The Travellers Read online

  Most of the cottages were modernised now. Dormer windows had been inserted into the upper storeys – where children had once groped in the dark spaces under the beams – and the loft space turned into bedrooms. Staircases had replaced the steep wooden ladders. Kitchens and bathrooms had been built out at the back. During the sixties and seventies, some of the old solid plank doors had been replaced by mock panelled ones with imitation bottle glass windows in them. This hideous practice had now been stopped by a preservation order.

  Harbour Steps Cottage had never been modernised. Due to some legal tangle over an inheritance it had stood empty for nearly thirty years. On her infrequent visits Kate had watched its gradual slide into decay. It had once been a pretty cottage, larger than most and well proportioned, built out of the local grey sandstone with walls three feet thick and a roof of bluish Welsh slate.

  She stopped to look. Surely the cottage had not collapsed so far that it was being demolished? No, there was a pile of new timber just inside the door. That suggested renovation. As she peered through the dusty glass of one of the windows, a woman came out of the door, brushing plaster dust off her overall. Her head was tied up in an old scarf, from which wisps of red hair escaped.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Kate, embarrassed at being caught out. ‘How nosy of me!’

  The woman smiled.

  ‘Not at all. Everyone in Dunmouth is wondering whether I’m pulling down or shoring up. It’s the latter, I promise you. I’ve just been clearing out the worst of the junk. The men are coming tomorrow to start on the roof, and they need room to move.’

  ‘Are you going to live here?’

  ‘I’m making a tiny flat upstairs. Downstairs I’m going to open a bookshop.’

  ‘Wonderful! I hope you make a go of it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ The woman pulled off her scarf and shook out her hair. A billow of dust rose around her head, which she fanned away with her hand. She gave Kate a considering look.

  ‘Don’t I know you?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Kate put down her bags of shopping and held out her hand. ‘Kate Milburn. I was Kate Cartington when I used to live here.’

  ‘Of course! Kate Cartington. I don’t suppose you remember me – Linda Wilson. At primary school. I’m Linda Prescott now.’

  Kate had a sudden sharp memory of ginger plaits and a freckled nose, one of those sudden cracks of memory that had opened recently on her dark forgotten childhood.

  ‘Linda! But I thought you moved away years ago.’

  ‘Oh we did, soon after you went away to school. My dad got a job as a foreman in a shipyard in Newcastle. Then he was made redundant and we went to Liverpool to try to find work, but he never had a job again.’

  Linda’s mum had died when she was small. There had only been Linda and her dad, living in one of the cottages further along the pebble beach. Dan Wilson had once had his own boat-building business, which had failed around the time Kate had started boarding-school.

  ‘When did you move back?’ asked Kate.

  ‘End of February. And you? Are you just visiting?’

  ‘No, my husband’s company has just transferred him to Banford.’ Kate spread her hands deprecatingly. ‘We’ve bought Craigfast House.’

  ‘Wow!’ Linda raised her eyebrows and laughed. ‘Look, could you use a cup of coffee? My mouth feels like an ash pit.’

  * * *

  The old woman had cooked one of the crabs she had caught that morning. The other was still in the bucket amongst the seaweed, with a board on top to stop it escaping. She picked out the crab meat with care, and arranged half of it on a plate with lettuce and radishes from her garden. The other half she put in a basin and stored in her tiny Calor gas fridge. Filled with anticipation, her three cats wove round her ankles as she cracked the crab shell and put it into a pot to make stock, but her dog feigned indifference. He was sulking a little, because she had left him behind this morning and had come back with the scent of a strange dog on the hem of her skirt.

  She took the plate outside and sat on the step in the sun. This afternoon she would look again at the papers in the trunk.

  Chapter 2

  ‘It was my great-aunt Winnie who left me the cottage,’ said Linda, stirring her coffee. They were sitting at one of the less desirable tables in Gamage and Simon, where a draught swirled around their ankles every time someone opened the door. It was too early yet for Millicent and her friends, but they were taking no risks.

  ‘After Dad’s boat-building business failed and we moved away, I used to keep in touch with Auntie Winnie. Later on, I came to visit her from time to time. Not as often as I should. I sometimes wondered if I’d bump into you, but I never did.’

  Kate lowered her eyes guiltily.

  ‘I haven’t often come back to Dunmouth,’ she said. ‘When did she die, your Auntie Winnie?’

  ‘Oh, nearly five years ago. She left me everything. Dad died the year before, and I was all the family she had left. But the ownership of the cottage was sorted out only six months ago. It came to her from some distant relative.’

  ‘What have you been doing all this time?’ Kate asked. ‘I’ve told you my news.’

  ‘Well, when I left school in Liverpool I trained as a secretary, but I got bored after a bit, and started going to evening classes to take my A Levels. Then I did a couple of courses with the Open University – I was still working then, and it was pretty hard, trying to study and hold down a full-time job. I decided to chance my hand and give up my job so I could go to university full-time. They let me skip the first year, because of the OU courses I’d done, and I started at Liverpool University to read English when I was thirty-two.’

  ‘Were you still living with your dad?’

  ‘Yes. All we had was his dole money, and my grant, and the bit I managed to earn working behind a bar three nights a week. It was tough, but it was worth it. I loved every minute. And of course that was where I met Barry.’

  ‘Your husband?’

  ‘Yes. He was one of my lecturers. We got married the month after I graduated, and we had twelve great years together. He died of cancer just before Christmas.’

  Kate’s coffee slopped over as she put it down.

  ‘Oh, Linda, I’m so sorry! I didn’t realise.’

  ‘How could you?’ Linda paused and gazed into her cup. ‘We heard about the cottage not long before he died, and we made up this daydream of moving here and opening a bookshop. We were only pretending – I suppose we always knew he had no real hope. But when I got the life insurance money, and the university pension, I thought, “Why not?” Barry and I would have loved doing it together, so I decided I’d do it anyway. For him. If that doesn’t sound mawkish.’

  Kate reached across and touched her arm. ‘Of course it doesn’t. And Harbour Steps Cottage will be perfect for a bookshop, though the upstairs will be small for a flat, even if it is just for one.’

  ‘Oh, it won’t just be for one!’ Linda laughed. ‘Didn’t I tell you? I have two girls. Emma’s nine, and Lucy’s seven. We’ll manage. It’s no smaller than the flat Dad and I shared in Liverpool. I’m building a small extension at the back of the cottage – a kitchen on the ground floor, behind the shop, and a bathroom and a very small bedroom for me above. The rest of the upstairs is going to be two big rooms. One for the girls, with bunk beds and desks and plenty of room for their toys. The other will be a sitting room, with a table at one end. Though we’ll probably eat in the kitchen most of the time.’

  ‘The cottage must need a lot of repairs.’

  ‘It isn’t as bad as it looks. The old slates on the roof have to be rehung, but the structure is sound, even the floors. And the extension is almost finished. The girls and I are staying in a bed-and-breakfast place in St Magnus Street at the moment, but we can’t wait to move in. Come and see the cottage when we’ve finished our coffee.’

  She flashed Kate a sudden smile.

  ‘It’s so good to see you again. We always meant to write to each other, didn’t we
? But I suppose we were a bit too young to stick to it.’

  ‘I’m a terrible letter-writer. Always guilt-ridden.’ Kate smiled apologetically. ‘I do rather envy you the bookshop. I’m at a complete loose end since we moved up here – really missing my job. I don’t suppose you would like some help getting the shop set up? Purely volunteer effort, of course.’

  ‘All assistance gratefully received. You are allowed to change your mind when you see how filthy it is.’

  There was certainly a thick layer of plaster dust which had fallen like snow when Linda stripped off the ancient and ragged wallpaper that morning, but otherwise the cottage had been thoroughly cleared. The old roof had been stripped down to the beams. The extension was complete except for its roof tiles, with a tarpaulin providing temporary cover, although there were bare wires protruding from the walls, and the bathroom suite was lying on the floor, still swathed in brown paper.

  ‘This fireplace has to be taken out so the firebricks at the back can be renewed and rebuilt,’ said Linda. ‘Apparently they’re not safe and might be a fire hazard. I want to be able to light it in the winter.’

  They were standing in the larger ground-floor room, where the fireplace was fitted with a small black range, less than two feet high, complete with a bread oven and a tank for hot water with a small brass tap.

  ‘I suppose people must have been shorter in the days when this was installed,’ said Kate, leaning over it. ‘It would break my back if I had to cook on it. It’s very pretty, though, with all this ornamental cast iron and brass-work, especially if you polish it up.’

  ‘That’s the idea.’

  The room darkened suddenly as someone paused by the open door, and they both looked up.

  ‘It’s Dan Wilson’s Linda, isn’t it?’ An elderly woman was peering into the gloom. ‘I used to know your Auntie Winnie.’ She stepped over the threshold and held out her hand uncertainly. ‘Daisy Hennage.’

  ‘Why, yes, Mrs Hennage, I remember you,’ said Linda, taking her hand. ‘And this is Kate Cartington. Kate Milburn now.’

  The woman nodded shyly.

  ‘I know Millicent Cartington, of course. I just wondered... Are you demolishing the cottage? Did you know that my grandparents used to live here?’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’ Linda shook her head. ‘But no, I’m renovating it, not demolishing it.’

  ‘You won’t be taking out the fireplace, then.’

  ‘No. Repairing it.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Mrs Hennage looked embarrassed. ‘It’s silly of me, I know, but seventy-five years ago last Christmas, I dropped a ring down behind that mantel. You see...’ She stepped over to the fireplace and ran a fingertip along a wide crack between the cast-iron mantelshelf and the wall.

  ‘My granny had just given me a lovely ring for Christmas – one that had belonged to her granny before her. I was only eight, and the ring kept slipping off, so while we were playing Christmas games I put it on the mantel to be safe. But somehow I knocked it, and it slipped down between the fireplace and the wall. Nearly broke my heart, it did. I just thought, if you were taking out the old range, my ring might still be there. It probably wasn’t worth much, but it was bonny, and it meant a lot to my granny. I’ve felt bad about it ever since.’

  Linda explained about having to replace the crumbling firebricks.

  ‘If the ring is there, I’m sure we’ll find it. I promise I’ll watch the workmen every moment while they’re moving the range.’

  ‘Bless you, lass,’ said Mrs Hennage, smiling radiantly. ‘It would be grand to have it back. Really grand.’

  * * *

  Pécs, March 1919

  My beloved,

  I called today at your house, but your father would not allow me to enter. I think he suspects my intentions. How could an old man like that, past forty, understand what it is to be here in your own town, drunk on springtime and peace, knowing that on the other side of the door you are breathing this same breeze that has floated past my lips! ‘You can wait,’ he said, growling like a bear. ‘You are young. You have all the time in the world.’ But what do they know, these old men? They have not already squandered the new-minted coin of their youth on the battlefield. They do not know that for us, for our generation, every morning is a gift which we could barely have hoped for a year ago. We want to seize every morning, live each dazzling moment to the full, push away behind the barrier of the trees, cloudy with their new green, the memory of the friends who will never see these leaves, never breathe this intoxicating air, never touch again the hand of a beloved girl.

  And all I wanted to do was to walk with you in the woods of Mecsek, your hand in mine, your black hair – your glorious gypsy hair – caught back demurely in its little gold net, like a panther in a cage, or the waters of the Danube confined behind a dam. Because I love to watch the fiery impatience of that hair, as it strives to break loose. Little secret tendrils creep out first, slipping beneath the gilded band around your brow. Then the net slides a fraction as you throw back your head and laugh, forgetting to be a lady, becoming my gypsy girl again. And then – ah, the joy of it! – the net falls away entirely, and I catch it up and confine it in the prison of my pocket. And the waterfall of beauty breaks free and flows down your back to your tiny waist. And I bury my face in it and it smells of the wind and the grass when I ride on the great Alföld, mile upon mile of the endless plain.

  Darling girl, I am in pain, just because I cannot walk with you under the trees. Will we ever win him over, this bear of a father? I have bribed one of the servants at the concert hall to smuggle this letter into your violin case. When I watch you from my box tonight I will know you have read it. And when you lift your bow to play the Mendelssohn, I alone in the audience will know that the gold net is really imprisoned in my pocket and your hair is flowing as free as the wild horses of the puszta. I kiss your lips, my love, my Eva, my girl of the paradise from which I am banned. Your lips are as red as the paprika of Kalocsa, but as sweet as the summer apricots ripening on the trees of Kecskemét.

  Your slave, in pain and loneliness,

  Zsigmond

  The letter was very creased, and worn away along the folds, so that the old woman had to handle it with great care. It was one of the oldest papers that had been stored in the trunk, and clearly had been read many times, and carried about until the paper – which was beautiful, hand-laid and creamy in colour, with an embossed crest at the top – had developed a sheen where it had been fingered or had rubbed against the lining of a pocket. The writing was big and bold, sprawling across the page with the urgency of the writer to commit his words to paper. The ink must have been of excellent quality, for it was still as black as when the words had first been written, and had not faded to the soft brown of age. The young man’s eagerness and desire leapt out from the letter still.

  The diary had been started in the same year, and although the writing was recognisably the same it was more contained, more sober. In talking to himself upon the page, the writer had proceeded more slowly, although from time to time the writing would take on a more hurried quality, the letters becoming smaller and more broken. Towards the end of the final diary, years later, the words pressed close to each other like refugees huddling together for warmth. Perhaps it had become difficult to obtain the fine leather-bound books he had favoured, or perhaps he had known that the last diary would come to an end and would pass out of his hands.

  She laid the letter gently back into the cardboard box with the others and picked up the photograph album. Near the beginning was a picture of a large country house standing in parkland. An open motor car was parked at the foot of the curving steps that led up to the front door, and some young people were clustered around it holding tennis racquets. The men wore blazers and the women cloche hats – their figures were as flat as ironing boards. On the opposite page was a studio photograph of a beautiful young woman in evening dress, holding a violin. She had roses in her hair, and her lips were slightly parted. The m
odest décolletage of the dress revealed that she, by contrast, had a rounded and feminine figure, and the hands holding the violin were not fine-boned and slender, but the strong, well-shaped hands of the professional violinist. The photograph had been hand-tinted, in the fashion of the time, and the lovely sensuous mouth was clearly defined against the translucent skin. The old woman laid her age-spotted hand against the photograph and brushed the cheek delicately, as if she could touch the young woman herself.

  * * *

  It is a desperate night here in the isolated cottage on the headland, where the breakers lash the rocks. The November darkness has closed in earlier than usual because of the storm, and the two women huddle together over a small fire of driftwood. One woman is in her forties, but looks older, and she is ill now, her breath rasping and difficult. Her daughter is in her twenties, but she too is marked by privations and drawn with concern. Her mother’s breathing rattles in her chest.

  ‘I must get a doctor, Mama. You cannot go on like this.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ The mother tries to smile, and begins to cough instead.

  ‘I must go. I must.’

  The mother puts out a hand, imploring. ‘They will be waiting for you again. They will throw stones. Look at yourself. That gash on your forehead hasn’t even begun to heal.’

  Involuntarily the daughter touches her forehead. ‘I won’t let them stop me this time. And on such a night – surely they won’t be waiting? They will be safe at home, not concerning themselves with us.’

  Making up her mind, she takes an old coat from a hook on the back of the door and pulls it on. She ties up her head in a scarf and touches her mother’s cheek lightly.

  ‘Lock the door after me, and you’ll be quite safe.’

  The mother follows her to the door and watches fearfully as she draws the bolts and slowly opens the door on the black night. A wedge of light falls out into the darkness beyond, and the daughter catches her breath. That was foolish of her. She should have dimmed the lamp first. For a moment only, she stands silhouetted in the doorway, and then a heavy lump of rock flies past her ear, striking the older woman behind her. With a soft cry she slides to the ground. Outside, voices are raised in a shout of triumph, mingled with cries of hate: ‘Dirty bitches! We’ll get you!’