The Sea Gate

 by Jane Johnson

This is the story about a young cancer survivor, Rebecca, who has given up her artist career while recuperating, she is living with a young potter.  When her mother dies Rebecca and her brother go to the mother's house to clean it out.  Rebecca finds a letter to Rebecca's mother from a cousin of her mother.  The woman is asking the mother to come help her urgently as she is running the risk of being put in a nursing home.

On a whim Rebecca decides to go find out about this cousin in Cornwall.  The house is empty, inhabited only by a rude mouth parrot.  The cousin is in the hospital because she had a fall.  Social services will not let her go home unless the house is renovated with an indoor bathroom and walk in shower on the main floor and a bedroom on the main floor.  The cousin asks Rebecca to undertake these repairs which Rebecca is eager to help wih.

However, when she goes to the bank she finds the cousin doesn't have much money but has been giving a sizeable sum to her housekeeper every month.  Rebecca gets these payments stopped and is threatened by the housekeeper's sons.

Rebecca asks her brother to lend her some money (from their mother's pending estate) to complete the work.

While this story is taking place in the present, part of the story goes back to WWII. We learn that Rebecca's father was killed in the war.  A woman and her daughter showed up at the house.  Rebecca's mother then left, supposedly for London.  Soon after the mystery woman leaves, leaving Rebecca with her troublesome 5 year old daughter, saying she has to go look after her dying mother.  Rebecca is about 15 at this time and struggles to look after herself and the little girl as neither woman provides her with  any money.

Two land girls had been living in the home but decide to leave when Rebecca is accused of lying and worse.  Rebecca saw a neighbour boy and an Austrian POW raping a local "simple" girl.  Rather than believing Rebecca the community seems to believe the story the men tell.  I found this very surprising and the fact that Rebecca's mother didn't send her any money to live on.

Rebecca rescues a parrot from a sailing ship that local women want to kill and cook.  He has a sailor's tongue.

One day the Austrian POW breaks into the house and tries to steal the keys for Rebecca's family car.  When she tries to stop him the man almost kills her.  She is saved when another POW, an Algerian kills the pow.  They drop the body down a tunnel from the cellar of the house which leads to the sea.  The Algerian tells her the Austrian killed the little "simple" girl.  Police come looking for both pow's.  Rebecca tells them she has not seen them and hides the Algerian in the cellar.  They eventually become lovers and one day the little girl sees them and threatens to tell on them

Rebecca realizes it will never be safe for her lover in England so she hires a ship to get him back home.  When her other finally returns from Morocco where she had been looking for her husband and stayed after he died, she finds Rebecca is pregnant and sends her away until the baby is born.  Rebecca is told the baby was still born.  Her other dies shortly after.

Then back in the present we learn that the young girl Rebecca was forced to look after was a love-child of her father.  The child is now the housekeeper and has been blackmailing Rebecca about the dead body and the black lover for years.  

While all this is going on Rebecca has become attracted to an Algerian man who has been doing the renovations to the house.  When Rebecca's boyfriend shows up she tries to send him away and is outraged when she finds out he is stealing art from the house.  She and the renovator lock the man in the celllar,  Her ex tries to escape down the tunnel and is buried in a landslide.  Rebecca calls the police and authorities and finds out her ex has a criminal record.  The skeleton of the Austrian is also found in the rubble so Rebecca has to explain what happened in the war.

We also find out that Rebecca's cousins child did not die.  Her mother paid to send it to the father in Algeria.  The father was tortured and died in prison for his political activism.  They find this out because the renovator is actually the cousin/nephew? of Rebecca's lover.  He arranges for Rebecca to speak to her daughter, who is still alive, by Skype.

Maybe things got tied up a little too neatly at the end but it was an interesting read.