The Book of Opposites

CHAPTER ONE

Rachel was awake. Her blue eyes told her it was morning. The sunlight crackled through the glass, and flared upon the wall. The shadows of the cherry tree threw themselves across her bed, and the fragrance of its blossom filtered through her open window.

She stretched her arms and yawned. She placed her hands behind her head and, for a moment, contemplated the memory of the dream that she had had. She always dreamed about the sea, and yet she was beside it. Within it and beneath it. It was like air to her; without its history of sound she could not breathe.

She heard her children, Jack and Rosie, running wildly round outside and she began to think about the day ahead. It was early but they had a pony show today so everything would be thrown into confusion. There was so much to remember. Two different sets of riding clothes: jackets, boots and ties, riding hats and shirts that she had pressed the night before, spurs and crops and Polo mints. Different colour jodhpurs for each class, and chaps to keep them clean while loading up the tack and cleaning out the lorry. At least when they were sailing all they needed was a pair of shorts.

Eventually they both came bounding so ferociously into her room the windows rattled and they started jumping up and down upon the bed.

Mum, it’s Bury Farm today, trilled Jack. We are so going to win this class. Saffy is the best. She is miles better than any other pony on the circuit. She wins everything! Everybody hates it when they see me unloading her. They’re so pissed off, it’s really cool to see their faces!

He flopped down beside his mother and began to plait her hair.

Jack, don’t swear. Rachel began to remonstrate with her son, the older of the two children, but his enthusiasm was unbounded.

And Summer will win the Member’s Cup, Mum. We will so clean up, he continued cheerfully.

Rosie was not so flamboyant in her displays of childish exaltation.

Jack, you don’t know anything. Alex Knight will clean up, not you; his ponies are fifty million times faster than Summer and Saffy. Honestly, you’re such a dill.

Well, Alex Knight only goes to premier shows, so he won’t be at Bury Farm. In fact, we don’t even need to compete – they can just give us the trophies!

Rosie was now painting her mother’s nails with bright red nail polish, which she was getting on the sheets.

It was time to take control.

Rosie! Rachel snapped. Get off me and put that stuff away, and Jack, stop fiddling with my hair. Get dressed the pair of you, and have some breakfast. Then go up to the yard and get the ponies ready. I’ll come up later and help you load them. Don’t forget to bandage up their legs and tails. And don’t use travel boots, they come off too easily and they can’t walk in them properly. And do some extra hay nets for the journey home.

The children ran out of the room.

Rachel reflected on their characters. Jack was twelve years old. A physically dark and boundless child, he had a cheeky aspect and a bright but insubordinate expression. He was funny, blatant and gregarious. He wore his heart upon his sleeve: you always knew what he was thinking, for he would tell you straight away. He did not stop talking. He came upon you like a summer storm and notified you of his true condition. He was a cluttered child with seamless energy. His favourite pastime was the strange destructive inclination that he had of setting fire to toy cars and trying to burn them in the garden with his friends.

Ten-year-old Rosie, on the other hand, was secretive and circumspect. She would always say that she was fine if anybody asked, and there the conversation ended. She was quiet and introspective, nursing hurtfulness and gaiety in equal measure, thus you never knew if she was sad or happy. She displayed such notions of herself to keep the world away and wished for nothing more than to be left alone. She had a singular and thoughtful nature with a character that took you by surprise. Often she was on her own reading books and writing stories in her room. The children did not share a room because their personalities and interests were so divergent it would have been a major source of disagreement and a field of conflict Rachel had no wish to arbitrate.

Rosie was a pretty child with long red hair. Rachel had often tried to persuade her to have it cut because it took so long to wash and dry, but Rosie loved her hair. She tied it up, she plaited it, she wore it in a ponytail, but mostly it flew along behind her in a violent shock of orange light. She had a pale complexion, hazel eyes, and classic rosebud lips. Her father had remarked upon this charming facial feature at her birth, and her name was thus selected by association. Her physique was light and airy and her skin was like a cup of cream.

Once the children were outside, Rachel cleared the breakfast things away: toast and orange juice and porridge. Why the children liked porridge so much she really didn’t know. But their father, Ben, had liked it and he had always made it for them mixed with syrup and brown sugar. Rachel had continued this tradition, much like she had had to take on closing up the garage door at night and making sure the children were asleep.

She observed the weather idly and started planning for the day ahead. It was early spring and the children were on half term for a week. The first and most immediate task was that of helping Jack and Rosie load their ponies, but for now she tidied up the house as they would not be ready for at least an hour. Then she hung the washing out to dry and went up to the stables.

Jack’s pony, Summer, was always difficult to handle and it took them ages trying to load her into Natasha’s lorry. Natasha was a friend of Rachel’s, and since her children were going to the same horse show, she was taking Jack and Rosie too. They had to physically put one leg in front of the other for Summer until she was halfway up the ramp. Then they secured her with a lunge line, which consigned her to continue moving forward. At last the ramp was raised and shuttered, the tack stored in the locker underneath the lorry, and they lumbered down the narrow track that led towards the road.

* * *

Rachel Fairchild was thirty-four. She and her children lived in a small and quintessential fishing village by the sea. St Maudez in the tiny Roseland Peninsula was one of the most exclusive in Cornwall, a sheltered harbour that bordered on a waterway called the Carrick Roads that was easily accessed from the coast. This distinctive waterway had been created after the Ice Age, when the melting ice caused an ancient valley to flood. As a result, the sea level rose substantially and created the world’s third largest natural harbour.

The effects of the Gulf Stream meant the village had a temperate climate all year round. There were quite beautiful gardens where palm trees and exotic flowers grew. It was the starting point for all the yachting and boating activities along that stretch of coast, mostly organised by the local sailing club. There were hundreds of moorings and anchorages, and yachtsmen and women from all around the country visited it.

St Maudez still had a fishing fleet, although it was considerably smaller than it had been many years ago. A castle, built in the sixteenth century by Henry VIII as part of the coastal defences, overlooked it from the other side of the river. A lighthouse on the headland marked the entrance to the Carrick Roads, and served to keep the shipping clear of the deadly Manacle rocks, which broke the surface of the sea.

Rachel’s house stood high above the village, overlooking the bay. From there she could see everything that went on below. She could see which boats came and left the harbour. She could see the ferry leaving and how many passengers it was carrying. Even when it was empty, it still made its journey to Falmouth on the other side. When she had been a weekly boarder at her convent school, she used to take the ferry home. After walking down the drive, she took the bus to town, and waited for the little ferry. At times she was the only passenger.

In summer, the ferry ran late into the evening, but during winter it sometimes did not run at all. During those winter months, savage gales blew in from the Atlantic Ocean. Storms far out to sea would bring the seagulls into land and they would circle in the granite sky, blown about like scraps of burnt paper. Rain would lash the windows of the house for days and it was dark by three o’clock. Not a single living creature stirred in such a place. It was as silent as a tomb in winter, and by contrast like a public fairground in the summer.

The tiny narrow streets led nowhere and yet everywhere, and just when you thought they couldn’t get any narrower, they plunged downwards out of sight and you imagined you might fall into the sea. For there was nothing there in front of you except the sea, and yet the little roadway lingered on and took you to your destination. You might, however, double back upon yourself and find yourself within another tiny street, an alleyway, and come across a church, a cottage, another cottage with its shuttered windows in the winter and its open door in spring. Every time you eventually found yourself upon the seafront, since all roads led you to the sea. For that is all there was: the sea.

The tide was in and the tide was out, the tide was rising and the tide was falling. Everybody lived according to the tide. People walked their dogs and sailed their boats according to the tide. When the tide withdrew, the beach became exposed: tiny rock pools, underwater gardens, shrimps and crabs, starfish, bright anemones: a world within another world, the undiscovered surface of the earth. At night it whispered to the sea and in the fields of victory the sea replied. Its silence quivered like a beating heart. When daylight came the sun became the sea, and the sea became the sky, and there was no horizon.

When the tide was full, you could jump into the sea from anywhere you wanted. The water was crisp and clear and green and blue and you could see the sand beneath it. You could see the steps and the jetty too. Rachel dreamed of such a sea, but when she came to lose herself within it, it was never there. But the silence it engendered was not like any other silence she had known. It was gentle and it seized you in its light; the light of silence, and the darkness of it.

Rachel had been brought up by the sea and had always promised herself to return there. She did not want to raise her children in a city; she wanted them to be as free as she had been when she was a child. Running through the barley fields and down towards the sea – the sea that greeted her each morning with its sparkle. She spoke to it; it spoke to her. She smiled at it; it smiled at her. She loved the sea just as children love their mother. She played with it, upon it and within it; beside it and beneath it. It kept her company and made her feel that she was not alone. She had spent her childhood waiting for it, knowing it would wait for her.

Rachel lived alone with Jack and Rosie, her husband and their father, Ben, having died in a road accident four years earlier. He was a dentist and had run a successful practice in Truro. That summer evening he had decided to take his scooter down to the Quay and go for a swim. A drunk driver came round the corner on the wrong side of the road and hit Ben in a head-on collision. Witnesses at the scene said that he was thrown at least twenty metres into the air. He died instantly, his neck broken. The driver of the car was unharmed.

* * *

Rachel had met Ben in London while she was at college undertaking a bilingual secretarial course. He was studying dentistry at a nearby university and visited her college to meet up with his friend, Paul, who was studying for an HND in Business and Economics. She had first noticed him queuing up in the canteen. She was sitting with her friends when he walked in, wearing his black corduroy jeans and an orange jumper. He had very dark hair that was neither long nor short, dark brown eyes, and altogether a very pleasing aspect. She and her friends watched him, and Rachel commented on his good looks.

You should go out with him, suggested her friend Shereen.

Rachel had not yet had a boyfriend at college.

Mmmm, she ruminated. Maybe. She was non-committal.

She did, however, take her friend’s advice, and the next time she saw him queuing up at the counter, she went straight up to him and asked if he would buy her a coke. He told her that he could not afford it and Rachel laughed.

I’m only joking, he replied and smiled at her. You think I can’t afford a coke?

They chatted briefly while waiting, during which time she found out that he already had a girlfriend. She was disappointed and went back to join her friends and so inform them of the outcome of their conversation.

I think I know who his girlfriend is, glowed Shereen, delighting in her status as a fountainhead of knowledge. A timid little girl called Maggie. I’ve seen them out together before.

How come you always know so much about everyone? Rachel asked. Anyway, you need to get rid of her for me, she added as an afterthought.

I can do that! I love all that kind of stuff! Anyway, they’re not serious, said Shereen and she began to look forward to the task in hand.

Rachel was only joking, but, in all seriousness, she found Ben really quite good looking. She fancied him and began to think of ways that she might replace this girlfriend.

She was extremely canny and usually managed to get what she wanted, and so she thought that this would not be difficult.

Rachel continued to pursue him, despite the girlfriend she had never met. They soon became friends. She asked him why he always wore an orange jumper, and he told her it was the only one he had. They both laughed. In the meantime, Shereen had deposed the errant girlfriend. Rachel had no idea how she managed it, and, in honesty, she didn’t want to know.

She continued to see Ben on an informal basis. They met at parties, dances, and rag week events, for which she designed the posters that were displayed throughout the capital. They usually ate together in the canteen but never without Paul, and Rachel was starting to find it rather tedious. Why was he always there? Were Paul and Ben surgically attached to each other in some way? So she decided to arrange group visits to art galleries, museums and concerts at the Royal Festival Hall. She always made sure that she and Ben sat together and left together, after the rest of the group had gone. She had a talent for manipulating people: it came so naturally to her, she hardly realised that she was doing it. But the relationship still wasn’t moving fast enough for Rachel, and she couldn’t understand why Ben had not yet asked her out.

One night there was a dance at their Hall of Residence. Rachel had been looking out of her window to see if Ben might arrive in his red Mini. She had told him about the dance but he was vague and non-committal, so, after waiting for an hour or so, she assumed that he would not be coming. She got ready for bed and started reading when her friend Christine suddenly burst into the room.

He’s here! she gasped, having run up the stairs. Come on, he’s here. Get downstairs quickly!

Rachel jumped out of bed and ran to the window. Sure enough, Ben’s car was parked outside. He had arrived late.

What am I going to wear? she cried in desperation. She had been hurled into a panic and she couldn’t think.

Christine went through her wardrobe and threw something at her. Put this on! Hurry!

Rachel had never got dressed so quickly in all her life.

As she and Christine walked into the dance hall, Rachel saw Ben talking with a group of friends. Let’s get this show on the road, she thought. She’d had enough of dancing round her handbag. No more Mr Nice Guy stuff: this baby will be thrown out with the bathwater. She barged up to him, clearing a path in front of her.

Do you feel like dancing?

She actually didn’t care what he said: he was going to dance with her whatever happened.

But I can’t dance! he protested, as she pulled him along behind her.

Neither can I, she replied.

That night he was to be hers: no more following him about, organising stuff: she had had enough of that. She dispersed the crowds around him and removed him from the public jurisdiction. Towards the end of the evening the music became exactly what she wanted it to be.

Oh, I love this song, she sighed.

In fact, she had no feelings for it at all, but it allowed her to edge closer to him and place her arms around his neck. Thus they danced for the remainder of the evening, at the end of which they were devoted to each other, just as she had planned.

Three years later they were married. Just as she had planned.

* * *

After Ben’s death, Rachel was in a state of shock for almost two years. She remembered clearly when they came to tell her. It wasn’t the first time she’d been told he’d been in an accident: they seemed to follow him around. So when her friend Gaby had called her and told her Ben had been involved in yet another, she just thought, Again? What happened this time?

As they waited in the Accident and Emergency department of the hospital, she remembered hearing, or rather not hearing anything at all. It was as though no one spoke. At first she did not understand the words, He didn’t make it. He didn’t make what? What didn’t he make? You mean he’s died? He can’t have! He’s only thirty years old and he has two young children. He can’t have died! What a stupid thoughtless thing to say. Can I see him? I want to see him. He will be asking for me. Let me go to him, LET ME GO!

Voices faded, things became unclear. Words were being said, but she did not understand them.

Having recently lost both her parents, she was not to be consoled. You expected your parents to die before you do, so it is not a shock although it is unbearably sad, but your husband you do not expect to die. Especially so violently, but he knew nothing of it. It was she who