The Way We Were_ A Novel - Marcia Willett [57]
A bird flies up, almost into her face, and she screams, moving back on to the grass, her feet slipping so that she sits down for safety and almost overbalances. She cries out again in fright, clutching at the coarse tufted grass, and the dogs bark frantically, their paws scrabbling amongst the loose stones on the slope above her. She inches back carefully, mocking herself for a fool, until she reaches safer ground where the dogs lick her face and she hugs them, trembling a little and giving herself time to recover.
Later, after a long walk along the cliffs with her eyes fixed towards the west, beyond Port Isaac Bay to The Mouls, she sits drinking coffee with the van door open to the sunshine and the dogs curled at her feet. A large black bird with red legs drifts upwards into view at the cliff's edge and she wonders if it might be a chough: perhaps it is the bird that brought her to her senses.
Tiggy shivers. Presently she turns to look across at the Norman church, with its strong square tower, and suddenly is moved to inspect it more closely. Its dramatic setting in the huge churchyard high on the cliff has already made a great impact upon her but now she decides to go inside. She shuts the dogs in the van with plenty of water and the windows partly open, and crosses to the lich-gate. There is no thatched roof to protect the coffin-bearers from the rain but she pauses for a moment with her hand on the long coffin stone and then walks slowly up to the porch.
Inside, she is instantly aware of the powerful, soul-moving atmosphere created by more than a thousand years of worship and prayer, and shaken by the sense of light and peace. Her glance takes in the massive stone font, upheld at each of its four corners by curving serpents, and at the crude heads carved between them; the figure of St Christopher with the Holy Child on his shoulder, set in a niche opposite the door; the sweep of the high arched beams above her. She makes her way up the aisle and sits down in a pew, staring at the rood screen, but taking nothing in except the need to sit for a moment and be silent.
Here, the conviction she's felt on the moors and out on the cliffs comes to her even more strongly: it seems that the deaths of Tom and her grandmother have given eternity the opportunity to break through the earthly barriers between life and death, bringing them close to her and offering courage and hope. She tries to pray for them, and for herself and her child, but no words will come – and, in the end, it seems unimportant. She is held in a silent communion in which no words are needed and presently she lights two votive candles, one for Tom and one for her grandmother, and then goes back out into the sunlit, wind-raked spaces of cliff and sea and sky.
That night Tiggy dreams again, the same dream: once again she seems to be present in the dream whilst at the same time watching what is happening. Tom is there, and Julia, and the shadowy third person who holds out the baby and says: ‘Her name is Claerwen, Clare for short.’
She wakes suddenly, just as she is stretching out her arms to take the baby, and lies huddled in the dark, trying to adjust to reality and feeling bereft. Knowing that she will not be able to go back to sleep for a while, she sits up and switches on the bedside light: nearly four o'clock. Tiggy groans, pulls on her dressing gown and pushes her feet into sheepskin moccasins. The Turk raises her head, watching Tiggy from the comfort of the bed, reluctant to stir unless it is absolutely necessary. Bella, sleeping in the old Lloyd Loom chair, stirs and stretches but makes no attempt to move.
Tiggy goes out on to the landing and down the stairs; before the kettle has boiled, both dogs arrive in the kitchen, slightly puzzled but expectant. She gives each of them a biscuit, makes tea and sits down at the table. Her gaze takes in the big, warm room, which is so similar to the kitchen in Julia's home in Hampshire and so central to family life: Charlie's high chair strung about with toys and teething rings, Andy's Fisher Price aeroplane,