Page 14 of New Beginnings At Pencarrow Bay
Quentin turned to her, his eyes bright with inquisitiveness, eyebrow raised in question.
Peggy sighed. She didn’t really want to go into it. It was Ted’s to divulge, if he wanted to. ‘Let’s just say there are unresolved issues about how Rose’s mother died. And neither of them has been very good at sorting it out since.’
Quentin looked a bit let down that he wouldn’t be getting the full drama, but he nodded sagely. ‘Easy to slip into non-speaks. Done it myself. I’m still very sad about it.’
Now it was Peggy’s turn to be curious. But he didn’t offer any more information and she didn’t press him. Changing the subject, she asked, ‘Shouldn’t Ken be giving his lecture beside Morvoren on Mermaid Day?’
They’d almost reached the war memorial, Quentin’s buggy lurching this way and that to avoid the cars and throngs of people on the busy Saturday. The small stone obelisk– with a cartouche detailing the names of the dead heroes from the village– was situated in a curve in the sea wall, opposite a row of colourful fishermen’s cottages and Martin Blake’s gallery, which displayed local pottery, glass, sea paintings, jewellery, bronze hares, such as the one Peggy had given Ted, and bird sculptures. Martin was on the verge of retiring, and Peggy wondered idly whatwould happen to the place when he did. Wondered, too, if he would be any more successful than she was at filling his time, when he no longer had the gallery to go to every day.
‘Ken’s nuts,’ Quentin replied fondly. ‘That sort of logic doesn’t impinge on his dottiness, I’m afraid.’
By the time they reached the memorial, the bard was in full flow. He stood on the steps of the monument, strands of his long golden hair winding around his head in the wind, his purple cloak billowing, arms flung out wide in exposition. The parade with the jazz band had moved on, the kids not interested, but a few of the older stragglers had stopped to listen to what he had to say, clutching their mermaid finery round their chilly bodies.
‘Mermaids are truly powerful spirits,’ Ken intoned. ‘Look at the Doom Bar in Padstow. Anyone who can move so much sand to such detrimental effect has strength beyond the realms of this world.’
‘What’s he talking about?’ Peggy whispered to Quentin.
‘A previously safe harbour choked by piles of drifting sand because someone shot the mermaid– no idea why– and she cursed the place. So the story goes.’
‘Sounds more like a freak act of Nature.’
‘Really? Oh, you unbeliever!’ Quentin’s jokey response was a tad too loud, causing Ken to swing round and bend his fanatical gaze on them both.
‘You mock. But listen carefully, all you who yearn to be loved. Morvoren can help if you’d only let her,’ Ken said, still staring at them. ‘For too long we have ignored the so-called “mythical” spirits– the piskies and mermaids– dismissed them as nonsense, creatures for fairy tales. But these entities are more real than you and I. They are inthe air around us for all time, calling to us, begging us to listen, to heed their magic, access their support. Our beloved Cornwall is full of them, the barrier between this world and the next thinner here than anywhere else in this country of unbelievers…’
On he went, but Peggy and Quentin were not hearing. Both had been oddly affected by his words, an atavistic superstition rising uncomfortably in their guts. They looked at each other, faces stiff with a desire not to feel what they were feeling, not to admit to it in any way, and tacitly began to move on up the hill.
‘Okay, so a load of old tosh, then,’ Quentin blurted, when they were safely out of earshot.
‘But powerful tosh,’ Peggy observed, with a weak smile.
They laughed, relieved they’d had the same reaction, but feeling foolish just the same. She didn’t know anything about Quentin’s insecurities on the Rory front–maybe his increasing disability frightens him?– but she was certainly having a wobble about Ted. She wasn’t sure what to think.
8
‘More pie?’ Peggy asked Rose later that evening.
Rose twitched, as always, when addressed directly. She was a beautiful woman in a pale, fragile way, the blue-white skin– devoid of makeup– and even paler blue eyes giving her an ethereal quality that was quite disconcerting at times, Peggy thought. The loose ringlets of her strawberry blonde hair framed her head, like a halo.
But Rose was not, apparently, the delicate flower her looks might have suggested. Her work at the Plymouth centre was widely respected, so Ted had found out, in the papers she’d already authored in her short career.
‘Umm, it was lovely,’ she began in response to the offer of a second helping of the lemon meringue pie Peggy had laboured over on her return from the Mermaid Day events, ‘but I have eaten too much.’
Ted laughed. ‘God, me too. I’m stuffed.’ Turning to Peggy, he added, ‘Thanks, sweetheart, that was a wonderful meal. You really have excelled yourself.’
His fulsome praise rang a little hollow in Peggy’s ear. She knew he was being careful with her. He’d arrived home that evening conveniently late, only minutes before Rose’s red Toyota had pulled up, immediately coming over to where she stood finishing off the salad and folding his arms around her silently, giving her a warm hug.
She’d gently nudged him off. Glancing up from her task, she noticed his slightly discomfited gaze.
‘Peggy, listen…’ he began, standing back, hands thrust deep in his jeans pockets.
She’d shaken her head vehemently before he could go on. There was no time to speak but she could tell he was feeling awkward. She assumed it must relate to Lindy’s generous present– although he didn’t yet know Quentin had spilled the beans about Lindy being with him in the pub.
‘Rose will be here any second. Can you see to the wine, please? There’s red on the side and I put rosé in the fridge. I don’t suppose Rose will drink because she’s driving back, so I got elderflower. I think she likes that. And there’s fizzy water.’ She’d burbled on, talking to fill any silence that would allow Ted to begin again whatever he’d been about to say. She didn’t want to listen right now.He can stew on it till his daughter goes home,she’d thought unsympathetically.
They were eating inside tonight, the May weather not having improved enough for the terrace, but Peggy had made a special effort to dress the kitchen table in a festive birthday display, with wild spring flowers she’d picked from around their garden, candles and the beautiful blue and white French linen napkins she’d inherited from her grandmother– seldom used because they were a pain to launder. She wanted him and Rose to have a pleasant meal together, to have a proper celebration, even though she was still feeling uneasy, and puzzled, by his secrecy regarding Lindy.
While father and daughter chatted– the conversation stilted at times– her mind whirred with the accumulated events of the day: the dry robe tied smugly with the red ribbon, the over-familiar hug, the knowledge that Ted hadchosen to sit and chat exclusively with Lindy in the pub– but not mentioned it to Peggy. All a bit petty and ridiculous on one hand. Odd, nonetheless, and hard to dismiss on the other.
