The Carousel Page 2

  As I had already told myself that Nigel was nice, I now told myself that this man was horrible and wondered why such an unengaging person had been given the job of seeing the little girl off. She sat beside me, still as a mouse. After a little she reached for her handbag, undid the zipper, put the ten-pound note inside, and shut the zipper again. I thought about saying something friendly to her, but there was a shine of tears in her eyes behind the spectacles, so I decided, for the moment, to leave well alone. A moment later the train started to move, and we were off.

  I opened my Times, read the headlines and all the gloomy news, and then turned with a pleasant sensation of relief to the Arts page. I found what I was looking for, which was the review of an exhibition that had opened a couple of days before in the Peter Chastal Gallery, which was only a couple of doors away from where I worked for Marcus Bernstein.

  The artist was a young man called Daniel Cassens, and I had always been interested in his career because, when he was about twenty, he had spent a year in Cornwall living with Phoebe and studying sculpture with Chips. I had never met him, but Phoebe and Chips had become very fond of him, and when he left them to continue his career in America, Phoebe had followed his progress avidly and enthusiastically as if he had been her own son.

  He had travelled and spent some years in America and then had taken himself on to Japan, where he had engrossed himself in the intricate simplicities of Oriental art.

  This latest exhibition was a direct outcome of his years in Japan, and the critic was enthusiastic, revelling in the tranquillity and formality of Daniel Cassens’s work, praising the controlled brushwork of the watercolours, the subtlety of detail.

  “… This is a unique collection,” he finished his piece. “The paintings are complementary, each one a single facet of a total and rare experience. Take an hour or so off from your daily round and visit the Chastal Gallery. You will certainly not be disappointed.”

  Phoebe would be delighted, and I was glad for her. I closed the paper and looked out the window and saw that we had left the suburbs behind and were now out into the country. It was a damp day, with large grey clouds rolling across the sky, revealing every now and then a patch of limpid blue. Trees were beginning to turn, the first leaves to fall. There were tractors ploughing out in the fields, and cottage gardens, as we rocketed past, were purple with Michaelmas daisies.

  I remembered my small companion and turned to see how she was getting on. She had not yet opened her comic or unbuttoned her coat, but the tears had receded and she seemed a little more composed.

  “Where are you going to?” I asked her.

  She said, “Cornwall.”

  “I’m going to Cornwall, too. Whereabouts are you going?”

  “I’m going to stay with my grandmother.”

  “That’ll be nice.” I thought about this. “But isn’t it term time? Shouldn’t you be at school?”

  “Yes, I should. I’m at a boarding school. We all went back, and then the boiler blew up, so they closed the school for a week till it’s mended and sent us all home again.”

  “How terrible. I hope nobody was hurt.”

  “No. But Miss Brownrigg, our headmistress, had to go to bed for a day. Matron said it was shock.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “So I went home, but there’s nobody there but my father. My mother’s on holiday in Majorca. She went at the end of the holidays. So I’ve got to go to Granny.”

  She didn’t make it sound a very attractive prospect. I was trying to think of something comforting to say to jolly her along when she picked up her comic and settled down, rather pointedly, to read it. I was amused but took the hint, found my book, and began to read. The journey progressed in silence until the waiter from the restaurant car made his way down the train to tell us that luncheon was being served.

  I laid down my book. “Are you going to go and have some lunch?” I asked her, knowing about the ten-pound note in her bag.

  She looked agonised. “I … I don’t know which way to go.”

  “I’m going. Would you like to come with me? We could have lunch together.”

  Her expression changed to one of grateful relief. “Oh, could I? I’ve got the money, but I’ve never been on a train by myself before, and I don’t know what I’m meant to do.”

  “I know, it’s muddling, isn’t it? Come along, let’s go before all the tables get booked up.”

  * * *

  Together we made our way down the lurching corridors, found the restaurant car, and were shown to a table for two. There was a fresh white cloth, and flowers in a glass carafe.

  She said, “I’m a bit hot. Do you think I could take off my coat?”

  “I think that would be a good idea.”

  She did this, and the waiter came to help her, and fold the coat, and lay it over the back of her seat. We opened the menus.

  “Are you feeling hungry?” I asked her.

  “Yes I am. We had breakfast ages ago.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “In Sunningdale. I came up to London with my father in his car. He drives up every morning.”

  “Your…? Was that your father who saw you off?”

  “Yes.” He hadn’t even kissed her good-bye. “He works in an office in the City.” Our eyes met, and then she looked hastily away. “He doesn’t like being late.”

  I said, soothingly, “Few men do. Is it his mother you’re going to stay with?”

  “No. Granny’s my mother’s mother.”

  I said, sounding chatty, “I’m going to stay with an aunt. She’s broken her arm, and she can’t drive her car, so I’m going to look after her. She lives at the very end of Cornwall in a village called Penmarron.”

  “Penmarron? But I’m going to Penmarron too.”

  This was a coincidence. “How extraordinary.”

  “I’m Charlotte Collis. I’m Mrs. Tolliver’s granddaughter. She’s my granny. Do you know Mrs. Tolliver?”

  “Yes, I do. Not very well, but I do know her. My mother used to play bridge with her. And my aunt is called Phoebe Shackleton.”

  And now her face lit up. For the first time since I had set eyes on her, she looked a natural and excited child. Her eyes were wide behind the spectacles, and her mouth opened in a delighted gasp of surprise, revealing teeth too big for her narrow face.

  “Phoebe! Phoebe’s my best friend. I go and have tea with her and things, every time I go and stay with Granny. I didn’t know she’d broken her arm.” She gazed into my face. “You … you’re not Prue, are you?”

  I smiled. “Yes, I am. How did you know?”

  “I thought I knew your face. I’ve seen your photograph in Phoebe’s sitting room. I always thought you looked lovely.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And Phoebe used to tell me about you when I went to see her. It’s lovely going to tea with her, because it’s not like being with a grown-up person and I’m allowed to go on my own. And we always play with the carousel that used to be a gramophone.”

  “That was mine. Chips made it for me.”

  “I never knew Chips. He was dead before I can remember.”

  “And I,” I told her, “never knew your mother.”

  “But we go and stay with Granny most summers.”

  “And I am usually there at Easter, or sometimes for Christmas, so our paths have never crossed. I don’t think I even know her name.”

  “It’s Annabelle. She was Annabelle Tolliver. But she’s called Mrs. Collis now.”

  “And do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “One brother. Michael. He’s fifteen. He’s at Wellington.”

  “And the boiler at Wellington hasn’t blown up?”

  It was an attempt to add a little levity to the conversation, but Charlotte did not smile. She said, “No.”

  I studied the menu and thought about Mrs. Tolliver. My memories of her were of a tall, elegant, and rather chilling lady, always immaculately turned out, her grey hair nea
tly groomed, her skirts pleated and pressed, her long, narrow shoes polished like chestnuts. I thought of White Lodge, where Charlotte was going to stay, and wondered what a child would find to do in those neatly manicured gardens, that quiet and orderly house.

  I looked across the table at the child and saw that she, too, with furrowed brow, was trying to decide what she would have for lunch. She seemed a sad little person. It couldn’t have been much fun, being sent home from school simply because the boiler there had blown up. Unexpected and probably unwanted, with your mother abroad and no person to take care of you. It couldn’t have been much fun, being put by yourself on a train and shunted off to the end of the country to visit your grandmother. I wished, all at once, for Mrs. Tolliver to be dumpy and cozy, with a round, warm bosom and a passion for knitting dolls’ clothes and playing Clock Patience.

  Charlotte looked up and saw me watching her. She sighed hopelessly. “I don’t know what I want.”

  I said, “A moment ago you told me you were feeling very hungry. Why don’t you have everything?”

  “All right.” She decided on vegetable soup, roast beef, and ice cream. “And do you think,” she added wistfully, “there might be enough money over for a Coca-Cola?”

  * * *

  What is there so magical about travelling by train to Cornwall? I know I am not the first person to have known the enchantment as the line crosses the Tamar by the old Brunel railway bridge, as though one were entering the gates of some marvellous foreign country. Each time I go I tell myself that it cannot be the same, but it always is. And it is impossible to pinpoint the exact reasons for this euphoria. The shapes of the houses, perhaps, pinkwashed in the evening sun. The smallness of the fields; the lofty viaducts soaring over deep, wooded valleys; the first distant glimpses of the sea? Or perhaps the saintly names of small stations that we rocket through and leave behind, or the voices of the porters on the platform at Truro?

  We reached St. Abbatt’s Junction at a quarter to five. As the train drew alongside the platform, Charlotte and I were ready by the door, with our suitcases and my bunch of chrysanthemums, by now distinctly worse for wear. When we stepped down from the train, we were assailed by a blustering west wind, and I could smell the sea, salty and strong. There were palm trees on the platform, rattling their leaves like old, broken umbrellas, and a porter opened the door of the guards’ van and manhandled out of it a crate of indignant hens.

  I knew that Mr. Thomas was going to come and meet me. Mr. Thomas owned the only taxi in Penmarron, and Phoebe had told me over the telephone that she had engaged his services. As we walked up towards the bridge, I saw Mr. Thomas waiting, bundled up in an overcoat as though it were winter and wearing on his head the hat that he had bought at a jumble sale and that had once belonged to some noble chauffeur. When he was not driving a taxi, he was a pig farmer, and for this occupation he had another hat, felt, and of great antiquity. Phoebe, who had a Rabelaisian wit, once wondered what sort of hat he wore when he was getting into bed with Mrs. Thomas, but my mother had pursed her lips and lowered her eyes and refused to be amused, so Phoebe had not wondered it again.

  There was no sign of Mrs. Tolliver. I could feel Charlotte’s anxiety.

  “Perhaps your grandmother’s waiting on the other side of the bridge.”

  The train, which never stopped long anywhere, drew out. We scanned the opposite platform, but the only person who waited was a fat lady with a shopping bag. Not Mrs. Tolliver.

  “Maybe she’s sitting in the car in the station yard. It’s a cold evening to be standing about.”

  “I hope she hasn’t forgotten,” said Charlotte.

  But Mr. Thomas was to reassure us. “Hello, my dear,” he said to me, coming to meet us and to relieve me of my case. “How are you? Nice to see you again. Have a good journey, did you?” He looked down at Charlotte. “You’re Mrs. Tolliver’s little girl, aren’t you. That’s right. My orders are to pick up the pair of you. Take the little girl to White Lodge, and then you on to Miss Shackleton’s. Travel together, did you?”

  “Yes, we did; we met on the train.”

  “Your aunt would have come, but she can’t drive her car with that dratted arm of hers. Come on now,” he turned to Charlotte, “give me your case, too, easier to carry two than one…”

  And thus burdened, he trudged up the wooden steps and over the bridge, and Charlotte and I followed him. Settled in his taxi, which had molting leather seats and always smelt faintly of pig, I said, “I hope Mrs. Tolliver hasn’t broken her arm, too.”

  “Oh, no, she’s lovely.” In Cornwall, lovely means well. “Nothing wrong with her. But didn’t seem much point two cars coming…” And with that he started up his engine, and the taxi, after backfiring twice, ground into gear and shot forward up the hill that led to the main road.

  I sat back and felt annoyed. Perhaps it was the most sensible thing to do, arranging for Charlotte and me to share the taxi, but it would have been more welcoming if Mrs. Tolliver had come to the station to meet Charlotte herself. It was, after all, a drive of only two miles. Charlotte was looking away from me, out the window, and I suspected that once more she was fighting tears. I didn’t blame her.

  “That was a good idea, wasn’t it, for us to share the taxi?” I tried to sound enthusiastic, as though I approved.

  She did not turn round. She said, “I suppose so.”

  However, we had arrived. We were here. Along the main road on that windy afternoon, and down the hill beneath the oak trees. Past the gates of what used to be the Squire’s house, and then into the village. Nothing ever seemed to change. Up the hill again, past the cottages and the shops, an old man walking his dog, the petrol station, the pub. We turned down the road that led to the church and the sea, the copse of ancient oaks, the farm with its slated steadings, and so to the open white gates of White Lodge.

  Mr. Thomas changed down with a hideous clash of gears and turned into these gates. We came up the short drive, between overhanging trees, and I saw the swept verges and the fading banks of hydrangea. We rounded a clump of these and drew up on the gravel sweep in front of the house. It was a stone house, whitewashed and solid. A wisteria clambered up the wall to the upstairs windows, and a flight of stone steps rose to the closed front door. We all got out of the taxi, and Mr. Thomas went up the steps to ring the bell. The wind suddenly blew up a gust and swept a scatter of dead leaves into a whirlpool at our feet. After a short wait, the door was opened and Mrs. Tolliver appeared. She looked just the same as I had remembered her and came down the steps towards us with her smoothly coiffed grey hair and her slender, elegant figure. Her face was neatly arranged in a smile of welcome.

  “Charlotte. Well, here you are.” She stooped to kiss the child briskly. She straightened up. I am tall, but she was taller. “Prue. How very nice to see you. I hope you didn’t mind sharing the taxi.”

  “We didn’t mind in the least. We met on the train in London, so we’ve travelled all the way together.”

  “How very nice. Now, Charlotte, is this your suitcase? In you come. There’s just time to wash your hands, and then we’ll have tea. Mrs. Curnow’s made a sponge cake. I expect you like sponge cake.”

  Charlotte said, “Yes.” It did not sound convincing. She probably hated sponge cake. She would much have preferred fish fingers and chips.

  “… And Prue, I hope you find Phoebe well. Perhaps you’ll come for lunch one day. How is your mother?”

  “She’s well.”

  “I’ll get all the news some other time. Come along now, Charlotte.”

  “Good-bye,” Charlotte said to me.

  “Good-bye, Charlotte. Come and see us.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  I waited by the taxi until they had gone up the steps and through the door. Mrs. Tolliver carried the suitcase, and Charlotte, still clutching her comic, trod cautiously at her heels. She did not turn to wave. The door closed behind them.

  Chapter 2

  IT SEEMED ALL WRONG that Char
lotte should have been given a reception of such little warmth, while I, twenty-three years old and perfectly able to stand on my own two feet, had Holly Cottage waiting for me, and Phoebe. At Holly Cottage there was no driveway; just a patch of gravel between the gate and the house. At Holly Cottage the garden was a mass of dahlias and chrysanthemums, the front door stood open to the evening breeze, and from an upstairs window a pink cotton curtain blew in the wind, like a person waving a cheerful greeting. No sooner was the taxi turning in at her gate than Phoebe herself appeared. Her left arm was strapped up in a bulky white plaster cast, but her right arm signalled its own exuberant welcome, and she came running forward so unexpectedly that Mr. Thomas very nearly ran her over.

  Before the car had stopped, I was out of it and into Phoebe’s one-armed embrace. The one I gave back to her did double duty for both of us.

  “Oh, my darling,” she crowed, “what an angel. Never thought you’d be able to come. Couldn’t believe it. I’m going nearly insane trying to get myself about. Can’t even ride a bicycle…”

  Laughing, I let her go, and we stood back and looked at each other with the greatest of satisfaction. Looking at Phoebe is always a pleasure. Unpredictable, but always a pleasure. She was at that time well into her sixties, but it has always been impossible to equate Phoebe to the passing years.

  I saw the thick stockings, the stout boots, the worn and faded blue-jean skirt. Over these she wore a man’s shirt and cardigan (probably inherited from Chips); there were gold chains about her neck, and a tartan scarf, and on her head, inevitably, a hat.

  She always wore hats, broad-brimmed, deep-crowned, rather dashing. She had taken to wearing them to protect her eyes, while painting out of doors, from the cold, white glare of the Cornish light, and they had become so much part of her that she very often forgot to take them off. This one was a rich brown, decorated with grey gull feathers stuck into the ribbon band. Beneath its kindly shade, Phoebe’s face, the skin netted with lines, twinkled and smiled at me. The smile revealed teeth that were even and white as a child’s, and her eyes were the deepest speedwell blue, their brightness challenged only by the turquoise-and-silver earrings that dangled on either side of her face.