Another Life: Escape to Cornwall with this gripping, emotional, page-turning read

Chapter 76 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 77 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 78 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 79 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 80 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 81 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 82 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 83 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 84 (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue (#ulink_7f349dd6-714e-5548-9451-e7816b0484f0)

Montreal, Quebec 1998

Mark went down to the basement to take one last look at Isabella before he wrapped her up in bubble wrap and placed her in the crate. He had become so used to her being down there that it would seem strange not to have her dominating the room. Despite the ravages of her age and the sea, her presence filled the space. Her eyes in the damaged face watched him with a look that was mysterious and resolute, as if she had seen everything and nothing could surprise her any more.

Her expression seemed to change in the varying light. A face that was made up of such a multiplicity of emotions that Mark thought the carver must have known his model well. This was not a face merely glimpsed or remembered. This face he had created was mobile and frighteningly alive. Her carver had seen and captured the essence of the woman, and even now, a decade later, Mark believed he could glimpse an innocent sensuousness. A consciousness of self that was part of being a beautiful woman and seeing herself reflected in a man’s eyes.

The paint had flaked on the left cheek giving her an air of having been abandoned. There was a deep cut in the wood above her right ear, probably made by a propeller. When Mark first saw her in the garden of a house he never meant to revisit, he had been startled, for it seemed to him that he must have been guided there solely in order to rescue her.

Who better than a historian to discover her origins? His exasperated family admitted that no one else would be foolish enough to ship her from Newfoundland to a basement in Montreal in order to find out who she was and where she had come from.

‘You’re so fanciful, Dad. I guess you believe she was waiting for you to come along, huh?’

Of course, he wouldn’t admit to it. Neither could he quite understand how his family were not equally enchanted by her.

‘In the right place, I might be,’ Veronique said. ‘But not in my basement, watching me. Her eyes follow me about. I forget she is in here and at night when I switch the light on she gives me a terrible fright.’

‘This is one of the loveliest figureheads I’ve ever seen. It’s worth preserving,’ Mark said. ‘Pity she belonged to a British schooner, not one of ours … Various bodies in England are funding most of the cost, but it’s the same over there as it is for us here, they have to fight for every penny they get.’

Mark turned and Inez was standing behind him, hip jutted out to support Daisy who was sleepily sucking her thumb. Inez put her on the ground and they carefully started to wrap the figurehead in layers and layers of bubble wrap, until she resembled a mummy and her face and features were distorted by plastic.

Sitting on the floor, Daisy looked up and pointed. ‘Poor lady gone?’

Mark picked the child up. ‘Yes. She is going to fly on an aeroplane over the sea and someone a long way away is going to make her better.’

‘I like lady,’ she said. ‘What name?’

‘Isabella.’ The child’s hair smelt of butter. ‘The lady used to stand on the front of a ship and swim through the waves and look very beautiful. Her name is Isabella, and we have wrapped her up in a thick coat of bubbles so she won’t get hurt on the aeroplane.’

‘Poor lady,’ Daisy said again as they went up the stairs, and Mark wondered how he could appease his wife for flying off with his wooden angel.

He was not ready to give her up yet; and he needed to know who he was going to give her up to.

Chapter 1 (#ulink_44108d3f-4d4f-5b69-b3ee-c88794409976)

Through the trees Gabby could see the yellow arm of the mechanical digger in the top field. It was the end of an era. No more cattle or the sweet grassy smell of them bringing the flies into the garden in summer. No sound of cows’ teeth munching the new green blades in sharp little stretch and pulling sounds. No wheezy human-sounding bovine coughs making them jump in the dark.

Charlie had occasionally ploughed a portion of the top field for cabbages or kale, and when Josh was small he and his friends had wrinkled their noses at the smell of rotting greens. But cabbages had been infinitely better than executive houses.

‘I wouldn’t have sold an acre of land if I’d had a choice,’ Charlie said miserably, watching the digger throwing up dark earth in all directions like an angry elephant. He was secretly appalled by that great arm tearing at his sacred field. Gabby and Nell could see that, despite his effort to appear businesslike, he felt as sick as they did.

‘We’ll get used to it,’ Nell said quickly. ‘We’ll make a wind-break to hide the houses. We can fill the gap with trees.’

‘Of course we’ll get used to it,’ Gabby said, wanting to cry. ‘Charlie, you had to do it, we know that, it’s just …’

‘I know,’ Charlie said abruptly, turning away and striding in his muddy boots across the farmyard. He hoisted himself up into the Land Rover and drove noisily down the lane to look at his pheasant chicks, something he always did when he wanted to be alone.

‘Oh, Nell,’ Gabby said. ‘This is far worse for you; you’ve lived here longer than either of us.’

Nell lifted her shoulders in a pragmatic little shrug.

‘I hate seeing any of the land go, Gabby, but we have to survive and it’s better than losing the farm or having the financial worries Ted and I had. Charlie is more businesslike than his father. That huge field had its limitations; it slopes, it’s exposed to the wind, and it’s stony. At least we keep the south end and the views. Those houses are going to lose the sun early and they won’t have a view. It’s just that we’re all sentimentally attached, it’s such a beautiful field. Does Josh know work has started?’

‘No, not yet, I’ve avoided mentioning it. You know how Josh likes things to stay exactly the same, he and Charlie argued about it last summer. Josh knows Charlie had no choice, but he refused to see why the paddock by the road couldn’t be sold instead. He wouldn’t accept that the paddock wouldn’t bring in enough money. Also, Nell, he feels guilty about minding so much when he’s not prepared to take on the farm himself.’

They walked slowly back towards the house, and as Nell reached her cottage she said, ‘You realize Charlie hasn’t given up on that one? He thinks Josh will come into the business later when he’s a bit older, when he’s tired of doing his own thing.’

Gabby hesitated. She was sure Josh would not change his mind. He had chosen his career and she felt, so strongly that it shocked her, that she did not want him to change it.

‘He might, Nell, but I doubt it. He loves it here, it’s his home, but farming isn’t something to do lightly or for sentimental reasons, is it? It gets harder every year. He would have to go to agricultural college, he’d have to be totally committed, and who knows what farming is going to be like for his generation? I mean, few jobs are for life any more.’

Nell laughed. ‘You sound like a little old general.’

Gabby made a face. ‘Do I? How is that huge picture of yours coming on?’

‘It’s a nightmare! Come and have a look. It feels like the Forth Bridge. All I’ve done so far is run some tests.’

They went into Nell’s chaotic cottage. Her two old cats lay curled together in the lid of a sewing basket in front of the Aga. Nell led the way, treading over old Sunday papers that littered the floor, into her pristine workroom where Mahler was playing quietly. Gabby never ceased to be amazed at how Nell managed to keep this one room like an operating theatre when the rest of the house grew more like an animal refuge every year.

Both women stood staring at the painting of a stout, bosomy lady clad in pearls and evening dress in an attractive oval frame. The painting looked as if it had been housed in a damp attic for many years, and Nell rather wished it had stayed there.