Chapter Thirteen

The Forest, 1997

M ara packs, checks out of the Victoria Hotel, and buys eggs, milk, bread, local sausages, tea bags and salad at the shop in Shiphaven. She sets her groceries on the passenger seat of the Fiesta and drives to the King’s Shilling where Jack hands her the keys to Lavender Cottage. He also gives her a scrap of paper with the telephone number of his flat above the pub.

‘Call me if anything, anything at all, is amiss,’ he says.

Mara is touched by the keen concern of his voice, reflected in his anxious eyes, that she should find nothing to be unhappy about. She assures him everything will be perfect while banning the notion that if it isn’t, he’ll have to pop by, and wraps her fingers around the heavy old-fashioned keys. They are cool to her touch and remind her of the keys to her first flat in Adelaide, after she had finished her legal secretarial course and landed herself a job in the city with Simmond & Sons, the law firm where Peter has worked his whole career. The flat was in a nineteenth century mansion near the centre of the city, at the top of a broad staircase and with views over the parkland which surrounds Adelaide.

Those keys whispered freedom, as do these. Her own home, no one to answer to or be responsible for. The idea is intoxicating, and she thanks Jack, waving the keys, saying she can’t wait to move in.

Ten minutes later, Mara pulls up next to the stone wall. She doesn’t immediately get out of the car. She gazes at the little house, the front in shadow. The glossy green leaves of the creeper – honeysuckle, Jack told her when he showed her around – are spotted with large clusters of trumpet-shaped creamy yellow flowers. Long stamens peer from their centres like mini periscopes. Despite the shade, the pale blue windows and light flowers gleam, as if the house welcomes her. Mara smirks at her fanciful notions, opens the car door, steps through the gate and up to the black door. The big key slips easily into the lock, and she is in, her eyes adjusting to the cool gloom.

The front room smells of beeswax, the old oak dresser positively glowing. Books and ornaments and a stack of board games fill the dresser’s shelves. A fire has been set in the cast iron wood burner, a basket of kindling and another of chopped logs waiting by the stone hearth. Mara briefly wishes for a spell of cold, wet weather to justify setting light to the pyramid of twigs and paper. A well-used two-seater brocade sofa thick with soft cushions sits beneath the deep, floral-curtained window. A green velvet wing chair and an upholstered single chair make up the rest of the seating arrangements. A thick rug covers much of the flagstone floor, a sea chest doubling as a coffee table in its middle.

Mara fetches in her case and groceries. Shutting the front door, remembering to remove the key from the lock, she takes her shopping to the kitchen and dumps the bag on the wooden table which presses into the wall. The kitchen is nearly as large as the front room, and the table could at a pinch seat six friendly people should Mara make enough friends here to host a dinner party. Unlikely. A Welsh pine dresser boasting mismatched crockery, jugs and a toast rack fills the remainder of the wall. A wooden workbench with a stone sink and under-counter fridge is opposite, with a view to the garden above the sink. The washing machine lives in a lean-to by the kitchen door, Jack had explained. An electric stove has replaced whatever cooking apparatus once resided in the wide fireplace.

Mara fills the electric kettle, rummages for tea bags, chooses a clay mug from the dresser and pours in the boiling water. Her watch and a quick calculation tell her it’s not too late to call Peter. She jots the telephone number for the cottage on a piece of paper so she can pass it on to him, rather than him calling her mobile. She, however, will call his, for she has no idea where he is, including which city.

Sitting at the kitchen table, Mara presses the stored number button and waits for the ring tone. When it comes, it carries on, and on. She’s about to leave a message when he answers.

‘Hi.’ He’s breathing hard. ‘Just caught me, about to leave the office for dinner.’

Knowing it’s safe to ask, Mara says, ‘Adelaide or Sydney?’

‘Home, Adelaide.’ There’s a shift in his voice, possibly moving the phone from one hand to the other. ‘Client dinner.’

‘The Sydney client is letting you off the leash for a bit?’ Mara makes it light, she hopes.

‘Ha! I wish.’ His tone is upbeat, denying his words. ‘Back there in the next couple of days.’

Mara moves the conversation on. ‘I’ve found a cottage to rent, in Barnley.’

‘Barnley?’

‘The village where Kathryn grew up, the one in Aaron’s journals.’ Mara has talked about Barnley many times.

‘Yes, yes, of course. Hang on a sec.’ Another shift, and when Peter speaks his voice is muffled. ‘Be there in a moment,’ he says, and to Mara, ‘A cottage? Roses on the walls etc?’

‘Honeysuckle,’ she tells him. ‘Almost as good. It’s old and delightful, on a pretty lane, with a massive oak in the garden –’

‘Sounds charming.’ His interruption is hurried, distracted.

‘I won’t keep you.’ Mara takes the hint and refuses to bridle. ‘Pen handy? This is the number here, so you don’t need to call my mobile.’

‘Okay, good idea.’ A brief pause. ‘Go ahead.’

She dictates the number, Peter repeats it, and, with huge apologies, says people are waiting for him, he’ll call her soon, glad she’s happy, and Mara says, yes, of course, he should go, and give her love to Josie, please, and he promises he will and rings off.

Mara sits with the dead phone in her hand. She gazes into her cooling tea, puts the phone on the table, takes up the mug and drinks.

***

The King’s Shilling heaves with locals come to enjoy the mild evening, the end of the working week. Jack fills orders at the bar and Tom fries, boils and bakes for what might be one of their busiest nights this year, if people stay and eat. In a short lull, Jack clears tables and exchanges a word here and there.

He’s chatting to a fisherman about the day’s sport, and the perfect tide, when Mara arrives. She casts about for a seat, spots Jack and waves. He takes his leave of the fisherman and heads towards her.

‘Everything working at Lavender Cottage?’ he says.

‘Oh yes, perfect.’ Her dark eyes glow and he wishes the cottage wasn’t perfect because a problem would give him an excuse to go there, fix things, show what a great handyman he is …

‘Good, good.’ He smiles. ‘Here for a drink, a meal?’

‘Thought I’d try the food.’ She peers around. ‘If there’s a free table? You’re busy tonight.’

‘The good weather.’ He points to the bar. ‘If you don’t mind perching there for a bit, a table’ll come free soon. Not everyone’s here to eat.’

He heads to the bar, slips behind it. Two men wait to be served and Jack deals with them before he gets back to Mara. She says a gin and tonic, please, and he remembers to ask if she wants ice and she says, what else, and lemon too and they laugh. He loves her laugh.

He should stop this nonsense, given she’s married. He goes over the conversation yesterday. There had been no mention of a husband, and the credit card she used to pay a deposit on the cottage was in her name. She could be divorced, wears the ring to discourage wannabes like himself. Or, better, widowed, poor bastard whoever he was. Hope whispers its encouragement and Jack is eager to listen.

A table comes free, Mara takes it, orders fish and chips, a small glass of white wine – she’s driving – and Jack’s evening becomes a blur of food orders, pulling beers and ciders, and waiting on tables. If this weather keeps up, he’ll need to find his temporary summer help sooner rather than later.

Mara hasn’t left when Jack can finally breathe. She’s at her table writing. A letter to the loved husband, if he exists? He wanders over.

‘No home to go to?’ he jokes.

She gazes up, blinking, focuses her gaze on him. ‘Ha!’ She sets down her pen. A small notepad is open on the table, the page filled with dot points, like a list. Not a letter.

‘Keeping tabs?’ He grins. ‘Ah ah! You’re a spy for the Good Pubs Guide, and you’ve given the King’s Shilling a five star rating.’

Mara giggles. ‘Sadly, no. A great job, if you ignore the impact on the waistline.’

Jack doesn’t say Mara’s waistline has far to go before she needs worry about it. He tosses a look at the bar to see if anyone needs him. It’s empty, so he stays hovering by Mara’s table. ‘Nightcap?’

‘No thanks. I’d like a clear head for tomorrow. Planning on starting my research into family history.’ She taps the notepad. ‘Writing myself a to do list, although with the weather like this it’s more tempting to go wandering in the woods.’

‘This sunshine won’t last,’ Jack says. ‘You should enjoy it while you can.’

Mara points at the chair opposite. ‘Why don’t you sit down, if no one needs you? You’re making me nervous looming over me.’

With another quick eye to the bar, Jack slips into the seat. ‘If you’re interested in history,’ he says, with no idea what’s making him say this, ‘there’s a place which only the locals know. An ancient well, sacred they say. People bottle the water and say it cures all kinds of things.’

‘A sacred well? I’d love to see it, if it’s not breaking a sacrosanct tradition to let foreigners in on the secret.’ Mara grins.

Jack slowly nods. ‘Could be. I guess we’ll have to risk it.’ When she keeps the grin going, he says, ‘It’s not far from here, bit complicated though.’ He pauses, decides sensible is the way to go and finishes with, ‘I could draw you a map.’

Mara raises her eyebrows. ‘Hopeless with maps, as my husband constantly points out.’

There you go. The casualness with which she reveals the husband’s continued presence boosts Jack’s jolt of disappointment. He doesn’t catch Mara’s next words and has to say, pardon. There’s no fool like an old fool.

Mara crosses her arms on the table. ‘I was saying, and it’s cheeky of me, and you mustn’t feel obliged, only, I don’t suppose you’d have time to show me? If it’s not too much trouble?’

Is she flirting with him, this married woman? He peers at her, decides no, she’s being friendly. Which is the best he can hope for under the circumstances. Married, and flying ten thousand miles from here in September … Friends is something, at least. He guesses.

‘Done.’ He catches sight of a man at the bar waiting to settle his bill. ‘Gotta see to the customer. Let’s make a time, while the weather holds.’

‘Thanks,’ Mara says. She picks up her handbag – Gucci, doubtless real. ‘Time for me to settle up too and go home to the comforts of Lavender Cottage.’

When the last customer has left, the kitchen is sorted and Tom has driven off, Jack pours his own nightcap, a small whisky, and sits in the chair Mara sat in, next to a window with a view over the pill. A cloudless night and a full moon silver the scene of long grasses lining the banks. Trying not to think of Mara and his quick disappointment, Jack closes his eyes and does what he hasn’t done for a long time, take himself into the far past to his days at Cardiff University, history and politics, and the much more drawn out disappointment of Jenny.

They married in ’69, found jobs in London, moved to the suburbs, commuted, two kids. The things his generation did, climbing the social and property ladders, leaving their working class roots behind. Jack’s dad, Edward, worked in the Forest mines, died not long after the last one, Northern, closed – of miner’s disease, his lungs choked with coal dust. He was forty-six and determined his son would never go near a coal mine. Jack never has, not that there’s been any to go near, unless he did the small-scale free mining, the ancient tradition in these parts. While his body, and to an extent his mind, left the Forest, his soul never did.

When Jenny gave him the ‘we married too young’ speech and ‘she needed to go her own way’, he bolted home like a hare released from a trap. He had sufficient funds from the divorce settlement to buy the King’s Shilling and do it up, make it workable. The kids have their lives in London, slipping down on the odd weekend. Jenny’s at the top of her career, raking it in hand over fist in the City doing God knows what. She’s remarried, no more kids. They keep in touch from time to time, mostly over events in the kids’ lives. No hard feelings.

Jack drains the last of his whisky, takes the glass to the bar and washes it. There have been one or two dalliances since. Nothing lasted, mutually agreed parting of the ways. He had given up, to be honest, and happy enough with his decision. Mara Ash has dispelled his complacency. The married Mara Ash.

Switching off the lights, Jack goes through the door which leads to the loos, walks past them and up the stairs to the flat. He should be content with things as they are, shouldn’t he? He wanders into the bathroom and squeezes toothpaste onto the toothbrush. Pipe dreams are for the young with their whole lives ahead of them, not for middle-aged publicans.