Voices in Summer (26 page)

From the old chapel came the clangor of activity. The whine of a circular saw, the banging of wooden mallets. The original doorway had been opened up into an aperature the size of a double garage, and heavy doors, on runners, were pushed aside to reveal the interior of the workshop. Over this entrance was a new sign, recently erected: Ashby and Thomas.

Outside the factory, timber was stacked, seasoning beneath a makeshift shelter. There were a couple of vans and Ivan's car. Shavings, like ringlets, blew about. He could smell the sweet, new-sawn wood.

A boy appeared, carrying a chair, which he was loading into one of the vans.

'Good morning,' said Gerald.

"Ullo.'

'Is Ivan in there?'

'Yes, 'e's about somewhere.'

'Get him, would you? Say it's Admiral Haverstock.'

The boy, perhaps impressed by Gerald's authoritative manner as much as his title, set down the chair and disappeared, only to return a moment later with Ivan beside him. Ivan in shirt sleeves and a pair of old-fashioned bib-and-brace overalls.

'Gerald.'

'Sorry to disturb you. Won't take a moment. Let's go and sit in the car.'

He told Ivan the sorry tale and showed him the second letter.

As Ivan read it, Gerald saw his fist clench on his knee so tightly that the knuckles turned white. As Gerald had said, Ivan said, 'Oh, God.'

'Nasty business,' said Gerald. 'But this time, of course, I know it's not true.'

Ivan said drily, 'Well, that's a good start anyway. What a filthy thing. And you say Gabriel read it in London and brought it with her! She must have thought I was a real four-letter man.'

'She knows there's no word of truth in it. I told her so and I got the impression that she was happy to believe me.'

'You don't still think it's May?'

Gerald shrugged. 'Posted in Truro on Wednesday. Same format.'

'Gerald, I don't believe it's May.'

'Well, who is it, old boy?'

'You don't think . . . ? I wondered about this after the first letter, but I didn't say anything. You don't think it could be Drusilla?'

‘Drusilla?’

'Yes, Drusilla.'

'Why should it be her? What would she get out of writing scurrilous poison-pen letters?'

‘I don't know. Except that' – Ivan began to look faintly embarassed – 'well, after I helped her, you know, fixed for her to come and live in the cottage . . . she did come over one evening and made it quite plain that she was grateful and if she could repay me in any way, she'd be more than pleased. But it wasn't anything to do with . . . loving. Just a business proposition.'

'Did you take her up on it?'

'No, of course I didn't. I thanked her and said she didn't owe me anything and sent her home again. She bore no grudge.' He thought about this, and added, 'Apparently.'

'Would Drusilla be capable of writing a thing like that?'

'She's a funny girl. I don't know. I don't know her. None of us does. We don't know her background, we don't know what makes her tick. She's a mystery.'

‘I agree with that. But why should she want to hurt Silvia?'

'No idea. I don't think she's particularly fond of Silvia, but that hardly merits sending the poor woman a poison-pen letter.

And Drusilla certainly doesn't have strong views about drink. She enjoys her jar.'

Gerald thought this over. 'Ivan, that letter was posted in Truro on Wednesday. Drusilla never goes farther than the village. She can't, with the baby in the pram. There's no way she could get to Truro.'

'She could have asked May to post the letter for her. In an odd fashion, they seem to have made friends. May sometimes gets things for her when she's in Truro, stuff for Joshua that Drusilla can't buy in the village. So why shouldn't she have posted a letter for Drusilla?'

It all seemed perfectly reasonable. And so impossibly awful that Gerald wished that, like Eve, he could somehow put the whole sorry business out of his mind.

Ivan said, 'What are we going to do now?'

‘I suggested to Gabriel that we should get in touch with Alec, but she wouldn't let me. She doesn't want him worried. Anyway, he'll be here by Tuesday.'

'Gerald, we have to do something before he comes.'

'What?'

'Don't you think we should get the police in?'

'And what if it is May?' After a bit, Ivan said, 'Yes, I see your point.' 'Let's leave it for another day.'

Ivan smiled at his stepfather. 'You're not acting in character, Gerald. Procrastinating. I thought naval time was five minutes beforehand.'

‘It is.'

'"The difficult we can do at once, the impossible may take a little longer.'"

'Don't you quote myself at me. And perhaps this is an impossible one. Perhaps it will take a little longer. When will you be back, Ivan?'

'I'll maybe take a make and mend, be home for lunch. You look like a man who needs a little moral support.' He got out of the car, slammed the door behind him. 'See you later.'

Gerald, his heart filled with affection and gratitude, watched him go. When Ivan had disappeared back into his workshop, Gerald started up the engine of his car and drove back to Tremenheere.

* * *

‘It wasn't so bad at first. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Virginia's beautiful, and Strick had this lovely place, on a bluff above the James River. It was an enormous house, with acres of land all around, green pastures for the horses, and white split-rail fences. And there were dogwoods and wild oaks, and in front of the house a garden with a vast swimming pool and tennis courts. It was so mild and so sunny, even in winter. And I had a huge room all to myself and a bathroom as well, and there were servants. A cook and a housemaid, and a coloured butler called David, who came to work each day in a pink Studebaker. Even the school my mother sent me to was all right. It was a boarding school and, I imagine, wildly expensive, because all the girls' parents seemed to be just as rich as Strickland was, and after a bit, when they'd got used to the idea of me being English and having a British accent, I became a sort of novelty, and it wasn't so difficult to make friends.'

They were in the garden together, under the mulberry tree. They had carried out a rug and some cushions, and lay, side by side, on their stomachs, like a couple of schoolgirls exchanging confidences. Being like that somehow made it easier to talk.

'Were you never lonely?'

'Oh, heavens, yes. All the time, really, but it was a funny sort of loneliness. A little part of me that I carried around all the time, but it was hidden. Very deep. Like a stone at the bottom of a pond. I mean, I never ever felt that I belonged, but it wasn't too difficult to behave as though I did.'

'What about when you weren't at school.'

'Even that wasn't too bad. They knew I didn't want to ride, so they left me alone. I've never, actually, minded being alone, and besides, there were usually people around the place. Friends staying, with children of my age, or people coming for tennis, or to swim.' She smiled, ‘I can swim really well, and I can even play tennis too, though I'm not what you call a champion.'

'Gabriel, why did you never come back and see your father?'

Gabriel looked away, pulled at a tuft of grass within reach, shredded it between her fingers.

‘I don't know. It just never worked out. At first I thought I'd come back and be with him when he went to Glenshandra. That was where we really were together, just him and me. He used to take me out on the river with him, and we spent hours . . .just the two of us. I wanted to go to Glenshandra, but when I tried to tell my mother, she said she'd fixed for me to go to summer camp, and why not leave it for this year. There'd be other years. When you're only fourteen, it's not easy to argue and get your own way. And my mother is an almost impossible person to argue with. She has answers for absolutely everything, and in the end you're always defeated. So I went to summer camp, and I thought my father would write and be furiously angry with us all. But he didn't. He just said the same thing. Perhaps next year. And that hurt me, because I guessed perhaps he hadn't cared as much as I thought he would.'

'Did he write to you?'

'Yes, he wrote. And I got presents at Christmas and for my birthday.'

'Did you write back?'

'Oh, yes. Thank-you letters.'

'But he must have missed you so much. Those five years when he was all on his own. He must have longed to have you with him. Just sometimes.'

Gabriel said, 'He should never have let me go. I wanted to stay with him. I told my mother that, and she said that it was impossible. Apart from the practical problems, he was too busy, too involved with his work. His job always came before anything else.'

'Did you tell your father?'

‘I tried to. He came to see me at the school in England, and we walked around the games field, but somehow by then it was too late to get through to him. All he said to me was, "I have too many commitments. You need your mother."'

'And you've never forgiven him for that?'

'It's not a question of forgiving, Laura. It's a question of adapting. If I hadn't adapted, I'd have become a screwed-up mess, the sort of nutty kid who has to be wheeled off to the local headshrinker. And once I'd adapted, it was too late to go back, even for a little while. Do you see that?'

'Yes,' said Laura slowly. ‘I think I do see. I think you did very well. At least you accepted an impossible situation and made some sort of a life for yourself.'

'Oh, I made a life all right.'

'What happened when you left school?'

'Mother wanted me to go to college, but I jibbed at that. We really had a row, but for once, I stuck my toes in and won, and did what I wanted to do, which was to study fine arts at a place in Washington.'

'How fascinating.'

'Yes, it was great. I had a little apartment and a car of my own, and if I wanted to, at weekends, I could go back to Virginia and take my friends. Mother didn't approve of any of the friends, who all voted Democrat and had long hair, but apart from that it was O.K. At least, it was for a bit . . .'

'Why only for a bit . . .?'

Gabriel sighed and pulled up another piece of Gerald's lawn. She said, 'I don't know if you know anything about Strickland Whiteside.'

'No. Nothing. Alec's never spoken of him. I'm afraid he hardly spoke about your mother.'

'After I left school ... I don't know, nothing happened, but I used to catch Strickland watching me, and I felt sleazy, and I knew things weren't the same any longer. I started taking some trouble to keep out of his way. That's one of the reasons I went to Washington, to get away from Virginia. But of course, finally, when I'd got my little degree, I had to go back, and the first night I was home, my mother went to bed early, and Strickland made the most violent pass at me. He'd had a few drinks and I think he was feeling a bit randy, but it was horrible.'

'Oh, Gabriel.'

‘I knew I couldn't stay. The next morning I told my mother I was going to New York, to stay with a girl who'd been a friend of mine at school. She bucked slightly, but she didn't raise any objections. Perhaps she had an idea of what was going on in Strickland's pin-brain, but if she did, she gave no indication. She's always been a very controlled person. I never saw her lose control of any situation. So I called the girlfriend, packed, and got myself to New York. I thought I'd get a job or something, but New York was never my scene, and the first morning I was there, I caught sight of my reflection in one of the Fifth Avenue store windows and I thought, "What the hell are you doing here?" Anyway, after two days I still hadn't found anything to do, but as it turned out that didn't matter. Because that evening we went to a party down in Greenwich Village, and I met this man. He was British and funny and nice; we talked the same language, were on the same wavelength. And oh, the joy of being with someone who laughed at the same idiotic things as I did. Anyway, he took me out for dinner and said that he had this yacht down in the Virgin Islands, and he'd asked some friends down for a cruise, and would I like to go too. So I went. It was great. The most beautiful yacht, and heavenly sailing, and gorgeous romantic little coves with white sand and palm trees. And then the two weeks were over, and all the others went back to New York, but he stayed on. And so did I. I stayed with him for six months. We lived together for six months. I said goodbye to him two days ago. Two days. It feels like two years.'

'But who was he, Gabriel?'

‘I suppose you'd call him an upper-class drifter. I told you, he was English. He'd been in the army. I think he had a wife somewhere. A lot of money, because he didn't have a job, and it costs something to keep a fifty-foot sloop in the Virgin Islands.'

'Were you happy with him?'

'Oh, sure. We had a great time.'

'What was his name?'

'I'm not going to tell you. It's of no account.'

'But if you were happy, then why did you come back to England?'

Gabriel said, 'I've started a baby.'

There was a silence, which was not a silence at all, because the garden was filled with birdsong. Then Laura, inadequately, said, 'Oh, Gabriel.'

‘I only realized that I had – about a week ago.'

'Have you seen a doctor?'

'No, nothing like that, but I'm perfectly sure. And at the same time, I knew that if I wasn't going to have a child, if I was going to have an abortion, I had to move pretty quickly. But that wasn't the only reason I came straight home. The real reason was that I wanted my father. I just wanted him. I needed him. I needed to tell him, and to talk to him, and to hear his advice and . . . oh, just to be with him, Laura. And then when I got to London and he wasn't there, I thought that the only thing I could do was to find you and talk to you.'

'But you didn't even know me.'

'I had to tell somebody.'

Laura's eyes filled with tears, and swiftly, ashamedly, she brushed them away. She said, 'I've never had very strong views about abortion. I mean, I've never campaigned either way, for or against. But hearing you even say the word fills me with such horror and revulsion. . . . Oh, Gabriel, you mustn't have an abortion!'