The Way We Were_ A Novel - Marcia Willett [9]
The landscape dips and drops away to the pyramids of St Austell's clay works to the south and culminates in the sea that rims the world with silvery gold away to the north; the sheer immensity and the sense of infinity it implies brings Tiggy comfort. Here, it seems, Tom walks beside her; here she is able to commune wordlessly, to share with him, and there is no misery but instead the deep-down instinct that, after all, they can never be separated.
It is in the small minutiae of the day to day that she continues to feel the agony of loss: making coffee, baking scones, holding Charlie's warm, wriggling foot as she inserts it into a sock, feeding the dogs. Later, alone with her own baby, these little humdrum tasks without Tom to share in them would be empty; simply jobs to get her through the day. Yet when these disabling thoughts threaten her she strives to remember the way she feels out on the hills and deliberately directs her mind towards the baby she carries: Tom's baby is her reason for hope. Meanwhile the twins and Charlie keep her occupied by day, and each evening she and Julia sit by the fire watching television or talking; planning for the warm spring days and all that they will do together.
Yet, despite the brilliance of the sun that blazes each day from a clear blue sky, the temperature continues to stay below freezing. The tiny garments pegged out on the line by an optimistic Julia (‘Surely it must be warmer today!’) slowly stiffen like the cardboard clothes for Liv's cut-out dollies and are brought inside to be thawed out on the wooden rack above the Rayburn.
Then, one afternoon, the wind shifts; it veers to the west where ramparts of soft, grey cloud bank and tower along the horizon. The thaw is swift, icicles dripping, pools defrosting, whilst water runs and flows over the surface of the moor, pouring into the deep lanes and swelling the streams. Freed from its icy restraint, the land begins to show tentative signs of the cold sweet spring.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
April 2004
The cold sweet spring: ivy leaves shivering on the trunk of an old tree, and the sticky black buds of the ash outlined starkly against a pale, dazzling sky. On the high moor, half hidden amongst the bleached grass where larks nest, tiny pools brimmed with water – blue eyes winking each time a cloud crossed the sun. Deep down in the lanes, sheltered and secret, primroses and celandines glimmered amongst the roots of thorn and oak in the steep stony hedgerows.
In the car, travelling between Port Isaac and Blisland, Liv drove slowly revelling in the glory of it all. This sparkling day, coming after weeks of rain and cold winds, was a gift that she accepted gratefully. She sang beneath her breath, window down, braking sharply as a little party of sheep stampeded and panicked ahead, imprisoned in the high-banked lane. Lambs at heel squeaked little plaints of fright whilst the old ewes trampled against a field gate, forcing their woolly skulls against the unyielding bars.
Liv skidded past in a wide arc and, peering in the mirror, saw them scrambling up the muddy bank and back into the field, barging their way between the strands of broken wire. She couldn't blame them for seeking freedom; it was that kind of day.
‘Just dashing over to see Aunt Em,’ she'd said to Chris, shutting down the computer, pushing back her chair. ‘Shan't be long.’
He'd grinned at her across the desk. ‘You've always been the same,’ he'd said. ‘I remember when we were at uni, the first ray of sunshine and you had to be out in it.’
She'd ignored the reference