This Is Your Life (29 page)

Lizzie stirred late for her on Sunday morning, just in time to hear a car speeding past down the lane. She rolled over and went back to sleep.

In the Boxster, Tom put his foot down as he pulled out of the village back to the motorway.

             
A change was in the air as September started.  The days were still warm, but there was a wind blowing, swishing the leaves on the trees.  Lizzie was suddenly conscious of the sound, like waves on a beach, particularly at home at her cottage.  After the hot, sleepy summer it unsettled her, making her restless and fidgety, as she thought about Eric Masterson’s offer. 

Eventually she decided.  It was time.  Emptying her diary and taking up Bert’s offer to feed Darren and the chickens, Lizzie had driven down to Devon.  Her mind was far from made up, but something told her she should consider it.  And with views of the sea to die for, Bramley House was a dream.  Eric had shown her around and listened to her ideas for the acres of garden and parkland, and then they’d had lunch with Deidre. Her dementia was clearly advancing, and it had left Lizzie with an awful sense of sadness, watching as Eric gently helped her with the simplest of tasks and reassured her that everything was normal.

They’d love her to join them, he assured her.  Both of them… but she should think about it.  Make sure she was doing the right thing.

And
so it was that one year and four months after she set out, Lizzie at last reached Cornwall.  Stopping her car somewhere along the North Cornish coast, she gazed out of the window at the craggy coastline that stretched for miles either side of her.  Taking out the map she’d bought, she’d squinted at the strange sounding names and eventually locating Spriggan Point written in tiny red letters, a few miles further on.

Lizzie drove slowly, along tiny narrow lanes edged with stone walls that had taken root and sprouted with wild flowers, twisting and turning past farms and the occasional cottage until she wound her way down a steep slope which ended in a stony car park.

Abandoning her car, Lizzie could already hear the sea.  Making her way through the gorse bushes, she followed the uneven path over grass tussocks until the short spikes of grass became sand - and at long last, she was there.  The place she’d been dreaming of, with white sand and the clearest, most sparkling water which before her eyes turned a vivid shade of blue as the clouds above her parted to let the sun through. 

Spriggan Point itself was a small headland of jagged black rocks which jutted into the sea a
nd as Lizzie clambered along it listening to the sound of waves breaking and inhaling the saltiness, it seemed already she could feel the magic soaking into her.  The way the air felt alive.  Even the sky was bigger here.  And as she watched it all, she realised.  So much for timing – this was time-
less.
Completely.  Unchanging - as people came and went. Calming, reviving, inspiring as was needed.

Magic
she thought.  It really is.  Invisibly everywhere you look.

Much later, as she drove back up the lane, she noticed a farmhouse and impulsively she pulled in – maybe they could tell her where to find Roscarn.

As she walked up the overgrown path, she took in the peeling paint and gutters hanging off the slate roof. 
A property developer’s dream….
she thought, imagining with horror how something like this would get snapped up, and primped and preened into a neat, twee little holiday home.

She climbed over more weeds that fell across the path until she reached the door and knocked.

For ages nothing happened.
  Giving up, she was just turning to leave when she heard a voice shout from somewhere.

‘I ain’t selling, if that’s what you want.’

A man appeared from behind the cottage.  In his seventies, Lizzie guessed.  It was hard to tell – he had unkempt hair and a grey beard and his clothes looked ancient.

‘Oh – no – it wasn’t that…’  She hesitated.

‘Well what d’you want then? I don’t do no scones if that’s what you’re after.’

‘No.  Actually, I was looking for a place called Roscarn.’

The man stared at her.  Taking his silence as encouragement, Lizzie continued.

‘Only my mother came here.  Years ago – maybe as long as thirty
years ago… her name was Jane.  Jane Lavender.’

Something changed in the man’s demeanour.  When he spoke, he sounded gruff.  ‘You better come in.’

Lizzie looked around the gloomy kitchen.  Piles of this and that were heaped everywhere – letters, old newspapers, bottles, china – gathering a layer of dust.  The man was filling a kettle. 

‘Tea?’  Lizzie nodded.

He removed a pile of creased clothes from a chair.  ‘Sit down,’ he said.  As though thinking out loud he added, ‘who’d have thought, after all this time…’

Whatever the state of the farmhouse, he made a good cup of tea – hot and strong – just how Lizzie liked it.  But still he didn’t speak.

‘So you remember my mother then?’ she ventured.

He put down his mug and gave a deep sigh.

‘I do alright.  She were something, your Mum.  Came here all those years ago on her own.  ‘bout your age, I’m guessing, bit younger maybe.  And she was sad, real sad.  Her husband had died a while back.’  He frowned. 

‘My father died before I was born,’ said Lizzie.

‘Ah - that’s right.  What did you say your name was?’

She hadn’t.  ‘Lizzie.’

A frown crossed his face.  ‘Didn’t know she were pregnant though.  Not when she were here.  Whippet thin she was.’  He stopped.

‘She must have been -  she said I’d been here too.  And that means, either she came here without me which would seem unlikely… or she brought me here when I was a baby.’

Neither of them said a word.

‘My son used to help run the farm back then,’ said the man.  ‘When he wasn’t at sea, that was.  Jago, his name was.  He was between trips when your Mum stayed.  My wife – Jago’s mother - used to take paying guests, see.  Kept this place real nice, she did.  Clean as a pin.  Always baking cakes and doing washing.’  She sounded like Mollie, Bert’s wife.  A look of sadness crossed his face.  ‘Don’t look quite the same these days.’

‘When did you lose your wife?’ asked Lizzie. 

‘Ten years ago,’ he said.  ‘Ten years… and it seems like yesterday we moved in here.  Just after our wedding up the lane in the village…’  He cleared his throat.

‘It’s hard, isn’t it?’  Lizzie reached out and touched his arm.  ‘Doesn’t go away, does it?’

He managed a faint smile.  ‘You’re just like your Mum, you are.  Thing is…’  Then he frowned again.  ‘I’m not real sure how to say this, but your Mum and Jago, well.  They were close.  Real close.  Like soul mates.  When they were together, you couldn’t miss it.  It were like they were made for each other.’  He glanced at Lizzie.  ‘I hope you don’t mind me talking like this?’

‘No, no,’ said Lizzie, astounded at this part of her mother’s past of which she knew nothing.  ‘Please – go on.’

‘Well, she stayed a good while.  Few months, I’m guessing.  She had to leave because her father was ill.  She promised she’d come back…’  He shook his head.  ‘Thing is, while she were gone, there was a storm, a real bad one.  Jago was out fishing.  He never came back.’

‘No!’  Lizzie was shocked.  How terrible to lose a son, so young, like that…

‘He wasn’t the only one.  Half the families round here lost someone that night.  There’s a stone put up – on the hill.  A memorial.  Real tragedy it was.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Lizzie.  ‘To upset you, asking all this.  But I’d no idea
- about any of it.’

‘Your Mum came back for his funeral,’ said the man sadly.  ‘Heartbroken she was.  Held herself together for that service then went to the beach and cried her heart out.  My wife went and got her in the end.  She stayed a night with us but then she left.  Never once came back.  She wrote a letter a bit later.  Apologising.  Said it was all too painful.’

Lizzie was puzzled.  ‘What about Roscarn?  She told me I should find it.  Roscarn and Spriggan Point.’

‘Come with me.’

They walked through the back garden through a gate into a field. 

‘Mind them cow pats,’ he said.  ‘It’s not far.’

At the other end of the field was another gate and
the dilapidated remains of a building.

‘Roscarn,’ he said nodding.  ‘Jago’s cottage.  Completely ruined-like now… but that’s what your Mum was talking about.

He stood and watched as Lizzie stepped forward.  She reached a hand out to the crumbling bricks, resting it there a moment, then peering in through the broken window.  The remains of Jago’s furniture was still there – damp and rotting.  Then she looked towards the sea, rippling eternally below.

And at that moment she understood.
  

‘You haven’t told me your name,’ she said slowly as they walked back.

‘I haven’t, have I.  Forgetting my manners aren’t I.  It’s Joseph.  Joseph Talan.’  He hesitated.  ‘My wife’s name was Eliza.’

It was cutting it a bit fine by the time Lizzie arrived home.  P
reparations for the Ball were nearly in place.  Aubrey had come up trumps and the marquee that had been put up on his lawn was spectacular.

‘Absolutely no point in half doing a job,’ he’d said firmly.

But there was still much to do and Antonia was tearing around like the proverbial blue-arsed fly, overseeing everything except the tables.

‘Now Lizzie,’ she’d said bossily
, having given her a good telling off for disappearing. ‘You’ve got a budget. Don’t mind if you do it yourself or pay someone else. Don’t give a bugger. Just make sure it looks impressive. Ok? I want everyone spending shed loads of money.’ Not waiting, she added, ‘Good show. Now Katie can meet all the VIP’s, and I’ll set up the auction...’

Toby had reappeared.  It seemed his father had suffered a heart attack, and in a panic, Toby had rushed to his bedside without a thought for anything or anyone else. But after the initial shock of his disappearance, Antonia seemed to have adapted quite happily to life without him, and their reunion had been far from the joyous one Toby had been hoping for.

Antonia in fact, had been out of sorts for some time.

‘It’s the bally money darling,’ she confided miserably to Lizzie.  ‘The truth is, the horses cost a bomb, and I’m not sure how long I can keep it up…’

‘Something will come up,’ Lizzie reassured her.  Having been at rock bottom herself, she remembered only too clearly how things had an uncanny knack of ‘coming up’ when you needed them enough.

‘I hope you’re right,’ was all she said, not sounding terribly hopeful.

But something had indeed come up.  Two days before the Ball, Toby had
asked Antonia out for dinner.

‘I’ll have to cancel this evening, darling
s,’ said Antonia.  She, Katie and Lizzie had been going to start on the table plan.

‘Don’t worry – we can make a start.  Is everything ok?’

Antonia looked far from happy.  ‘Just Tobes, darling.  Says he wants to take me out somewhere special to make up for leaving me in the lurch.  Trouble is Lizzie, I think I’m going to have to break it off with him.  It was awfully good fun, but it’s run its course, don’t you think?  Golly, I suppose I’ll just have to come out with it…’

‘I’ve put my flat on the market!’ announced Katie. 

Lizzie nearly dropped the plates she was carrying.  ‘You what?  Why?  Where are you going to live?’

Katie grinned.  ‘Do I really need to spell it out?’

Lizzie’s jaw dropped open.  ‘You mean…’ she started incredulously, ‘…you and
Tim
?’

‘Is it that much of a surprise?  He asked me last weekend!  And do you know, I really think he might be the one…’

Just as she dropped her bombshell, the door was flung open and Antonia burst in, clutching her hands.

‘Oh my God…he only bloody proposed darlings… I – I didn’t know what to do…’

There was a stunned silence and Lizzie poured her a stiff drink which she gulped down in one.

‘Phew, that’s better darling.  I think it’s the shock, but I really do feel a little
odd…’

‘But I thought you were going to end it,’ said Lizzie carefully.

‘I was, I was…,’ said Antonia agitatedly.  ‘But then he gave me this.’  She unclenched her hands and flashed an enormous diamond at them.  ‘Isn’t it utterly heavenly?  And it would solve so many of my problems…’

‘And create a whole load more,’ said Katie bluntly.  ‘You don’t love him enough, Antonia.  It wouldn’t be fair on Toby.’

Antonia looked crushed.

‘Look, you told me earlier you were going to end it,’ said Lizzie.  ‘That it had run its course. Antonia, really, it’s simple…’

‘Oh darlings, I know you’re right…’  She hesitated.  ‘But d’you think I’ll have to give it back?’

‘YES,’ they answered in unison.

‘It’s probably a family heirloom,’ said Katie.

‘And you’d only feel guilty,’ said Lizzie.

‘Oh Lord…I might not, you know.’

Then, two days before the Ball, the letter had arrived.  The position was hers if she wanted it.  And oh, what a dilemma that left her in…

She’d talked to
Katie about it, who’d leapt up out of her chair. ‘Wow

Lizzie
!  It’s a fantastic opportunity, but you can’t! You have this

wonderful life here, your business
and so many friends, and I’m about to move here too!’  Then added more seriously, ‘but this offer’s too good to be true, isn’t it?  A dream job in a gorgeous place… and your friends will still be here of course… I really don’t know what to say.’

And
Katie was right. Life here was wonderful in so many respects. And more than that it would forever be the place that had helped her find her way forward.  But should she stay?  That was the bit Lizzie couldn’t work out.

She’d thought and thought about it. Sat down and written lists of pros and cons... No closer to making a decision, she’d donned her trainers, and gone for a run, going
miles further than usual, running twice as far as usual in her efforts to seek the clarity she was desperate for.

But secretly, part of her
felt that this was an opportunity not to be missed.  And if she let it pass her by, that door would be closed for sure.  Someone else would get the job, she knew that. And she had this newly discovered connection to the West Country.  She’d promise Joseph she wouldn’t disappear the way her mother had.  If she took this job she’d be so much nearer to him.

She wouldn’t lose touch with her friends
, but it wouldn’t be the same, she knew that.  But maybe, also, it was time to give up on the last of her hopes about Tom.

Everything was set.  Looking around the marquee and the tables she had decorated with ivy, flowers and candles, it did look wonderful.  The guests were due to start arriving at any minute.  The weather had been kind and a team of smart young waiters were out on the newly mowed lawn in the evening sun, holding trays of champagne to welcome them before the fabulous dinner that awaited them inside. Antonia had absolutely insisted that they use top notch caterers, even though the quote had been well over what they’d budgeted for. Then there’d be the auction, followed by dancing for the rest of the evening with The Bozo Dog Doo Dah Band, already tuning up.  It really was all most impressive - Antonia hadn’t compromised on anything.

Lizzie had splashed out on a dream of a dress,
which Nola had ordered in

speci
ally. It was the deepest turquoise silk which shimmered as she moved and made her feel like a princess. Taking a deep breath as she stood there, she couldn’t help but feel how amazing this was.  And a little proud too, about what between them they’d put together. 

             
Just then Antonia shouted.  ‘Lizzie?  Katie? Cars are here, darlings!’

If anything
could have swayed her decision about Devon, it would have been this evening, Lizzie reflected, feeling a mixture of love and sadness as she watched so many of her friends arrive. One of the first was Tim, smartly dressed in a dinner jacket as were all the men. He anchored himself at Katie’s side, not budging for most of the evening.  Miriam too was early, looking surprisingly elegantly turned out, with one of her sons on her arm.

‘I can’t believe you’ve done all this for Hethecote,’ she said to them, looking
utterly over-awed.

Eucalyptus wafted in, looking shabbily glamorous
in a faded taffeta creation that Lizzie hadn’t seen before, and startlingly rather happier than usual. And with a familiar looking figure beside her. Lizzie’s eyes widened with her first shock of the evening.  She’d never in a million years expected to see Jamie here! Nor had Katie, who was over there like a shot to get to the bottom of it. Jamie and Eucalyptus? Maybe it wasn’t as odd as it seemed…

Poor
Toby strode in dejectedly, gazing lovestruck at Antonia for a second before seizing a glass of champagne and disappearing. Then Leo, with his hand resting in a most familiar way on the expensively-clad bottom of Ginny, resplendent in pink silk. Looking slightly sheepish as they spotted Lizzie, Ginny sashayed over, her face looking much less stressed and rather more wrinkled than Lizzie had ever seen it.

Ginny kissed her resoundingly on both cheeks. ‘
I expect you think I’m having a midlife crisis,’ she giggled coyly at Lizzie, ‘And I have to admit, I probably am! But honestly, Leo has been such a sweetie.’

Leo winked over at them and Ginny blew him a kiss. ‘He’s been
so
good for me. I feel wonderful! Oh I know it won’t last, but it’s the best fun I’ve had in about twenty years!’ and she wiggled off in her heels back towards him. 

As Lizzie watched them together, Katie flew over and filled her in.

‘Apparently they met at an art gallery!  They got talking, probably about some la-di-da crappy piece of art, but when Jamie found out where Eucalyptus lived, and that she herself was an artist, he realised he’d seen one of her paintings in your cottage!  Is that true, Lizzie?  Only I’ve never seen it...’  Katie sounded slightly puzzled.

‘I don’t put it up usually,’ said Lizzie.  ‘It’s a little too – er – modern for my taste…’

‘Oh.  Well, I’d imagine Jamie loved it then!’

‘It looks as though he did!  A
ren’t they just the strangest couple?  You know, this place is full of them.’ Lizzie indicated over to where Ginny was giggling flirtatiously at Leo, who looked positively adoring.  ‘You’d never in a million years imagine those two together either…’

‘Hmmm, see what you mean...’ They tried to stifle their laughter
, turning to glance at Euc and Jamie hovering uncomfortably by the bar. ‘And it’s not her kind of do at all is it...’

‘Or his…’ giggled Lizzie, enjoy
ing the spectre of Jamie on unfamiliar turf.

Nola and Julia were here, looking exquisite in stunning dresses
, which Lizzie was certain had never graced the rails of their shop.   They were accompanied by two gorgeous men who could have graced the pages of Vogue.

‘Oh Lizzie, this is wonderful
!  Everything is!  And you know there’s a full moon this evening… the park will be at its most perfect…’

‘
Flowers
…’  Darius and Angel were behind them.  ‘How
adorable
to see all you all here…’

             
Then as she spotted Susie and Rory, who she’d known were coming, and Susie’s parents, who she’d also expected, Lizzie got her next shock.  That was definitely Shar, hand in hand with Rich… Lizzie’s heart started to thud. There he was. Right behind them all. Tom.

‘Lizzeee’ Susie squeaked, dashing over as fast as her
slinky black dress would allow. She flung her arms round her. ‘I’m so happy to see you!’

‘Oh, come and join us, please....I love what you’ve done to Mum
my’s garden.  She is
so
thrilled with it...’ Susie chattered away.

Shar
came over too. ‘Hello again, I can’t believe it’s been so long...that thick brother of yours wants his head examining,’ she told Susie bluntly, then turned to Lizzie. 

‘That
cow Lucy had him in her clutches for a while, until he got round to extricating himself. She’s not here,’ Shar added, seeing the look on Lizzie’s face. ‘Honestly, didn’t I warn you he was
hopeless?
’

Tom
stood looking round a little awkwardly until he saw her. There was no avoiding him this time.

‘
Hi.’ He bent to kiss Lizzie’s cheek. ‘It’s good to see you again. Really good…’ 

His expression was serious as he continued.  ‘Um,
there was something I...’

But
just then he was rudely interrupted by a deafening announcement of ‘Dinner, ladies and gentlemen’ and a request for everyone, please, to take their seats. Jostled by everyone filtering past, Tom gave up. He’d had it all planned out, everything last word he wanted to say to Lizzie, and there was no way he was not going ahead with it. But right now it was impossible. ‘Perhaps we can talk later,’ he raised his voice hoping that Lizzie had heard him.

Seeing Tom right now was not helpful at all. It didn’t help either, when Leo nudged her elbow, saying ‘finally got it together with lover boy then!’ before dodging just enough out of the way as most uncharacteristically she tried to kick him. But as she did, something jogged Tom’s memory, and in that split second, he was transported back to a crowded underground train during the wettest summer in years.  He remembered exactly where he’d seen Lizzie before.  It was that look on her face as she kicked Leo that did it. Someone had been feeling her up on a train. It was all coming back to him, as was her embarrassment when she’d noticed him watching.