of her birth. It wasn’t late, a little after nine thirty, but she had passed the area where there were pubs and restaurants. Now there were only quiet lanes, each one becoming narrower and narrower and progressively steeper and darker.

Behind the tiny paned windows of the cottages the occasional light showed through thin curtains or those not tightly pulled together. She shivered, pleased to see Nick’s porch light shining in welcome. From inside she heard his voice and stood, undecided, before knocking. No other voice replied so she assumed he must be on the telephone, which was near the front door. She lifted the metal ring and let it drop. The dull thud reverberated through the street. Nick let her in, smiling and nodding his intention that she should sit down. He closed the door behind her whilst
cradling the telephone receiver between ear and shoulder. ‘Okay, I’ll see you then. Bye,’ he said, giving Jenny no clue as to whom he had been speaking.

‘Jenny? What brings you here?’

She would not beg but she wanted to make her position clear. ‘I was lonely. I wanted to talk to someone. Well, you, really.’

‘Drink?’ Nick turned his back and opened the door of an old-fashioned sideboard from which he produced a cheap bottle of brandy. ‘Of course we can talk, there was no need for us to fall out at all.’

Jenny thought this was a good start. She took the brandy glass and sat down on the sagging sofa which he had still not got around to replacing and on which they had made love many times. The thought made her maudlin. ‘I miss you, Nick,’ she said, already aware that she
would
beg if absolutely necessary. ‘What went wrong?’ She bowed her head submissively. ‘Please tell me.’

Nick frowned. If he told her, she would become even more insecure than before; if he didn’t, she would think he wanted her back. ‘Nothing really went wrong, we just weren’t suited.’

‘How can you say that?’ Her voice was raised. ‘We were everything to each other.’

‘Jenny, listen. This might come out all wrong, but if I was everything to you, you had a strange way of showing it.’

‘What do you mean?’

Nick swirled the brandy in his glass and kept his eyes averted. ‘I kept you, Jenny, and I didn’t resent that one bit. I was fully aware of your financial position. However, despite my earning both our keep, it was still me who looked after this place and cooked most of our meals.’

‘Oh, Nick, I’ll cook for you. I’m quite a good cook, you know. And I’ll do the cleaning.’

He was embarrassed, not for himself, but for this proud girl who was metaphorically on her knees before him. There was no option but to be cruel. ‘It wasn’t just that. You never forgave me for going to London alone. That was business, I couldn’t have spared the time to entertain you as well. For months after I returned you accused me of all sorts of things. I, apparently, was allowed no freedom, whereas you had as much as if we weren’t together at all. Jenny, you, of all people, know how everyone gossips. There were other men during the time you were with me. That bloke who came down from Cheshire, the one you claimed you were posing for—’

‘I did pose for him.’

‘Accepted, but that’s not all you did. He made it pretty obvious in the pubs he drank in. No, Jenny, I’m more than happy to remain your friend and I’ll do anything I can to help you, but that’s as far as it goes.’

‘Because of Rose Trevelyan.’

‘No.’ He paused. It was true, but since they’d split up he’d used Jenny. He now saw how stupid he had been.

‘I suppose she cooks you meals before she lets you screw her.’

Nick stood and walked over to where she was sitting. For a split second Jenny thought he was going to hit her. She flinched but she knew that Nick would never hurt her. He took her by the elbow and lifted her to her feet. ‘You’re going home now, Jenny. You’ve had far too much of Stella’s excellent wine. Let’s both forget this ever happened.’

‘I won’t forget!’ she shouted from outside the closed door. ‘I won’t forget,’ she repeated in time to her hurried, stumbling footsteps as the tears ran down her face.

Ten minutes after she left the telephone rang. It was Maddy. ‘Nick, have you seen Jenny since the opening?’

‘Yes. She just left here.’

‘Ah, I thought so. I was upstairs looking out
of the window and I saw her go by coming from your direction. She looked pretty wild, if you ask me. Is she okay?’

‘Yes, I think so. She’s much tougher than she lets people believe.’

‘I just thought I’d check. Hey, why don’t you come over tomorrow? I’ve got four mackerel here which I’ve cleaned, seems a shame to freeze them. Any time after seven would suit me.’

‘I’m not sure, Maddy. Can I let you know in the morning?’

‘Of course. No problem.’

Nick hung up. Life was strange. He had been speaking to Rose when Jenny arrived, although she hadn’t sounded all that thrilled to hear his voice. The brief conversation had ended by Rose telling him that she was busy until the following weekend. Now Jenny wanted to come back into his life and Maddy, out of the blue, had invited him around for dinner. ‘All or nothing,’ he muttered, recalling the many months of his life when there had been nobody.

Rose had intended to telephone Barry Rowe upon her return from the gallery but after Nick’s call, which had unsettled her for some reason, she had decided to leave it until the morning.

‘Rosie! I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you. You’re almost a stranger these days.’

She pictured his lean, stoop-shouldered frame, a bony hand pushing his heavily framed glasses up his nose as he answered the phone in the shabbiness of his small flat. He claimed to like where he lived although he could easily have afforded somewhere far nicer. Was he dressed yet or was he wearing the rough woollen dressing-gown with its silky girdle that she had seen hanging on the back of the bathroom door? ‘I wondered if you’d heard about …?’

‘Your most recent escapade? Of course I have, you know how fast news travels here. At least it didn’t come to anything. Wait a minute, that’s not why you’re phoning, is it? Don’t tell me that you, in your indomitable way, think there’s more to it?’

‘No. I made a mistake.’

‘Jesus! Did I hear right? Is this the Rose Trevelyan I’ve known and, well, known for many years? An admission of error, no less.’

Rose smiled. He may have stopped in time but she knew what he had almost said. But had she made a mistake? Logic told her yes but her instincts said no. ‘I’m trying to forget it. Anyway,
the reason I’m ringing is to invite you for dinner tonight.’

‘I’ll be there. Seven thirty okay? I’ve got to go to the Camborne factory at five.’

‘Fine. See you later.’

The forecast had proved to be correct. The sun was rising in a cloudless sky, the air was fresh and clear with a hint of an offshore breeze. Rose went out to the car. It was still a pleasant surprise to turn the car key in the ignition and hear the engine catch immediately. She hesitated before putting it into reverse gear and backing down the drive. I have to go back, she thought. I have to finish that painting.

She barely noticed the drive or the other traffic but anxiously chewed her lip, wondering if she was a fool for being so nervous or a worse one for returning to the old mine. She parked, aware of the sudden silence as she cut the engine, then headed to where she had sat two days ago. Nothing had changed except that some of the scrub had been flattened where the tyres of the emergency vehicles had crushed it. The bracken was crisp, more russet than brown, but the undergrowth still showed signs of green. Lichen-covered rocks, hidden in summer, began to show through as the plants died down. Rose stared at the old engine
house, now in ruins, then across to where the adit of the mine lay. She listened but there was no sound apart from the whisper of the bracken and the sighing of the wind as it swept over the bleak landscape and through the bare, twisted trees which had bent to its will and stood no higher than Rose herself. She shook her head. It had to be a trick of acoustics, she thought as she set up her easel and began to work.