When I look at him he seems confused, but there’s more. I catch the slight tremble of his lower lip as he traps it between his teeth. A kind of energy flows between us like music, gentle chords and scales that only we can feel or hear. I think he’s reading my mind, I can sense the thoughts going to him reaching him like a song.
He knows why I’ve asked for this private tuition. We both do.
His eyes drop to my mouth and I think he’s going to kiss me.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ he asks quietly.
I know he could mean the lessons, but he doesn’t.
My voice catches like a quaver on a whisper as I say, ‘Yes.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Exmoor was proving every bit as bleak and dramatic as Joely had expected, flowing and stretching its uncompromising landscape to each horizon with the sea crashing onto the cliffs to one side and stark acres of bracken and gorse giving way to cultivated fields and feeding livestock the other. The road they were travelling was a long, winding ribbon of grey threading through mile after mile of steep inclines, twisting bends, dense forests and seeming for a while to have no end.
Andee slowed as they passed a handful of red deer grazing a nearby bank, every one of them appearing oblivious to the moving vehicle only feet away. Joely relished being this close to wildlife, taking in the stags’ antlers curling imperiously from slender handsome heads, and the females’ sleek bodies, smooth and lush and lithe.
Minutes later they stopped for an Exmoor pony to amble across the road to join the rest of the herd, and around the next bend there were sheep with horns curling out of their heads like fancy hairdos.
They passed signs to places with quaintly intriguing names such as Dunkery Beacon, and Lorna Doone Farm Shop. They glimpsed old villages, drove through fast-gushing fords and all the time Joely drank in the austerity of the wintry landscape as chill as the empty sky, as forlorn as the abandoned picnic tables and lookout spots.
‘It’s eerie,’ she decided, ‘but beautiful and compelling and kind of otherworldly.’ She considered this a moment and added, ‘I don’t have to ask if it’s haunted, I can already feel it.’
Andee smiled.
Joely turned to her. ‘What am I going to do if Freda Donahoe’s place is full of friends from the other side? Who might not actually be friends?’
Andee had to laugh.
‘You might think it’s funny,’ Joely retorted, ‘but me and ghosts, we’re in the same place as me and Martha the man-stealer. I don’t want them anywhere near me, and any attempt to speak to me … Well, it won’t end well, I can tell you that.’
Andee laughed again. ‘Given your occupation, I’d have thought you’d have an affinity with them.’
Joely threw her a look. ‘Ha, ha,’ she responded, smiling in spite of herself.
‘Well, if Dimmett House does turn out to be haunted,’ Andee said, steering around a sweeping bend that ended with a breathtaking view of the Bristol channel, ‘and I’m sure it won’t, you can always say you want to stay in a hotel. There are several places in both Lynton and Lynmouth.’
‘Which might be haunted too,’ Joely mumbled, absorbing the magnificent vista ahead where bold cascades of sunlight were streaming through dark, dense cloud into the sea. ‘It must be wonderful here in summer,’ she stated, although this was pretty spectacular too.
‘It is,’ Andee assured her, ‘and if you’re still around by then, who knows, it might be because you’ve met your very own John Ridd.’
Joely wrinkled her nose. ‘Who? Oh, you mean from Lorna Doone. I’m not sure I can remember the story, and I missed the TV series. Does it have a happy end?’
‘Eventually.’
Joely’s heart tightened as the flippant talk of romance pulled her back to the very place she was trying to escape. Cal had texted this morning to have another go at being friendly in much the way Martha had last night, Don’t forget to let us know about your assignment, and wherever you are, take care of yourself. She had no idea whether the ‘us’ referred to him and Martha, or him and Holly, perhaps it was all three. What she did know was that it had cut deeply into the sadness she was feeling, and ludicrously, she’d felt she really didn’t want to take care of herself at all.
Childish and attention-seeking, she’d scolded herself, and knowing she could do better she’d composed a message back to them both saying, Leave Me Alone.
And she’d sent it!
It had felt good at the time, but it didn’t feel all that great now.
What felt better was the message she’d received from Holly shortly after midnight saying, Good luck tomorrow.
She’d stared at the words for a long time, pretending to herself that Callum hadn’t talked their daughter into sending them.
She wondered if it might be easier if he was being mean to her, or carrying on as if she’d stopped existing.
‘Distraction,’ she announced, as they began the descent from the moor. ‘That’s another very good reason for taking this job. I can throw myself into work for the next few weeks and by the time I look up again who knows where we might be?’
A few minutes later as both Lynton and Lynmouth came into view, seeming almost too much too soon, Joely said, ‘OK, you need to slow down, because this is seriously lovely.’
With a smile Andee did as she was told, giving them as long as she could for their northerly approach from the moor to take in the small sprawl of a town at the top of the cliff, and the seaside village at the bottom. For the moment Joely was fixed on Lynmouth where the tide was lapping over two rocky beaches that fanned out like skate wings from the river at their centre making its way through to the sea. There was a small scoop of a harbour, with grey stone sea walls surrounding it, a Rhenish tower and a handful of single mast boats moored in the mud. A long, thatched terrace of white cottages, a pub, a café and shops slanted up an incline alongside the harbour, and the rest of the shore village curved around the seafront like a protective arm.
After crossing the West Lyn river, Andee steered the car to the left to begin a steep and winding drive up over the cliff, home to hotels, B&Bs and guest houses, to the high perched town of Lynton. Joely felt herself smiling as they meandered along the main street taking in the olde worlde charm and narrow streets that tumbled away to one side as if pulled in by the moor, while on the other more hotels and guest houses towered over the village and sea below.
‘We’re going to need further directions soon,’ Andee said as they drove out the other side of town where green fields jostled for space in the rough and undulating moorland.
Calling up Sully’s email on her phone, Joely looked around again as the satnav instructed them to keep going straight and her eyes grew round as they entered what could only be the Valley of Rocks. ‘Wow,’ she murmured as they moved slowly through a lunar-like landscape where vast tors of jagged stone patched with grass and lichen soared skywards on one side, and dry, bristled slopes of flinty terrain rose majestically on the other.
‘The largest rock there,’ Andee said, pointing to the right, ‘is known as Castle Rock, and the one over there, to the left, is Devil’s Cheese Rock. Legend has it, if you walk around it a certain number of times, probably under a full moon, Satan will appear.’