Voices in Summer (22 page)

'No. I think I'll be able to drive down. I'll see how things go. I'll need to contact you later about that.'

He might have been planning some office meeting. The hated telephone separated them, rather than brought them together. She longed to be with him, to see his face, watch his reactions. To touch him, make him understand that she loved him more than anyone in the world, but she didn't want to go to New York with Daphne Boulderstone.

Not for the first time, she was aware of the gap that yawned between them. Trying to bridge this she said, ‘I miss you so much.'

‘I miss you too.'

It hadn't worked. 'How's the fishing?' she asked him.

'We're having a great time. Everyone sends their love.'

'Ring me before you leave for New York.'

‘I’ll do that.'

'And I'm sorry, Alec'

'Think no more about it. Just a suggestion. Good night. Sleep well.'

'Good night, Alec'

SAINT THOMAS

At five thirty in the morning, Gabriel Haverstock, who had lain awake since three, pushed aside the rumpled sheet and climbed silently out of her bunk. Across the cabin, a man still slept, his hair and stubbled chin dark against the pale pillow. His arm lay across his chest, his head was turned away from her. She pulled on an old tee shirt that had once belonged to him and made her way, barefoot, aft to the day cabin. She found a match and lit a ring on the small, gimballed gas cooker, filled a kettle and put it on to boil, and then went up the steps and out into the cockpit. There had been a dew, and the deck was damp, beaded with moisture.

In the dawn light, the waters of the harbour lay like a sheet of glass. All about, at their moorings, other boats slumbered, moving so slightly that it was as though they breathed in their sleep. Ashore, the dockside was beginning to stir. A car started up, and from the jetty a black man climbed down into a wooden dinghy, cast off, and began to row. Across the water, each dip of his oars was clearly audible. The boat moved out into the harbour, its wake causing only an arrow-shaped ripple.

Saint Thomas, United States Virgin Islands. During the night, two cruise liners had moved in under cover of darkness and tied up. It was like being unexpectedly invaded by skyscrapers. Gabriel looked up and saw, high on the superstructure, sailors working, winching cables, sluicing decks. Below them, the tall cliff of the ship's side was studded with rows and layers of portholes, behind which, in their cabins, the tourists slept. Later in the morning, they would emerge, wearing their Bermuda shorts and their hectically patterned fun shirts, to lean over the rail and gaze down at the yachts, just as Gabriel was gazing up at them now. Later, they would go ashore, slung with cameras and mad to spend their dollars on straw baskets and sandals and carved wooden statuettes of black ladies with fruit on their heads.

Behind her, in the cabin, the kettle began to boil.

She went below and made a pot of tea. They had run out of milk, so she cut a slice of lemon, put it in a mug, and poured tea over it. Carrying the mug, she went to wake him.

'Umm?' He turned when she shook his naked shoulder, buried his face in the pillow, scratched his head, yawned. He opened his eyes and looked up, saw her standing over him.

He said, 'What time is it?'

'About a quarter to six.'

'Oh, God.' He yawned again, heaved himself up into a sitting position, pulling the pillow from beneath him and stuffing it behind his head.

She said, ‘I made you some tea.' He took the mug and tried a scalding sip. 'It's got lemon in, because there's no milk.'

'So I see.'

She left him, poured another mug for herself, took it out into the cockpit, and drank it there. It was getting lighter by the minute, the sky turning blue. As the sun came up, it would burn all moisture away, in a drift of vapour. And then another day, another hot, cloudless, West Indian day.

After a bit, he joined her. He had dressed, was wearing his old dirty white shorts and a grey sweat shirt. His feet were bare. He stepped up onto the deck and went aft, busying himself with the painter of the dinghy, which had got fouled up with the stern anchor chain.

Gabriel finished her tea and went below again. She cleaned her teeth and washed in the tiny basin, put on jeans and a pair of canvas sneakers and a blue-and-white-striped tee shirt. Her red nylon kit bag, which she had packed last night, stood at the foot of her bunk. She had left it open and now stowed in it the last of her stuff – her sponge bag, her hairbrush, a thick sweater for the journey. There wasn't anything else. Six months of living on a boat had done nothing for her wardrobe. She pulled the ties at the top of the kit bag and tied them with a seamanlike knot.

Carrying this, and her shoulder bag, she went back on deck. He was already in the dinghy, waiting for her. She handed him the kit bag and then climbed down the ladder, stepped into the fragile craft, and sat on the forward thwart, holding the kitbag between her knees.

He started the outboard. It hiccupped and then fired, making a noise like a motor bicycle. As they moved out over the water, and the distance widened, she looked back at the yacht – the beautiful, fifty-foot, single-masted sloop white-painted and graceful with her name,
Enterprise of Tortola
emblazoned in gold upon her transom. Over his shoulder, she watched it go for the last time.

At the jetty, he tied up, tossed her luggage onto the dock, and heaved himself up after it. He gave her a hand and helped her up beside him. Once, there had been a set of wooden steps for this purpose, but they had been blown away in some hurricane and never replaced. They walked down the dock and up the steps, into the complex of the hotel. They went through the gardens, past the deserted swimming pool. Beyond the reception bulding, beneath the palm trees, was a forecourt, where a couple of taxis stood, the sleepy drivers dozing. He woke one, who stretched and yawned, disposed of the kit bag, started the engine, and generally prepared himself for a trip to the airport.

He turned to Gabriel. ‘I suppose, then, this is goodbye.'

'Yes. It's goodbye.'

'Will I ever see you again?'

‘I don't suppose so.'

'It's been good.'

'Yes. It's been good. Thank you for it.'

'Thank you.'

He put an arm around her shoulder and kissed her. He had not shaved and the stubble on his chin scratched her cheek. She looked into his face for the last time, and then turned and got into the taxi and slammed the door. The old car trundled forward, but she never looked back, so that she never knew if he waited until they were out of his sight.

From Saint Thomas she flew to Saint Croix. From Saint Croix to San Juan. San Juan to Miami. Miami to New York. At Kennedy, they lost her kit bag and she had to wait for an hour by the empty, turning carousel until it finally appeared.

She went out of the building into the warm, humid, New York dusk, the air foggy and smelling of fuel oil, and waited by the sign until an airport bus came her way. It was full, and she had to stand, strap-hanging, with her kit bag between her knees. At the British Airways terminal, she bought a ticket for London, and then went upstairs to sit for three hours, waiting for the flight to be called.

The plane was full, and she realized that she had been lucky to get a seat on it. She sat next to an elderly blue-haired lady who was making her first trip to Britain. She had been saving up, she told Gabriel, for two years. She was on a tour – most of the passengers were on the same tour – and they were going to see the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, and make trips farther afield as well. Edinburgh, for a day or two of the festival, Stratford-on-Avon.

‘I just can't wait to see Stratford, and Anne Hathaway's cottage.'

The excursion, to Gabriel, sounded mind-boggling, but she smiled and said, 'How lovely.'

'And you, dear, where are you going?'

'I'm going home,' said Gabriel.

She did not sleep on the plane. There was not enough night to go to sleep. No sooner had they finished dinner than, it seemed, they were being handed hot towels to wash their faces and given glasses of orange juice. At Heathrow, it was raining. Soft, sweet English rain, like mist on her face. Everything looked very gentle and green, and even the airport smelled different.

Before she left Saint Thomas, he had given her some English money – a few ill-assorted notes from the back of his wallet –but there was not enough to pay for a taxi, so she caught the tube from Heathrow to King's Cross. At King's Cross she changed to another train that took her to the Angel.

From the Angel, she walked, her kit bag under her arm. It was not very far. She saw that changes were taking place in the once-familiar streets. A block of old houses had been bulldozed away and a new and enormous structure was going up in their place. A wall of wooden hoardings protected this building operation from the pavement, and these were spray-painted with graffiti. Skids Rule, she read, and Jobs not Bombs.

She went down the old Islington High Street and through the Campden Passage, between the shuttered jewellers and antique dealers, past the toy shop where once she had bought, in a dusty box labelled three shillings and sixpence, a doll's china tea set. She turned down a narrow, paved lane, and emerged into Abigail Crescent.

Abigail Crescent had not changed. A few more houses had had their faces cleaned, a neighbour had added a dormer window to his roof. That was all. The house where she had spent her childhood looked exactly as it always had, which was comforting, but her father's private parking space stood empty, which was not so comforting. Perhaps, although it was only half past eight in the morning, he had already gone to work.

She went up the steps and rang the bell. Inside the house, she heard it ringing, but no one came to the door. After a little she put her hand to her neck and drew from beneath her sweater a long silver chain, from which hung a latchkey. Long ago, when she was still at day school in London, her father had given her the key ... in case of emergencies, he had said, but she had never had to use it, because there was always somebody there when she got home.

She used it now, turning the lock. The door opened, and as it did, Gabriel saw a figure making its slow way up the basement stairs towards her.

'Who's that?' The voice was shrill and sharp, even a little agitated.

‘It's all right, Mrs Abney,' said Gabriel. ‘It's only me.'

Mrs Abney did all the things people are meant to do if they have turns or heart attacks. She stopped dead, gasped as if for air, placed her hand on her chest, clutched the banister.

'Gabriel!'

'I'm sorry, did I frighten you?'

'You certainly did!'

‘I didn't think anyone was in.

‘I was in all right and heard the bell, but I can't get up the stairs like a dose of salts, can I?'

Gabriel lugged the kit bag into the hall and closed the door behind her.

'Where have you sprung from?' asked Mrs Abney.

'From the West Indies. I've been flying since . . .'It was too long ago to remember and, with time changes and jet lag, too complicated to try to explain. '. . . . oh, forever. Where's my father?'

'He's away. He didn't say anything about you coming.'

'He didn't know I was coming. I suppose he's in Scotland.'

'Oh, no. He's
been
to Scotland. Got back Wednesday . . . yesterday, that is. And flew off again yesterday evening.'

'Flew off?' Gabriel's heart sank. 'Where to?'

'New York. A business trip. With Mr and Mrs Boulderstone.'

'Oh . . .' Gabriel's legs felt suddenly weak. She sat at the bottom of the stairs and bowed her head, pushing her fingers through her hair. He'd gone to New York. She'd missed him by only a few hours. Their planes must have crossed in the night, both of them travelling in the wrong direction.

Mrs Abney, seeing her wilt with tiredness and disappointment, became motherly.

'There's nothing in the kitchen, because the house is empty. But why don't you come downstairs with me and I'll make you a cup of tea. . . . It'll seem like old times, having you there. Remember how I used to give you your tea after school when your mum was out? Just like old times.'

Mrs Abney's basement was another of the things that hadn't changed, dim and cosy as a badger's holt, with lace curtains shutting off what light seeped in from the area, and her little range, even in August, hot as a ship's boiler.

While Mrs Abney put on a kettle and collected cups and saucers, Gabriel pulled out a chair and sat at the table. She looked around her, seeing familiar photographs, the framed calender of bluebells in a wood, the china dogs at either end of the mantelshelf.

She said. 'Where's Dicky?'

'Oh, my little Dicky, he died. About a year ago. My nephew wanted to give me a budgie, but I hadn't the heart.' She made the tea. 'Do you want anything to eat?'

'No, just tea would be fine.'

'You sure? When did you last have a meal?'

Gabriel couldn't remember. 'Oh, sometime.'

‘I could do a bit of bread and butter.'

'No, really.'

Mrs Abney sat facing her and poured the tea. She said, ‘I shall want to hear all your news. And about your mother. Mother's all right, is she? That's good. My goodness, it seems a long time since you went . . . must be nearly six years now. How old are you now? Nineteen? Yes, I thought you must be just about nineteen. You haven't changed that much. Recognized you at once. Except your hair's short. And you've dyed it blond.'

'No, I didn't dye it. It just bleached itself with West Indian sunshine and chlorinated swimming pools.'

'You look like a boy. That's what I thought when I saw you standing there. That's why I got such a scare. Some nasty boys around the place these days ... I have to take good care of the house when your father's away.'

Gabriel took a mouthful of the tea, which was dark and sweet and strong, the way Mrs Abney had always liked it.

'And his new wife . . . has she gone to New York too?'

'No. I told you, just the Boulderstones. No, the new Mrs Haverstock's gone to Cornwall. She's been there for a bit.' Mrs Abney dropped her voice to a confidential whisper. 'Had to have this little operation. You know, dear. Insides.'