Briony closed the door of her car with a weary gesture and looked about her. Westbury Hall was a dour place in December, the wisteria above the entrance a dead thing, the winter trees bordering the car park black and dripping from the misty rain. She shivered, wrapped her parka more closely round her and walked slowly up to the entrance.
‘Kemi, hello.’ The heavy door shut behind her. It felt surprisingly cosy in the high-ceilinged hallway, where Kemi, seasonal in scarlet skirt and jacket, was hanging gold baubles on a tall, slender Christmas tree.
‘Hi, Briony.’ Kemi grinned back. She appeared reassuringly the same as ever, except as they exchanged pleasantries her eyes darted continually to her left hand where a ring Briony didn’t remember seeing before dazzled out of the gloom.
‘Is that new?’
Kemi held out her hand, delighted the ring had been mentioned.
‘Last week,’ she said proudly. ‘We were going to announce it on Christmas, but in the end TJ didn’t want to wait.’
‘Well, congratulations,’ Briony said, thinking she wouldn’t have been able to make a decision like that when she had been twenty-one.
‘Thank you! You’ve come to see Mrs Clare, haven’t you? She told me.’
Briony had written to the old lady in the end. The reply had been penned in the same flowery hand as the card she’d received from her during the summer, the writing even more quivery than before, but there was nothing shaky about the tone of it. She’d be ‘delighted’ to see Briony again and so would Lulu, who was ‘very grateful’ for the time Briony had looked after her. It was extraordinary that Mrs Clare had survived so well the trauma of the summer, she thought, as she knocked on the door of the ground-floor apartment.
It was Avril who inched it open, nudging Lulu back with her foot. ‘Come in, won’t you? Lulu, bed.’ Safely admitted, her parka whisked away by Avril, who withdrew to the kitchen, Briony greeted the wispy-haired old lady who sat in the armchair facing the window. It was a shock to see her, she seemed sunken, diminished, but her blue eyes shone as guileless as before and she had no trouble remembering Briony’s name.
‘Don’t mind if I don’t get up.’ Mrs Clare’s voice was slurred. ‘I have to use this wretched thing now.’ She touched a walking frame that stood at one side of the chair.
‘The pattern on it’s very pretty,’ Briony said. Someone had wound decorated plastic tape round the metal.
‘That’s my granddaughter’s sense of humour. They sell the stuff in Liberty. Isn’t it marvellous what you can get now?’
‘Isn’t it?’ Briony drew up the easy chair positioned nearby and glanced through the window. ‘The garden looks colourful with all the berries.’
‘I think so, though it’s not at its best. Still, I like to sit here and remember.’ She sighed. ‘I’m afraid I live in the past these days. It all seems much clearer to me.’
They gazed out of the window together onto the dank garden with its winter shrubs and straggly lawn. The shape of it was clearer in winter. It was carved up by four paths that met at a central fountain, the beds that surrounded it spiked with the torsos of rose bushes. Beyond the garden, an arc of trees stood sentinel against pewter skies where rooks drifted like flakes of ash. The bleakness of the scene endowed it with a special beauty and it was pleasant to sit in the warmth with the scent of hot butter and mince pies.
Avril brought in the tray, the delicate tea plates accompanied by miniature paper napkins with scalloped edges and a holly berry design.
‘What are you both doing for Christmas?’ Briony asked. They talked about families and traditions for a while. Briony bit into pastry that melted in the mouth, tasted the sharpness of fruit and licked icing sugar from her lips as she listened.
Mrs Clare’s son and daughter-in-law were coming up and taking her to lunch at a country hotel. Kemi had ordered a few things online on her behalf because she didn’t like to go out. ‘She is a good girl. Has she told you about her engagement? She brought her young man to meet me. He has some strange name and is rather peculiar-looking, with one of those shaved hairstyles that seem fashionable, but he speaks very nicely.’
Briony managed to hide a smile at Mrs Clare’s acidity. When Avril had retreated to the kitchen once more, she asked after Greg, to be told that as far as she knew he was well, but he hadn’t been to see her lately. She spoke disapprovingly, which made Briony wonder whether he’d displeased her in some other way. She set down her plate, dusted some sugar powder from her skirt and edged the conversation round.
‘I’ve been doing quite a bit of research since I saw you last. I was sent another collection of letters, you know, this time written by the gardener cousin we talked about, Paul Hartmann, to Sarah Bailey.’
‘Letters,’ Mrs Clare mumbled through a mouthful. ‘I heard something about that.’
‘Did Greg tell you?’ Briony was surprised.
‘Yes. The whole thing has upset his father by all accounts. You know it’s all very well this digging around in other’s lives, but it doesn’t do any good. To some of us it’s not history, it’s personal. We lived through it. It was a terrible time and some people were put into situations they would never have faced in peacetime and we can’t entirely blame them for things they did.’
Briony blinked in surprise at Mrs Clare’s heartfelt bitterness. ‘Greg’s father, he must be older than I thought if he fought in the war.’
‘No, no, he was born after it ended, but his mother only died a few years ago and he doesn’t want the family reputation ripped to shreds.’
‘Ripped to shreds. Why should it be?’
‘Because of that man Hartmann. Well, what did he have to say for himself in these letters of his?’ Robyn Clare fixed her with her watery blue gaze and Briony sensed again the change wrought by her illness. The guardedness had gone, she’d become more direct.
Briony began to explain, haltingly at first, then with more confidence. All the time she watched Robyn Clare, interested to see the surprise in her face.
‘Sarah and Paul were friends, but then they fell in love.’
‘I didn’t know that at the time, though I heard it later. Mrs Bailey was very displeased, I was told, not that I cared about her finer feelings. Paul’s father was German, you see, even though he was related to my mother.’
‘Yes, I know that, but he was totally loyal to Britain. He wanted so much to fight against the regime responsible for his father’s death. But Greg’s grandfather . . .’
‘Poor Ivor.’
‘ . . . he was jealous of Paul because he loved Sarah too. And Paul was unfortunate enough to find himself in the same unit as Ivor Richards. Ivor became his commanding officer and treated him unfairly.’
‘A lot of nonsense. It was Paul who was insubordinate, caused Ivor all kinds of trouble.’
‘And you learned that from . . . ?’
Mrs Clare’s eyes were furious. ‘Everyone round here knew it. Ivor had a terrible time, was nearly court-martialled, you know. Think of it, the shame, especially for his poor parents. As it was, he was given a dishonourable discharge. His army career was ruined. All because of that German man. Paul Hartmann.’
‘But what happened? What had he done?’
‘A young Italian boy was killed. He’d been looting, Ivor said. Something like that. These things happen in wartime, of course, but in this case there were complaints. The boy had been a relative of someone important.’
Briony suddenly remembered the memorial in the church in Tuana. ‘Was the boy’s name Antonio?’
‘I have no idea. All I know is that Ivor hated Paul. Said he’d left him to take the blame.’
Briony frowned, wondering why the young Robyn Clare had had no room for compassion for Paul when, after all, he was her flesh and blood. She thought then of the group of friends she belonged to: Ivor, Jennifer and her brother Bob, Harry and the others. Perhaps the bonds of friendship were stronger than her relationship with this strange distant cousin who’d become the family gardener. That must be it.
‘But what exactly had Paul done?’
‘What had he done? Lied, I don’t know. Gone against the word of his commanding officer.’
‘Do you know the circumstances?’
‘No. Too long ago and it wasn’t spoken about. Major and Mrs Richards were devastated, we could see that. You have to understand how it all was. So many families had suffered loss. Others came back from the war having experienced things beyond ordinary comprehension. The only thing to do was to carry on as normal. There wasn’t all this talking nonsense that there is today. It wouldn’t do any good going over and over the unpleasantness. No, people tried to put it behind them and continue their lives as best they could.’
‘What happened to them all after the war?’ she asked and Mrs Clare’s eyes clouded.
‘Initially we were simply relieved that the war in Europe was over, that Hitler was dead, but then the news came out about those dreadful camps, and the fighting was still going on in the Far East and there were the hydrogen bombs in Japan.’ Mrs Clare was rambling now. ‘Many local men had been sent over there and many of them never came back. There was poor Bob Bulldock, who came back from Germany in ’forty-four . . .’
‘And Paul? And Ivor? The Baileys?’
‘Dear oh dear, you do ask a lot of questions. My mother discovered my father’s affair with That Woman and we didn’t come down here much. Then all of a sudden we heard that she was marrying again, she’d taken up with one of her husband’s old army pals, some old lover of hers, I wouldn’t be surprised. She moved to Suffolk, I believe. Didn’t want to be too far from her daughter.’
‘You mean Sarah?’
‘No, no, Diane, of course. A funny girl, Diane. I’m sure I have the wedding photograph somewhere. Stand-offish until the day she died. I can’t think why Ivor married her.’
By the time Briony left Mrs Clare the light was beginning to fail and the ground beneath her feet already crackled with frost. Away to the west, beyond the village, billowing cloud cover was blushing a peachy orange. She had a two-hour drive back to London before her, longer if the traffic was sticky, but something held her here. Perhaps she’d take a little walk first.
Loneliness tracked her like a black dog’s shadow as she followed the path down towards Westbury Lodge where she’d stayed four months before. It was shut up, forlorn, it seemed to her, as she peered through the windows, thinking all sorts of thoughts about Paul who’d lived there once, about Luke and Aruna and the laughter they’d shared, about Greg, who’d come to find her.
Greg. She wondered if she’d ever see him again, whether she wanted to. So his grandmother had been Diane Bailey. When Mrs Clare had told her, she’d been stunned into silence. It was odd that he’d never mentioned Diane’s name and she wondered why. How had the marriage come about? Can’t get one girl, marry the sister, that was not uncommon in life. Briony thought about the photograph Mrs Clare had found for her in an old album. Diane had been pretty, in a doll-like way, with large, wide-spaced eyes and a tiny mouth in a heart-shaped face as she hung on Ivor’s arm. Ivor, in a civilian suit, looked proud as he faced the world, but Briony wondered what they were each thinking behind their smiles for the camera.
What was that? A movement at an upstairs window broke her thoughts. She caught her breath, but then she knew it for the reflection of a tiny bird. There it was, behind her, flitting from tree to tree. This place spooked her. She moved on.
The door to the walled garden creaked open and she stopped, first astonished and then dismayed. The smooth summer lawns had been torn up as though by a giant mole. More likely a digger. Greg and Luke had been at work. To one side lay a pile of brand new pipes, blocking the path. The irrigation system, waiting to be laid. Why was Greg doing this? It must be expensive for a pet project. She remembered his plan for a nursery and a farm shop. For a while she stared round at the desolate scene, then turned away. She didn’t belong here any more. Where did she belong?
As she pulled the gate to, the softness of the light drew her further along the path towards a copse of trees. She guessed where this led and suddenly she wanted to see it. She walked on and there it was, the pond, dark and sullen, the willows bending over it like mourners trailing their hair. A stench of something rotten, stagnant, made her nose wrinkle. It was only of vegetation, she told herself, the breakdown of dead leaves and muddy water. She remembered the story of the child who’d drowned here, Robyn’s brother, little Henry, and she shuddered. Perhaps it had been an enticing place to a small boy then, with trees to climb and glimpses of the speckled backs of fish, a flick of a tail on the surface. It would have been easy to lean too far from an overhanging branch and to slip . . . She could see him in her mind’s eye, his small head disappearing, his feet sinking in the deep mud at the bottom, weeds catching at him, drawing him down to darkness and silence.
She’d turned to go when her phone vibrated in her coat pocket. She dug it out, surprised that there was a signal, and read the caller’s name with shock, let it ring twice, three times, before she found the will to answer. ‘Hello?’ The phone was cold against her ear. ‘Aruna?’
‘Are you alone?’ Aruna’s voice sounded accusing.
‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘I’m in Westbury actually. What about you?’
‘Westbury? Why?’ Aruna asked, ignoring Briony’s question.
‘I’ve just seen Mrs Clare. She’s recovering from her stroke and said she’d see me.’
‘Still chasing red herrings?’
‘Yes, if you mean Paul and Sarah. Nothing fishy about them as far as I know.’ Where was this conversation going?
‘I should say thank you for helping me the other night. I was a bit out of it.’
Out of it was an understatement. ‘You were upset, you poor thing.’
‘I suppose you knew what it was about.’
‘Your mum told me the bare bones and then you mumbled a few things. Otherwise, no, I don’t know the details. Aruna, I think I may understand what you’re getting at, but it’s simply not true.’
‘What? What isn’t true? How can you know what I’m talking about?’
‘Hang on, this is getting way too complicated. Are you OK?’ She was sure she had heard a snivel. ‘Oh, Aruna, I’m sorry.’
‘Why did you do it?’
‘Why did I do what?’
‘Take him away from me.’
‘Aruna, this is nonsense. I didn’t. I haven’t done anything. Except exist. That’s all I’ve done. I don’t know what Luke has told you, but nothing has happened between us. I’ve been trying to stay away from him so that nothing did.’ She realized instantly that this confession was unwise.
‘So you did know how he felt. You must have done something to make him feel that way.’
‘I can’t think what, I’m sorry.’
‘Is that all you can say, that you’re sorry.’
‘I don’t mean sorry in that I’m guilty of anything, just sorry in that I am sad about what’s happened. I hate it that you’re unhappy.’
‘You knew how important he is to me. I told you.’
‘Yes, you did. And I was happy for you, that you’d found someone.’
‘I expect you were jealous.’
‘No. I really wasn’t. It may not be normal, I don’t know, but I was pleased for you. Genuinely. You were my friend.’ Were. ‘Are.’
There was a silence, followed by another snivel.
‘Aruna, it’s really not my fault and I don’t know how I can mend things. It’s between you and him and since I don’t even know what he said to you . . .’
‘He said . . . just that, oh God, that he had tried to think of us being together the rest of our lives and he couldn’t do it any more.’ Aruna started to sob.
‘Where are you now? Still at your mum’s?’
‘No, I came back to London. I have work, don’t I, not that I can concentrate much at the moment.’
‘Do you want me to come round? I should be back home early evening.’
‘I’m going out for a meal with Mike and Zara. And I . . . if he . . .’
Aruna’s voice had begun to fade in and out. ‘The signal’s bad. What did you say after Mike and Zara?’
‘I asked Luke if he wanted to come, but he didn’t.’
‘Oh, Aruna.’ She remembered how her friend had thrown all his possessions out of her window and felt embarrassed that Aruna could misread Luke that much to think he might want to make up. Briony knew he wouldn’t, that Aruna shouldn’t have treated Luke like that. And the realization that she knew Luke intuitively, better than Aruna, finally made her feel guilty. Aruna’s voice wavered in and out of hearing. ‘I’m losing you,’ Briony spoke into the handset, but she was talking to a slab of glass and metal. She waited in case Aruna rang back, then tried to call her, moving about to pick up the signal, but to no avail. Finally, she pocketed the phone, feeling miserable. Aruna didn’t want to see her and blamed her for the break up and yet . . . There was something else, too. It was that it didn’t sound as though Briony had figured as much as she had feared in Luke’s parting with Aruna. On the one hand that made her feel less responsible, but on the other it made her wonder if she was wrong to imagine Luke’s feelings . . . Except Aruna had accused her of—
‘Damn,’ she said aloud and squeezed her eyes tight shut for a moment in an attempt to banish her spinning thoughts.
From a nearby bush a bird started to sing, a beautiful full-throated liquid sound, its evening aria, then, looking about, she glimpsed him, a cock robin, whose beady gaze rested on her as she listened. All around, the twilight deepened, birds sang in distant trees as they settled for the night. Clouds were thickening overhead. It was time to go.
It was while she was on the motorway back to London, hunched forward in her seat to see past heavy rain blurring the windscreen, that Briony realized another source of unease. She hadn’t had a chance to ask Aruna about the guide to Tuana and her interest in Antonio’s memorial. How had Aruna learned about the link between Paul and Ivor and Antonio? Perhaps it was connected to the man in the car who had spoken to her outside the Villa Teresa that day. Aruna, being a journalist, would not have been able to resist following the scent of a good story.