The Love Letter (18 page)

‘Do you really want Poppy and your father back together?’ she asked him now, almost without thinking.

‘Of course. They are husband and wife.’ He held onto the rails of the Waite plot, fingers drumming on the black cast iron.

‘That’s so reactionary!’

‘Farcombe Hall is the backbone of the local community; we are all its custodians. We have a duty.’

Legs had never heard him speak like this. ‘Not so long ago, you wanted her gone with all your heart.’

‘I’ve grown up a lot in the past year,’ he said, turning away.

She felt the barb dig into her skin.

‘Of course; you’ve moved on, met Kizzy,’ she said, nodding. He must be grateful to Poppy for bringing them together, at least.

‘Ah yes, Kizzy.’ He let out a deep, thoughtful sigh which Legs frantically sought to interpret. Was it a loving exhalation or exasperation?

‘She’s stunning.’

‘Isn’t she?’ he said through tight lips.

‘And very “dutiful” I’m sure,’ she sniped and then regretted it as he fell silent.

As they wandered around gravestones, Legs felt torn between guilt, jealousy and fury. Reaching the far wall that bordered the village lane, they lent against an ornate stone memorial shaped like an eagle spreading its wings over a vast book.

Francis cleared his throat. ‘You won’t tell anyone what I’ve just said about the financial situation here will you?’

‘Of course not.’ Legs shook her head. By ‘anyone’, she felt sure he meant Conrad. Then, unable to stop herself, she asked: ‘Does Kizzy know?’

‘No,’ he said tersely. ‘She already holds enough Protheroe secrets, believe me.’

‘You make her sound like keeper of the family closet.’

‘We all have confidences we choose not to share. She has hers and I have mine.’

‘I guess that’s what’s meant by a balanced relationship,’ she said carefully.

He turned to face her, blue eyes softening. ‘She still doesn’t know we’ve kissed for a start.’

‘We were once engaged, Francis, I think she’ll have taken it as read that we—’

‘I meant yesterday.’ He stepped closer, the warm whisper of his breath joining the sun on her face.

Legs had to turn her head away to stop thinking about kissing him, reminding herself that Conrad trusted her, even if she didn’t quite trust herself at the moment. ‘I hadn’t met Kizzy yesterday.’

He snorted irritably.

‘What are you not telling me?’ she demanded.

The lichen was now being scraped at a furious rate. ‘I guess it’s more what about
what you’re
not saying, Legs.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I thought Farcombe meant something to you, that you cared about my family, our history, even if you’ve moved on from loving me.’

‘Of course I care! What’s happening between our parents is devastating.’

‘Which is why we must unite forces.’ He nodded earnestly, sounding like a world leader discussing a Middle Eastern crisis.

‘We can’t pretend to be something we’re not.’

His voice deepened as he moved closer again: ‘You heard Poppy’s threat.’

‘So? Let her cancel the festival. This is about our families, not Farcombe’s cashflow or my career. Gordon can stay a recluse for ever for all I care. Frankly, I think he’d be happier that way. He’s too volatile for fame; it’s living a lie.’

‘And he’s not living one already? We all do that, Legs.’ Two blue eyes danced between hers. ‘If we said what we really thought, we’d never survive.’

‘Try it, Francis,’ she breathed, their lips ridiculously close now. ‘Just this once, tell me what you really feel?’ She searched his handsome face for clues, willing him to admit that there was nothing staged or make-believe about the way they were both feeling right now. As teenagers they’d played Truth or Dare; as adults they no longer dared to tell the truth. That conspiracy of silence had given the lie to their relationship a year ago.

He ran his tongue across his teeth, blue eyes gazing up at the statue’s broken-beaked face.

‘Say it,’ she urged. ‘What do you want most of all right now, this minute?’ She tried not to pucker up as her lips tingled with anticipation.

His hand found hers and gripped it tight, fingers shaking with emotion: ‘I want Gordon Lapis at Farcombe Festival!’

Legs froze. ‘What?’

He looked petulant. ‘Well, you did ask.’

She carefully unthreaded her fingers. ‘And if I stop that happening?’

Keeping hold of her ring finger, he lifted it to his lips and kissed its bare skin ‘“… if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them”.’ As so often in the past, Francis could not personalise his feelings; his words belonged to other people, loaded with emotions he couldn’t express any other way.

With a polite nod, he turned and walked away, leaving Legs feeling utterly demoralised.

She looked up at the stone eagle, noticing that somebody had graffitied
To Kill a Mockingbird
on its stone book. She had a nervous feeling it might have been her and Daisy, high on alcopops on Millennium New Year’s Eve.

A call to Conrad from the village telephone box hardly lifted her spirits. He’d stayed up late the previous night composing a press release, he announced happily, and was poised to notify the eager media and millions of ardent Lapis fans that the author would reveal his identity at Farcombe Festival. Now sitting in the stands at Lords watching the England India test match with his kids, he was as brief and to the point as always.

‘As soon as this goes live, Farcombe will be a sell out. No time to lose. Don’t let me down, Legs.’

‘Don’t send it yet!’ she insisted. ‘It’s very far from confirmed.’

The call left her riddled with self-doubt; her heart and head at odds. Her feelings for Francis, boxed up for so long, were now bouncing around all over the place on rusty springs, whereas Conrad remained neatly filed under ‘macho’ in a locked cabinet in London. What’s more, she was feeling increasingly uneasy about Gordon Lapis’s decision to make Farcombe his main stage. Even assuming Poppy didn’t pull the plug on the festival out of sheer spite, and that the committee could be convinced of the financial benefits, Gordon himself was such an unknown quantity, he could easily change his mind. If he did, that would completely ruin Farcombe, and it would be all her fault.

She trailed down past the harbour to Fargoe beach and splashed through the sea, freezing her ankles and wondering how she might cope with losing her job, lover and family security in one weekend.

She couldn’t be totally sure as she struggled to see through the maelstrom of memory and melancholy, but she was starting to suspect that she had never stopped loving Francis. She was frightened of the told-you-so clichés that were pulling and pushing her right now, trying to trip her up like the waves underfoot. In the past year, distance had made her heart grow fonder in direct proportion to familiarity breeding contempt with Conrad. Now she was back in Farcombe, nostalgia was flooding her head as fast as the incoming tide.

Children with buckets and spades, inflatables and boogie boards raced in and out of the waves around her as she trudged all the way to the rocky outcrop at Hartcombe Point and looked back across the sand to the village. The sea was racing in, forcing the holiday-makers back in its wake, sandcastles toppling, windbreaks and towels being whipped up, creams teas and ice creams sought out. She remembered the ritual so well, along with the long summers of
Swallows and Amazons
freedom that had lent her familiarity with everything around her.

Except nothing felt familiar any more, not even her own heart.

Given this opportunity to reclaim Francis and appease the guilt,
surely she should grasp it? She was vacillating madly between the unexpected force of her attraction to him and the dreadful messiness of the situation. She longed for her childhood again, for those carefree holidays where the most important things in the world were winning at rounders, building secret camps and creeping out for midnight ghost hunts in the woods after the adults had gone to bed.

Now the adults were all in the wrong beds, and she had inadvertently led the way.

She needed somewhere to stay, and knowing that a second night in the Honda would leave her walking like Quasimodo, she headed back towards the harbour to stop off at the Book Inn.

The ‘Private Function’ sign had been turned around to offer ‘Food All Day, Cream Teas and Award-Winning Accommodation’. The girl on the desk – an unfamiliar face, but with a familiar nervous voice from the previous day’s phone call – told her that it was fully booked, flashing a jaunty tongue stud as she spoke, which gave her a lisp. Legs went into the bar where Guy was serving, looking very grey beneath his blond-tipped hair.

‘Allegra North! You are Alka Seltzer to my hangover!’ He kissed her delightedly, bloodshot grey eyes disappearing into weathered laughter creases. ‘We were beginning to think we’d never see you in Farcombe again. My, but you look good – I’ve missed this beautiful face.’ He cupped her cheeks fondly.

Built like a stocky prop forward with a jutting jaw and a permanent frown born from too many sunny days sea-angling and long nights cooking in the kitchen, Guy cut an intimidating figure, but he possessed the gentlest of souls.

‘You should have come in yesterday,’ he wailed when she explained that she’d arrived the day before and U-turned at the A-sign. ‘We had a big party for Nonny’s fortieth. You’d have been a wonderful birthday surprise.’

Nonny and Guy were the classic Beauty and Beast couple, her balletic grace and charm counterpoised by his craggy, workaholic
passion. Originally from west London, they’d run a small chain of foodie wine bars in the profitable W-postcodes from Kensington to Notting Hill, Marylebone to Little Venice, many of them frequented by Legs, Francis and their gang. It was Legs who had told them about Farcombe, and the then Harbour Inn, which was hideously run down at the time and about to be flogged by a failing brewery. Seeing an opportunity at a time when they were ripe for change, they had bought it sight unseen and moved their entire family to the coast. They were followed by many of their London friends and clients, who visited on such a regular basis that some had even bought second homes in the area. The couple had made a huge difference to the village’s year-round popularity. Having once worked as a music promoter, Nonny was incredibly well connected which, matched with Guy’s legendary cooking skills, guaranteed the Book Inn a high level of occupancy. Always busy, it was positively heaving in high summer and guaranteed to be booked out six months in advance for festival week. At this time of year, it rarely ever had a room free at the weekends.

‘I wish you’d called earlier. There was a cancellation for tonight – one of the sea view four-posters,’ Guy admitted, then shook his head as Legs’ face brightened, ‘it was snapped up straight away – had a call first thing. We’ll put you up in Skit. It’s not so cold in summer, although the upstairs neighbours can be a bit noisy. You can stay as long as you like.’

Skit was the old skittle alley which ran the full length of the restaurant at first floor level and which was the subject of a long-running battle with the local planning authority because the couple had earmarked it for further accommodation, but the presence of a rare colony of greater horseshoe bats who used the roof-space as its summer roost precluded any alteration, so it was currently only used for storage and as an occasional staff bedsit. From May to September, the bats lived in a huge maternity colony overhead, rearing their young and chattering noisily all night. It wasn’t ideal, but it was definitely preferable to a car seat.

‘Just a night or two will be great.’ Legs smiled gratefully, then remembered the Honda abandoned at Gull Point with a broken driver’s door. ‘Is it all right to park my car in the unloading yard if I bring it down the back way?’ The Book Inn only had a tiny courtyard, and parking on the harbour was strictly frowned upon.

Guy pulled an apologetic face. ‘Not tonight; we’ve got live music in the bar later – a seriously well-connected performer, you wait – and they need the space to unload. We might even persuade you to sing for your supper again, hey Legs?’ He ruffled her hair before turning to serve a customer.

Buoyed up by the thought of Book Inn food that night, and perhaps a couple of drinks on the house over a jolly catch up and a sing-song, she headed back up the private cliff path to Gull Point to fetch the Honda and move it to the public car park at the top of the village where she could keep an eye on it. Driving along the top lane, she almost slammed straight into a taxi coming far too fast in the opposite direction. Only just swerving to avoid it, she scraped her car’s wing along a rocky bank as a result. The driver lowered his window as they inched past each other.

‘You want to kill someone, my love?’ He told her off in a thick Devonshire accent.

Having expected to share cheery ‘could-have-been-worse’ apologies, Legs was instantly defensive. ‘It was your fault!’

‘Silly cow.’ He started to wind up his window again.

‘Bully!’ she yelled, but he was already driving away.

In the back seat, two mournful, apologetic eyes gazed out at her through the darkened glass as the car slid past, and Legs smiled gratefully back, raising her hand to acknowledge the passenger. It was only as the car moved away that she glanced in her rear-view mirror and realised she had been waving at a basset hound.