Clementine returned to the office deflated in spite of discovering that she had remained chaste after all. She had hoped to finish it with Joe, but it seemed to be starting all on its own, without any regard for her.
5.
Grey anchored his fishing boat in Captain’s Cove and cast his line. The sea gently swelled beneath him, and gulls dropped out of the sky to swim about his boat, greedy for the bread he tossed them. With the sun on his back and the breeze sweeping across his face, he took pleasure from the peace. Green velvet meadows plunged sharply into precipitous cliffs, where birds nested in the rocks and only one or two white houses stood to brave the winds that whipped off the water. A yellow beach nestled secretively in the bay. He’d never seen anyone walk there, in spite of a narrow path leading down through the rocks. It looked enticing, and he imagined setting down the picnic rug and lying there with Marina, enjoying the tranquillity undisturbed.
His thoughts turned to his wife as they always did, for she was growing increasingly anxious. He understood her concern. No one loved the Polzanze more than she. When they had first met, it was her dream to create a beautiful home. Had he had the money, he would have bought her one without hesitation, but his barrister’s pay wouldn’t have afforded so much as a wing of the kind of house he’d have liked to give her. So he had bought a run-down mansion instead and watched with pleasure as she had slowly and laboriously created the palace of her fantasy. At first he had left it to her, returning at weekends on the train from London to see what she had done during the week. She’d had Harvey to help, and together they had painted and decorated while Mr. Potter had toiled in the gardens with his sons, Ted and Daniel. It had been a labor of love for all of them—Marina with her vision, and Harvey and Mr. Potter with their memories of the glory days when the house had been a magnificent family home.
Grey left London when they opened the Polzanze. Being an hotelier was a full-time job, and Marina was keen to give it a family feel, as if she were opening her own home to paying guests, welcoming every one at the door as a hostess would. They were soon written up in prestigious magazines, and people poured in to admire her flamboyant decoration and splendid gardens. There was plenty to do. A golf course was conveniently situated near the hotel, and a six-court tennis club boasted the Shelton Tournament for the young every summer. Grey organized fishing expeditions, supplying the hotel with fresh mussels, lobster, and crab, as well as a large variety of fish. A narrow path took guests along the cliff tops into Dawcomb-Devlish, where they were entertained with classy boutiques and restaurants. Children queued beneath the plane trees in the square for hair braids and spray-on tattoos, while their mothers shopped and their fathers arranged speed boating and day trips to Salcombe.
Marina wanted children from the moment she married. At twenty-three she was so much younger than Grey, who was forty-two with a broken marriage and two small children of three and five, who came to stay at odd weekends and during the holidays. As much as she adored Clementine and Jake, she longed for a baby of her own. Grey was happy to oblige, not that he desperately wanted more offspring, but he desperately wanted to make her happy. He was aware of the age gap and compensated by indulging her every whim as a father might indulge a beloved daughter. She began going to church, praying to God to bless her with a child, but none came. He either didn’t hear her, or did not consider her deserving. Marina agonized over which it might be.
Now Marina did not go to church. She no longer prayed, and her eyes would water at the smallest mention of children. God had deserted her, and she felt the chill of His rejection with an overwhelming sense of shame. The Polzanze had sustained her for so many years, but now a curtain had come down on her dreams of motherhood. She spent more time on the beach, gazing out to sea as if she was expecting a child to come across the water. Grey knew she saw her future as a bleak, empty void, when it should be bright with the laughter of children and eventually grandchildren. They were in dire financial trouble, having borrowed heavily to build their business. She knew she was on the verge of losing the Polzanze, although she couldn’t bear to articulate it. In those soul-searching hours on the beach Grey knew she must ask herself what she had besides him and her precious hotel; and he knew she believed she had nothing.
He felt a tug on the line and wrenched his thoughts back to the task at hand. Slowly, with great patience and skill, he drew it in. He sensed the fish was a big one. Shame they didn’t have a full dining room to enjoy it. He was proud of supplying the kitchen with fresh catch every day. Sometimes he’d go out with Dan Boyle and Bill Hedley, two local fishermen who’d been fishing these waters for over fifty years. Then he’d bring in enough fruits of the ocean to last a week.