The Way We Were_ A Novel - Marcia Willett [88]
Pete is right too about making friends. They weren't at Trescairn long enough to make new friends before Tiggy arrived. It was such a perfect spring and summer that she didn't feel the need for other friends. How quickly the months passed; what fun they had. Julia realizes that, ever since Tiggy died, she's been caught in a web of mourning, like a fly in amber, paralysed with shock and grief. Yet now, since the twins have started school, she is meeting other young mothers of her own age and friendships are beginning to flourish.
When Aunt Em telephones mid-morning, suggesting that she might come to see her, Julia readily agrees.
‘Pete's been recommended for Perisher,’ she says jubilantly. ‘Yes, it's great, isn't it? We must celebrate. See you later then.’
Driving out from Blisland, Em is surprised at her own delighted reaction to Julia's news. It takes her a little while to realize that it is the joyfulness in Julia's voice that is giving her so much pleasure. It is a long while since she's heard that note of real happiness and she wonders if, at last, Julia might be beginning to recover from her grief. She drives slowly, mentally recording small scenes that might be useful to her painting: that magpie, for instance, glossily debonair in his monochrome feathers as he forages on the stone wall, sharply marked against the flowering furze.
The open moorland on Kerrow Downs lies drowned beneath a stretch of shallow floodwater on which flocks of lesser black-backed gulls float so that it looks like some great estuary. A dog appears, a farm collie out alone, lean belly to ground as he follows a scent, and the flock suddenly take flight, great wings beating, crying hoarsely as they wheel above the wind-rocked surface of the water.
Em pauses on Delford Bridge to watch the De Lank, racing down from its source high up on the moor, streaming out over its banks and pouring between the granite piers of the clapper bridge. The sandy shallows where the children play in summer have vanished beneath the flood and the submerged grass streams out, just below the surface; undulating green tresses in the clear, tumbling water.
She drives on, light-hearted in the slanting winter sunshine, making a mental note of the dramatic backdrop made by Rough Tor and Brown Willy, clear-cut against the chill blue sky She catches sight of some new catkins clustered on bare, brittle twigs and her heart lifts even higher; soon spring would be here, the cold, sweet spring; that magic time of healing and regeneration.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
2004
‘We could have let the cottages ten times over this month,’ said Liv, putting down the telephone. ‘If I say it myself, the website's really pulling in the punters. I made a pretty good job of it.’
‘The photographs are very good,’ Chris agreed. ‘You made the courtyard look very attractive.’
‘Well, it is attractive, but I think it was good to do some of the interior shots as well as the views, of course. I keep wondering how I can improve it.’
‘It doesn't sound as if you need to if we're turning people away.’
‘If the weather sets in fair then people suddenly think, let's dash down to Cornwall for the weekend. I always knew we'd be able to pick up some of that trade. I just didn't realize we'd be so booked up from day one.’ She glanced at him, frowning. ‘I'm just sorry that Val seems still to be so anxious. I thought she'd come out of her slough of despond for a while. She seemed positively effervescent. Now she's right down again.’
Chris didn't look at her but continued to stare at his screen. He made a resigned face. ‘You know how it is. She's subject to mood swings and that's about it, I suppose.’
‘Well, we're all a bit like that,’ admitted Liv. ‘Depending on the time of the month …’
There was an odd little silence; Chris stared