The Way We Were_ A Novel - Marcia Willett [75]
‘No,’ cries Tiggy desperately. The prospect of being left alone is too frightening to contemplate. ‘I can manage. Really, I can.’
The rain streams down in torrents as they stumble slowly along the slippery, stone-strewed road. Tiggy, leaning on Julia who is half carrying her, can barely walk. She can feel warm water gushing down her legs and a savage pain is now beating, now receding, at regular intervals low in her back. She clings to Julia's warm hand, to her strength, whilst Julia's voice speaks in her ear, encouraging her, willing her forward: ‘I can see the gate. Nearly there now. Not much further. Be brave,’ until there are other voices, other hands, and she collapses at last into a blessed, senseless darkness.
PART TWO
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
August 2004
‘TO THE WEST’: Ringwood Bournemouth Poole. Driving along the A31 at the edge of the New Forest, Julia read the familiar signpost with mixed emotions. She was sad to be leaving Charlie and his little family yet those words – ‘TO THE WEST’ – had long been a symbol of the journey home to Trescairn. For thirty years she'd been driving this route between Cornwall and Hampshire: first as a young wife and mother visiting her family, and Pete's, and now travelling to see Charlie and Jo and their two small children.
Take care, Mum,’ Charlie had said, giving her a big hug. ‘Give us a buzz when you're home. Love to Dad when you speak to him.’
‘Whenever that might be,’ Julia had answered, resigned. ‘He's not given much to telephonic communication. A run ashore in Gib, yes. Checking out the Sliema Club in Malta, yes. Telephoning home, no.’
‘These sailing holidays in the Med are getting to be a bit of a habit, aren't they?’ Charlie grinned sympathetically. ‘Still, if you don't mind …’
‘Oh, I don't mind. He and Mike have been sailing together all their naval careers since they did their first tall ships race when they were at BRNC. Can't expect him to break the habits of a lifetime just because he's retired.’
Travelling between tall banks of gorse that edged the road through the Forest, Julia was aware of a faint but increasing sense of unease. Ever since breakfast, this feeling had hovered at the edges of her mind: yet she couldn't pin it down. She reviewed the morning's events but could think of nothing unsettling that had occurred either during the usual breakfast routine with Charlie and Jo and the children or afterwards, when she'd been packing up the car and saying goodbye.
Julia drove on, mentally picking away at fragments of conversation that might offer a clue to this uneasiness and, at the same time, aware of Frobisher, scrabbling behind her. She wondered if he'd mislaid his bone.
‘You'll have to wait,’ she told him, glancing with amusement in her rear-view mirror at his despondent expression. ‘It's probably under your rug. Look about a bit. Don't be so helpless.’
He collapsed with a sigh and Julia shook her head: Frobes showed very little initiative. She remembered other journeys and other dogs: Bella and the Turk, then Baggins. The children would beg for the dogs to be allowed to sit with them. Liv and Andy would bicker, practising their own particular form of gamesmanship. First, before the journey had begun, there would be the contest as to whose turn it was to sit in the front; next, which one of them would be first to see the familiar landmarks along the way: the magnificent stone lion atop the lodge gate in the brick wall that surrounded Charborough Park, then the great stag on Stag Gate, then the first glimpse of the sea.
Now, as she turned on to the A35 heading towards Dorchester, Julia hoped with all her heart that Liv would accept Matt Greenaway's offer. Once the sale was going ahead he'd agreed that she could talk about it with her parents and Liv had suggested that they should go down to Truro and have a look at The Place.
‘You won't be able to go upstairs, of course,