The Choice Read online

  The Choice

  Valerie Mendes

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

  The Book Guild Ltd

  9 Priory Business Park

  Wistow Road, Kibworth

  Leicestershire, LE8 0RX

  Freephone: 0800 999 2982

  www.bookguild.co.uk

  Email: [email protected]

  Twitter: @bookguild

  Copyright © 2017 Valerie Mendes

  The right of Valerie Mendes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with theCopyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This work is entirely fictitious and bears no resemblance to any persons living or dead.

  ISBN 9781912083923

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  For Sam and Ali

  and tomorrow’s world

  “White shall not neutralise the black, nor good

  Compensate bad in man, absolve him so:

  Life’s business being just the terrible choice.”

  Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book, 1868-9

  Contents

  Devastation

  Part One

  Ultimatum

  In a Wolvercote Garden

  One Year Later

  On the Home Front

  Not that Mitchell girl!

  Christmas

  Secrets and Lies

  Part Two

  Sprinter

  Omens

  Dark and Chill

  The Uncut Stone

  Careful Planning

  On the Train

  Fishery Cottage

  A Fleeting Glimpse

  Getting There

  Walter Plans Ahead

  Bonfire Night

  The Somerville Cherry

  Will there be anything else, sir?

  Finding a Key

  The Strand of Pearls

  At The Topaz Gallery

  The Woman in Blue

  Lyons Corner House

  Looking for an Answer

  In The Tuppeny Chew

  An Inky Inscription

  Mourning Darling Daddy

  Reaching a Decision

  Blackmail

  Someone to Share the Driving

  Part Three

  Heavy Weather

  Being Anonymous

  Meeting James Lanham

  The Hideaway

  “Is your name Moira? ”

  The Scent of Cloves

  A Taste of Freedom

  “About the cottage”

  Happy as Sand-boys

  The Vanishing

  No Last Goodbye

  Red Taffeta

  Letters

  Part Four

  Coming Home

  May Day

  Walter’s Portraits

  Talking to Kathleen

  At Brown’s Hotel

  At the Exhibition

  At The Trout

  Compromise

  Making Plans

  Searching for Moira

  The Naming

  Part Five

  Peter Pan

  A Midnight Feast

  Birthday Surprise

  “Give me an answer”

  Tomorrow

  A Safe Pair of Hands

  Reaching Cinq Saisons

  A New Partner

  On the Riviera Terrace

  A New Broom

  The Engagement

  The Gathering Storm

  Spelling It Out

  Departure

  Arrival

  The Thunder of Waves

  The Nature of the Beast

  Part Six

  On the Beach

  Turning a Blind Eye

  The End of the Line

  A Thousand Pieces

  Burning Bright

  Acknowledgements

  Devastation

  St Ives, Cornwall, April 1914

  She should not be out in the storm.

  Nobody else is.

  The grey-black sky, with its menacing toxic clouds, spews bolts of lightning, like giant blue-white toasting forks, into the depths of the sea.

  Bent on destruction, waves rear, mount and crash upon the shore.

  The narrow cobbled streets gush rivers of rain.

  Tiles, after years of patient loyalty, slither off their roofs; chimney pots go crashing to the ground.

  Last night, five Cornish fishing boats were lost: tossed and crushed like handfuls of thin biscuit. Staunch, seafaring lives drowned with them, their desperate prayers dismissed as worthless nothings.

  Their loved ones, left to grieve, huddle at the seven Shore shelters on the harbour in St Ives. They clutch each other for comfort, cling to each other in hope, scream with the pain of losing.

  She should not be out in the storm.

  But the woman runs out of a cottage in St Andrews Street, slamming the stable door behind her. She wears a black, ankle-length oiled coat with a protective hood. Swiftly, any old how, she stuffs bulky things into its pockets, her elbows flapping like the wings of a gull. Her eyes, in daylight the colour of bright cornflowers, are now as dark as the sky. Her pursed lips, clenched jaw and hunched shoulders reflect its swirling wrath.

  But this woman is beyond mere anger.

  She is furious.

  She starts to run as best she can, her boots slipping and sliding on the lethal cobbles, her head down against the driving rain.

  Nobody sees her.

  There is nobody else about.

  She stumbles like a drunk down to the harbour. Noticing the groups of mourners, she stops for a moment to look at them. But she pushes on.

  Then she hesitates, her body bending against the wind, the hood of her waterproof ripping from her face. Now her dark hair spreads soaked and flattened by the pounding rain.

  She makes a decision.

  She turns towards Porthgwidden Beach. She struggles down to the hairline fracture of the shore.

  A group of rocks survives the hammering sea.

  The woman slithers up to them, flinging herself against them for support.

  Now she cannot be seen by anyone. It’s as if the sea has sucked her body underneath the waves, slurped it around and then devoured it whole.

  But the woman is still standing. It looks as if she is trying to speak. A growl of thunder swamps her voice. Vicious waves lash at her hands, her face, her body, smothering her, eager to drag her down.

  But she’s still standing there, staring at the sea.

  Snatches of her marvellous dark voice echo above the roar.

  Is she talking to it, murmuring goodbye?

  Is she babbling childish gibberish?

  Is she mad with grief?

  Snatches of her voice sing like a trumpet over and above the waves.

  Do not leave me here alone,

  All alone, skin and bone.

  Do not leave me here alone in the storm.

  If I wander far
from home,

  All alone, skin and bone,

  God be with me where I roam.

  I be born.

  The woman closes her mouth. She opens it again but now she is stone mute. A wave slaps her in the face. She has no choice but to swallow. The taste of salt fills her mouth. The liquid hits the pit of her stomach, making her want to retch. With the insides of her wrists she scrubs at her eyes, trying to dry them; through the cloudy salt, she trys to see.

  Her eyelashes gum together.

  She is almost blind.

  With every ounce of strength, she turns away from the sea and forces her body towards land.

  She should not be out in the storm.

  But she cares nothing about the elements.

  She makes herself walk as if the rain no longer stings against her cheeks.

  As if her long skirts are billowing tinder dry, not clinging to her thighs like barnacles.

  As if her hair is smooth and elegantly coiled, not dripping down her back.

  As if she can remember what it is like to elegantly stroll under the sun.

  ***

  The woman reaches the centre of the town.

  Raising her head, she pauses for breath, taking sharp gulps of air into her lungs.

  A horse and cart wait outside the baker’s shop: the horse patient, bearing the weather. Its driver has made his deliveries. He’s drinking tea, talking to sympathetic ears, gesticulating wildly, describing his journey, relating his stormy woes.

  The fragrant scent of pasties hangs in the air, a reminder of normal life.

  The woman in the water-gushing street flicks back her head. Now her eyes are sharply wary, darkly watchful. Pinpricks of her fury subside. Panic replaces them.

  She checks right, left, then right again.

  Now she is absolutely sure.

  Quickly, now there is nobody else about.

  She gathers her dripping skirts into her hands, squeezing out the water, shivering like a dry leaf in the wind.

  Her lips are as blue as her eyes.

  She makes a dive for the cart, scrabbling onto it. Her long skirt slips and lifts. Her knees draw blood. She is too cold to feel pain. Her fingers are numb with shock. She covers herself with sodden old sacking, pulling it over her legs, her breasts, her face.

  She closes her eyes.

  Behind her lids she sees the eye of the storm.

  Her heartbeat subsides. She can smell salt on her breath.

  She manages to think like a rational human being.

  The madness leaves her. She is sane and calm in the new darkness, beneath the sodden weight of a drenched blanket, beside the fresh vision of a future filled with hope.

  If she cannot see anyone, maybe – hope to God, dear God – they cannot see her?

  Now she is nowhere to be seen.

  And still there is nobody else about.

  A fresh bolt of lightning gathers itself to crack the sky in half.

  It sets a house on fire. The house squats next to the baker’s shop. The delivery man sees the livid flames. It is the final straw. He comes roaring out, clutching his empty trays, shouting against the wind.

  He hasn’t got time to help extinguish the fire. He’s much too fearful for his own survival. He has a living to make, whatever the weather. A day’s earnings to take. A greedy wife and a bellyful of brats with open mouths, waiting to be fed.

  He chucks the trays on top of the huddle of sacking. He wipes the spray from his eyes, swearing to himself, vowing to retire this time next year and be done with it.

  Then, reeling against the wind, he hauls himself up, behind his patient horse.

  He yells instructions until his lungs are sore.

  He pounds at the reins.

  The woman stuffs her fingers in her mouth.

  The cart lurches away.

  Leaving the devastation behind – and taking it along for the ride.

  Part One

  Ultimatum

  Oxford, July 1907

  “You look wonderful in pink,” Walter says. “Simply divinely wonderful.” His eyelashes flutter over his half-shut eyes. He peers at his model. “I could stand here and paint you all day and way into the night.”

  “Not a chance.” Moira wriggles her bare toes a fraction of an inch. “Not a—”

  “No, darling, don’t move… And don’t talk. It alters the shape of your cheekbones.”

  Moira flings her long, dark-pink velvet robe aside. For a tantalising moment Walter sees a slender thigh: creamy, fluffy, so inviting. Then it disappears.

  He swallows. His brush seeps oil down his hairy wrist.

  Moira stands, stretching her arms above her head. Her breasts tilt upwards as if they’re smiling. She says, “I’ve had quite enough for one afternoon.”

  Her voice lilts in Walter’s head. That voice… Its depth, its husky seductiveness. He’d do anything to listen to it…

  He puts down his brush, wiping oily fingers against his already-stained smock. “Don’t go, darling.” He uses his wheedling voice, his please-don’t-leave-me-when-we’re-having-such-a-marvellous-time voice. It usually works. “We have the house to ourselves until—”

  “No.” Moira gives him a long, straight look. “That’s one of the many problems, Walter. We never have this house to ourselves. Any minute now one of those lodgers of yours – Harry or Larry or Stinky Percival – will fling open the front door and hurl themselves down to the kitchen. To make even more of a mess, if that’s possible.”

  Walter runs his tongue over his teeth. They feel unusually furry. He’s only too aware his beloved chums hardly measure up to Moira’s exacting standards.

  “But darling.” He sloshes more pink onto his fleshy-toned brush, bubbling it around. “We are snugly up here in our charming little attic—”

  “Hot and stuffy in summer, freezing in—”

  “I can hardly control the weather, my angel, now can I?”

  “No.” Moira’s seductive voice gathers a touch of frost. The dazzling cornflower eyes confront his. “But there are many other things you could do a great deal about if you put your so-called mind to it.”

  “But my chums and I, we only rent this place—”

  “And don’t I know it.”

  The long, hard stare cuts into the start of one of Walter’s headaches. He flinches.

  “And before you even ask,” Moira says, “I’m not going to bed with you, not now and not ever, until we have a place of our own. I’m sick of telling you so… In fact, I’ve just decided. I’m never ever saying it again.” She ducks behind the screen. “And,” she adds, her magnificent voice partially smothered, “I’m sick to death of this filthy house. The rats, the fleas, the stench of drains, the filthy floors, the greasy pots, the smell of coal, not to mention your Stinky Percival. I can smell his armpits halfway down the street… Need I go on, Walter Drummond?… Need I go on?”

  Walter gawps as the velvet robe flings itself over the screen. His palms begin to sweat. It makes holding a paint brush terribly difficult.

  “Of course, you’re absolutely right, my one and only. I entirely understand.” He imagines Moira’s stockings snaking up her thighs. “Let me take you to the pub, darling… You deserve a drink.”

  Moira emerges in a long summer dress, as creamy as her skin, with slinky sleeves, a dazzling narrow waist, and a low-cut, heavily embroidered neckline. Its delicate lacy collar climbs her neck like a trellis.

  “God, darling, you’re so beautiful. You’ve no idea.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Moira reaches for an enormous pale hat with an ostrich feather, instinctively placing it on her head at its properly slanting angle, “I do have an idea… By the way,” she takes a tiny notebook out of her bag, “you owe me for seven sittings, Walter. And i
f you think you’re getting away with an eighth without paying me, you’re very much mistaken. Half of Oxford wants to paint me. And they will all pay me at least three times the amount you do… Or don’t, as the current case most certainly is.”

  Walter’s eyes whiz in his head. There’s no way he can get out of this one. He gives Moira what he hopes is a winning smile. “Now the summer term has ended, darling, I should get some proper commissions. At the Slade, Tonks says I’ll go far… Did I tell you—”

  “Tonks!” Moira spits out the name as if it’s a swear word. A delicate gob of spit lands on Walter’s hand. Gratefully, he rubs it into his skin. “It’s been Tonks this and Tonks that, ever since—”

  “Well,” Walter interrupts bashfully, “he really admires my work, angel face, and he’s terribly hard to please. The Graduate Prize of the Year, now.” He flutters his gorgeous eyelashes, something he practises in front of the cracked mirror in the hall. “You realise I might actually win it, don’t you?”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it.” Moira takes a powder compact from her bag. She inspects her face, baring her perfect teeth, smiling at herself in total admiration.

  Walter wishes with all his heart she’d smile at him like that.

  “Well, I only hope you will, my angel face… The announcement of the winner may be down from London via the grapevine as early as tonight.”

  Moira snaps the compact shut. The sound startles a small mouse in the wainscot who wakes up and begins to patter across the floor. Moira glares at it. The mouse hurriedly vanishes, leaving only a cloud of dust.

  “And anyway,” Moira turns her gaze to the now wilting Walter, “a prize doesn’t pay my fees, does it? Have you any idea how much seven sittings comes to?”

  Surreptitiously, Walter slides his hand to his smock. His pants feel rather sticky. He says bravely, “I’ll ask my dear Papa for a loan to tide me over.”

  Moira puts her beautiful hands on her hips. Her cleavage deepens. Walter does his best to keep his eyes off it. He fails.