As he said this, a dreamy look came over him. It often did, Rachel had noticed, when people mentioned the tropical islands of the South Pacific, Tahiti, Bora Bora, the Cooks . . . Gauguin had a lot to answer for.
She inclined her head. “Nevertheless, this is equally as important.”
“Oh absolutely. It’ll form part of a nationwide study on the effects of climate change on our marine life, and the rate at which the increasing acidification of our waters affects their growth patterns.” His eyes shone behind his glasses. “The Scilly Isles are a favorite of mine. If I didn’t have to put my children through school, I’d be down there like a shot.”
“I’ve heard they’re stunning,” she said politely, noticing that his attention had been diverted elsewhere as he riffled through the paperwork on his desk.
“Ah, yes, here it is.” He held a sheet aloft and peered at it. “There’s just a slight hiccup with the funding, but not to worry, I’m certain it will all sort itself out. Paperwork, details . . . that’s all.”
Rachel felt a faint stirring of alarm. She’d quit her previous job for this.
“Haven’t quite got it signed off, but it’ll all be tickety-boo in a week or so,” he added.
Tickety-boo. She hoped that meant what she thought it did.
“No need for you to be concerned, dear girl . . .”
Rachel ground her teeth. She was a thirty-five-year-old woman, not someone’s “dear girl.” She held herself in check. Charles Wentworth was her supervisor and she was depending on him for this job.
“Should I delay my journey?” she asked, hoping his answer would be a negative one. She had no desire to cool her heels in London any longer than necessary. Big cities were anathema to her: they were dirty, crowded, and exhausting. They sapped her spirit and she found herself becoming irritable and anxious the more time she spent in them. London, with its kamikaze cyclists threatening to wipe her out every time she tried to cross the road, and the press of people on buses and the tube in rush hour, made her especially claustrophobic.
“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary,” he said breezily. “It’s a mere formality. I must say,” he added, sifting through some more papers, “your references are excellent.”
Rachel had gotten on well with her previous supervisor, and although he had been sad to see her leave, he’d promised to sing her praises. She smiled and sent a mental note of thanks to him.
“Now, why don’t we talk about what you will be expected to produce. Since you will be unsupervised down there, I—and the higher-ups—will need a weekly report emailed to us outlining your activities and progress.”
Rachel nodded. “Of course. That won’t be a problem at all.”
“As I mentioned when we last spoke, there’s a cottage: two-up two-down.” He caught her puzzled look. “Two rooms upstairs, and two downstairs,” he explained.
“It sounds more salubrious than my last accommodation,” she reassured him, thinking of the one-room thatched-roof bungalow that she had shared with an ever-changing insect population.
“Jolly good then. I think that about covers it. Did you have any questions?”
She shook her head.
“Well, then good luck and I expect you’ll be in touch if anything does come up. Nice T-shirt by the way.”
Rachel smiled again. After her meeting, her next pressing task was to kit herself out with a new wardrobe suitable for the northern hemisphere winter.
He stood up and Rachel did the same, shaking hands once more before stowing the folders in her daypack and retracing her path to the entrance. She needed to find an outdoor gear store for waterproofs, hiking boots, and thermal layers. A cold wind bit through the thin cotton of her top and she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered as she hurried in the direction of the nearest tube station.
Chapter Four
Little Embers, Autumn 1951
Ah, here it is,” said John. Esther followed his gaze. The path had come to an abrupt end in front of a low wall, over which she could see a large, two-story house made from the same stone standing on its own on a small rise. There were patches of yellowing lichen on the walls, flaking, white-painted window frames, a deep lintel and a steeply pitched, gabled roof. Thin gray smoke emanated from a row of chimney pots at either end but was quickly snatched away by the wind. A dark green creeper had almost engulfed one end of the house, as if a creature were in the process of swallowing it whole.
“This is a most odd kind of place for a holiday,” she said, turning to her husband, who was wrestling with a gate, remembering as she did that she had promised before God to obey him. Apparently that now included coming to the ends of the earth with him on what she could only determine was little more than a whim.
Theirs had been a marriage while not exactly of convenience then certainly of expedience, the product of postwar euphoria, a sense of possibility in the world again, but that the day should be seized lest it be lost forever. Her father of course had said that she was too young, but her mother—always the pragmatist—hadn’t objected. Young men were thin on the ground, too many of them had perished on foreign soil, and Mother had warned that even beautiful, clever girls—especially clever girls—would find themselves without a beau if they weren’t careful.
They met at a church social, his parish being only a couple of miles from hers. Esther was down from university for the holidays, and despite her preference to stay in and study The Poetics, a friend had persuaded her to tag along. She’d spotted John across the hall, his height and direct gaze in her direction marking him out among a homogeneous sea of heads. He had brought her a cup of punch, she remembered, apologizing for the lack of ice, as if it were somehow his fault. She was charmed, as much by his two left feet when they danced the jive (he apologized for that too) as by his ready smile and quiet manner, so different from the loud, brash men she had previously encountered. He asked to see her again the next day, taking her for a stroll in a nearby woodland and doing nothing more than holding her hand. “If we went to the pictures we wouldn’t be able to talk to each other,” he said. “And that would be a terrible shame.” She experienced a small thrill at those words. Perhaps here was a man who wanted intelligent conversation from a woman, not merely a decorative accessory to hang on his arm and his every word.
That he was a banker held little interest for her but pleased both her parents no end. “A steady income,” her mother had said. “A respectable job,” chimed her father.
Esther had hesitated only briefly in accepting John’s proposal after a few months of walking out together. They had both determinedly ignored the tiny chip—a mere splinter really—on his shoulder that while she was studying at Cambridge, he had gone straight from school into the city.
They were married the week after her final examinations in a simple ceremony at her parish church. Her father escorted her down the aisle and handed her to John like a parcel being transferred from one man to another. She went from being Esther Parkes to Esther Durrant in the blink of an eye.
She didn’t attend her graduation ceremony, held in the autumn of that year: by then she was three months’ pregnant and even being upright made her retch uncontrollably.