Coming Home Read online

  ‘Where would you like to begin, madam?’

  ‘At the top of the list, I think. One green tweed overcoat.’

  ‘Lovely material, the overcoats are. And I'll bring the coat and skirt as well. For Sundays, they are. For going to church…’

  Judith, sitting with her back to the counter, heard their voices, but had stopped listening, because her attention had been caught by something infinitely more fascinating. On the other side of the department, and at the other counter, a second mother and her daughter were also shopping together, not as though the undertaking were a serious business, but something of a joke, because a lot of chat and laughter seemed to be taking place. As well, their shop lady was young and quite jolly-looking, and the three of them all appeared to be having the time of their lives. Which was extraordinary, because they too were buying the St Ursula's uniform in its entirety. Or, more accurately, had bought it, and come to the end of their marathon, for the piles of pristine garments, most of them in that deadly bottle-green, were being packed, rustling with fresh white tissue paper, into large cardboard dress boxes, and firmly tied up with yards of stout white string.

  ‘I could have them delivered, if you want, Mrs Carey-Lewis. The van goes out your way next Tuesday.’

  ‘No, we'll take them. Mary wants to sew on the name-tapes. And I've got the car. I'll just need some kindly body to help me down the street and load the boot.’

  ‘I'll fetch young Will from the stock-room. He'll give you a hand.’

  They sat with their backs to Judith, but this didn't matter too much because there was a large mirror on the far wall and, in a way, gazing at reflected faces was better because, with a bit of luck, she could stare without being observed.

  St Ursula's. The girl was going to St Ursula's. Which raised possibilities and rendered Judith's scrutiny sharper and far more personal. Reckoning, she decided that she was probably about twelve, or perhaps thirteen; very thin, and long-legged and flat-chested as a boy. She wore scuffed Clarks Sandals and knee-stockings, a pleated tartan skirt, and a very old navy-blue sweater that looked as though it had once belonged to some male, and much larger, relation. A dreadfully shabby garment, with a ravelled hem and darned elbows. But it didn't matter, because she was so sensationally pretty and attractive, with a long and slender neck and curly dark hair cut quite short, that Judith was reminded of a flower-head on a stem, a shaggy chrysanthemum perhaps. Her eyes, beneath strong dark brows, were violet-blue, her skin the colour of honey (or perhaps just exactly the shade and texture of a perfect brown egg), and when she smiled, it was a wicked urchin's grin.

  She sat leaning her elbows on the counter, with her bony shoulders hunched, and her spindly legs wound around the legs of the chair. Ungraceful, and yet not graceless, because there was such a lack of unselfconsciousness about her, such overweening confidence, that one knew instinctively that nobody, in all her life, had ever told her that she was clumsy, or stupid, or dull.

  The last knot was tied, the string cut with a pair of huge scissors.

  ‘How will you be paying this morning, Mrs Carey-Lewis?’

  ‘Oh, put it on my account, that's the simplest.’

  ‘Mummy. You know Pops said you had to pay for everything right away, because you always throw bills into the waste-paper basket.’

  Much laughter all round. ‘Darling, you mustn't give my secrets away.’

  Mrs Carey-Lewis's voice was deep and ripe with amusement, and it was difficult to come to terms with the fact that she was anybody's mother. She looked like an actress, or a film star, or a glamorous older sister, even a dashing aunt. Anything but a mother. Fine-boned and very slender, her face was made up to porcelain paleness, with fine, arched eyebrows and a scarlet mouth. Her hair was corn-gold and silky straight, cut in a simple bob that had nothing to do with fashion, and everything to do with style. She wore…and this was particularly outré…trousers. Slacks, they were called. Grey flannel, snug around her narrow hips and then flaring to fullness at the ankle, like an undergraduate's Oxford bags. Over her shoulders was tossed a short fur jacket, dark brown and the softest and supplest of garments that could possibly be imagined. A red-tipped hand dangled by her side, loosely holding the loop of a scarlet leather leash, the other end of which was attachéd to a motionless, furry, cream-coloured cushion.

  ‘Well, that's it, I suppose.’ She slid her arms into the sleeves of her fur jacket, and doing so, dropped the leash. ‘Come along, darling, we must be off. It hasn't taken nearly so long as I'd feared. We'll go and have coffee, and I'll buy you an ice-cream, or a Kunzle Cake, or something equally disgusting.’

  The furry cushion on the floor, no longer tethered, decided to come to life, pulled itself onto four velvety feet, yawned enormously, and turned towards Judith a pair of dark, bulbous eyes, embedded like jewels in a flattened face. A plumy tail curled over its back. Having yawned, it shook itself, snuffled a bit, chumping on its little underhung jaw, and then, to Judith's delight, proceeded with much dignity across the carpet towards her, trailing the red leash like a royal train.

  A dog. Judith adored dogs, but had never, for a number of perfectly viable reasons, been allowed one. A Pekingese. Irresistible. For the moment all else was forgotten. As he approached, she slid from the chair and crouched to greet him. ‘Hello.’ She laid her hand on the soft domed head, and it was like stroking cashmere. He raised his face to hers, and snuffled again, and she slid her fingers under his chin and gently rubbed his furry neck.

  ‘Pekoe! What are you up to?’ His mistress came after him, and Judith straightened up and tried not to look embarrassed. ‘He hates shopping,’ Mrs Carey-Lewis told her, ‘but we didn't like to leave him on his own in the car.’ She stooped and picked up the leash, and Judith caught a drift of her perfume, which was sweet and heavy as the scent of remembered flowers in the gardens of Colombo, the temple flowers, which only loosed their fragrance into the darkness, after the sun had gone down. ‘Thank you for being kind to him. Do you like Pekes?’

  ‘I like all dogs.’

  ‘He's very special. A lion dog. Aren't you, my darling?’

  Her eyes were mesmerising, brilliantly blue and unblinking, and fringed by bristly black lashes. Judith, stunned by their impact, could only stare, unable to think of anything to say. But Mrs Carey-Lewis smiled, as though understanding, and turned to go, moving away like a queen, with her dog and her daughter and the shop assistant, who staggered slightly beneath the pile of boxes, forming a procession behind her. As she passed Molly, she paused for a moment.

  ‘Are you kitting your child up for St Ursula's as well?’

  Molly, caught unawares, seemed a little taken aback.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I am actually.’

  ‘Have you ever, in all your life, seen so many hideous garments?’ She was laughing. She did not wait for a reply. She raised her arm in a vague gesture of farewell and led her little party away, down the stairs and so out of sight.

  They watched her go. For a moment nobody said anything. Their departure left behind a sort of emptiness, an extraordinary vacuum. It was as though a light had been turned off, or the sun lost behind a cloud. It occurred to Judith that this probably always happened when Mrs Carey-Lewis walked out of a room. She took her glamour with her, and left only the humdrum behind.

  It was Molly who broke the silence. She cleared her throat. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘That? That's Mrs Carey-Lewis, of Nancherrow.’

  ‘Where's Nancherrow?’

  ‘Out beyond Rosemullion, on the Land's End Road. It's a lovely place, right on the sea. I went there once, at hydrangea time. Chapel Sunday-school outing. We had a charabanc, and balloons, and a knife-and-fork tea, and screeches of fun. Never seen such gardens, though.’

  ‘And is that her daughter?’

  ‘Yes, that's Loveday. That's her baby. She's got two other children, but they're nearly grown up. A girl and a boy.’

  ‘She's got grown-up children?’ Disbelief rang in Molly's voice.


  ‘You wouldn't believe it, would you, to look at her? Slim as a girl, she is, and not a line on her face.’

  Loveday. She was called Loveday Carey-Lewis. Judith Dunbar sounded like somebody plodding along, one flat foot in front of the other, but Loveday Carey-Lewis was a marvellous name, light as air, as butterflies on a summer breeze. You couldn't miss, with a name like that.

  ‘Is she going to St Ursula's as a boarder?’ Judith asked the lady in the sad black dress.

  ‘No, I don't think so. Weekly boarder, I believe, going home at weekends. Apparently Colonel and Mrs Carey-Lewis sent her to a big school up near Winchester, but she only stayed half a term, and then she ran away. Got herself home on the train, and said she wasn't going back, because she missed Cornwall. So they're sending her to St Ursula's instead.’

  ‘She sounds,’ said Molly, ‘a little spoilt.’

  ‘Being the baby, she's had her own way all her life.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Molly, and looked a bit uncomfortable, ‘I see.’ It was time to bring matters back to business. ‘Now. Where have we got to? Blouses. Four cotton and four silk. And, Judith, go into the fitting room and try on this gym tunic.’

  By eleven o'clock, all had been accomplished and they were done with Medways. Molly wrote and signed the enormous cheque, while the piles of uniform were folded and boxed, but for them there was no offer of a van, nor the suggestion that some minion should carry their purchases to their car, and help load them in. Perhaps, Judith thought, having an account at Medways made you more important, inviting respect, and even a sort of servility. But then Mrs Carey-Lewis threw all her bills into the waste-paper basket, so she couldn't be a particularly welcome customer. No, it was simply because she was who she was, Mrs Carey-Lewis of Nancherrow, and frightfully grand and beautiful. Molly could have had an account in a dozen shops and however promptly she paid her bills, she would never be treated, by any person, like royalty.

  And so, laden like a couple of pack-horses, they carried the boxes themselves back to the Greenmarket, thankfully to unload their burdens onto the back seat of the Austin.

  ‘A good thing we didn't bring Jess,’ Judith pointed out, slamming the door shut. ‘There'd have been nowhere for her to sit.’

  They were done with Medways, but yet by no means finished. Still the shoe-shop to visit, and the sports-shop (A hockey stick and shin-pads are essential for the Easter Term); the stationer (A pad of paper for writing letters, pencils, an eraser, a geometry set, a Bible); and the saddler (A writing-case). They looked at a lot of writing-cases, but of course the one which Judith really wanted was about four times as expensive as the others.

  ‘Wouldn't this one do, with the zip-fastener?’ Molly asked without much hope.

  ‘I don't think it's big enough. And this is like a sort of attaché case. And it's got pockets to put things in the lid, and a darling little address book. Look. And it's got a lock and a key. I can keep things secret that way. I can keep my five-year diary in it…’

  So, in the end, the attaché case it was. Leaving the saddler, ‘That was really sweet of you,’ Judith told her mother. ‘I know it's expensive, but if I take care of it it will last me all my life. And I've never had an address book of my own. It will be terribly useful.’

  Another trip to the Greenmarket, and another unloading of parcels. By now it was half past twelve, so they walked down Chapel Street to The Mitre, and there lunched splendidly on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and fresh sprouts and roast potatoes and gravy, and for pudding there was apple charlotte and Cornish cream, and they each had a glass of cider.

  As she paid the bill, ‘What do you want to do now?’ Molly asked.

  ‘Let's go to St Ursula's and have a look round.’

  ‘Is that what you really want?’

  ‘Yes.’

  So they walked back to the car and got in, and drove on, through the town, and out the other side, to where the last of the houses thinned to a trickle and the countryside began again. They turned up into a side road which wound up a hill, and at the top of this came to a pair of gates on the left-hand side. A notice board said ST URSULA'S SCHOOL, STRICTLY PRIVATE, but they paid no heed to this, turned in through the gates and onto a driveway bordered by wide grass verges and stands of rhododendron as high as good-sized trees. It was not a long drive, and the house stood at the end of it, with a gravel sweep in front of the imposing front door. Two small cars were parked at the foot of the steps that led up to this, but otherwise there didn't seem to be anybody about.

  ‘Do you think we should ring and let them know we're here?’ Molly asked. She was always timid of trespassing, fearful of some angry figure appearing to give her a row.

  ‘No, don't let's. If anybody asks us what we're doing, we'll simply tell them…’

  She was looking at the house and saw that the main part was quite old, with stone sills to the windows, and an aged Virginia creeper clambering up the granite stone walls. But beyond this original building lay a new and much more modern wing, with rows of windows, and, at the far end, a stone archway leading into a small quadrangle.

  They walked, their footsteps crunching alarmingly on the gravel, from time to time pausing to peer through windows. A form-room, desks with lids and ink-wells and a chalky blackboard; farther on, a science laboratory, with wooden counters and Bunsen burners.

  ‘It looks a bit gloomy,’ Judith observed.

  ‘Empty classrooms always do. Something to do with learning theorems and French verbs. Do you want to go inside?’

  ‘Not particularly. Let's explore the garden.’

  Which they did, following a wandering path which led through shrubberies to a couple of grass tennis courts. These, in January unmarked and unmown, looked forlorn, and did not induce images of spirited play. Otherwise, everything was very tidy, the gravel raked and verges trimmed.

  ‘They must employ a lot of gardeners,’ said Molly.

  ‘That'll be why the school fees are so enormous. Thirty pounds a term!’

  After a bit, they came upon a cobbled sun-trap with a curved bench, and it seemed a good place to sit for a moment and enjoy the thin warmth of the winter sunshine. They faced a view of the bay, a glimpse of the sea and the pale sky, framed by a pair of eucalyptus trees. The bark of these was silvery and their aromatic leaves shivered in some mysterious unfelt breeze.

  ‘The eucalyptus,’ Judith remembered. ‘They used to grow in Ceylon. They smelt of having your chest rubbed.’

  ‘You're right. Up-country. In Nuwara Eliya. Lemon-scented gum trees.’

  ‘I've never seen them anywhere else.’

  ‘I suppose it's mild here, so temperate.’ Molly leaned back in the seat, turned her face up to the sun, closed her eyes. After a bit, she said, ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Think about what?’

  ‘This place. St Ursula's.’

  ‘It's a beautiful garden.’

  Molly opened her eyes and smiled. ‘Is that a comfort?’

  ‘Of course. If you have to be shut up somewhere, it helps if it's beautiful.’

  ‘Oh, don't say that. It makes me feel as though I were abandoning you in some sort of prison. And I don't want to leave you anywhere. I want to take you with me.’

  ‘I'll be all right.’

  ‘If…if you want to go to Biddy at any time…you can, you know. I'll speak to Louise. Have a word. It was a storm in a teacup and all I really want is for you to be happy.’

  ‘I do too, but it doesn't always happen.’

  ‘You must make it happen.’

  ‘So must you.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘You mustn't be in such a state about going to Singapore. You'll probably simply love it, even more than you liked being in Colombo. It's like going to some party. The ones you dread very often turn out to be the best fun of all.’

  ‘Yes,’ Molly sighed, ‘you're right. I was silly. I don't know why I got into such a panic. I suddenly felt so dreadfully afraid. Perhaps I was just tire
d. I know I have to think of it as an adventure. Promotion for Dad, a better life. I know that. But I still can't help dreading it all, having to move everything, and meet new people and make new friends.’

  ‘You mustn't think so far ahead. Just think about tomorrow, and then take one thing at a time.’

  A vapour, too fine to be called a cloud, drifted over the face of the sun. Judith shivered. ‘I'm getting cold. Let's move.’

  They left the little sun-trap and strolled on, following a rooted lane which led back up the slope. At the top, they found a walled garden, but the flowers and vegetables had all disappeared and their place been taken by an asphalt netball court. A gardener was sweeping leaves from the path, and he had made a series of little bonfires, burning the leaves as he worked. The clean, sweet smoke smelt delicious. As they approached he glanced up, touched his cap and said, ‘Arternoon.’

  Molly paused. ‘A lovely day.’

  ‘Yes. Dry enough.’

  ‘We were just having a look around.’

  ‘Doing no harm as far as I can see.’

  They left him and went through a door in the high stone wall. It led out onto playing fields, with goal-posts for hockey, and a wooden games pavilion. Out of the shelter of the garden, it became, suddenly, much colder, quite chill and breezy. They walked faster, hunched against the sneaking wind, and crossed the fields, and came to farm buildings and cart-sheds, and a farm road that led, past a row of cottages, back to the main gate and so to the drive, and the forecourt of St Ursula's and their little Austin, waiting for them.

  They got into the car and slammed the doors shut. Molly reached for the ignition key, but did not turn it. Judith waited, but her mother only repeated what she had already said, as though repetition could somehow make it happen: ‘I really do want you to be happy.’

  ‘Do you mean happy at school, or happy ever after?’

  ‘Both, I suppose.’

  ‘Happy ever after's a fairy-tale.’

  ‘I wish it wasn't.’ She sighed, and switched on the engine. ‘A silly thing to say.’

  ‘Not silly. Rather nice.’