“With Jude.”
“Excellent.”
“As I say, it may not be a full week, but…Anyway, if there are any problems with Gaby, you’ll let me know, won’t you?”
“Of course. Though I’m not sure how. You haven’t got round to buying a mobile yet, have you?”
“No,” came the shamefaced reply.
“You really should. It’s so convenient.”
“Yes,” she agreed humbly. “But I’ll call you when I get down there. There’s probably a phone in the cottage.”
“Or you could just give me Jude’s mobile number.”
But that somehow didn’t seem right. Carole wasn’t sure of the etiquette of mobile ownership, but she thought it must be bad form to give out someone else’s mobile number as a personal contact – even though she knew that Jude would be the last person in the world to worry about something like that.
“I’ll phone you when we get down there.”
“All right,” he said in the voice a cotton mill owner might have used to a potential Luddite. “Oh, incidentally, Mum…” Thank God, he was relaxed enough to stop calling her ‘Mother’. But Carole’s joy was shortlived, as he went on, “I was talking to Dad today.” He never seemed to have any problem using the word ‘Dad’. “He was saying he’d love to see you.”
“Why?” came the icy response.
“Well, look, you are both about to be grandparents.”
“That doesn’t mean we cease to be divorced.”
“No, but I was thinking…you know, for the baby, it’d be nice if he or she was born into a family where everyone got on.”
“You and Gaby get on. That’ll be the most important thing for your child. And I’m sorry, Stephen, I wish that your father and I had ‘got on’ like a perfect fairy tale couple, but we didn’t, and at least we had the honesty to admit the fact.”
“I don’t know. I think Dad would quite like you to get back together…”
This was more than Carole could cope with. Though aware of her son’s fragile state of anxiety about Gaby, she couldn’t stop herself from snapping, “Well, I can assure you I do not share his opinion.”
After the phone call, she felt guilty about what she’d said. But by the time she went to bed – soon after ten, she and Jude were planning an early start – the reaction had receded. She’d have felt even more guilty if she’d lied about her feelings for David.
There was a feeling of holiday about their journey down to Cornwall. The Wednesday had opened to a cloudless sky, late September maintaining the illusion that winter wasn’t just around the corner. And even as they drove along the M27 past Portsmouth and Southampton, they got a feeling of life opening up. Jude had always been part of a wider world, but since her retirement Carole had felt her horizons narrowing down to Fethering and only Fethering. She felt exhilarated to be seeing somewhere new.
It was also interesting to have a different person in the navigator’s seat. During her marriage Carole had done most of the driving, David beside her. Although he had a bad sense of direction and kept losing his place on the map, he was always convinced that he was right. As a result, the tension in the car quickly became palpable. So for Carole the mere fact of having someone else in the car was a stress trigger, even when the other person was Jude.
Though she had ferried her neighbour around on many short trips, they had never spent a whole day in the car together and, as ever in a new situation, Carole was anxious about giving away too much of herself. She had always eschewed intimacy. The idea that someone might know everything about her was appalling. The certainty that nobody did know quite everything was what kept her going.
But after about an hour of driving she relaxed. Jude was a very undemanding and unjudgemental companion. What was more, she had no interest at all in their route. She assumed that Carole knew the way she wanted to go and that was fine by her. Jude seemed more laid-back than ever. She didn’t say much, but there were few uneasy silences. Indeed, Carole found herself talking quite a lot, even confessing the fears that she could never voice to Stephen about the health of his wife and their unborn child. Jude was predictably reassuring. She even volunteered the use of her mobile phone to check on the family, which made Carole feel very embarrassed. She knew she would only have had to ask.
They hadn’t left quite as early as they’d intended. Eight-thirty had been the proposed departure time, and at eight-fifteen Carole had the Renault, packed with Gulliver and the luggage, parked outside Woodside Cottage. But Jude hadn’t been ready. She still had a couple of emails to do. Carole fumed quietly. It was all too reminiscent of travelling with David. Her husband had been the unusual and infuriating combination of a nit-picker and a bad time-keeper.
At about ten to nine Carole, unable to stand the wait any longer, had gone into Woodside Cottage to find out what was happening. Jude said she wouldn’t be more than a quarter of an hour. Why didn’t Carole have a cup of coffee? But Carole didn’t want a cup of coffee. Apart from anything else, if she took on too much fluid, she might have to stop the car for an early toilet break, and that would be embarrassing. All she wanted to do was to leave at the time they had agreed to leave. So she just stumped around between the car and the two front doors.
Jude would normally have found the situation amusing, but she was preoccupied. She was sending an emotionally complicated email to a client who had just had breast cancer diagnosed. But she didn’t tell Carole that. Eventually, they left at nine-thirty, ‘exactly an hour after we intended to go, Jude’.
Only a couple of hours into their journey, however, there was already talk of stopping for lunch – from Jude, inevitably. This too went against everything Carole had grown up with. She was used to journeys during which you pressed grimly on until you reached your destination. If nourishment was required, you took sandwiches in Tupperware boxes. And yet Jude was proposing stopping at a pub for lunch, as if they were still in Fethering and wandering down to the Crown and Anchor, rather than in the middle of a journey. The way Jude talked, it was as if travel could be an enjoyable experience in its own right.
Still, Carole wasn’t about to sound like a wet blanket, so she didn’t take issue with the pub idea…until Jude suggested that they should look for the pub in Lyme Regis.
“Lyme Regis? But that’s not on the way.”
“It’s not directly on the way, but it’s not far off. Just a minor detour.”
“But if we start taking minor detours, goodness knows what time we’ll get to Treboddick. Not till after dark, at this rate.”
“So? Did we say a specific time that we’d arrive?”
“Well, no. But it’s a strange place. If we arrive after dark, we may not be able to find things.”
Jude couldn’t suppress a grin. “Carole, I think we’ll find that the Treboddick Cottages do have electric light.”
“Yes. Yes, but…Well…”
By the time she actually turned the Renault off the A35 down the steep road that led to Lyme Regis, Carole had almost become used to the novel idea of what they were doing. “But will there be somewhere I can take Gulliver for a walk?”
“Perfect place. You can walk him round the Cobb.”
“Cobb?”
“French Lieutenant’s Woman. Meryl Streep in black with seawash all over her. Surely you remember that?”
“Well, I did see it, yes, but I wasn’t really aware that it was in Lyme Regis.”
“It very definitely was. Anyway, Gulliver will love the Cobb. Lots of lovely smells of bits left by the fishing boats.”
Jude was right. Though at first annoyed at being kept on his lead, the Labrador soon responded to his environment. As they walked around the great stone harbour wall, his nostrils twitched with pleasure. This was better than being cooped up on the back seat of the Renault.