Page 16 of New Beginnings At Pencarrow Bay

Peggy found her thoughts about Lindy complicated, though, and hard to dismiss completely.

Lindy had been shaping up– Peggy had hoped– as her friend.

But she couldn’t dispel the feeling that Lindy and Ted knew each other better than they were making out.

Not just the birthday present and the pub chat, there was the coffee on the bench behind the castle that day– which Ted had subsequently never mentioned, or said what they’d been talking about. He usually shared everything with her.

But she resolutely consigned her unease to the bin of her historical over-thinking, in light of the gorgeous Sunday that followed Rose’s visit.

The détente– agreed on both sides without a word spoken– that grew up between her and Ted meant the day was peaceful and cosy.

She determinedly banished her worries and simply enjoyed Ted’s company.

They walked with Bolt over muddy fields to the small church situated in an inlet a couple of miles along the coast. There, they took one of their favourite meanders round the shaded waterside graveyard, strains of an organ and a familiar hymn reaching them through the stained-glass windows, the air soft with the buzzing of insects, the chirping of birds.

‘I want to be buried here,’ Ted said, gazing out at the tiny estuary, perhaps feeling, as Peggy did, the atmosphere of absolute peace and serenity engendered by the beautiful environs of the little chapel– the spot apparently a place of worship since the sixth century.

‘It looks pretty full,’ Peggy replied dubiously, glancing around at the numerous gravestones packed tight into the hillside.

‘We should find out,’ Ted insisted. ‘We could book a double plot. I have friends who’ve done that in other churchyards.’

The image of them lying side by side in the cold earth– even in such a spectacular setting– made Peggy shudder. ‘I don’t want to be buried,’ she said, taking Ted’s arm and squeezing it in reassurance that he was still flesh and blood, alive.

‘I’m dying first, anyway,’ he teased, although she knew he wasn’t joking– he’d said so often enough. ‘So you can be poured over me.’

They laughed, but none too heartily. Peggy didn’t think she was scared of death, per se, more the path she had to tread before she eventually reached it, but the image was disturbing nonetheless.

They wandered out of the graveyard and sat down on wooden picnic benches in the fresh May afternoon for a delicious cream tea: fluffy golden scones, raisins for Ted, definitely none for Peggy, fresh strawberry jam and lashings of clotted cream, washed down with a strong mug of Smugglers Brew tea from the café near the church.

Then they took a leisurely stroll back across the fields and up the hill to the house, stopping to talk to the donkeys on the way.

Bolt loved them, his tail wagging to beat the band, giving small barks of welcome, although the donkeys seemed unmoved by his presence, more interested in the human potential for carrots or other edibles.

The graveyard and their talk about death and burials had jolted Peggy.

I still have so much life to live , she thought, as she lagged behind Ted on the path up to the house.

I’ve got to get on with it, work out what I want to do, stop over-thinking and wasting my thoughts on what used to be…

what I’ve lost. Because she was so blessed.

Not least with Ted and the beautiful village in which she was so privileged to live.

The next morning Ted got up even earlier than usual for his run because Mo, the technician who maintained and repaired the solar inverter that ran the electrics on the van, was meeting him beside Henri at seven.

The power had cut out twice, just briefly, the other morning.

Ted had only a sketchy knowledge of what might be wrong, and absolutely no idea how to fix it.

He was upstairs getting showered and dressed, Peggy in the kitchen making them both porridge with blueberries, when his phone, charging on the kitchen counter, began to ring, vibrating loudly on the marble surface.

Ted had no patience with voicemail, and had disabled the feature on his mobile– people could text him if it was important, he insisted– so it went on buzzing.

‘Shall I get it?’ she called up, thinking it might be Mo saying he’d been delayed or something. It was too early for anyone else.

‘Please, yes. Just coming,’ Ted called down.

She grabbed the mobile and opened the leather flap. ‘Hi, Ted’s phone,’ she said quickly, without checking the screen for caller display, keen to get to the person before they clicked off.

After a brief silence, she heard a muffled ‘Oh… Never mind.’ Then the phone went dead, but not before she’d seen the name of the caller. And recognized the voice.

Ted pattered down the stairs in his socks to find her still clutching his phone and frowning.

‘Who was it?’

Peggy stared at him, didn’t reply.

He looked puzzled. ‘What?’

‘They hung up.’

‘Oh, well. They’ll try again, if it’s urgent.’

Handing Ted his phone– he didn’t check to see who’d called– she hesitated.

She was trying to think it through, unwilling to kick off with him if there was a rational explanation for Lindy calling him at seven in the morning, then hanging up when Peggy answered.

There isn’t , she concluded, and took a deep breath.

‘It was Lindy.’

‘What?’ Ted asked, as he bent down to lace his trainers.

‘Lindy.’

As Peggy watched, Ted slowly straightened. His expression seemed frozen as his cheeks coloured beneath the tan. He looked away and her heartbeat quickened. ‘What’s going on?’ Her voice sounded weak, hardly more than a whisper. She cleared her throat, tried again. ‘Ted, please.’

Bolt was fussing round Ted, knowing he was just about to go out.

Ted reached down and gave the dog a stroke.

She heard him sigh as he brought his gaze up to meet hers.

‘Listen, sweetheart, I haven’t got time to explain now.

I need to get down and let Mo in so we can open up at eight…

with a bit of luck.’ He paused, clearly unsure what to say next.

A horrible, unthinkable question froze on Peggy’s lips as she waited for him to go on. But guilt was clearly written on his face about something.

Now he came round the kitchen island and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not that. I promise you , Peggy. On my life.’

She saw something like resignation in his eyes, but was there also relief?

She felt pent up, wanting to shout and cry and remonstrate and bang her fists on his chest until he told her the truth, right now .

But Ted, having dropped a tender but brief kiss on her cheek, was moving towards the door, Bolt close on his heels.

‘I’m sorry but I’ve really got to go. I absolutely promise we’ll talk later, though, and I’ll tell you every single thing. ’

For a few minutes after the front door closed behind him, Peggy just stood there. Do I believe him? she asked herself, heart still hammering in her chest. Despite all her uncertainties, she was forced to admit that he’d seemed genuinely relieved about coming clean. But coming clean about what ?

The day ahead– until she could speak properly to Ted– seemed dauntingly long.

Peggy, as she so often did on these days of unemployment, baked to pass the time: blackberry jam tarts.

She would give them to Ted to take to the van tomorrow.

It felt like something she had to do, something that proved everything was normal, that she and Ted were still solid.

The jam was from last year, and brought back such pleasant memories.

The hedges along the lane running down from the castle were thick with brambles, yielding a rich crop of blackberries every autumn.

One beautiful sunny early September evening, Peggy and Ted had spent a lovely hour filling their containers, eating some of the berries as they picked and finally sitting on a bench overlooking the sea cradling their precious swag, like a couple of kids.

The following day they’d made the jam together.

They bickered back and forth about the best recipe, laughing at their subsequently chaotic efforts, their fingers stained, teeth clogged with pips, blackberry juice dripped all over the new kitchen.

But both were childishly pleased to see the row of sparkling, odd-sized glass jars, filled to the brim with luscious dark purple jam, their cellophane lids covered coyly with red and white gingham circles secured with rubber bands.

The jam didn’t set quite enough– although they boiled it for what seemed ages– but it tasted delicious and there was one large jar left in the cupboard that would do nicely for a couple of dozen baby tarts.

Peggy loved making pastry. The skill of rubbing in the cold butter, not handling it too much, the smooth expanse of dough rolled out on the marble work surface, the perfect rounds she could slot neatly into the baking trays.

A blob of jam in each– not too much or they would overflow and stick the tart to the patty tin– and she was done.

Ted will be pleased , she told herself, pushing away the conversation that awaited them that evening.

Tarts finished and cooling on racks, Peggy went to the supermarket on the Truro roundabout and wandered along the aisle, picking things at random.

At the checkout she realized she’d chosen a motley range of goods– laundry freshener, cotton pads, wine vinegar and instant noodles– none of which she needed right now.

Later still– the day seemed endless– she prepared a salad for supper, finally sitting down with a pad of writing-paper on the terrace and trying to compose a letter to her brother, Tom, who lived in a croft on Iona, in the Western Isles of Scotland.

He wasn’t off-grid in the normal sense of the phrase– he still had electricity and mains water– but he had no phone, no mobile, no computer, and seldom answered the letters she wrote every couple of months.

A classical cellist by training, he had never been particularly stable.

But now, in his sixties, he had properly retreated from the world.

If it weren’t for his kindly neighbours– members of the Christian Iona Community– she wondered if he would survive at all.

It was Struan or Jeanie she called when she wanted to find out how Tom was getting on.

But she found herself gazing off into the distance, watching a yacht with a blue sail tack about in the breeze on the edge of the harbour.

All she wanted to do was hear what was going on from Ted.

Ada’s tutorial was due at four, and she considered cancelling with some flimsy excuse.

But curiosity about how Lindy might greet her drove her down to Lilac House at the appointed time.

Two can play at this game , she thought grimly, unable to fathom what was going on between Ted and Lindy if it wasn’t an affair.

When Peggy rang the bell at the open front door, she received no reply.

After ringing a second time with the same result, she tentatively entered the house and called.

She thought she heard sounds of a radio coming from the back of the house, so she went slowly to the kitchen.

She almost jumped when she found Kim sitting at the table, doing absolutely nothing but staring into space. There was no sign of the others.

Kim was tall and carrying a bit of weight, with thin blonde hair in an unkempt topknot, which unflatteringly exposed her podgy face, her clothes dull and nondescript, in stark contrast to her mother’s snazzy outfits.

Peggy thought perhaps she had not always been like this, envisaging the sort of life she must have lived in London, the flash parties and dinners she would have had to attend for Felix’s work.

She was clearly depressed now, her conversation polite enough, but peppered with blank silences when she appeared to be miles away, her smile soft, her movements slow.

She seemed drugged, and Peggy concluded she was– perhaps on some sort of powerful antidepressants.

Now, seeing Peggy, she twitched as if she’d been woken from a doze, and roused herself, greeting her as she pushed up from the table with some effort.

Scuffing in towelling mules across to the hall door she called up, ‘Ada! Ada… Come down, please. Peggy’s here.

’ Then she turned back to Peggy. ‘She hasn’t had her tea yet. Can she eat while you work?’

Peggy nodded. ‘Of course. I brought these,’ she added, handing Kim a Tupperware box containing a few of the blackberry tarts.

Kim took it and thanked her briefly. Peggy felt sorry for the woman, who seemed so bewildered, so lost. She wanted to ask if she was all right, but it seemed a little presumptuous as she didn’t know her well enough.

Kim didn’t say anything as she appeared to struggle with the latch on Peggy’s container. When she finally yanked it off she took two tarts out and laid them on a saucer. ‘How kind,’ she said, smiling vaguely in Peggy’s direction.

‘Is your mum here?’ Peggy asked, into the silence.

‘No, they’ve both gone out, thank goodness.’ She gave a soft snort but didn’t say more. It looked to Peggy as if she might be beginning to cry.

Taken aback, Peggy wasn’t sure what to do, what to say. She didn’t feel comfortable getting up and hugging her– which was her instinct.

‘What’s wrong, Kim?’ she asked, as the silence grew longer and longer, nondescript popular music from the radio burbling in the background.

But at that moment light steps were heard on the polished flagstones in the hallway and Ada ran into the kitchen.

Kim turned quickly away and busied herself fetching milk from the fridge and pouring it into a glass for her daughter.

When Peggy saw her face again there was only the slight trace of tears.

Still concerned about Kim, Peggy hurried away from the house when the hour was up.

Ada had been distracted and lethargic, almost mirroring her mother.

Now she was keen to get home and talk to Ted.

What on earth am I going to find out? she asked herself, intensely curious as well as a little anxious about what he might reveal.

What she was already perfectly clear about, though, was that something was seriously not right at Lilac House.