The Way We Were_ A Novel - Marcia Willett [69]
CHAPTER TWELVE
2004
On the afternoon that Pete and Julia were due home from their week in Hampshire, Em drove up to Trescairn, taking with her a cold chicken and a strawberry trifle. She stopped at the Stores in St Breward for milk and bread, butter and cheese and a lettuce, and then drove out of the village, over the moor. It was a cool day with soft grey clouds drifting from the west, the sharp-edged tors smudged with clinging shreds of mist. Even the bright flowers of the rhododendrons crowding the lawn were dimmed and subdued in the vaporous, shifting air.
Em parked the car, got out and passed a critical eye over the garden. She unlocked the front door and carried the bags through the house and into the kitchen. It looked as if Liv had already been in: Em saw that there were flowers in a vase on the kitchen table and a piece of card with the words ‘Welcome home’ printed on it.
A faint, very faint, fragrance lingered in the air, and Em saw a twig of the yellow azalea – the very last of the luteum – amongst the blooms in the vase on the table. She was reminded again of the scene with Tiggy, here on this very spot, and she instinctively glanced up at the dresser, wondering if she might see the little bronze still standing where Tiggy had placed him twenty-eight years before. Of course, he wasn't there: Em smiled at her foolishness.
She passed through the house, opening windows to the cool, fresh air, straightening an ornament, shaking out a curtain. As she wandered from room to room, she saw that Trescairn was remarkably unchanged and she could easily recall those years in which she'd lived here with Archie, before Pete and Julia had taken it over. The sitting-room looked just as comfortable with its big sofas and swept hearth, logs piled each side of the huge grate in the granite inglenook. The dining-room, which had doubled as a playroom when the children were growing up, was very tidy, very smart, the pretty chairs set around the long rosewood table; the elegant silver candlesticks hazily reflected in its richly polished surface.
Upstairs, the twins’ room was now the guest room, and Charlie and Zack's room had become a study with a sofa-bed and had one whole wall dedicated to overflowing bookshelves. Tiggy's room, which had been Liv's when she'd grown too old to share with Andy, was a nursery with a cot and a small bed where Charlie's children now slept when they came to stay.
Em paused for a moment in each of the rooms, her thoughts vivid with scenes from the past. Suddenly she heard the hooting of a horn and she hurried to the window: Pete's car stood on the gravel below and Julia was already out and at the tailgate, releasing Frobisher. Em gave a little cry of delight; she rapped on the window and waved, and then went hurrying downstairs to meet them.
* * *
Val set the dishwasher going and glanced at her watch. By now Liv would already be over in the café doing her morning shift and Chris had gone to Wadebridge to get his hair cut. Val felt an unusual contentment; a sense of pleasure that everything was going smoothly and that each piece of the whole enterprise was under control. Even the irritation she'd begun to feel for Liv had disappeared. The old affection had resurfaced and with it a rather pleasant feeling of superiority. Liv had been such a mover and shaker in getting Penharrow on its feet that there had been a kind of obligation to be grateful to her that had become irksome.
Now, with the secret about the baby, she could almost feel sorry for Liv: she had no man, no home, and her job depended on Penharrow doing well. There might soon come a time when Liv would not be needed and the annexe required for extra accommodation for visitors. Of course, Chris had been upset when she'd mentioned this prospect but then he always stood up for Liv. It might be different when