Barbara Erskine - Whispers in the Sand

Anna nodded. ‘It’s strange. You’re right. And I haven’t thought about her for years.’

‘Then it’s time you did. It is so easy to forget one’s childhood dreams. I sometimes think people expect to forget them. They abandon everything which would make their lives exciting. I think you should go out there and see the places Louisa saw. When they published some of her sketchbooks ten years ago I was tempted to go myself, you know. I’d helped your father select the pictures, and worked with the editor over the captions and potted history. I just wanted to see it so much. And perhaps I still will one day.’ She smiled, the twinkle back in her eye, and Anna found herself thinking that it was entirely possible that the old lady would do it.

‘She was an amazing woman, your great-great-grandmother,’ Phyllis went on. ‘Amazing, brave and very talented.’

Like you. Unlike me. Anna bit her lip and did not say it.

Frowning, she considered Phyllis’s words, aware that the old lady’s beady eyes were fixed unswervingly on her face.

‘Well?’

Anna smiled. ‘It’s very tempting.’

‘Tempting? It’s a brilliant idea!’

Anna nodded. ‘I did actually suggest once or twice to Felix that we go to Egypt, but he was never interested.’ She paused, aware of a stirring of something like excitement deep inside her. After all, why not? ‘You know, I think I might just take your advice. I haven’t exactly got a lot of pressing plans.’

Phyllis sat back in her chair. Closing her eyes she turned her face to the sun and a small smile played across her features for a moment. ‘Good. That’s settled then.’ There was a pause, then she went on, ‘This is heaven. There is no nicer time of the year than the autumn. October is my favourite month.’ Her eyes opened again and she studied Anna’s face. ‘Have you spoken to your father yet?’

Anna shook her head. ‘He hasn’t rung me since the divorce. I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me.’

‘For separating from Felix?’

Anna nodded. ‘He was so proud of having Felix for a son-in-law.’ She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice for a moment. ‘The son he never had.’

‘Silly man.’ Phyllis sighed. ‘He’s got more and more impossible since your mother died and that’s a good ten years ago now! Don’t let it upset you too much, darling. He’ll come round. You’re worth ten of any son he might have had and one day he’ll realise it, I promise you.’

Anna looked away, concentrating as hard as she could on the drift of scarlet creeper on the wall on the edge of the terrace. She was not going to cry. She should have got used by now to her father’s insensitivity and his blatant lack of interest in her, his only child. She sniffed hard and turned her attention to the York stone slabs at her feet. Old lichens, long dried to white crusts had formed circles and whorls in the stone. She realised suddenly that Phyllis had levered herself to her feet. Glancing up, she watched as her great-aunt disappeared back through the open French windows into the house, and groping for her handkerchief she mopped hurriedly at her eyes.

Phyllis was only gone two minutes. ‘I have something here which might interest you.’ She did not look at Anna as she sat down once more. She had dropped a package onto the table in front of her. ‘When I was going through Louisa’s papers and sketchbooks I despaired of ever finding anything personal. If there were letters she must have destroyed them. There was nothing. Then a few months ago I decided to have an old desk restored. The veneers had lifted badly.’ She paused. ‘The restorer found one of the drawers had a false bottom and inside he found this.’ She passed the packet over to Anna.

Anna took it. ‘What is it?’

‘Her journal.’

‘Really?’ Anna glanced down in sudden excitement. ‘But that must be incredibly valuable!’

‘I expect so. And interesting.’

‘You’ve read it?’

Phyllis shrugged. ‘I had a quick look at it, but the writing is very difficult and my eyes aren’t so good these days. I think you should read it, Anna. It’s all about her months in Egypt. And in the meantime I think you should ring your father. Life is too short for huffs and puffs. Tell him he’s being an idiot, and you can say I said so.’

The diary was on the back seat of the car when it was time to leave. The last crimson rays of the sunset were fading as Anna climbed in and reaching for the ignition looked up at her aunt. ‘Thank you for being there. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

Phyllis shook her head in mock anger. ‘You would cope very well indeed as you know. Now, ring Edward tonight. Promise?’

‘I’ll think about it. I’ll promise that much.’

She did think about it. In the queue of heavy traffic making its way slowly back into London after the sun-drenched weekend she had plenty of time to reflect on Phyllis’s advice and review her situation. She was thirty-five years old, had been married for fourteen years, had never had a job of any description whatsoever and was childless. Letting in the clutch she edged the car forward a few yards as the streams of traffic converged from the motorway into the clogged London streets. Her mind glanced sideways away from that last particular memory. She couldn’t cope yet with the idea of Felix as the father of another woman’s child. She had few friends, or so it seemed at the moment, a father who despised her, and a terrifying vista of emptiness before her. On the plus side there was Phyllis, the photography, the garden and whatever Phyllis said, the house.

One of the reasons Felix had left her the house was the garden. It was large for a London property, at first glance narrow and rectangular, but by some vagary of planning back in the eighteenth century the end of the garden took a steep angular bend around the back of two other houses, whose own gardens were thus sharply curtailed, doubling its size. The garden was Anna’s passion. Felix had as far as she knew never even walked to the end of it. His interest began and ended with its uses as a place for entertaining corporate clients. Drinks. Barbecues. Sunday tea. The terrace with its jasmine and roses, its old terracotta pots of herbs – that was the extent of his interest. Beyond it, the winding paths, the high trellis-topped walls, the intricate beds with their carefully planned colours, the occasional half-hidden piece of sculpture lovingly garnered from trips to country antique shops was her domain alone.

It had stunned her when in the divorce settlement Felix had specifically mentioned the garden. He had said she deserved it after all her work. It was the nicest thing he had ever said to her about it.

‘Daddy. Can we talk?’ She had sat by the phone in her bedroom for ten minutes before picking up the receiver to dial.

There was a moment’s silence, then: ‘I can’t imagine we have much to talk about, Anna.’

She bit her lip. ‘How about the fact that I might be miserable and lonely and need you?’

‘I hardly think you need me.’ The voice the other end was cold. ‘After all, you did not need to consult me over the divorce.’

‘Consult you?’ The usual emotions of anger, incredulity, indignation and finally impotence swept over her. ‘Why should I have consulted you?’

‘It would have been courteous.’

Anna closed her eyes and began counting to ten. It had always been like this. Other parents might show affection or sympathy or even rage. Her father was worried about a lack of courtesy. She sighed audibly. ‘I’m sorry. I suppose I was too wound up about everything. It all came to a head too suddenly.’

‘It should not have come to a head at all, Anna. You and Felix could have reached some accommodation. If you had consulted me I could have talked to him –’