“Why would he change his name?” she said reasonably. “You must have made a mistake. You can’t really tell from an old photo, can you? Why don’t you ask him next time you see him, if it’s troubling you.”
“He must have said something about his family, what he did before he joined the pilotage. You know how you get chatting while you’re waiting for a ship.”
“James doesn’t chat,” she said. “He’s always pleasant and polite, but he likes his privacy. And so do I.” She stood up and he saw he’d have to go.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you. You’re right. It must have been a mistake. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m not myself at the moment.”
Then she felt sorry for him again. “Look, how did you get here? Give me a minute and I’ll take you back to the village.”
“No, I’ll not trouble you. Stan said he was bringing in a pilot. I’ll get a lift back with him.”
They stood awkwardly. She was blocking his way to the door and moved to let him out. At exactly that moment there was a sound upstairs, a slight creak. One of the floorboards in the bedroom had been loose even in his day. She saw that he’d heard it.
“Must be the cat,” she said.
Aye.” Though he knew it wasn’t any cat. It wasn’t just the sound from upstairs, which had more weight behind it than the heaviest cat. It was the way she looked as she said it, furtive and excited at the same time, as if she was playing a secret game. After she’d shut the door behind him, he stood in the small garden and looked upstairs where the light had been, but now the curtains were drawn and he couldn’t see anything. The single car parked behind the cottage he recognized as Wendy’s.
The launch was out and he waited beside the office for it to come back to the jetty. He didn’t feel he could just let himself into the office any more. The boat nosed back through the gloom and he felt the stab of nostalgia which he’d expected to feel in the house. Later, he stood with Stan looking out towards the river while the pilot made a call to the data centre.
“Who is it that Wendy’s taken up with? You live next door, man. You must have seen him go in and out.”
“Never. He must be like the Invisible Man.”
“There’ll be rumours. I know what the gossip’s like round this place.”
“One thing’s obvious.” Stan touched the side of his nose with his finger. “He’s married, isn’t he? Why else would she keep him secret?”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
They sat in church, in their usual places. Mary and Robert, Emma with the baby on her knee and James. At Mary’s feet the dreadful fat handbag which Emma hated and which was always full of rubbish. A splash of sunlight shone through the glass, coloured the dust which swirled in the draught from the door and stained the surplus of the priest who walked down the nave to shake the hands of the congregation as they shared the peace. He reached across James to touch Emma’s head. “Peace be with you, my dear.”
The sun had shone briefly in just the same way on the morning of their wedding. James remembered sitting on the front pew, next to Geoff, the colleague he’d persuaded to be his best man. It had taken some persuasion, he thought now. Not that Geoff hadn’t been pleased to be asked, but he’d been surprised, unable to hide his bewilderment. “Of course I’d love to. But usually it’s family, isn’t it? Or some mate you’ve been to school with. Someone you’ve known for years at least.” James had said there wasn’t anyone. No one he’d rather have than Geoff.
So, he’d been sitting at the front of the church, surprisingly calm, knowing absolutely that this was the right thing to do. The music had started. Not “The
Wedding March.” They’d decided against that. “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’. He’d known Emma was on her way, but he’d not looked round, not immediately. He’d waited a few beats before turning. And just at that moment the sun had come out, bleeding the colour from the stained glass onto the ivory satin of her dress. She’d caught his eye and smiled nervously, and it had come to him, like the melodramatic ending of a romantic novel, that everything had worked out for the best. His father’s death, the shame and the scandal, everything that followed, had all led to this moment, to his taking this beautiful young woman to be his wife.
The intensity of the sensation had quickly passed. The procession Emma on her father’s arm, two small bridesmaids in a state of imploding excitement had moved on towards the altar and he had to focus on getting the ritual right, but he was left with an optimism which had remained, unshaken, until the recent drama.
Now, sitting in the church, as the sun shone through the window and the elderly priest took his hand, the sense of well being returned. There was, after all, nothing to be concerned about. The unpleasantness of the last few weeks would pass, and things would go back to normal. He would continue to bring boats safely up the river, then return home to his wife and child. Nothing would disturb the equilibrium of their lives.
He had thought Mary and Robert would be unwilling to face the sc rum around the coffee pots and plates of biscuits in the church hall and they did pause for a moment in the porch.
“Would you rather go straight home?” Robert asked his wife. James had always thought of him as a strong and reliable man. The sort of man to hold his family together. And even immediately after Christopher’s death it had seemed he was still playing that role. Today though he appeared indecisive, vague. He wanted Mary to tell him what they should do.
“No,” she said. James saw that Springhead was the last place she wanted to be. “We’ll have a coffee first, shall we?”
Inside the hall she seemed embarrassed to be a customer and was all for rushing into the kitchen to find an apron and begin the washing-up.
“Sit down,” James said. “I’ll bring your drink over.” He stood in the queue and looked at them, holding each other’s hands across the Formica table, not speaking. They looked old. Around them the parishioners circled like birds of prey over a carcass, eager to make contact, to give their condolences. To get news.
Emma had stayed in the church after the rest of the congregation had left. She’d whispered to James at the end of the service that she needed time to herself. He respected that. She was very young to have suffered so much. Now she walked into the hall, oblivious to the sympathetic glances, her face pale and still, without expression. He had never been able to tell what she was thinking, and since Christopher’s death she had become more distant from him. He disliked violent displays of emotion. There had been too much shouting and raving, too many tears, when he was young. But now he wondered if he should have encouraged her to weep, if when she had asked if they might talk, he should have made it easier for her to confide in him.
He set the cups of coffee in front of his parents-in law. Two women had plucked up sufficient courage to approach them and Robert seemed to have recovered his spirits under their attention. James went to Emma, who was standing by the window, looking out over the churchyard, twisting a strand of hair around her finger.
“I’d like to invite Robert and Mary to lunch,” he said. “Would you mind?”
“No.” She seemed surprised to be asked, as if usually he would have made the invitation without consulting her. And perhaps that was true, he thought. Throughout their marriage she’d been so passive that he’d always taken her consent for granted. Had he been more like a father than a lover to her?
In the Captain’s House he insisted on preparing lunch. He sat Mary and Robert in the living room and threw some logs onto the embers of the fire. The logs were dry and the bark caught immediately, curling back from the wood and sending sparks up the chimney. The couple stared into the grate, mesmerized, only moving when he handed them a glass of sherry each. Still they weren’t talking. Emma was upstairs settling Matthew into his cot for a sleep. A little later he heard her come down. He thought she would join her parents, but instead she came into the kitchen. She came up behind him and kissed his neck.