“Oh my dear, no need of that. The room’s unlocked anyway, as this is bed-linen day. You know the way. I was just watching my telly. Would you like a cup of tea? Do you need my help?”
Kerra demurred: both the offer of tea and the offer of help. She shouldn’t be long, she said. She’d let herself out when she had what she’d come for.
“And are you riding about in the rain, my dear? On your bicycle? Why, you’ll catch your death, Kerra. Are you sure you wouldn’t care for a nice cup of PG Tips?”
No, no. She was fine, Kerra assured Miss Carey. She was right as rain. They both chuckled at her lame remark, and they parted at the far end of the sitting room. Busy Lizzie went back to her telly as Kerra ducked into the corridor that led along to the far end of the house. There, Alan’s room overlooked the southwest section of St. Mevan Beach. From the window, Kerra could see that the tide was in. The waves were breaking from three-foot swells, and at least a dozen surfers bobbed in the distance.
Kerra turned from the sight of them. The thought came to her of her father last night, and of what it meant that part of his life was hidden from her. But she dismissed this consideration because now was not the time and, anyway, she had to work quickly.
She was looking for signs without actually knowing what the signs would be. She needed to understand why the Alan Cheston of the last few days was not the Alan Cheston she had known and involved herself with. She reckoned she knew the explanation, but still she wanted hard evidence, although what she would do with it when she had it was something she hadn’t yet considered.
She’d also never done a search before. The whole enterprise made her feel unclean, but there was no alternative other than hurling accusations at him, and going that route was something she couldn’t afford to do.
She girded herself mentally and began to look about. It was, she saw, all so vintage Alan, with every item in its place. His djembe drum stood in its stand in the corner of the room, in front of a stool upon which Alan sat when he played it during his daily meditation. A tambourine-something of a joke gift that Kerra had given him before she’d understood how significant the drum actually was to Alan’s spiritual regimen-leaned nearby, against a bookcase where he kept his yoga books. On top of this bookcase were his photos: Alan, wearing the cap and gown of the university graduate, flanked by his beaming parents; Alan and Kerra on a holiday in Portsmouth, his arm round her shoulders on the deck of the Victory; Kerra by herself, perched on the flat stone top of Lanyon Quoit; a younger Alan with his childhood dog, a mixed-breed terrier with a coat the colour of rusty bedsprings.
The trouble was that Kerra had no idea what she was looking for. She wanted a sign, but she didn’t know if she’d recognise anything that wasn’t written out for her by means of flashing neon lights. She prowled the room, opening and closing drawers in the chest and then in the desk. Aside from neatly folded clothes in conservative hues, the only items of interest she came up with were a collection of birthday cards given or sent to him through the years and a list entitled “Five-Year Objectives” upon which she read that, among other things, he intended to learn Italian, take xylophone lessons, and visit Patagonia, in addition to “marry Kerra,” which came before Patagonia but after Italian.
And then in a tarnished silver toast rack where Alan kept his mail, she found it: the item without a purpose in the bedroom of a man for whom every item had a purpose, either in the present, the past, or the future. This was a postcard, tucked at the back of correspondence from Alan’s bank, his dentist, and the London School of Economics. The picture on the card was taken from the sea, into the shore, and the view presented was of two deep sea caves, one on either side of a cove. Above the cove was a Cornish village well known to Kerra, as it was the place she’d been sent with her brother throughout their childhoods, to stay with their grandparents while their mother was going through one of her spells.
Pengelly Cove. They were not allowed to go to the beach there, no matter the weather. The reason given was the tide and the sea caves. The tide came in fast, the way it came in at Morecambe Bay. Deep in a sea cave where you thought you were safe with your exploration-or whatever else you were doing-the water swept in and the walls marked its depth, which was higher than the top of the tallest man’s head, as relentless as it was unforgiving.
Kids just like you lot’ve died in those caves, Granddad would thunder, so there’ll be no beachgoing while you’re stopping here. ’Sides, there’s work enough round this place to keep you busy, and if I see you’re bored, I’ll give you more.
But all of that was an excuse, and they knew it, Kerra and Santo. Beach-going meant village-going, and in the village they were known as the children of Dellen Kerne, or Dellen Nankervis as she’d been then. Long, loose, wide-spreading Dellen, the village tart. Dellen whose unmistakable handwriting formed the sentence “This is it,” which was scripted in red on the face of the postcard in Alan’s old toast rack. From the it an arrow extended down to the sea cave on the south side of the cove.
Kerra pocketed the postcard and looked about for something more. But nothing else was actually needed.
CADAN HAD SPENT THE morning with a mouth that felt like a wrestler’s jockstrap and a stomach doing a shimmy to his throat. More hair of the dog that had bitten him was what he’d needed from the get-go, but an unexpected pre-Adventures Unlimited conversation with his sister had prevented him from doing a recce for his father’s booze. Not that Madlyn would have reported Cadan to Lew had she caught him in the act of going through cupboards-despite her general weirdness, Cadan’s sister had never been known to sneak-but she would have realised what he was doing and she would have ragged on him about it. He couldn’t handle that. As it was, he’d had enough trouble merely responding to what she had to say when the subject wasn’t him at all. It was, instead, Ione Soutar, who’d phoned three times in the last thirty-six hours, on one spurious excuse after another.
“Well, she was stupid if she ever thought it was going to go somewhere,” Madlyn had said. “I mean, did they ever have anything between them besides sex and dating, if you can call what they did dating, because judging surfing competitions in Newquay and having pizza nights and takeaway curry nights with those two obnoxious girls of hers…Not exactly what I’d call a promising relationship, would you? So what was she thinking?”
Cadan was the last person capable of answering these questions, and he wondered if Madlyn herself ought to be holding forth on what comprised a promising relationship. But he reckoned her final query was rhetorical, and he was happy enough that he didn’t have to reply.
Madlyn went on. “All she had to do was look at his history. But could she do that? Would she do that? No. And why? Because she saw him as father material, and that’s what she wanted, for Leigh and Jennie. Well, God knows they need that. Especially Leigh.”
Cadan managed an answer to this. “Jennie’s all right.” He hoped that would put an end to the matter, leaving him to his headache and general queasiness in peace.
Madlyn said, “Oh, I suppose, if you like them that age, she’s all right. The other one, though…Leigh’s a real piece of work.” She said nothing for a moment, and Cadan saw that she was watching him watching Pooh. He was waiting for the parrot to finish a breakfast of sunflower seeds and apples. Pooh preferred English apples-Cox, if he could get them-but in a pinch and in the off-season, he enjoyed an imported Fuji, which he was doing now.