Ghostwritten

‘Vincent …’ I steeled myself. ‘I’ve thought about it.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve also discussed it with Rick. And the thing is …’ My eyes strayed to the shelf. Transcending Fear. ‘The thing is … that …’

‘So … what have you decided?’

How to Face Your Demons.

‘I’ll come.’

THREE (#ulink_bb46599d-01af-54e3-888c-521f5a12bb78)

The following Saturday I boarded the train at Paddington for Cornwall. The week had rushed by, with the final edits on the baby-care guide due. I was glad to finish the project and to stop thinking about babies. I’d then thrown myself into researching the Dutch East Indies and the Japanese occupation.

Rick and I hadn’t really discussed our problems again. In any case we’d hardly seen each other. He’d been busy at school with parents’ evenings, and he’d spent time at the gym. He was clearly avoiding being with me. But when we did finally talk, we decided that it would be better if we didn’t phone, text or Skype while I was away.

‘We need to find out how much we miss each other,’ Rick had said as he’d driven me to the station. ‘Perhaps that’ll give us the answer.’

‘Perhaps it will,’ I responded bleakly. I hated the uncertainty between us, but didn’t know what else to say.

On the train, I stowed my case in the luggage rack, then found my seat. Soon there was the slamming of doors, a shrill whistle, and the carriages began to creak and groan as we pulled out of the station. As we trundled though west London, my mind was in turmoil: my future with Rick hung in the balance, and I was heading for Cornwall, a place I’d shunned for twenty-five years. I’d been unable even to look at the county on a map without a stab of pain. Now, for reasons I didn’t even understand, I was going back.

Desperate to distract myself, I got out my laptop.

The Dutch East Indies was a colony that became Indonesia following World War II …

Through the window the urban sprawl had already given way to fields and coppiced hills that were tinged with gold.

Java lies between Sumatra to the west and Bali to the east … A chain of volcanic mountains forms a spine along the island … four main provinces …

Soon we were passing through the Somerset levels, where weeping willows lined the river banks. A heron shook out its wings then lifted into the air.

On 28 February 1942 the Japanese 16th Army landed at three locations on the coast of West Java; their main targets were the cities of Batavia (now Jakarta) and Bandung …

The train was running beside an estuary. The tide was out and flocks of wading birds had gathered on the silty shore. My mind filled with thoughts of Rick again, but I forced them away. I returned to my research and read on about the fall of Java.

At the next station, a woman got on with a small girl and boy and they sat at the table across the aisle.

The girl had short brown hair, held off her pretty face with a yellow clip. She read a book while her little brother, seated opposite her, played on a Nintendo.

The Japanese began interning non-military European men – mostly planters, teachers, civil servants and engineers – from March 1942. Their wives and children were interned from November of that year. For many, this was the start of an ordeal that was to last three and a half years.

‘Fear!’ I looked up. The boy had put down his Nintendo and was looking at his sister. ‘Fear!’ he repeated. Absorbed in her stickers, she ignored him. ‘Feear …’ He grabbed her arm. ‘FEAR!’

Their mother, who’d been texting, lowered her phone. ‘Sophia, answer your brother, will you!’

She glared at him. ‘What?’

He held up his Nintendo. ‘Could you do my Super Mario for me, Phia? I’m stuck.’

She peered at it. ‘Okay.’

The boy passed the console to her and she began tapping the screen with the stylus while he watched, rapt, resting his face in his hands.

Some 108,000 civilians were herded into camps, where they were held in atrocious conditions; 13,000 died from starvation and disease. I tried to imagine the dreadful reality behind those figures. Klara must have been through so much, and at such a young age.

As we pulled out of Plymouth the woman put her phone down again. ‘I want you to stop playing and look out of the window,’ she told her children. ‘What huge ships,’ she said as we passed the dockyard. ‘We’ll be crossing the river in a minute. Here we go,’ she sang as the train rolled onto Brunel’s great railway bridge.

The girl stood up to get a better view through the massive iron girders. ‘It’s like flying!’

A hundred feet below, the Tamar glittered in the sunshine.

‘Look at all those boats,’ said her mother. ‘Now we’re in Cornwall,’ she added as we reached the other side.

‘Yay!’ the children exclaimed.

After Saltash the train proceeded slowly through steep pastureland, then through a conifer plantation. We passed Liskeard and Par, then St Austell with its terraces of pale stone houses.

The loudspeaker crackled into life. ‘This is your train manager speaking. Next stop, Truro.’

My hands shook as I gathered up my things. I smiled goodbye to the children’s mum; then, as the train halted, I stepped off with my case.

I collected the keys for the small car I’d reserved at the Hertz office at the front of the station. Then, my heart pounding, I drove off in it, past Truro’s cathedral with its three spires, out of the city. Following the signs for St Mawes I went down a winding road over-canopied by oak and beech, their branches pierced here and there by shafts of sunlight that dappled the tarmac.

I drove through Glendurn and Trelawn then, seeing the sign for Trennick, I turned onto a still narrower road, ringed with blackthorn and alder, the banks thick with brambles that scratched the sides of the car.

I rounded the next bend. Then I stopped.

Before me was the sea, shimmering in the sun. This was Polvarth, a place I’d vowed never to return to, yet which I saw, in my mind, every day.

It was my idea.

I closed my eyes as the memories rushed back.

We did it all by ourselves.

Beneath the sign that said Higher Polvarth Farm was an old kitchen table on which had been left a crate of cauliflowers (50p each), a box of cabbages (50p) and a yellow bucket holding bunches of dahlias (75p). A jam jar contained a few coins. Another smaller sign had a black arrow on it, pointing right. Farm Shop, 200 yds. Crabs, lobsters & fish, caught daily. Open 9 a.m.–11 a.m. & 5 p.m.–7 p.m., Mon to Sat.

I turned in, bumped carefully down the track then braked.

In front of me rose the farmhouse, a square, white-painted building with a low-pitched slate roof and tall windows. Beside it were parked an old Land Rover and a white pick-up, the back of which was piled with lobster pots. Behind me was a big, open-sided shed in which there was a wooden boat on a trailer; a stone barn housed the farm shop. A ginger cat lay curled in the sunlight.

The door of the farmhouse opened and a well-built man in blue overalls came out.

‘Jenni?’ He held out his hand as he came closer. ‘Henry Tregear.’

I shook it, feeling shy suddenly. ‘Good to meet you. I can see the resemblance to your brother.’