The Way We Were_ A Novel - Marcia Willett [113]
The morning passed slowly.
‘I think the forecast for scattered showers might be right,’ Julia said just before lunch. ‘There are some rather black-looking clouds over the Camel estuary.’ She frowned; the words seemed familiar.
The sunshine dimmed, disappeared, and the day grew eerily dark: brilliant stabs of lightning forked to earth and distant thunder grumbled.
‘I think I shall take a chance,’ Julia said as soon as lunch was over. She pushed back her chair, picking up the tapestry bag, holding it for a moment. Aunt Em watched her, eyebrows raised. ‘No,’ said Julia firmly. ‘You're staying here and so is Frobes. I'm not taking any unnecessary risks and, anyway, Zack and Caroline might turn up early.’ She looked apprehensively at the darkening sky. ‘I rather wish they'd stayed put. I think there's bad weather coming.’
They were both startled by a sudden tattoo; a hollow drumming on the roof of the back porch. For a moment they stared at one another, puzzled, until Aunt Em said: ‘It's raining. It's absolutely pouring,’ and Julia felt another tremor of déjà vu. She seized her bag and the car keys from the hook on the dresser, patted Frobisher, who opened an eye and thumped his tail.
‘I'm going now, Aunt Em,’ she said, and bent to kiss her.
‘Be careful,’ said the older woman anxiously.
She saw her go out, heard the back door slam, and just briefly she was transported twenty-eight years back in time and it was Tiggy and Julia going out together into the storm. Em stood at the window watching; she felt helpless and old and frightened.
Julia came out of the house and closed the door behind her. The little Merlin, wrapped in the handkerchief, was at the bottom of the bag. How heavy he was. She climbed into the car and put the bag into the well on the passenger's side. The rain came down in torrents, sizzling and bouncing off the earth so that soon the bare moorland looked as if it were covered in a low cloud of steam. Rain hammered on the roof and clattered on the leaves of the rhododendron bushes; it dislodged stones and washed the loose, dry topsoil away in rivulets of muddy water that poured down into the lanes. As she drove she was aware of Tiggy beside her, urging her onwards. She remembered that other fateful journey and was suddenly filled with terror.
Through the lanes and villages, she drove, glancing from time to time in her mirror to check that no small sports car was following her. The windscreen wipers thrashed rhythmically across the glass, yet she could barely see through the streaming water and she hunched in her seat, the tapestry bag a bright splash of colour at the edge of her vision. Through Tintagel where tourists fled for shelter, down the narrow little lane beneath the high stone-buttressed wall, past the rain-lashed church, and out on to the cliff. Once out of the car she was soaked in moments. Clutching the bag to her chest, slipping and stumbling, she made her way cautiously out to the point where once, on a bright September day, she'd scattered Tiggy's ashes.
At the edge of the cliff she sat down lest she should overbalance, glanced over her shoulder along the path, and took the bronze from its hiding place. The wind howled over the cliff, sweeping the heavy rain eastwards and the sun burst with startling brilliance from behind the clouds. Tunic swirling, chin up, with the little falcon on his wrist, The Child Merlin stared unafraid into the future.
Julia looked at him with sorrow and with love. ‘I'm so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘So sorry.’
Taking him in a firm grip she swung her arm as far as she could and the bronze sailed out over the edge of the cliff and arced down into the surging seas. She thought she saw a flash of light and a spray of water as he disappeared, though her eyes were full of tears and she couldn't be certain. The sun vanished. Rain and