Sea Music

She opens her mouth, and Barnaby says, suddenly, very quietly, ‘Maybe life is not so cruel. Martha, returning to her childlike state – maybe now she can remember happy times in Poland, memories she blocked because they were too painful to remember.’ He pulls the key out of the ignition and turns to Lucy. ‘Maybe the sadness now is mine and Fred’s, because we can remember her when she was young and bright and full of fun. I am so afraid I will forget how she once was.’

Barnaby’s face. The line of his mouth held in a loss he feels everyday and hides. Lucy leans forward and hugs him, her head pressed away, hard into his shoulder. For the first time she feels the sheer weight of his tiredness in caring for Martha and Fred, day in and day out, without reprieve.

‘I am so glad we talked,’ she says into his shirt.

‘So am I, darling.’ He kisses the top of her head. ‘Come on, let’s go and get some bread and cheese while everyone sleeps. Then we’ll put those primroses under the tree.’

As Lucy waters the primroses on Abi’s small grave she realises it is the first uninterrupted conversation she and Barnaby have had for ages. Mostly they are both too busy or too tired by the time Martha and Fred are in bed.

She thinks of her own father, whom she has never met. Anna does not even know where he is any more. Claudio Pedrazzini – she has a cloudy photograph of him standing squinting into the sun in Milan. She could bump into him and never even know. Barnaby says one day she will probably want to try to trace him. She has inherited none of his musical talent, but, so Anna says, much of his laid-back nature.

She wonders, as she presses the wet earth down over the roots, if he ever, in idle moments, thinks about her. She has been lucky; she has always had Barnaby.

Lucy walks across the garden to put the watering can back into the falling-down garage, full of ancient bicycles and rusty paint tins. She thinks that her first instinct in not telling Barnaby about the papers she found was right. Either Barnaby knows and it is some secret he thinks should be kept, or it would be one more thing about Martha to make him sad. It isn’t her business. It is Gran’s. If there is a secret, it is not hers to give away.

Chapter 12 (#ulink_a38cf500-d8b2-59fb-b047-fdeb35151b45)

Lucy, finishing her early shift at the hotel, drives slowly home. It is an amazingly beautiful morning with no clouds. Cold but clear. The trees are unfurling pale virgin leaves, like tiny fists. Spring is everywhere, and Tristan will soon be gone to a cold and hostile place where spring comes late.

She stops the car and fishes in her bag for her mobile phone. She gets out and goes to sit on the sea wall, watching a fast sea swell and crash on the rocks below her. After she and Barnaby talked about Martha she felt better, for a while. When she is busy, she can push away the image of that strange piece of paper in the brown envelope, but her mind keeps returning to it.

What else lies up there in the trunk? What other shock lies in that faded box? At first, she did not want to know. But as the days slip by and leaving for London gets closer, she feels torn between wanting a glimpse of something that might settle her anxiety, and a longing and equal dread of knowing the truth.

She has not told Tristan. It is not something she can discuss on the phone. Talking about it will make it real instead of lying like a dark place on the edge of her mind. Lucy wants to believe there is a simple explanation. She wants to believe everything is exactly as she has always been told all her life. The story of Gran’s arrival in England in the war. The romantic meeting and falling in love with Fred. A rushed war wedding before his leave ended. Anna’s birth at the end of the war.

She wants to go on believing this. Yet that small faded box was obviously not meant to be found, so why not burn the papers instead of hiding them? Lucy has thought about it a lot. It is hard, maybe impossible, to destroy your own or other people’s identity or possessions. After all, it is who you are.

Lucy knows she would have had to block her mind too if the people she loved had been left behind, killed in the war or perished in a concentration camp. So why is her mother’s birth registered in a German document dated 1941 with an identity card dated 1943?

Was Anna really born in Warsaw, not London? Is she really four years older than she thinks she is? Perhaps Martha came to London later. Perhaps Grandpa met her somewhere else and they had a baby before they were married. Maybe Martha and Anna had to have German papers to get to England. That would mean Grandpa …

Lucy shivers, suddenly afraid, as if Martha’s past is about to cast a great shadow over them and they will be swallowed in darkness. Like Barnaby, she hates secrets: they surface unexpectedly and hurt.

She dials Tristan, looking down on the waves, feeling the cold spray on her hands. She hates the thought of him going to a place full of hatred, American bombing and streams of refugees. She listens as the phone rings and rings, then Tristan’s breathless voice comes on the line.

‘It’s only me,’ she says. ‘I know it’s early, but I just wanted to hear your voice.’

‘Soppy tart … Phew … Hang on … got to get my breath back. Just got back from a run. Phhhew … It’s an amazing day here.’

‘It is here too. Huge sea.’

‘Are you OK, Luce?’

‘Yes. Just dreading you going. Tris, was it really necessary to flatten Belgrade?’

Tristan sighs. ‘Debatable. Luce, come on, I’m not taking off yet. We’ve got leave together before I go. This isn’t like you, my little ray of sunshine. Is there something you’re not telling me? Like you want to throw me over, not for a fisherman but, quelle horreur, a bleached and muscled surf guard?’

‘You wish!’ Lucy almost tells him what is worrying her, but it is not the time.

‘Luce, I have to go. I’ve got to shower and get into uniform. I’ll ring you later in the day. Be happy, sweetheart, it’s such a gorgeous day.’

Lucy drives home and parks in the drive. She sits for a moment looking across the lawn, listening to the morning birds. Gran’s garden is a spring garden and everything is poised to explode into colour. She shrugs her mood off, closes her mind. It is impossible to be unhappy on a morning like this.

Lucy lets herself into the house. Barnaby is dashing about with Martha’s tray and he looks relieved to see her.

‘Thank goodness, darling. Your gran has dressed herself for high summer and refuses to change into warmer clothes. She’s in the bathroom at the moment, very cross with me. Fred is having tea in bed until the bathroom is free and I have ten minutes to get over to St Michael’s for Holy Communion.’

Lucy grins at him. ‘You’ve also got marmalade on your cassock, Barnes. Did you tell me we haven’t got anyone coming in until later today?’

‘Oh, yes. Sorry, Lucy, it’s a training morning or something, I can’t quite remember. Kate is not coming until midday, but Mrs Biddulph has just rung to say she can relieve you at ten o’clock. Is that all right?’

‘Yes, it’s fine. What a pity, I’ll miss Kate again. I’m back at work at twelve o’clock. I’m dying to meet her. What’s she like?’

‘She’s … different – quietly capable, and she drives, thank God. I quailed a touch when I first saw her – nose ring, short spiky hair – but Martha and Fred did not bat an eyelid. Lovely face, rather like a young Audrey Hepburn. I might be wrong, but I’d say she was a bit overqualified to stay long term.’

Lucy raises an eyebrow at him ‘You noticed her then?’

Barnaby gathers up his books filled with small flaglike book marks. ‘Kate is not someone you can avoid noticing.’

Martha emerges from the bathroom, looking stunning in a mustard-yellow dress, a cream scarf and bare legs in tiny smart court shoes.

Lucy claps her hands. ‘Gran, you look beautiful, utterly beautiful!’

Martha smiles at her granddaughter. ‘Darling, thank you,’ she says graciously, throwing Barnaby a baleful look as he heads for the front door.

‘Bye. See you all later …’ Barnaby is out of the front door, galloping gratefully to his car.

Lucy giggles, suddenly deliciously happy again. ‘Tell you what, Gran, put this coat on … there … Now I want you to see your garden – it’s looking stunning – then you can tell me if you are warm enough in those clothes.’

She peers round the bedroom door at her grandfather while simultaneously helping Martha into her coat. ‘Gramps? Are you OK? Barnaby’s just left. Gran and I are just going to have a quick potter round the garden.’

Fred puts his tea cup down. ‘I’m fine, Lucy, thank you.’ He winks at her wryly. ‘I’m going to get up in five minutes. Take your gran up to the copse. The wood anemones are out under the trees … look splendid.’

Lucy and Martha walk across the damp grass. The early sun seems warm, but the wind from the sea is not. Martha holds her coat close as they turn towards the trees where the wood pigeons nest at the far end of the large, overgrown garden.

They both gasp at the sight of the great circular cloud of blue, white and gold lying under the spindly saplings and old sycamore trees. Lucy goes behind Martha to shield her from the cold wind and twines her arms around her neck.

‘Did you plant all those, Gran?’

‘No … Fred planted more and more each year until there was a great carpet of them, which grew and grew. So lovely. Oh, so lovely.’

‘Everything is just coming out. Look at that yellow, and the pink there in the corner near that white prickly bush thing.’

Martha laughs. ‘Quince,’ she says. ‘I think.’ Then suddenly, ‘I don’t want this all dug up for vegetables.’

‘Gran, why ever should it be? Of course not.’

‘It happens.’ Martha shivers, and takes one foot out of her shoe and dips it in the long wet winter grass. Lucy opens her mouth to say she will get cold, then seeing Martha’s face, says nothing.