Liz Fenwick - The Path to the Sea

Clenching her hands, she took one step after the other, keeping her gaze focused out of the windows. A gull swooped down from the roof and she jumped. She was hardened and had seen death in its worst forms, but her head refused to turn to look at her mother.

George had been right to call her, but it would have been easier to come for the funeral. Being here now still gave her time, and time demanded action in some way. She exhaled. Standing here she couldn’t avoid thinking of her father, missing what she could barely remember. She’d been eight when he died, and she only had one photo of the two of them. Years ago, when she’d asked for others her mother had shrugged and said she didn’t know what had happened to them. Diana had found that hard to believe. Why wouldn’t she know? But her mother had never changed her answer.

Around this one photo she had structured all her memories. The housekeeper at the time, Mrs Hoskine, had sent it to Diana at boarding school. Closing her eyes, she could envision the washed-out colours of the snapshot. Diana was on her father’s shoulders and they were looking out to the bay. Both of them were smiling and pointing. On that day she had been a pirate about to sail the seven seas but always to return home to Boskenna. Now, home and Boskenna were two words she wouldn’t put in the same sentence. Diana’s last visit, ten years ago, had been because of her daughter, Lottie . . . artistic, flighty, and too trusting.

Her mother wheezed, and Diana turned to look at her. She had known what Lottie needed right from the start. Diana had been wrong. Not just then but in so much of her life. Yet she was sixty-four and still at the peak of her profession, about ready to slow down and allow others to move into her shoes. Her career, she was proud of but not much else and certainly not her mothering skills. Those she had learned from the woman in the chair. How she had longed for the closeness that Lottie had with her grandmother. Jealousy left a bitter taste and even now it lingered about the sides of her tongue.

Her mother’s eyes were closed, and Diana watched the laboured rise and fall of her chest. Her brain told her to speak, to make her presence known. In the mirror on the wardrobe door she caught sight of her reflection but also glimpsed something else. She blinked. It was a dark-haired child, but there was no child in the room. She was imagining it. She was alone with her mother. The only figure in the mirror was Diana. Noticing the slight stoop, she straightened her shoulders.

Another step took her to the chair. Her mother’s short, white hair was clean but not styled. Somehow it made her appear vulnerable. That was a word Diana didn’t associate with her mother. No foundation covered the discolouration on her forehead and cheeks, yet she seemed younger. Only her dried cracked lips distorted the image.

‘У меня не было выбора’ Her mother moved her head back and forth.

‘What?’ Diana bent down to try and hear her better.

‘Я не могла поступить иначе’

‘Mum, what on earth are you saying?’ She put her face close to her mother’s but pulled back at the smell of her stale breath. Her mother’s eyes opened wide, but Diana wasn’t sure what she was seeing. Haunted and hollowed were the words that described her, and Diana began to process the scene as if with camera angles. Taking in the sweep of the room and the view before a close-up on a dying woman’s face. Then it hit her, and she sank onto the edge of the bed. This wasn’t a war zone and she didn’t know what to do. There was no cameraman and she hadn’t written a script.

3

Joan

Friday, 3 August 1962, 1.00 p.m.

The sun breaks through the low cloud and I squint at the brightness, slipping through the gate and onto the coastal path. In moments I reach the watchtower. The area is mostly quiet these days with only a few walkers venturing onto Carrickowel Point. Despite being built because of the war, this is a peaceful place. Clouds race across the sky and the sea below is splattered with their shadows. With sun one minute then rain the next, it is classic Cornish summer weather as the Bank Holiday approaches. Guests are due in the next few hours. Everything is in place. The larder is full of food, the menus are selected, and the seating plans are organised. Nothing is left to chance. All is as it should be, as it is expected to be.

Placing the flower trug on the ground, I climb the few steps up to the watchtower and kick aside the loose newspaper on the ground. A quick glance reveals it is from two days ago. Someone else must have stolen away here to read the news in peace. But that is the only thing peaceful about the news. It is filled with the Cold War. I’ve had enough four-minute warnings, nuclear tests and awkward diplomacy. Here in Cornwall, away from Moscow, I want to escape that world. We need to relax. Too much tension surrounds us. I strike a match, light my cigarette, inhale and will the tension in me to leave. Slowly exhaling, I notice my pink lipstick marks on the cigarette.

The world is balanced on the edge, yet looking out at the bay below it all seems distant. A carefree laugh emerges from me unbidden and I take another drag on my cigarette. The smoke clouds my view of the beach, but through the haze I can see our sailing boat coming ashore. Allan and our daughter, Diana, have been out on the water for hours and the tide is just allowing them to return to the beach. They will be damp and weary which isn’t ideal with guests arriving in a few hours. But it will be fine and I’m just jealous of their fun. The freedom of a day on the water is a gift, and I haven’t had that pleasure this holiday. After this weekend I will go with them.

I roll my neck. From the moment when I woke until now I haven’t stopped moving. Even cutting flowers hasn’t provided the quiet reflection I’m seeking. At first I welcomed the activity, the focus on the beautiful, the surface of things, but now every muscle is tense, waiting. This weekend must be perfect. The sun will shine, and laughter and gaiety will abound. There will be a new guest, an important one, at the dinner table tomorrow night. Every reasonable bed in the house will be occupied. I glance down at the flower basket, knowing I should head back to the house and finish the arrangements, but the solitude here at the watchtower is a tonic. Closing my eyes, I try to still my mind so that I can hear the birdsong and the sound of the sea below, but instead names and faces scroll through my mind as if I am memorizing a sheet of paper. We will have eighteen at dinner tomorrow night and ten this evening.

In some ways, things will be simpler when we head back to Moscow. But only in some ways as my clenched stomach reminds me. If only life consisted of ballet classes at the American Embassy and helping Diana with her school work. I hold my hand out and roll my wrist gracefully. The ballet mistress would approve. I laugh. She has no idea that I understand every word she speaks, especially those muttered under her breath. She watches us so closely, pretending that she comprehends little of our chattering before and after the class. But she is no different than any Russian we meet on a regular basis. Nothing is ever as it appears.

My fingers flex, touching the concrete of the tower. I loved my war years here at Porthpean. My parents remained in India but felt I would be safer here. That proved to be wrong, with the endless bombing of Plymouth and near-misses along this coastline. But it was a magic time. The house had been filled with refugees and evacuees, including me. My governess taught us all, but I learned the most from the refugees . . . a French chef, a Czech scholar, a Polish linguist and Elena, a Russian countess who was a distant relative of my mother.