Phoebe Rising

By Richard Herley

‘That’s enough,’ she told herself, her hairbrush poised in mid air. ‘Stop thinking about the past.’ About France: about the parties and the money, about her mother’s lovers, and most of all about her mother’s long and terrifying downward spiral into addiction, paralysis and death. ...

Phoebe Presswood is seventeen. Newly arrived in her native country to live with her father, whom she has not seen for nine years, she is struggling with the damage inflicted by her upbringing on the Côte d’Azur.

Her character is exemplary, and in her cousin Howard she finds an ally to her cause: but can these be enough to let her overcome her past and find happiness and her place in the world?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Herley
• Release date: Jul 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463016084

Richard Herley

I was born in England in 1950 and educated at Watford Boys' Grammar School and Sussex University, where my interest in natural history led me to read biology.My first successful novel was "The Stone Arrow", which was published to critical acclaim in 1978. It subsequently won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, administered by the Royal Society of Literature in London, and was the first in a trilogy. This was followed by "The Penal Colony" (1987), a futuristic thriller that formed the basis of the 1994 movie "No Escape", starring Ray Liotta.The main difficulty for the author is making his voice heard in the roar of self-promotion. I believe that the work I am producing now is of higher quality than my prize-winning first, and ask you, the reader, to help spread the word by telling your friends if you have enjoyed one of my books.

Book preview

PHOEBE RISING

Richard Herley

Copyright Richard Herley 2019

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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I am grateful to the following people, who read the text before publication and made helpful suggestions: Charles Culbertson, Mike Julien, Michael Kelly, Franklin Reith.

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Table of Contents

PART ONE

1 Algebra

2 The Golden Tongue

3 The Grand Arrival

4 Under English cloud

5 Howard in the Library

6 Bagwell

7 Pentecost

8 A letter to Fitzroy

9 The Clarissa returns

10 The Milne sisters

11 Heaton

12 Navigation lights

13 The maths exam

14 A first date

15 Phoebe’s confession

16 Longmeadow

17 Boulogne

18 Zizi

19 Nick’s torment

20 The fruit cage

PART TWO

1 Two interviews

2 Study buddies

3 King’s Langley

4 Lewes

5 The Hotel Imperial

6 Raphaële

7 The Brighton Belle

8 Celia Mason

9 An indictable offence

10 Freddie

11 The Boating Pool

12 Waggoner’s Wells

13 The airbed

14 Iping

15 Eamonn Grady’s auction

16 The Italian restaurant

17 Mrs Milne

18 The Crown and Anchor

19 Easter Saturday

20 Joyce’s bouquet

Other novels by Richard Herley

PART ONE

1

Friday, 8 June 1962

From his desk, Howard was watching the grey procession of incoming waves. As ever, they were approaching without cease; but then other waves would be going in the opposite direction, towards the French side. How did that work? Was there a central, equidistant boundary where a wave decided, or was directed according to some obscure law of physics, which way to go?

The waves were crested here and there by the same south-easterly breeze that would be blowing aslant his cousin’s face were she leaning on the taffrail, assuming the taffrail was where he thought it was, at the stern. He rather supposed she might be, puffing on a Gitane she would flick into the sea a quarter finished, deciding after all that she hadn’t wanted it. Above her would be a flapping ensign on a slanting pole, below her the ferry’s broad and ever-dwindling wake.

Situated below Howard, at the moment, were the French windows of his uncle’s dining room. These opened on a balustraded terrace and thence the gardens. A hedge, mostly of escallonia, formed the eastern boundary. Beyond this lay bramble-strewn turf sloping down to the cliff.

He turned back to the task in hand. Today he was especially regretful about his algebra, though his knowledge of geometry was even worse.

Leafing hopelessly through these notes, he came across a caricature of his current maths master in the process of having his hair cut by a machine driven by two donkeys harnessed to a windlass. Other drawings, many just as intricate, swarmed all over his notebooks. Often they obliterated important matter he had failed to memorise: more than once this afternoon he had resorted to holding a single page up against his desk-lamp in hope of deciphering what lay beneath.

Maths was his chief terror. The first paper was to be sat on the third of July, so twenty-five days of grace remained. Fewer, in fact, because the exam would be held in the morning and the time now was nearly five. If he needed a nightly minimum of six hours’ sleep and a couple of hours a day for other things, such as feeding and going to and from school, he had far fewer than four hundred hours in which to absorb what had engaged his more diligent classmates during five years of attention to Mr Ince and his mathematical predecessors – because, besides maths, the boys were to be examined next month in several other subjects. Of these he was weakest in chemistry and physics. Last year he had been entered for, and passed, English and Latin, so at least he had those under his belt, and he was reasonably confident about his French. As for Greek, Howard, together with everyone else in his group (everyone but Hinde, of course, late recipient of the Golden Tongue), had long ago resigned himself to failing that and was even in two minds about showing up for the exam.

If he failed the maths exam alone, he might be able to retake it in the autumn. But if he failed it again, or failed the hard sciences too, he might very well not get into the Sixth, which meant he might very well have to leave school, which in turn meant he might very well have to make a start on something resembling work, and that was a terror indeed.

His disquiet today was coloured by the expectation of meeting again his only cousin. He could barely remember her, a dark, sober child, a year older than himself; he had been seven when last they had met. There were half a dozen ageing snaps of her in the family album, including one marked Juan-les-Pins, 19.vii.53. In a hooped bathing costume and squinting sulkily at the camera, she was perched on the edge of a recliner on a terrace by a swimming pool, railings and palm trees behind.

She might no longer be as skinny as that, or as snub-nosed. In fact he had little idea of what she looked like now. He was afraid she might be pretty. Equally he hoped she would be, even though – since they were first cousins – there could hardly be a question of … not that he knew anything about girls, anything whatever. In any case, she was older than him.

He wished she were not coming, not just now, at least. Her arrival would disrupt the household and interfere with his revision. Then when the results were announced during the summer holidays he would need to manage undivided his uncle’s reaction: no easy matter at the best of times.

‘If a polynomial in x is divided by a factor,’ he read aloud, trying to drive the words, one by one, like screws, into his brain, ‘then another polynomial will be produced. If the polynomial is divided by a non-factor then a remainder will emerge in addition.’

His voice trailed away to nothing, because what he was reading was incomprehensible. Incomprehensible too that people wasted their time on such rot. The world, freedom, lay just outside his window, albeit under this dull June sky, and yet here he was, chained to a desk by the expectations of his uncle, of his teachers, of the whole of society, when he could have been doing any number of pleasurable things. For some reason he wanted most at this moment to be catching a bus to the seafront and its penny-in-the-slot machines.

Just down the corridor the vacuum cleaner started up.

‘That’s that, then,’ Howard said to himself, pretending to be annoyed. No good trying to concentrate now. Mrs Davey had been galumphing about like that all afternoon, making ready for the Grand Arrival.

It was not due till seven o’clock at the earliest. Dinner might be late. He got up from his desk, went down to the kitchen and speculatively opened the fridge.

* * *

Even though he had spent the whole afternoon at the club-house, Silvanus believed the course his Majestic was taking to be acceptably exact. However, it now occurred to him that it might be a mistake to be driving with such exaggerated caution. An observant constable might become suspicious. For this reason he introduced a certain vagueness into the luxurious and barely audible passage of his automobile as it left the golf course behind, passed through the village, and began the long ascent that led, after a narrow side-turning, to his house.

He knew he should not have drunk so much, especially as he had planned to drive into Dover himself. Curry had been to Bromley the previous night, so Silvanus would send a taxi instead and give its driver a placard to hold up.

It pleased Silvanus that his daughter had chosen to keep his surname rather than assume that of the person who had cuckolded him. Otherwise, on the whole, he did not view the turn of events with pleasure. He had not seen her for nine years and had only the vaguest idea of how she had developed. Nor, except for her recent letters, had she sent him so much as a Christmas card. At seventeen she was surely old enough to fend for herself. Even his ex-wife could not have run through such a fortune before she had died.

What would Phoebe do with herself in this backwater? Had she already finished her education, or would she want to go on with it here?

Despite his various misgivings, her first letter had impressed him. Not just for its spelling and grammar, nor for the quality of her handwriting. The italic script she had been taught at prep school had shed some of its rigour, suggesting flexibility of mind, idiosyncrasy, even charm, and all these, especially the first, would be welcome. No, what had impressed him most about the letter were her choice of words and their concinnity. She had managed to imply regret while simultaneously shielding herself from rejection. It was quite a long letter, and when he had come to the end of it he had realised that he had had little choice but to grant her request.

The car, more or less independently, safely found its way home and into the garage.

‘You’re drunk,’ Joyce observed.

‘That is quite true. Where’s Howard?’

‘He went out.’

‘Where’s he gone?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘When’s he coming back?’

‘No idea.’

‘Why are you so angry?’

‘I’m not angry.’

‘I like you better when you’re angry. Even better. Do you think we’ve got time to …?’

‘Would that be possible, in the circumstances?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’

Unable to prevent herself from smiling, however faintly, she shook her head in reproof.

The word ‘nubile’, both in its original and modern senses, might have been coined specially for her, except that she was wonderfully averse to remarrying and quite content with the way things were. Silvanus counted himself blessed. Her features, her fair complexion and her gentle grey-green eyes, her Irishness, pleased him greatly, but most of all he valued the eager softness of her embrace. Besides all that, he loved to admire her from behind, especially when for any reason she bent down: an instant transport of delight. ‘Ah, Mrs Davey,’ he said. ‘You are not only a sublime cook and housekeeper and a paragon among women, but wise beyond your years.’

‘Not really. I’m forty-three.’

‘Oh, did I forget? I’m sorry.’

‘You always forget my birthday, you selfish beast.’

‘I am a bit of a beast, aren’t I?’

2

‘Hello, Presswood.’

Howard looked round in surprise. He had just lost another penny to this rapacious machine. ‘Hello, Brooker. What are you doing here?’

‘Same as you. Carrying out fieldwork into the laws of probability.’

Howard groaned. ‘Don’t remind me.’

‘We’re doomed, aren’t we?’

‘Utterly. All except Hinde.’

‘I must say again, that was outstanding about the Tongue. Even the Faker couldn’t keep a straight face. Just as well he didn’t twig where it came from.’

‘Let’s get out of here.’

They left the amusement arcade and started along the prom, inhaling the ozone and dodging holidaymakers. As the conversation progressed, Howard continued to bask in the afterglow of his part in the victory over Hinde, the form toady and swot.

The awarding of the Golden Tongue might have had its origins in the game of rugby. In the autumn term of his first year at Mountworth, Howard had been exposed to this pastime, which, he soon realised, threatened personal injury, never mind the mud and the cold and the running about in flimsy garments and – even worse – the scrum, which smelled of jockstraps and was liable to collapse in a writhing heap of hearties. The chief object of rugby, it seemed, was to kick or carry the ball, if an ellipsoid could be so termed, over the opposing team’s goal-line. If, either before or subsequent to a ‘touchdown’, it could be booted between the posts and above the crossbar, so much the better, or so said Mr Kidd, the games master who officiated as referee. There were other rules, none of which Howard ever got to grips with. He did observe, however, that the player holding the ball was at once set upon by the opposition. Thus when, about ten minutes into Howard’s first game, a team-mate threw him the ball and he injudiciously caught it, he instantly handed it to someone else – who turned out to be on the other team. The howls of execration and rage from his own side were all the louder because the transaction took place well inside their twenty-five-yard line, and the boy to whom Howard gave the ball managed to race unimpeded over the goal-line and score a ‘try’. This was then ‘converted’ with an accurate kick over the crossbar, adding a total of five points to the opponents’ score.

Howard’s manoeuvre was ascribed by his team-mates to idiocy and by Mr Kidd to inexperience. He was himself a hearty and could not conceive of any boy in a rugby shirt being indifferent to the final score. Then, later in the match, Howard, despite his best efforts, caught the ball again. In getting rid of it, the person he ‘passed’ it to proved to be none other than the referee himself.

This caused proceedings to be suspended while the culprit was reviled by his fellows and Mr Kidd tried to remember the lawful way to resume.

Subsequently Howard persuaded his father, a doctor, to write to the headmaster requesting that his son be excused rugby on medical grounds. He cited three cases in which schoolboy players had run head-first into a goalpost. In two cases the injuries sustained had brought about personality change; in the third, the boy had broken his neck and died.

The existence of such a letter would practically guarantee a lawsuit, were Howard ever to be injured at rugby. Besides, the fees at Mountworth were such that a parent’s request, however much it grated on the school ethos or the blind worship of the First XV by such members of staff as Mr Kidd, would only ever be disregarded by a reckless headmaster, and Dr Caker was not one of these. He therefore instructed Mr Kidd to transfer Howard to the other winter-time sport at the school, which was hockey.

Mr Bagwell, in charge of hockey, was forewarned about Howard’s attitude. Since the creature obviously had no grasp of team spirit, Mr Bagwell decided to begin his education by putting him in goal, from which vantage he would be able to see how the others comported themselves on the pitch. If all went smoothly, Mr Bagwell believed, the boy could then graduate to some more integral position.

Howard’s alarm at being made to don bulky leg-pads was trivial compared with what followed. Of all the places on the pitch, the goal-mouth was the most dangerous. Not only were the attacking players armed with hefty sticks, but the thing they were knocking about was little better than a cannonball, weighing five or six ounces and as hard as stone; and was naturally aimed at the goalkeeper, who was meant to deflect it with his own stick or – even more unsettling – his person.

To begin with, play was restricted to the far end. While this was going on Howard remembered a bag of spare kit left behind his goal net. No one seemed to notice him briefly leaving his position to look into it.

Presently the tide of the game changed, and now Howard, rather than the other goalie, was the target. As the furious rabble drew near he took a spare ball from behind one of his pads and tossed it into the thick of the play. There were cries of incomprehension and confusion, giving way to the sort of abuse he had endured on the rugby field. There was also heated dispute as to which was the original ball and hence which side had possession.

Mr Bagwell, having blown his whistle to halt the match, was told what had happened. He became red-faced with rage and sent Howard to get changed and report himself to the headmaster.

That was the beginning of Howard’s appreciation of the fragility of rule-based behaviour, and of the ease with which it could be disrupted, provided one was prepared to take the consequences, which, in the case of the hockey incident, amounted to three swipes of the headmaster’s cane on his fundament.

If a boy showed such a negative propensity for games, suffered from asthma, or had an over-protective mother, he had to choose one of two other ways, described as ‘community service’, to spend his sports afternoons. He could either join one of the small, supervised groups who visited the local insane asylum and there tried to entertain or at least cheer up some of the less psychotic inmates, or he could remain on the school grounds and prepare kindling for the old folk.

Although mixing with lunatics might prove interesting, Howard’s natural caution prevailed and he opted for the firewood detail. Half a dozen or so boys were charged with chopping up a plentiful supply of damaged pallets and other scrap timber, these being contributed by a local business owned by an Old Mountworthian.

Howard continued chopping firewood every year thereafter. Last winter the master in charge had been Mr Pocock. He was meant to supervise at all times, but so tedious was this duty that he was in the habit of leaving the boys to their own devices.

The heap of wood was situated behind the Science Block, between it and the Scout Hut. One afternoon in March, Howard and his companions arrived there to find an upright piano positioned ambiguously near the Scout Hut; it could equally be said to be near the heap of scrap. Brooker surmised that the instrument was a donation, since the existing Scouts’ piano was ‘falling to bits’. How he knew this Howard was not sure, because if ever a boy had been born who was less likely than himself to join the Scouts, it was Brooker. Brooker then tried the Scout Hut door, found it locked, and surmised further that whoever had brought the piano had gone off in search of the key. Thus there was no time to lose.

The demolition of the piano was accomplished with unwonted energy and speed. Elwes likened the noise to a particular piece by Tippett, though nobody else knew who Tippett was. During the dismembering of the keyboard, Rigg, with his ready eye for profit, gleefully cried ‘Get the lead!’, meaning its lead weights, which could be sold to the local metal-merchant.

This cry somewhat weakened the boys’ subsequent defence. It had been heard by Mr Jackson, the Scoutmaster, who, accompanied by the principal caretaker, had been hurrying in the direction of the hut: their steps had been hastened by the plangent complaints of the stricken piano.

Mr Jackson’s shout of ‘What the bloody hell is going on here?’ might even have been heard by the hockey players on the far side of the school field. He singled out Brooker as the likely ringleader, and Brooker it was who claimed that everyone thought the piano had been intended for firewood. It had been left beside the heap, and if it were worth anything would it have been left outdoors like that, sir?

Although Mr Jackson and indeed, later, the headmaster, knew perfectly well what had happened – their knowledge of adolescent boys being encyclopedic – Brooker had managed to introduce just enough doubt in the case for a verdict of ‘not proven’. The result was that they all got away with nothing more than a spittle-punctuated philippic from Mr Jackson. The piano had been donated by a kindly parent and brought by him, on a trailer, to the Scout Hut. He and a friend had unloaded it, found the hut locked, and driven off in quest of the key-holder.

Mr Pocock also got into trouble for leaving the vandals unsupervised. On arrival at the scene – Mr Jackson having sent the caretaker to seek him out – he told the boys that in all his teaching career he had never known such an evil gang of hooligans, et cetera, and then ordered them to deal with the debris.

During the clean-up Howard noticed one of the two disembodied pedals and slipped it unseen into his coat pocket. He fancied it both as a memento and as an object in itself. As for the lead weights, they were confiscated on the orders of Mr Jackson, who, Upton said, wanted to sell them himself.

Unlike Brooker and most of the others, Howard was a day-boy, which meant that he had access to the conveniences of a well-stocked household. He was therefore able, some three months later, to put the pedal to use. The projecting end was made of brass and shaped a little like a tongue, albeit an unsymmetrical one. The brass had become tarnished, so he dissolved some Harpic lavatory-cleaner in water and left the pedal in it overnight. By morning most of the tarnish had gone. Two minutes with a tin of metal polish and a couple of rags brought the brass to a shine. Next he took the pedal to his uncle’s garage, where he knew he would find cans of paint. Having dribbled some white paint into an empty tin, he added just enough red and yellow to produce a flesh tone and with this coated everything that was not brass.

These operations were begun on a Saturday afternoon. The following Wednesday the whole school gathered for the annual Founder’s Day prize-giving, during which Hinde received the Bottomley Prize for Greek and a morocco-bound edition of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. To kick things off, a High Court judge, an alumnus, gave a speech about honour, dignity, and other virtues of which he was clearly an exemplar. The masters were got up in their gowns and university colours, and many parents had made the effort to attend, especially those whose sons had won something.

The reception afterwards was held in a marquee. Parents and their prize-winning sons stood about, chatting to the masters, drinking tea and eating small sandwiches and pastries dispensed from tables near the entrance.

Since Howard had not – had never – won a prize and his uncle was absent, he was among the majority of boys excluded from the marquee. Most of these were elsewhere, but Howard, together with Brooker and McNulty, was lingering near the entrance. When Hinde and his mother returned to the tables for more refreshments, McNulty seized his chance. He entered and went up to Hinde, who looked round in consternation.

‘Here’s another prize for you, old chap,’ McNulty claimed to have said, producing the pedal, which he slid into the badged breast-pocket of Hinde’s blazer.

Hinde put down his teacup and saucer. He took out the pedal and stared at it.

The headmaster happened to be near by, chatting to the High Court judge. ‘What is the meaning of this?’

‘It is the Golden Tongue, sir, awarded annually by the Upper Remove for rectal services rendered to the staff. I am delighted to say that Gerald has been unanimously voted its recipient for the academic year just ending.’

Since McNulty’s parents, having long since despaired of him, were removing him from the school at the end of term, he’d had nothing to lose. Moreover he bore a particular grudge against Hinde, who had twice peached on him and got him grounded.

‘Do you believe McNulty really said rectal?’

‘Perhaps,’ Brooker said. ‘He certainly said something of the sort, and you know as well as I do how his mind works. Or fails to, as the case may be.’

‘What’s going to happen to him? After school, I mean.’

‘Borstal, probably.’

The promenade ended at a flight of weathered concrete steps leading to the shingle. The two boys sat down on the second lowest step. Brooker struck a match and, cupping it in his palm, lit a Capstan. Howard did not smoke.

‘By the way,’ Howard said. ‘This is the evening she arrives. My cousin.’

‘Phoebe.’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Bit of a hostage to fortune, isn’t she, saddled with the surname of a goddess? Supposing she’s a grimmy, what then?’

‘Which goddess?’

‘Artemis Phoebe, daughter to Zeus and thus divinely beautiful. Goddess of hunting and the moon. Protectress of the young. Emblem of chastity. A proud maiden, never to be conquered by love. If you remember, she shot Orion full of arrows just because he made a pass at her. Then she turned Actaeon the huntsman into a stag when the silly bastard caught sight of her bathing. Next thing he knew, his pack of fifty hounds tore him to bits.’

‘Oh. Quite.’

‘Do you ever listen at all in Greek?’ This, they both knew, was a rhetorical question. Brooker took another drag. ‘Mind you, people grow into their names. Hinde, now, could only ever be a Gerald.’

‘He might have been a Trevor.’

‘If he were a Trevor he’d be short-sighted and top at maths, destined for an insurance salesman or accountant. Or a what-d’you-call-it. Actuary.’

‘Do you think I’m a Howard?’

‘No doubt of it, but you can’t help that, so you’re forgiven. At least you agree with decent people on the important things. Us and them, for instance. It might seem puerile, the way we wage war on the beaks. Of course, we are pueri, but school is a microcosm of the Army, or even society itself.’

‘Don’t give me that,’ Howard said. He liked Brooker; indeed Brooker was his best friend, but he was given to pretentious waffle of this kind. ‘We just like to laugh.’

‘True. But think of the fellows in the CCF, learning to be government thugs and policemen of the Empire. And what about the Scouts? They’re little better than the Hitler Youth. That was probably run by sadistic queers as well, just like our Mr Jackson. No no, the struggle against authority is deadly serious. Weaken for an instant and you end up like Hinde. Or Pocock.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He wears a red tie and pretends to be a communist, but he takes the filthy capitalist shilling all the same. If he were true to himself he’d go off and join the comrades. They’re collectivist thugs as well, of course. Like the Scouts. The individual is what matters, and you’re just about as individual as they come.’

Howard selected a pebble and threw it as far as he could. He wondered how long it would take the sea to bring it back, if ever. It would be turned to sand, eventually, long after entropy had expunged all trace of these concrete steps: of Pelling-on-Sea itself, of England, even of mankind. He said, ‘Do you think you’ll get into the Sixth?’

‘Unlikely. I’ve hardly done a stroke.’

‘Nor me.’ Howard came to a decision. ‘I say, Brooker, why not spend the second half of the holidays with us? If you fail the exams your people might not let you take a break before putting you in harness, but if you’ve accepted a prior invitation it’ll be harder for them to forbid you to come.’

‘That’s jolly decent of you, Presswood.’ He seemed genuinely pleased. ‘Yes, thanks. By all means. I’ll take you up on that.’

‘I’ll have to square it with my uncle first, but I’m fairly sure he won’t object. Then you square it your end, well before the results come out.’

Howard knew he need not mention the advantage to himself: that was understood.

3

In the last nine years she had metamorphosed into something implausibly, impossibly lovely, Howard began to understand, as he watched her following Mrs Davey upstairs. Not just impossibly, but divinely lovely – what was it Brooker had said? A goddess, a veritable goddess … Howard had never in his life beheld, still less shaken hands with, a girl so wonderful that in her wake he felt not only thunderstruck but giddy. And all at once he knew that he was falling; that he had already fallen … in love … how he knew this he could not be sure – love till this minute had been something for adults, a future abstraction – but he was certain of it, just as certain as he was that he would never, ever, be worthy of her or even be viewed by her as anything but the fat, feckless and pimply schoolboy he knew himself to be. And yet – and yet, when she had smiled at him her dark eyes had smiled too, openly, warmly, as if she had been glad to be making his acquaintance. And her hair, dark too, dense and lustrous, had been fashioned by a sophisticated hand into a bob that framed and made human the astounding symmetry of her face.

‘God in Heaven!’ he inwardly declared, as he remembered that she would be living in this house for an unknown period – perhaps indefinitely!

He said, ‘Should we take her luggage up?’

‘Later,’ said uncle Silvanus, eyeing again the steamer-trunk and four suitcases that he, Howard and the taxi driver had dragged up the portico steps, through the lobby and into the reception hall. The trunk, like two of the suitcases, bore labels from exotic places – New York, Luxor, Nassau, Sydney. She had apologised for its excessive weight. Among other things, she had said, it contained ‘lots of books’.

Not only was she beautiful and cosmopolitan, then, but intelligent and well-read! Howard wondered whether he dared contemplate literary discussion with her, for he too owned lots of books and his uncle many more. Indeed, the study shelves now also held the library of Howard’s late father. Though much of it dealt with medical topics, he had been a man of many interests. Through him, too, Howard had inherited his mother’s books. These, which he kept in his room, he especially cherished, for he had never known her.

Uncle Silvanus now returned to his armchair, where, before Phoebe’s arrival, he had been reading his newspaper; the standard lamp behind him was still lit.

‘Well, Howard, what do you think?’

‘She seems very nice.’

‘It’s uncanny, you know, meeting one’s daughter again like this after so many years. I wish she’d told me when her mother was taken ill. I’d have gone to see her. There are some things I wish I had been able to say. I especially wish I’d known about the funeral. We both ought to have been there.’

Howard was not sure how to respond.

His uncle went on. ‘A week or so after I got Phoebe’s first letter I realised I’d already forgiven her mother. You’re old enough now to understand that when regrettable things happen all the parties can be said to share the blame. Some are more culpable than others, of course.’ He paused ruminatively. ‘Well,’ he concluded, ‘there it is.’

This was one of his sayings, indicating what could not be changed or merited no further inquiry. He was in a relatively good mood. Howard had already asked himself whether he should leave the question of Brooker’s visit till the newcomer had settled in – if she settled in – or tackle it straight away, while his uncle’s mind was distracted by the arrival. From Brooker’s standpoint, it behoved Howard to resolve the matter as soon as possible. He decided to take a chance.

‘I was talking to my friend Brooker today,’ he said, studying his uncle’s face. ‘You know.’

‘Ah yes. And?’

‘Subject to your approval, I asked him whether he might like to spend part of the summer holidays here.’

‘Which part?’

‘Two or three weeks. Say from the middle of August, or thereabouts.’

Uncle Silvanus gave a cryptic smile. ‘Did he accept?’

‘Provisionally, yes.’

‘He lives in Hindhead, as I recall.’

‘Near by. Grayshott. I stayed there once, if you remember.’

‘So you did. His parents. They’d be amenable, would they? Do they have anything booked?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Tell me, why did you settle on the latter part of the holidays? Would that have anything to do with your respective O-levels?’

Howard felt himself colouring.

‘My dear Howard, you really are an ass.’

‘Yes, Uncle. Sorry. I ought to have known better.’

‘Which of you thinks he’s not going to make the Sixth Form?’

‘We both do.’

Uncle Silvanus remained silent. Then Howard saw that this was merely to tease him. ‘I see no reason for him not to come, provided his parents don’t object. They may already have organised his apprenticeship, if they share his gloom.’

‘No, they think he’s a prodigy.’

‘That is a common delusion among parents. But it’ll be good for you to have a companion. You might get into some agreeable mischief together. I like him. Nicholas strikes me as an entertaining and idiosyncratic sort of boy.’

With that, uncle Silvanus glanced at the ceiling as if weighing the effect that his daughter’s presence might have, and Howard felt a qualm, though not to the extent of regretting the invitation. It was just that he had not taken his cousin into account; or, rather, that he had assumed she would prove to be a grimmy.

* * *

When Mrs Davey had gone, Phoebe took the spongebag from her travelling-case and entered her new bathroom. It had been polished till it sparkled. Mrs Davey – who else? – had also set out a new cake of fragrant, brown, semi-translucent, Pears’s soap, together with, on the marble shelf enclosing the basin, a little vase of garden flowers.

These echoed a larger arrangement, in a larger vase, on the sill of the bedroom window, which did not overlook the sea. Instead the room faced towards the interior of this country she had all but forgotten.

As she brushed her hair she watched her eyes in the mirror. They had almost become those of a stranger. She looked tired as well. Her fatigue had set in long ago.

So now at last she was in her father’s house. She had never so much as seen a photo of it before, though elements of the decor seemed familiar, including the sort of taste that had been evident at Folkestone when her parents had been together.

The journey had been exhausting, by taxi, train and ferry. The ferry had been delayed for nearly an hour and she had been delayed again in customs. Nevertheless, she felt an urge to go back to France. In his last letter her father had promised to meet her at Dover. He had as yet given no reason for failing to do so, and her reception when she had finally got here had been little more than lukewarm. Only the housekeeper seemed sympathetic.

In all, this beginning did not bode well. The alternative had been to rent or buy a flat or small house in Paris and go to school there. The idea of independent solitude was at once attractive and repellent. It would be lonely, but it would also be safe. Next year or the year after she might be mature enough to make it work.

She had been lonely for as long as she could remember. Maybe she was destined to go through her whole life in that state; maybe it was her fault, some inadequacy of character that made it so hard for her to make friends. Coming here might prove to be futile, a grievous disappointment – or worse. But there was a compelling reason she had wanted to get away for the time being, from the Côte d’Azur at least, and that was Fitzroy. She had been careful not to let him know she was leaving.

Perhaps her father thought she had taken her mother’s part against him. Perhaps he was wondering what she had been told: that he was a philanderer, a crook and a man of extraordinary intelligence who viewed his fellows as if they were insects; that above all he was cruel, violent and incapable of love.

Set against that was the fact that he had taken his orphaned nephew under his wing and seemed to regard him with affection.

Bringing with her the diminutive carrier-bag containing the gifts she had brought from France, Phoebe started down the stairs. Such was her trepidation that she paused on the half landing. The oriel there was flanked by figured velvet curtains with tasselled tiebacks held by heavy and ornate brass hooks. A wide Coalport bowl occupied much of the window ledge and was filled with potpourri.

From this vantage one looked northwards along the coast. The carriage drive, which in Georgian times might have been surfaced with gravel, rather than pink asphalt, sloped down to a pair of electrically operated wrought-iron gates giving on to the lane, which in turn descended more steeply to the coast road. The rooftops and seafront of Pelling were visible in the middle distance, beyond which spread the fairways and bunkers of the famous golf course. And to the right, even greyer now, lay the sea she had just crossed, already fading in the premature dusk.

Having reached the reception hall, she passed the open doorway of the dining room. The table was ready; she glimpsed silver candlesticks and the glint of crystal. Her father’s voice could be heard in what she had been informed was the sitting room. After a moment’s hesitation, feeling, despite having been told to join him there, as if she ought to knock, Phoebe opened the door.

Her cousin sprang to his feet.

‘Please, don’t do that. Don’t get up for me.’

‘Force of habit,’ he said, resuming his place on the further sofa.

He was of medium height, mousy-haired, wearing spectacles, a bit spotty and rather overweight but not really fat, with a woolly voice and a tendency to blush.

‘I have a little something for each of you,’ she said, and in order of seniority handed out the two gift-wrapped packages, which were received with expressions of surprise and gratitude. To her father she had given a set of cufflinks and matching tie-pin from Van Cleef & Arpels, and to Howard a Montblanc Meisterstück ballpoint pen.

‘Thanks awfully,’ Howard said again, ‘but really, this is far too much.’

‘Dinner’s been ready for a while,’ her father said, standing up.

‘I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.’

‘Please, Phoebe, don’t worry about a thing. I should already have apologised for not being at Dover to meet you. I was a little inebriated, do you see, and in no condition to drive, especially with passengers, and especially if one of them were my own daughter.’

There was no time for her to react to this surprising and gratifying speech, because her father was already, with a gesture, ushering her back to the reception hall and thence into the dining room. On the way he called out to Mrs Davey, saying that she should serve.

The windows overlooked the sea, beyond a terrace with a stone balustrade. A telescope on a tripod made the only touch of informality in the room, which was furnished in the Regency style, with a gleaming mahogany table and six matching chairs, a carver at each end.

‘Where would you like to sit, my dear?’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘Howard normally sits there, and I here. When Mrs Davey joins us, which she often does, she sits there,’ he said, indicating the smaller, more feminine carver at the bottom of the table.

The place before one of the two vacant chairs looking towards the sea had already been set. Howard saw her into it – that too would have to stop – while her father sat down next to her, in the carver. Howard took his seat opposite, so that the three of them were together.

Mrs Davey entered, pushing a gilt trolley, and, attending Phoebe first, served everyone with whitebait and wholemeal toast.

She departed. ‘Wine?’ said Phoebe’s father, lifting the bottle queryingly. ‘It’s rather good, if a little sweet. A Sauternes.’

‘Thank you. That’s plenty.’

‘Please. Don’t stand on ceremony. Get stuck in.’

They didn’t say grace, then. Phoebe unfurled her napkin. The whitebait, and the toast, proved to be delicious. Howard, she noticed, was also given wine. As far as she knew, it was illegal in England to sell alcohol to anyone of his age; maybe even to serve it.

‘Now, my daughter, to begin with everything will be unfamiliar and you are bound to feel out of place, especially as we have not seen each other for so long, but I want you to regard this as your home, because it now is your home, for as long as ever you want it to be, and at home if nowhere else one should feel easy and secure. If there is anything at all you lack, no matter how slight, you must tell me. Are you content with your room?’

‘Very much so.’

‘You wouldn’t rather have a sea view?’

‘No, I can see the woods. I like that.’

‘You can walk there, should you so wish. A public footpath leads through them, and besides, I am on friendly terms with the owner. You’ll soon get to know the neighbours; again, should you so wish.’

As he spoke, Phoebe was able to observe him less covertly than she had hitherto, trying to reconcile what she saw with the memory of the father she had once known. That man had been more energetic, less wordy and exact, as if determined not to waste time in his quest to succeed. This one’s beard had become untrimmed