The hidden truth, p.8
The Hidden Truth, page 8
‘Keeping on top of it?’
‘Just about … on the work front, at least.’
Bernard thought he knew what Adam meant, and didn’t like the sound of it. ‘You seem exhausted. It’s the summer. Aren’t you due a break? You should come home, get some good sea air, recharge your batteries.’
He heard a harsh snort and his son snapped, ‘Fat chance. I’ve got a major assessment coming up next month, Dad.’
Adam sounded annoyed that he didn’t know – although how could he, when his son never called? – and Bernard had to take a breath to prevent himself snapping back. ‘What sort of assessment?’
‘Clinical skills. I’m shitting myself.’
‘Oh, you’ll be fine.’
Adam laughed. ‘Like your confidence, Dad. I could be a really crap doctor, for all you know.’
‘I’m sure you’re a brilliant one. Mamma would be so proud.’
There was a long silence. ‘Adam?’
‘Mamma never really thought about whether I’d be suited to medicine, though, did she?’
Bernard was shaken by the bitterness in his son’s tone. ‘What are you saying, Adam?’
‘I’m saying … I’m saying … Fuck knows.’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Can’t do this now, Dad. Got to go.’
‘No, wait, son. You sound –’
‘I’m fine,’ Adam interrupted, his tone closing down further enquiry.
‘Have you heard from Carrie?’ Bernard asked quickly, before he lost him.
‘Umm … She’s OK, I think,’ Adam replied vaguely. ‘Anyway …’
Desperate not to let his son go, Bernard said, ‘Listen, maybe I could come up for a weekend after your assessment thing? I’d love to see you. Catch up properly.’ He winced at the pleading note in his voice.
‘Yeah … See how things go, eh, Dad?’
Which means no, Bernard thought sadly.
Heavens, he reminds me of his mother, he realized, as they said goodbye, the thought making him uneasy. The same veiled listlessness, the same plaintive tone, implying that things were harder for him than for others. It’s just the rigours of the course, he assured himself, blocking the notion that his son was buckling under a more serious pressure, never spoken of between them.
But Adam had never been robust like his sister. Bernard had always put this down to Ilsa’s determined mollycoddling. She called Adam her ‘little faun’ and regularly used to sleep in the boy’s bed because – after a mild attack of croup when he was two – she said she worried about his breathing. Adam became like her shadow, always knowing more about what his mum needed – what ailments currently plagued her, how best to remedy them – than Bernard.
He knew it wasn’t healthy for Adam, or for Carrie, who’d got only a fraction of her mother’s attention, but he’d felt powerless in the face of his wife’s stubborn willpower. He knew he’d let both the twins down, of course, in more ways than one. But he had no idea how to remedy the problem in the here and now, how to relate to the adults his children had become, how to find the closeness he remembered from the past, when they’d seemed so happy to see him, hugged him with such clear love. These days he felt as if he was a mere irritant, an unwelcome interruption in their day.
15
Sara knew where his village was, perched high on the cliffs to the east of Hastings, but she’d never been there. Bernard had given her specific directions, because the satnav lost the will to live round the tiny single-track lanes that wound, like a rabbit warren, around the houses lining the cliff edge.
She’d had a stressful week. Giving in to the tension of not hearing from Julian, she had emailed him again, asking how he was and whether he would consider having a phone conversation to smooth things out. But she’d sent it on Monday and so far there had been no response. With back-to-back clients and a nutrition workshop in the village hall at Ditchling, there was little time to think about Bernard. Also, it seemed Heather had been right, and her mother-in-law was now in heart failure, although so far only to a moderate degree. So, there’d been tests and Dr Withy had prescribed more medication. But the general feeling was that, at her age, any aggressive treatment would be unkind. It had upset Sara. ‘Heart failure’ sounded so final. The strings that bound her to her dead husband, although stretched by Bernard’s kiss, were still the foundation of her life, Margaret her surrogate mother, ever since her own had died from breast-cancer complications when Sara was in her thirties.
She bumped the Mini along the pitted lane, the grass hump between the tyres swishing against the undercarriage. Slowing almost to a stop, she saw the wooden gate – propped open – and the house name, Kittiwake, on a worn slate plaque, almost hidden in the hedge. It was another hot, sultry night, the air thundery with summer rain. Her stomach was in knots and she took a moment to breathe and calm her pounding heart as she pulled around the final bend and out into a large rectangle of limestone gravel.
The house was ahead, silhouetted against the sky, the clumps of sea pinks and the silvery fronds of buckthorn bushes planted either side dancing in the breeze. As Sara stared, she felt a tiny stab of disappointment. Without much information to go on, she’d imagined a modern, architectural structure with clean lines and lots of glass – the sort of house you’d picture on a clifftop, with stunning views to be had. But what she saw was a low, boxy, timber-framed house with a single sloping roof positioned towards the sea. The wood, in vertical planks, was faded to a pleasing driftwood grey, but the windows – on the landward side of the house, anyway – were small.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the heavy wooden front door being thrown open. Bernard emerged, in a white T-shirt and shorts, onto the slate-flagged surround, a welcoming smile on his face as he came towards her.
Sara parked and took a final deep breath. Here we go, she thought, more nervous than she could ever remember being.
‘Hey.’ Bernard opened the car door for her. ‘No problems getting here?’
She grabbed her bag and climbed out. ‘Lucky you told me. The satnav would probably have driven me over the cliff.’
He banged the car door shut and there was a moment when they might have embraced, but instead he held out his hand, ushering her towards the house.
Bernard’s tanned face was tense with expectation, she noticed, as she took in the space, fronting the sea, that constituted the living room and open-plan kitchen.
‘This is great,’ she said dutifully. But the windows on this side were not much bigger than the ones at the back, the spectacular sea view broken into a row of square panes that lined the wall. Nor was the ceiling particularly high. Maybe the view is upstairs in the bedrooms, she thought, as she looked around, conscious of Bernard’s eyes on her. The furniture was modern but comfortable: two large sofas in neutral colours, lined with beautiful tapestry cushions in geometric patterns and muted hues, flanked the woodburning stove in the sitting area, a long slate coffee-table between. Abstract art in blues, yellows and greys hung on the walls, a rectangular, glass-framed mirror above the stove. The simplicity of the furnishings and the atmosphere of insulated quiet should have been restful, but for Sara it felt too quiet, almost claustrophobic. She quickly brushed off her first impressions. ‘These are lovely,’ she said, with genuine enthusiasm, picking up one of the cushions and smoothing her hand over the surface of the exquisite needlepoint.
‘Ilsa did them. It was her passion,’ Bernard said, almost dismissing her remark as he asked quickly, ‘Is the house what you expected?’
She smiled. ‘You didn’t tell me anything about it except it was an eco-house, so I had no expectations,’ she said. ‘Explain what makes it so sustainable.’
‘OK, but first, can I get you a drink? Cup of tea? Glass of wine? Shall we go outside? It’s so hot in here … although I can feel a storm brewing.’
He moved towards the kitchen area, which, puzzlingly, was not cluttered, like her own, with bottles and jars and pepper grinders, bowls of lemons and tomatoes, coffee machine and pods and a basil plant, but had polished granite work surfaces on which there stood nothing but a kettle, a toaster and a barrel cactus, its pale spikes lined up as neatly as the rest of the space. As if he’d just moved in and hadn’t yet unpacked. Must be an architect thing, she thought. ‘Tea would be good.’
‘Builder’s, Earl Grey, Lapsang, herbal?’
She opted for builder’s because her brain was so over-excited she couldn’t process the rest of the list. Mugs in hand, he ushered her outside onto the terrace, where he’d already laid cushions on the wooden bench-seat and chairs. She felt her lungs fill with the fresh clifftop air, and was relieved to be in the cool breeze – Lewes had been stifling all day. The view over the sea as the sun went down to the west in a haze of hot gold was breathtaking and she took a moment just to stare. ‘It’s amazing up here,’ she said, as Bernard indicated the bench for her and took one of the chairs for himself. The house stood perhaps two hundred yards from the cliff edge across an area of patchy windswept grass – dry and yellowing from the heat. Stony, chalky soil, a bramble hedge and a rackety line of barbed wire was the only barrier between it and the sea.
On the terrace, the atmosphere felt instantly lighter between them. Conversation had seemed to flounder in the dense quiet of the house – a quiet that she remembered Bernard mentioning as a ‘heavy, clock-ticking silence’ in one of their early phone conversations. Now she knew what he meant.
But she was still nervous and found herself almost holding her breath, her tea going untouched on the garden table.
‘So, the house,’ Bernard began. ‘We used recycled wood for the structure, and there’s a ground-source heat pump, smart thermostat, big emphasis on insulation – walls, windows and doors – solar panels on the roof and rainwater/grey water conservation.’ He stopped, grinned. ‘The old girl’s a bit long in the tooth now, nearly twenty-five years old. But it really is cheap to run. Expensive to set up, but my energy bill is tiny.’ He eyed her keenly across the table. ‘Do you like it?’
‘I think it’s great,’ she said, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. ‘What a location. It felt quite insulated inside … I suppose you have to keep the weather out, up here.’ Glancing at the horizon, she noticed heavy clouds beginning to mask the sun, the wind suddenly much fresher. ‘Speaking of which, it looks a bit threatening over there right now.’
‘I’d have more light, more view, if I was building it now,’ Bernard said, also glancing across at the impending storm but making no comment. He seemed keen to get his point across. ‘But Ilsa …’ He cleared his throat. ‘She was Finnish, and she loved the old-style wooden houses back home. Plus, she suffered from terrible migraines all her life. Light hurt her eyes. She insisted on the windows being smaller and designed to be shaded, if necessary. You can’t do that easily with a wide expanse of glass, of course.’
Sara didn’t know how to react. She didn’t want to agree with Bernard – although she did – and so denigrate the design of the house. ‘You two worked together?’ she asked carefully.
‘At the beginning,’ he replied. ‘But when the twins were born, she made the decision to be a full-time mum.’ He shrugged, and Sara wasn’t sure if he was questioning his wife’s decision.
‘I didn’t go back to work till mine were at school. I don’t know how women do both with small kids, especially twins. That must have been exhausting.’
‘Ilsa had poor health, too … crippling asthma. It was what killed her, in fact.’
‘Oh, God … how awful. I’m so sorry.’ The air went still for a second. It was clear that the words had been wrenched reluctantly from Bernard’s mouth.
Then he was talking again, his speech hurried, as if he were running away from the revelation of his wife’s death. ‘She would never have managed work as well … But she was a good mother, absolutely devoted to Adam and Carrie.’
‘I admire her, sticking with it. I’m afraid I couldn’t wait to get back to work when Peggy started nursery.’
Bernard didn’t reply immediately. He was making her nervous. His face seemed to have settled into vexed lines as he gazed out to sea and at the darkening sky, the air now heavy, thick with tiny thunder flies. She wondered what on earth was going through his mind.
He got up, stood there in the dying light, arms folded defensively. Looking down at her, a frown between his brows, he said, ‘I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you. Seeing you and showing you the house.’ She opened her mouth to reply, but he was in full flow. ‘But all I’ve done since you got here is bang on about Ilsa.’ He stopped. ‘It’s just having you here, in her space …’ For a moment he looked lost.
She hesitated. ‘I can imagine.’ Although, interestingly, she hadn’t found having Bernard in her home a problem. Odd, but not a problem.
Bernard took a long breath, his arms still clutched tight to his body. She thought she saw a shudder pass through him. He gave her an anxious smile, his eyes softening. ‘I don’t want to keep thinking of her, not when you’re here.’
She laughed. ‘I struggle with that too. When I’m with Pete’s mum, Margaret – who’s old and not well – I feel like I’m betraying his memory, just thinking about you. It’s natural, I suppose.’
Before Bernard had time to reply, there was a long, low roll of thunder, which seemed to be barrelling towards them over the sea at high speed. They looked at each other in alarm. ‘Better get inside,’ he said, grabbing the cushions as she collected the mugs. They were just in time. A bolt of lightning silently lit up the clifftop scene, like a black-and-white movie, followed by a deafening crack of thunder directly overhead. Sara felt large fat raindrops cooling her hot cheeks – she loved summer storms.
Inside, she was immediately aware of the claustrophobic warmth of the room, which wrapped around her like a sticky blanket.
Bernard rinsed the mugs at the sink. Speaking with his back to her, almost as if he were talking to himself, he muttered, ‘Being haunted by the past can be hard, though.’
‘Do you feel “haunted”?’ she asked, surprised by his choice of words, surprised even more to feel a faint shiver run up the back of her neck as she spoke. She glanced around, reacting involuntarily to the sensation that she was being watched. Did you expect some headless phantom levitating in the corner? she chided herself, feeling instantly foolish. There was, nonetheless, a strange atmosphere in the room.
Bernard seemed to shake himself. His voice was firm as he stood the mugs upside down on the draining board and turned to her, ‘No … no, of course not.’ He lifted his hands in a gesture of apparent apology. ‘Listen, can we start again? Pretend you’ve just arrived?’ The smile he gave her was brighter. ‘Would you like a glass of wine or something, before we go down to the bookshop? We can take my car. You won’t be driving till later.’
‘Thanks, wine would be nice.’ Sara hoped a hit of alcohol might dissolve some of her own tension. She wished they could relax with each other in the way they had previously. Is this a terrible mistake? she asked herself. In his own home, where she might have assumed he’d feel the most at ease, Bernard seemed so on edge. Not at all the man she’d had tea and dinner with. I should go, put him out of his misery. At the thought she might have to drive home, she hesitated before sipping her wine. She’d been right: there was something dark beneath the ever-changing landscape of confidence, humour and painful vulnerability on his handsome face. Something odd about the house, too. But she knew she wouldn’t leave precipitously: she liked him too much.
As they sat at the oak kitchen table, he with a glass of elderflower, she with her wine, both jumped as another thunderclap drowned what Bernard had begun to say. The rain was beating on the windows with fury now, the maelstrom outside unrecognizable from the gorgeous summer evening of an hour ago.
‘Bloody hell,’ Bernard said, laughing – the first genuine laugh she’d heard since she arrived. ‘We’re used to the full Monty up here, but they’re really putting on a show for you tonight.’
Sara nodded, eyes wide. She might like storms, but this elemental force outside – the house so exposed and precarious – was unsettling. She knew the whole area of cliff was potentially crumbling, and tonight it felt like another bite was being taken out.
Bernard was eyeing her. ‘Umm … it’s so nasty out there … What do you say to giving the Thai a miss? We can go another time. I’ll cook?’ It was as if the storm had released a pent-up tension in Bernard. He looked almost relieved.
‘OK,’ she said cautiously. She had no desire to drive in this weather, although she still wasn’t sure how much Bernard wanted her there. Or, indeed, how much she wanted to stay.
He got up immediately, found another glass and poured himself some wine. Holding it up to Sara, he said, ‘Sorry.’
Sara couldn’t tell exactly what he was apologizing for.
The storm had abated, but rain still poured down. Bernard hooked a ladle of steaming spaghetti out of the copper pan and piled it into the two bowls he’d placed on the pristine worktop. ‘Cream in a carbonara is tourist-inspired sacrilege, according to my Italian friend, Alessandra,’ he said, handing Sara her bowl. He had lighted a couple of fat beeswax candles and placed them in the centre of the kitchen table, tossed a green salad and grated some pecorino.
Sara laughed. ‘I don’t put cream in mine, but I’m not being smug. My recipe was obviously written by an Italian.’
When they were both seated – on either side at the corner of the table – she looked at him and grinned. ‘I think you’re affected by barometric pressure, you know, this muggy air. You’ve been much happier since it began to rain.’ Much happier, and the connection between them had revived suddenly, like power being restored after a blackout, as she’d sat with her wine and watched him cook.
He gave a sceptical laugh. ‘That’s a thing?’
‘According to my friend Precious, it affects blood pressure, joint pain, headaches. Before a storm it usually drops very low.’
