15. River
15
River only felt himself properly breathe out when he reached the hall and Clara was two floors above him – no doubt staring at that portrait again.
He hadn’t expected to see her on her own at the end of the landing and he’d almost turned quietly and gone back downstairs.
But he’d decided to put on his big boy pants and have a word. It was ridiculous to run away. They’d been friends once. Good friends – and there was a time he’d hoped they might be more. But he’d just been fooling himself.
His mind flitted back to his first and only kiss with Clara when they were both fifteen. It was initiated by him after he’d realised that his feelings of friendship towards Clara had changed somewhere along the line into love. At least it felt like love back then. But Clara hadn’t felt the same way.
‘Idiot,’ he said out loud into the hall before looking around to make sure he hadn’t been spotted talking to himself. Bartie would think he was losing his mind.
But he had been an idiot to risk ruining his friendship with Clara. Especially as he’d known by then that he and his mother would soon be leaving for Australia. Though perhaps that knowledge had given him the confidence, or the desperation, to lean in and kiss her as they’d sat talking by the stream one September evening. His heart had been full of how much he was going to miss her.
At first, she’d moved back, startled, as his lips touched hers, which was hardly surprising. The idea of leading up to the kiss gradually hadn’t crossed his mind. It was more a case of ‘now or never’. But then, she’d seemed to lean into it – into him – and kiss him back. Though he couldn’t swear to it later because the whole thing had been so brief and awkward.
Mrs N had suddenly called out Clara’s name, letting her know it was time to go home. And though the two of them couldn’t be seen in the darkness, Clara had leapt to her feet, gabbled a goodbye and hurried off.
He’d never had a chance to talk to her about it because his mum had decided she could cope with Geoffrey no longer and had driven them away for good the very next morning. And though River had sent a text to Clara about their hasty flit, she hadn’t turned up to say goodbye. That was when he’d fully realised that his clumsy lunge at her hadn’t been welcome.
Did she remember it still? he wondered. Probably not, after all this time. He was no doubt giving it far too much significance and she’d forgotten all about his adolescent faux pas.
‘Nothing to do, River?’ His father had just stepped into the hall from the garden. He shook soil from his shoes which tumbled across the floor tiles. ‘I’m sure Bartie would welcome a hand with making arrangements for his developer contact to visit.’ He tilted his head towards Bartie, who had followed him into the hall.
‘Of course,’ said River, wondering if the two of them had been walking together. ‘But maybe you and I could have a cup of tea together first? We can talk about what you’re planning to do after the manor’s sold. Or not, if you’d rather have a break from it all. I can tell you about what I’ve been up to recently in Australia.’
Geoffrey regarded him for a moment, an emotion that River couldn’t read playing across his face.
‘I’d love to, but I’m afraid I have a lot of paperwork to get through before we can advance the sale.’
‘Would you like me to help you with it? I’m a whizz with paperwork.’
River smiled but his father, looking solemn, shook his head.
‘No, no. Thank you for your offer but I’m sure I can manage, and Bartie has offered to help if I get stuck. So I’ll see you at dinner time.’
He turned into the library and shut the door behind him. The sound of the closing door felt like a slap across River’s face.
‘All right, mate?’ asked Bartie in a very bad Australian accent. ‘Phew, it’s warm out there. Not as hot as you Aussies are used to, but boiling for us Brits.’
River dragged his attention back to his cousin. ‘I’m still a Brit too.’
But Bartie wrinkled his nose. ‘Nah, not really. Your life’s over there now, with your mum and your girlfriend.’
‘I told you in the car, I don’t have a girlfriend.’
‘That’s a shame, but there’s nothing wrong with choosing to be on your own.’
‘I was in a serious relationship for a while, with a woman called Kitty,’ said River, keen to wipe the patronising pity from Bartie’s face. ‘She was lovely but it didn’t work out.’
‘How long ago did you break up?’
‘The summer before last. It was tough at the time but I’m over it now. Anyway,’ said River, wishing he’d never brought up the subject of his ex-girlfriend, ‘I’ve been thinking about the development of this house and wondered if there’s any chance of Mrs N’s cottage being saved? I know my father’s keen to preserve the grounds, whatever deal is made, so where’s the harm in keeping the cottage?’
Bartie frowned. ‘It’ll be a bit of an eyesore for the owners of the new top-of-the-range apartments who buy here.’
‘It can’t be seen from the manor house, and it’s a pretty, historic cottage. It’ll add charm to the whole development.’
Bartie’s mouth twisted, wrinkling his nose. ‘I don’t think so, mate. I know how these things work.’
The implication being that he didn’t have a clue, thought River, wishing that his cousin would stop referring to him as ‘mate’. But he did his best to smile. ‘Do you need a hand before the developer arrives?’
‘Nah, I think good old Geoff and I are getting everything sorted. So you’re not needed.’
Wasn’t that the truth, thought River as Bartie wandered off. All that was required was his acquiescence to the sale so his father could sell Brellasham Manor, minus any guilt that he’d acted behind his son’s back. And he was definitely avoiding River, which was upsetting but also strangely liberating. If his father couldn’t be bothered to make an effort, River decided, then neither could he.
After dinner, during which Bartie regaled them with examples of his business prowess, River sat in the drawing room at the computer. He’d planned to investigate flights to Australia, so he could get his return home booked – his father didn’t need him, not with Bartie around. But he’d started looking up Audrey Brellasham instead and had quickly fallen down a Google rabbit hole. Twenty minutes later, he was still researching the woman who had been his step-grandmother.
There was very little online about her, and what there was River presumed that Clara had already found: a few newspaper mentions of her marriage to Edwin, and two reports of her disappearance. Both of these reports skirted around the details of what had happened and made oblique references to her drowning in ‘tragic circumstances’.
There were several internet pieces about Edwin, most of them regarding his later marriage to a London socialite, which had ended in her death ten years after they’d walked down the aisle. That was three wives who had died at a relatively young age.
River pushed aside the whisper of suspicion that was swirling round his brain, because he wasn’t about to start fabricating hideous crimes, like Clara. Instead, he went in search of the filing cabinet that used to be in the rarely used office at the back of the manor.
He pushed open the office door and smiled. Nothing changed. The room was arranged exactly as it had been sixteen years ago, with an old wooden desk at its centre and the filing cabinet in a corner. A huge spider plant in a yellow ceramic pot was the only new addition.
The cabinet was unlocked and crammed to overflowing with certificates, documents and pieces of paper. This wild goose chase was going to take some time. River sighed and, sitting cross-legged on the floor, began to sift through the cabinet’s contents.
Fifteen minutes later, he’d found what he was looking for: a marriage certificate for Edwin and Audrey that showed they’d got married in April 1954 at St Augustine’s Church in Heaven’s Cove. He put the certificate to one side and continued searching but that was the only mention of her that he could find. It wasn’t much but it gave Audrey’s maiden name, which Clara might find useful.
Why was he helping her with this obsession of hers? he wondered, getting to his feet. To get back in her good books? Possibly. But the truth was that Clara’s story of a lost diary, unfounded rumours and unintelligible numbers had piqued his own interest in the woman who’d once lived in this house. Audrey, who stared out so enigmatically from her portrait, was getting under his skin, too.
River folded the certificate carefully into his pocket and went back into the drawing room to turn off the computer. But as the screen faded to black, he noticed something on the floor that was poking out from beneath the sofa. It was a colour photo taken of his father in middle age, he realised. Geoffrey, no more than fifty, had a full head of dark hair and was smiling broadly at whoever was taking the picture. It was hard to remember him being so full of life and happy.
River bent to pick up the photo and noticed another two. These had slipped farther under the sofa and he had to scrabble in the dust to grab them.
The first black and white photo was smaller than the picture of his father and was of a woman bending over the reading table in the library. River held the photo up to the lamp and squinted at what he’d found. The woman’s face was in profile but it was clear that she was the same woman depicted in the painting on the second floor. Audrey was peering at a large, open book that took up much of the table space and seemed unaware of the photographer.
She was in the second photo too but wasn’t alone this time. Edwin was standing next to her and Audrey’s hand was resting on the shoulder of the child in front of them. River realised with a jolt that the child must be his father. Edwin was staring directly at the camera, a look of pride on his face, but Audrey’s gaze had wandered. She was looking out of the picture and her mouth was twisted, as if she was biting the inside of her cheek. She looked distracted and unhappy. Did she have a premonition of her future?
River knew that he was getting too caught up in Clara’s ridiculous notions. But he put the photos with the marriage certificate and kept hold of them nonetheless.