CHAPTER 3
Harriet
Dorset
When Harriet pulled up outside Axminster station, she spotted her sister immediately – a lonely-looking figure with a small suitcase at her feet.
And as she watched, Joanna put her hand to her hair in that gesture Harriet remembered from childhood.
Nervy. So, she’d been right – something had happened.
Harriet waved at her but she seemed lost in thought. Why didn’t she come over? She blasted the hooter. Joanna started.
Harriet swung open the door of the pick-up and jumped out.
‘Harriet.’ Joanna was smiling by the time she got near, but it didn’t touch her dark eyes. She reached for Harriet’s shoulders but didn’t pull her in close; her kiss was merely a brush on Harriet’s cheek. ‘Thanks for coming to pick me up.’
‘No problem.’ Harriet walked round and cleared a space in the passenger side of the cab. A damp, hairy blanket, an empty bucket, a pair of black fingerless woollen gloves . . . ‘Sorry it’s a bit of a mess.’ She chucked the blanket and the bucket into the back.
‘Doesn’t matter.’ Joanna put her case in the back to join them.
‘So, what made you decide to come down so suddenly?’ Harriet leant on the driver’s side of the truck.
Joanna threw her a bleak look. ‘I needed a break,’ she said. She opened the passenger door.
‘From work?’ Didn’t they all need a break? Harriet certainly did.
‘I just wanted a bit of peace and quiet,’ Joanna elaborated, without answering the question, Harriet noted. She climbed into the cab.
Her sister was wearing pristine chocolate-coloured cords, suede ankle boots and a classy jacket Harriet hadn’t seen before. London chic, she thought, didn’t really go with the pick-up truck. She saw Joanna wrinkle her nose as she fastened her seat belt.
‘It’s a bit smelly too,’ Harriet added as she got in beside her. ‘Farms . . . you know.’ City girls, she thought.
‘I know.’
Harriet slammed the door to and Joanna shrank back in alarm. Well. You had to be forceful with pick-up trucks.
She started up the engine, aware of her own muddy jeans and wellies.
It was difficult to imagine sometimes that she’d grown up with Joanna, that her sister had ever lived on the farm.
Sometimes Joanna seemed so distant that it was hard to accept she was her sister at all.
They had played together, yes, sat around the kitchen table together, even compared notes on the relative merits of the boys working on the farm.
Once. But it all seemed so long ago. Now they were miles apart – geographically and in every other way – and sometimes all Harriet could feel was resentment – that Joanna had escaped, that Joanna was free.
‘Why didn’t you come by car?’ she asked.
‘Oh . . .’ Joanna was staring out of the window. ‘Martin needed it. And I didn’t know how long I . . .’ Her voice tailed off.
Harriet shot her a look. Something was definitely up.
Had her sister had a row with Martin? If so, it must have been a bad one.
She put the pick-up into reverse, backed out of the parking space and headed away from the station.
It had been raining and the tarmac was skiddy.
No problem for the Toyota, though – at least with the four-wheel drive switched on.
It drank petrol but it was a reliable beast, it clung to the road whatever.
‘How’s Mother?’ Joanna asked.
‘You’ll see,’ Harriet said grimly. She wondered how much they would have in common when Mother was gone.
‘So, what’s she done this time?’
Harriet kept her attention on the road. ‘Well, the latest is that she arranged to have the boiler serviced without telling me and the plumber gave her estimates for a new one, a bathroom and some central heating.’
‘Right.’
‘I can’t watch her every minute, Jo.’
‘Of course not.’
‘And I spend half the day worrying about who she’ll call out next.’
‘I know.’
There was a silence in the cab as they both digested this. ‘But that wasn’t what made me phone you.’ Harriet sneaked a glance at her sister as they approached the main road.
‘What was it then?’ Joanna turned to look at her and Harriet noticed for the first time that her eyes were red-rimmed as though she’d been crying.
‘She asked me to give her a lift into Abbotsbury yesterday.’
‘So?’
Joanna was right. Abbotsbury was only half an hour down the road and obviously Harriet didn’t mind – even though she had plenty of things to keep her busy back at the cottage. But . . . ‘She was a bit secretive.’ Which had made Harriet suspicious.
There was a gap in the traffic and she went for it. ‘But I assumed she wanted to look around the art galleries or the Swannery or something. You know Mother.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Then when I dropped her off in the high street . . .’ Harriet changed gear. She could hear her own voice rising alarmingly and cleared her throat to regain control.
‘Yes?’ Joanna looked worried now.
‘She went straight up to some tall guy with a weird beard who was standing outside the art studio. He was wearing a black leather coat and riding boots and carrying a clipboard.’ Harriet hadn’t known what to do – or say.
He seemed to be expecting their mother. All Harriet could think was, what had Mother let herself in for this time?
Beside her, she was aware of her sister’s tense frame. She slowed and tucked in behind a VW camper van on the inside lane.
Joanna exhaled. ‘A clipboard?’ she echoed, as if that was the strangest part.
‘And a weird beard,’ Harriet confirmed. Because, for her, that was the strangest part.
Joanna was looking at her now in a most peculiar way. As if she was thinking that their lives in Dorset were far more eventful than her own.
‘He ticked her name off a list when she arrived.’ Harriet glanced in her rear-view mirror and indicated right.
Joanna’s eyes widened. ‘What did you do?’
‘Obviously, I went to investigate.’ Harriet had parked on double yellow lines and marched right over.
She took the turning. Now that they had left the dual carriageway they were immersed in rural Dorset in seconds.
‘And?’
‘He said he was an artist.’ Harriet didn’t add that he had looked her up and down and grinned in a way that made her feel flushed all over. ‘And a tutor.’
‘I don’t get it.’ Joanna was shaking her head. ‘Is she taking painting classes, is that it? Because that’s not so bad. She needs an interest, doesn’t she?’
Harriet sighed. ‘No, she’s not and yes, she does,’ she said.
She increased her speed. The road was narrow and had few passing places, but Harriet knew every twist and turn as well as she knew her own body – better probably.
‘She’d answered an ad, Jo. She thought she was going to be an artist’s model for the day.
That she’d be painted from all angles by a bunch of students and made to look as glamorous as she’d like to be. ’
‘Oh.’ Harriet could sense her sister taking it in.
They both knew that Mother had never really let go of her colonial background and that her dress sense was a touch forties film star to say the least. But that was just the way she was – even when Father was alive.
As for the rest . . . Harriet slowed again to take the corner. It was a tight one.
‘But why would he want Mother?’ Joanna still hadn’t got it.
‘Mother hadn’t quite grasped what she was letting herself in for.’ Harriet knew her voice was crisp. ‘They like to tackle all ages and body shapes.’ She glanced across at her sister. ‘In a life-drawing class.’
‘Oh, God.’ Their eyes met. Joanna’s expression was one of incredulity. Her mouth twitched.
Harriet frowned. Then something seemed to bubble up inside her and she let it out – a loud snort of laughter. She began to shake and tried to change gear again, forgetting she was already in fourth.
‘Poor Mother.’ Joanna let out a shriek of laughter. ‘You did stop her going in?’
Harriet’s lips tightened once more. How long had it been since she’d laughed like that? ‘What do you take me for? Of course, I stopped her going in.’ Poor Mother indeed – a touch of glamour was very different from all-out nudity.
‘It would be awful for her to be an object of ridicule.’ Joanna too seemed to have sobered as the implications sunk in. ‘She’s just lonely,’ she said. ‘Maybe a hobby would be a good idea?’
‘I’ve thought of that,’ Harriet said. She braked and edged closer to the hedgerow as a car appeared from the opposite direction. ‘I’ve suggested everything from a book club to crochet and she’s not interested.’
‘I’ll try and think of something while I’m here. I’ll talk to her.’
Oh, yes, she’d sort the whole thing out in seconds, no problem. Harriet was about to make some sarcastic comment to this effect when something stopped her. She bit her lip.
Joanna was staring out of the window. The hills to their left were green and shiny from the rain, the hedgerows damp and overgrown. But it was the expression in her sister’s eyes that had silenced her.
‘How long will you stay?’ This emerged more abruptly than Harriet had intended. Most things she said to Joanna seemed to come out that way.
‘I’m not sure yet.’ Joanna didn’t look at her. ‘You don’t mind, do you? It’s not putting you out?’
‘No, it’s not putting me out. Don’t be daft.’ Although it was. Everything and everyone that created more work put her out. Why wouldn’t it? But still, there was something reassuring about the fact that Joanna was sitting here next to her. A trouble shared, perhaps?
Once again, silence filtered through the cab of the pick-up, broken by the intermittent squeak of the windscreen wipers. It needed new rubbers, probably. Everything in Harriet’s life needed new something.
She followed the lane round towards home. One way up, one way down. To the cliff or to the beach. There was a natural simplicity to the landscape; it wasn’t pretending to be anything it wasn’t. She glanced again at Joanna. She was looking awfully pale. ‘Have you left him?’ she asked.
Joanna flinched. ‘No.’ She fidgeted. ‘Well, sort of. Yes. No. I don’t know yet.’