Chapter Two
The stages afterward were a blur. As if none of it had really happened, although the feeling of it had invaded us to the marrow.
The physician”s pronouncement. The emergency tickets back to England booked. The arrangements made for bringing Dean home to London. Sidney took care of all the details, as we packed our things.
He was dry-eyed. It reminded me of Dean on the day when we waited in the hospital for news about Sidney”s condition. Calm and rational in the face of grief, the only time I had been astonished by anything from Dean”s gamut of emotions.
We waited at the airport in Cairo for the officials to sign some papers for international transport, something to do with the physician”s declaration. I sat beside Sidney as he leaned forward, in the thinker”s position, looking tired after a day and a night without sleep.
”After we land in London, I have to meet the representative from funeral services,” he said, quietly. ”We can go on to Newquay from there. I have to go back to the cottage before ... before the service in the city.”
I nodded. The Greshams were planning the funeral. It was a week from now, at a church where I imagined all the Greshams were buried in one of those time-old traditions that Dean often poked fun at, but still upheld for the sake of tradition. Certainly with more understanding than he had for the ”damnable niceties” of his social class.
My hand took hold of Sidney”s, holding onto it between both of mine, protectively. I felt him exhale, almost like a shudder from his lungs, and the expression in his eyes looked older, as if the days were years levied on him. His free hand covered mine, a different warmth from the heat of the daytime sun.
We were both silent. Words felt as heavy as feelings, weighed down by fatigue, the numbness of shock like a heavy blanket. The long plane ride home was punctuated by jarring reminders of ordinary life and ordinary reality — a child crying for juice, a cheery little video game song on a tablet computer. I waited for sleep that failed to come and block out the memory loop of that night; Sidney gazed ahead, lost in thought.
I wanted to coax him to eat something when the meal cart was brought around, and he turned down the chicken in sauce. I wanted to fold him close against me, and feel his body”s tension begin to ease a little after hours of being detail-oriented, detached, and polite in the midst of feeling intense pain. It wasn”t hard for me to detect that both offers would be turned down at this time.
We are nearly home.It was a small relief in the sea of numbness, the only one we would know in the coming days. It would not be the same. I could already feel the change that would be there, with only two of us returning from the last holiday.
The wounds inside were raw, and I could not forget that moment, or the loop of memory that contained the last look in his eyes, the hammering of my own heart. I could see the change in Sidney”s face the moment human lifelight slipped away. I tried hard to block it, but it kept coming back.
Dean would have changed nothing. Even knowing this, he would have wanted to go, and still would have loved every moment until the last. I could hold onto this fact, cling onto the branch of it as if I was drowning, but the throbbing loss would not abate. Jordan”s waters had offered a different gift of healing, an irony for a man with a damaged body and a long shadow that had kept him in his own grief far too long. It wasn”t lost on him that day by the river, although it had escaped me.
My head turned to Sidney. The thought in my mind was that I would tell him about it, only to see he had finally drifted off in his seat. Some of the weariness in his features had relaxed, the first time his shoulders had not been rigid when I touched him. I closed my eyes, trying to find a comfortable place in my own mind that would allow me to drift off. I didn”t succeed — but, unlike Sidney, I had drifted off from consciousness at the airport before our boarding call, a few blissful moments of forgetfulness stolen.
My eyes finally closed on their own accord, without my being aware. I only knew because they fluttered open when a message from the cockpit came over the P-A, announcing that we would be landing at Heathrow shortly, and to fasten our seatbelts. Gently, I nudged Sidney, whose eyes flickered open — he stirred and searched for the safety belt”s clip.
Outside the windows, the view was gray and foggy, with rain skimming along the surface of the pavement, dappled with small puddles. It misted the glass of the plane windows, as if obscuring the view slowly with a veil. Unmistakable England, in the sense of dreary films about rainy streets and drizzly days in the park.
Home again.
________________________
We unlocked the cottage door and let ourselves in. Silence, but a companionable version of it, which fully expected to be filled again with the sound of holidaymakers returning, and putting on the evening kettle for a nice cuppa, luggage left in the hallway.
Sidney left our luggage by the door. He closed it, then gazed around the room, with the sketchpads and books on the side table, and the easel propping up a canvas, blank except for some lines representing either the branch of a tree or veins of a leaf. Yo-Yo Ma the half-grown kitten emerged from underneath the parlor chair, stretching with a characteristic loud call of greeting after having seen no one but Callum for the last few days.
The canvas of the woman and children in the garden hung above the fireplace, dappled in the light from a gap in the curtains. I opened them fully to the view of the back garden, the old cushions spread on the grass where Sidney had been writing last time. Bugsy and Ewan McGregor occupied them now, fast asleep. The lazy white tufts of down from some weed”s seed pods drifted in the lilac”s branches like wisps of old cotton.
One rusty spade was stuck in the ground nearby, and I remembered when Sidney had tried to dig out the lilac, mistaking it for an invasive shrub, in his attempts to make Dean”s garden more presentable despite the discouragement. Dean with his thornier side still fully armored against me and the rest of humanity then. If only more people had realized how tired he was of holding the world at bay underneath it all — how much he truly wanted to be connected again. But he would not have let them in, probably.
In the glass, I saw Sidney”s reflection as he pulled off his jacket. It was a grim look on his face in its shadowy mirror; no distortion of reality, I discovered, when I glanced over my shoulder as he hung it on the rack, then stood there with it in his grip, as if holding onto it for support.
I touched the brush lying on the art table, next to the newer palette that had traces of all the rainbow”s colors crusted around its edges. The handle had two elastic bands still wrapped around it. I felt a lump form in my throat, which I pushed down.
Someone rapped on the front door. ”Hello?” a voice called. ”Anyone at home?”
”Here.” Sidney turned as a stranger in a suit entered, carrying a soft leather briefcase.
”Mr. Davison, is it?” he asked. ”I”m Peter Wallace from Hardyn Beau Solicitors in London, representing the late Mr. Gresham”s affairs. I came down by train earlier, hoping to meet you, but I believe your flight must have been delayed. Let me say first how very sorry I am for the passing of your friend.” He produced a card from his pocket, and held it out. ”This has my contact information, should you need it. Do you prefer to be addressed as Mr. Davison or Alex — or —?” he paused and checked a note on his phone, ” — Sidney, is it?”
”Sidney is fine.” Sidney held out his hand, accepting the solicitor”s card. ”Have you come about —?”
”The papers, the bills, anything pertaining to Mr. Gresham”s estate,” came the answer. ”I”ve been asked to bring anything readily available back with me, and request that anything further be sent on as soon as possible.”
”Dean kept everything important in the file folders on the desk,” said Sidney. ”Legal documents like his will and insurance papers, financials like leases and unpaid bills.” He went to the desk where he and Callum typically sorted Dean”s bills and correspondence in the past.
”The will has been updated recently, so we have the current copy of it on hand,” answered Mr. Wallace. ”Most of the money is in trust, so there”s really very little in the way of finances to dispense with, beyond closing his accounts and so on. The rest we”ll need to have settled as expediently as possible.”
He opened his briefcase. ”The will contains certain bequests and legacies, which must be fulfilled on his behalf before the rest, as you know, which I am also charged with overseeing.” He looked at me now. ”You would be Maisie Clark, I assume?”
”That”s me.” When he held out an envelope, I accepted it. My name was scrawled with letters that would look childish and large at a glance, but I recognized them as companions to the style of Dean”s artistic signature on his canvases. A deep shiver passed through me.
I opened it.Dear Maisie,it began.If you”ve been given this, then the inevitable has come, unsurprisingly. You hold my farewell in your hands, for the sake of assuring that there is a last goodbye between us, should we be parted by time or circumstance — albeit a farewell written in advance and kept in a file box in some London clerk”s possession for legal purposes. Far less sentimental, despite being practical.
I didn”t leave this for you in order to bore you with more lines about my feelings for you, as Mr. Darcy himself would probably assure you in my place. We”ve spoken of them in the past, and my maudlin attempts to remind you from beyond the grave would only embarrass us both. Without them being shared yet again, you are aware of how deeply I regarded you.
The bit about Mr. Darcy had been meant to make me laugh, and had almost succeeded. Almost, but not quite.
I have one final favor to ask of you. It will require a slight effort on your part, to see to it that the item I valued most in my box of souvenirs is given to the person who will treasure it. It”s the proof of my heart still being soft despite the ogre within. You are the one I trust to remember something which seems so minor in the midst of major affairs.
There is one more request, however; or maybe it”s merely an affirmation of what I know you already intend to do. Look after him, Maisie. You are the one whom he can trust, the one who understands. I doubt I need to say it, but I will, if only because it”s the last time.
All my love,
Dean
I folded the letter again, blinking back the burn of tears just below my lashes.
The solicitor drew a sheet of paper from his bag. ”He left to you his books and his collection of records,” he said. ”Also, a particular canvas, a portrait — not painted by him, but another artist, which is currently at his flat in London. He indicated in the will that you would know which one he meant.”
I nodded. ”I know the one.”
Mr. Wallace turned to Sidney, who was carrying two file boxes from the desk, which must contain the vital papers the solicitors wanted. ”He left you a letter and a legacyas well,” he said, exchanging the boxes for an envelope from his briefcase.
Sidney accepted it, but didn”t open it. He put it into his pocket instead.
”I”ll be staying in Newquay for tonight and taking the train to the city tomorrow,” said Mr. Wallace. ”If you need to be in touch or think of anything vital for me to know regarding the arrangements, feel free to ring me.””Of course.” The card went into Sidney”s pocket, too. ”There are probably more papers, somewhere in here. I”ll see to it that you get them.”
”Thank you very much. I”ll see you both at the service,” said Mr. Wallace. ”Again, our deepest condolences.” He put the boxes under his arm, and closed his briefcase. ”I”ll see myself out.”
The cottage door closed. I heard Sidney exhale, slowly. I smoothed the letter I was holding. The last request within had been the most heartfelt, for I was adept at reading between the lines of its writer.
Hold onto him. It could well be the words of Natalie Norridge, coming back to me across the years. But Dean was asking out of concern and love for Sidney, not some uncanny compulsion.
”Cuppa?” Sidney touched my arm, softly.
”Thanks,” I answered, my voice still quiet also. I pulled off my scarf and laid it across the back of the parlor chair. From the shelf, I took a book which I knew well, Dean”s copy ofA Dark and Glorious House”s first edition, and tucked the letter he had written to me between its pages, where I couldn”t lose it. Maybe Sidney would let me give back his copy now, the one that was rightfully his.
From the kitchen, I heard the clink of the ceramic pot which sat on the counter by the stove. I lifted the mail from the table, where Callum had laid it last time he stopped by.
Most of it was bills or notices of a personal nature, which I sorted into a pile for Sidney to take to London with him. The fliers for car repairs and art supplies, I tossed into the rubbish bin. I laid aside the art magazine, underneath which was the Saturday paper, with a weekend insert of the entertainment and literary journal which slid out and to the carpet at my feet, cover side up.
”Shocker Expose: England”s Most Secretive Author in Real Life.”
I picked it up from the rug. The cover photo was of a silhouette figure with a question mark emblazoned upon it, and the page number for the big story. I flipped to it, letting it fall open between my hands. The writer”s name on the article was Mick Simmons.
Mick Simmons.The journalist who had been so hungry for a celebrity scoop when staying at the hotel at summer”s end, when Sidney came back to Cornwall. So he was the one who must have heard something, seen something there — like when Mr. Trelawney called Sidney by his pseudonym.
What if that was enough to make him think?Of the tales of the elusive author, and the Penmarrow”s part in Megs”s false identity. My eyes flew down to the article from the headline.”One journalist”s quest to trace the life — and identity — of the famed Alistair Davies uncovers his strange and secret life which no one will believe.”
Not the shocker journalist flair, but five pages” worth of details, chronicling the life of an author whose full name was not revealed, although every other detail was, including copies of an old envelope addressed from Megs to Sidney, which must have been unearthed from the vicarage shed”s refuse — a side by side copy of a literary story and a page from the first book, with an analysis highlighting similarities of style. The story was Sidney”s, from a uni journal, which I would recognize even without having read it.
I paged through it, seeing photos of Port Hewer, of the vicarage, the high street, the hotel.
Of Adele”s London townhouse.
I sucked in my breath, hard.”Ordinary days of fixing broken fences and replacing lost roof tiles ...”read one line,”...evident that no one in the community had any idea of what his background truly was ....”My eyes skipped ahead”... the timeline is remarkably spot-on between the time the hotel first surfaced as a popular haunt for the actress posing as the writer and the arrival of the man who is in all probability the real one.”
”One source revealed that the suspected author had posted packages to the pretender on at least one occasion, which begs the question of how coincidental it would be, if at all, that they knew each other despite vastly different life circumstances?
”How different those circumstances actually are, however, are beyond those of a village handyman and an actress, as a fact-finding trip to London revealed.”
The picture of Adele”s townhouse told me what was coming next. I knew what would follow was a revelation that the village jack-of-all-trades traced his routes back to an address on a posh London lane, with a family”s good breeding behind it all. An Oxford education with scant literary evidence to back the writing comparison, but enough promise that it was all too easy to believe the student in question could write a literary novel.
I didn”t realize that Sidney was behind me until he spoke. ”What”s that?” he asked.
I turned. Before I could say anything, however, he saw the photos on the open page. I saw the change come over his eyes, that of comprehension. ”Is that it?” he asked, in a voice that didn”t betray anything in particular. ”The exposé.”
”From a journalist who stayed at the hotel the month before last,” I said. ”I recognize his name. He said then ... he said he wished he could find out more about the author he”d heard used the village as a hiding place in the past.”
”Not Norman, I suppose.” It wasn”t much of a joke. Sidney”s smile barely cracked the surface before it was gone again.
Mick Simmons must have heard. He must have followed Sidney, then begun asking questions, and tracing his past over the weeks which followed. If you knew whose life to investigate — and what you were looking for as proof — it wouldn”t be impossible, even if Sidney had made himself hard to find. This was how the details had come out in everything but name, key letters redacted in the document copy shown.
I shut the paper, hoping he had not seen the photo of his mother”s house. Or, for that matter, the copy of the academic paper under analysis.
”Anything in the rest of the mail?” he asked, glancing away from the paper in my hand.
”A couple of bills. A notice from his solicitor. I set them over there, so you can pack them with the rest of the paperwork.” I tucked the edition underneath the magazines on the table, where it would be less likely to draw attention. ”What about the rest?”
The rest of the cottage would have to be packed up, except for Sidney”s things. Where it would go, I wasn”t certain, except that Dean”s family would decide its fate, eventually.
”I told Gillian that I would box things to be shipped,” he said. ”The lease won”t be terminated until the end of this quarter. I expect most of this will be sorted, and the things which aren”t sentimental will go to charity. I”ll offer to donate some of it for them, if they like. After the funeral.”
He set a cup of tea on the table for me, and held his own, one of the thick coffee mugs from the cabinet, between two hands as he sat down on the sofa”s arm. Neither of us looked forward to what had to be done without feelings of sorrow.
”It”s hard to imagine a future without this room,” I said. ”You”ll miss it. More than me, I expect.”
He nodded. ”It already feels different,” he said. ”But the rest needs to be dealt with before I go.”
Already I was picturing the shelves bare, and the paintings gone. Dean”s family would hang his artwork in new rooms, and remember him by the brush strokes, the sentiments behind each scene. As for the rest, from the Victorian sofa with its high back to the assorted boxes not yet sent to the church sale, it would be treated in less sentimental fashion.
He glanced at me. ”Stay tonight,” he said.
”What, here?” I came back to the present, a little surprised by the impulse of this question.
”Take my room, borrow the spare blankets from the closet. I”ll be up late, sorting papers in here. I”ll end up sleeping on the sofa regardless.”
”I don”t want to add to your burdens by being a guest on top of the rest,” I said. ”You”d feel obliged to make me breakfast, probably.” My breakfast food skills were not as impressive, so I couldn”t promise him the comfort of Belgian waffles like the chocolate ones he made.
”Eggs and toast isn”t so hard, is it?” he said, and a little of the teasing grin returned. ”Besides, company would be nice. You could catalog the books, decide which ones Dean would have insisted you add to your own shelves now.”
He didn”t want to be alone here. To wake up to an empty cottage tomorrow morning, with the task of boxing up Dean”s life. I sensed the sorrow and the loneliness under his skin tonight, riding with the damp air from the terminal and the emptiness in these rooms.
My sympathy stirred. Coming back was nothing like it was supposed to be when we set off with our plans to see one more impossible place on our list.
”I suppose I could sleep on the sofa,” I pointed out, setting my cup on the table. ”Camp out with the dogs and Yo-Yo.”
He scoffed. ”As if.”
”I don”t want to kick you out of your room and have you resorting to the short cushions and a spare blanket from the cupboard at three in the morning.”
”You”re not, if I offered it willingly,” he answered. ”Besides, I meant it. I”ll be sorting these things for the solicitor. But I”ll make breakfast in the morning. Runny eggs and toast, as I promised.” He smiled again, trying his best to make it seem like his humor wasn”t completely beyond him.
”Or I could cook.” I pointed this out. ”If they”re going to be runny anyway.”
For the moment, I leaned against his side, physically detecting the shift of his balance to accommodate mine. His arm was around my shoulders. Around both of us, the quiet of the room in evening, without so much as the bark of one of the dogs outside.
It felt as if the whole lane was empty, maybe the whole village, and we were two small mice in a large biscuit box, the rest of the world far removed from us and unaware of our presence. A hybrid feeling of loneliness mixed with grief.