Love Always

‘Hel o,’ I say slowly.

‘Natasha? Hel o. It’s Guy.’

‘Guy?’ I struggle for a moment. ‘Guy – oh, hel o,’ I say. My hand is on the door of the bookshop. ‘The Bowler Hat’s brother.’

‘Yes, that I am,’ he says, sounding faintly amused. ‘Listen, did you get the invitation?’

‘The invitation?’ My mind is blank. ‘To the launch of your grandmother’s foundation.’

‘Oh, of course . . .’ I’m embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t done anything about it – I’ve been – busy,’ I say. ‘It’s been—’

‘Don’t apologise.’ He sounds unruffled, as ever. ‘I know you’ve been having a rough time of it.’ His voice is kind. ‘Look, I almost cal ed again to say don’t worry about the foundation if things are hectic for you. I know they are. In fact, I even tried to text you. But I’m not much cop at texting, so that rather fel by the wayside.’

‘It’s a skil , texting,’ I say. ‘One I don’t have. Like so many things these days. I despair, when I think what a forward-thinking young man I prided myself on being, and how I despised the older generation for being so complacent. Now I’m the old duffer who got an iPod for Christmas and can’t work out where the on button is, let alone the rest of it. The iTunes, and so on.’

‘Oh dear,’ I say. ‘Can’t someone help you with it?’

‘Wel , my daughter would, but she’s gone back to university. That’s my youngest daughter.’

‘Right.’ I didn’t know you had any daughters, I want to say. And, Why are you cal ing?

There’s a silence, and Guy suddenly stops, as if he’s remembering himself. ‘Anyway, Natasha, look, I wasn’t ringing to get you to explain my mobile phone to me. I was ringing to find out where you are this afternoon? I have something I’d like to talk to you about, and I’m not far from East London – I seem to remember that’s where you live.’

‘Oh.’ I’m flummoxed. ‘Sure. I’m off Brick Lane – but where are you?’

‘I’m in Islington,’ he says. ‘I am the antiques servant of the left-wing middle classes. Can I come and see you now?’

‘I’m just on my way to lunch,’ I say. ‘Why don’t I come and see you, are you around this afternoon?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, I am. That would be a great pleasure. It is quite important we talk. Thank you.’

He gives me the address – in fact I remember I have his card already, he gave it to me at the funeral. I ring off just as I arrive at the pizza place.

‘Darling!’ Cathy throws her arms around me, her head on my bosom. She has my arms in a straitjacket; I release myself gently from her grasp.

‘How’s tricks?’ I say. ‘Great, great, great,’ Cathy says, pul ing out a stool for me to sit on. ‘I lost two pounds last week, and I finished A Suitable Boy. Not the same thing! Hahaha!’ She slaps her thigh as if she’s Robin Hood. ‘And Jonathan – wel , I’m definitely sure he’s not gay, even though he did this thing last night when he . . .’ She stops. ‘Forget it. Let’s get to that later. How about you? How’s your tricks?’

‘Weird,’ I say, pul ing the menu towards me. ‘Bloody weird.’

Chapter Thirty-Six

Guy’s shop is like something out of a fairytale. Just off the increasingly corporate Upper Street is Cross Street, a higgedlypiggedly smal road of shops, and Guy Leighton Antiques is halfway down. It is painted a kind of dove-grey, and in the pretty bow window is a Rococo mirror, an old teddy bear sitting on a smal wicker chair, and a heavy crystal engraved vase with a single dusky rose in it. I stare at the window, longingly. I want everything in it.

When I push open the door, an old bel jangles in a pleasing way. Inside, it’s empty and silent. The distressed white floorboards glow in the late-afternoon light, and as I look around, wondering what I should do next, I hear a voice say, ‘Hel o? Natasha?’ From a back room Guy emerges, pushing a pair of half-moon spectacles off his nose. They hang on a chain around his neck. He blinks, rather blearily.

‘I’m not early, am I?’ I seem to have caught him unawares. ‘Sorry,’ he says, looking embarrassed. ‘I was having a nap.’

‘Oh.’

‘Quite nice in the afternoons, when it’s quiet, you know. Put the radio on and have a doze – there’s an original Eames chair out back I can’t bear to part with, it’s too comfortable.’ He catches himself. ‘Good grief. I sound like I’m ready for the old people’s home.’

This reminds me of something. ‘That’s funny. I literal y just left a message at the home for Arvind on my way here,’ I say, more to myself than to him. ‘He was out for the afternoon, they said. Do you know, is Louisa down there?’

‘Yes, she is. She went down yesterday.’

Archie was going to see him around now, too. I’m not even sure Mum’s been down since the funeral. ‘On her own?’

He misunderstands me. ‘Oh, yes. My brother likes an easy life.’ He smiles, rather sadly I think. I think of the indolent, good-looking Bowler Hat, so often to be found sleeping in an armchair or deckchair while Louisa brings him tea. I frown at the thought. ‘She’s a kind soul, Louisa, she loves to help.’ He scratches his chest and yawns. ‘She loved your grandmother, Natasha, Frances was like a mother to her. They were very close.’

‘Louisa had her own mother,’ I say. ‘Yes . . .’ Guy’s expression is non-committal. ‘But I think Louisa loved it down there, and she wasn’t a threat to your grandmother. Never was. Frances adored her, and she didn’t have to raise her. And – wel , Louisa just likes doing things for other people.’

‘I know.’ Fond as I am of her, I can’t help rol ing my eyes at this.

Guy ignores my expression. ‘Now, this is unpardonable, not offering you anything. Can I get you a drink, some coffee? Maybe some whisky?

It’s very cold outside.’

‘Tea would be great if you have it,’ I say. ‘Just PG or anything.’

‘No problem,’ says Guy, motioning me to come through to the back room with him.

The office is a smal , chaotic space, overflowing with papers and books, some old and clearly antiques, others dog-eared paperbacks.

There’s a pile of old Dick Francis novels by the side of the worn Eames chair. Two dirty coffee cups sit on the floor and a fan heater purrs amiably beside them. There’s a worn footstool, too, upon which lies a sleeping cat, also purring.

Guy pushes the cat off. ‘That’s Thomasina,’ he says. ‘Stupid thing. We thought she was a boy for ages, cal ed her Thomas, and then she suddenly produces kittens, three of them.’ The cat straightens herself languidly and glides away.

It looks as if nothing’s been changed for years. Everything in this shop is slow; the warmth is soporific, as is the smel of old, musty things, the rumbling sound of the heater. It is getting dark outside, and I wish I could just curl up in the chair and sleep.

‘It looks very cosy here,’ I say. ‘Must be nice, if you’re having a quiet day, to come in here and relax.’

He gestures to the chair, and turns away to fil the kettle from a cracked old sink in the corner of the room. ‘Yes, though lately it seems I’ve been doing a lot of napping and not enough sel ing of antiques. Not very good.’

‘It’s a hard time,’ I say, sitting down. ‘That’s true,’ he says. ‘But I’m not keeping up. Not been going to the markets enough, getting new stuff in.’

He waves around the shop, and I see now that, while every piece is lovely, the space is bare. ‘We need more stock.’

‘You have some lovely things, though,’ I say. ‘It’s a beautiful shop.’

‘Thank you,’ he says quietly. ‘Thanks. My wife used to keep it looking rather better than it does now. She had a wonderful eye for that kind of thing.’ He stops. ‘But she died five years ago, and I’ve let it go since then.’

I’m sure Hannah was with Guy at Octavia’s confirmation, but that was years ago. I’m sure I vaguely remember her, curly hair and a wide smile.

‘Wel , I’m sure she’d be very pleased,’ I say.

Guy pours hot water into a mug. ‘You’re very kind,’ he says.

‘But I fear she’d be angry with me if she could see what an old man I’ve turned into lately.’ He looks around and down, in disgust. ‘Reading specs, for Christ’s sake! On a chain! Pah.’ He taps them gently with one finger. ‘Dozing in the afternoon, doing the Telegraph crossword and listening to Radio 3 – if my younger self could see me now.’ He stops.

‘No one wants to think they’l be doing a crossword and dozing in the afternoons when they’re twenty,’ I say. ‘I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself.

When I was twenty, wow. I wanted to take over the world. I was very angry. I even took part in a sit-in.’

‘How admirable of you. What for?’ Guy asks. He hands me the mug and gestures vaguely towards a nearly-empty pint of milk on a little fridge by the door.

‘Do you know,’ I admit, ‘I can’t remember. Something about students’ rights. Or maybe animal rights.’

Guy gives a shout of laughter and sits down on the foot-stool, smiling.

‘So you sat in some student hal al night and you can’t remember why?’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I think I fancied one of the blokes organ-ising it.’

Jason, Oli’s best friend, our best man, was a radical student leader straight from central casting: he even owned a khaki jacket and had a beard. ‘Now he’s head of year at an exemplary secondary school down the road,’ I tel Guy, blowing onto my tea to cool it down. ‘He wears a suit to work. He and my husband aren’t at al how they were when they were twenty. They used to want to change the world. Now they just want an app on their phones that’l tel them how to go about changing the world.’

Guy looks at me, and he is sober for a moment. ‘Perhaps we’re al guilty of that,’ he says.

‘How so?’

‘Oh, I was the same,’ he says easily, but his voice is sad.

‘Thought I had al the answers, like your friend there. I thought we lived in a stagnant, rotten country, run by elderly upper-class white men. And we did need to change, but I didn’t do anything to help it.’ He smiles, but there is bitterness in his eyes. ‘I run a shop sel ing pretty old things to people. I live in the past now, and the country’s stil run by upper-class white men as far as I can see. Banks, government, committees – it’s just that most of them are younger than me. Younger and richer.’

I don’t know how to respond to such honesty, and the silence is rather uncomfortable. After a few moments, Guy recal s himself.

‘Rather maudlin,’ he says. ‘Too much time to think. Bad thing.’ He pats his knees and stands up, rather stiffly, for the stool is a long way down.

‘Time to explain why I asked you here.’

He goes over to the corner of the room. ‘Now, Natasha, I have something to give you, and that’s why I wanted to meet up. To – explain.’ He opens a cupboard door and turns back towards me.

He is holding a smal , flat thing in his hand, and I stare down at it, not real y thinking.

‘Here,’ he says, holding his hand out to me. ‘Cecily’s diary.’ There’s a thud and a squeal from Thomasina the cat. I have dropped my cup of tea, boiling water is everywhere.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

It takes a few minutes to clean up, and I am very sorry. There is a painting that is probably ruined, as hot tea and water-colours don’t mix, and I keep apologising as I help Guy wipe down various cases and books and random antiques, but he is completely relaxed about it. As I am on the floor, mopping up the tea with a cloth, I say, ‘Where the hel did you get this?’

‘Wel —’ Guy is immersed in a stain on the wal , and has his back to me. ‘It’s – it’s complicated.’

I stare at the innocuous red exercise book, the white pages yel ow with age. On the front is written, in the scrawling handwriting I know so wel : Continuing the Secret Diary of Cecily Kapoor. ‘Did you take it?’

‘No, I did not,’ he says firmly. ‘Your mother sent it to me. She took it.’

‘What?’

I am stil holding a soggy bal of kitchen paper; my head snaps up.

‘She posted it to me a few days ago. Said I should read it.’

‘But—’ My anger is rising. ‘Why you? She can’t stand you.’ I catch the tip of my tongue between my lips. ‘Sorry. She – she’s just not your biggest fan, maybe.’

‘Yes,’ Guy says. ‘Right. I’d gathered that. I don’t know why, to be honest. But I don’t know why she sent me the diary either, I’m afraid. Wel – I do know why. You ought to read it and find out.’

I’m blushing, with embarrassment and anger. ‘Stil . Where the hel did she get it in the first place?’

‘It was in your grandmother’s studio. She’d found it after Cecily died and kept it in there, al these years.’ He stops. ‘I did wonder, a few months after Cecily died – what happened to the diary? But I assumed they’d just put it away with al her things. I didn’t think about it, real y.’ His head sags.

‘I was too – I was thinking about other things.’

‘So Mum just took it.’ My head is spinning. ‘After the funeral? So she’s had it ever since? Why did she take it? Why hasn’t she said anything?’

‘I haven’t spoken to her. I think she just saw it and snapped,’ Guy says careful y. ‘She was in the studio with Arvind, and she spotted it. The pages you have must have become separated, somehow, just fal en out.’

‘Have you got the note?’

He pauses. ‘I didn’t keep it. I’m sorry. I don’t think she planned it out. I’m rather concerned about her, you know, Natasha. It’s a lot to cope with, what she’s been through. And she’s completely disappeared now. I rang her after I’d – I’d read it, to talk to her. I’ve rung her several times, but she never answers.’

‘Typical,’ I say. My head is spinning. ‘She – I accused her of al these things, last week, and she just stood there. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t mention she had the diary, didn’t say anything. And then she just sends it off to you – of al people, when she’s told me you’re the worst of the lot of them. She’s—’ I don’t know what to say. ‘She is mad.’

‘You haven’t read what’s in here,’ Guy says. The lines on his face deepen, and a spasm of pain flashes in his eyes. ‘If she’s mad – I can see why.’

I don’t say anything. ‘Natasha, you don’t know what it’s like to lose a sibling,’ he says.

‘I’m an only child,’ I snap at him. ‘Of course I don’t.’ Guy jangles some change in his pocket. ‘Yes . . . yes, I know. Wel , you have to understand.

It’s always been with her, this. It changed us al . I don’t think—’ He clears his throat, staring into the distance. ‘I don’t think I ever real y got over her death.’

‘Cecily’s death? Real y?’

‘Yes,’ he says, and he looks at me now, his kind grey eyes ful of pain. ‘There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t think of her. It’s strange. It was so long ago.’

‘Why? Cecily? But you didn’t know her that wel , did you?’ I say. ‘You hadn’t met her before that summer, had you?’

‘No.’ Guy stands up, and he crosses over to the other side of the room, his back to me. He takes a deep breath, and then he turns around and stands up straight. He says, ‘You’l see. But – I saw her dead by the rocks . . . broken and battered.’ He passes his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes. ‘I brought her up from the sea myself, you know, that evening. I carried her in my arms.’ He’s shaking his head. ‘We put her in the sitting room.

Awful.’ He blinks and looks at me. ‘You know, until the funeral, I hadn’t been back to Summercove since the summer she was kil ed. Died.’ He corrects himself. ‘Died.’

My mouth is dry. ‘You think someone kil ed her. You think – Mum kil ed her?’

The silence is long, broken only by the sound of Thomasina’s purring, her claws piercing the worn fabric she lies on. ‘No,’ he says flatly. ‘That’s not what this is about, Natasha. It’s not a whodunnit. It was an accident. Your mother was there, I saw it. But believe me, it was an accident.’

‘So why does everyone seem to think she did it?’ I said. ‘There were people at the funeral, pointing at my mother, whispering about her.

Octavia does, Louisa does, the rest of them.’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t know what to think any more.’

‘Perhaps it’s been a useful diversion from what real y happened.’ Guy’s hand squeezes the coins in his pocket together so that they make a screeching, scratchy sound, and I wince. ‘Sorry,’ he says. His face is unbearably sad, old and sad. ‘You know, we were young. The world was changing. We had our lives ahead of us. And then she died, and it altered everything. For a long, long time, I thought there’d never be anything nice or good in the world again.’

He holds out the diary, his hands shaking. ‘Read it,’ he says, his voice cracking. ‘Find out what kind of person she real y was.’

‘Who? Cecily?’

He shakes his head. ‘Read it.’

We walk through the silent, echoing shop. It is almost dark now. I have my hand on the door; the old bel jangles loudly. ‘I’l read it tonight,’ I say.

‘And cal me afterwards?’ His face is hopeful. ‘Don’t talk to anyone else, wil you promise me that?’

‘Promise. Goodbye, Guy.’

‘Natasha –?’ he says. ‘It’s lovely to see you again. You look wonderful, if I may say. I heard from your mother that you and Oli have separated,’

he says. ‘I’m sorry. But it obviously suits you.’

I think of the rumpled bed Oli and I had sex in this morning, the rain on the cobbles last night . . . Ben’s face as I walk away from him. ‘That’s unlikely. But thank you.’

I smile my thanks and suddenly his expression changes, as if he wants me gone, instantly. ‘Wel , I’d better get on—’ He looks around the shop and I take my cue and go for the door again.

‘Oh, let me get that.’ He comes forward and holds it open for me, and then suddenly he leans towards me and kisses me on the cheek as the bel jangles.

‘It’s great to see you, Natasha,’ he says. He smiles at me and I smile back. ‘And—’ He stops.

‘What?’ I ask. I’m standing on the threshold of the shop. ‘You do look so like her. Cecily.’

‘That’s what my grandmother used to say,’ I tel him. ‘Wel , it’s a compliment,’ he says. ‘She was beautiful.’ He stares at me curiously. ‘We’l speak. Please, I want to speak to you once you’ve read it.’

He shuts the door, suddenly. I am increasingly unsettled as I start off back home. I walk and walk, through the quiet Georgian terraces of Islington, down towards the canal, past the Charles Lamb pub, out towards Shoreditch. It is that curious time of day you get in spring when it is stil light but feels as if it wil get dark at any moment, that the day is over. It is dark by the time I reach the curious Victorian enclave of Arnold Circus and walk down Brick Lane.

I let myself into the flat. I make a cup of tea and sit down, thinking about my conversation with Guy. I look down at my lap, at the exercise book, so innocuous-looking in my hands, the schoolgirl handwriting and floral decoration around the border the same as a thousand others, before and since. It strikes me that I’ve always thought of Cecily as being a child. They always talked about her, when they talked about her, as a young child.

And she wasn’t, it seems, if what I found out this afternoon is true. She was a woman.

I open the diary, on my knees. The rest of the flat is dark, its cool loneliness is what I need. I feel my heart thumping, as if someone is holding it, squeezing it. I know once I start reading I won’t be able to stop. Voices echo in my head as I open the flimsy red exercise book, looking at the careful y scratched patterns on the front. ‘That was the summer she died . . . That was the summer she died . . .’

And I read.

The Diary of Cecily Kapoor

Part 2

PRIVATE

25th July, 1963.

Continued!

Dear Diary, just us. I can write what I want, and no one need ever see it.

So. The Leightons have arrived. They are Frank, he is twenty, & he is training to be a surveyor.

He is very goodlooking, tall & blonde & handsome. Rather pleased with himself, like a politician. He reminds me of Cyril in Bonjour Tristesse, except pompous. His brother Guy is nineteen. He is reading PPE (don’t know what it is) at Oxford University, Brasenose College (like that word). He is quiet with hair that sticks up & glasses. He looks like an owl. Louisa is different now they are around. Normally she is so forthright, she thinks nothing of telling you when your brand new Fair Isle twinset looks moth-eaten, as she did to me the other day, or if your complexion needs carrots to wash it out. She said that to Miranda, & Miranda is veeery sensitive about her skin. She shouldn’t do it, especially with Miranda, who we all know has a terrible temper.

Anyway we had a special supper tonight to welcome the guests & I was allowed champagne. Miranda wore a new dress, beautiful black thick silky taffeta like. Apparently Connie (her godmother) gave her ten pounds. I find this annoying and I’m not even sure I believe that’s where she got the money for them from. But it’s strange, she did look very beautiful and she never has before. Sort of furious, all hair and frowns. But I heard Mr Wilson the maths teacher say to Miss Powell once, ‘that one’s going to be trouble’ & she nodded & said ‘when she realises . . . yes, I agree.’ I wasn’t eavesdropping, I’m not a sneak, they were watching her chatting to the gardener on a sunny day & I was walking past & couldn’t help. Perhaps that’s what they mean. Because actually suddenly she is beautiful. Chic. As I say, ANNOYING!

Anyway So back to Frank & Guy. It feels different, now they’re here. Mummy likes visitors. Everything’s perked up a bit. I was next to Frank at supper. He clears his throat before he speaks, & Louisa was staring at him the WHOLE WAY THROUGH the meal. He tried to impress Daddy, he called him ‘sir’, which of course was a waste of time. Guy called him ‘sir’ too but he talked to him about his books, too, as if he was really interested. Another thing about Frank is: he kissed Mummy’s hand after dinner! Which was so funny I just stared at him. But Mummy laughed, she said it was very charming, & she smiled at him & he looked rather embarrassed which at least took the pompoisity pompousity pomposity! off him a bit.

Jeremy told me I was being awful today but he was nice – I do like Jeremy, this is a such a secret dear Diary. I looked it up at school this term & it isn’t illegal to marry a cousin. Then I think about Archie peeping at Louisa & it makes me feel a bit sick. So I shouldn’t think those things.

When I was waiting for Miranda to come upstairs last night, I heard Frank ask Louisa something, they were still up on the terrace chatting. I wasn’t eavesdropping, it was right above me. I wish I hadn’t heard it. But I pretended I hadn’t & I scurried into my bed. I wish I could say it but I am too shy to write it down. He is not what he seems, that is all. It was a very rude thing to ask someone.

Bust: 20

Nose: 2 mins sorry.

Love always, Cecily

Friday, 26th July 1963

Today is Linda Langley’s birthday. I wonder what she’s doing. She had her hair cut before term ended, it looked marvellous & she said it was for her party. She lives in Bath, it’s too far for me to go for a party, not that she asked me. Bet her party is jolly good though.

Louisa isn’t speaking to the man with the Bowler Hat ie Frank this morning. I bet I know why. It is bc of what I heard him asked her to let him do last night which I am not going to say, it is too smutty for the written word. The BH looks like he has rather loose morals, a bit like Captain Wickham in P&P, goodlooking but FECKLESS – that is a good word.

Apart from that it’s fun having the boys here. Everyone is making an effort. Even Miranda, who is so weird & shy & normally never talks to boys, is suddenly talking to Guy & Bowler Hat man, & parading around in her swimming costume, fluttering her eyelashes at them. It’s hard to believe this is the girl who ran off when Andrew Laraby asked her if she’d like a cup of tea at the Spring Fete at Easter. Mummy hates it, I can tell, she thinks Miranda is boasting, which she is.

M brought Jeremy’s copy of Private Eye down to the beach & showed off about her swimming, & she keeps having these silly conversations with either Guy or BH. She speaks to them in this horrible arch way. She loves ‘That Was The Week That Was’, apparently – hah!

Guy likes lots of strange things I’ve never heard of, he reads American writers like Jack Kerouac & Martin Luther King who is in jail, & books like that. Also George Orwell. BH just swanks around looking pleased with himself. I tried to bring up the report of the trial in the Times today as it was very juicy again, & there was such a funny advert for British Rail with Tony Hancock which made me laugh, he is pulling a silly face to a ticket inspector, but I was too shy in front of all of them, & now they must think I am just a bit young & foolish & only good at cricket.

Miranda on the other hand was so flushed with her success at being sophisticated that she was horrible at tea, she said, ‘Cecily’s a baby, she only likes Swallows & Amazons & the Lone Pine Club’. I HATE HER!! Guy just said, ‘I love those books too, Swallows & Amazons is my favourite.’ Miranda looked so stupid and then she started pretending she likes them too because Guy likes them and she likes Guy. It’s obvious.

He’s not interested in her. I wanted to say what would you know, you haven’t read a whole book since Just William when you were ten. Miranda has that effect on One. She brings out a nasty side of me, more so than ever these holidays. I wish she’d go away. She didn’t come to bed till awfully late tonight and she was flirting with the Bowler Hat all evening. She still hasn’t come in, in fact. I’m waiting for her right now.

Saturday, 27th July 1963

Tired today. It is very hot, getting hotter. Mummy painted me again. She snapped at Mary about the Eccles cakes we had for tea. We went to the Minack Theatre & saw Julius Caesar. It was good, but quite long about Latin politics. Louisa & BH had another argument. Perhaps I will write a poem about it & it will be called, ‘Stop Having Shrill Rows Outside My Bedroom Door’. If he is so desperate to Do It with someone why doesn’t he just go and ask Miranda? She’s behaving like she would.

Haven’t been doing my bust etc exercises which is bad of me dear diary sorry.

Love always, Cecily

Sunday, 28th July 1963

Today was a wonderful day. It might be the best day of my life so far, though I hope there are better to come. You know when everything is perfect? & the air is sweet & people are sweet too.

It has been so hot, so we went to St Michael’s Mount, in the car, with the roof down. Miranda & the Bowler Hat stayed behind, Mummy & Dad too. Jeremy drove us. He is a dear, Jeremy. But perhaps he is a bit dull. I sat next to him & I realised halfway through the journey – I don’t know what to say to you next. Although he’s so nice to people. Tall & comforting & kind, when he hugs you it’s wonderful. But I feel awkward & silly when I talk to him & I don’t understand (or care about) rugby & I don’t know medicine. We drove past two huge hoardings on the side of the road for the News of the World, CHRISTINE’S DIRTY SECRETS one said. When I asked Jeremy about the Profumo trial he blushed & got very awkward, clutching onto the wheel like it was trying to get away. ‘Um . . . ar . . . Cecily . . . Not very appropriate . . .’

We parked by the fields because Marazion is a small village, full of day trippers. We bought pasties for our lunch & took them down to the beach, where we sat on the golden sand & looked out to St Michael’s Mount, & then we swam. I like it better out on a big beach sometimes than our own cove back at the house. Our cove is secluded but sometimes you feel shut off from everything. No one can see you. Marazion beach had people with picnics & transistor radios, all playing ‘Summer Holiday’ over & over again. Secretly I rather like that song. It was great to be out in the open, not cooped up at the house or in our tiny little secluded beach. It has been so hot & humid, today there was a bit of a breeze & it was delicious.

Guy & I walked across the sea on the causeway, to the castle. The others couldn’t be bothered to come. We talked about lots of different things, I can talk to him about anything, he’s v. calm but he’s interesting too and I like that. I didn’t think you could talk to a man like that, I have to say. Guy asked me what the exercise book was for & I told him about the diary. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Are we all in it?’

Me: Yes.

G: & your darkest secrets?

Me: Yes, but I don’t really have any. (Except I do, squashing my nose every night and bust exercises & not being quite sure what intercourse is.)

Guy: Tell me one.

Without thinking I just said, ‘I want to be a writer.’ I wished I hadn’t, but he didn’t say anything, just nodded & we walked on over to the island and climbed up to the castle. It is very steep, along a cobbled path, but in the shade from the sun. The castle looms over you, it is very dramatic. After a minute G said:

‘I think you’d be a jolly good writer, Cecily.’

Me (holding my breath, because I found I really cared about his answer): Why?

G: Because you notice everything, & you see the world in your own way. You’re your own person & you’re lovely as you are. Don’t ever change.

That’s exactly what he said. I memorised it.

I think that is about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Especially because I want to change everything about myself. I was embarrassed, but I didn’t want him to see. I asked him about himself instead, what he wants to do when he leaves. He wants to be a satirist, writing for television or a lampoon like Private Eye. He would be ever so good at it, I think.

We walked to the top of the castle & we climbed to the viewpoints where you can stand & look out across past Penzance almost to our house, & the sun was glinting on the waves like diamonds. Everything looked still & peaceful from up there. I wondered about Miranda & Mummy & the others back at Summercove & what they were doing.

I talked to Guy about Miranda. I wanted to explain that she’s not always this bad.

Guy said she’s looking for attention. ‘Perhaps she doesn’t get enough of it.’ I laughed cause EVERYONE pays her attention because she’s so badly behaved a lot of the time. Then he said, ‘Why does she dislike your mother so much?’

I know they don’t get on but it’s not terrible, so I was surprised he’d noticed.

Me: She’s just being difficult, that’s all. Mummy can be tough with her, I suppose.

G: She’s terribly jealous of you. Hadn’t you noticed? That’s why she’s nasty to you.

I laugh: Hardly. She thinks I’m a baby.

G: It’s more than that. How old are you?

Me: Fifteen. Sixteen in November though.

G: Fifteen? Really? He shook his head.

Me: Yes why do I seem much younger than that? (I was crossing my fingers not.) G: Sometimes, yes. A lot of the time . . . no. Fifteen, eh?

(He was silent for a moment & then he nudged me. I was blushing.) Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps you’re still just a baby then.

Me: You’re 19! You’re not much older. Just three years & a bit.

G: I suppose so.

I hope he was joking.

We came back via the moors & the daytrippers were just leaving the beaches along the way past Penzance: Lamorna Cove & the rest of them. We stopped off at Logan’s Rock (the pub not the rock) for a lemonade & sat outside on the tables. The countryside was so beautiful, green and lush & heavy, so still & quiet. Jeremy, Louisa & Archie talked about what we would do this week. Guy & I didn’t say very much. I sat next to him quite still. I felt the cotton of his shirt on my bare arm. I didn’t move. He didn’t move. We sat there while the others talked. I can’t explain it but it was wonderful.

When we got home, it was late, after nine-thirty. Miranda was in bed. She pretended to be asleep but she’d been crying. I heard her when I came upstairs. I got into bed and I said, ‘Are you all right?’ softly, but she didn’t say anything. I don’t think she is and I don’t know why.

Monday, 29th July 1963

Miranda was sitting up in bed when I woke up this morning & she said, ‘You snore like a pig.’

That is not very nice, I said with what I hope was dignity. I do not snore.

You do you’re a horrible little pig. And then she walked past & threw her glass of water over me. I was still in bed & I sat up & screamed, and then I said, I’m going to tell Mummy what you’ve just done, you idiot, she is already furious with you.

M: Just go ahead & tell her, you little sneak. I tell you, she wants me gone anyway. She wishes I wasn’t here.

Me (upset) Don’t be mean about Mummy. You’re always so horrible about her, & all she’s trying to do this holidays is help you with what you want to do now school’s over . . .

I was trying to sound reasonable & mature, but this only made her crosser. DD, I thought she was going to hit me. She came over, looming over me & her face was like murder. M: ‘You have no idea about the real world do you darling? None at all.’

Bits of spittle were falling into my face. She was gripping the bedstead with her hands, right over me. I thought she might actually spit at me or bite me. She is like a wild cat.

I dodged under her & stood up so we are facing each other. I was still in my nighty, she was dressed in her capri pants & a lovely black & white geometric patterned top.

Me: Where have all these new clothes come from? M: Connie gave me some money, I told you.

Me: Well I don’t believe you. Neither does Mummy. There was a weird look on Miranda’s face. She said: No one ever believes me, do they. I try & I try to get better, and feel better & it still comes back to nothing. I get nowhere.

She said it in a really sad voice, & then she shrugged. I looked at her, diary, she looked different when she said it. So beautiful, so alive & like she fitted everything for once. Like Mummy in her studio: another person, the real person somehow.

I remembered Guy saying it must be hard, being Miranda. I didn’t ask him what he meant. But perhaps it is. Archie is the son, it’s easy being the son. It’s easy for boys, that’s the truth. They can do what they want. If they make a mistake, or fail their exams, they go to agricultural college or train to be something boring. If you’re a girl, you either have to be either useful or decorative. Like a lamp. I think about this a lot & it makes me angry. Mummy is the only person I know who does both, have a talent and be beautiful, and sometimes I think she doesn’t like either of them.

Perhaps that’s why Miranda’s decided to be beautiful, this summer. It takes work, it’s funny. Perhaps that’s why Mummy’s so cross with her.

She doesn’t like her being beautiful.

Oh, this is all rather long & confusing but I know what I mean.

I put on my dressing gown & said I was going to have a bath. She let me go but just as I was leaving she said, ‘Can I tell you one thing about Mummy, Cecily?’

Me: Yes.

M: (in doorway looking pleased) If she’s so wonderful, why was she up here yesterday, trying on my clothes, when you were out at the beach?

Me: What’s wrong with that if she does?

I tried to pretend it wasn’t anything unusual but it’s odd, I knew that right away.

M: She’s made me give her two of them. A coat dress I hadn’t worn yet. And the cocktail dress.

Me: The black gros-grain one?

M: & that’s not all she wants.

Me: What else?

She nods, & then she flops down on the bed. ‘You’ll see.’ She’s smiling up at the ceiling. ‘You’ll find out. I hope it’s not too late.’ & then she flounced out.

I have told this so badly, sorry DD. But I wanted to get it all down and so I’m writing this now before breakfast. I don’t know what to make of it all. Things have changed, perhaps since the Leightons arrived? Since the weather got hotter? Since we grew up? I just don’t know.

It is now evening & Miranda & I are sort of speaking but not friends. I keep looking at Mummy over supper, & wondering if it’s true about her trying on the dresses. I just know it’s not, that’s all. My favourite advert in the Illustrated London News this week is: Take No Chances with Facial Hair. The shop is 7 doors down from Harrods. Extraordinary. Miranda is obsessed with her facial hair, maybe I should cut it out & leave it on her bed, but I don’t think that would improve her mood.

Tuesday, 30th July 1963

I spent a lot of today playing backgammon with Dad again. I am now outside, on the bench under the apple tree on the edge of the lawn, writing what we talked about up, as he told me to. The lavender smells beautiful, perhaps Dad is right.

Since I came back home this summer I have been thinking about relationships. It is strange, being in love. I was so sure most of this year I was in love with Jeremy. And now I know I’m not. I do love him but because he is dear & kind & my cousin. So DD how will I know when the right man comes along for me? Maybe I won’t recognise him, I’ll think it’s me being silly again? I hope not. This worries me.

Louisa & the BH are also strange to me. I assume they love each other? They are certainly here together & he is her boyfriend & I would hope they are, especially the way she raved on about him before he arrived. The only time I HAVE ever seen them alone together is late at night, when he asked her if he could kiss her breasts & lick them, which is what he did ask that night, in a silly boyish voice (yes that is indeed what he said. I have decided to be honest about such things. !!!! Why does he want to, and in this awful baby voice? So strange. They’re just there, they don’t do anything). They talk to each other in front of us, but I never see them go off for a walk by themselves, or chat together at the table, it’s always with other people. He flirts with Miranda, it’s disgusting (‘You have the last piece of bread!’ ‘No, YOU! You need to keep your strength up, I’m going to beat you at tennis this afternoon!’ ‘Oh, really!’ bleurgh like they’re in Salad Days) and he laughs with Guy or Archie all the time, never with Louisa. The people he hardly ever talks to are Dad and Mummy. I don’t think he knows what to say to Dad, and I think he finds Mummy intimidating. In fact I think he has a bit of a pash for her. He blushes when she talks to him.

And Louisa is always hanging round pretending she’s busy & being all bossy trying to organise things whereas in fact I know she just wants BH to go for a walk with her. Is that what being in love is like? Hanging around for someone? Seems rubbish to me.

Dad answers questions, but he never asks them. He is like a piece on a backgammon board: he will be moved around by you, but according to his own rules. He comes for meals & then goes back to his study, & I used to think what a fraud it is, that he is a philosopher who writes about people, & yet he must exchange less than 10 words to the 9 other people in the house.

I have been noticing things since I started writing this diary, one of them is that I don’t mention Dad much. I don’t talk to him. He’s just there.

Today after breakfast I asked if we could play backgammon again. He said ‘Yes, with pleasure, Cecily.’

When Mummy said, ‘But you’re sitting for me this morning,’ I said, ‘Please Mummy, just for today,’ & she looked at Dad & at me & she said,

‘Oh, all right then.’

I like Dad’s study but I never go in there. It is filled with books as you would expect, but it is not too much like a library, there are lots of blue Pelicans & books on Indian art & paintings in there, & a low, comfortable chair for me to sit in. It smells nice too, Dad told me it is sandalwood, & he gets it when he’s in London, because the smell helps him to work.

He won best of 3 & then I noticed the piles of paper at the side of the board for the first time, & the old typewriter, which Mrs Randall uses when she comes to type things up for him, & I wonder (because I’ve been away for two months at school) how long it’s been since Mrs Randall came here so I asked him how the new book was about, which I never have before.

I’m so curious about what he’s been working on all these years but I know this question really really annoys writers. So I tried to think of a subtle way to ask but I couldn’t.

Me: So what’s the next book about?

Dad: Do you know the story of the Koh-i-Noor diamond?

Me: (pleased as never know answers to questions like this normally) Yes, it’s the one in the Queen’s crown.

Dad: (smiles to himself) Not quite. The Empress of India’s crown. Now the Queen Mother’s crown. It is not the largest, nor the most beautiful diamond in the world, but it is the most famous.

Me: (anxious to prove have some knowledge): Yes, we learned about it at school, when we did the Great Exhibition in 1851. It was presented to the British by the Indians & I saw it when we went to the Tower of London last year.

‘“Presented to the British”,’ Dad smiles. ‘Very interesting. Do you know what Koh-i-Noor means?’

It is v hot in Dad’s study. I remember that even in winter & today in the heat it was baking.

Me: No.

Dad: It is called “The Mountain of Light”.

Me (slightly dim): That’s what your book’s called! So you’re writing about the diamond?

Dad wags his head, 1/2 nodding, half disagreeing: You know the man who gave it away to the British? He was called Duleep Singh. The British brought him to England. He was only 6, a little boy. Maharaja. Maharajah. He never went back to the Punjab. He had given away their greatest treasure. When 2 of his daughters returned to Lahore, the Twenties, I remember it, people were fascinated. They were the daughters of the last King of the Punjab, the crowds went wild. But they couldn’t talk to them. The girls had never learned to speak Punjabi.

Me: That is sad.

Dad: Not really. You are my daughter, you can’t speak Punjabi.

Me (looking to see if he’s upset about it but I don’t think he is, I don’t know): No I can’t.

Dad: The diamond is in the Tower of London. You can go whenever you want. So perhaps it is best left where it is, where many people can see it.

Me: But it belonged to the Maharajah. It should be back in India, shouldn’t it?

Dad: Maharajah Duleep Singh was from Lahore. It’s not part of India any more.

There’s a bit of a silence.

Me: Will you go back? You never have, have you? Dad shakes his head & looks down: No. It is a very different place.

Me: But you could now.

Dad: Maybe I will.

Me: Can I come with you?

Dad nods and smiles. Would you like to?

Me: Yes please!

Dad shakes my hand: Well, we will shake on it. This is our pact. When you are grown up, we will go together. I will show you my school, the bazaars, the Shalimar Gardens, Lahore Fort, built by the great Akbar. It is a very beautiful city, Lahore.

I feel sad then, that Dad has lived most of his life in another country. It’s a part of me, and I don’t know it.

Me: Do you miss it?

D: I miss my father, & my brothers. But they’re dead.

Me: How did they die?

D: They were killed, after Partition. Many, many people died then. It was a terrible time.

Me: Who killed them?

Dad is silent, then he says: Ignorant men. They slit their throats. While my brothers slept. They killed my father when he tried to run away, in the night.

I’ve been trying to remember everything as accurately as possible as he said it, because I don’t know any of this and I’d like to record it properly. But all I remember really clearly is his face as he said this. Awful. I just stared at him.

Me: I never knew that. Honestly?

Dad smiles: Honestly. My cousin wrote to me of it.

I was in London, in Spring. You were a few months old. I saw the letter . . . very old it was, battered & the address was faint, the ink had run . .

. And I knew. I had been reading the papers, I had tried to get messages to them, to telephone the old school, the Post Office where Govind (think that’s how he said it) worked . . . then that letter came. I remember walking to the door. It was on the wooden floor. Staring up at me. I knew what was in it. I knew they had been killed. My cousin wrote about the many trains pulling into Lahore Station. Filled with bodies. Hundreds, thousands of them, slaughtered on the way up. Blood dripping onto the tracks. The smell of it, in the heat.

Diary it was so awful just hearing his voice, monotone, saying these terrible things, in this warm, quiet room with green outside the window, blue sea in the distance.

Me: It must seem a very long way away.

Dad looks round the study, out of the window: It’s a very long way away. I do not know if I could even go back to Lahore, now. But we could certainly go to the Punjab in India. To Amritsar, the Holy City of the Sikhs, & the Golden Temple. Would you like that?

Me: Yes, I’d love that. When shall we go?

Dad: When you leave school, my little child. We will go then.

We talked for a long time. I looked down & saw the Times on Dad’s desk. Odd to think they started the summing up in the Stephen Ward trial today. It seems so silly, so gossipy & . . . tawdry. When I looked at my watch it was one-thirty, & no one had rung the bell for lunch.

‘Alas, you cannot hear the bell in here,’ Dad said, which I thought was pretty funny. That’s why he’s always late.

In the afternoon the others were playing tennis and going for a swim but I went for a walk along the coast by myself. I felt all sort of churned up, at what Dad said, about his brothers, my uncles, how they died. That is a part of me, & I know nothing about it. It seems we never discuss it, not because it is something bad, but because we are so complete in our world here, I always thought.

We have a lovely house, we have money, we have Mummy & Dad, the sea & the knowledge that we are well-off & intellectually satisfied with our lot.

We have made our own way of life, the Kapoors. As I walked along the cliffs, with the wind blowing my hair so it turned into little fluffy knots, I wondered then, WHY? Why does it feel like there is something missing, something wrong. There’s Dad, in his study, so remote he can’t hear the bell for lunch, and there’s Mummy, in her studio, for hours on end. I don’t think either of them looks out of the window. They don’t go for walks on the beach or swim in the sea.

Later.

In the evening Mummy went to bed early with a headache, & Louisa helped Mary, she made chicken mousse, with salad & greengage tart

& clotted cream for pudding. It was delicious. Dear Louisa looked really pleased, we were all begging for more, & even Miranda said, involuntarily, ‘This is absolutely gorgeous, Louisa, thanks a lot.’

Doesn’t sound much but gosh dear Diary, that is a lot coming from her at the moment. They smiled at each other & suddenly everything seemed a bit less . . . I don’t know, again. I wish I wasn’t so stupid & could find the words to describe it. But it’s beyond me, obviously. Goodnight DD, I am finding you so helpful.

Love always, Cecily

Wednesday, 31st July 1963

After our long conversation, I dreamt I was with Dad, only he was a young man, in Lahore. We were walking through a bazaar together & it was very hot. I could smell sandalwood, incense, rich beautiful perfumes, & we were pushing red, pink, burgundy silk rugs & carpets out of the way as we walked. Then I woke up, & it is funny, for the first time I can remember I was disappointed to be here, in Summercove. Normally it is the place I long to be at most, my home, I dream about it when I’m at school endlessly, & when I wake up & I’m in my horrible dorm smelling of damp & Margaret snoring, I could cry. Like when you wake up thinking it’s the weekend & then realise it’s only Tuesday.

Today, me, Guy & Louisa went with Mummy to St Ives to see her dealer. She tried to get the others to come along, & they were being too lazy & wouldn’t go. Bowler Hat was going to come, but he was very irritating, Uhming and Aahing about whether to, & in the end he dropped out.

He wanted to sunbathe, which I suppose if I am being charitable is fair enough, it was boiling hot, but why does he have to take an hour to decide?

We were late to leave because something funny happened. Mummy was holding the door open for us as we scooted in, like an air hostess,

& when the Bowler Hat finally made up his mind at the last minute not to come (I think he saw how cramped the car would be), she sort of swiped at him, like Scarlett O’Hara, only she stumbled a bit on the gravel (drive v uneven) & it was awful, she trod on his foot with her little heel. Nearly gave him a stigmata, Archie said. (Archie found the whole episode hilarious – but he loves pain & suffering, he is a fairly Base Person). He was hopping around in agony, & we had to give him a bandage. Mummy was so mortified, it was quite funny to see her embarrassed, normally she never loses her cool, ever.

She drove like a lunatic to St Ives, I think it shook her up. But Louisa was wonderful, talking to her nicely about her show, though it only seemed to make Mummy crosser, somehow, oh ARTISTS. I talked to Guy, which is, DD, becoming one of my favourite things about this holiday. I feel like I could talk to him all day & night & never run out of things to say. I told him about my chat with Daddy yesterday, about going to India, about the Koh-iNoor diamond.

Guy said: I saw it at prep school. We came up on a charabanc, we went to the Tower. I wore some chain mail. It was v exciting. When you’re next up in town, we should go together & have a look at it if you’d like.

People are stupid sometimes. I said: Guy, I’m at school. In Devon. I don’t go up to town, ever.

He looked embarrassed as if he hadn’t really thought about it properly: Oh. Maybe in the holidays.

Me: Yes, that’d be lovely . . .

Actually I don’t ever go off to London in the holidays, unless we all go to visit Aunt Pamela. But I felt I can be honest with Guy. So I said,

‘Really Guy if I were to go out by myself in London, I should want to go to Soho, to sit in a bar & drink Café Cremes (or is that a cigarette? Can’t remember), not amble around with hundreds of tourists looking at the Crown Jewels.’

Guy started to laugh, & he laughed so hard Louisa & Mummy asked what we were talking about. He held my hand up, like boxers do in the papers when they’ve won, & he squeezed it. ‘You win again,’ he said, & he kissed my hand, & then nudged me.

I sometimes think with Guy that It’s a bit of a bunfight, getting into the town, now more & more people have cars. There’s a queue everywhere. It was annoying, & Mummy still had the roof down & we were in all the back streets & people were staring at us & I didn’t like it.

Stupid red-faced day trippers with ices, staring at us, because of the big cream car & because Mummy looks like someone famous with her headscarf and big dark glasses. Suppose she is famous. But I felt like Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Mummy’s dealer at her gallery is French, with a funny name – Didier & he is very nice. However his father was there too, a famous dealer from London who runs the gallery where Mummy’s show will be. He is called Louis de something, & he was far too over the top, he kissed Mummy’s hand too. He spoke to her in a very funny way. ‘Dear Madam,’ he called her. ‘Dearest lady, you who shine brighter than any other.’ Etc etc.

On the way back we stopped for petrol & heard on the radio that Stephen Ward has taken an overdose this morning. The judge began summing up the trial yesterday. He is in a coma. I feel sorry for him. But some of the things . . . ! Archie whispers ‘Vickie Barrett’, whenever I go into a room, as she is the girl who said there were whips & chains & contraceptives lying around Stephen Ward’s flat. Don’t believe it but it’s most alarming to think of.

Dear Diary, we had a lovely evening when we got back, quiche Lorraine & salad & ratatouille except that Miranda flirted with Bowler Hat all evening, and it was pathetic. Why it was pathetic is because Miranda just gets hysterical, not sophisticated, and says racy things to him. It’s not impressive, it’s embarrassing, like Judith Fairfax at school who no one talks to & when you do she gets all silly and overexcited and starts being embarrassing and childish. Even the BH was looking a bit perturbed. Louisa couldn’t really do anything. Louisa is sort of diminished this holiday. I used to want to be her so much. She was so strong & Hail Fellow Well Met-ish, the blonde, beautiful, friendly Head Girl.

Now she’s just . . . hopeful. Smiling brightly, wearing a nice expression in case BH turns to notice her. Dear God, I really don’t like him.

Perhaps I should try & have a word with Miranda . . . She is downstairs still, outside, I can hear her laughing with someone.

She is coming. I will put the diary away now.

Thursday, 1st August 1963

Yes, I did have a terrible row with Miranda. I wish I hadn’t. Oh God, DD, I wish I hadn’t. I accused her of terrible things and she did too, she was horrible. I shouldn’t have started it, but she is so mad at the moment. Esp now she has found her Beauty.

She came in last night after I put the book away & she smelt of cigarettes. I will try & write it down briefly.

Me: Were you out with BH?

Her: MYOB.

Me: You’re hurting Louisa you know.

Her: Shut up.

She hit me on the cheek. I knelt up on bed & hit her back. I caught her by the hair & scratched her, I enjoyed it. I really did. It’s awful. I could feel a bloodlust in me. It was strange. I felt my fingers digging into her scalp, she did the same to me. Then she let go. She said: I’m not doing anything wrong.

Me: Yes you are.

Her: Cecily, you are a child, you know nothing what so ever & I wish you’d keep out of it. One day you’ll realise. You are a little girl. A hairy, ugly, silly little girl.

I wanted to hurt her too – the scratch on my cheek was throbbing a lot. I said, ‘At least I’ve got a brain and a future. & people like me.

Mummy & Dad like me more than you. Everyone does. Apart from the Bowler Hat, because you’re letting him finger you.’

(Fingering is sort of the worst thing I’ve heard someone let a boy do to them at school apart from intercourse, by the way.) But as I was saying it it felt stupid. And now the words are out there & you can’t take them back once they’ve been said.

Miranda said, ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’ And then she got into bed, didn’t wash her face or take her clothes off. Just got into bed & turned her light off.

They found Stephen Ward guilty. But he is still in a coma, & he has no idea. Archie was pouring over it at breakfast, & I was trying to read over his shoulder, instead of The Lady, which is awfully dull. It has adverts in it like ‘Are you fond of Old People? Would you like to take an active part in their care?’ or ‘A Doctor Explains How it is possible to grow an entirely Fresh New Skin’. No no no & no.

Miranda went out early this morning with Archie & I didn’t see them all day. I felt bad. I tried to explain to Mum in our sitting, how nasty I’d been (not all of it obviously). But she was annoying. She didn’t really listen. I wanted her to tell me I’d been horrible and wrong & should say sorry. But she just sat there, painting away, the only sounds the slap of the wet paint on the canvas, scratching sounds as she blends it in, the sizzle as she draws in the smoke from her cigarette. I can only see the side of her head and shoulder. Oh Mum, be a mum, sometimes, please.

Don’t be the person Miranda says you are, who tries on our clothes and hates us for our youth. It’s not true.

I apologised to Miranda that evening. She was asleep when I came in, I was sitting up late with Guy & Jeremy outside, it’s been so hot. I said:

‘I’m sorry I was so horrible & I didn’t mean any of it, I just think sometimes we don’t see things the same way.’

She pretended to be asleep again. But I think she heard me.

Friday, 2nd August 1963

This morning seems such a long way away, it is so strange, so much has happened. Firstly, Miranda & I are pretending to speak to each other again, we were civil at breakfast, it was fine. I passed her the marmalade, she offered me the butter. I smiled. She sort of did.

Secondly, I sat for Mummy again. I can’t explain it but it is putting me in such a bad mood. I didn’t like it much to start with, now I really don’t like it. It’s hot & boring & my shoulders ache from sitting in the same way all day. My derriere hurts. Mummy sits & paints furiously, we don’t talk any more, & I more & more fear that it will just make me look like a horrible ugly ghoul, which is what I think I look like anyway. It is depressing, that’s all.

I was so glad to get out of there & to talk to Miranda again, & then all hell broke loose . . . oh dear God DD.

Louisa caught Archie again. Watching her getting dressed. AGAIN. And she – I think – broke his nose. Bashed her knee into his face when she opened the door. There was blood everywhere, anyway. It is disgusting disgusting, I can’t really think about it. He tried to deny it, that’s what’s worse. Miranda of course defended him, though how you can I don’t know, though I have to say even she looked a bit sick about it.

I looked at Archie, blood streaming down his face, swearing at Louisa, he was so nasty to her. Louisa was crying & the BH holding her & telling her it’s OK. And Jeremy is saying, hey chaps, it’s all going to be all right, in his rather bluff Captain Scott way. And Miranda starts uttering these threats. ‘Don’t cross me, I tell you.’ The BH looked terrified.

I knew something was up. My stupid imagination but Oh dear God, I hope I’m wrong about this. Miranda is my sister, I’m supposed to love her, & instead I am fairly convinced she is doing something really awful. And Archie gets pleasure from watching his cousin get changed. It’s almost as bad.

Suddenly, in the midst of this Aunt Pamela & Uncle John arrive and stand in the hall!

They are so stiff. I expect them to creak when they move. I’m sure they thought something strange was up, & Mummy appeared and was terribly flustered, of course. It was weird, having them standing there, correct & smart in their London clothes. Makes me realise how isolated we have let ourselves become these two weeks.

After lunch Guy and I went for a walk. Thank goodness for Guy. We went to pick the early blackberries, tight, sharp, sweet little things, all along the hedgerows up around the house & down towards the beach. Just the two of us.

‘Why do you think he’s like that?’ I asked him. Guy thought about it for a while. He thinks things over, doesn’t talk unless he has something to say. I do like that.

G: Because . . . He is the only son, & that’s hard. Your father is a tough person to live up to.

I laugh: No he’s not! – because Daddy is so strange it’s impossible to imagine anyone else being like him.

G: Fathers & sons are tricky. Your father had a very different upbringing, in a completely different place. He came to England to be educated & he manages to snare one of the most beautiful women in the country.

And THEN he says:

I read an interview with your mother a couple of yrs ago & did you know 6 men had proposed to her before your father. & she chose him. For whatever reason, he’s a hard act to follow.

It’s strange how when I talk to Guy I find these things out about my family that had never occurred to me before, like I’ve been some silly blind girl not aware of what’s right underneath her nose. It’s like he makes me see everything for the first time.

As we were having this conversation, we were standing on the cliffs, me carrying the basket, & there was a lovely gentle wind blowing up from the sea which was calm for once. It was very peaceful, almost too peaceful. Humid. A thin layer of cloud covering everything. Felt miles away from Summercove.

G: Anyway, Archie has a lot to live up to. I don’t think your father puts pressure on him. I think everyone else does.

I ate a blackberry and I can still taste the juice now as it burst onto my tongue, sharp and sweet. We were silent.

‘Prhaps you’re right,’ I said.

Guy said almost as if he was talking to himself: I suppose the truth is, he’s just a simple chap who likes cricket & girls & likes to think of himself as a bit of a smoothie. He doesn’t know much about the real world & has two parents who are completely self-absorbed, & don’t have the foggiest how to help him.

Then he’s silent, & then he said, ‘My God, Cecily, I’m so sorry –’

Me: (pretending not to be shocked) It’s fine!

Guy (very pale straight away): I’m – that’s unforgivable of me – it’s just sometimes I forget you’re – Oh God. Cecily, please – God, what an ass I am.

He looked really upset.

Me: Guy, it’s fine, honestly!

And he said, ‘Sometimes I forget you’re one of them.’

We were silent. My back was aching and I stretched my arms out, high above me. Guy said, ‘You’re really not like them at all.’

I turned to him and we stared at each other. It was strange.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I’m not.’

We walked together not saying much. Just being next to each other.

And then later on, this evening, there were drinks & dinner. It was more formal, because of the Jameses. Mummy made me put on a dress.

I felt different around him, all of a sudden.

Guy and I were standing by the French windows together. He suddenly touched my arm, & I wasn’t expecting it. And DD, it felt as if . . . I have never had that before. Like electricity shooting through me, like I was alive, alive for the first time. I looked at him, & he looked at me, & . . .

I want him. I knew it then. I want him to kiss me. I wanted him right at that moment, his beautiful clear grey eyes, his kind, handsome face, slow smile, sweet expression. I wanted to bite his lip, to hold him, for him to hold me . . .

He said I was beautiful. We were silent afterwards, & then we were called into dinner. As I’m writing it now, the memory of it is lovely. Supper was awful, it’s funny to think of it now, Miranda and Uncle John had a huge row. I was barely aware of it. Everything else that’s going on, all these worries I’ve had about all of us, that Miranda’s having an affair with the Bowler Hat, that Mum and Dad aren’t happy, that we’re not the family I thought we were, and I’m moving away from them – this feeling that I want to get away from Summercove, get away they just – they’re not there when I look at Guy.

I’m in love with Guy? Yes, I’m in love with Guy. It should be scary. It’s not.

I escaped to bed as soon as I could. I looked at Guy as I was leaving. He was just there, staring at me. I know he is watching over me. I know he loves me. I love him. So strange to write it! But it’s so natural too. What will tomorrow bring?

I love you darling Guy. I always will.

Love always, Cecily

Saturday, 3rd August 1963

Darling diary I don’t know what to do, how to write this, what to say, I am shaking as I try to hold the pen, because I can’t believe what I’ve seen.

It’s horrible.

I don’t understand how people can do that.

I have been horrible to Miranda. I have got it all wrong, I am so stupid, I know nothing – oh my goodness, though, diary, is this how it happens, what it’s like?

Today I went down to the cove. I have lost a sandal, & I thought it might be down there. I was walking carefully, so I didn’t slip. I heard voices, when I got to the stairs. I should have turned back.

But I didn’t. I could hear the Bowler Hat’s voice. Gosh, I hate him. I hate what he is, what he stands for – that he can just do what he wants & get away with it? I HATE HIM.

I heard things, & I should have just turned & run away, I wish I had. But I wasn’t sure, & I was sure my shoe was down there.

He was down there with Mummy. My mother. I stood completely still, I couldn’t move. He kissed her, they took their clothes off, I saw him touch her, then they began to then I saw I really can’t write what I saw, & then I ran away.

There’s no one I can talk to apart from you. I can’t tell Guy, it’s his brother. I can’t tell Miranda, of course not, she must hate me. I hate myself, for thinking she would do something like this.

I heard the way Mummy laughed at him. Her voice, it was so – cruel. Cold. I almost felt sorry for him, & I hate him!

It’s Mummy. I can’t tell anyone. They wouldn’t believe me. I hardly believe it myself. He was kissing her. He took her top off. She undid his trousers. I saw them . . .

So I said I was feeling ill & I went upstairs and missed lunch. Mummy has been knocking on my door asking if I’m OK all day. I think I want to kill her, but I don’t know what to do. Miranda has ignored me, that’s fine. What shall I do? Oh God. What shall I do?

I don’t feel grown-up any more. I feel like I want to curl into a ball. I want to sleep. I know I won’t be able to though. I wish I wasn’t here any more.

Sunday, 4th August 1963

I did not sleep at all. I am so tired.

And Mummy was vile about missing my sitting. I looked at her as she was being cross with me. Her green green eyes, so evil! Her skin is flushed with freckles and tanned, I know why now. All the times she’s appeared smelling of cigarettes I thought she’d been working, now I know why she’s behind this week all of a sudden with her work.

How did it start? When?

I don’t know what to do. What shall I do?

Guy has been asking if I’m OK. I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t want him to ask me, I can’t tell him, can’t tell any of them. He must think I’m ignoring him.

I was sitting out on the lawn with him and all the others & the BH & Louisa were hugging each other & I just watched the BH. He saw me, & he looked uneasy. I thought, I can’t stay here any longer, so I just went upstairs again & I’m here. The house is full, full of people. There’s no space, no respite, except in my room. I act perfectly normally, I even reply when people ask me questions, & inside I am screaming, like a mad person. There are things I can’t stop seeing in my head, like Mummy’s face as she turned towards him, laughing, alive, full of cruelty, so beautiful . . . I didn’t know her, not at all, & she is my mother. I can’t understand it. I keep seeing my sandal, bobbing in the water behind them, at the edge of the sea, & then nearly slipping & falling as I stand at the top of the steps, they are treacherous. Imagine if they saw me . . .

It is strange, how you can appear normal to people. As if nothing’s different. I am doing it, the Bowler Hat is doing it, Mummy is doing it. I don’t want them to ever know. I should tell Louisa, I know I should. But I simply can’t do that.

Perhaps it’s not so bad, they will split up & she will marry someone else. And then I think no, something has poisoned us, this will stay with us for ever. Mummy did this, she is behind it. She is my mother, I can’t believe it. Am I being prudish? Have I been closeted away for too long?

Is this quite usual, elsewhere? Do properly grown-up people act like this all the time?

If I didn’t know, everything could go on as normal. But I feel that because I know it can’t, now. If I wasn’t here, it would be OK.

Monday, 5th August 1963

I have just reread the first pages of this diary. It’s like they’re from another lifetime. It is only two weeks. I feel like a different person. One thing after another, & it’s as if I am watching myself do these things, say them.

Tonight I kissed Guy. I nearly had sex with him, in fact.

Funny, that we didn’t, in the end, because I would have let him, only he stopped. I have never seen a grown man naked before. Now I have seen two, in three days. Guy, & his brother. I liked the idea that if I let him be with me, that he & his brother would have done some kind of double act, a mother & a daughter. Perhaps that’s what happens in real life, perhaps I’ve just been innocent and stupid. But I am the only person who’d know that. Oh, DD, I wish I could be back at school, in my dorm with Margaret, Rita & Jennifer. Being told what to do, when to do it, instead of this terrifying summer world I’m living in.

Most of all, I feel sad. Because before all this I thought Guy was . . . don’t know how to put it, because it is ridiculous. But someone I knew.

Someone I could fall in love with.

I still think that. But I also think it’s too late, for him & for me.

It happened like this: Mummy, Jeremy, Uncle John & Aunt Pamela played bridge after supper. Very demure. The Bowler Hat & Louisa sat outside with their cigarettes, listening to some jazz, he with his arms round her, both of them gazing up at the stars. She looked so happy, with her little pink & white face & fluffy hair. He was behind her, one hand on her shoulder, one on her ribcage, & he looked bored. I could tell he was trying to move one hand down, the other up, so he could touch her breasts, without looking indecorous. There was something . . . OH GOD, I HATE THIS.

Something so disgusting!! So vile & animal like about him, his leg splayed out, carelessly trying to touch L, when I know what he’s been doing . . . it made me feel sick, & . . .

Anyway, I got up & said, ‘I’m just going to shut the gate.’ Guy followed me.

‘Do you want to go for a walk,’ he said. It is a beautiful night, very clear, very warm. Stars everywhere.

We walked down the path, towards the sea. I wasn’t even thinking about trying to impress him, now, I was just thinking about BH & his hands,

& Mummy sitting upright playing bloody cards.

Guy said, ‘Cecily, are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Because – if you don’t mind me saying it – you seem rather twitchy. I hope I haven’t said anything . . .’

I looked round at him, & he is looking at me, rather anxiously, & he looks so sweet, so reassuring, so kind, an island in the middle of this sea, like St Michael’s Mount. He’s the one person I think isn’t bad or stupid or evil or wronged or doing something wrong.

So, oh dear diary. I walked towards him – we were a way from the house, almost at the steps by the sea. I put my hand on his chest. I looked into his eyes. I stood on tiptoe, & I kissed him. On the lips.

I didn’t think about it, I just sort of knew it would happen.

He kissed me back. I kissed Brian Deans last year, the son of the history master at school, but this was different. There, I felt my tongue was getting in the way. Here, it was sloppy, but it felt nice. Guy put his hand on the back of my neck, & his tongue was in my mouth.

We sat down after a while, on the sweet, soft moss, with the crickets chirruping nearby, & the sea crashing in the distance & we kissed more,

& then I wanted to touch him, & he wanted to touch me too. He smoothed his hands over my collarbone, & he touched my breasts, my stomach,

& I took my dress off, & let him, & I touched him too, took his shirt off, everything really. We were naked, apart from Guy still had his socks on, & when I noticed that it made me laugh. We both laughed. We rolled next to each other, naked, & he held me, stroked me, & I touched him, it is so strange, a man’s body, so different in a way. Much harder, less soft & full of places you can poke. And his penis was hard. I wanted to touch that too. Perhaps I am like my mother, a hard cold woman. Probably. I was quite grown-up about it. I felt very comfortable with him.

We were silent for a long time. I did hold his penis and stroke it and he loved that. & I kissed his mouth, his cheek, & whispered ‘inside me’, but he shook his head, & he wouldn’t. We lay on the moss for a while, holding hands. Just there, looking up at the stars.

Summercove was a yellow light, fifty yards away. No one else was near. Just us two.

‘I think I love you,’ he said. ‘In fact I know I do.’

‘Me too,’ I said to him. I stroked his cheek, his short, spiky hair, his beautiful, kind eyes, his lips.

It’s true, too. When I said it I meant it. Then I remembered the other things, back at the house. It all rushed back to me & I realised then I knew – it won’t work out that way. I put my clothes on, & he followed me, & we walked back to the house.

Guy put his hand in mine, as we were walking. He stroked my palm with his thumb. And then he kissed my shoulder, very gently, as we got close to the house. I think I will remember that kiss for the rest of my life. Because it was almost perfect. Like Guy & me. Almost perfect.

Tuesday, 6th August 1963

I didn’t sleep again. It rained in the night, just a bit, but it was noisy, thunder and lightening. It woke me up. I lay there thinking so much it was scary. Like a black wave washing over me. I can’t ever see how this can get better.

This morning, Miranda sat down on the edge of my bed. ‘You know don’t you?’ she said.

I looked at her & she just stared at me. I thought how grown-up she is now. A different person. Both of us are. I nodded.

‘How?’

I said I saw them together. She patted my leg. ‘Me too. That day you were all out. It’s like she wants to be caught. It’s going to be OK. You and me & Archie, we’ll grow up and get out of here soon. It’ll be OK.’

Me: But I don’t want to. I just want everything to be the way it was before.

Miranda: Well, it’s not going to be. Can’t you see that?

Me: Why? Why do you think she’s doing it?

M shrugs her shoulders, & I realise she doesn’t have all the answers, of course not. ‘I don’t know, Cec. Perhaps the same reason she tried on my clothes or she gazes off into space at supper or she spends so much time up in the studio. Perhaps she’s just wishing she was young again.’

‘But that’s so stupid,’ I said. ‘We spend all our time wishing we were grown-ups. She can do anything she wants.’

‘Maybe it seems like that,’ Miranda said. I wish she’d always been like this, calm and wise to talk to. I wish we could start over again.

‘And why with him?’ I say. There were tears in my eyes, like there are now as I’m writing this. ‘I don’t understand why it has to be him.’

‘Because he’s young & gorgeous and he worships her, you can see it once you know,’ Miranda says. ‘I used to think he was handsome, now I hate him. I hate her.’

I sort of hate her too. ‘Archie says she’s done it before.’

‘No.’

‘Yes,’ Miranda says. ‘Sorry Cec.’ She leaned over and she patted my hand. ‘She’s –’

And we heard Mummy coming up the stairs. ‘It’s breakfast, girls,’ she says, opening the door. ‘What are you two doing?’

She looks at us, stiff & upright on the bed. We look at each other. ‘Nothing,’ Miranda says. She gets up. ‘We’re just coming.’

‘Miranda, I need you & Louisa to go to Lady Cecil’s this morning, with a cheque for the W.I.’

M: We don’t both need to go. ‘Yes, you do,’ Mummy says sharply. She looks in the mirror, stooping a little. ‘She wants to talk to you about a job in London & I don’t want you going on your own. You’ll forget something, like when Mrs Anstruther offered you the job at the kennels last year.’

Now I can see it, I wonder why I never noticed before.

M: What kind of job?

Mummy says: Secretary in a lawyer’s office. And don’t say you’re not interested. It’s not as if you have anything better to do, is it? Darling, I’m only trying to help. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

She goes out and we stare at each other again. ‘Miranda, what shall we do?’ I started crying.

‘You’ve got to keep calm,’ she says. ‘We can’t talk here. Let’s meet on the cliffs in a bit, I’ll get Archie too.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she says, and she kisses my head. ‘I’ll look after you. You’re my sister. I know we haven’t always been the best of friends, Cec.

But I’m your sister. I’ll make sure it’s all all right.’

She goes out, & I stare after her. I’ve got her all wrong as well as Mum. She may be annoying but she’s brave. She stood up to horrible Uncle John. She is willing to take the blame for her bad behaviour this summer, so that everyone thinks it’s her flirting with the Bowler Hat. I’m proud she’s my sister, I never thought I’d say that.

After breakfast when Mummy asked me about sitting, I just said not today, and I tried to wander off. My legs are all wobbly. She was ultra nice to me and then she gave me her ring. It is a lovely ring, she knows I’ve always coveted it. Why did she give it to me? I don’t want it any more, I felt that she was offering it because she knew, in some way? Or she could see I was sad and she was trying to make things better?

Perhaps I should tell her I know. But then Louisa will find out. Perhaps she should find out though? She can’t marry him. I don’t know. I must stay calm.

Miranda & I are going for our walk now. She’s right, we should just get away from here, as soon as we can. But I’m so tired. I feel old, all of a sudden. Old and tired of all this. I will report back, darling diary. I know I can trust you. You will be here in the dark in the bedside table, waiting for me. I’ll be back soon.

Love Always,

Cecily

PART FOUR

March 2009

Chapter Thirty-Eight

It is cold and dark in the room, and as I look up, my neck, shoulders and legs ache from the tense position I’ve been in over the last hour. The only point of light is the lamp next to me. It shines on the yel owing pages of the diary. Everything else around it is black. It is almost a surprise to me, when I put my hands up to my cheeks, to find that tears are running down them.

The shadow of my hands makes the light flicker on the brick wal s, and I jump. It is very quiet, but the room seems to be crowded, with voices, people . . . I shiver and stand up. I wish I wasn’t here. I wish I was somewhere with someone I know. Someone who loves me, someone who I could turn to and say, my God, this is horrible.

I can’t. I’m al alone, and her voice is echoing in my head. I want to see her. More than anything, suddenly. I didn’t know her before, so I couldn’t miss her, and this is what’s making me cry. I love this bold, intel igent, charming, eccentric, eager young girl, whose scrawling pages in front of me are so slapdash and immediate it’s as if she’s just run out of the room. I can see why Guy fel in love with her. I wish I had known her. I wish I could know what she might have done next, had she lived. There is something so hopeless about her last day alive; a girl worn out by the adults around her, by the life she had to live, and not even sixteen.

When she died, she left them al behind, and I realise, now, that they have been preserved like that, al of them – Mum, Archie, Louisa, Granny, Arvind – kept in a drawer along with the diary, not al owed to live the lives they wanted. Even Guy, who married someone else and got away from them, is a curiously reduced version today of the person he was in the diary. Poor, poor Guy. At the thought of him, my heart clenches and my eyes sting with fresh tears. Now I understand, now I know why he insisted I cal him after I’d finished it. How must it have been for him, reading that diary after al these years, having tried to forget her, never having known why she died? To find out about his brother like that, to . . . oh, it’s so sad. The whole thing is just so sad. I think of Mum. I wonder where she is. Oh, Mum. I’m sorry.

Memories start rushing back to me as I stand up slowly, my legs aching from sitting stil in the cold, dark room. Of me on Granny’s knee, teaching me to play the piano. Letting me sip her Campari and soda while she put on her earrings, dabbed scent onto her slender wrists. And her beautiful face viewed through the carriage window, waving enthusiastical y at me as each summer train pul ed into Penzance station and I thought – I thought

– I was home, with my real mother, not living this sham life with a mother who forgot where my school was and didn’t like birthday parties.

My granny, my favourite person in the world: was this real y her, this woman who tries on her daughter’s clothes, who sleeps with young men, who has to have attention and approval and glamour and beauty and simply takes it if she doesn’t have it?

I look down at the diary. Yes, yes, it was.

And that furious, awkward, eccentric and beautiful teenager, who has lived in the shadow of this ever since, suspected, mistrusted, abandoned by the people who should have most been looking out for her, was that real y my mother?

Yes, I guess it was.

The ring, Cecily’s ring, is stil around my neck. She put it on the day she died. Granny wore it every day since, and suddenly it feels as though it’s choking me, and my heart feels as though it’s being squeezed. I rip it off my neck, almost panting. I switch the kettle on and stare at nothing. My breathing gets more rapid as I think it al through, and there are so many things that make sense. Like why Mum hates going down to Summercove, why she and Granny didn’t get on, why Mum and Archie are so close, and why kind, caring Louisa is baffled by her cousins and their behaviour, always has been.

And then there are things I just don’t understand. Like how Granny could sit in a room with the Bowler Hat, knowing what they did. Like how Mum could stand it. And Arvind – does he know? Does Archie? Does Louisa real y not know what her husband has done?

I think about the Bowler Hat, the way he’s present and yet not real y present at everything, this cipher. This empty, attractive casing of a man.

Forty-six years ago, he was the same, just a younger, priapic version of that. I wonder if he connects the two, if he knows what he’s done?

The kettle sounds louder and louder, the whistling steam rising up and moistening my face. I stare into the white-grey plumes.

How could Granny live there year after year, knowing she was as good as responsible for her daughter’s death? Cecily herself said the steps were slippery, and they’d mentioned it a couple of times, so why didn’t she or Arvind get them fixed? How could she let people think her own daughter might have been responsible for her sister’s death? How could she . . .

And I can’t think about it any more.

I go into the bedroom. The camomile tea tastes like cardboard. The flat is silent. I climb into bed. I pick up Cecily’s diary again and flick through it – it seems the only real, concrete thing in my life. Words, phrases, jump out at me.

Mummy doesn’t like Miranda being beautiful.

Dad has lived most of his life in another country. It’s a part of me, and I don’t know it.

We’re not the family I thought we were.

I real y can’t write what I saw.

I think it’s too late, for him and for me.

I think it’s too late, for him and for me . . .

I can’t read the last couple of pages again. They’re too painful. I stare at the diary, and the words swim in front of my eyes, and soon I slide into sleep, propped up by pil ows.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

That is Friday. On Monday morning, I wake up and I know I can’t stay in the flat by myself any more. It’s not just the loneliness: I’ve been lonely for a while, I realise. It’s that every time I look around there’s something else to remind me of something I don’t want to be reminded of. It just holds bad memories for me, as if sitting there in the darkness as I read Cecily’s diary somehow released them al . I can’t do it any more. Perhaps I was holding on to some tiny hope that Oli and I might get back together again, but I know now that’s never going to happen; this has clarified everything.

We need to sort the flat out, and we need to crack on with the divorce. First things first, I need to get out of here. I ring up Jay, and ask to stay with him.

The great thing about Jay is he doesn’t ask questions, and he doesn’t fuss. He is waiting there when I turn up at his flat in Dalston an hour later, with a hastily packed suitcase. He gives me a cup of coffee and makes me some toast.

‘I just don’t want to be there any more,’ I say. I wipe a tear away from my cheek.

‘Why now?’ he says. ‘I mean, you’ve been on your own there for a while.’

I don’t want to tel him about the diary. If I tel him, he’l want to read it, and he’l find out about our grandmother. Now I can see what Mum has been doing al these years, in her own way: protecting Granny’s reputation, for the sake of others. We are sitting in his light, roomy, first-floor Georgian flat, just off De Beauvoir Square, and as I look out of the window I notice the trees have buds on them. There are no trees on my street.

‘It just – got a bit much,’ I tel him. ‘It’s pathetic, I know.’ Jay makes a little sound at the back of his throat, and he shakes his head. ‘Oh, Nat. You poor thing.’ He shakes his head. ‘Oli. Wow, that guy. What a tool.’ He sees my expression. ‘Sorry.’

‘He’s not a tool,’ I say. ‘It’s more than that, it took me a while to see he wasn’t coming back and it’s over, and yep – now I know it, I just can’t be there any more. I needed a bit of limbo there, I guess. But it’s over now. We need to rent it out and I’l move somewhere cheaper. I just needed to see it, that’s al .’

‘Stay here,’ Jay says. ‘As long as you want. I’ve got the study, but I’m working in the Soho office mostly these days.’ I hold up a hand to protest.

‘Nat,’ he says patiently. ‘I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.’

I know he wouldn’t, and I nod. ‘Thanks, Jay.’

‘I know it won’t be as nice as Princelet,’ he says. ‘The bathroom’s got damp and it’s wel shabby round here, not like you’re used to.’ He smiles, and I grin at him.

‘Believe me, it’s nicer,’ I say. I raise my coffee cup to him. ‘Thanks again. Seriously.’

‘No problem,’ he says. He pauses. ‘Dad rang me last night. You spoken to your mother yet?’

On Saturday and Sunday, I rang Mum. I rang Guy first, but then I rang Mum. No answer from either of them. I left tentative messages, but it’s hard to know what to say. ‘Hi . . . ! I’d love to speak to you . . . ! I . . . I read the diary . . . Give me a cal . . . !’

What do I do next? I don’t want to rock the boat. I can’t do anything for the moment, so I smile at him, and try not to look mad.

‘I left her a message again this morning,’ I say. ‘I’l cal her again, later on.’

‘That’s good,’ Jay says firmly. He is pleased. I am touched by his concern for her. It strikes me once again how craven I was, wil ing to believe what Octavia told me over what Jay believes. Al he knew from Archie is that Miranda is above reproach, and he listened to what his father said. He may not agree with him one hundred per cent, but he’s his father and Jay respects him.

He gets up. ‘Look, I’d better go to work,’ he says. ‘You know where everything is. Do you want me to help you get more stuff from the flat this evening?’

‘That’d be great,’ I say. I chew my lip. ‘I guess I’d better cal Oli, let him know too. We should start sorting it out . . .’

‘I bet he’l want to move back in,’ Jay says perceptively. ‘It’s much more him than you, that place.’

I think of the money Oli gave me as a loan. Because perhaps this would be the perfect way to pay him back, temporarily. Strange, strange, I think, that it was only Friday morning when I woke up and he was there with me, and we had sex, and then I knew, undoubtedly, that it was for the last time, and that it’s over. It’s over when you don’t feel anything. It’s over when you don’t want to live there any more. It’s over when you want the other person to be happy more than you want them in your life. Sitting in Jay’s living room, which is decorated – a loose term – with nothing more than slightly peeling oatmeal wal paper, a few photos, and many video games scattered across the floor, I feel more at home here, on the comfy, worn blue sofa, than I have in my own home for a long time.

‘You’re right. He’s welcome to,’ I say, and I mean it. ‘Thanks again, Jay.’ I lean forward and pat his arm.

‘’S’OK, like I say,’ he says simply, getting up. ‘We’re family.’

* * *

I smile as I watch him go into his room and grab his stuff. I pick up the phone again and cal my mother. The phone rings, and my heart starts thumping. But instantly, it’s diverted to the answerphone. I cal Guy again, too. Same thing. I sigh, and I go into Jay’s smal study and unpack my stuff. It’s a meagre col ection of things: my sketchbooks, a pair of jeans, a couple of tops and cardigans, pyjamas, a few knickers, a sponge bag with toothpaste and the like in it, and a little bag with Cecily’s necklace. Right at the bottom, her diary.

Jay is whistling in the other room as he gets ready for work. It’s just an ordinary day, I suppose. I feel as though everything has changed: more than that, that the world as I know it has fal en down around my ears. But you stil have to go on, you can’t just lie on the sofa staring at the wal -

paper, tempting as that might be. I’ve done that too, and I know it doesn’t accomplish anything. So I put Cecily’s diary, my sketchbooks and the necklace into my shoulder bag. Jay emerges with his backpack on.

‘I’m going to the studio,’ I say. ‘I’l walk with you.’

‘Great,’ Jay says. He jangles his keys. ‘Tel me, how’s my friend Ben? I was thinking, we should al go out one evening, don’t you think?’

‘Oh . . .’ I say. ‘Yeah. That’d be great.’

Jay looks suspiciously at me. ‘What’s up? You two had a row?’

‘God, no,’ I say, putting my coat on. I put my phone in my pocket, and that’s when I see the text message.

Had to dash to Morocco unexpectedly for work! Know we need to talk darling. Just explained it al to Guy. He is around while I’m away. Perhaps you cld talk to him? See you for foundation launch? Do love you darling – Mum x

‘It’s from Mum,’ I tel Jay. ‘How is she?’

‘She’s in Morocco. She’s gone to bloody Morocco.’ She’d rather cal Guy and tel him where she’s going, Guy who she supposedly hates, than me.

We go down the stairs and Jay opens the front door. ‘Oh yeah, Dad mentioned she was thinking of going there,’ he says.

‘She could have told me she was going,’ I mutter. I stare at the phone again, wanting to scream. Yes, I do want to talk to Guy, Mum. But I’d much rather talk to you. Stop running away from me.

Chapter Forty

When I reach the studio there is a new receptionist, a Breton-striped-top-wearing boy, very skinny, with a mop of curly hair on top of his head, shaved at the sides. He is wearing the obligatory thick black glasses that al boys and girls in East London must wear, from Tania to Arthur to Tom and Tom, the two gay guys who run Dead Dog Tom’s, the hottest new bar in Shoreditch just down the road from the studio. I sometimes wonder what would happen if someone wore frameless steel Euro-style glasses in Shoreditch / Spitalfields – would an invisible forcefield shatter them?

‘Hiyaa,’ he says, not looking up from his phone. ‘How’re you.’

This isn’t a question, more a rapped-out courtesy. ‘Hi. Where’s . . . Jocasta?’ I say. ‘Or Jamie?’

‘I’m Jamie’s like brother?’ the beautiful boy says. ‘Dawson? She’s not wel today, her skanky boyfriend gave her food poisoning? So I’m fil ing in for her?’

I can’t keep track of Jamie’s love life. I thought she was with the dodgy pockmarked Russian mil ionaire and surely mil ionaires don’t get food poisoning. ‘Oh, right,’ I say.

‘Lily’s having an open studio this afternoon, so she asked Jamie to get someone to cover for her.’ Dawson’s eyes shift away from me, and then his face lights up. ‘Hey, you!’

‘Hey,’ says a voice behind me. ‘Oh. Hi, Nat.’

I swing round, my heart thumping loudly. There, in the doorway, is Ben, and again I adjust to the new person he is, shorn of hair. The person I kissed three nights ago. I stare at him, drinking in the sight of him.

‘Hi, Ben,’ I say. ‘Hey,’ he says, taking his backpack off his shoulders. He barely glances in my direction. ‘Hi, Dawson,’ he says. ‘How’s it going?

What are you doing here?’

He high-fives Dawson, who smiles at him and stands up, excited. ‘Ben, my man. Good to see you! Hey, thanks for those links! I checked out that photographer dude, he was amazing? That shit of those dead trees, and the foil – it was so . . .’ He shakes his head. ‘So relevant, you know?’

‘Good, good.’ Ben is nodding. ‘How’s Jamie?’

‘Good, she’s good. Wel , she’s not, she’s being sick every five minutes, but she’s good otherwise.’

Ben grimaces. ‘Oh, dear. Tel her I said get wel soon, and she should definitely lose the boyfriend.’ He turns to me. ‘Hey.’

I lean forward. ‘Yeah. So—’

‘See you later,’ he says, and turns away, making for the stairs.

I fol ow him. ‘Ben,’ I say, as we curl up to the first floor, out of earshot. ‘How – how are you?’

He nods vigorously. ‘I’m good, good.’

‘Look—’ I take a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry about the other night.’

A smal muscle on his cheek twitches in Ben’s lean face. ‘Yeah, no problem.’

‘I meant to text you . . .’ I say lamely. ‘To apologise for running off like that. But I . . .’

I trail off. He is stil as granite, watching me. Was it real y Thursday that we kissed? It seems so long ago. He seems like a different person, tal and forbidding. He’s hugging his backpack to him. ‘I didn’t text you either,’ he says. ‘It’s fine. Look, I’d better get on . . .’

‘Fine, of course,’ I say. I feel almost winded in the face of his hostility, it’s like running into a brick wal . ‘See you – see you in a bit.’

I go into my studio and shut the door, trying to breathe normal y, but my chest is rising and fal ing alarmingly quickly. I lean against the door, listening to the silence, and then I shake myself down, go over to the counter, and get my stuff out. I write my list for the day, get out my sketchpad; sort out some more filing, turn on my laptop. I flick through the post. The details of my little stand at the trade fair in June have come through; I can see my position on the map, and it’s OK. There’s a sale on at the place I get my clasps, hooks, earring hoops. A letter from the bank, inviting me to a seminar on Smal Business Management. I smooth it out flat and put it in my in-tray, thinking I should go. The last letter is from Emilia’s Sister, the shop on smart Cheshire Street. They’ve sent through an order. An old-fashioned, paper order! It’s like a novelty item, beautiful y printed, and I stare at it in disbelief. They want twenty necklaces, thirty charm bracelets, some of the dangling rose earrings I’m having made . . .

There’s a knock on the door. ‘Come in!’ I shout happily, and then look up. It’s Ben.

‘Hey,’ I say, putting down the order and picking up the broom which I use to sweep the floor. I brush it nervously. I don’t know why I’m surprised it’s Ben knocking at the door: it’s always Ben. Always used to be. ‘What’s up?’

He shuts the door. ‘Hi, Cinders. I just wanted to say sorry for being a cock.’

I laugh nervously. ‘What are you talking about?’

Ben rubs one eye; he looks tired. ‘The last however many days, basical y. I have been a cock. Shouting at you . . . Kissing you . . . Not cal ing you . . . Just now . . . Real cock behaviour. I know you’re having a bad time at the moment. I shouldn’t have taken advantage.’

For a brief microsecond I let myself think of his lips on mine again, the feeling of his skin, his tongue in my mouth . . . I shake my head, smiling.

‘You’re many things, Ben Cohen, but you’re not a cock,’ I say. ‘I should have cal ed. Cleared the air.’

‘No,’ he says, smiling back at me. ‘I should have done.’

‘I behaved real y badly. I’m the one who . . . who ran off. And I was drunk and hysterical. I’m sorry.’

Ben laughs. ‘You weren’t drinking alone, you know.’

‘It makes me feel better if you were as drunk as me,’ I say. He pauses. ‘Let’s say I was, and cal it quits.’

‘Um – yes,’ I say. ‘Definitely.’

I stare at him, unsure of what to say next – so, is it normal between us now? Is that it?

‘So it’s . . . it’s OK?’ Ben says, watching me. ‘Yes of course,’ I say. I want to explain. ‘Look – me and Oli – when I ran off like that, ’cause he rang, it wasn’t what you think.’ And then I stop. Because it is what he thinks. ‘I mean, you know. We’re stil married, we have to talk to each other . . .’

There’s a silence. I look up at him. ‘I just want you to be happy, Nat,’ he says.

Suddenly, I desperately want . . . No, this is stupid. I’m leaning on the diary and the post, and I stand upright and brush myself off, as if I’m dusty.

Ben blinks, as though he can’t remember why he’s here, and I think to myself again how tired he looks.

‘Hey,’ I say, more than anything else to have some sound in the deathly quiet of the studio. ‘So, I found the diary.’

I don’t expect him to remember. ‘Cecily’s diary?’ he says immediately. ‘I’ve been wondering about that. Did your mum have it?’

‘Yes . . .’ I stare at him. ‘She did – how on earth did you know that?’

He shrugs. ‘I just guessed she probably would. Knowing your mum, even as little as I do. I thought it’d turn up sooner or later.’ His voice is kind of flat.

‘That’s amazing,’ I say. I smile, I can’t help it. He knows us al , knows me better than I know myself. And he makes it sound so simple. ‘Wel , yeah – she did have it.’

‘Have you read it?’

‘Yes. Last night, in fact.’

Ben gives me a sideways glance, as if he’s reluctant to ask, but can’t help himself. ‘So, what’s in it? Is Jesus buried in your garden?’

‘Um—‘ I take a deep breath, and it catches in my throat. I’m not sure how to explain it, and I can’t think about it without thinking of the last page, of my mother and Cecily on the morning she died, sitting on the bed together, promising each other that everything’s going to be OK. ‘It’s – it’s that thing of thinking you know someone and it turns out you don’t.’ I try to explain. ‘Like you saying “knowing your mum”. That’s what’s awful about it. I don’t think I know her at al . I think al these years, we’ve al looked at her in the wrong way. She went through some bad stuff, and it turns out the people who should have been looking after her – wel , they weren’t. At al .’

I am shaking slightly as I say this. ‘Have you talked to her?’ Ben asks, fiddling with a bit of paper, shooting glances at me out of the corner of his eye.

I shake my head. ‘She’s gone off for a few days.’

‘You need to talk to someone about it.’

Not me. I can feel him, ever so politely, pushing away from me. ‘It’s fine,’ I say, I can’t explain that I couldn’t wake him, it sounds so stupid. ‘I’m trying to get hold of Guy – old family friend, he – oh, it’l be fine. Just – stuff to think about.’

I want to talk to him about it so much, though. I want his advice, as though it’s back to normal in the studio and we’re chatting about al and sundry the way we used to, before Oli’s affair and Granny’s death and before he split from Tania and everything got weird. I want to say, Read this diary, I want to know what you think, what you think I should do, for God’s sake, because I have no idea myself and it’s freaking scary.

And I know I can’t, because everything’s changed, not least our relationship.

Most of al I want him to read the diary to get to know Cecily, to see what she was like, to hear her voice. I want more people to know her. Ben would get her. He’d like her.

‘Look,’ he says, cutting into my thoughts. ‘I can’t stay.’ He takes something out of his back pocket. ‘I just came to give you something.’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Right.’

‘I had these printed out for you,’ he says, handing me a manila envelope. ‘But I didn’t get round to giving them to you . . . They came out pretty wel considering how much we’d drunk.’

I tip the envelope open. ‘Oh . . . wow,’ I say, grinning. ‘I’d forgotten, thank you so much.’

They’re the photos of the necklace Claire, that girl in the Ten Bel s, was wearing on Thursday, the necklace I’ve been working on adapting, using Cecily’s ring and some of the duck-egg-blue laser-cut birds I’m waiting for today. I gaze at them with pleasure. He’s had them properly printed, with white edges, and each shows the necklace perfectly. I flick through them.

‘Thank you so much, Ben,’ I say, gathering them up. ‘They’re – wow, they’re just what I needed. You are great.’ I glance at the last one. ‘Oh.

That’s of me!’

I am raising my glass, my hair fal ing over my shoulders, and I am smiling, clearly one or two drinks up. He looks at it, and the muscle on his now-smooth cheek twitches again.

‘Oh. Yes, it is,’ he says. He pauses, just a second. ‘Yes – I thought you’d like one with Cecily’s ring on it, to see how it looks next to the others.’

‘That’s great, Ben, thanks so much.’ I come round to his side of the counter and squeeze his arm. ‘You’re a great man.’ I look at him again.

‘With short hair.’

He laughs, but there’s a terseness to his tone. ‘Right. Look—’

‘Thanks again,’ I say, as he turns to leave. Emboldened by this new, more friendly footing, I say, ‘Um – do you want to grab some lunch, or something? I’d love to tel you about the diary. Get your advice, and . . .’

I trail off. Ben looks down at the photos in my hand. ‘I don’t think so,’ he says gently. ‘Nat, I think you kind of need to talk to Oli, or Jay or someone, about that stuff first, not me.’

Taking a little step back, I nod. ‘F-fine,’ I say. ‘You’re right. But – honestly, Ben, it real y is over with me and Oli. I’ve moved in with Jay. It was –

he did come round that night, but he shouldn’t have. It’s over,’ I say, not real y knowing why I say it. ‘It real y is.’

The tension in the room is suddenly palpable. ‘I wasn’t asking if it was or it wasn’t,’ Ben says. He taps his forehead furiously with one finger, as if he’s trying to release something in his brain. ‘Nat – I’m not stupid. You don’t need any more complications in your life at the moment. Once again

– I’m sorry I was a cock. We were drunk, I shouldn’t have said that stuff to you, and everything else, that night. Let’s just forget about it.’

And everything else. I am blindsided. ‘Right, then.’

‘Glad you like the photos. See you soon.’

He closes the door gently behind him once again, raising his hand as a farewel . I watch the closed door. I want to run after him, put him right, but what would I say? Yes, I slept with Oli, yes, we were drunk, no, I’ve no idea what’s going on in my life, yes, I like you, I’ve always real y liked you.

But you shouldn’t trust my opinion about anything. I don’t.

I get my sketchpad out, tugging my hair and staring intently at the photos of the necklace. I cal Charlotte at Emilia’s Sister, to say how pleased I am about the order. I try Guy again: ‘Hi, Guy. Look, I read the diary – Mum’s gone away, she said she’d told you, just wondering if we could chat? Give me a cal .’

In the afternoon, guests start arriving for Lily’s open studio. I can hear sounds of chatter and laughter floating through the open window, down the corridor. I don’t hear Ben leave; perhaps he’s there too. When the charms arrive by messenger from Rolfie’s, I thread them onto what I’ve already assembled, making up two, three, different versions of the necklace, trying each out with Cecily’s ring. I make notes, I change bits around. I prop the photos up next to my stool and sketch on, waiting for someone to cal me back, but the phone is silent.

Chapter Forty-One

The days pass by easily at Jay’s. I fal into a rhythm there almost immediately. We know each other wel , we can happily watch TV together or separately. Cathy can come round and hang out with both of us, just like the old days. Jay is laid-back about everything, to the point of being comatose sometimes, and I feel like Louisa, picking up his cereal bowls and dirty socks after he’s left for work in the morning. I love it. I’m sleeping like a log. It isn’t so cold, it’s April now, and the days are warmer, the nights fresh and it’s quiet around our side of De Beauvoir Square, but a contented quiet, not the silence of an empty flat. We stay up late into the night watching films, taking it in turns to pick. Last night I chose Tootsie.

The night before Jay made me watch The Bourne Identity, which I’ve never seen. I could have done without him making exploding noises at the exact moment onscreen that someone gets shot or blown up, but otherwise it was great.

I used to wish I could live alone. Now, I am relishing living with my cousin. It’s great to know someone wil be there when you get back home.

And even if they’re not, that they’l be back eventual y. With Oli, it got to a stage where even though he was there, he wasn’t real y present. There were so many things we couldn’t discuss, didn’t discuss: Should we move to a bigger place? When should we have children? Why are you never around any more?

Anyway, it is with surprise one Saturday that I look round and realise it’s April, and I’m going back to Cornwal the fol owing week, for the launch of the foundation.

Yesterday, I had a cal from Emilia’s Sister. Charlotte, the owner, said she had to cal , because they’d sold eight necklaces that Friday alone –

that doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a classic Columbia Road shop, one that does most of its business on Saturday and Sunday, so that’s pretty good news, amazing in fact. Earlier in the week, I found out I had a place at that business seminar I signed up for. It’s in a couple of weeks. It’s free, and as far as I’m concerned, I need al the help that I can get.

It’s funny, but once you admit you’ve screwed up and don’t know what comes next, it’s easier to accept help. I have had my own business for a couple of years, and it’s only now I realise how much I have to learn, look it square in the face. It’s scary. But scary in a good way. I’ve been used, these past months, to scary in a bad way. A swirling mist of uncertainty, of misery and sadness that hung on my shoulders like a heavy cloak and which I could never seem to shake off. Every day it seems to get lighter.

Jay and I have lunch at a Vietnamese café round the corner from his flat. I’m meeting Cathy later, we’re going to see a film and then for a bite to eat afterwards so I can hear about Jonathan, who has suggested they go away on a Strictly Come Dancing weekend featuring the stars of the show in a country manor house. He says it’l be good networking for him. (Cathy is torn between being total y convinced he must be gay and secretly desperately wanting to go, as Strictly is her and her mum’s favourite TV programme.) I want an early night, it’s my first day back on the market stal tomorrow and I need to get there in good time, make sure I’ve got my act together.

After we’ve ordered, Jay says, ‘I spoke to Dad while you were getting the paper.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ I say. ‘He says Miranda went, like, last Monday. Ten, twelve days ago.’

‘I know, that was the day I moved in with you.’ I love how precise Archie is, he has al the information.

‘Wel , she’s not coming back til Tuesday.’ He puts his elbows on the table. ‘Did you know that?’

‘No,’ I say. I cross my arms. That’s two weeks she’s been away, why on earth? ‘Jay, I told you, I tried and tried to get hold of her before she went off to Fez, or wherever it is. I’ve cal ed her, OK? I’l see her next week, when we go back to Summercove.’ I bite my lip.

‘Al right!’ He holds up his hands. ‘Calm down. It’s going to be weird,’ he says.

‘I know. And kind of awful. Are you sure you won’t come?’ I ask, begging with my hands outstretched. He shakes his head.

‘Nah. Don’t mean to be funny, and I’l come if you real y want me to, but I’m not invited. We should go down in May, you know? Before it’s sold.

Have one more weekend there. I don’t want to be there with al those art people, al of that. Dad’s dreading it.’

He’s right. I’m not much looking forward to it. Since I moved to Jay’s, everything seems to be on a more even keel. Going to Cornwal is going to bring it al back again. I’m being a coward, I have to face up to it, real y, have to ask the questions I don’t have answers to. And it’l be good in many ways. I’l see Louisa. I’l see Arvind. I’l see the house, perhaps for the last time? Perhaps not. And I’l see my mum – although God knows if she’l turn up or not, even if she is supposed to be making a speech.

As for Guy, I haven’t heard back from him, so I’l see him there too. I don’t know what to say to him, either. I suppose I just have to wait til he wants to talk to me. I don’t understand why he’s gone silent.

‘Is your mum going?’ I ask hopeful y. ‘No, she’l be in Mumbai, won’t she?’ Sameena’s sister is not wel again, so she’s going over to look after her family. ‘Like I say, Nat,’ Jay says again. ‘If you need me to be there, I’l be there. It’s just hard with work and everything. I’d rather go when I can spend some proper time with Arvind, remember the house the way I want to, not with a load of posh people asking me stupid questions about Granny.’ The waitress puts two beers down on the table and Jay takes a big gulp. ‘I wouldn’t know what to say to them, anyway, would you?’ I shake my head. ‘It’s private. Her being our grandmother hasn’t got anything to do with whether she was a good painter or any of that.’

Perhaps I’l never be able to tel him what our grandmother was real y like. But as I watch him I think, what would be gained by tel ing him, anyway? How would it help him, to know the truth? It wouldn’t. His father hasn’t ever told him, and I’m not going to. He doesn’t need to know. Jay has a family of his own, parents who love him, his own secure set-up. And yet again, I wish Mum was here, so I could say to her, I know you shielded us from the truth because it would have hurt us, and how much it must have cost you, and I am grateful. We al should be.

After lunch, we walk to the Central line Tube together. Jay is going into Soho to pick something up from his office before meeting his friends, and I feel like a wander, so I say I’l come with him. The daffodils are out in the square and the sky is blue. Final y, it feels as if spring might be on the way.

The winter has been too long.

We walk to Liverpool Street. Jay is texting his buddies, arranging some complicated plan for this evening involving a club somewhere in Hackney, with drinks at some speakeasy beforehand. When we get to King’s Cross, Jay shakes his phone, waiting to get reception as we walk through the cavernous station to change lines. The big, echoing corridors are ful of people racing for trains, hurrying onwards, going back home.

The strip lighting is harsh; I blink to try and see straight, thoughts crowding my head.

‘Man, what’s up with Samir and Joey tonight?’ he says in exasperation, staring at his phone. ‘No one’s around, this is shit.’

‘Hey, Jay,’ I say suddenly. ‘I’m going to get off here, OK?’

‘What?’ he says. ‘I’m going to go and see Guy.’

‘Who? Oh, the Bowler Hat’s Guy. Why?’

‘Just – want to talk to him,’ I say. ‘I think he might help with some stuff.’

‘Like what?’

‘He – it’s just stuff about Granny’s foundation,’ I amend lamely. ‘We’re on the committee. Thought I’d do it while I’m in the area.’

‘He stil hasn’t cal ed you back? Haven’t you been trying him al week?’

I nod. ‘I won’t be long. See you laters.’

Jay already has his phone out, texting. ‘Sure. Laters, yeah?’ I love Jay when he’s gearing up to be an East London wide boy with his brothers out on a night on the town. I keep expecting him to click his fingers together and shout, ‘Wicked, innit!’ It’s funny how he’s so organised, sorted even, but stil such a little boy in so many ways, and I find it endearing, whereas with Oli I came to find it disturbing. Perhaps it’s because he real y doesn’t know he’s doing it. Whereas I felt Oli had read too many lads’ mags articles about how to behave like a child and get away with it.

I feel a curious lightening of my mood as I get off the bus on Upper Street a few minutes later. It’s a nice late afternoon, the clocks have gone back and people are stil out shopping. I head down Cross Street, walking with purpose.

When I get to Guy Leighton Antiques I stop. The blinds are down and there’s a ‘CLOSED’ sign hanging on the door. I peer through the glass; the shop is in darkness, but there’s a light shining in the back room. I rap firmly on the door, rattling it slightly so the old bel jangles faintly.

After a few seconds, Guy appears, blinking. I watch him as he shuffles casual y towards the door, trying to picture the young, charming, kind man Cecily fel in love with, the one so vividly alive in the diary. He’s fiddling with his glasses, on the chain round his neck. He doesn’t look up as he unbolts the door, and then he opens it.

‘I’m afraid we’re closed today –’ he begins. ‘Oh.’

He stares at me. His face is paler than ever. ‘Sorry to drop by unannounced,’ I begin. ‘It’s just I’ve been trying to get hold of you—’

His hands are stil on the half-shut door. He opens it a little wider. ‘Natasha,’ he says. His eyes do not leave my face and I remember him saying I looked like Cecily. I feel uncomfortable.

‘I wondered if we could talk,’ I say.

Guy is clenching the door and his knuckles are white. ‘Yes – yes . . .’ He looks flustered. Um – so what do you want?’

The Guy I know (admittedly, not wel ) is normal y calm, wryly amused, in control. This man is like a stranger to me.

‘I don’t want to disturb you,’ I say, thinking perhaps he was in the middle of something, or he’s just woken up and is confused after a nap. ‘It’s just – I read Cecily’s diary, you said to cal you when I had.’ I try to keep the desperation out of my voice. How could he have forgotten? ‘I’ve been trying to cal you – and Mum – she’s gone away.’

‘I know. She came to see me before she went.’

‘She came to see you?’ I try to ignore the fact that my mother seems to be quite happy to contact Guy al the time over me. Here, take the diary.

Here, I’m going away. I shift on my feet. ‘I didn’t know what was in it—’

‘I know,’ Guy says. ‘I know. It’s terrible.’ But he doesn’t move. His jaw is tight; his eyes are cold.

I swal ow, because I think I am about to cry again, and I don’t know why. Why’s he being so . . . strange? ‘Can – can I come in? The thing is . . . I can’t real y talk to anyone else about it, you see—’

Then Guy holds up his hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘No, I can’t. I can’t do this.’

‘Do what?’

‘This.’ He points at me. ‘It’s – I’m so sorry. It’s just too much. I should have realised. This family . . . It’s – I’m not ready. I’m sorry. Go away, Natasha. I’m sorry.’

And as I am standing in the doorway staring at him in astonishment, he gently closes the door in my face.

Chapter Forty-Two

On this occasion, I leave time for the train. I am there so early, in fact, that I can walk the length of the magnificent interior of Paddington station, admiring the soaring Victorian poles of steel, the war memorial, the endless hustle and bustle on this beautiful spring morning. A brisk April shower has cleared and it is warm, sunshine flooding the station with yel ow morning light. I even have time to get a bacon rol from the Cornish Pasty Company, which I used to go to religiously when I was younger, convinced that a pasty from there would bring me closer to Summercove. I eat it, hovering nervously in front of the ticket barrier, not wanting to spoil my smart new dress, and too scared to get on the train. Carriage G, seat 18.

Louisa sent the tickets to me last Friday with a note.

Have taken the liberty of booking our tickets there and back; no payment is necessary as this comes out of the foundation’s budget. Please find yours enclosed. Look forward to what I am sure will be a memorable and moving day.

Love from Louisa x

She sent it to Jay’s address too, she knew somehow, with her organised ways, that I’d moved there. That’s Louisa al over: always serving others, efficient, brisk, but stil affectionate. I think back to the Louisa in the diary, the leggy blonde knockout stil in thral to her good-looking boyfriend. I sigh and bal my paper bag into my fist. Ten minutes til the train goes, and no sign of anyone. Perhaps they’re al already there, waiting for me. I square my shoulders and open the carriage door.

I’m the first. The carriage is warm like the station and I’m hot in my coat, I can feel myself perspiring. I’m tired stil from the previous night, and I just want to close my eyes and sleep. I put my overnight bag on the rack above and sit down in my seat at the table, looking around me. Both tables are al booked, the little tickets sticking out of the seats proclaiming the legend ‘London Paddington to Penzance’.

It is coming up for two months since I was last on this train, going down to Granny’s funeral. So much has changed since then that it feels like a lifetime ago, someone else’s life, even. I take a sip of my weak, grey-coloured coffee.

The automatic doors open with a whoosh and my head snaps up, almost of its own accord. The fact that I don’t know who to expect gives the proceedings an unreal, almost filmic air of excitement. And there, bustling down the corridor, is Louisa. I stand up, squint at her, the way I did when I first saw Guy again, trying to imagine her that summer.

‘Hel o, Natasha dear,’ she says. She pats my cheek and then kisses it. I had forgotten how nice she smel s. ‘Lovely to see you.’ She turns.

‘Frank, darling? Oh, where’s he gone? Frank? I wanted him to – there he is!’ she finishes, with relief.

And the doors open again to reveal the Bowler Hat, smart in a dark grey suit. He picks his way towards the table cautiously, as if afraid his height wil cause him to knock out a light fitting. ‘Hel o, Natasha,’ he says warmly. He puts his hand on my shoulder. ‘Good to see you.’ He kisses me too.

My blood turns cold at his touch. It’s over two weeks since I first read the rest of Cecily’s diary, and I haven’t been able to face rereading it. I just can’t. But words and phrases are burnt into in my mind. Rather pleased with himself, like a polit ician. I look down to see its dul red colour in my bag, bound loosely with an elastic band, bulging from the extra pages folded up inside. I want to take it out and show it to him, shatter his smug, self-satisfied veneer, make him crawl on his knees to my mother, to Arvind, to his brother, to me and al my family, for forgiveness. Especial y to his wife.

But of course she doesn’t know, he has never told her the truth, no one has. It’s so strange, looking at him, noticing for the first time the liver spots freckling his pale, smooth cheekbones, the papery thin skin puckering around his eyes. I wonder what Cecily would say, if she could see him now. I stare at him.

Louisa sits down at the other table. ‘Frank, we’re here,’ she says, patting his seat.

‘Oh, right,’ he says dul y. I notice it now, it’s as if she’s his mother and he’s a child. I don’t think they realise they’re like this.

‘I got some croissants in Marks yesterday in case we’re hungry, Natasha, do you want one?’

‘No, thanks,’ I say. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Are you sure?’ She stares at me. ‘It’s a long journey. You look rather tired.’

‘I am tired,’ I say. ‘I had a long night yesterday.’

‘Single girl, out on the tiles!’ she says, with an attempt at jol ity, but she’s trying too hard and her voice sounds a bit hysterical, as though she’s sorry for me. ‘Good for you! Was it that?’

‘Something like that,’ I say. I can’t bear to go into it with Louisa. The truth is I just want to be off, for this day to be under way, so that last night can begin to be a dim and distant memory. Last night, and today. Once today’s over, then the future can begin.

‘Oh, Natasha. You’re wearing that lovely ring.’ Louisa smiles, her eyes glistening. ‘It was Franty’s, you know. She gave it to Cecily, the day she .

. . the very day she died. Poor Aunt Frances.’

I glance at the Bowler Hat but he doesn’t betray any flicker of emotion. Does he feel guilt at al ? Or is he just used to this, every day? It occurs to me that perhaps he must be.

Louisa says, ‘It is lovely. How sweet of you to wear it. Where did you get it from?’ She asks this without rancour.

‘Arvind gave it to me,’ I say. ‘So I felt I ought to wear it today.’

‘Wel ,’ she says, looking at the Bowler Hat and then at the croissants. ‘It’s lovely that you are.’

I want to agree.

I went back to the studio last night, to get it. I wish I hadn’t, in a way. I wouldn’t be feeling like this today if I had.

I’d left, about six-thirty, to go and meet Cathy and Jay for a drink, and halfway down towards the Whitechapel Road I’d remembered and turned back, with an oath. Work is real y busy this week which is great, but I wasn’t anxious to spend any more time in the studio where I’d been since eight that morning.

I’ve been working that out, these last few weeks. And ‘Cecily’s Necklace’, as I’ve cal ed it, the charm necklace model ed on the ring and those charms I designed, has been reordered twice now, by Emilia’s Sister and by PipnReb, and another shop, this time on Cheshire Street, has asked if they can stock me – they cal ed me, not the other way round, which is amazing. Most amazing of al , someone claiming to be from Liberty came to the stal and bought a whole load of stuff on Sunday. It was only my first week there – I’m stil in shock. It’s the necklace with Cecily’s ring, they al want it. It’s like a sort of good-luck talisman.

So I was a little reluctant, therefore, to revisit the studio where I and Maya, the scary design intern I’ve hired, had been slaving away al day putting the necklaces together, but I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t. Today is important, and I wanted to wear Cecily’s ring for it.

Back at the studio, the writers’ col ective was having one of their readings in the basement, which normal y meant a piss-up starting at about five; I’d managed to avoid it, but it was clearly stil going on, and I could hear people chatting, laughing raucously, as I walked past. I didn’t turn the light on when I got to my studio; it was stil just light outside, and I dashed in to pluck the ring off the counter where I’d left it. As I was locking up again, I heard a noise down the corridor and looked down to see Ben coming out of his studio with Jamie, the Sophie-Dahl-alike receptionist. They can’t have realised I was there.

She leaned against the railing and he came forward and kissed her, his hands on her face, her long, beautiful corn-coloured hair glimmering slightly in the evening light. Two plastic cups, their clear sides stained with cheap red wine, were stacked at their feet.

I always knew Ben had a crush on her, even though he denied it. He was fascinated by Jamie’s love life, we were always discussing it – even that night in the pub right before we kissed. Now I know why, I said to myself.

Luckily I didn’t have to pass them to get down the stairs, they’re at my end of the corridor. I just pretended not to have seen them and walked off. I didn’t want to embarrass Ben. I didn’t want to be embarrassed, is more likely the truth. But I was embarrassed. I burnt hot at the thought of it, as I scurried away; why?

The last time Oli and I had sex, that awful, deadening Friday morning, we didn’t kiss. I let him fuck me, and we didn’t kiss once. So Ben is the last person I kissed, I guess, and that thought makes me sad for al sorts of reasons, most of al shame that I wanted him to mix himself up with me and my messy life. I think about him and Jamie together, and I nod. Yes, it makes sense. Of course it does. And I feel glad that, every time I’ve thought about him since, about how good that kiss was, about his face, his eyes, his friendship towards me, how great it felt to be in his arms . . . I feel glad that I pushed it away, never let myself give in to it. It just means it’s easier now.

So as I hurried back down Brick Lane towards the pub, I tried not to feel sad, even though I couldn’t help it. But, as I reasoned to myself, one hand on Cecily’s necklace, it’s only natural. I think I persuaded myself into love with Oli. We both did. I should be careful about doing the same again. Next time, it’l be for ever. I’ve got to get next time right. Cecily didn’t have a next time. I do.

My mind is drifting towards the latter stage of the evening, when I am recal ed to the present, to the railway carriage, to the Bowler Hat, picking daintily over the croissant his wife has given him, long fingers taking up pastry flakes and careful y eating them. I look away, suddenly nauseated.

‘The train leaves in five minutes,’ Louisa says, looking out of the window anxiously. ‘Where is your mother, Natasha? She can’t miss this train, it’l be a disaster. She’s making the speech!’

She looks at me slightly accusingly, but I remain calm. Before al this, I would have felt guilt on Mum’s behalf. Now I don’t. If I was her I wouldn’t want to turn up at al , frankly. I don’t even know if she’s back – if she’s ever coming back. I can see why she likes being away, now.

Once again, my head shoots up as the doors open again. But it’s no one I know, a vast mum dragging two smal children with her. She plonks them into the seat behind us, puffing at the exertion, her face stained red. I look at the clock. 7:26. My mind drifts again.

* * *

‘What time is it?’

Cathy had asked me this question yesterday evening. ‘Nearly eight,’ I’d replied.

‘Exactly. So you can’t just run off. It’s been an hour! I thought we’d meet Jay and check out Needoo. You know, the new Tayyabs. I’ve not been before.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I’d said, swinging my bag over my shoulder and standing up. ‘I’ve got to get out of here . . . Sorry, Cathy.’

Dead Dog Tom’s was loud, crowded, hot, ful of girls much younger than me. It’s new and I’d been meaning to go for a while. But the moment I arrived, I knew it was a mistake. Not my kind of place at al . Asymmetric haircuts and big black glasses are one thing, but this was like an episode of The Hills, everyone tanned with perfect teeth, endless legs and beautiful hair – and that was just the guys. Cathy had just battled back from the bar with our second drink when I’d looked up and seen it.

‘Why?’ Cathy’s face was a picture of childish annoyance, like a little girl who’s been told she can’t go to the zoo. She pouted. ‘I want to tel you about our weekend away! I think he’s taking me to Southwold, we’re staying next to Benjamin Britten’s house, can you believe it?’

I touched her shoulder. ‘Cathy – it’s Oli,’ I said. ‘Look – over there. He’s – I’m sorry. I just, I just want to get out of here.’

Open-mouthed, Cathy turned. She looked over to where I was staring.

There, his elbows on the bar, hands waggling intently as he talked fast and low, was Oli. He was saying something to a girl with her back to us.

She had blonde hair, and was wearing a high-waisted tulip skirt, a puff-sleeved little shirt and tights with a black seam, and she was nodding at him.

‘Oh, my God,’ Cathy said. ‘It’s Oli! Bastard.’

As if by some kind of magic alchemy the music stopped and the thunderous chatter abated for a few seconds, the way there is suddenly a strange lul in a noisy bar. Cathy’s voice echoed around our corner, so loudly that Oli looked up and saw us.

Pushing himself off the bar, Oli stood up straight. He raised his hand as if in greeting and then, obviously thinking better of it, walked towards us, turning the handwave into a ruffle through his thick dark hair, which stuck up on end even more as a result.

‘Cathy,’ he said, kissing her cheek. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ Cathy replied, leaning up on tiptoe to kiss him. ‘Look, I’l —’

‘I was just going,’ I said to him. ‘Honestly.’

‘I’l see you outside,’ said Cathy, vanishing discreetly towards the Ladies.

We stood on the pavement on Whitechapel Road. It was stil light.

‘Look, I’m sorry I haven’t cal ed,’ Oli said. He looked much younger. Dressed much younger, in a cardigan, jeans, plimsol s. I held up my hand.

‘No, it’s fine. I haven’t either. You got my email, about you maybe moving back into the flat, though?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah. It’s a good idea. If you’re sure?’

‘Definitely,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to go back there, honestly. How – how’re Jason and Lucy? You stil staying with them?’

A tiny hesitation. ‘Yep. They’re wel . You stil liking Jay’s?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder. ‘Went back to the flat the other day to get some stuff, saw you’d been back too.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ Oli said. ‘Needed a few more things. I guess we should . . .’

‘Yes, I guess we should,’ I said, not knowing quite what the next stage is with this. Instruct the divorce lawyer, say I’m going through with it?

Proof of adultery, like in a creaky old thirties farce?

‘Anyway,’ Oli said. ‘How’ve you been?’

‘I’m OK,’ I said. ‘How about you?’

It was as if we final y had something in common we could talk about. The breakdown of our marriage and how we’re both dealing with it.

‘OK too,’ Oli said. ‘Up and down, you know. I miss . . .’ He trailed off. ‘I don’t know what I miss. I miss you, Natasha. I do miss us, being at our flat. I miss . . .’ He scratched his head. ‘Ugh. It’s – yeah, it’s weird. Weird to think I failed. We failed.’

I loved this Oli, the eager, kind person I fel in love with. I smiled at him. ‘I know. I think that’s what I miss. What I wanted it to be.’

He nodded, and our eyes met, as though we understood each other. He took my hand.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose there’s no point in bul shitting any more, you guessed it. That’s Chloe in there. It’s her friend’s birthday drinks.’

He was looking into my eyes, with such sincerity that it took me a moment to reconcile what he was saying with how he was saying it. And when I did I stepped back, gave a short laugh.

‘Oh, wow,’ I said. ‘Right then.’

‘It’s going real y wel again,’ Oli said. ‘That’s why – hey, that’s why I feel I have to be straight with you.’

There was a roar of noise as the door opened and Cathy appeared next to us on the pavement. ‘So . . . ?’ she said, looking from one to the other. ‘We off then?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I turned to Oli. ‘I’l be in touch about the loan. I owe you—’

‘Hey, Natasha, I mean it. Don’t worry about that for the moment,’ he said, nodding. ‘After everything, it’s fine, it real y is. I owe you, not the other way round. Plus, I know you need some time to get on your feet again.’

I thought of the new orders I’ve had lately, of me skipping up Brick Lane to drop the latest consignments off at various shops, of the meeting with the woman from Liberty . . . I smiled at him.

‘Not any more. Honestly.’ I held out my hand. ‘Thanks,’ I said, looking into his deep blue eyes one more time. ‘Thanks, Oli. Have a—’

I wanted to say have a nice life. But it sounds bitchy, sarcastic, and in that moment, I real y meant it. I did want him to have a nice life.

‘Have a great evening,’ I said instead, and Cathy and I went off down the street together, and the rest of the night was thankful y without incident. But I didn’t sleep when I got back, not a wink. I wouldn’t have asked for either of those encounters, you know. But that’s life.

7:29, and there’s a sudden commotion, as the last people are flooding onto the train. I rub my eyes, trying to put last night out of my mind, and what happens next. This is what happens next, I tel myself, as the doors open again, one last time, and there’s Guy. He doesn’t look ruffled, like someone who’s run to catch the train. He looks as if he’s been casual y waiting til the last minute, to avoid having to spend any extra time with us, I think to myself.

‘Guy!’ Louisa squeaks. ‘Thank God! We’d nearly given up on you! Miranda’s going to miss it, I’m afraid!’

‘I’m sure she won’t,’ he says, putting his battered leather holdal next to my overnight bag. ‘Hel o, Natasha.’

‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Hel o – hi, Frank,’ he says. ‘Good to see you, Guy,’ Frank says, not real y looking up from the Telegraph.

Guy kisses Louisa. ‘Hel o, old girl,’ he says. ‘You look wonderful. Thanks for booking these. Sorry I’m late. I was being rather stupid.’

‘You’re here now,’ says Louisa, practical y weeping with relief. The train moves off, so slowly at first that I’m not sure whether it’s moving or the platform is. ‘Oh, dear,’ she exclaims. ‘Miranda – she is awful—’

The doors burst open, and Mum rushes through. ‘My God!’ she cries. ‘My God. These damned – this stupid Tube! I left Hammersmith over an hour ago! Would you believe it!’

She pul s strands of hair, which have glued themselves to her lip gloss, away from her face. She smiles brightly at al of us. Her pupils are dilated, her skin lightly tanned and perfectly clear. She could be my sister, not Cecily’s. I stare at her, transfixed al over again by her. ‘Hel o! Wel , here we are. Off for a lovely day back at the old homestead,’ she says, sliding into the seat next to Guy, so she and I are sitting beside each other, only the passageway in between us.

‘Hi, Guy,’ she says brightly.

He doesn’t even look at her. Even in the midst of al this, alarm bel s ring yet again; there’s something there. Something else she’s not tel ing us. What did she do to him to make him like this? ‘Yes,’ he says.

The train draws out of the station, and the early-morning sun hits my eyes. I squint. ‘Hi, Mum,’ I say, and I’m annoyed to hear my voice shaking.

She turns away from Guy and puts her hand on my leg, across the divide. ‘It’s going to be OK,’ my mother says. ‘Promise.’

Chapter Forty-Three

Last time I was going to Cornwal , it seemed as if winter would never end. This time, it is glorious. We speed out of London and the trees are thick with new buds, sprouting like green fingers. There are even a few lambs in the fields, and white blossom smothering the black hawthorn branches.

The countryside through the southernmost Somerset Levels is bright green, with a kind of alertness to it, as if everything is quivering with new life.

I stare out of the window watching the countryside unfold, coming awake again. I am the sole occupant of my table, as it turns out, but at the next table an uneasy silence reigns. The Bowler Hat reads the paper, Guy hunches over, writing notes on an auction catalogue, and Louisa puts her reading glasses on and shuffles through a file of papers on the launch of the foundation. My mother is sitting upright, her eyes closed, but I know she’s not asleep.

Somewhere around Glastonbury, Louisa puts her pen down. ‘Should we talk about what’s going to happen?’ she says. ‘I mean, I’ve deliberately kept this easy to manage, and of course Didier is real y responsible for it al —’

‘Didier?’ I ask.

‘Didier du Val on,’ Louisa says. ‘He was Franty’s – he was your grandmother’s dealer.’

‘Darling Didier,’ Mum murmurs, her eyes stil closed. Louisa ignores this, and shuffles the papers again. I can see she is flustered. ‘Of course, it’s primarily the launch of the foundation at the house today, of course.’ She blushes at her repetition and it is strange to see her so unsure of herself. Normal y she’s good at being in charge: organising trips to the beach, scooting people into cars, sorting out the house, the funeral. ‘There wil be a few art critics there, a few local papers, some local friends, you know.’

‘No national papers?’ Mum opens her eyes. ‘I would have thought—’

‘It’s a six-hour journey to Summercove from London,’ Louisa says firmly. ‘And this isn’t the retrospective we’re announcing, anyway. You know that. It’s too soon after Frances’s death to have organised a proper exhibition: this is just a taster, the paintings Didier and the family had, and so forth . . . That’l be in London, in 2011. Won’t it?’

She looks at Mum for confirmation of this. Mum shrugs. ‘I suppose so,’ she says grandly. ‘Archie and I need to discuss it.’

‘Wonderful,’ Louisa says, slightly thin-lipped. ‘So, the schedule is as fol ows: One p.m., arrive at Penzance, where Frank and I wil pick up our hire car and go to Summer-cove—’ She turns to Mum. ‘Miranda, Archie is picking you up, and you’l both go and col ect Arvind from Lamorna House. OK?’

‘Mm,’ says my mother. I real y can’t see how she can find fault with this. She’s being incredibly childish. Guy is stil pretending to make the odd note here and there but I know he’s taking it al in.

‘Great,’ I interject, smiling at Louisa with my usual ‘She’s not normal y like this!’ smile, which won’t work with my mother’s own cousin of course, but sometimes helps. ‘Then kick-off is at—?’

‘There are drinks, and then your mother makes her speech at three-thirty,’ says Louisa. ‘Just welcoming everyone, explaining the aims of the foundation as set out by her parents, and talking a bit about Aunt Frances.’

Mum points to her bag. ‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘My moment in the spotlight.’

Guy does look up then. He stares thoughtful y at her, then flicks a glance at me. I suddenly feel rather sick, as if the three of us are bound into this thing together.

When we pul in to Penzance a few hours later, my stomach is grumbling, so close to lunchtime. It is a long journey. There are fresh, frothing waves bouncing on the blue sea, St Michael’s Mount is glowing in a windy sunlit bay, and when we step off the train a warm wind – not tropical, but not icy

– nearly knocks me sideways. I forget how windy it can be down here. When I was little, a gust of wind whipped my ice-cream out of my hand and into the sea at Sennen Cove, and I was so shocked I nearly fel in after it.

We make a strange band, the five of us, emerging out of the station. We are polite to each other but the oddness of the situation increases, as though we are inexorably tumbling towards the heart of something, the nearer we get to Summercove. The closest way I can think of to describe it is on Christmas Day, when you’re al standing around in your best clothes, rather awkwardly waiting for something else to happen and it’s a Thursday, and you suddenly remember that and think how odd it is. The Bowler Hat strides off to the car-hire place, and Guy goes with him. He has barely spoken a word the whole trip. I glance at my mother.

‘When did you get back then, Mum?’

‘Oh, late last night,’ she says. ‘We got delayed, a problem with some of the stuff we’d bought in a market in Fez. Fez is wonderful, darling, you must go there.’ Suddenly her face lights up. ‘There’s Archie!’

I want to say, I don’t bloody care about bloody Fez! What the hel are you talking about! I want to know about the diary, about you, about what you think of al of this! Jesus! H! Christ!

But Louisa is with us and Archie is approaching, so I just say, ‘Hm, how interesting. Mum, can we talk later, please?’

She pretends not to hear. ‘Archie, darling!’ She hugs him. ‘Mum –’ I say loudly. ‘You’ve been away for two weeks and there’s a lot we need to discuss. You know there is. I said, can we talk, please.’

Louisa looks over at this, and even I am surprised at the tone in my voice.

‘Yes, yes,’ Mum says, over Archie’s shoulder, and she steps back. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’

She smiles and Archie looks at me, instantly defensive of anyone chal enging his sister. They are side by side, the grey sea turning behind them, and for a second they are the people in Cecily’s diary, and I can’t help staring at them. They are so eerily similar, their green eyes flashing, their dark hair shining, the same height, the same expression. I can see now, what has kept them so close al these years, closer than any romantic relationship. It’s Mum’s face as she sees him approach. How good it is, I think guiltily, that she has had one person in her life with whom she can completely be herself, Archie too: he’s never as stiff and awkward around her.

‘Hel o, Natasha. We’l see you at Summercove,’ Archie says loudly to the others – the Bowler Hat and Guy are walking back towards us, the former clutching a set of car keys in his hand. ‘We’re off to pick up Dad.’

‘Byee!’ Louisa says. ‘Don’t be –’ she begins, and then stops herself. ‘See you soon!’ The Bowler Hat raises a hand in farewel . Guy gets in after him.

Just like February, I climb into Archie’s car.

‘Where is this place?’ Mum says in her normal voice, the one she uses when she’s with Archie and with me.

‘Lamorna House? Just along the Western Promenade, before you turn off for Newlyn,’ Archie says. ‘He’s doing wel . I saw him yesterday. I brought him some food Sameena made. Lamb chops and butter chicken. He says it reminded him of home.’

He stops outside a palm-tree-fronted esplanade, very English Riviera. He turns off the ignition and fiddles with his cufflinks.

‘Listen,’ he says, turning to his sister and then to me. ‘He’s fine, but I think he’s a bit confused about things. Perfectly natural, and al that.’

‘About what kind of things?’ Mum asks. ‘He never makes any sense anyway.’ She’s not a great sentimentalist, my mother.

‘You’l see.’ Archie gets out of the car and we fol ow suit. ‘We’re not staying, someone should have got him ready, I told them when I came yesterday.’

It’s so strange, walking up the neat path and into the overheated home. There are large safety notices everywhere, bright signs about breakfast and afternoon activities, and paintings of vases of flowers. There are a couple of residents in the hal , two extremely frail old ladies pushing walkers, both clad in baby-pink knitted bed jackets, and one of them looks up and stares at my mother and Archie as we walk in.

‘More foreigners,’ she says, with a baleful stare. ‘Why don’t you go back to where you came from?’

Mum puts a hand on Archie’s arm. ‘We’re just looking for our dad,’ she says sweetly. ‘What a lovely jacket that is that you have on.’

‘I bet I know which one he is,’ says the old lady. ‘Through there.’

‘Charming,’ Mum mutters under her breath, looking down at the old woman. ‘Have a lovely day, won’t you?’

‘Stupid bi—’ Archie starts shaking his head. He’s flustered. ‘She can’t talk to us like that. To Dad like that. I’m going to make sure she’s not talking to Dad like that. Where is the bloody nurse, anyway?’

‘I’m sure Dad wouldn’t notice if she came back with a huge sign saying “GO HOME” on it,’ Mum says. ‘Archie, she’s old and mad.’ She turns back to the old lady. ‘We’re from here like you are, by the way, madam,’ she says. ‘Not that it matters, but it’s not very nice of you, to greet people like that. Bye.’

The old lady, who is not as confused as one might think, purses her lips at this. I smile at my mother, impressed, as Archie pushes open a swing door into the conservatory, and we troop in. A group of men and women is grouped around the TV, the sun streaming in through the glass roof. There is a glare on the TV which means you can’t see the screen. It is very hot. There is absolutely nothing here that makes me think of Arvind.

It’s the diametric opposite of him, in every way.

‘There he is,’ Mum says, and her voice drops several octaves. ‘Dad, hel o, darling Dad.’ She swoops down on Arvind, who is sitting motionless in a wheelchair, a blanket over his legs. There is a photo album on his lap.

‘Hel o, Father,’ says Archie loudly. ‘It’s Miranda and Archie, come to pick you up for the ceremony at Summercove.’

Arvind doesn’t move. Fear squeezes at my heart. ‘And me,’ I add. I step forward and kiss him. ‘Hi, Arvind.’ In a clear voice, but stil not moving, he says, ‘Cecily.’

‘Father, no,’ Archie says, as if Arvind is five years old and has just tried to steal some sweets. ‘It’s Natasha.’ He says this very loudly. I can feel perspiration breaking out over my body. ‘Look,’ he says to Mum. ‘They should have got him ready. I’l go and find someone, tel them we’re taking him. Stay with him.’ He is shaking his head, and not even looking at Arvind.

‘Ah yes, Cecily,’ Arvind says.

The sun is shining right onto us. I stare at him. I look down at the photo album. ‘Is that her?’ I say.

It’s a black-and-white photo of a girl leaning against a woman who has her arm around her. The girl is a teenager, long gangly legs, shorts, a shirt and a big smile. She has a longish fringe, which fal s into her eyes. Her face is heart-shaped. The woman hugging her is Granny.

‘It’s her,’ says Arvind. Mum is standing stock-stil , staring at the photo.

‘Yes, it is,’ she says. ‘I’d forgotten that. That’s the day we got home from school.’

It’s deathly quiet in the hot room and we are the only ones speaking.

‘I’m going to go and find Archie,’ Mum says. She leaves before I can look at her, tossing her hair out of her face, and she is gone, in an instant.

I turn back to Arvind.

‘How are you?’ I say. ‘How are you settling in?’

‘Hm.’

‘It seems nice here,’ I say, lying. There is a slight stirring in the background, as one of the TV watchers shifts slowly in her chair.

‘Do you like cold porridge in the mornings?’ Arvind asks. ‘No.’

‘Neither do I. That is how I am settling in.’

I don’t know if this is an actual issue or not, as so often with Arvind. ‘Can’t you have cereal?’ I suggest, thinking what an Arvind-style conversation this is. I stare down at the photo again, greedily. I saw the sketch in Arvind’s room, but I’ve never real y seen her before. There were never any photos out at Summercove, apart from the one I saw Granny with, al those years ago. Paintings and sketches, yes. Family photos, no.

‘Cereal does not agree with my digestion. But when you get to ninety, not much does,’ Arvind says, interrupting my train of thought. ‘To be fair to cereal.’

‘But you don’t miss Summercove?’ I instantly berate myself. What a stupid question, what a stupid thing to say, how could he not miss it, here in this overheated white-and-yel ow prison smel ing of antiseptic?

‘No. I don’t miss it,’ he says, to my surprise. ‘I am very happy here in most ways. As I say, the porridge, the cereal – these are things which need to be satisfactorily addressed . . .’ He trails off. ‘But up here –’ he taps his head – ‘I have everything I need up here. Have you heard of a memory palace?’

‘Sort of,’ I say. ‘You train your brain to remember things.’

‘That is almost it,’ he says. He closes his eyes. ‘You build a palace of memories. Each room in Summercove is in my head, fil ed with things I want to hold on to. I am not in the house any more. It is in me.

‘That’s al I need. My old pupils write to me, I read books – thank God my eyesight is stil good. I have my memories.’ He gently closes the photo album. ‘I can picture my bedroom in Lahore. I can see the Shalimar Gardens.’ He is staring out to sea. ‘The boat I took, from India to England, seventy years ago. I can remember my cabin. It had a stripe, painted green, across the wal . I remember the books I had on my trip, can see them on that little shelf, by the porthole – Boethius, John Ruskin and Bertrand Russel you know, excel ent fel ow. And I remember Cecily. So.’ He puts his hands together. ‘Last time I saw you, I gave you the first pages of my daughter’s diary. Tel me, did you find the rest of it, hm? Did you read it?’

I don’t know how to answer. ‘Yes – yes,’ I say, as if admitting to something shameful. ‘Mum had it.’

He nods. ‘I thought as much. I found the pages in my room, you see, after she’d taken me into the studio.’ He coughs, spluttering a little. ‘I thought she must have spotted it while we were in there. Put it away for herself. Dropped the first pages, not realised.’ He stops. ‘Yes, so she has it.’

‘I’m – sorry about al of it, Arvind.’ I don’t know what to say. ‘It must be awful – awful for you.’

‘I haven’t read it,’ he says simply. I flinch with surprise. ‘What?’

‘I know what’s in it,’ he says. He smiles. ‘Perhaps I don’t want to read it. Sometimes it’s best to shut out the real world, you see.’ He taps his forehead again gently. ‘In the memory palace, I can choose what rooms to go into, you see.’

My mother cal s out to us from the doorway. ‘Ready?’ she says, shattering the peace of the room. I turn, and her eyes are red.

‘Ah.’ I push Arvind in his wheelchair towards the door. He waves a polite goodbye to his motionless fel ow-residents. ‘The outsiders are outside. And it is written. Time for us to go back to Summercove once more.’

Chapter Forty-Four

Granny loved spring. She said spring made her happy. She hated autumn most of al , couldn’t ever understand why people found it poetic and romantic. She said it was depressing, the sign that life was over. Spring, she always said, was why we stuck around, to see that life had survived during the long winter months. As we turn into the little lane that leads to Summercove and then on to the sea, I can see why. The branches are bursting with bright green new life. White apple blossom blooms in the orchard next to the house.

I think of her, starting another spring here, year after year, and then watching the summer fade away into autumn, the long winter nights, with nothing to do, nothing to occupy her, Arvind in his study, her studio locked away, only memories of what she did, what happened, and I start to understand a little better.

We rol almost silently down the lane in Archie’s gleaming silver and red 4x4, so appropriate for Ealing, so out of place here, where it actual y helps on the narrow, sometimes treacherous roads. He turns the engine off and he, Mum and I look nervously up at the house, as if expecting some sign. Arvind is stil staring straight ahead.

‘They’ve done a good job, Didier’s gang,’ Archie says to Mum, in the seat next to me. ‘Hope you’l think so. I think so.’ Why does he always want her approval? She nods.

‘Good. I hope there isn’t too much mess. You told him it goes on the market on Monday, didn’t you? They have to have al their shit cleared out of here by then.’

Archie nods, and I realise how glad they wil be to see the back of the place, in some respects. How sad that is. ‘Agent says it’l go real y fast,’

he says. ‘We spoke a lot while you were away. He says the price is absolutely realistic. And we should have some . . . left over.’

‘Real y?’ Mum says, as if she’s only vaguely interested, but I see her hands tightening in her lap, clutching the sheaf of notes for her speech.

‘Oh, yeah.’ Archie pul s the keys out of the ignition and turns to his father, as if remembering he’s there. ‘Come on, Father. We’re here now.

Let’s go inside.’

It’s Arvind’s bloody house, I want to say to them. He’s stil here! Stop acting like that money’s yours. I want to knock their heads together, and then I think, He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care and that’s always been part of the problem.

It is strange to stand outside Summercove, looking up at the windows, with the memory of Cecily’s diary stil so clear. It hasn’t changed much in al those years, either, it’s not that kind of house, and so it is easy to imagine her, sitting at our room at the top, peering out of the window, dancing across the lawn towards the gazebo which stands at the edge of the garden, leaning against that wal there to have her picture taken. I clutch my bag, with the diary in it. It is now cloudy and the wind is stil vicious, whipping itself against my hands and face.

We go inside, Archie pushing Arvind. The reception starts soonish. There are people already here, chattering, a few out in the garden, looking out to sea, sitting in the gazebo, enjoying the beautiful weather. I can hear Louisa in the kitchen, directing the caterers. We go into the long, bright sitting room, and I breathe in sharply.

It is not Summercove, the home I loved more than any other. That place is gone. It’s as if it never existed.

Everything has changed. Gone are the comfy sofas, worn-out chintz armchairs, the fireguard. Gone are the shelves lined with books on art, travel, photography, the battered old TV in the corner. Gone are the original fifties wooden sideboards, the bright curtains and cushions that were so in vogue when they bought the house which have lasted, most of them, al these years. Al gone, the contents of the ground floor either moved upstairs for today or taken away to the local auction house or up to London.

The curtain rail, even, has been unscrewed. The French windows, where Jay and I would sit on rainy days betting on raindrops racing down the glass, are closed and the cushions on the window seats removed. The room is white, devoid of any furniture apart from dining chairs placed strategical y around it, and Granny’s paintings.

They line the wal s of the big room, fifteen or so, and below some of them are sketches. Above the fireplace is ‘Summercove at Sunset, 1963’, and I stare at it, having never seen it in the flesh before.

‘Where did they find this?’ I ask. ‘It was in her studio,’ Archie replies. ‘She never showed it to anyone. That, and – this was there too.’ He points, and I swivel round. Next to the door, almost hidden in its shadow, is an oil painting of a girl, a girl I know very wel now.

‘Cecily Frowning, 1963’

It’s the painting. I wonder whether Arvind stil has the sketch. I hope so. She is sitting on a stool, watching the painter, her expression watchful yet slightly cross. She is wearing a pale blue cotton sundress, which sets off her dark hair and skin beautiful y. One leg is tucked under the other, one hand holding the heel. She looks rather bored. I stand stil and stare at it.

‘My God,’ I say. ‘That’s – it.’

‘I’m going to find Louisa,’ Archie says, looking at his watch, and he strides out. The door bangs behind him. We three are alone in the echoing room.

I turn to look at Mum. ‘She said she hated being painted, didn’t she?’

‘Absolutely.’ Mum nods. She narrows her eyes. ‘It’s rather clever. The way Mummy got that absolutely right.’

We stare at it together, neither acknowledging that we’re talking about the diary.

‘I wondered what happened to that painting,’ I said.

My mother moves closer towards it and peers. ‘Goodness,’ she says. ‘You do look so like her, Natasha.’

‘She does,’ says a voice beside us, and I remember Arvind is here, too.

I do not move; I know that if I say the wrong thing, I could ruin everything. But I know now is the moment. This might be the only chance I get.

‘Can I ask you something?’ I don’t use her name, or cal her Mum, but she turns to me, slowly. ‘Why did you take the rest of the diary? Why didn’t you tel anyone about it, about the truth? Why didn’t you tel me?’

She looks at Arvind, then back at me. She folds her arms. ‘Oh, darling, it’s complicated.’

‘I know it is,’ I perservere. I real y want her to give me answers. She can’t keep doing this. ‘Just tel me why though.’

She shrugs, and looks at her father again. He nods. ‘Please, Miranda. Enlighten me.’ He gives a little gesture, as if to say, Go ahead.

‘I knew Cec was writing a diary,’ she says, in a rush. Her fingers fiddle with the knotted tassels of her scarf. ‘Al that summer. She wouldn’t stop bloody going on about it. “I’m putting you in my diary if you don’t stop being so mean to me,”’ Mum says, in a childish voice.

‘Did you know about her and Guy? Is that why you sent the diary to him?’ I wish it al felt as though it was fal ing into place, but it doesn’t.

She blushes slowly. ‘I think I always knew, yes.’ She shakes her head. ‘It’s not important, not at the moment. He had to have it though, I had to tel him. Anyway. I knew she’d written the diary so it had to be somewhere. I didn’t think Mummy would throw it away. She wouldn’t have done.

Couldn’t do it. So I had to find it. Because I knew – the day she died . . . she’d found out – about what she’d found out about—‘ Her eyes are burning into mine, imploringly. ‘I knew, you see.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ve read it, Mum.’

‘Wel , we went for a walk. She says that. We were both upset – so tired. You have no idea what it was like. We had a row about what to do next. I said we should expose Mummy. Tel Daddy. She said absolutely not.’ She turns suddenly to Arvind. ‘Dad – oh, shit. I shouldn’t have . . .’ She trails off, clamping her lips together. ‘Forget it.’

‘Please,’ Arvind says. ‘Don’t protect me, my dear. I know what happened.’

I must be imagining it, but it seems his tone is softer, kinder, for a moment, and the parent he could have been is apparent for a split second.

‘You do?’ Mum says. She runs her fingers along the mantel-piece, as if checking for dirt. ‘I never knew. Always, I thought I was the only one.

And I couldn’t tel . Look, look at us,’ she says, almost hysterical y. She waves her arm round the empty white room. ‘Look at the – what this did to us, to our family. I – Damn! Damn her.’

‘Mum—’ I go over to her, put my arm on her shoulder. ‘Don’t.’ Someone drops something in the kitchen, I think it must be metal. It clatters loudly, recal ing us to the present. I look at her. ‘What happened? Please tel me.’

Mum glances at Arvind, and at me, and speaks softly, urgently.

‘We fought. Not physical y. I mean we shouted at each other. Oh, God. I – oh, she made me so angry! But I would never have hurt her. We were young, you know how sisters fight.

We both had tempers, you know . . . I wanted to tel Dad about Mummy.’ She looks again at Arvind and then carries on. ‘I – I wasn’t getting on with her. I don’t know if I ever did, real y. I always felt she didn’t like me.’ She smiles. ‘Always. What a strange thing to say about your mother. Isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I say. I look at her and wonder, quite calmly, whether she, my own mother, ever liked me. I don’t know that she did. The sins of the fathers, Arvind said, and perhaps he’s right. He knew.

‘I wanted revenge, I suppose. Wanted to show her I was grown-up now, I could cal the shots, al of that rubbish. She was always putting me down. And she had every right to, I wasn’t – I wasn’t—‘ She blinks, and two fat mascara-flecked tears rol slowly down her cheeks. ‘I wasn’t a very nice person, back then. I was horrible to her that day . . .

‘Cecily said we could never tel . She got crosser and crosser. I did too. We were shouting at each other, at least I was shouting at her, she was just standing there at the top of the steps down to the beach, shaking her head. I think she didn’t know what on earth to do. She was so young, you know. Fine time to lose your trust in the people you love most. She said I didn’t know what love is, that I’d never know what it meant. I said she was just a sil y little girl. And she smiled.’ Mum nods slowly. ‘I’m an idiot. I know why now. Hah! I know why. I can stil see her face. She sort of stepped back, and – and . . .’ Her voice cracks. ‘She just disappeared. She made this strange sound. “Oh!” As if she was surprised. Annoyed. And then –

she just . . . she just disappeared . . .’ Her shoulders heave, and she sobs.

‘Oh, Mum,’ I say. ‘I told them al this,’ she says, putting her hands in front of her face. ‘That she just stepped off and slipped, the stairs were dangerous.’ She looks up as though she wants my approval, there is the track of a tear on her cheek. ‘The police believed me. But somehow it never quite stuck with everyone else. I never knew why. Archie appeared immediately after it happened. Thank God. He ran down to the beach – he nearly slipped too.’ She stops and then she says, ‘Dad, someone should have done something about those steps a long time before.’

Arvind says, ‘There, as in many other areas, we were deficient in our care of our children, Miranda.’ His thin old fingers tap his knees, worrying at the creases in his trousers. His face is terrible in its sadness.

She doesn’t say anything immediately, and then she nods. ‘Al that time,’ she says. ‘It was so long ago, you know. And it’s like everything’s stood stil since then.’

‘I think,’ Arvind says, ‘for your mother, it did.’

I say softly, ‘How could you ever forgive Granny, Arvind? I mean – did you know?’

He is silent, for so long that I think perhaps he hasn’t heard me.

‘She had affairs, you know,’ he says. ‘Many of them. When we were first married, in London, before she had the children, afterwards . . . She found marriage hard. Being a mother hard. We had no money, we were both trying to work as hard as we could. These days, I understand, it is perfectly fine to talk about nothing else. Then you couldn’t, you know. Not a word. You had to be a contented wife and mother and that was that.’

The old, black eyes are unblinking. ‘She was glad when we moved down here at first, she said it was a fresh start, I think she hoped it’d stop her doing this. But she loved the danger . . . I knew that about her. She didn’t. She never real y realised, and the risks she took got greater, and then

. . .’ his voice cracks. ‘And then Cecily died. And you know, she knew. She found her diary when she was clearing away her possessions. She read what Cecily, her own daughter, had to say about her mother’s affair. She knew.’

At the thought of my grandmother, a few days after Cecily’s death, reading the diary where her own daughter finds out about her infidelity, I feel almost sick with pity, for her, for Cecily, for Arvind, for Mum. . . . For al of them.

‘But I am glad Louisa has never known,’ Arvind says firmly. I look out of the French windows to see Louisa trotting across the lawn. ‘People make mistakes, terrible mistakes,’ he says. ‘But I loved Frances. I loved her. We understood each other. That’s al that matters. That’s why we stayed together, al these years. I understood what she’d done, and how she felt. I wasn’t a perfect husband. A good father. My work always came first. It was easier, to lock yourself away in your own mind, you know?

‘She understood what she’d done. We tried to be better people afterwards.’ He nods. ‘And some things are best left untouched. Left in the past.’

Only if you learn to move on afterwards, I want to say. But you didn’t, did you? None of you. And the ones who weren’t involved spent their whole lives trying to make things better without knowing why, like Louisa, or going as far away from it al as possible and hardly ever coming back, like Jeremy. I look around the room, which is darkening now as the clouds out to sea scud over the sun. I don’t recognise this place any more.

The door opens, and I can hear the murmuring chatter that has been building al this time burst in on us, loud like a hive of bees. Louisa comes into the room.

‘Miranda? Ready to take the music soon?’ She looks at us. ‘OK?’

I see Mum taking in her out-of-breath cousin, in her slightly too-sheer white kaftan, red shining face, floral skirt and fluffy blonde hair.

‘Thanks, Louisa,’ Mum says, walking towards her. ‘Yes. I think we’re ready. Aren’t we?’

She looks at me and Arvind. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘We are.’

Chapter Forty-Five

Louisa has planned it al out, of course. The invited guests have been gathering outside, having coffee in what was the dining room, mil ing around the gardens, and now they al file into the sitting room until it is ful . I identify people from the vil age, Didier and his wife, a few glamorous-looking men and women with the stamp of New Bond Street on them. Some stop to say hel o to Arvind, sitting in his chair by the fireplace, and my mother next to him, flicking through her notes. She is pale, but seems calm. I am worried though.

When everyone is in, Louisa makes a loud ‘Shh’ sound and the room fal s silent. My mother steps forward.

‘Thank you for coming today,’ she says. ‘I am Miranda Kapoor, Frances Seymour’s daughter.’ She pauses. ‘One of her daughters.’

Someone shuffles in the crowd; a seagul cries outside. Then it is silent again.

‘We are here to launch the Frances Seymour Foundation, which wil support the work of young artists, and promote understanding and interest in al forms of art with young people today. I’l tel you more about this in a moment, but for now I’d like to talk to you a bit about my mother. Tel you about who she real y was.’

She looks down at her notes again and is silent. I bite my lip, nervous.

‘You al know that Frances Seymour was one of the best-loved and most-respected artists of the post-war period. She found an instant rapport with the public, who loved her timeless, evocative, yet entirely modern paintings. I even have a statistic here from Tate Britain, which is that “A Day at the Beach”, one of her best-known paintings, is the fifth-most popular postcard in the gal ery shop.’ She smiles at this, and a little ripple goes through the crowd.

‘What you don’t know about her is who she real y was, my mother.’

She pauses. I look around, past a couple of scribbling journalists, at the members of my family. I see, with a jolt of shock, that Octavia is here. I hadn’t expected to see her and then I think about it and it makes sense. Jay wouldn’t come unless it was made clear to him he had to. Octavia is that kind of person who has absolutely no reason to be present, so of course she is here, standing next to her mother, looking officious. She scowls impatiently at me, though that’s actual y her natural expression. Louisa is clasping her hands, her lips moving. She is counting something in her head, and I wonder what it is. The Bowler Hat is beside them, an air of quiet concentration on his smooth features, Archie, hands in pockets, nodding as he watches his sister. Arvind, as ever a mask of neutrality. And behind me on the wal : Cecily frowning.

‘Yes. Who she real y was.’

I stare at the painting, until I realise someone is watching me. Guy. I meet his gaze, and again the voice of unease strikes up in my head. He looks at me. He touches his hand to his heart, and then switches his gaze back to my mother. I think of him staring at Cecily, in this very room, al those years ago, the two of them realising their feelings for each other, how scary it was, how wonderful . . . I can see her scrawling, black handwriting, flowering across the page, the words so fresh and clear in my mind. Like electricity shooting through me, like I was alive, alive for the first time. I looked at him, & he looked at me . . .

Mum is swal owing. She clears her throat. Stares at Louisa, at the Bowler Hat. The silence is stretching, it’s too long now, she needs to say something. Don’t, Mum. Please don’t do it.

Next to me, an old, sweaty man in a pink checked shirt and ancient blazer, clutching a notebook, sighs under his breath. Stil my mother waits.

I look at her imploringly, my hand on Cecily’s necklace around my neck. Mum meets my gaze. Gives a little smile. And for the first time, I feel we understand each other, that we are the only ones who know what’s going on.

‘Frances Seymour was a difficult woman, but that is the territory with genius,’ she says. ‘She was beautiful, mercurial, enormous fun. She lit up a room. She opened her doors to anyone and everyone. You got quite used to coming back from school for the holidays and finding two Polish soldiers sleeping in your room, a penniless cel ist and her son in the attic and an ascetic priest with a long beard practising the piano in the sitting room.’ There was a low laugh. ‘She was very understanding, as wel . I remember when my brother and I were little, we said we wanted to run away and live in the woods. She came with us. She painted us huge Red Indian headdresses, and we camped out by the sea, ate sausages we’d cooked over the fire, and told ghost stories al night. When my father’s book was launched, she had a special hardback edition bound just for him, with an engraving of Lahore, his home town, on the front.’ She pauses again. ‘And when my sister Cecily died . . .’

There’s total silence in the room, and perhaps I’m imagining it, but a cloud of tension seems to hang, shimmering, over the assembled throng.

‘She never painted after that.’ Mum clears her throat again.

‘She locked the door to her studio and didn’t go back. Some asked why. If she felt guilt.’

She looks straight at the Bowler Hat. I see Louisa turn to him, questioning. An arrow of pain shoots into my knotted stomach. Don’t do it, Mum.

Please.

‘The truth is, she did feel guilt,’ Mum says.

Her head is bowed; her voice soft. I clutch my hands together so tightly it’s painful.

‘And,’ my mother says, ‘it’s also true to say she shouldn’t have. We can never know how much it cost her, to never paint again. It was her life.

But she chose to give it up. She chose to punish herself that way. She thought she was responsible for my sister’s death.’

I stare at her. ‘But she wasn’t.’ For one second, Mum’s eyes rest on me. And then she’s talking again, her gaze sweeping the floor, the sense of occasion apparent again. ‘We wil never know what she could have achieved if she’d carried on painting. We must just be glad we have what we do. And so in honour of my mother Frances, and my sister Cecily Kapoor, who never lived on to fulfil her potential, we launch this foundation.

Louisa, my wonderful cousin who has organised today, and who is the backbone of our family, or Didier, my mother’s very great dealer, have an information pack for al of you on the foundation and the upcoming exhibition at the Tate, which we hope wil be in eighteen months’ time. Thank you al for coming today. Thank you.’

And she leans down and kisses her father, as the crowd applauds politely. Guy is nodding, clapping enthusiastical y. Archie claps loudly, his hands raised high, smiling at his sister. She smiles back at him, and he nods. Well done, he mouths. Octavia is watching uncertainly, a frown puckering her forehead, and Louisa is looking at my mother, hugging a pile of brochures close to her body, with an expression on her face that I have never seen before.

Chapter Forty-Six

The wind is stil howling outside though it is sunny again. I talk to various people, old friends from the neighbourhood, a couple of gal ery owners who have shown Granny’s work in the past, some of Mum’s friends from Granny and Arvind’s days in London. It’s been a long, strange day. Archie has already said he wil give us a lift back to Penzance to get the sleeper, Mum and I. The Leightons are driving back tomorrow. In happy contrast to my last visit to Summercove, this time it is work for which I need to be back in London as soon as possible. Maya, the intern, is slaving away in my absence making up necklaces and bracelets so we can fulfil al the orders, but it’s not fair she should do al the work by herself.

I’m having an in-depth conversation about Granny’s legacy with a journalist, a friendly woman in her fifties from a rather highbrow art journal. I am pretending (and failing) to sound as though I know what I’m talking about, when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn around and it’s Guy.

‘Hel o,’ I say. ‘You off?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’m driving back tonight. Left the car here last week. Came down in advance to finish the cataloguing.’

‘Oh, right,’ I say.

‘I had some things to sort out. Hey – I just came to say bye. Listen, Natasha. I’m sorry we haven’t talked. Since you—’

‘Excuse me,’ I say, turning back to Mary the journalist. ‘Nice to meet you.’ She smiles and moves off to greet someone else. I turn back to Guy, trying to sound jovial, scatty, breezy. ‘Phew. She was asking me about Futurism. I was out of my depth. Go on.’

‘Since you read the diary, I was wanting to say,’ he continues. ‘I’ve had a lot to think about, for my part. It’s been strange.’

‘It must have been,’ I say. ‘I had no idea – you poor thing.’ I don’t mean to, but I put my hand on his arm.

The muscles around his jaw tighten. He swal ows. ‘I was head over heels in love with her, you know,’ he says. ‘Reading it, hearing her voice again, it was almost unbearable, after al these years when I’d tried to put her out of my mind.’ He speaks so softly in the hubbub of the crowd. ‘It has been . . . very strange.’

‘I’m sure,’ I say. ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you, reading it now, finding out about Granny and al of that, now . . .’

‘Interesting,’ he smiles, his eyes stil blank. ‘It’s been – yes, interesting. There’s no one else quite like Cecily. Never has been. I thought, at least. Now I’m not so sure.’

He stares at me again. ‘Guy – I real y would like to come and talk to you about it,’ I say. I don’t want to sound as though I’m begging, but I think it creeps into my voice anyway. ‘Just one afternoon. I know it must be upsetting, but you know – it’s my family. I won’t bother you again—’

‘Your family,’ he says, as though he’s considering this. ‘Your family. It is, isn’t it? Look, Natasha, that’s what I was coming to say. I was a prat, that’s al . Come whenever you like. I’l be in touch if not. Have you spoken to your mother?’

‘Mum? About the diary?’ Someone pushes past me, and I sway a little on my feet. ‘Wel , she’s been away . . .’ I say, and I trail off. He smiles.

‘Of course she has. And she wil be again soon, I’l bet.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, but I do have to go. Listen, come round when you get back to London. Yes? And try and talk to your mother again.’ He hugs me. ‘Goodbye, my dear,’ he says. Dear. It’s such an old-fashioned term. I like it.

So the afternoon wears on into evening and sooner than I would have realised it is time to leave. They have taken Arvind away already, around tea-time. I have arranged to go and see him next month. People in the crowd were practical y genuflecting as Archie wheeled his father out to the car. I kissed him goodbye and clutched his hand, and he stared up at me.

‘Glad you came,’ he said. ‘Just remember.’ He half-sang, half-spoke. ‘“The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la, have nothing to do with the case.”’

I don’t worry about my grandfather. It sounds cal ous but I don’t. He learned how to file everything away in his mind a long time ago, and I wish I had that gift: I think I’m just beginning to learn it. Perhaps it’s the nature of his job, perhaps it’s being a foreigner in a strange country, never going back to the city you were from. Perhaps it’s seeing your child die. Whatever the truth is about his marriage to Granny, it was successful in its longevity, which isn’t important perhaps, but it is when you honestly believe, as I do, that they actual y rubbed along pretty wel together. Not very romantic, but perhaps that’s real life. I don’t think he was the best father in the world, and that’s an awful thing to say about someone, but there are worse fathers, and like his wife he leaves an extraordinary legacy behind. I find myself wondering what we’l do when he dies, and then stop myself.

Knowing Arvind, that won’t be for another decade or so.

Clutching my bag over my arm, I walk down towards the sea one more time, the wind whipping about me. I think I wil always remember these last few moments here, wil remember the trees just coming into bud, the greenery everywhere instead of the bleached yel ow and grey of August.

Arvind is right about the flowers that bloom in the spring: cow parsley, hawthorns and the beginnings of the apple blossom smother the lanes, and there are daffodils everywhere on the ground: these are not the flowers I remember from Summercove in the summer. For me it wil stil , always, be the place I spent the summer. Cecily’s diary is in my bag, and I take it out and look at it. I feel I can read it again now, if I have to. I have stapled the first, loose pages, to the red cover, so it’s al together again. I open the book, transported back into her world again.

I am writing this sitting on my bed at Summercove.

I look down to the sea. It is choppy. The path where Cecily fel is stil dangerous, the rocks stil slimy from winter. I peer down. I hear a voice, cal ing behind me.

‘Natasha? Natasha! What are you doing?’

I turn around, and there are Louisa and Octavia, coming towards me. I sigh.

‘Be careful, Natasha! It’s very slippery!’

‘I know,’ I say, walking towards them. The diary is stil in my hand; I fold it under my armpit, hugging it to myself.

Louisa says, almost sharply, ‘Your mother’s looking for you, Nat darling. Says it’s time to go.’ She runs a hand through her hair. ‘Phew,’ she says, blowing air through her lips. ‘When wil they go? I’m about to run out of rosé, and I wanted to keep at least a bottle back for myself. I’l need it, I tel you.’

It’s so Louisa, that; apparently rather bossy and straight, but in actuality a bit of a flapper, unsure of what to do next, and much nicer in her insecurity.

I run my tongue around my teeth; my mouth tastes stale, bitter. ‘Sorry to make you come looking for me,’ I say. ‘I was just – thinking.’

Octavia is watching me, her arms crossed. ‘What have you got there?’ she asks, and she nudges my hand with Cecily’s diary in it.

‘Nothing,’ I say, immediately realising that’s a stupid thing to say.

‘Come on, what is it?’ she persists. Octavia is a burly, serious girl. I don’t like the way she’s looking at the diary.

‘Natasha? You’re there!’ I hear someone cal ing. I turn. Mum is running down the path, her hair and her scarf flying behind her. The wind is blowing against her, it is strong now. She reaches us, panting. ‘We’re going, Natasha,’ she says. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere—’

‘Just a minute.’ Octavia steps in front of us. ‘I want you to answer something, Miranda.’ She points at my mother. ‘I want to know what you were talking about, during your speech.’

‘Octavia – sshh,’ says Louisa. ‘Please, don’t make a scene.’

‘You were getting at something, I know you were,’ Octavia says.

‘I said your mother was the backbone of our family. And it’s true.’

Octavia crosses her arms. ‘What a load of bul shit. I mean the other stuff you said. The insinuations about Franty, making out she was guilty of things—’

‘I’m afraid you’re wrong about that, Octavia,’ my mother says lightly.

‘I know al about you –’ Octavia says. ‘About the way you were carrying on that summer.’

‘ Octavia! ’ Louisa says angrily. ‘Stop it!’

Mum holds up a hand. ‘No. Let her go on. I want to hear it. What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean.’ Octavia squares up to her, her mannish figure tal er than Mum’s. ‘You. Throwing yourself at my father, and my uncle!

Your vile brother, perving over my mother. The two of you, bul ying poor Cecily to death, just because she wouldn’t go along with you—’

‘Hey! Octavia!’ I say, finding my voice. ‘You don’t know anything! Shut the hel up!’

‘No!’ Her eyes are popping out of her head. ‘You stupid girl,’ Mum says, baring her teeth. A strong gust blows her hair round her head, like a banshee. She looks terrifying. ‘Where do you get off, accusing me? You know nothing, darling. You don’t know the fucking half of it, you have no—’

And then Octavia reaches forward and whips the diary out from under my arm, with a movement so sharp and quick it’s gone before I can stop her.

‘ Continuing the Diary of Cecily Kapoor,’ she reads. She looks up, smiling, as though she’s won something.

Louisa’s mouth drops open. ‘No –’ she says, scanning the red cover. ‘That’s her handwriting, that’s Cecily’s—’ She stares at her cousin.

‘Miranda – is that her diary?’

‘It is,’ Mum says. ‘How—’ Louisa’s eyes are wide. ‘From that summer?’

‘Yes,’ Mum says. She gently puts her hand on Octavia’s wrist and strokes it, as though she’s a cat, and Octavia’s fingers slowly open. Mum takes the diary out. She looks at it, then at her cousin. ‘Yes, I’ve read it. It’s pretty interesting.’

‘I bet it is,’ Octavia says. ‘No wonder you haven’t told anyone about it, al these years.’

‘We only found it after Granny died,’ I point out. ‘OK?’

‘What’s in it?’

‘Yes,’ Louisa says, shaking her head. But she looks terrified. And then she looks at my mother and steps back. ‘You know – I don’t think I want to know. I just want to remember her as she was.’

‘Louisa, tel me something,’ Mum asks. ‘What do you remember about that summer? Before she died, I mean.’

‘Wel —’ Louisa looks wary. ‘Why?’

‘It’s Cecily’s diary, not yours, or mine. She was writing what she wanted to write about. We were there too, weren’t we? What do you remember?’

‘Oh . . .’ Louisa screws up her face. ‘I remember . . . “Please Please Me”.’ They smile at each other. ‘And my new shorts, Mummy said they were indecent, but I loved them. And the awful springs on Jeremy’s car. I remember . . . oh gosh, how hot it was. Mary making lavender ice-cream the day we arrived, it was absolutely delicious. Archie . . .’ She blushes. ‘Archie being a Peeping Tom. For years afterwards I’d try to avoid him. I always forget that’s why, it got mixed up with everything else, didn’t it? Oh, I remember Frank and Guy arriving, and how wonderful it was . . . at first.

It al changed, after that. I don’t know why.’

‘Everything did get mixed up,’ Mum says. She hugs the diary close. ‘I remember my new clothes, and my feet looking brown in the pumps I’d bought, and I remember how much I hated it at home, how I wished I could leave. I’d lie awake at night with Cecily snoring away and work out how I’d do it. Go somewhere where I wasn’t the stupid one, the slow one, the lazy one. Be the pretty one, the fun one, the exciting one.’

‘But you were,’ Louisa says in amazement. ‘We thought you were absolutely it. We were so boring, Jeremy and I, compared to you three. You’d met everyone, seen everything, your parents let you do what you wanted . . .’

‘Funny, isn’t it?’ Mum isn’t smiling though. The wind buffets us, stinging my cheeks. I am transfixed. ‘That’s not how I remember it. At al . Look, it’s al in the past now,’ she says. ‘It’s gone. It’s like the diary. It’s her version, not mine, not yours.’ She clutches the diary close, drumming her fingers against it.

I hadn’t thought of it like that. How if I were to read Mum’s diary of the summer, or Archie’s, or even Granny’s, it might be different. I guess I’l never know the rest. They were al there that summer, they know what it was like, but even then there’s stil a lot they’l never real y understand.

‘I stil think about her, I can stil picture her so clearly,’ Louisa says. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Every day,’ Mum tel s her. She looks so old, suddenly. Tears swim in her eyes. Whether it’s the wind or not, I don’t know. ‘She was lovely, wasn’t she?’

They give each other a smal , half-smile, as the wind buffets us. ‘She was,’ says Louisa. ‘It’s not fair.’

‘It’s not,’ Mum says. ‘But like I say, it’s in the past now.’

I find myself nodding. She’s right. ‘Wel , I disagree. I think we should read it too,’ Octavia says.

‘Why?’ I ask her. ‘Because we deserve the truth. Al our lives, Mum’s the one who’s done everything for your mother and father. She’s got nothing for it, she’s never been thanked or rewarded—’