Part 8 (1/2)

”Not really. But sunny, and much warmer than Scotland. In Scotland we never really have a proper spring, do we? One day it's winter and the next day all the leaves are out on the trees and it's summer time. At least that's the way it's always seemed to me. In Cornwall the spring is quite a long season . . . that's why they're able to grow all the lovely flowers and send them to Covent Garden to be sold.”

”Did you swim?”

”No. The sea would have been icy.” ”But in Aunt Alice's pool?” ”She didn't have a pool in those days.” ”Will we swim in Aunt Alice's pool?” ”Sure to.”

”Will we swim in the sea?” ”Yes, we'll find a lovely beach and swim there.”

”I . . . I'm not very good at swimming.”

”It's easier in the sea than in ordinary water. The salt helps you to float.”

”But don't the waves splash into your face?”

”A little. But that's part of the fun.”

Cara considered this. She did not like getting her face wet. Without her spectacles things became blurred and she couldn't swim with her spectacles on.

”What else did you do?”

”Oh, we used to go out in the car, and go shopping. And if it was warm we used to sit in the garden, and Alice used to have friends to tea, and people for dinner. And sometimes I used to go for walks. There are lovely walks there. Up to the hill behind the house, or down into Porthkerris. The streets are all steep and narrow, so narrow you could scarcely get a car down them. And there were lots of little stray cats, and the harbour, with fis.h.i.+ng boats and old men sitting around enjoying the suns.h.i.+ne. And sometimes the tide was in and all the boats were bobbing about in the deep blue water, and sometimes it was out, and there'd be nothing but gold sand, and all the boats would be leaning on their sides.”

”Didn't they fall over?”

”I don't think so.”

”Why?”

”I haven't any idea,” said Virginia.

There had been a special day, an April day of wind and suns.h.i.+ne. On that day the tide was high, Virginia could remember the salt smell of it, mixed with the evocative sea-going smells of tar and fresh paint.

Within the shelter of the quay the water swelled smooth and gla.s.sy, clear and deep. But beyond the harbour it was rough, the dark ocean flecked with white horses and, out across the bay, the great seas creamed against the rocks at the foot of the lighthouse, sending up spouts of white spray almost as high as the lighthouse itself.

It was a week since the night of the barbecue at Lanyon, and for once Virginia was on her own. Alice had driven to Penzance to attend some committee meeting, Tom Lingard was in Plymouth, Mrs. Jilkes, the cook, had her afternoon off and had departed, in a considerable hat to visit her cousin's wife, and Mrs. Parsons was keeping her weekly appointment with the hairdresser.

”You'll have to amuse yourself,” she told Virginia over lunch. ”I'll be all right.” ”What will you do?” ”I don't know. Something.” In the empty house, with the empty afternoon lying, like a gift, before her, she had considered a number of possibilities. But the marvellous day was too beautiful to be wasted, and she had gone out and started walking, and her feet had taken her down the narrow path that led to the cliffs, and then along the cliff path, and down to the white sickle of the beach. In the summer this would be crowded with coloured tents and ice-cream stalls and noisy holiday-makers with beach b.a.l.l.s and umbrellas, but in April the visitors had not started to arrive, and the sand lay clean, washed by the winter storms, and her footsteps left a line of prints, neat and precise as little st.i.tches.

At the far end, a lane leaned uphill and she was soon lost in a maze of narrow streets that wound between ancient, sun-bleached houses. She came upon flights of stone steps and unsuspected alleys and followed them down until all at once she turned a corner out at the very edge of the harbour. In a dazzle of suns.h.i.+ne she saw the bright-painted boats, the peac.o.c.k-green water. Gulls screamed and wheeled overhead, their great wings like white sails against the blue, and everywhere there was activity and bustle, a regular spring-cleaning going on. Shop-fronts were being white-washed, windows polished, ropes coiled, decks scrubbed, nets mended.

At the edge of the quay a hopeful vendor had set up his ice-cream barrow, s.h.i.+ny white, and lettered seductively ”Fred Hoskings, Cornish Ice-cream, The Best Home-made” and Virginia suddenly longed for one, and wished she had brought some money. To sit in the suns.h.i.+ne on such a day and lick an ice-cream seemed, all at once, the height of luxury. The more she thought about it the more desirable it seemed, and she even went through all her pockets in the hope of finding some forgotten coin, but there was nothing there. Not so much as a halfpenny.

She sat on a bollard and gazed disconsolately down on to the deck of a fis.h.i.+ng boat where a young boy in a salt-stained smock was brewing up tea on a spirit lamp. She was trying not to think about the ice-cream when, like the answer to a prayer, a voice spoke from behind her.

”Hallo.”

Virginia looked around over her shoulder, pus.h.i.+ng her long dark hair out of her face, and saw him standing there, braced against the wind, with a package under his arm, and wearing a blue polo-necked sweater that made him look like a sailor.

She stood up. ”Hallo.”

”I thought it was you,” said Eustace Philips, ”but I couldn't be sure. What are you doing here?”

”Nothing. I mean, I just came for a walk, and I stopped to look at the boats.”

”It's a lovely day.”

”Yes.”

His blue eyes gleamed, amused. ”Where's Alice Lingard?”

”She's gone to Penzance . . . she's on a committee ...”

”So you're all alone?”

”Yes.” She was wearing worn blue sneakers, blue jeans and a white cable-st.i.tch sweater, and felt miserably convinced that her naivete was painfully obvious not only in her clothes but her lack of small-talk as well.

She looked at his package. ”What are you doing here?”

”I came in to pick up a new rick cover. The wind last night blew the old one to ribbons.”

”I expect you're going back now.”

”Not immediately. How about you?”

”I'm not doing anything. Just exploring, I suppose.”

”Don't you know the town?”

”I've never got this far before.”

”Come along then, I'll show you the rest of it.

They began to walk back along the quay, in no hurry, their slow paces matched. He caught sight of the ice-cream barrow and stopped to talk.

”Hallo, Fred,”

The ice-cream man, resplendent in a white starched coat like a cricket umpire, turned and saw him. A smile spread across features browned and wizened as a walnut.

” 'Allo, Eustace. 'Ow are you?”

”Fine. How's yourself?”

”Oh, keeping not too bad. Don't often see you down 'ere. 'Ow are things out at Lanyon?”

”All right. Working hard.” Eustace ducked his head at the barrow. ”You're early out. There's n.o.body here yet to buy ice-creams.”

”Oh well, early bird catches the worm I always say.”

Eustace looked at Virginia. ”Do you want an ice-cream?”