In the Sandbrooks’ garden, the gentle undulating lines of the sleeping goddess drew Briony’s touch. The calm face of the reclining sculpture spoke to something deep inside her, loosening her habitual knot of anxiety.
‘She makes me feel happy,’ she said, turning to its creator. Tina Sandbrook was completely different from Briony’s idea of what Luke’s mother would be like. She thought she’d be, well, motherly-looking and conventionally dressed and Tina was neither of those things.
‘Good, she’s supposed to.’ Tina Sandbrook’s wise blue eyes were like her son’s, but otherwise she had the fine-boned appearance of her daughter, Luke’s younger sister Cherry, whose laughing face adorned the Sandbrooks’ fridge in a series of snapshots with her partner Tristan and their toddler twin sons. Tina was of medium height, light-framed, with shoulder-length hair coloured ash blonde with a streak of pink down one side. Despite her age, her loose cotton vest-top, dirndl skirt and the strappy sandals on her narrow, tanned feet put Briony in mind of a sixties flower child. When she moved, her beads and bangles tinkled pleasantly like wind chimes. There were one or two of those hanging from the eaves of the tiny cottage, Briony noticed as she wandered the maze of paths in the back garden, admiring Tina’s small bronze statues, half a dozen different versions of calm, happy womanhood. They were deep in the countryside here. Swifts darted through the early evening air, and in the garden hedgerow where blackberries were ripening a robin was singing his heart out.
Tina stooped to pinch dead blooms from a potted pelargonium. ‘It’s been so liberating moving here, Briony,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d miss London and my teaching, but I haven’t, not really. I’ve achieved so much in a short time. It’s been good for Roger, too, though he finds it a bit quiet. He was wearing himself out at that school, trying to be someone he wasn’t and not getting on at all with the whizzy new headmistress.’
Briony could glimpse Roger Sandbrook with Luke and Aruna through the open French doors of the sitting room, and heard his deep, carefree laugh, so like his son’s. Then Luke stepped outside with a bottle of sparkling wine, his face screwed up with concentration as he eased the cork up until it shot out with a pop.
‘’Tis done well, boy,’ his father cried as Luke went back inside. It was interesting how people were shaped by their jobs. No one hearing Roger Sandbrook speak could have any doubt that he had taught English and Drama. A moment later he emerged ceremoniously bearing a tray of crystal flutes filled with winking bubbles of pale gold. Springy hair like Luke’s stood up from a similar high forehead, but Roger’s was greying and his eyebrows were bushy as one day Luke’s would no doubt become. Their personalities were different. Roger was an ebullient man, though a kind one. Luke was more gentle, but just as kind.
Aruna stepped out after them with her own glass. She was quieter than usual, Briony thought, and wondered whether she found Luke’s parents overwhelming. They gave every impression of being fond of their son’s girlfriend, so this puzzled Briony.
‘What are we drinking to?’ Luke asked, when everyone had a glass.
‘How about wine and women, may we always have a taste for both?’
‘The girls won’t say that, Dad!’
‘Good health and happiness then. It’s lovely to have you with us, Briony.’
Briony thanked him, laughing, and drank. The champagne made her feel light as one of the puffs of cloud passing overhead. The evening was so warm and lovely and the garden with Tina’s exotic sculptures such an unexpected pleasure that she felt she was filling up with contentment.
‘Are you comfortable in your holiday let?’ Roger asked. ‘I gather it’s in the grounds of the old house.’
‘That’s right. Some people might find it shabby, but it’s just right for me. I like a bit of atmosphere.’
‘A nice one, I hope?’ Tina asked.
‘There aren’t actual ghosts, I don’t think. I occasionally wake up thinking I’ve heard something, but it’s probably the woodworm gnawing away.’
There was laughter at this. ‘I think it’s like a witch’s house,’ Aruna said. ‘You know, the gingerbread one where Hansel and Gretel picked sweets off it and the witch caught them.’
‘Are you a witch, Briony?’ Luke said, smiling.
Aruna made a little moue. ‘She’s as clever as one.’
‘Thanks, Aruna!’ Briony said, trying to laugh it off, while feeling a bit hurt. ‘Don’t forget what it meant to call a woman a witch. Next thing you’ll be blaming me for the ills of the community, calling for me to be thrown into a pond and, if I float, hanged.’
‘Didn’t they usually burn witches?’ Luke asked gravely.
‘Hanging was more usual.’
‘Hanging or burning, which would you prefer, Briony?’ Roger said, amused.
‘This is a horrible conversation and I can’t bear to listen.’ Tina set her empty glass on the tray and briefly covered her ears. ‘I’m going to put supper on the table.’
‘Would you like any help?’ Briony asked, seeing an opportunity to escape. She rather wanted to get to know Tina a little.
‘We’ll all come, won’t we, Aruna?’ Luke said, sliding his arm round Aruna’s waist. Aruna relaxed into him and smiled.
‘Thank you, everybody, but I’m fine,’ Tina said. ‘It’s mostly carrying things through, so I’ll borrow Briony.’
Briony was given oven gloves and charge of a salmon and broccoli tart, all toasted and fragrantly steaming. There were pottery bowls of salad and warm herb bread freshly made by Roger. She loved the inside of the cottage where the walls were stacked floor to ceiling with shelves of odd-sized books or studded with bright abstract paintings, though the men had to duck under the low doorways when they came in for supper. The wide table nearly filled the cosy dining room. The diamond-hatched window looked out onto a sunken lane where the evening sun poured through the restless beech trees, casting ever-changing patterns of flickering shadow.
‘Which part of the country do you come from, Briony?’ Tina asked after they’d started to eat. ‘I mean I know you live in London now, but were you born there?’
‘Mmm, this salmon is delicious. No, I was born in Surrey. A place called Birchmere. No one’s ever heard of it and nothing ever happens there. My dad’s parents grew up there, and my mum’s moved there after the war. Apparently Grandpa Andrews was from round here, which is really why I’ve come. I think Luke may have told you.’
‘He did mention the bare bones, didn’t you, Luke?’
‘I thought you’d like to tell it, Briony,’ Luke said.
She explained more fully about the film they’d seen in Italy and the letters that she’d been given.
‘I’ve started making my way through them and typing them up, but it’s slow work. They’re interesting because they give a sense of life here at the start of the war. Sarah lived in Westbury village with her mother and sister.’
‘And who was this man she was writing to?’
‘His name was Paul Hartmann. He was employed on the Westbury estate as under-gardener, but the very elderly lady we met yesterday at Westbury Hall said his mother was a distant relative of the family. The really amazing thing is that Paul’s mother lived in the cottage where I’m staying, and Paul, too. They were German. Well, Paul’s mother was English but she had lived in Germany most of her life.’
‘I don’t understand about him being German,’ Luke said. ‘Would he really have been fighting in the British Army in Italy?’
‘It wasn’t unknown,’ Briony told him, ‘but it must have been an incredibly difficult decision for people like him. I mean, even if you believed that Nazism had to be destroyed, you’d still be shooting your fellow countrymen.’
Tina was nodding, her face troubled. She was revealing herself as a very empathetic sort of person who took things to heart and Briony warmed to her even more.
‘And what did Sarah write to Paul about? Were they lovers, do you think?’
‘From Sarah’s side, which is all we have, I’d say no, just friends, but I haven’t read all the letters yet.’
‘What you need are the letters Paul wrote back to her,’ Roger said.
Briony nodded, her mouth full. ‘If only,’ she said eventually, ‘but I’m not sure where to start looking. There’s nothing in the Record Office in Norwich. I suppose I could trawl the catalogues of the war museum, for instance, but finding surviving family might be my best bet.’
‘Well, good luck,’ Roger said. ‘And with finding your grandfather.’
‘Thanks. His name was Harry Andrews.’
‘We know an Andrews, don’t we?’ Tina said to her husband.
‘Do we?’
‘It’s a very common name,’ Briony said, apologetic.
‘That man we spoke to at the wine-tasting,’ Tina continued. ‘There’s a rather nice farm shop near Westbury, Briony. It has a café and runs events.’
‘I remember now. The wine wasn’t bad, we bought a mixed case. Was it Jim or Tim Andrews?’
‘David,’ Tina said promptly. She and Roger stared triumphantly at Briony.
‘Thanks,’ she said, smiling at their eagerness. ‘I suppose there’s always the possibility that he’s a relation. I wonder how I can find him?’