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CORNWALL. May 1953.

CHAPTER ONE

She cried when she saw the river, saw the grey mudflats shining, flecked white with feeding gulls, saw the broad reaches, the wooded banks darkening, only the water holding the light; saw it joyfully through mists of quelled tears, her face pressed against the carriage window.

Somewhere out there, beyond the bend of the estuary, hidden beneath the trees, was a muddy inlet, silted up and inaccessible except to shag, red shank, heron and gull, or to those who knew how to pole the narrow channel creeping surreptitiously to the head of the creek.

It lay, mirrored in her mind, the brown shallows, the peace; crumbling steps climbing to a green slimed jetty, rusted mooring rings and the dinghies hanging from the weed-draped frapes, tilted like dead things in the mud. She saw herself in the boat again, the man at the oars facing her; his blue jersey stretched over broad shoulders, broad from years of pulling boats. She saw his face, weathered, creased with wrinkles, brave blue eyes resting on her with fatherly pride, felt his hand rough and firm helping her ashore.

\"Mind you make her fast, maid, the tide's falling.\" His voice, softly Cornish, came to her, clear as yesterday.

She remembered how she had watched him board the Restless, watched him fend off and make her ready; heard the chug—chug of the old Kelvin, the noise filling the creek, soaking up the silence. She saw him sitting up on the transom, one arm round the tiller, the other raised behind in farewell, the little craft pitching as the channel met the tide.

It had been just a routine call for the local river pilot, just a carefree wave from his eight-year-old daughter... The tears brimmed now, misting it all; man and boat, bows pointing seawards towards the Trefoy river, where the American landing craft had waited, rocking on their moorings, that day in May, just before D-Day in l944.

It was the last Charlotte Ives was ever to see of the Restless -or of her father. And, but for the few months that followed, it was the last she was to see of Cornwall -until this moment. And to think the joy of homecoming might easily have been denied her, but for her school friend, Jenny.

It was Jenny who listened, who understood. An orphan of the London blitz, she too had been hit by life's injustices. She had seen her home laid to dust, those dear to her buried beneath the bomb-flattened Anderson shelter. Left, broken, slotted conveniently away into foster care, Jenny knew the ache of wanting and could appreciate her friend's frustration as Charlotte talked openly about Rachel, the stepmother she despised.

Rachel had taken her from Cornwall when her father died, from all that was sweet and familiar, to the internment of the stuffy flat over the dress salon in Fulham, the sky shut out by tall houses and streets that went on forever. The times Charlotte had lost herself in those streets trying to run away, only to discover how far Cornwall was from London, too far to walk, only to dream of the creekside cottage in the tiny port where she was born, of the Pendowry estate where her great Uncle Silas had lived and promised that one day it would be hers. But Rachel stubbornly refused to allow her to go back —not even to his funeral. She told Charlotte that the family fortunes had dwindled. What was left of the properties would have to be sold up to meet death duties, there was nothing left, no future for her in that run down Cornish backwater.

\"Wait,\" Jenny had told her, \"wait until we've finished school, then our chance will come. I'll get a job abroad and you can escape to Cornwall.\"

\"How can I? Rachel will never let me go back. She's afraid I might discover her dark secrets -why for some reason, she herself won't return or allow me to do so. \"

\"But not when you're older. She can't stop you then.\"

\"She'll always find a way -she'll work out some devious plan, you'll see.\"

And so Rachel had. An aunt in Wiltshire, over from Australia, who wanted a travelling companion on the cruise back to Sydney, had offered the ideal opportunity. Charlotte remembered the long telephone calls, plans being put into motion, her protests waved her aside, filling her with despair.

She remembered complaining to Jenny. \"She's told this aunt that I'd jump at the chance, that I love the sea, love sailing, and that she couldn't have a better companion. Now I've been given the job and she wants Rachel to take me for a passport.\"

\"Without even seeing you?\"

\"Says there's no need. I'm family -that's enough- and Rachel can put me on the train to meet her in Wiltshire the day before her ship leaves for Sydney. But I won't go, I won't.\"

\"Then don't,\" said Jenny thoughtfully. \"Suppose we are both on that train, and I get off to meet your Aunt -and you stay on for Cornwall.\"

\"We'd never get away with it. My photograph would be on the passport.\"

\"Remember that school play\" said Jenny, \"when we were chosen to play the twins and nobody could tell us apart?\"

\"That was because of the wigs.\"

\"Identical hairstyles and awful passport pictures. We could get away with it.\" Jenny insisted, \"And it is the answer to my dream, too, a job abroad.\"

It was, Charlotte remembered thinking. This would be a chance for them both. They were roughly the same height, blue eyes, and almost the same honey blonde hair...it might work...

\"But,\" Jenny had pointed out, \"you'll have to change your attitude, show Rachel you really mean to go or she might want to travel to Wiltshire with you\".\"

Charlotte agreed. \"I'll slowly come round to the idea, start getting excited about seeing the sea again. Convince her I'm really looking forward to meeting this aunt. She'll believe me because she knows I hate London and that I only want to get back on the water again.\"

Charlotte recalled how her change of heart had lifted Rachel's hopes and filled her with fresh enthusiasm. The relief was obvious in her sudden readiness to please; to give in to Charlotte's every whim. Of course, she must go on own to get her passport pictures done, and have her hair styled as she wished. Rachel even trusted her to see the local JP about a character reference. One uncomfortable moment was when she produced her passport photographs with their close resemblance to Jenny. Rachel had squinted at them disdainfully. \"Not a bit like you,\" she said, \"But then passport pictures never are.\" And the tired clerk at the passport office hardly gave the photograph a second glance as he hammered the stamp across the corner.

As the days drew on the thought of seeing Cornwall again had trembled within her; the blue dusted hills beyond the Tamar Bridge, southwards the wide reaches of the Tefroy estuary. She pictured the still creek at Pendowry, Granny Bunt clipping the honeysuckle round her cottage door, the neighbourly soul she would go to for help.

Now her mind went back through back through the long day to Paddington Station, Rachel seeing her off. The Plymouth train half-empty -always was on weekdays, according to the porter, who hoisted her suitcase up onto the rack. The window down, Rachel on the platform, looking in, chic in her black suit as she had handed to Charlotte the thick envelope addressed to Mrs Millicent Potter. It contained the passport and the letter of authorisation Rachel had written, giving her aunt permission take her stepdaughter back with her to Sydney. The letter also acknowledged that her aunt had kindly agreed to pay the return fare on Charlotte's passage home.

Rachel's voice had been raised, shrill against the escaping steam. \"Now take care, dear, and look out for Mrs Potter when you leave the train at Westbury. She's rather stout, and she's going to be wearing a fox cape and a peacock blue hat. I've told her to look for your mimosa yellow coat. Be nice to her, darling. She's awfully rich, and you could meet some nice young man on her yacht in Sydney....\"

Charlotte was hardly listening; she was stealing glances down the platform. Jenny was late. The guard with the green flag was glancing at the clock. Then she spotted a girl in corduroy trousers coming through the barrier, a bulky haversack swinging over her shoulder as she leapt aboard. She'd made it.

It had been easy then to return her stepmother's smile. The whistle blew, drowning that glorious \"Goodbye Rachel. Goodbye!\"

A jolt and the station gloom, her stepmother's painted face framed within it, slid by, and replaced by the windows of another train across the platform. Suddenly, morning light flooded the compartment; the tweed seating, linen over the headrests and faded pictures of Bognor Regis looking out from under the luggage racks. Then, in no time at all, looking in from the corridor, Jenny, making her excuses about the bus being full and having to walk all the way to the tube.

The journey had been exciting, changing clothes, swapping luggage from Charlotte's suitcase to the rucksack she had asked Jenny to bring for her, and, of course, the envelope containing the passport. But it had also been sad, having to say goodbye as they neared Westbury. But the moment she would always remember was of Jenny, walking down the platform in that mimosa yellow coat to be greeted by the large bosomed Mrs Millicent Potter, smiling, open-armed, in furs and pearls and the enormous peacock blue hat.

It had been evening when the Plymouth train steamed into Lostwithiel. Across the platform was her last connection, a tall-funnelled locomotive waiting to shunt its two dumpy carriages down the riverside line to the sea, all the way evoking memories, sad, beautiful, with every bend of the river.

Now tired from the long journey, she watched from the carriage window, the mist drifting thinly over the broadening estuary and moored craft marking the approach to the halfway halt. Two passengers rose, a brown, freckled Cornishwoman, balancing herself along the gangway with a basket of eggs, a gaunt old man in threadbare tweeds stooping after her.

They jogged on, Charlotte peering through the steamy glass, and seeing little evidence of the war but for a dilapidated air-sea rescue boat on the moorings at Wiseman's pool. There were cargo ships berthed at the Number Eight jetties, dusted white with china clay - the lifeblood of Cornwall, her father always said. Then, with a brief glimpse of the town quays and the white houses of Trefoy, the train slid into the shadowed station.

She rose, slinging on her haversack, her mind on a Cornish supper at Granny Bunt's cottage; the pasty warm from the oven, the sooty kettle spluttering on the hob. She pictured the old lady in her copious skirt and flowered pinafore. How surprised she would be to see her! What raptures of compassion would flow! The old neighbour had never had much time for Rachel. She had been angry to hear that she was taking Charlotte away. \"You're always welcome to come and stay me, m'dear,\" she'd whispered to her on their day of departure.

It had been raining and the narrow streets were washed clean. She hurried, making for the car ferry, her most direct way to the creek, but the night boat was already on the frape.

An old salt sitting on the sea wall nodded to her. \"He's gone home early, m'dear. Not many visitors about, and not much doing this hour o' night. You might get the last ferry from Whitehouses though -if you're quick, mind.\"

Thanking him, she sprinted off towards the town, but as she reached the harbour, she could see the passenger ferry was already halfway across the estuary, heading for St Ruan. For a while she waited, hoping it would return, but only to see it being moored for the night near the opposite shore.

\"'Must be someone to take me across,\" she sighed, hanging over the harbour wall, but all the dinghies were on the moorings and the quayside deserted. \"Perhaps, when the pubs come out,\" she thought, looking up at the lighted windows of the white-washed inn across the square, where a large painted sign of a pirate hung, rattling in the wind.

She waited, exhilarated by the smell of the salt wind and the gulp and splash of the wash against the jetty. Across the water, St Ruan was still lit with the last of the reflected light, the colours smudged and shadowy. It had always looked like that, the other side of the river, where once Cornish industry thrived and coals boats docked. Through the thirties nobody ever had enough money to give the place its holiday lick of whitewash. So it remained, stubbornly untouched, through poverty and war. Charlotte looked at it fondly; it was where she had climbed the hill to school, dug in the muddy sand on the boatyard beach, toddled after her dad down the coastguard paths to watch the pilchard fleet come out of Mevagissey on autumn evenings, a convoy of fairy flares along the horizon.

But the river had changed since the war years. No landing craft, no Americans, no mines across the harbour. The river was at peace now, as it must have been before the war came, the war that had taken her father.

Beyond the headlands a yacht slanted on the grey horizon, a schooner. She watched it coming in, watched it dipping over the bar. Then, the big red sails crumpled around a man on deck. The yacht glided inshore, a rakish looking vessel, with chipped cream paint, and she saw there was a dog standing in the bows —like a figurehead. The man, busy stowing the sail, wore the white-topped cap of a skipper.

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