Chapter Thirty Two

Eccleshall, 1997

M ara locks the cottage door and walks to where the blue Fiesta waits. She filled the car with petrol yesterday, wincing at the high cost of fuel here, and checked the water and tyres.

‘Big trip today,’ she tells the Fiesta as she opens the boot and sets her carry-on bag in the space. A canvas holdall with bottled water and fruit goes on the passenger seat alongside her handbag and the AA Atlas, bookmarked at Eccleshall, the general route seared into her brain.

Dawn and its cacophonous choir have long since wandered off, taking its blushes and birdsong further west. The late morning remains fresh, the sky streaked with hazy clouds. A perfect summer’s day for a journey.

Finding this Royal Oak in Eccleshall had been a painstaking process. Mara spent several hours over the last few days working her way through the Good Pub Guide, AA Atlas at her side, cross referencing towns and villages. She rang each Royal Oak as she found it, explaining her mission, asking if they took guests one hundred years ago, and if so, had they kept the register? A few rushed and vague responses paused her mid-evening calls. Landlords and staff have no time of an evening to deal with the idle questions of family history enthusiasts.

Finally, she narrowed her search to three hotels within a day’s horse ride of Shrewsbury which both took guests and retained the registers. She crossed her fingers and asked about Aaron Appleby. Two hotels had no record of him. The third, in Eccleshall, apologised their registers were in storage in their cellars and they’d have to dig them out. Could Mara call in a few days?

There were no guarantees, and it was the idea of wending her way through the Malvern Hills and the possibility of detouring to visit Shakespeare’s birthplace and Ann Hathaway’s cottage on the return trip which made Mara say, ‘I’ll come up and check it out myself, if I may? When the register’s available.’ She added, ‘Can I book a room for the night, maybe two?’ Hoping the incentive would work.

It had, and two days later Mara received the call saying the register was available. She laughs at herself. She could have asked them to search, save her the trip. She hadn’t, wanting the thrill of discovery, hoping against the odds this was Aaron’s pub.

Mara twiddles the car radio knobs until she finds a classical radio station, and with the strains of Chopin and Beethoven’s best-loved piano pieces banishing the silence, she concentrates on the road. To her right, she catches glimpses of the Severn, tide out, mud flats and sandbanks glistening silver. Gulls wheel, their shrieking enjoyment blocked by the car windows and Moonlight Sonata. Approaching Gloucester, Mara follows directions to the M5, finds the exit and joins a busy line of traffic. The smooth undulations of the landscape, the green fields, the livestock, are a reminder of the countryside from Adelaide to Victor Harbour, at least during winter. Which leads her inevitably to home and to Peter.

They haven’t spoken since the peremptory summons Mara received at the library. She’s picked up the cottage phone several times to call, hesitated, and replaced the handset. Her lack of calls should send the message loud and clear she’s not going to change her plans for no good reason.

Another, far less brave, emotion is at play.

A coldness tightens around her ribcage. Calling would mean questioning, taking further what Mara started in the library car park, wanting, and not wanting, to ask what’s going on? Cowardice blocks her from re-engaging with this conversation. Because discovering the truth will force her to face her own truths, and Mara has lost any firm grip she might once have had on those. The longer she and Peter don’t talk, the less she misses him, and the more she paints herself as a bad wife.

When she speaks with Josie, Mara is careful not to mention the lack of communication with Peter. They talk about Josie’s preparations to come to England, her farewell parties and teary friends. There’s no boyfriend to decide what to do with. If there were, would her daughter’s emotional life have pushed Mara’s own see-sawing into the background, and would this be a good or bad thing?

Meanwhile, she puts her energies into the Aaron mystery, soaking in botanical bits and pieces courtesy of Mr Gregor, and exploring the woods. Walking has become a daily routine. She has kept her promise to herself and visited St Ceyna’s well. No rain this time, and Mara sat on the stone surround, bare feet cooling in the chill water, letting the sunlight – and what else gambols in the air above the waters – soothe her spinning thoughts.

These had included the mix of delight and horror with which Jack had greeted the revelation of Rose’s birth parents. Mara hadn’t been surprised by his first reaction being to the fact he and she weren’t blood-related. She reflects on the distance Jack set between them near the beginning of her stay in Lavender Cottage, when Mara put the sketches and the actual cottage together and had her light bulb moment. Mara had had a second light bulb moment then, understanding Jack is attracted to her, and how he saw being cousins as a barrier. Together with the more real barrier of her marriage.

In those dark hours of the night when the ghosts sleep and Mara lies staring at the moonlight lingering in the gaps in her bedroom curtains, she allows herself to admit Jack is one of the reasons for her emotional confusion. In her rational moments, she tucks her honesty into a deep pocket. Her first duty has to be to Peter, whatever the truth is there.

Mara’s planned route today gives Wolverhampton a wide berth and she leaves the motorway at Worcester. Soon after, she spots an inn and pulls in to eat quiche and salad and drink English Breakfast tea in a flag-floored bar with rustic beams which Mara suspects aren’t original. The room is olde English charming, the waitress friendly and efficient, and the quiche tasty. After a tidy up in the ladies’ toilet, Mara hits the road.

Before she reaches Eccleshall she pulls over to remind herself of the directions. Turn right at the roundabout, drive past the Co-op supermarket, left at the next roundabout and keep going until you find it, the landlord had instructed. As advised, she squeezes the Fiesta into a spot in the tiny car park along the aptly named Small Lane, takes her overnight case and walks around to the front entrance.

Her heart starts a soft hammering. She will find out soon. And if Aaron wasn’t here, she will put away her disappointment, have a relaxed evening and a scenic drive to Barnley.

The landlord, a wide-shouldered man in his forties with curling dark hair nestling on his collar, greets her warmly, asks if she wants to see her room first or the register. He makes a gesture indicating the book is nestled under the counter, and winks.

Mara grins. ‘Do I seem so eager?’

‘Australian or South African?’ he asks. ‘Heard the accent over the phone, couldn’t place it exactly.’

‘Australian, visiting for a bit.’

‘We see a few of those from time to time.’ He grins. ‘Haven’t come across an historian before.’

‘I appreciate your trouble,’ Mara says. ‘It’s very kind of you.’

‘Glad to help. Done a bit of research myself on this place, checking old publicans, hoping for famous visitors to put us on the map.’

‘Anything?’

‘Sadly, no.’ The grin returns. ‘With any luck, your Mr Appleby might be a story we can use.’

‘If he’s there.’ Mara avoids the man’s eye. She doesn’t want to know if he’s already peeked, if his cheer is about the discovered potential for a story rather than bonhomie.

‘I haven’t checked,’ he says, the grin gone, tuning in to her concern. ‘Tempted, but didn’t want to spoil it for you.’

Mara rewards him with a grateful smile. ‘Thank you.’

‘Besides,’ he says, eyes lit with fun, ‘if he isn’t, I would have felt obliged to ring you and tell you not to come, and lost a booking.’

‘Then I’ll make sure I stay by checking in to the room first.’ Mara stands on tiptoe to peer over the counter. ‘If you could please have that ready for me in a few minutes?’

Her room is at the front of the hotel, above the colonnade which spans the wide footpath. Mara pulls apart the flowered linen curtains, opens the sash window. The rumble of traffic rises to meet her, and she prays the street sleeps at night. She hangs up her blouse for tomorrow in the built-in robe, sets out her shampoo, creams and lotions in the cramped bathroom, washes her hands and refreshes her light makeup. With no more excuses for delay, Mara checks her notepad hasn’t taken itself off for an explore, and walks down the stairs. Her breath keeps catching in her throat.

‘Ready?’ The landlord arches his bushy brows. One big hand rests on the scuffed leather cover of a large book.

‘Yes.’ Mara stares at the book.

‘I can’t let you take it up to your room.’ He’s apologetic. ‘Why don’t you check it out over there?’ He points to the dining area, empty of people bar a waitress setting out cutlery.

The register is heavier than Mara expected. She approves of the weightiness, a serious tome, the formal facades of a thousand lives lived and gone.

The colonnade above the footpath diffuses the daylight in the room, and Mara carries the register to a window table, laying it on the clean surface with care. She pulls out a chair and sits, takes a deep breath and opens to the first page. The date is 23 February 1885. Mara flips to the end. The last entry is 26 May 1901.

Working backwards, she traces the dates with her eyes, carefully lifting and setting down the big, heavy pages, holding in her impatience.

When she arrives at June 1897, she skims the signatures, some elaborate, others no more than printed names, the addresses in a variety of what could loosely be called copperplate. When she finds him, Mara lets out a muted, thrilled yelp.

Mr. A. Appleby, Barnley, Glos. Registered for the nights of 23 rd and 24 th June, midsummer 1897.

She frowns at the room number, checks the wooden tag on her clumsy, great key. And shivers.

The landlord is at her side, doubtless summoned by Mara’s cry.

‘Found him?’

‘Yes. Yes. Thank you.’ She peers up at him, heart thudding. ‘Same room you’ve put me in.’

***

Last night, Mara had eaten dinner at the Royal Oak, a further thanks to her cheerful host, whose name is Grant Barnaby. Beforehand, over a drink, Grant assured her, hand on heart, scout’s honour he definitely did not peek and his choice of room for Mara was pure coincidence. With this resolved, Mara filled him in on why she was searching for Aaron and how the convoluted track had brought her here, the last place his family heard from him.

‘And then he vanishes.’ Mara wriggled on the bar stool, fingers around the stem of a wine glass, while Grant polished tumblers. In a few minutes the pub would open for the evening and customers would need attention. She had hurried on with her tale. ‘No mention of him, the current generation had no idea he existed, his daughters – by birth and otherwise – didn’t carry his name.’ She lifted her palms. ‘The next thing to find out is where he went to from here.’ Spoken out loud, the sentence gave her pause. The Royal Oak had filled her mind to the point Mara hadn’t moved on to what next.

Grant arranged beer mugs on the counter with the precision of a sergeant lining up his troops for the general’s inspection. ‘Maybe he stayed.’ He glanced at Mara. ‘Good place to live, Eccleshall. Perhaps he wanted to disappear.’

Mara pressed her lips together. ‘Not from the tone of the letters he sent. Two of them, saying how desperate he was to be home.’

‘Ah!’ Grant waggles a finger. ‘Good cover.’

It’s an idea Mara hadn’t thought of, like she hadn’t considered Jack’s intimation of Aaron as a seducer of young maidens. She’s reluctant to do so now for the same reason, because it makes the man who produced those love-filled sketches of his daughters, with their tender captions, a two-timing, heartless monster. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Innocent until proven guilty. I suspect my great-grandmother loved him to her death. She was very young when he disappeared and she never re-married.’

‘Her death. Hmm.’ Grant polished another glass, lined it up with its gleaming fellows. ‘Might be worth a stroll around the churchyard, see if there’s a grave. He might have met with an accident around about, and they couldn’t find his family.’

‘More plausible.’ Mara’s heart sank at the prospect of walking miles up and down gravestones on a wild goose chase. ‘How many cemeteries are there here?’

‘Three.’

Her heart sank further. There would be records she could access, might be easier.

‘I’d start with Holy Trinity, a short way up the road.’ Grant indicated the direction with his elbow. ‘Sacred Heart is Catholic, and the cemetery is secular, which means if he’s here, he’s probably in Holy Trinity.’

‘Right.’ Mara had finished her wine, slid off the stool. She wanted to stroll around this pretty town in the short time before dinner, relax from the drive and her discovery. Cemeteries could wait until tomorrow. ‘And if I don’t find anything, I suppose there’s a Records Office for this area. I can try them.’

This morning, Mara breakfasts on bacon, eggs, toast and coffee. She will need her energy if she’s to spend hours wandering churchyards. The relevant Records Office, which she found in the local telephone directory, is in Stafford, a few miles south according to the AA Atlas. She will ring the Office later, during a break from grave-spotting.

Mara thanks the waitress and goes upstairs to ready herself for the day. The sun continues to shine, the forecast is for a warm day, and she hopes the graveyard is shady. Her excitement over finding Aaron here has been tempered by the notion she has a long way left to go.

She’s about to leave her room and head off when her mobile rings. It’s Peter.