They sat on the steps in the sun together, eating the cream tea. Phillipa was sitting exactly where Hitler had sat, although, as with the recorder, Aleksey didn’t mention this. Never waste good ammunition.
‘How was your visit this morning? Did you pull off the necessary level of secrecy?’
‘Bloody rubbish all this celebrity paparazzi nonsense, if you ask me. If someone gets spotted and photographed, it’s because they want to be. Dress like this, put a headscarf on and shuffle around, and an old bat like me can go anywhere unrecognised. Nanny was surprisingly spry for ninety-something, I must say. Probably all the sherry she guzzles—pickled the old bones. Hasn’t done much for the old noggin though. She’s gone completely gaga if you ask me. Thought the bloody king had been visiting her, so God knows what century she’s even in. I always feel a bit guilty about her though; she had a complete nervous breakdown when I went up, and then had to be pensioned off.’
Ben was frowning deeply, apparently trying to work this out. Aleksey was watching him out of the corner of his eye, trying not to laugh, which was almost impossible when Ben asked, ‘Your grandmother is still alive?’
Aleksey looked away and sipped some tea.
Phillipa didn’t bother with Ben’s feelings. She burst into delighted laughter. ‘Oh, darling, it’s nice to know you think I’m young enough. No, nanny is, was, an old retainer. Oh, I expect that fool has told you I was mybeloved’snanny. Have you worked out yet he has a tendency to spout a load of absolute codswallop the entire time? I’m notthatold. I did the course when I left school—not much else for us poor female cousins to do, to be honest. Boys went in the navy or the army, and we girls passed a few years being polite but mostly silent until we could marry well—not so easy when you’ve got a face like mine. Mummy and Daddy sent me to Norland—that’s the nanny school—to get me out of the way. So a year later, there I was—seventeen and just about able to boil an egg and make marmite soldiers. That’s how I went up to Buckers and into the nursery to help nanny out.Belovedwas thirteen, so just off to school for the first time. Obviously, we were cousins, removed and whatnot, so I’d known him since he was born—since I was Molly’s age, I suppose. Isn’t she four soon?’
Ben was forced to speak once more. ‘Next month.’
‘God, it only seems like the other day. How time flies. I shall think of something nice for her. I won’t try to keep it this time.’ She chuckled at Ben’s expression of puzzlement. ‘It’s an old family story. I probably told you.’ She addressed this to Aleksey, who only shrugged. ‘He never listened to a single thing I ever said to him, Ben. Does he do that to you? Anyway, what was I going to tell you? Oh, yes, this funny story. We’d been invited to beloved’s christening in St George’s Chapel—big do, obviously, being the new heir—but it was cancelled because he was poorly or something. Mummy was insistent that we did something though—she wasHer Majesty’sfirst cousin, so you can imagine the kafuffle. I suppose she and daddy decided we had to go up anyway. I remember that trip because it was the first time I’d ever been on a train. We had a private carriage—those were the days—and it was a very hot summer, and there was bunting on all the station platforms for the baby, but it was completely limp.’ She paused at this recollection. Aleksey suspected that if Ben had not been present she’d have made a ribald joke to him about this. He was extremely pleased that having now got her prize, she was coming around to his view ofbeloved.
‘Anyway. I took a present, obviously, but when we got there we couldn’t actually see the baby. I think it might have been scarlet fever, and they were afraid I would catch it too. So I had to hand the present to Nanny One, and when the time came, well, apparently I just burst into tears and tried to run away with it. It became a bit of a family joke—you know, the sort of thing that mothers embellish every time they tell it. I probably took a look around the nursery and decided he had enough presents already and it was my turn. I’ve never really changed my opinion on that, I suppose.’ She smiled wickedly and didn’t elaborate on this either. ‘Anyway, by the time I went up to help in the nursery…God, it must have been 1977. No, ‘78. What was that damn song playing everywhere…?You’re the one that I want ooh, ooh, ooh.’ She did a wriggle and mime, and Ben quirked his lip. ‘Oh, you weren’t even born!
‘Anyway, it was all just a plot hatched between his mummy and mine to keep me out of mischief really. But I’d only been there a few days when Nanny One packed her bags and left. Saidprecious oneneeded her now he was off to that ghastly place, which was a bit harsh to describe beloved’s school, I thought—although I don’t think he enjoyed it much. But he didn’t like being home either—his mother can’t stand him. Never could. So I only hadThe Spareto actually bother with—the little brother.’
She waved vaguely across the lawns and woods. ‘He was six. He was always his mummy’s favourite. So, I was never technically beloved’s nanny. Anyway, I was only everUnder-Nannyof course.’
Aleksey snorted and muttered, ‘Nanny under more accurately.’ She gave him a reproving glare, but it washed off him as easily as identical ones had in the past. He smirked at her. ‘But now here you are—wifeof.’
She leaned back happily. ‘Yes. Here I am. He still likes boiled eggs, by the way. Only now he complains to someone else when they’re not perfectly runny, thank God.’ She helped herself to another scone. ‘So, Ben, tell me how this utter idiot got that scar. Your truthful version, please, not the glamorous yarn with mysterious dawn escapades he’s been spinning me.’
Aleksey realised Ben was in something of a dilemma now as he never lied, and was about to help him out with an excellent one of his own, when Ben said quietly, ‘He got it saving the world.’
Phillipa’s brows rose, and she glanced approvingly back to him. ‘Good-oh. I rather like this world. So, I hear you have a lighthouse to show me?’
Once more, she took Ben’s arm as he rose politely to begin the island tour, and so he was stuck with her. Aleksey hung back, swishing at some plants alongside the path with a stick. By the time they reached the walled garden, Ben was chuckling at a few things she was telling him and pointing out the glasshouse features and listening intently to some suggestions she made for it—namely not to go organic. She’d been rather forced recently to adopt more natural mulch and talking to her plants, and less chemical fertiliser, and apparently rued the result in her greenhouses.
As Ben was somewhat limited in what he could relay about any of the places he showed her, as their most interesting features were who had died there and how, which he obviously didn’t mention, his half of the conversation tended to be somewhat muted, but he was his more normal self with her. This blossomed into much more familiar roles when they came to the Crow’s Nest, which she clapped her hands at in delight and insisted on climbing and then trying out the winch for the ladder. For one moment, Aleksey was back to the times when he’d wondered just whom Ben was visiting when he arrived on his bike at Barton Combe for a weekend in the country: him or Phillipa. Sure, when the lights went off, there was no mistake at all, but motherless Ben and childless Phillipa had been close, despite their completely different personalities. As they had during those weekends, they were giving him no attention at all. He smiled ruefully to himself and settled down with his back to the tree, picturing the present Phillipa had bought for Molly. As if he’d left it for her to choose something…
* * *
Chapter Four
They finally made it to the lighthouse.
Ben was telling her about Billy, a story which seemed to fascinate her. She had all the expected questions: who, where, why, when. None of which either of them could answer. Aleksey had told Ben not to show her the trap to the lower entrance, but the rest he was more than happy for her to explore. It was her first lighthouse. She seemed genuinely impressed.
‘Why don’t you convert it? Turn it into a residence? A summer house? Imagine the views!’
‘You’ll see them in a minute.’ They were standing in the galley, surveying the rudimentary furniture and camping stove and few items of food. She picked up a tin of baked beans, checking the best-before date for some reason, which made him smile.
Phillipa led them up the next flight, still claiming it would make a fantastic house, when they came to the bunk room. Squeezy and Tim had left a few things behind when they’d spent the night there with Miles and Emilia, but basically it looked much the same as when the original four lighthouse keepers must have taken turns sleeping between their various duties.
She wandered in, squeezing a mattress here and there, and spotted the little red case. ‘Oh, look! How adorable! I wish I still had one of these. Mummy bought one of the first. And she got me the sweetest little brightly coloured records to play on it, red and yellow and blue.There once was an ugly duckling.’ She smirked as she sang. ‘I wonder why that was my favourite one. 78s! Look, Ben, it plays 33s, 45s and 78s! You see, you just click this switch…’ She turned in astonished delight and saw both their expressions of puzzlement. ‘Oh, for goodness sake. It was probably before either of you were born. Imagine that, a world without you two wonders of human existence in it. It’s amazing any of us could walk and talk at the same time.’
She put the case back on the top bunk and peered out of the very narrow window. ‘I wonder if the storms ever get this high.’
Aleksey’s brows rose. ‘I sincerely hope not. Guillemot would be underwater if they did.’
‘You know this was all one landmass once, yes? From Lands End to here, possibly beyond, a whole kingdom, towns, over a hundred churches alone, and then a great wave came and drowned it all except for these highest points. These must have been hilltops before.’
Ben came to her side. ‘Is that true? We’ve seen the very deep areas around some rocks about thirty miles west of here.’
She blew a raspberry in a rather unladylike way, Aleksey thought. ‘Who knows? Locals and their stories. You know what the Cornish are like: half myth, half bloody mad, if you ask me.’
