Previously: Louisa has reconnected with her old friend Jago Powell, who is now a famous actor filming a remake of Rebecca in Portwenn, the village where he once lived as a teenager. To make amends after a quarrel, he offered to take her on a picnic which was postponed due to rain. In the library of Wenn Hall, they shared an intimate conversation about their dysfunctional childhoods but Louisa was displeased by celebrity gossip about Jago fighting a paternity claim by a has-been actress with drug abuse problems. Their conversation was interrupted when all hell broke loose in the house as Mrs. Daniels sought to escape arrest.
Just a reminder, this story takes place right after the events of the TV movie "On The Edge" but just before the start of S3E1 ("The Apple Doesn't Fall"/"Tick Tock").
Chapter 45: The Picnic
Friday Morning
"See those three houses there? The one on the left, used to be a lovely old fellow who lived there, and he had this pretty little greenfinch. It used to sit on his finger and sing to him. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw."
It was a lovely, warm morning on the grassy area overlooking the rugged cliffs; the perfect time and place to enjoy the sunshine and the view of the village and the harbour, with a charming companion. However, as Louisa listened to him, she had the strangest feeling of déjà vu.
"I think I remember him," she said. "That was old Mr. Goldsworthy, wasn't it."
"That's right," Jago said.
"It's funny, I feel like I've heard that story before. I had a weird dream a few weeks ago. I was sitting in this very spot, having a picnic, with… someone, and he was telling me the exact same thing, about the old man with a greenfinch. It started out as this wonderful dream, the man was so delightful, and everything was so romantic and perfect, and then it was like the ground started shaking and there was this earthquake. It came roaring right up the cliff, and split the ground between us, and I fell in the crevice. I was falling and falling, and gasping for breath, calling for him to help me… I thought the man was reaching out to me, trying to save me, but then he just started yelling at me, these terrible, ridiculous insults, and things that made no sense. Then I woke up."
Jago unwrapped the last cucumber sandwich and offered it to her. "Sounds like it made quite an impression on you."
"I don't usually dwell on my dreams," she said, nibbling at the sandwich. "But this one was so vivid I wrote it down in my journal, that's how I remember it so well."
"Well, you do remember that this is the exact spot where we had our romantic picnic years ago. That's why I wanted to have another picnic here, for old times' sake."
"How could I forget?"
"And I may have said something to you then about old man Goldsworthy and his little finches. My Mum and I lived next door to him for a while. He always kept a greenfinch, sometimes a pair of them. When one died he would replace it, he loved them so much."
"Makes sense. Maybe subconsciously I was remembering that picnic with you."
"So I can't help wondering if… this vivid dream is somehow about me? Am I the unhelpful man who was yelling at you?" Jago seemed genuinely puzzled at this idea.
Louisa laughed. "Trust me, it wasn't you. I may have been having an unconscious flashback to our picnic but…" She hesitated and felt herself blushing. She could picture how Martin was dressed in the dream, with his shirt open at the neck and sleeves casually rolled up, so uncharacteristic of him but exactly how Jago was dressed now.
"Oh, I get it. Let me guess, it was Doctor Strange, wasn't it." Now it was Jago's turn to laugh. "Why do you think he was yelling at you in the dream? I mean, I get that he's pretty irascible but he seems rather fond of you. Are the feelings mutual?"
"I suppose so, but it's all so confusing. We had argued about something. And then when I was having the dream he happened to be out in the street below my window, yelling at a dog. That got incorporated into my dream."
She poured herself some lemonade, aware of how silly her story made Martin sound.
"But we've shared some pretty intense experiences recently," she continued. "A few days before I had the dream, he had saved the life of one of my students. He performed emergency surgery in the back of a moving ambulance, despite having a…"
"A what?"
Louisa felt a pang of guilt, remembering how she had laughed about Martin's problem with the herbalist Sandra Mylow, only to find Martin had overheard them.
"Um, well… everyone around here knows already so I'm not spilling a secret. He has a phobia of blood. The sight and smell of it make him physically ill."
Jago stifled another laugh. "Sorry. How did he make it through med school?"
"The phobia came about later. He was a successful surgeon in London but he developed this terrible problem so he gave it up and moved here to be our GP. So when he saved Peter, that's my student's name, it was really, well… heroic. There's just no other word for it. And he's saved lots of other people around here, putting himself at risk sometimes. He even climbed down a steep cliff to save a very sick man who had fallen. Martin has some problems, but he's something special. I've simply never met anyone like him."
"Sorry about the Doctor Strange wisecrack. He sounds amazing. I've had some success in my career but I sort of think Mrs. Daniels was right about one thing, I am a jumped up little tosser that came from nothing. Actors like to speak about the 'art' and 'craft' of acting but it's just dressing up and pratting around. I don't care if it's Dame Judi Dench or me, we're all monkeys in a zoo and people stroll past us and either linger to be entertained or they don't."
He sat up on the blanket and cut a Scotch egg into quarters to share.
"People fawn over me but someday they'll get tired of me and move onto to something new. I'm really not very smart, you know," he confided. "I played a doctor in a TV show once, back when I was starting out. They had to write out the medical terms phonetically and tape them to the wall behind the camera so I could sound like I knew what I was talking about. Your Martin, that's someone that does something real and important."
"Well, you're very good at what you do," she protested. "Movies and TV shows can bring happiness into people's lives. Everyone needs an escape from real life sometimes."
"Hah!" He dismissed that idea with a grin and they both sat quietly for a moment, contemplating the view.
"I've really missed Cornwall," he said finally. "I know I said I'd love to have a place like Wenn Hall here, but forget it now. Too much bad karma. Anyway, you know that thing we were talking about, the bit of business I had to take care of back in New York?"
"Did you get the paternity test results already?"
"No. But I was thinking about what you said yesterday in the library… before all hell broke loose."
"I suppose I was out of line, saying you were running away from your problems when you don't even know if you're the father."
"No, you were right actually. I've given this some thought. When I went to visit Lesley and I saw the baby I knew right away. He looked a lot like me at that age, like the photos my Mum had of me as a baby. But even more so, he was the spitting image of my Mum in her old baby photos. It was like I recognized him right away, like a long lost relative, I just couldn't admit it to myself. It really bothered me what you said, that maybe I was just being difficult because I didn't want to take responsibility. When I saw the kid it scared me, the idea of fatherhood. I didn't feel ready, and I was especially scared of being a father to a kid who will probably inherit the same addiction problems me and my Mum had, and my Dad too with the booze. And I didn't want to be like my Dad, running away from my problems… and my responsibilities. I realized I just can't leave this kid to be raised by a celebrity train wreck of a mother, with her own addiction problems."
He poured out the last of the lemonade into their cups.
"I know I said I can't be around someone who isn't handling their addiction problems, and there's nothing I can do for Lesley unless she can take responsibility for herself, but I can be there for this little boy, and not just by sending money. I'm going to seek joint custody. That means I'll be spending a lot more time in New York. Like I said, I know I'm not perfect. I'm just a dumb actor… but I think I can be a decent Dad."
"What if it turns out you're not actually the father?"
"I don't think that's likely, but if it does turn out that way, well, I can still be a good friend to Lesley and her son. She's really just a kid herself, but a decent one at heart, and God knows she'll need someone on her side."
Louisa was blinking back the tears at this point. "You were such a good friend to me back in school." She dabbed at her eyes with a serviette. "It meant so much to me then. And you never forget your first love."
"I never really got over you, Louisa. Our lives have taken such different paths." He smiled and sighed, wiping his own eyes with his sleeve. "I'm afraid I've never been one to settle down with one partner. Who knows what changes fatherhood could bring though."
He glanced at his watch. "Time I was back on the set." They began to pack up the picnic things. "And what about you?" he said. "Motherhood in your future, d'you think?"
"I…I really hope so."
"You'd make a lovely mother, Louisa. Give things another try with Martin. He's something special… and so are you."
Jago reached out and caressed her cheek, then moved in closer. Once again Louisa felt a wave of déjà vu, but there was no earth tremor to cause a gaping rift between them, only a gentle farewell kiss between two old friends.
To be continued…
Note: "Actors like to speak about the 'art' and 'craft' of acting but it's just dressing up and pratting around…" I'm paraphrasing something MC said in an interview I once read.