Robert's Obsession

By Brian Threlfall

Life isn’t going well for Robert Ormondson. A once successful owner of an Arts and Education Centre, situated on a coastal hill overlooking the seaside resort of Carlesbeach, his business is sinking as rapidly as his marriage to his wife, Mary.
His part-time assistant, Jane Summerfield provides the ultimate distraction. Robert quickly becomes infatuated with her, and as sparks start to fly, it’s as if he is a twenty-something again with all of his ambitions and idealism.
As Robert’s life begins to take off once again, the reappearance of a lost love causes complications which Robert himself could never have foreseen.Will he be able to save his marriage to Mary, or will he be consumed by his ultimate obsession– his desire to be successful?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jan 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781838598266

Brian Threlfall

Brian Threlfall has a strong background in Education, having studied and taught at a variety of universities in England, including the University of Birmingham and the University of Leicester. Robert’s Obsession is his debut novel. He lives in Winchester.

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Copyright © 2019 Brian Threlfall

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781838598266

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To my wife,

without whose support this novel would not have been written.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter One

My name is Robert Ormondson, owner of an arts/adult education centre on a coastal hill overlooking the seaside resort of Carlesbeach. My wife Mary had just made a suggestion which I did not want to have to think about.

‘The alternative is not to have any celebration at all,’ I said.

Mary looked up. She seemed a little uncertain as to how to interpret my remark.

‘Well, I’m not at all sure what exactly it is we’d be celebrating.’ I made no effort to soften the tone of my voice.

Mary stood in front of our sideboard dusting one of the ornaments – a Victorian statuette of an idealised hero and heroine, in pewter. The figures stand on a black pedestal onto which is fixed a chrome label bearing the word Harmony. I inherited the piece from my maternal grandparents. Mary appeared to handle it with some distaste. She has on more than one occasion over the years referred to it as hideous. After replacing it, she moved on to the next object, a wood-encased pendulum clock, similarly inherited.

‘If only you hadn’t been so stubborn, there’d be plenty,’ she said, a familiar abrasiveness creeping along the quiet voice. I ignored the jibe as she went on to dust the only other object on the sideboard, a vase she brought back from Spain on what had been our last holiday, three years ago.

The sideboard had been Mary’s choice, bought during the first years of our marriage. A smooth-talking young man in Square Deal Antiques had informed her it was ‘inlaid mahogany, serpentine-fronted in the manner of Sheraton.’ That had been impressive enough for Mary.

I felt unable to focus my mind on the celebration suggestion and not only because I questioned the idea of there being something to celebrate. There were more pressing matters on my mind. Two groups of people enrolled for three-week-long residential courses were due to arrive. And more significantly perhaps, given my present uneasy state of mind, so were their tutors: Alexander Linkston and Ben Ross – both friends from my younger days.

What had just occurred to me was that I might have forgotten, yesterday evening, to switch the reception office telephone over to our apartment. If so, it was inevitable there would be at least one student trying to telephone to say they’d missed a train or some other reason they were going to be late for lunch. However, given the listless mood I was in, the two flights of stairs down to the ground floor seemed one too many, and I had more or less convinced myself that I was worrying unnecessarily. Of course I’d switched the line over. You do these things automatically. It was of no significance that I didn’t have any recollection of having done it.

As Mary moved away from the sideboard, having completed her dusting operation there, the chimes of the wood-encased clock struck seven times – pleasant, sonorous sounds, but for some days now the chimes have borne no relation to actual time. It is not the only clock in the room. However, synchronising the two is such a tedious business I have not regarded it as high on my list of priorities. One day soon, Mary will nag me into doing something about it. The next moment, as if rounding out my brief thought, there followed the distant, more hostile sound of Carlesbeach’s town hall clock, striking ten.

‘People always celebrate twenty years of anything.’ The tone suggested that Mary regarded the remark as answering every possible objection. After a pause, she added, ‘And besides, every one who knows the Centre will expect it.’

Especially her friends in Carlesbeach, I thought. I felt increasingly irritated. Did she have to keep going on about it? Just when there were more important matters. For instance, another thought had crossed my mind. What if Connie was late? Connie, my one secretary, who has run the reception office for so many years and without whom I would, on very many occasions, have been unable to cope. It was essential she should arrive on time. Not that she had ever been late, not once in nineteen years, but there was always a first time. Not on this occasion, please. Especially given the doubt about the telephone. And the possibility that Alexander will arrive early and be, well, a little difficult.

Mary was now in front of the what-not (also mahogany), dusting one of the two photographs which sit on the top shelf. The photograph is one of my maternal grandfather, Grandad Lovell, alongside a man wearing a large gold chain hanging from his neck. The Mayor of Carlesbeach at that time. The occasion had been the inauguration of the resort’s Illuminations Week, two years before the outbreak of the First World War. The mayor laughs jovially as he raises a glass of champagne in salutation. To the left of the two men, a corner of a building, partly covered in ivy, is visible. It is this building. At that time, it was my grandfather’s hotel, or rather, as the old man had always insisted, superior guest house. The mayor had just made, in the words of Grandad’s diary, a triumphal drive along the three miles of promenade, which had been completed only a year earlier. It was a new promenade, the old one having existed since the eighteen sixties, the decade when Carlesbeach saw its dramatically rapid modernisation. On the right of the picture, a horse’s head can just be made out, and behind the two men is a nebulous blur of light from the Promenade, which runs past the bottom of the hill on which this building stands. My grandfather stares boldly out at the photographer. I remember him as a man who looked everyone straight in the eyes. The thought occurred to me that I was unlikely ever to be photographed with the present mayor and I smiled to myself.

Mary held the photograph up to dust it. There must have been a smudge on the glass as she spat at it slightly before rubbing it with the duster. She replaced the photograph and picked up the other one, holding it towards the nearby window to catch what light there was. That photograph is of Daniel, our grandson (actually my step-grandson), wearing an outfit Mary chose for him on his first birthday, six months ago. Mary has a closer relationship with the child than I do, even talking to him over the telephone in, to my way of thinking, a quite inane fashion. But then, I would be the first to acknowledge I am not as affectionate a grandparent as she, although I do sometimes wonder if her attitude is more one of possessiveness than of affection.

After replacing the photograph, Mary said, ‘I don’t care what you say. There has to be a celebration, an event of some kind, call it what you want.’

I didn’t answer, yet felt uneasy at the ensuing silence. There is often silence between us these days. I wondered how much to say, how much she would really understand of whatever I did say. The silence seemed to freeze the words that were on the tip of my tongue. I experienced quite a few moments of silence before becoming aware that it wasn’t pure silence. There was the ticking of the clock, the lashing of rain against the window, the muffled sound of waves buffeting the rocks at the base of the hill, the hum of distant traffic.

I stood at the window looking out. Nothing could be seen distinctly – at least not from our apartment which is at the top of the building, in the large square tower which forms a second storey. There is a steep drop down to the courtyard below, beyond which a rock face plunges down to the shore. Raindrops running down the pane of glass splintered my vision of the courtyard and the beach. Through the fragmented glass, the ground below seemed unrelated to the building, the whole effect one of insubstantiality. I shuddered, remembering a day two years ago when I had stood in the same position, but on a bright, sunny morning, with the casement window open, the courtyard below seemingly magnetic.

‘Anyway,’ I found myself saying, ‘no doubt the Centre will be closed down by then and I’ll be on the dole.’

‘A trifle melodramatic,’ Mary said. I wondered at first whether she referred to my stance at the window but quickly realised she must be referring to my remark. I knew she was right and regretted my little outburst.

I stared out towards the sea and imagined how the great cliff-like waves must be pummelling each other, before kissing and parting – spray no doubt cascading ominously over the breakwater which protects the base of the hill. Everything seemed to be in motion: a mist of rolling sea swell, menacing swift-moving clouds and swooping seagulls. I could have been on a ship being tossed to and fro, in danger from the elements – or from the sandbank I could just make out through the rain-smeared glass; the same sandbank on which the Travers East Indiaman, laden with precious silks, had foundered during similarly atrocious weather one April day in 1798. That ship’s rich cargo had disappeared overnight and was never traced, but a house on this hill – the family home of the Threales since the middle of the sixteenth century – had been transformed during the two years following the shipwreck into one of Carlesbeach’s first prestigious hotels: the Sand Dunes Hotel.

After the being-on-a-ship sensation, I couldn’t help comparing thoughts of what the debris on the beach that evening in 1798 must have been like with the mere flotsam and jetsam which was almost certainly being revealed by today’s receding tide – beer cans, plastic bottles, ice cream cartons, fast food containers, used condoms. So many people had sought pleasure during those few hours after the sun had begun to shine over Carlesbeach in mid-afternoon yesterday. I glanced in the direction of the town, its largest building fortress-like in the gloom, an effect relieved only by innumerable car headlights. Away from the town, to my left, sinister, dark clouds scudded in towards the coast. But far out, on the horizon, the sky looked brighter. I strained to see through the wet glass in the hope it wasn’t an illusion.

‘The rain will stop soon,’ I said.

Silence.

‘Hope so for their sakes,’ I added.

Still silence.

When I turned around, I saw that Mary was now positioned in front of the mirror which stands on a Pembroke table. She was holding up a necklace against the plain polo-necked sweater she was wearing, probably wondering whether emeralds matched the earrings she had on and presumably intended to wear at lunchtime. She had bought the earrings on impulse during the week and I guessed (based on past experience) was now having second thoughts about them.

I moved a few paces towards her, then stopped. She seemed oblivious to my presence. At one time, I would have gone right up to her and put my arms around her waist, or cupped her breasts with my hands, saying, ‘Suits you, love’ or ‘You look marvellous.’ But in recent years I have felt more comfortable with the space between us. So I just stood there, glancing at her face in the mirror, then at her back – conscious that I still found her physically attractive. I looked again at the image in the mirror and observed her finely shaped breasts. Then took another look at her back. I had to acknowledge she had retained a good figure. She wore a calf-length skirt, and the heels of her shoes were the perfect height to accentuate her well-shaped ankles. When I looked at her face in the mirror, again my thoughts began to float among scenes from the past, before fixing on the one when I had experienced my first intimations of love for her.

One evening, I was outside a classroom door. There was a peephole in the door, and after waiting for a couple to pass out of sight, leaving me alone in the corridor, I peeped into the room. Miss Brevington, the tutor, was addressing a semicircle of people, all women. I glanced at each face until my eye picked out Mary. She was at the end of the semicircle row, and because of her position there, she was almost facing the door. Involuntarily, I pulled my face away from the peephole, before realising that it was unlikely she would be aware of an eye peering through such a small hole, let alone whose eye it was.

The corridor and classroom were in Hillchester College of Adult Education, where I worked in the office, having been there for three months after answering an advertisement in the New Statesman. I had badly needed a new impetus in my life at the time, but the work in the office had been a little more routine and boring than I had expected, and the sense of merely drifting through life, which I had experienced throughout my twenties, returned. Not only was the work not stimulating, but it required me to work a number of evenings a week, so that I found myself with little mental energy even when at home. That home, just then, a cheap but hardly cheerful bedsitter, was almost certainly an additional reason for my feeling a certain degree of depression as the days of that autumn dragged on. Memories of my later twenties only added to my low spirits. Writing ambitions, born and nurtured through the three years I had lodged with Ben Ross and his wife in Hillchester thirty years ago, had been getting nowhere. Reluctantly, I had come to the conclusion that they were due more to therapeutic needs than to genuinely creative urges. It was about that time that Grandad Lovell became seriously ill. I had retained a close and affectionate relationship with him (my grandmother had died before I went to live in Hillchester), visiting him a few times at his guest house, so that I was greatly saddened by the thought that he was dying. But he was ninety years of age. All told, I was experiencing a mysterious sense of hollowness and loneliness when working at the college and feeling the need for a female partner in my life.

Various diary entries confirm the above, but then there is the first one mentioning Mary and the evening I looked in through the peephole.

Monday 21 March 1960

Miss Brevington, a large buxom woman, was waving a small stick, like a conductor with baton, before pointing it at the blackboard. I could just make out the name Mrs Gaskell beyond the pointed end of the baton. My gaze at the students settled on one, listening intently to every word, in particular. What struck me was that she stood out from the rest of the students, all women. The ceiling light above her highlighted her face, much as candlelight does that of some faces in paintings by George de la Tour. She looked lovely in the aura so created.

Thursday 24 March 1960

That semi-mystical image which had struck me so forcibly on Monday has stayed with me ever since, even keeping me awake at night as well as dominating my daytime thoughts. I think I may be falling in love. Amazing, given that that lady and I have spoken so little to each other – nothing more than a good morning or good night, in the politest of tones.

Friday 25 March 1960

This morning, I dropped lucky. I was in the office on my own when who should come in but… She is in charge of the college’s catering and wanted to know the date of the next half-term holiday. During the ensuing conversation, I managed to mention Miss Brevington’s name and Mary (I now know her name) told me she was a member of the tutor’s class. ‘Oh really,’ I said, feigning surprise. She then told me that she had just read North and South, which they had discussed at their last meeting. ‘Oh, Mrs Gaskell!’ I said, hoping she would be impressed that I knew the novel. She did seem pleased. Luckily, I had read North and South, and I was able to sustain a short conversation about it. When she left, I felt that a friendship had begun to blossom.

Monday 28 March 1960

I am going to pluck up courage soon and ask her out. I now have the feeling that a relationship with Mary can, no, will, lead to a rebirth of all those creative and intellectual energies which have lain dormant for too long.

A few months later, we married.

My memory of that romantic episode, and its consequence, faded, to be replaced by a cooler, more analytical, thought as I looked at Mary’s hair, greying a little now but well styled so that it in no way detracted from her appearance. I was pleased she was letting it go grey. I would have hated seeing grey, later silver roots just visible at the scalp, with the rest of the hair dyed and increasingly artificial-looking against dry, pallid and waxy skin. Yes, I told myself, she is still attractive. But what about myself? I could just see my image in the mirror and couldn’t ignore the fact that I have let myself go a little. Not obese exactly, but thickening too much at the waist, khaki-coloured corduroys straining to hold the line, thick blue sweater forced to assume the shape almost of a knitted teapot cover. Reluctantly, I glanced at the image of my face. Beard mostly grey, as was my hair. Both in need of a trim. Hair thinning too, though nowhere near bald. The flesh under the eyes sagged, like the cheeks of an exhausted frog. Not much to look at these days, I had to admit to myself.

Mary was still absorbed in deliberation of the necklace, but as I moved away, she must have become aware of my presence.

‘So you are ruling it out altogether then?’ Mary asked as she placed the necklace and earrings in an antique onyx box, which contained many other pieces of costume jewellery.

She picked up the duster again and with it caressed a framed photograph of our son, Alan. The photograph had been taken in his bedroom (there are pictures of rock musicians and football players on the wall), the day before he went off to college – when his mother had wept and I had heaved a sigh of relief. I was one of those fathers who had found a son’s growing independence of mind difficult to come to terms with, especially as Alan had no sympathy with what I was trying to achieve with my Centre.

‘For goodness’ sake, at least give me time to think about it,’ I said, irritably. All I really wanted to do at that moment was to withdraw into my own little world and be undisturbed for a while; ideally just lie on the bed and gaze up at the ceiling and meditate, without any need to think about, let alone make, decisions. Or I would have settled for sitting in the armchair reading the day’s newspaper. However, as Mary was now busily dusting again and would make some sarcastic remark or other if I did either of those things, I felt obliged to be active myself. (How did I come to be so compliant?) I took a spare duster out of the Pembroke table drawer and walked over to the bookshelves.

Once in front of the books, I felt more relaxed. I dusted the ledge in front of some books which dated back to my teenage years, noticing as I did so that the order they were in approximated to, but did not strictly follow, the progress of my interests as they had been at that time. I felt the need to make minor adjustments. Rearranging the position of books on my shelves has been a ploy I often resort to when not at ease with myself. Some people, in such a mood, make a cup of tea, or pour out a beer, open a box of chocolates, or switch on the television. I rearrange books on my bookshelves – a trivial task to which I can apply all my thoughts, to avoid thinking about matters of greater issue – yet can persuade myself that I am doing something practical and constructive.

The first book, and in its correct position, was Richmal Crompton’s William the Rebel. There are no books from my pre-teenage years, my childhood having been spent in a house in which books had no place, not even as mere complements to the furniture. Not for me a thorough grounding in the children’s classics. In later years, I have often envied those for whom it is entirely natural to quote from, say, The Wind in the Willows or Peter Pan in any relevant context. No, reading for me only began after I was given, luckily, a place at Carlesbeach Grammar School, at the age of eleven. Luckily? Well, yes, in that a week before the autumn term began, I was due to go to the secondary modern school, though first on the list for a place at the grammar school. Then a boy was killed in a bicycle accident.

Even after I started at the grammar school, an interest in literature was slow to develop. I responded without enthusiasm at first to the set books introduced by our English teacher. Teachers, I should say. Mr Copson, however, quickly disappeared, conscripted soon after the outbreak of hostilities in 1939. My class had hardly got to know him before we found ourselves in front of Miss Rawsberry – young, inexperienced, attractive. Far too attractive for a class of eleven-year-old boys to take seriously. I remember her as splendidly nubile, which took the minds of impressionable boys off Shakespeare and Dickens all too easily. The more precocious and daring of the boys would strive to engineer situations in which they could bring parts of their bodies into contact with hers, the ultimate being to rub a forearm against a breast. Even the most interesting of classics could not compete.

At the end of the first year, in the summer vacation, Alexander (the same Alexander who was due to arrive today as tutor to one of the courses), the closest friend of my early years, and also a student at the grammar school, introduced me to William books. It was particularly fine weather that August, much of which I spent reading some of the books he lent me, lying on our garage roof, my school satchel serving as a pillow. I remember wearing my long grey flannel trousers to protect my legs from the heat of the asphalted roof. Drowsy spells in the ambient atmosphere were involuntary intervals between bouts of intensive reading, during which I lived vicariously the exploits of my new hero in his battles with unimaginative adults – whose main aim in life seemed to be to thwart the creative boy’s ambitions.

How quiet, in memory, Shendon village seemed to be throughout those balmy days. The only disturbers of the peace I can recall (there must, of course, have been others) were clip-clops from hooves of milk-dray horses, the hum of bees raiding the garden border which ran alongside the garage and, occasionally, the drone of an aircraft high, high overhead (almost certainly a Heinkel returning to Germany from a bombing raid on the port across the estuary).

‘I don’t know why you don’t sell them as we’re so short of money,’ said Mary. That second part of the sentence scythed through the space between us. ‘And anyway, you never read any these days,’ she said.

I felt uneasy. I still think of myself as very much a reader of books, and yet I knew that her scornful remark was justified.

‘Only collecting dust if you ask me,’ she added.

I hesitated, tempted to point out that I hadn’t asked her.

‘Tell me what time I’ve had these past few months,’ I said.

‘I’m talking years,’ said Mary.

She was at that moment dusting a photograph of her late parents. With exaggerated care, I couldn’t help thinking.

‘It’s been the same for years,’ I said. The remark was apt but sounded merely vapid. I wondered whether to say what I really thought but knew that would strike at the roots of our relationship and held my tongue.

‘You seem very edgy,’ said Mary. ‘It couldn’t be anything to do with your two old friends coming?’ The sneering tone was intended but I didn’t take her on.

Footsteps from one side of the room to the other, behind me. Then there was a soft splush sound as she sat on the leather settee.

‘You promised to hoover our bedrooms before you went down,’ she said, a moment or two later. ‘Or are you too busy?’

In order not to appear as simply obedient, I took a book down from the teenage reading shelf and feigned a deep interest in it. The book contained a collection of short stories by Conan Doyle. I opened it at a page indicated by a bookmarker. It was the first page of The Naval Treaty. Holmes and Watson are travelling to London by train. As they approach the city, Holmes says, ‘Look at those big, isolated clumps of buildings rising up above the slates like brick islands in a lead-coloured sea.’ Watson is surprised. ‘The Board Schools,’ he interprets. ‘Lighthouses, my boy,’ enthuses Holmes, ‘beacons of the future! Capsules, with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the future.’

I tried to remember why I had found that story significant in my teens, then realised it was when rereading the story in my early twenties that I had marked the page.

After replacing the book on the shelf, I walked casually over to the cupboard in which the Hoover is kept. How I resented her sarcasm. Also, I was still annoyed with myself for having made that petty remark about being on the dole soon. I should not have allowed her persistence concerning the anniversary to make me say it. I took out the Hoover and irritably rammed the plug into a socket. Before switching on, I said, ‘Anyway, the Centre’s council will have to decide.’

Mary took a few seconds to fit the remark into its context. ‘They’ll do what you recommend,’ she said.

‘They didn’t do on the other matter two years ago,’ I snapped. Then I switched the Hoover on to forestall further comment, welcoming the shelter provided by the noise of the motor as it formed an aural cocoon around me.

I had the feeling that Mary had been leading up to something – something that had not yet been articulated between us. Every so often we seem to feel the need to probe each other’s defences, fencing for a superior position. I have to admit that she is more skilled than I am in such exchanges, and therefore I try to avoid being placed in a potentially vulnerable position in the first place.

Yesterday’s Carlesbeach Chronicle lay on the floor in the path of the Hoover. I began to circle around it, before assuming that Mary was watching me, no doubt ready to be sarcastic about my laziness. I picked the paper up, glancing at the headlines as I did so. Visitors sleep out on the beach was the main one. The article below it concerned the fact that the number of visitors staying in the resort over Easter had for the first time ever exceeded the bedroom accommodation available. We had both read it at breakfast time, but neither of us had commented. I wondered whether the something of great significance could be related to the article. I trailed the Hoover into Mary’s bedroom and glanced at the small clock on her bedside table. A part of me hoped it was time for me to leave the apartment and go down to await the first of the arrivals. Another part of me hoped it wasn’t as I didn’t really feel up to receiving them. The days when I felt a real enthusiasm for these occasions have long since gone. Anyway, it wasn’t time yet.

Next to the clock is a photograph of Mary and myself taken in the early days of our romance. Both of us are laughing, apparently very happy together. The photograph was taken in the garden at my parents’ house, the first time I took Mary along to meet them. Nothing had marred that first visit. Everyone on best behaviour, even my father. How attractive Mary looked in the photograph. But then, she always did when there was laughter in her eyes. Which there often used to be. Come to think of it, I looked quite presentable myself. Good crop of brown hair, neatly combed. Beardless, of course, in those days – I only grew one as our relationship deteriorated. If pressed, I would have to admit a connection. Mary had never liked it and frequently nagged at me to shave it off. Perhaps surprising that I didn’t. The truth is that I increasingly felt the need of it – as a sort of mask, I suppose – cravat casually tucked into a white open-necked shirt.

In my bedroom, I too have a nostalgic photograph. It is of my parents, in their mid sixties. Although they are sitting close together, the body language suggests they were persuaded by the photographer to adopt that position rather than it being natural. Their attitudes towards sitting for the photograph had, it was obvious, also differed. My father’s tie is askew, his hair tousled. My mother’s hair is carefully crafted. No doubt she had taken much care in being right for the studio photograph. A good-looking woman for her age. All the more sad that illness and senility have brought her to her present state.

Above the bedhead hangs a painting, the one Ben (who painted it) and his wife Linda had presented me with when I left their house to return to Carlesbeach. In the painting, their house in Hillchester can just be seen in the background, indistinctly realised due to a mantle of fog into which is disappearing a quixotic, but intentionally semi-evanescent face – recognisable as mine. Ben had painted a number of foggy pictures at the time – influenced by Gautier’s view that fog softened the barrenness and vulgarity of civilisation.

Had I really looked so affected in those days? I have to admit, though, that I was uncritically pleased with the painting at the time.

On my bedside table lay an envelope, postmarked Hillchester and a date only a couple of weeks ago. It contained Ben’s reply to a letter I had written to him after I had suddenly grown apprehensive at the prospect of what was to be his first visit to the Centre.

The year after I left his house, he had gone to Weimar to study German Romanticism, after which he became an eminent art historian, as well as an extramural tutor for the University of Hillchester. I knew this only from newspapers and radio as I had lost contact with him entirely. Then one day last summer, I had the urge to invite him to tutor a course here. I had had few expectations that he would accept but accept he did – though it was obvious from his acceptance letter (which was disappointingly formal and with only a passing reference to our one-time close friendship) that he knew nothing about my Centre. As the time for his visit approached, I decided that I had better prepare him for what to expect, as I feared his expectations would be too great. The present realities of life at my Centre bear no relation to the ideals he and I once shared nor, I’m quite sure, to the everyday milieu of his university work.

A copy of my letter lay alongside the envelope:

Dear Ben,

I was so pleased that you could find time to come and teach here. It is not often these days that we have a tutor so well known nationally.

What a long time it seems since our Hillchester days at your house. And yet sometimes it seems like only yesterday. How is Linda? And the children? It is a sad reflection on the way we’ve lost touch that I’m not even sure how many you have now. Three when I last saw you, just before you went off to Weimar. By the way, I have your painting Fog, House and Face hanging in my bedroom. I can see it from where I am writing. The two of you could not have given me a better leaving present. What good years they were.

However, enough of that. We can swap memories when you are here. My real reason for writing is to let you know what to expect, so that you may prepare accordingly. We do our best to provide stimulating courses, but the standard may not be quite that of your university extramural work. In any case, you will be aware of the limited resources centres such as this can call on these days.

We had such hopes in the Hillchester days, didn’t we? When my grandfather left this fine building to me, together with permission to convert it into a centre for art and adult education, I thought providence had indeed decreed that I should be able to translate all those ideals you and I had into practice. Especially as he had also left me enough money for finance not to be a problem, at least for three or four years. As you may remember from our conversations of long ago, he had spent most of his life making a fortune out of visitors to Carlesbeach. But unknown to any of the family, it turned out that he too had had an idealistic streak. Apparently he had been much taken with the idea of the People’s Palace which was opened in London – Bethnal Green, as I’m sure you know – in the 1880s. He had read about it first in Sir Walter Besant’s All Sorts and Conditions of Men and had then developed a great desire to achieve something similar in Carlesbeach. Can you imagine! Anyway, the problems of financing a purpose-built building on such a grand scale seemed to have caused him to hesitate. In fact, he hesitated so long that failing health led to abandonment of the idea. However, he must have been impressed by some of the things I said to him in discussions we had when I was in my teens and early twenties, for him to feel that he could trust me to carry out something akin to his project. The rest, as they say, is history. Admittedly, the concept underlying my Centre has been slightly different, but he would have approved. Of the intention and the first years, anyway.

Do you remember, as clearly as I do, those sun-burning days when we walked along the towpath of the river or lazed on the hillside overlooking it? Or discussions we had night after night in your studio into the early hours? Well lubricated, of course. Charlie Parker or Dizzie Gillespie or, depending on the mood, Chopin or Schubert providing background music. What a lot we had to say about literature and painting and… and the need to transform the world! Some of those ideas formed the basis of what I tried to do here. I hasten to add that my attitude towards other people had matured considerably by then. In the Hillchester days, I had seen you and I as part of an elite able to appreciate things, especially those concerned with the arts, ordinary people couldn’t. What arrogance! I know that you did not altogether share that conceit; and indeed, it was your censuring voice at the back of my mind which eventually led me to change. By the time I opened this Centre, I had come to accept the opposite view – that everyone had the potential for artistic appreciation and, even more importantly, artistic expression too. All that is needed is a sympathetic environment and enthusiastic tutors for potential to blossom. This was the Centre’s raison d’être, and for the first years, the Centre prospered accordingly.

I owed so much to the spirit of my grandfather. Do you remember how I once talked about the phase of my churchgoing days dominated by a vision of God being just above the clouds and watching my every movement, knowing my every thought? Well, during the early years of the Centre, the ghost of my grandfather seemed to fill a similar role. He had penetrating eyes when alive, and those of his spirit seemed to follow me everywhere around the Centre. At least it served the purpose of keeping me resolute, despite increasing difficulties. I’m sure I don’t need to spell it out to you (after all, you have also lived in Carlesbeach) that the odds against my being successful in this resort were considerable. From the beginning almost, there was hostility or indifference in equal measure. Always one or the other.

After a few years, my grandfather’s presence began to wane, and whether coincidence or not, the Centre entered a new phase in which the relationship with Carlesbeach deteriorated even further. Also, Grandfather’s legacy ran out. Financial problems increasingly loomed large. Eventually – two or three years ago – I had to agree compromises, closure being the only alternative. We were bailed out by the town council, but in return had to accept a number of damaging conditions. In particular, we were forced into concentrating on appreciation courses rather than practical, creative workshops. Not only that, but on more popular courses. And with realistic fees. The new policy had to aim at attracting older, more respectable, middle-brow, middle-class people. Not the arty-farty good-for-nothings (in the words of some council members) previously the norm.

But don’t let all of this put you off. Or perhaps these days you approve? In any case, we still have an arts programme of sorts, covering selected aspects of literature, the visual arts, history. Your course will be a major contribution. It was quite widely advertised, within a tight budget, and thirteen people enrolled for it. Not many, I know, but they promise to be a more or less interesting mix of people. From different parts of the country. Varied backgrounds.

Do you remember my referring to Alexander, the friend of my childhood years? Of course, come to think of it, you did meet him once. On the train from Hillchester one Sunday evening. Yes? Well, he’s also a distinguished academic these days, a local historian. Anyway, by coincidence, he will be teaching here at the same time as yourself.

Mary looks forward to meeting you. It seems unbelievable given the closeness of our friendship at one time that you and she haven’t yet met.

Looking forward to the fifth of April. Give Linda my love.

Very best wishes,

Robert.

I replaced the letter on the bedside table and regretted the tone of the sentiments expressed. Why had I been so demeaning towards myself? Whatever our relationship now turns out to be, I must guard against adopting such an obsequious attitude during his visit. Not to mention Alexander’s. Of course, their achievements have been greater than mine: there is no denying that. Nor harm in acknowledging it. Just to myself, that is. But I mustn’t let it show. And after all, I had had to confront far greater obstacles than they could have met. It was not as if my comparative lack of success could be put down to personal failings. Well, not all of it.

Ben’s reply had been just a bit too businesslike but had sounded genuine enough about looking forward to coming. I had more or less convinced myself that everything was going to be all right. On the table, there is another photograph – of me, taken by Ben. Behind my head, a river runs, like a faded ribbon, away into the distance. For most of that afternoon at Hillchester, Ben and I had been sunbathing on the hill which overlooks the river. Periods of simply luxuriating in the comforting warmth of a July sun, interspersed with discussions of contemporary affairs – putting the world to rights, as Grandma Lovell used to say. But my conscience that afternoon had been anything but easy. I had given up my job for the whole of that summer in order to make a determined effort to make real progress on a novel. My first one. Not laze in the sun. But the writing had not been going well. What was it I had been trying to write? A sort of present-day Brave New World. More than a little pretentious. I hoped Ben wouldn’t remember it.

If only I felt better, though, about the Centre and its future, it really would be a pleasure to see Ben again, I told myself.

I switched the Hoover back on. As I passed the window, I noticed the glass was almost clear. Peering skywards through it, I could see that the bright patch I had noticed from the lounge window was closer and larger. When I moved back into the lounge, I saw that Mary was still in the armchair reading the morning paper. It was not something she normally did. I guessed that she was anxious to seem well informed at the lunch table.

‘It’s time I was going down,’ I said.

Silence.

‘One or two are sure to arrive early.’

Mary looked up but remained silent. I glanced out of the window.

‘It seems to have stopped raining.’ I felt the need to say something. Anything. Anything perhaps to distract Mary from mentioning the anniversary again.

The view of the town was much less gloomy than it had been half an hour earlier. Most of the cars along the Promenade had their lights switched off. Sea spray still cascaded onto the foreshore but no longer violently. Prisons and fortresses had been transformed into shopping emporiums, hotels, restaurants, amusement arcades.

‘At least that’s some consolation,’ I said, now irritated by her silence. ‘It’s miserable enough driving through Carlesbeach on a good day.’

‘I’m sure they won’t see it that way.’

‘You mean they won’t notice the litter, the graffiti, the torn billboards, the…’

‘Mostly in your imagination.’

‘And that’s before you get to the promenade.’

‘And see people actually enjoying themselves.’

I had been about to add the drunken louts, the gangs of youths up to no good at street corners, but Mary was bound to have the last word, as she always does, so I kept quiet.

Once in the bedroom, with the door closed behind me, I relaxed a little. I switched the radio on. A plummy voice was saying, ‘For those who can profit by education develop, as a rule – some in childhood, some in adolescence – an intense desire to be educated. When a desire is intense enough, it generally gets fulfilled.’

I recognised the words of an Aldous Huxley essay. Huxley had been an interest of mine during the time at Ben’s house. A piece of sombre, thought-inducing music took over from the voice. I sat on the edge of my bed and prepared to do some neck exercises through which I ward off headaches, which at one time were the bane of my life.

The voice on the radio took over from the music. ‘When finally the many were given the education which, when it was confined to the few, had seemed so precious, so magically efficacious, they found out very quickly that the gift was not worth quite as much as they had supposed – that in fact there was nothing in it. And indeed, for the great majority of men and women, there obviously is (the voice stressed the words) nothing in it – nothing in culture. Nothing at all – neither spiritual satisfaction nor social rewards.’ Music took over once again.

After completing the neck exercises, I changed into pressed trousers and smart striped shirt. I then opened the left-hand side of my wardrobe, to be faced with a rack full of ties – all those I had ever owned. Bold, cheerful ties, hippy-style ties, ties which, at the time, I’d hoped that the wearer was seen to be a bit on the intellectual or artistic side, ties that were paisley-patterned, ties in oriental silk, ties knitted from Lakeland wool.

It was not that I had ever been much interested in fashion. No, most of the ties had been given to me as Christmas or birthday presents. Once, in my early twenties, I had made a chance remark to an aunt that I was a little short of ties – a remark which circulated around the family and was remembered every year by at least two or three relatives.

The radio voice resumed. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the quack earnestly begins. The people listen rather apathetically, they have heard this sort of thing before. But the benefactor of humanity hands out yet another bottle of the concoction, they accept it, they take another dose, and hopefully wait for the effects. There are, as usual, no effects. Somebody starts to laugh. There’s nothing in it, says a rather vulgar voice. Indignantly, the benefactor of humanity produces authentic testimonials from John Stuart Mill, Francis Bacon and St Thomas Aquinas. In vain. The crowd doesn’t believe in them. Why should it? It has had personal experience of the inefficacity of the elixir. There’s nothing in it reflects the vulgar and resentful voice.’

I chose a subdued tie in Herdwick wool and after putting it on, glanced in the mirror to check that I looked at least presentable. My hair wasn’t. I looked around for a comb.

‘A man who no has interest in the things of the mind,’ the voice on the radio went on, ‘will be bored to death if he has to sit quietly in a room – lacking thoughts with which to distract himself, he must acquire things to take their place, incapable of mental travel, he must move about in the body. In a word, he is the ideal consumer, the mass consumer of objects and of transport. Now, it is obviously in the interests of industrial producers to encourage the good consumer and to discourage the bad. This they do by means of advertisement and of that enormous newspaper propaganda which always gratefully follows advertisement.’

Was it really thirty years ago since I was reading out those words to Ben, one night in his studio, over a bottle of Chianti?

‘Happiness is a product of noise, company, motion and the possession of objects. The more noise you listen to, the more people you have around you, the faster you move and the more objects you possess, the happier you will be – happier and also the more normal and the more virtuous.’

As music took over from the voice again, I became aware of the coldness of the metal comb as it passed across the thinning strands of hair on my crown. I turned the radio off and went into the lounge.

‘Right, I’m going downstairs,’ I said.

Mary carried on reading but gave a sneaky sort of glance in my direction, no doubt weighing up my attire. She often glances at people in that furtive manner. It annoys me.

‘What time are you going down?’ I asked.

‘About half eleven.’

‘Isn’t that cutting it a bit fine?’

‘I didn’t tell you what time to go.’

‘All right, all right. I only thought…’

‘I might as well enjoy the benefits of having had a settled competent staff for a while.’

‘Don’t get used to it,’ I said. ‘Unsettled times ahead and all that sort of thing.’

‘They don’t have to be,’ she snapped.

I went round the back of her chair to get to the door. I wasn’t going to get involved in an acrimonious discussion.

Just then the phone rang. It was Alexander.

‘Oh Alexander… no real problem, I hope… oh, I see… right… right… but you expect to make it for lunch… good… good… look forward to seeing you. Bye for now.’

‘Alexander,’ I said, unnecessarily. ‘He’s had to take his wife to the station. Lilibet has a very important meeting with her publisher chappie in Camford, don’t you know.’ I aimed at an approximation of Alexander’s affected (to my way of thinking) tone of voice. ‘He will be a little late but will do us the honour of arriving in time for lunch.’

‘Good.’

‘I do hope he’s not going to be really pompous.’

‘Don’t make your envy so obvious.’

I ignored the remark. ‘See you downstairs then,’ I said, kissing her fleetingly on the cheek out of habit and walking quickly to the door.

Chapter Two

The landing is not very well lit. By intention. In the gloom, threadbare patches in the carpet are less obvious, as is the need for redecoration of the walls.

I began to descend the stairs two at a time but almost immediately thought better of it. Taking them one at a time, I tried to give the impression the change was intentional, as if my movements were being observed. Which was unlikely as only the cleaners might have been in this part of the building, but they would have left at least an hour earlier.

Even at the more leisurely pace, I was a little breathless when I reached the bottom of the second flight of stairs. My lack of fitness is increasingly a cause for concern to me.

Once on the ground floor, I turned left and entered the hall, where a portrait of my grandfather has hung for nearly thirty years, ever since it was presented to him on his ninetieth birthday. Those piercing eyes, glaring at you wherever in the hall you are! Did I only imagine a slight frown on those craggy features this morning? Involuntarily, I quickened my steps past the portrait and then past the door of the kitchen, from within which came the clatter of crockery and clanking of pans. And the chatter of kitchen staff.

When I entered the reception office, I was relieved to see that Connie was there. She was rummaging through some documents in the top drawer of the filing cabinet.

‘Oh, Mr Ormondson, you’d never believe the trouble I had getting here.’ Connie lives on the other side of Carlesbeach. I waited for her to elaborate, thankful that whatever the difficulties, she had made it, and in good time. With Connie in the office, I feel little can go wrong.

‘Lots of coaches comin’ in. Lit’rally hundreds, I reckon. And of course, there just had to be an accident, didn’t there. Quite a serious one ’parently. Still amb’lances and police cars comin’ and goin’. It was bedlam. At the Stellard Roundabout, that was. All the roads around were blocked, believe you me.’ She gestured vigorously as she spoke, her hand movements suggesting execution rather than blockage. ‘How there aren’t more accidents at that roundabout I don’t know. And the fumes from exhausts. Ugh!’ She held her nose between thumb and forefinger for a few moments, grimacing at the same time. Then she went silent for a minute, having found the registers she was looking for.

‘Lucky we left early.’ Her husband brings her.

‘Yes, thank goodness you did.’ I hoped she might have exaggerated a little, as she tends to do. Too many students being held up, with the result that many arrived at about the same time as each other, could easily cause major problems for us.

‘You’d think the weather would put a lot of people off,’ I said.

‘Doesn’t have any effect. So many things to do indoors. Never a dull moment in Carlesbeach, the bigwigs claim.’ She was checking the details on the front covers of the two registers. ‘Anyway,’ she said, without looking up, ‘it’s good for business.’

Good for making a lot of noise and foul odours and ripping people off, I thought.

I looked out of the window and noted that the leaves of some nearby laurels were moist and glistening. It was still dreary-looking out there. What possesses people, I couldn’t help wondering, to squash into coaches and cars, knowing that they will inevitably be held up by roadworks, the queue at the slip road off the motorway, the search for parking spaces after contending with major congestion all around the central area of the town, in order to spend, as likely as not, a wet afternoon on the beach?

At least a few of the cars would be heading for the Centre. Thank goodness it had stopped raining for the time being. All those dirty, wet shoes and dripping umbrellas. And I would have to fit on a smile and try to be the cheerful host.

‘Never mind, the forecast is good for later,’ I imagined myself saying.

‘Later today or later in the week?’ some would-be wit would ask, grinning inanely at his little quip.

‘Many a true word is spoken in jest,’ another would say, before adding, ‘Never mind; the gardens need it.’

Connie’s voice interrupted my thoughts. ‘Mrs Tomlinson rang. Remember her?’

I was unable to interpret the accompanying gesture.

‘Left her hot water bottle on her last visit. And that was July!’ Connie wiped imaginary sweat from off her brow.

‘What did she phone for?’ I asked.

‘To remind us she was vegan. As if we could forget. She had to have special fiddly little dishes every meal. How your wife coped with her I don’t know. Mrs Ormondson’s an angel. What a lucky man you are.’

I picked up one of the two registers and scanned the front cover. The Transformation of Carlesbeach in the Middle Years of the Nineteenth Century. A three-week-long residential course. Tutor: Dr Alexander Linkston.

Nobody called him Alex. One day, he will be Sir Alexander Linkston. Not surprisingly, he had wanted to do a panoramic history of the resort from the time when it had a monastery to the present day. Initially, with the subtitle From poor monks to pure money-making, would you believe? But I had persuaded him to narrow the focus to one period.

‘I’ve put Dr Linkston in the Ainsworth Room,’ said Connie. ‘The one with the posh mirror.’ She appeared to imitate a lady of high fashion brushing her hair in front of a mirror. Then she laughed at herself.

The bedrooms are named after former Carlesbeach dignitaries. It hadn’t been my idea. In fact, I had strongly opposed it. It was one of the concessions I had had to agree to, two years or so ago, to placate Sir Austin Beckett, the then chairman of the Centre’s finance committee.

Herbert Ainsworth had been a builder and property speculator, later an influential member of the town council. In the early 1880s, he was at the centre of one of the most notable controversies of the later transformation period, when he was responsible for the demolition of Carlesbeach’s one remaining Georgian hotel which, according to contemporary accounts, was still in excellent condition at the time. On its site, he built the resort’s largest amusement arcade.

‘That’s fine,’ I said, aware of a certain irony in the allocation. Then I picked up the other register. Art in Carlesbeach?’Tutor: Dr Ben Ross.

‘Will your wife be lunching with the tutors and students, Mr Ormondson?’ Connie asked.

‘She will, yes.’ I almost added unfortunately. I had hoped that Mary would feel that the importance of the occasion would necessitate her presence in the kitchen throughout the lunchtime period, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She had had a simple logic. ‘There will be four tables, right?’

‘Yes, I guess so.’

‘One headed by Dr Linkston. One by Dr Ross. One by yourself. It is natural that I as your wife and domestic bursar should head the fourth.’ I hadn’t been able to think of any objection. My fear had been that Mary would get over-effusive in either enthusiasm for, or dislike of, something or other, in any discussion. On such occasions, she tends to become, to my way of thinking, positively illogical. Discussion of our last visit to Hillchester, in particular to the Central Gallery of Art, might easily trigger off a typically irrational outburst, given Mary’s antipathy towards the Hill Group artists whose works are well represented there. The Hill Group were among those strongly opposed to the transformation of Carlesbeach and as they were an important group of artists will certainly be discussed on both the courses. It would be unfortunate if the students’ opinions were influenced even before the teaching started, but Mary was unlikely to be inhibited by such a consideration.

I stood at the window, looking out but seeing nothing. Mary would present that weekend’s visit to Hillchester as a wholly enjoyable experience. Robert and I did this, that and so many other things. That was her way in public. And much to her credit, no doubt. But all I could remember was that we had argued incessantly. At least on the Saturday. Mary had wanted to take advantage of the comparatively rare visit to Hillchester to shop in the Shambles there. I had wanted to browse around bookshops, in particular to look for a copy of Saki’s short stories containing The Mappined Life in which the author likens the life of suburban man to that of the animals on the Mappin Terrace at