As it happened, the fateful invitation to Portugal came right out of the blue. One day the telephone rang in my parents’ flat – where I was, on the principle of Hobson’s choice, still living – and when I picked it up a familiar voice asked for me by name. ‘Speaking,’ I said.
‘That was easy. I thought I was going to have to track you down through ten addresses. It’s Candida. Candida Finch.’
‘Hello.’ I could not keep the surprise out of my voice entirely, since we had never been all that friendly.
‘I know. Why am I ringing? Well, it’s an invitation, really. Is there any chance I could tempt you to join a gang of us in Estoril for a couple of weeks at the end of July? An old friend of mine has got a job in Lisbon, in some bank or other, and they’ve given him this huge villa and no one to put in it. He says if we can all just get ourselves out there, we can stay as long as we like for nothing. So I thought it might be fun to mount a sort of reunion of the Class of Sixty-eight, before we’ve all forgotten what we look like. What do you say?’ My surprise was not lessened by any of this, as I wasn’t aware that I’d ever been a favourite of hers while the Season was going on, let alone why I should be chosen for a special reunion.
I had not seen Candida Finch much after the whole thing came to an end and by the time of the call almost two years had passed since the events I have been revisiting. It was in the early summer of 1970, when my days as a dancing partner were long behind me. I had left Cambridge that June, with a perfectly respectable if not overwhelming degree, and the perilous career of a writer beckoned. Or at least it did not beckon, because I soon realised that I was trying to push through a solid, brick wall. My father was not hostile to my plan, once he had got over his disappointment that I wasn’t going to do anything sensible, but he declined to support me economically. ‘If it isn’t going to work, old boy,’ he said genially, ‘we’d better find out sooner rather than later,’ which was, of course, in its way, a direct challenge. Eventually I got a job as a kind of super office boy in a publishing group for children’s magazines, which would begin in the following September and for which I would be paid a handsome stipend that would have comfortably maintained a Yorkshire terrier. I did go on to do the job, for three years in fact, finally clambering up to some sort of junior editing post, and somehow I managed to make ends meet. My mother used to cheat, as mothers will; she would slip me notes and pay for clothes and pick up my bills for petrol and car repairs, but even she would not actually give me a regular allowance, as she would have felt disloyal to my father. Let us say that during this period of my time on earth I lived, I survived, but it was essentially a life without frills or extras. All of which harsh reality I knew would be my fate at the end of that summer and it made Candida’s suggestion seem rather inviting.
‘That’s incredibly kind of you. Who else is coming?’ Of course, I knew as I said this that I had to accept, because you can’t ask who is coming to some event and then refuse. Inevitably it sounds as if you might have accepted if the guest list had been of a higher standard.
Candida knew this. ‘I think we’ll have fun. We’ve got Dagmar and Lucy and the Tremayne brothers.’ I wasn’t mad about the Tremaynes, but I didn’t actually hate them, and I was actively fond of the other two, so the idea was growing on me. I knew there wasn’t the smallest chance I would otherwise have a proper holiday that year before I started what I liked to call my ‘career.’ ‘I’ve found a charter airline where they almost pay you, so the tickets will cost about sixpence. Can I definitely include you in?’
I am ashamed to say this settled it. I was confident I could get my dear mama to sub a cheap ticket, so all I would need was pocket money and a couple of clean shirts, and I would have ten days of luxury in the sun. I was pleased by the idea of seeing Lucy and Dagmar, and even Candida too, for that matter, all of whom I had not caught up with for a long while. ‘Yes. I’m in,’ I said.
‘Good. I’ll make the reservations and send you the bumph. There is one thing…’ She tailed off for a brief pause, as if choosing her words, and then continued, ‘We’re a bit short of men. The trouble is so many of them have already started working and it’s hard for them to get away at short notice. I have been slightly scraping the barrel.’
‘As witness the inclusion of the Tremaynes.’
‘Don’t be unkind. George is all right.’ This made me wonder briefly if Lord George was planning to take advantage of Candida in some way, but I couldn’t think how.
‘But if I come, won’t we be three of each?’
Obviously, she hadn’t done her maths and this momentarily threw her. ‘Yes. I suppose we will…’ She hesitated. I could almost hear her sucking her teeth.
I decided to help. ‘But you’d rather have extra in case someone drops out.’
‘That’s it. I hate it when the men are outnumbered.’
‘What about Sam Hoare?’
‘Working.’
‘Philip Rawnsley-Price?’
‘Ugh.’ She laughed and began again. ‘The fact is I was wondering if you might ask, you know, what’s his name, Damian Baxter. Your pal from Cambridge who used to come to all the dances.’ The studied casualness of this request told me it had been a long-term part of the scheme. I didn’t answer at once and she came in again. ‘Of course, if it’s a nuisance-’
‘No, no.’ I had, after all, nothing specific against Damian then. He had been more successful than I with Serena and I resented it. But that was all I knew at the time. The worst I could have accused him of was enjoying a flirtation with her. More to the point, neither of us had got her in the end. To our, I assume, joint horror she had married Andrew Summersby in April of the previous year and in the following March, three months before this conversation, she had given birth to a daughter. In other words she had moved far, far away from us by now. ‘All right, I’ll try,’ I said.
‘You don’t think he’ll want to.’
‘I don’t know. He dropped out of the Season so completely that there might be a principle involved.’
‘You haven’t discussed it?’
‘We haven’t discussed anything. I hardly saw him after your dance.’
‘But you didn’t quarrel?’
‘Oh, no. We just didn’t see each other.’
‘Well, you haven’t seen me either and we haven’t quarrelled.’
I didn’t know why I was putting up such resistance. ‘All right. You’re on. I’ll give it a go. I’m not sure if the numbers I’ve got still work for him but I’ll do my best.’
‘Excellent. Thanks.’ She seemed a little brighter. ‘OK. Let me know what he says and we will take steps accordingly.’
Things were more complicated in the years before mobiles. Whenever anyone moved you’d lost them, although one hoped only temporarily. Nor did we have answering machines, so if people were out they were out. Then again, we managed. However, when I looked in my old address book I found I still had Damian’s parents’ number and they were quite happy to provide me with the new number for his flat in London, which he’d apparently just moved into. ‘I’m very impressed,’ I said. And I was, actually.
‘So are we,’ I could hear that his mother was smiling as she spoke. ‘He’s on his way, is our Damian.’
I repeated this to Damian when I dialled the number and he picked up. ‘I’m sharing a rented flat at the wrong end of Vauxhall, even supposing there’s a right end. I am still some way from Businessman of the Year.’
‘It all sounds quite advanced to me. Have you found a job already?’
‘I fixed it before I left Cambridge.’ He mentioned some dizzying, American bank. ‘They were recruiting and… they recruited me.’ I was suitably awestruck. One thing I have learned in life: Those who get to the top tend to start at the top. ‘I begin at the end of August,’ he said.
‘So do I, but I suspect in less style.’ I explained about my lowly job as whipping boy in the magazine offices. We fell silent. I suspect that for both of us the exchange had only served to underline the extent to which we had lost touch while still at university. Damian had not only dropped out of the Season, but also out of my life, and I don’t believe I had fully appreciated it before that moment.
I explained the reason for my call. ‘I don’t know.’ He didn’t sound keen.
‘I told Candida I thought you might have had enough of us.’
‘I always liked Candida.’ I was quite surprised by this. I never took notice of their friendship at the time, but then, how much had I noticed? Although I couldn’t help feeling that if Candida had known how she was remembered she would have rung him directly and not bothered with me. He spoke again. ‘OK. Why not? After paying my deposit here and buying the clothes I need to work in I haven’t a penny left, so there’s no chance of any other holiday this year.’
‘My position entirely.’ I was a little surprised by his acceptance, maybe, but on the whole pleased. It seemed to offer an opportunity to take us past the slightly odd end to our friendship and to give us the chance to go our separate ways after the summer more peacefully.
‘Did you go to the wedding?’ he said.
I’d wondered how long it would take him to ask. ‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘I know.’
‘I was asked.’ He needed me to hear that his absence had been his choice, not hers. ‘Have you seen the baby?’
‘Once. She’s the image of Andrew.’
‘Lucky girl.’ He snorted derisively, trying to make a joke out of the sorrow we shared but did not admit. ‘Right. Send me the arrangements when you’ve got them and I will see you in the sun.’ The conversation was over.
The villa, when we arrived, was on the coast, wedged between Estoril and Cascais. I dare say it is much more built up now but then, thirty-eight years ago, there were only rocks below its terrace, leading directly to a wide and glorious, sandy beach and, beyond it, the sea. It couldn’t really have been better. The house was built, along with two or three others stretching along the coast in those pre-planning days, during the 1950s and it consisted of a large, main room – one cannot call it a drawing room, full as it was of rattan furniture and the like – as well as a dining room/hall, which took up the whole of the entrance front, with a mass of kitchens behind. These we hardly penetrated, since they were full of busy, Portuguese women who always looked cross whenever we went in. The bedrooms were arranged on two floors, ground and first, in a long wing that stretched away from behind the main block at a right angle. Each room had its own bathroom and high French windows opening, upstairs on to a balcony with an outside staircase leading down, and on the ground floor directly on to a wide, balustraded terrace overlooking the sea.
Our host was a genial fellow, John Dalrymple, something of an egghead who would later play a role in Mrs Thatcher’s government, but I never knew what, exactly. Given his straightness, his girlfriend was a little unlikely, a neurotic, American blonde with snuffles, complaining constantly of a sore throat. Her name was Alicky, which I assume was a shortening of Alexandra, although that was not confirmed. I remember her better than I might have, because she was the first person I knew to be in a permanent state about the poisons being put into our food by the government and how the whole world was about to implode. At the time we thought her a five-star whacko, but looking back, I suppose in a way she was ahead of her time. It was she who had decided that for reasons of security, although few people thought like that in those days, the girls would sleep upstairs and the boys down below, giving us the advantage of the French windows that opened on to the terrace and the wonderful view of the sea. My bedroom, at the far end of the wing, had that familiar, clean, sea-smelling feeling, with the pale tiled floor, the wicker furniture, the white covers and curtains, that always tells you this is a summer place. I sometimes wonder why attempts to reproduce this room back in England are invariably a failure. Probably because it does not work in the northern light.
I had flown in on the same ’plane as Candida, Dagmar and Lucy, but in the event, Damian had not travelled with us. He was already there and in his room, changing, when we arrived so we all set off to do the same. The Tremaynes had been staying in Paris and had driven across Spain in order to continue their holiday for nothing. They too were recovering in private, which meant that it was not until we all gathered on the terrace an hour or two later, the girls in their splendid, summer colours, me in my underwhelming, Englishman’s ‘summer casual wear,’ which always makes us look as if we’re aching to get back into a suit (which most of us are), that the party finally assembled, and it was a very nice way to begin. John had arranged for us all to be given glasses of champagne, while he explained the plan for the first evening, which was for the whole party to jump into cars and head for the Moorish ruins at Cintra, a little way along the coast, and have a picnic dinner there. It seemed a very appropriate, opening adventure.
Cintra is a magical place, or it was then. I have not seen it since. At some point in the nineteenth century a presumably unbalanced Bragança king had built a huge, turreted castle on the hilltop, more suited to Count Dracula than a constitutional monarchy, while a little way beyond, making the place even more special and strange and complementing the Disneyesque splendours of the Royal palace, there was a long extended ruin of a fortified, Moorish stronghold, running from hill to hill, which had been abandoned by the retreating hordes during the Middle Ages. On that summer night this pair of monuments to two forgotten empires made richly cinematic outlines against the sky, as the sun sank in the west.
What I had gathered since our arrival was that John Dalrymple was very bored in his posting, though whether this was the bank’s fault or, more probably, because of his choice of romantic companion I could not say. Either way, he was only too delighted to have some people to entertain. He and Candida seemed to go back quite far, though as friends not lovers, and it was clear from this, our first ‘moment’ of the stay, that nothing was too much trouble. A table had been set up beneath the castle walls among some trees – Olives, perhaps? I picture them in my mind as twisted and scraggy, seemingly clinging to life in the dusty soil. Candle lanterns had been hung among the rather threadbare branches, and rugs and cushions strewn about, making the whole thing into the feast of some Arab emperor. We took our drinks and walked about among the outskirts of the ruins, where stray blocks and lumps of stone had rolled over the centuries. The Tremaynes were there, a little improved, I thought, from when I’d known them, poised as they were on the brink of City careers that had been conjured up out of nothing by some friends of their papa, and they were hovering attentively round Dagmar. Lucy was talking to Alicky and John.
A little way away, Damian walked arm in arm with Candida. When I glanced across at them, with a sinking heart I could see a trace of her terrifying, Gorgon-like, flirtatious manner beginning to surface. He made some no doubt blameless remark, which was greeted by her roar of a laugh, which made everyone look up to see her eyes rolling in her head in what I suspect she thought a beguiling and intriguing way. As usual, when it came to matters of this kind, her taste let her down. Damian began to give telltale glances to anyone who’d pick them up, seeking an escape route. Even so, it seemed very peaceful, as if we were all in the right place at the right time. Which would prove quite ironic before we were finished. At that moment a bell was rung, announcing that we were to help ourselves to the first course, so we drifted up to the table, and, laden with plates, glasses and all the rest of the paraphernalia, we found our way over to the cushions. Lucy plonked down next to me. ‘What are you up to now?’ I asked. I hadn’t heard much about many of the girls and nothing at all of her.
She made a slight mouth movement as she paused in her eating. ‘I’m helping a friend with a gallery in Fulham.’
‘What does it show?’
‘Oh, you know. Stuff.’ I wasn’t convinced this was the language of complete commitment. ‘Our next thing is to launch some Polish guy, whose pictures look to me as if he’d stuck a canvas at the end of a garage and thrown tins of paint at it, but Corinne says it’s more complicated than that and they’re all to do with his anger against Communism.’ Lucy shrugged lightly. I noticed her clothes were more hippie’ish than when I saw her last, with an Indian shirt under a worn, embroidered waistcoat and different layers of shawls or stoles or something, leaking out over her jeans, until it was quite hard to know whether she was wearing trousers or a skirt. Both, I suppose. ‘What about you?’ I explained the dismal job awaiting me. ‘I do think you’re lucky. Knowing what you want to do.’
‘I’m not sure my father would agree with you.’
‘No, I mean it. I wish I knew what I want to do. I thought I might travel for a bit, but I don’t know.’ She stretched and yawned. ‘Everything’s such a palaver.’
‘It depends what you want from life generally.’
‘That’s the thing. I’m not sure. Not some boring husband going in and out of the city, while I give dinners and drive to the country on Friday morning to open up the house.’ She spoke, as people do when they make this sort of statement, as if her low opinion of the life she outlined was an absolute donnè among right-thinking people, when the reality is that for women like Lucy to live a very different life from the one she had described is hard. They may do a hippie version of it, with bunches of herbs hanging down from the kitchen ceiling and unmade beds and artist friends turning up unannounced for the weekend, but the difference between this and the arrangements of their more formal sisters, who meet their guests off preordained trains, and make them dress for dinner and come to church, is pretty minimal when you get down to it. Apart from anything else, the guests of both types of parties are almost always closely related by blood. But Lucy hadn’t finished. ‘I just want to do something different, to live somehow differently and never to stop living differently. I suppose I’m a follower of Chairman Mao. I want to live in a state of permanent revolution.’
‘That’s not for me.’ We had been joined by Dagmar, who settled down on a nearby, paisley cushion and dragged a rug over her knees, before she got down to her food. The night was beginning to hint that it would not stay warm forever. ‘In fact, I don’t agree with Lucy’s definition of the fate to be avoided above all others. I wouldn’t mind going to the country to open up the house on Friday. But I want to do something in the world myself, as well. Something useful. I don’t just want to be a wife, I want to be a person.’ In this one may gauge that the 1960s philosophies had begun to get into their rhythm in the last years of the decade and that they had done their work on the princess from the Balkans. She’d caught the classic disease of the era, that of needing permanently to occupy the moral high ground. As a philosophy it could be exhausting, and it would be for most of us, when every soap star and newsreader would have to prove that all they cared about was the good of others, but here, on that Portuguese night, I didn’t see much harm in it.
‘What?’ I said with fake astonishment. ‘A princess of the House of Ludinghausen-Anhalt-Zerbst with a proper job?’
She sighed. ‘That’s the point. My mother doesn’t want me to work, but I’ve started doing things for various charities, which even she can’t object to, and I’m hoping to build from there. And when Mr Right comes along, always assuming that he does, I know he won’t fight my having an identity of my own because I won’t marry him if he does. I don’t want to be a silent wife.’ She had been a pretty silent debutante, so I was quite touched listening to her. ‘I want to feel… well, I’ll say it again: Useful.’ Then I noticed, to my amazement, that as she was outlining this scenario of modern certainties her eyes were following Damian. I saw that he had managed to unload Candida on to our hosts, John and Alicky, where she was trapped by her own good manners, while he helped himself to some more food at the table under the trees. He finished heaping his plate and turned, surveying the company, and at that moment both Dagmar and Lucy raised their hands and waved. He saw us and came over, making our group into a foursome.
‘We’re discussing our futures,’ I said. ‘Lucy wants to be a wild child and Dagmar a missionary. What about you?’
‘I just want my life to be perfect,’ he replied with complete sincerity.
‘And what would make it perfect?’ asked Dagmar, timidly.
Damian thought for a minute. ‘Well. Let me see. First, money. So I mean to make plenty of that.’
‘Very good.’ This was a chorus from all of us and we meant it.
‘Then a perfect woman, who loves me as I love her, and together we will make a perfect child, and we will live in high state and be the envy of everyone who sets eyes on us.’
‘You don’t want much,’ I said.
‘I want what is due to me.’ I remember this sentence quite distinctly because, while there are many people who say such things in jest, there are very few who seem really to believe them. In this case time would bear out his pretensions.
‘What constitutes a perfect woman?’ This again from Dagmar.
Damian thought. ‘Beauty and brains, of course.’
‘And birth?’ I was surprised to hear Lucy ask that.
He considered this. ‘Birth, inasmuch as she will have style and grace and sophistication and knowledge of the world. But she will not be hemmed in by her birth. She will not be oppressed by it. She will not allow her parents or her dead ancestors to dictate what she says or does. She will be free and, if necessary, she will break with every human being she has ever loved before me and cleave to my side.’
‘I never know what “cleave” means in that context,’ I mused. But nobody was interested in my query.
The two girls, both of whom I could now see were vying for the vacant position in Damian’s mind, at least as far as this conversation went, pondered his words. ‘She certainly should, if she’s got anything to her,’ said Lucy, which gave her an immediate advantage.
‘It’s hard to throw off everything of value,’ countered Dagmar, but then she faltered. ‘I mean, if you think it has value.’ Damian seemed to nod, as if giving her permission to continue. ‘And it’s hard to throw off people you love, people who may deserve your love. Would your perfect woman be true to herself if she broke away from her roots, entirely?’
‘I am asking a lot,’ he said thoughtfully. By considering his answer, Damian was treating Dagmar with respect and Lucy thereby lost the initiative. ‘Nor am I defending my demands, which may be thoroughly unreasonable. But I am telling you what I would need to know she could do if it came to it.’
Then Dagmar said, ‘I think she could if she had to, but I’m just pointing out it would be hard.’
‘I never said it wouldn’t.’
Obviously, I missed the significance of all this at the time because, as we all now know, I was almost completely ignorant of much of what had gone on over the Season two years before, but I have since learned that this interchange was the preamble to Dagmar’s last night of fantasy that she could be Damian’s dream woman. I hope she enjoyed it.
Over the next couple of days we drifted, getting up late, swimming, eating at long tables set out on the terrace under a line of umbrellas, and going for walks in the village – doing, in fact, what people like us do best: Taking advantage of other people’s money. But then, the following Monday, 27th July to be precise, we awoke to hear the startling news that Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, ex-Prime Minister of Portugal, founder of the Estado Novo – which, with Spain, had been the last Fascist state of Western Europe – had died in the night at the age of eighty-one.
‘This is incredible,’ I said as the party began to gather for breakfast on the terrace, pulling fruit from great piles set out for our delight, pouring coffee, buttering toast. I had thought the announcement would have stilled the table. Not so.
‘Why?’ asked George Tremayne.
‘Because the last of the dictators, who shaped the middle of the century, who fought the war, who changed the world, is dead. Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Primo de Rivera…’
‘Franco’s still alive,’ said Richard Tremayne. ‘So now he’ll be the last of them to die.’
Which was, of course, a point. ‘Nevertheless, it is extraordinary that we should be in Portugal, just outside Lisbon, when he went.’ I was not going to give up easily. ‘The newspapers say he’s going to lie in state in Lisbon Cathedral for a few days. Obviously, we must all queue up and go.’
‘To do what?’ said George.
‘To walk past his body. This is a historic moment.’
I turned to Damian for support, but he just helped himself to some more milk for his cornflakes.
I am not sure quite what it tells us about the battle of the sexes but in the event all the girls came and none of the other men. Naturally, they didn’t have anything suitable to wear, and they borrowed black skirts and shawls and mantillas from the furious women in the kitchen, but they all came, including Alicky, despite her continuing complaints throughout the pilgrimage about her swelling and painful throat, of which we had heard more than enough by this point.
That said, the advantage of having Alicky with us was that she was able to be very stern with the driver, one of John’s perks from the bank, who deposited us on the edge of the huge piazza in front of the cathedral, telling him exactly where he was to wait and, no, she couldn’t give him an idea of how long we were going to be. In the lengthening shadows of the late afternoon we took up our positions in the endless line of shuffling, morose men and weeping women. Apart from anything else, I was impressed, or intrigued, or something, by the sorrow on display. I had been accustomed to think of Salazar as the last of the wicked old buffers who had plunged Europe into bloody turmoil, and here was a wide cross section of the Portuguese, from nobles to peasants (the last constituting the people who might have had the greatest right to complain against his rule), all openly sobbing at his departure. I suppose it’s always hard to give up what you’re used to.
‘Candida?’ The voice cut through me like a bacon slicer. I knew it as well as I knew my own without turning round, and I could not believe I was hearing it, in this ancient sea capital so far from home. ‘Candida, what on earth are you doing here?’ At this we all turned to greet Serena as she walked across the square, dragging a rather hot-looking Lady Claremont and the dreaded Lady Belton in her wake. In their party too the men were not interested in politics. Seeing all our faces, Serena let out a short scream. ‘My God! What is this? I don’t believe it! Why on earth are you all here?’ We then embarked on an explanation and it turned out that, by an unbelievable coincidence, her own parents had taken one of the other villas in the development where ours lay, that they had invited Andrew’s parents, that they’d arrived the day before and they would be staying for the coming week, and… wasn’t it amazing?
I need hardly tell you that, as it turned out, it was not amazing. It was not in the least amazing. It was not even a coincidence. The scheme, which I did not uncover for some time after this and then only because I ran into George Tremayne at a race meeting three or four summers later, had originated with Serena, who wanted to see Damian again. Even when I heard the truth from George I didn’t understand quite why (although I do now), but it was anyway important to her. John had been asking Candida to bring out a group of friends for some time, that bit was true, and they decided that if Candida could get Damian into the group, Serena and Andrew would, by coincidence, take a villa nearby. Obviously, Damian would not come if Serena were to be in the party, nor would Andrew if Damian was, so the subterfuge was necessary, once you accepted the intention. Where the plan might be said to have gone awry was that Serena’s parents, perhaps suspicious in some way, had announced they would bear the cost of the trip and join them. This Andrew would not allow Serena to refuse, since it was such a saving. The final button came when Lady Belton suggested that she and her benighted husband also come along, as she would ‘welcome the chance to know the Claremonts better.’ I never found out what would have happened if Damian had refused when I asked him. I imagine the whole thing would just have been cancelled. However, at the time, I suspected nothing. I thought the chance meeting was genuine chance, a heaven-sent miracle that Serena Gresham – correction, Serena Summersby – should be standing in a sun-drenched, southern square, also wearing ill-fitting, borrowed black and waiting to pay homage to a dead tyrant alongside me. I allowed myself to wonder at her properly. ‘How are you?’ I asked.
‘Frazzled and worn out. Take my advice. Don’t travel with your parents, your in-laws and your two-month-old baby, in the same party.’
‘I’ll remember that.’ I looked at her. She was quite unchanged. That my golden girl was now a wife and mother seemed more or less impossible to believe. ‘How are you getting on?’
She glanced swiftly across at Lady Belton, but the old trout was busily snubbing some tourist who’d attempted to strike up a conversation and enjoying it too much to notice us. ‘All right.’ Then, sensing that her answer had not sounded like the voice of love’s young dream, she smiled. ‘My life’s terribly grown up now. You wouldn’t believe it was me. I spend the whole time talking to plumbers and having things covered, and asking Andrew whether he’s done the sales tax.’
‘But you’re happy?’
We did not need to exchange a glance to know that, with this question, I was pushing my luck. ‘Of course I am,’ she said.
‘Where is Andrew?’
She shrugged. ‘Back at the villa. He says he’s not interested in history.’ ‘This isn’t history, it’s history in the making.’
‘What can I tell you? He’s not interested.’
To the fury of the people behind us, we stuffed Serena, her mother and her mother-in-law into our group, and together we all staggered up the cathedral steps. From there we passed into the cool, shadowed interior of the great church, where the sounds of crying were more audible and, as they echoed through the aisles and cloisters, curiously haunting. Grief is always grief, whether or not the deceased deserves it. At last we walked past the coffin. The head was covered in some sort of scarf, but the hands, waxy and still, were pressed together as if in prayer, raised and resting on the chest of the corpse. ‘I wonder how they do that,’ said Serena. ‘Do you think they’ve got a special thing?’
I stared at the body. It was dressed, as are all dictators in death apparently, in a rather nasty, lightweight suit that looked as if it had come from Burton Tailoring. ‘What I can never get over,’ I whispered, ‘is the way the moment people are dead, they look as if they’ve been dead for a thousand years. As if they were never alive.’
Serena nodded. ‘It’s enough to make you believe in God,’ she said. Once outside again the plan was made. The Claremonts, the Beltons and the Summersbys would go home now to change, and they would all join us for dinner in a couple of hours back at the villa. Full of this pleasant scenario, we climbed into the waiting vehicles.
I now think I must share a little of the blame for what happened later as, for some reason which in retrospect seems completely inexplicable, I never mentioned to Damian that we had run into Serena. In my defence, I knew very little, if anything, of what I have since learned had gone on between them. I knew they’d kissed once and I genuinely thought that was about it, but even so it does seem odd. I did not consciously conceal it, because when we got back Damian was nowhere to be seen. He had not, we heard from Lucy, slept well the previous night and he’d retired to catch up so as to be on form for dinner. ‘Don’t let’s wake him,’ said Dagmar firmly and we didn’t. Clearly, I should have gone to his room, propped his eyes open and told him what I knew, but I was not aware of the urgency and I suppose I imagined I would catch him before the others arrived. Then, a little later, Lucy volunteered to go and tell him, and before we could discuss it she’d vanished, leaving Dagmar biting her lip. At the time I did suspect Lucy’s ultimate purpose in going to Damian’s bedroom, but not that she would make no mention of the meeting at the cathedral, the dinner that was planned for that evening, or Serena. Which proved to be the case.
There was one more surprise in store, on this most surprising of all days – before the Big Surprise later that is – which John greeted us with when we got back. ‘There was a call from a friend of yours,’ he said as we walked out on to the terrace. Naturally I, and presumably the rest, thought this would be from Serena, making some change to the evening’s schedule. John disabused us: ‘Joanna de Yong? Is that the name?’
Candida was astonished. ‘Joanna de Yong?’ she said. ‘Where was she ringing from?’
‘She’s here. She’s staying with her husband and her parents quite nearby. They arrived today.’ He was smiling as if he were bringing us glad tidings, but the response was not what he’d anticipated.
We all looked at each other in silence. Wasn’t this too mad? Was Estoril the only holiday destination of choice? It was developing into a Russian play. I do vividly remember the oddness of all this, which later got buried beneath the horror. Dagmar commented at the time that it seemed as if we had arranged a modest reunion, and Fate had decided to get in on the act and bring everyone of significance from that period on to the stage at once. In other words she was as innocent as I was about what was taking place behind the scenes. At last Lucy spoke. ‘What did she want?’ She was always less a fan of Joanna than some, as I remembered well.
John was clearly a little undermined by the response to his news. ‘Only to see you all. I’ve invited her and her husband over for dinner. I hope that’s all right. She asked who was staying and she seemed to know every name, so I thought you’d be pleased.’ He stopped, hesitant, afraid he’d made a boo-boo.
‘Of course we’re pleased,’ said Candida. But she wasn’t very, and now I know why. The planned, and morally dubious, dinner for Serena to re-meet Damian already had to absorb Serena’s parents and in-laws, which was less than ideal. Now it was beginning to expand into a state banquet.
‘She’s bringing her parents,’ said John.
Which put the tin lid on it. ‘Jesus,’ said Lucy and she spoke for most of the company.
Naturally, as you will have surmised, the de Yong arrival had nothing to do with chance either, and I learned about this strange turn of events much sooner than I did the other. I was still changing when there was a knock on the door and without waiting for permission from me Joanna came in. Without a hello, in fact without a word, she lay down on the bed with a loud sigh. ‘I don’t know what we’re all doing here,’ she said.
‘Having a lovely time?’ I had not seen her since the end of 1968’s festivities but she was still a miracle to look at.
‘You wish.’ She stared up at me, rolling her eyes, as I waited for her to explain herself. ‘My mother fixed the whole thing without any reference to me, you know.’
‘Obviously, I don’t know. What are you talking about?’
‘I’d rung Serena-’
‘Do you keep up with her?’
She caught my surprise and smiled. ‘Not everyone’s dropped me.’
‘I’m sure not.’
She received this with a quizzical expression, suited to humouring the slow witted. ‘Anyway, she told me she was going to Portugal with her parents. And that Candida would be here at the same time with some friends, including you and Damian.’
‘Really?’ This didn’t quite square with the scene we had just enacted in Lisbon outside the cathedral, but before I had time to investigate it Joanna ran on. The silly thing is I recall her remark now, clearly, but I forgot it at the time, so I still failed to add two and two and get to four.
‘For some unexplained and foolish reason I relayed all this to my mother and, lo and behold, a week ago she informed me that she’d planned a surprise for me and she’d taken a villa in Estoril. Obviously, I told her it was quite impossible.’
‘But?’
‘But she blubbed and blubbed, and sighed and fell about, and asked why I hated her, and hadn’t she tried to help me since the marriage, and now they’d paid a fortune for the villa because they’d jumped the queue and all the rest of it, and I gave in.’ She was holding a bottle of Coca-Cola, the old, rather pretty, glass type, and she took a long, lazy swig.
‘I’m glad you did. It’s nice to see you.’
She shrugged. ‘She thinks I’m bored with Kieran. She thinks she can wean me off him with all of you as bait. You’re here to remind me of the fun I’m missing. That’s why she’s brought us. She even asked if I would be glad to see Damian again.’ She threw back her head and laughed out loud. ‘Damian. Two years ago she wanted to commit suicide when she thought I was serious about him.’
And still I didn’t put the information together: Serena knew Damian was coming all along. What was the matter with me? ‘Poor Kieran,’ I said. I had in fact met Kieran de Yong by that stage, as some weeks after the sensational elopement there was a cocktail party at the Dorchester for the newly-weds in an attempt by Valerie Langley to normalise the situation. I admit I didn’t quite get the point of him then. But I was young and anyway I don’t remember thinking any the worse of Joanna for her choice. There is, after all, no accounting for taste. ‘How is marriage?’
‘It’s OK,’ she said. But then, after a pause, ‘It does go on a bit.’ Which sounded uncomfortably eloquent. I said nothing.
‘Have you seen Damian yet?’
She shook her head. ‘He’s still in his room. We were far too early. My mother’s impatience wouldn’t let us wait. This is the world she always wanted for me and she thinks Kieran is the reason I’ve dropped out of it. According to her I’m drowning. Socially. She wants to pull me back to the shore. She wants a divorce as soon as it can be arranged.’
‘You can’t be serious.’ It’s hard to explain how outlandish this seemed in 1970. Even ten years later it would have been perfectly believable.
‘Oh, but I am. She thinks if I dump Kieran now, everyone will forget about him. We’ve had no kids, despite going at it like rabbits.’ She paused to register that I was a little shocked. It’s odd to think one could be by such references when they came from a woman, but lots of us were. Having registered my blushes with a blush of her own, she continued, ‘The point is, if she can prise me free now, there’ll be no baggage that can’t be safely hidden inside the identity of my second husband, whoever he may be.’
‘And she’d be happy with Damian?’
‘After Kieran, she’d be happy with a passing Chinese laundryman.’
I smiled. Although, to be honest, in a way I was rather impressed with Valerie Langley’s commitment. I knew that in similar circumstances my own parents would just have shrugged and sighed, and occasionally allowed only very old friends to commiserate, but it would never have occurred to either of them actually to do anything about it. It wasn’t that I approved of the plan. Joanna had, after all, taken her vows and in those days that meant rather more than it does in these. But still, it certainly didn’t make me dislike her parents. ‘What does your father feel about it?’
‘He quite likes Kieran, but he wasn’t consulted.’
‘And Kieran is here?’
She nodded. ‘And he knows exactly what she’s trying to do.’
‘Yikes.’ Of course, we hadn’t touched on the nub of the matter. ‘Are you going to allow yourself to give him up?’
She thought about my question, but I don’t think there was any real doubt in her mind. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.’
Kieran de Yong was the first person I spotted when I finally emerged to join the thrash. It would have been hard to miss him. His hair was dyed a particularly virulent shade of pinkish blond and he was wearing tight jeans under a kind of military jacket, which looked as if it had once graced an officer in the Guards, but the cuffs were now turned back to reveal a pink satin lining. His densely patterned shirt was wide open at the neck, to reveal two or three thick chains. The overall effect was not so much hideous as pathetic and, given what I had just heard, I felt very sorry for him. ‘Do you know Portugal at all?’ I asked, trying to make it sound as if I were interested in the answer.
He shook his head. ‘No.’
Lucy had joined us and she tried next: ‘Where are you and Joanna living now?’
‘Pimlico.’
We were both rather flummoxed, since obviously we could not simply stand and ask him questions, receiving one-word answers, until the end of the evening. But then he said something that indicated he was a little less dense than we had all assumed: ‘I know what this is all about. She thinks I don’t, but I do. And I’m not leaving.’
Naturally, Lucy hadn’t a clue as to the meaning of this, but I did and I rather handed it to him for agreeing to come at all. It was the decision of a brave man. I couldn’t very well comment without getting myself into a mess, but I smiled and filled his glass and attempted to establish that I was not an enemy.
There was still no sign of Damian. I registered that his windows remained tightly shut, just as I heard a flurry of arriving cars, followed by voices and doors opening and shutting, and out on to the terrace issued the whole Claremont/Belton party. Serena had brought the baby girl and there was a certain amount of fussing attendant on her arrival. I suggested they put the cot in my room, since it opened directly on to the terrace where we would be eating, and this was generally reckoned a good idea. It saddened me to see that the infant, Mary, was still the living image of Andrew. Not only did this seem like thoroughly bad luck for her, but it also gave rise to painful images in my semi-conscious mind.
To mark his distance from all this ‘women’s business,’ Lord Claremont hailed me in his vague and cheerful way. I think he was relieved to find a familiar face and also to have escaped from the exclusive company of his daughter’s in-laws, since I could tell at once they weren’t at all his type, however he may have urged the marriage. He started to walk towards me, but the temptations of Joanna and Lucy soon drew him in that direction for a little flirtation over his Sangria, or whatever the Portuguese equivalent is called. The Beltons clung together, staring out to sea, she too difficult and he too tired to talk to anyone else. Lady Claremont walked across. ‘How are you?’ She smiled. I told her. ‘So you’re forging off into an artistic life. How exciting.’
‘My parents don’t approve either.’
This made her laugh. ‘It’s not that. I rather like the idea. It just seems so terribly unpredictable. But if you don’t mind a few years starving in a garret, I’m sure it’s the right thing to do. One must always try to follow one’s heart.’
‘I quite agree. And there are worse things than starving in a garret.’ By chance, as I said this my eyes were resting on Serena, who was talking to Candida by the balustrade. Now this was purely because I couldn’t find anywhere more satisfactory to rest my eyes than on her, but I could see at once that Lady Claremont had taken my comment as a criticism of Serena’s life choices, for which she no doubt felt extra responsible, as well she might. Her face hardened a little as she looked back at me and her smile became fractionally taut.
‘You must go down and see Serena and Andrew. They’ve got the most marvellous set-up, a simply lovely farmhouse on the edge of the estate. Serena is all geared up to decorate it, which she loves, and the village is within walking distance. It’s ideal. Do you know Dorset?’
‘Not really. I used to go to Lulworth when I was a child.’
‘It’s such a beautiful place, really enchanting, and still almost a secret from the outside world. She’s too lucky for any words.’
‘I’m glad,’ I said. It was somehow important for me that Lady Claremont should know I didn’t want to make trouble. ‘I’m very fond of Serena.’
She laughed again, more easily, relieved to have passed the sticky corner. ‘Oh, my dear boy,’ she said, ‘we all know that.’
It was then that I heard the doors open behind me and I looked round to find Damian standing there, the darkened room behind him throwing him into a kind of high relief. He was completely motionless, but I did not need to be told where his gaze had fastened. Some of the others had registered him too. Not least Lord Claremont, whose brow visibly darkened. If he’d had any suspicions as to what this was all about, his worst ones were in this instant confirmed. He shot a glance at his wife and I noticed her give a tiny, almost indiscernible shake of her head. Damian’s silent stillness was becoming a little embarrassing, so I walked over. ‘Isn’t it extraordinary?’ I said. ‘Serena’s parents have taken more or less the next-door villa. We all ran into each other this afternoon outside the cathedral. Wasn’t it weird? You should have come.’
‘Obviously,’ said Damian, remaining completely stationary.
I pointed out Joanna and briskly explained the second not-coincidence. He smiled. ‘Oh, brave new world, that has such wonders in it,’ he said. But still he did not step forward into the party, or indeed alter his position at all. During this, Serena had been watching, waiting, I can only suppose, for him to make the first move, but if so, she was obviously going to be disappointed, so she decided it was time for her officially to register his presence. I admired her manner in doing it. A lifetime of emotional concealment can sometimes have its uses. She walked up briskly with a wide smile. ‘Damian,’ she said, ‘what a treat. How are you?’ Andrew had followed her across the terrace, and now stood, almost threateningly, as he locked eyes with the man who had after all knocked him down in front of us all at Dagmar’s ball. She, Dagmar, perhaps recalling the same incident with shame, left her own conversation and drew near. ‘You remember Andrew,’ said Serena, as if this whole thing might be happening on any street in any city.
‘Yes,’ said Damian. ‘I remember him.’
‘And I remember you,’ said Andrew.
I think the idea crossed several minds in that second that we might be about to witness a rematch, but Candida, sensing danger, came over, clapping her hands. ‘Let’s all have a walk before dinner. There’s a path down through the rocks, directly onto the beach. Don’t you agree?’ And before Serena could mention it: ‘Your mother-in-law says she’ll stay here and watch out for the baby.’ Behind her Lady Belton had parked herself in a chair, with the expression of one of the accused at Nuremberg hearing his sentence read out.
In a way it did seem a solution and nobody raised any objection, so we broke away in groups and followed Candida, who had collared her uncle, Lord Claremont, as her personal guide. He didn’t put up much resistance and set off by her side, after refilling his drink and carrying it with him. We all pottered down on to the sand and I must say it was a marvellous sight, the wide, blue sea, shining and glinting in that pellucid, evening light. We loitered, listening to the waves for a while, but when we set off for our walk down the beach I realised with a faintly sinking heart – although why? When she was a married woman, and so no concern of mine – that Serena and Damian had slipped to the back of the group. With her marvellous instinct for avoiding trouble Lady Claremont had also taken this in and made a beeline for her son-in-law, sliding her arm through his, and involving him in some apparently intense flow of talk, heaven knows what about – what would one talk about when trying to interest Andrew Summersby? – as she dragged him down the beach with her. But I could see her husband watching his daughter and Damian at the end of the trailing line, and it was not hard to tell that the sight was becoming more and more disturbing to him.
Joanna had joined me, and now she whispered: ‘Do you think we’re going to see some fireworks?’
‘I bloody well hope not.’
‘My mother’s furious. She thought I’d have Damian all to myself, but it’s quite clear he couldn’t care less whether I live or die. Not when Serena’s around.’ Of course, at the time I thought she was exaggerating. That’s how slow I was.
At this stage Andrew drifted away from his mother-in-law. He cast an angry look at the pair who were now quite a long way behind us on the sand, but Lucy came to his aid. I think that by this stage we were all, by unspoken agreement, working together trying to avoid a collision. Andrew had left Lady Claremont walking on her own and I could hear Pel Claremont as he drew alongside his wife. ‘Do you see who that is?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Did you know he was here?’
‘Obviously not.’
‘What’s he talking to her about?’
‘How should I know?’
‘By Christ, if he’s trying something…’
‘If you say one single word you will only make things worse. I want your promise. You will say nothing contentious, not one word, before you close your eyes on your pillow.’
Lady Claremont hissed the phrase ‘not one word’ like a giant, angry snake and it was easy to tell she meant business, but whether she got the answer she required I couldn’t say, since I had to crane forward to catch the last of these muttered exchanges and her husband’s reply was lost beneath the sounds of the surf. Not knowing most of the facts, I couldn’t understand their hostility to Damian. I turned back to Joanna, on my left. ‘Did you hear any of that? If so, what’s it about?’
But she shook her head. ‘I wasn’t listening,’ she said.
I noticed we had been joined by Dagmar on the other side. ‘What about you?’ I asked, but she’d also missed it. In fact, she seemed rather quiet that night and uncharacteristically thoughtful. I looked at her, raising my eyebrows to signify a question, but she shook her head and gave a sad smile. ‘Nothing. I’m just pondering the rest of my life.’
‘Heavens.’
She waited until Joanna had dropped back to walk with George Tremayne. ‘You started it, last night,’ she said. ‘You and Damian.’ With her moist mouth twitching she was at her most poignant. ‘All I want is a nice man who loves me. It sounds so tragic but that’s it. I don’t care how I live, really, as long as it’s not in a complete hutch. I just want a nice man who loves me and treats me with respect.’
‘He’ll turn up,’ I said. How baselessly optimistic one is when young, although I did not then guess how completely her request for even a tolerable future would be denied.
Dagmar nodded, sighing softly. I did not understand why this melancholy had gripped her, but of course now I know. The previous night, after their final tryst, Damian had told her she would never have him, she would never have the one above all others whom she loved and wanted. Any of us who have lived through a similar dismissal will feel for her. At last she gave a wistful smile. ‘Maybe. Que sera sera.’
‘Well, no doubt everything will work out for the best.’
‘But I do doubt it,’ she said.
At last Candida, sensing or praying that the danger had passed, turned us around, and slowly we made our way back to the villa. The light was failing, now, and the maids had arranged lit candles down the table and turned on the lamps that threw their beams against the house, so we seemed to be climbing up the path through the rocks, towards a fairy palace made of jewels.
We started peaceably enough. The first course was a sort of Portuguese version of Insalata Tricolore with olives added for good measure. I forget what the proper name was but it was delicious and we ate of it freely, which was just as well since it was destined to get us all through until the following morning. The trouble began when the main course arrived, some sort of fish stew, which looked and smelled delicious although I never got to swallow any, brought by the angry women in the kitchen. They did not hold it for us, but instead put three large, white, china bowls, filled with the steaming mixture, onto the table at intervals, leaving it to us to help ourselves and others. Meanwhile, and perhaps inevitably, Lord Claremont had been tucking into the drink since he arrived. In fairness to him, and again I did not know it then, he was simply livid to have found Damian at this house where, as he saw it, he and his wife had been lured by artifice. Once there, and presented with this bounder, which was bad enough, he found himself sitting next to a very common woman whom he did not know and who kept trying to engage him in a conversation about things and people of whom he had never heard. On the other hand, Valerie Langley was only too thrilled by her placement, since one of her main goals in coming out of England had been to catch the Claremont family for herself and for her daughter, and was quite unaware that it was not working well.
To get things straight, to trace the source of the explosion, one must bear in mind that Pel Claremont thought Damian Baxter a liar and a cad, who’d attempted to seduce Serena into a marriage that would have ruined her life, all in an attempt to promote his own slimy and ill-bred interests. This was not my reading of the matter at all, but it was his and he did not understand why he had to sit at dinner with the author of his misfortunes. The plain truth is that neither Serena nor Candida had thought this through. The whole thing was as doomed as their original plan that exposure to Damian, at Gresham, would bring her parents round. Clearly, once the Claremonts had invited themselves on this expedition, Candida should have cancelled, or at the very least made a totally different plan as to how Serena and Damian would meet, because, given my new and greater understanding of the situation I now think Serena was incapable of turning down the chance to see him when it was offered. Unfortunately.
Damian was silent as we returned from the walk, and he had been fairly monosyllabic all evening since then. I saw Serena make an attempt to sit next to him, but he deliberately placed himself in a different, empty, chair, where the seats on either side were already taken by Candida and Lady Claremont, who may have been a little surprised when he chose her as his neighbour, but who contained it. After that, Damian talked to Candida exclusively and of course it would have been to everyone’s benefit if he had continued to do so, but Lady Claremont lived by certain rules and one of them was that at dinner, when the course changed and the next one was brought, it was time to turn to your other neighbour. Accordingly, she resigned George Tremayne to the claims of Dagmar and turned to Damian on her other side. ‘So, what are you doing now?’ she asked pleasantly. ‘Have you made any plans for the future?’
Damian stared at her for a moment, long enough for most of us to register his deliberate insolence. ‘Do you really want to know?’ he said. Now, as I am happy to testify, this was very unfair. At the time it was completely bewildering to the rest of the party as we could not imagine what on earth Lady Claremont had done to deserve it, but even if I now accept that she had been an accomplice in wrecking his life, I still don’t think it was fair. In this context she was just trying to get through dinner. Just trying to allow Candida or John or Alicky to feel that the evening was a success. What’s wrong with that?
With something like a deep breath she nodded. ‘Yes, I do,’ she said, as steadily as she could manage. ‘I’m very interested to know what lies ahead for all Serena’s old friends.’ Honestly, I would swear she meant this in a friendly way. She did not want Damian to marry her daughter it is true, but I don’t believe she wished him ill beyond that. This may not have been true of her husband, but it was true of her. For a second Damian looked slightly ashamed. He seemed to gather himself and he opened his mouth to speak, presumably to talk about the bank or something.
But before he could utter a word, Lord Claremont cut in. ‘Well,’ he said as he reached for a bottle of red that required him to stretch right across the table, ‘we are interested in a way. But only really to be sure that if you do have any plans they won’t involve us.’ The effect of this was electric. In an instant every conversation was dead. Lady Claremont slowly shut her eyes and held them closed against the tidal wave that she probably guessed was coming. John and Alicky were just puzzled as to why their guests had suddenly chosen to be so rude to each other. The Langleys looked shocked, as did the younger group including me, while Lady Belton assumed her usual expression of indignant disdain. In the silence, Lord Belton took a huge slug of wine.
‘They won’t,’ said Damian easily. ‘What makes you think I’d make a mistake of that magnitude twice.’
‘Stop this!’ Suddenly Serena was as angry as I had ever seen her. ‘Stop this right now!’ Her eyes were blazing, but of course it was too late.
Lord Claremont quietened her with a sharp gesture of his hand, then looked his opponent in the eye and took another sip. Next, slowly and with some style, he lowered his glass and smiled before he spoke. In truth, his languor was not enough to conceal that he was very drunk. ‘Now, you look here, you little shit-’ This actually made half the people at the table jump, like mice they all jigged up and down in a row. Lady Claremont gave a sort of low groan, which sounded like ‘Oh, no,’ but might have just been a sound of mourning, as she leaned forward with one hand raised, and Valerie Langley let out a kind of wailing ‘What?’ to no one in particular.
But, by now, Damian was standing. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You look here, you pompous, ridiculous, boring, idiotic, unfunny, pretentious, ludicrous joke.’ There were seven adjectives employed in this sentence and I was fascinated by them, because I cannot imagine that seven words could do more to change a life. When Damian had first got to his feet, he was part of a minor incident, which a few apologies and a ‘have a drink, old boy’ would soon have fixed. By the time he’d finished his speech, less than a minute later, he was out of this world for good and there was no possibility of return. The gates of the drawing rooms of 1970s England had clanged shut against him and the air was thick with the smoke of burning bridges.
Lord Claremont himself appeared stunned, as if he had been hit by a car and was not quite sure as to the extent of his wounds. ‘How dare you-’ he started to say.
But Damian was having none of it. We were way past that stage, by now. ‘How dare I? How dare I? Who on earth do you think you are? What insanity gives you the right to talk to me in that manner, you stupid old man?’ Now this was a curious moment, because to most of us present these words could easily have been said in their entirety except for the final insult by Lord Claremont to Damian, so the reversal of their direction created an odd sensation. We may be absolutely sure that never in Lord Claremont’s fifty-eight years had he been addressed in anything even approaching this manner. Like all rich aristocrats the world over, he had no real understanding of his own abilities, because he had been praised for gifts he did not possess since childhood and it is hardly to be wondered at if he did not question the conclusions that every suck-up had fed him for half a century. He wasn’t clever enough to know they had been talking bunkum and that he had nothing to offer in any normal market. It was a shock, a horrid shock, for him suddenly to feel that, rather than a universal figure of dignity and poise and admiration, he was in fact a fool.
At this point, most ill-advisedly, Lady Belton decided the time had come to intervene. ‘You disgraceful boy.’ She spoke loudly, addressing the company as well as Damian to make her point, but unfortunately in an imperious, fluting manner more suited to a farce than a real argument. I imagine she thought it lent her majesty, when in reality she sounded like Marie Dressler in Dinner at Eight. ‘Stop it this minute,’ she trilled, ‘and apologise to Lord Claremont!’
Damian spun round and in the blink of an eye, to our universal horror, he suddenly snatched up a knife from the breadboard on the table. It was a large, wide kitchen knife that might be used in a butcher’s and certainly lethal. The whole episode was now turning into a full-blown nightmare, which none of us felt able to control. Please don’t misunderstand me. I was perfectly sure at the time that he would not use it to harm anyone, that wasn’t in him. We weren’t in any danger. But he knew how to play with it, flicking it about to punctuate his movements and speech, to make the moment tingle. In this he judged correctly. If we were still before, we were paralysed now.
Slowly and sedately Damian stalked Lady Belton down the table. Seeing him approach, she gripped the side arms of her chair and forced herself hard against its back. For this one and only time I felt a bit sorry for her. ‘You pathetic, old harridan, you scarecrow, you freak, what possible business is it of yours?’ He waited for an answer, as if this were a reasonable question. She looked at the blade and said nothing. ‘You insane piece of wrinkled baggage with your demented snobbery and your ugly dresses and your even uglier pseudo-morality.’ He was level with her by now and he stopped, leaning in slightly as if to get a better look at this sad object of his curiosity. ‘What is it about you? Wait a minute. It’s coming back to me.’ He touched his bottom lip with the tip of the knife as if tussling with a knotty problem. ‘Wasn’t your father a bit dodgy? Or was it your mother?’ Again, he stopped as if she might answer and confirm his diagnosis one way or the other. Instead, she stared at him, a bright glimmer of fear twitching beneath her hauteur. I must concede that this was a brilliant stroke, a real rapier thrust, that would have gone right up under the ribs. The truth was Lady Belton’s mother had not been tellement grande chose, but she thought no one knew. Like many people in her position, she believed that because nobody ever gave her their true opinion, they literally had no knowledge of the things she wished concealed. But we did know it. We all knew it, that her mother had married up and then been left with a baby girl when she was abandoned by her noble spouse, who took off for green fields and pastures new, and never came, or looked, back. Doubtless this went some way to explaining Lady Belton’s unhinged snobbishness. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Damian. ‘Nobody would know you’re a mongrel. Just a laughable and imbecilic bully.’ She listened to him, but still she said nothing. She seemed to be breathing heavily, as if after a long run; her cheeks were palpitating and appeared to be more red and blotchy than when he started. I wondered if she might be about to have a stroke.
I could not let it continue. However inflated Lord Claremont might be, however insane Lady Belton, this just wasn’t cricket. I stood. ‘Come on, Damian, that’s enough,’ I said. I could feel a slight sigh of relief among the group, as if I had marked the limits and we would now return to sanity. It was not to be.
Damian turned. Facing him, I at last understood that his anger had made him mad. Temporarily mad maybe, but mad. It cannot be much different for a traveller to find himself in a forest glade and suddenly to spy a wolf walking slowly towards him. I saw his grip on the handle of his weapon and I was frightened. I admit it. I was afraid. ‘What? Is it your turn to tell me off?’ he sneered. ‘You sad, little, grubbing nonentity. You piece of dirt. You filth. You coward.’
‘Damian, for pity’s sake, he’s your friend-’ This came from Dagmar. I was touched that out of all of them she alone should try to defend me in the face of this onslaught. Perhaps Serena might have, but one glance told me she was in her own private hell.
Damian looked first at Dagmar, then at all of them. ‘What? You think he’s my friend? You think he’s your friend? He’s not your friend.’ He shook his head, continuing to walk up and down the table like an armed panther. I could see two of the maids hovering in the shadows, watching, but no one at the table moved. They had seen the treatment of Lady Belton and they had no wish to be next before the guns. ‘He despises you. Do you think he finds you funny?’ He directed this at Lord Claremont. ‘Or stylish?’ He waited in vain for a response from Lady Claremont. ‘Or interesting in any way?’ That was aimed at the whole table. ‘He thinks you’re stupid and dull, but he likes your life. He likes your houses. He likes your titles. He likes the pitiful sense of self-importance he derives from knowing that people know he knows you.’ He hit all the ‘knows’ in this with equal strength, so it sounded more like a song than a sentence. ‘He likes to creep around after you and kiss your arses and brag about you when he gets home. But don’t ever think that he likes you.’
Through all this Serena had sat completely still, her head bowed, and I could see now that she was crying. A steady stream of tears ran down from both eyes, leaving dark marks of mascara across her cheeks as it travelled south. ‘And you think he’s in love with you, don’t you?’ He was standing by her now and she did look up, but she did not answer. ‘Your little swain, who sticks by you through thick and thin, and you laugh at him-’ She had made the beginnings of a protest at this, but he silenced her with a raised palm, ‘You laugh at him, you’ve laughed at him with me, but you tolerate him because he loves you and you think that’s sweet.’ Serena now looked across at me. I think she was shaking her head to distance herself from what he was saying, but I had gone into another place, a numb place, a hollow, lonely place, where I tried but failed to hide. ‘He doesn’t love you. He loves what you are, he loves what he can boast about, your name, your money.’ He paused to take a breath, to be fresh again for the final strike. ‘You should hear what he says about you, all of you, when we’re alone. He’s just a regular little toady, a Johnny-on-the-make, creeping and crawling like a bumboy round you, to worm and lick and slide his way into your lives.’
Lord Claremont probably spoke for the rest of them, when he let out a loud and disgusted ‘Good God!’ Damian had chosen well the right mud to throw at me if he wanted it to stick.
He hadn’t finished with Serena. ‘You idiot. You fool.’ He spoke with an undiluted contempt that made the company shudder. ‘You could have escaped. You could have lived a life. And instead, you chose to spend your days with this… oaf!’ He clipped Andrew’s shoulder as he passed. ‘This twerp! This blob! And for what? To live in a big house, and have people you don’t like pull their forelocks and grovel.’ Dagmar was crying out loud by now and Damian stopped when he got to her. Oddly, when he spoke next his voice was momentarily quite kind. ‘You’re not a bad sort. You deserve better than anything that will come to you.’ But by then he had moved on and now he was standing almost next to Joanna, who was watching him with the fascination of a rabbit faced by a stoat. ‘You might have escaped, without your vixen bitch of a mother. Keep trying.’ What made all this so surreal was that everyone was here, all the objects of his attack were sitting in front of him. Mrs Langley let out a yelp, but her husband held her arm to keep her silent.
Damian was starting to run down and you could tell it, because Richard Tremayne rose from his chair and even Andrew looked ready to move. His grip was loosening. ‘I hate you all. I loathe your false values. I wish you ill in everything you say or do. And yet, even now, I pity you.’ The others, sensing from this that the tirade was coming to an end, began fractionally to relax. Maybe he saw this, or maybe he had always planned it, but the fact is that Damian was not quite finished. ‘I’m going now but I must give you a moment to remember me by.’ He smiled.
‘I think we’ve already had it,’ Candida re-entered the fray.
‘No. Something more colourful,’ he said, and in one sharp, astonishing movement he threw down the knife and grabbed the first bowl of fish stew, smashing it over the end of the table where the steaming mass of boiling sea life was sprayed over Lady Claremont and Lucy and Kieran and Richard Tremayne. At this there was anguish and cries of anger and pain as the burning liquid covered them, but there was no real physical reaction beyond shock, and before anyone could move, Damian had snatched up the middle bowl. Crash! Down it went, this time catching Candida, Lord Claremont, Dagmar, George and Joanna. But as he lunged for the third and final bowl the others snapped awake and made a dive for it themselves. Alfred Langley stood with both hands on the rim. Unfortunately for him, Damian had the strength of a tiger and with one wrench it was out of his hands. Seizing it, Damian raised it high above his head, like a pagan priest with an offering for a savage and unforgiving deity, and for a moment everything and everyone was motionless. Then he brought it down hard against an edge, ensuring that the mass of the bowl’s contents covered Lady Belton, who received her anointing with a sickening scream. There was a thick tomato sauce involved in whatever the receipt had been and by now the table looked like the end of the battle of Borodino, with everyone at it covered in a sticky, smelly, steaming mess of fishy gore. The shards of china had shot about, too, and Lucy was nursing a cut on her forehead, while George was bleeding quite heavily from his right cheek. It’s a miracle that nobody was blinded. ‘I’ll say goodnight, then,’ said Damian, and without another word he walked across the terrace, through the open doors into his bedroom and closed them behind him. Once and forever, he was out of their lives.
After he’d gone we sat, all of us, not moving, in total shock. Like victims who have survived an air crash but are not yet sure of it. Then Serena and Dagmar started to cry quite loudly, and Lady Belton, who resembled nothing so much as a red-nosed clown in the Cirque du Soleil, with tendrils of lobster and crab stuck in her hair, began to scream out orders to her dazed and equally fish-festooned husband. ‘Take me away from here! At once! Take me away!’
At this point Valerie Langley cried out that we should call the police, but Alfred did not need the quick, startled looks from the others to know this would never happen. They were not going to finish the evening by providing the press with the best gossip story they had printed in years. With silent understanding and a nod, Alfred steered his wife away from the very idea.
To say the party broke up soon after that would be a significant and major understatement. The party shattered, splintered, exploded, fell into ruins, with the Claremonts and the Langleys running to their different cars as if a gunman were on the loose and training his weapon from a window. Those of us who remained sat, stinking of fish, waiting to see what would happen next. George Tremayne poured himself a drink and brought one over to me, which I thought was decent of him, even if it confirmed the horrid sense that they were all pitying me, pitying and despising me, which they obviously were. They may have varied in the degree to which they believed Damian’s words, but they all believed some of them and I understood what the consequence must be. Others back at home would hear the story, endlessly embellished, and I would thenceforth be tarred in London as a creeping toady, a social climbing greaser, a speck of smarmy, contemptible dirt. I felt my reward for taking up Damian and forcing him upon them had finally arrived. I was finished in the world of my growing-up years. I was an outcast. I was a pariah.
Candida approached, perhaps to offer sympathy, but before she could speak, I took her to one side. ‘I’ll leave tomorrow.’ I spoke in a low voice, because I didn’t want to become a cause cèlèbre, and, worst of all, have others feel obliged to take my side. ‘First thing.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘No. I must. I introduced him to everyone. He’s my fault. I can’t stay. Not after that.’ I was grateful for her attempt at support, but it was true. I couldn’t stay among these people for a minute longer than I had to. Andrew Summersby came alongside and Candida appealed to him to persuade me not to go. He shook his head. ‘I should think it’s the only course open to him,’ he said in his most ferociously pompous manner. It was lucky the maids had removed the knife.
Candida did not argue any more that night. ‘Well, sleep on it,’ she said. ‘See how you feel in the morning. We all know he was talking rubbish.’ I smiled and kissed her, and slipped away to my room.
Knowing Candida better now, I think it’s possible she had genuinely dismissed the charges against me but I did not believe it then. And later that night, when I was bathed and smelling a bit less like a welk stall in Bermondsey Market, I asked myself was Damian truly talking rubbish? In some ways I think he was. Most of all in what he said about Serena. Certainly every word was deliberately chosen to damage me irretrievably among those people. To finish me with them. As he was going to vanish from their sight, so, he vowed, would I. It was a cruel attack, and I am sure the best part of it for him was that it would ruin and diminish me in front of her. He wanted to make my love seem a petty and paltry affectation, a device to get invited to dinner, instead of the engine that turned my life.
Even so, it was not quite all rubbish. The funny thing was that there were times when I had envied Damian. I envied his power among these men and women. I had known many of them all my life but within a matter of weeks of their meeting him he had more power over them than I had ever achieved. He was handsome, of course, and charismatic and I was neither, but finally it wasn’t that. Newcomer as he was, he did not allow them to dictate the rules of the game, but I… maybe I did. Had I not given more leeway to the jokes of Lord Claremont and his ilk than I would have done to those of a social inferior? Did I not pretend, by never arguing, that the fatuities I’d listened to after dinner in a series of great and splendid dining rooms were interesting comments? I had sat up late with fools and laughed and nodded and flattered their fathomless self-importance without revealing a trace of my real feelings. Would I have bothered with Dagmar were she not a princess? Did I not maintain civilities with someone like Andrew, a man I despised and would have actively disliked even if Serena had never been born? Would I have given him the little respect that I did if there weren’t a faint impulse within me to bow down before his position? I’m not sure. Were my mother alive and able to read this, she would say it was all nonsense, that I was brought up to be polite and why should I be criticised for that. One part of me thinks she would be right, but another…
At all events the evening finished me in that world for many years. Damian was gone from their sight, but so, to a large extent, was I. With a few, a very few, exceptions, I dropped out of their round, at first because of embarrassment, but later in disgust with my own self. Even Serena seemed to back away from me or so I thought. For a time I would still drop by occasionally, once or twice in a year, to see her or to see the children or, I suppose, because I could not stay away but I felt that the shadow of that evening was always with us, that something had died, and at last I accepted it and severed all connection.
Of course, today I am older and kinder and, looking back, I judge that I treated myself harshly. I do not think Serena was responsible for my exile. Nor do I blame any of the others because I think I did it to punish myself and I was wrong. The truth is that Damian spoke that night out of anger and a desire for revenge, although I am still not quite sure why I was the target for such heavy, apparently unprovoked blows. It may simply be that he blamed me for pulling him into the unholy mess in the first place. If so, with the wisdom of hindsight, I’m inclined to think he had a point.
I rang Damian when I got back from Waverly and told him everything I’d learned. And I voiced a thought I hated to find in my brain. ‘This is a silly question, but you’re sure it’s not Serena?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Because I know now there’s so much more to your story than I’d seen.’
‘I’m glad, but no, it’s not. I wish it were in a way, but it can’t be.’ I could hear that he really was pleased to hear that I’d come some way towards understanding what that year had been for him. ‘I last slept with Serena in the autumn of 1968. She married in the spring of 1969 and there was no baby in between. I only saw her one more time after her dance, and that was for the evening in Portugal when she wasn’t staying in the villa and she had her dreary husband, silly parents, horrible in-laws and a baby girl in tow. Besides, even if I’d muddled all the dates it would have to be that child, Mary, who I hear is still the spitting image of her ghastly daddy Andrew.’ All of which was true. The missing mother was not Serena Belton.
‘Then it’s Candida. It must be.’
‘Did you talk to her about me?’
‘A bit. She mentioned that you’d gone out together, but it was quite early on in the Season.’
‘Yes. But we never fell out. We were always friends and we picked up again when it was finished, just once or twice, for old times’ sake. I know you weren’t all that keen on Candida, but I liked her.’
I was very interested by this. With all these women he seemed to have been so much more aware of them, so much more clear-sighted as to their true natures, than I had been. ‘She did imply there was a little hanky-panky when the year was over. Is that when the baby might have begun?’
‘No, it wasn’t then. That was finished a long time before the holiday.’ There was a short silence at the other end of the line. ‘She came to me, after that dinner, when everyone was asleep. I woke in the night and she was with me, naked in my bed, and we made love. Then, when I woke up in the morning she was gone.’
‘Did you see her the next day, before you took off?’
‘Nobody had surfaced when I went. I just called a taxi and disappeared. But she left a note in my room, for me to find, so we parted on good terms.’
‘Did you meet up afterwards? In London?’
‘I never saw any of them again. Including you.’
‘No.’ I too had gone to the airport at dawn, but somehow we managed to avoid each other. On my part consciously. And no, like all of us I had not seen Damian from that day until my summons.
He interrupted my thoughts. ‘That is, I did see Joanna. Just once, but we know it wasn’t her.’
‘And Terry.’
He was puzzled for a second, and then he nodded and smiled. ‘You’re right. I’d remembered it as being before we left. But you’re right. It was when we got back. Poor old Terry.’
‘What did the note say? From Candida?’
‘“I still love you” and she signed it with that funny scrawl of hers. I was very touched. I don’t think I have ever been unhappier than I was that night.’
‘Which goes for everyone who was there.’
‘I used to pray that I would never be so unhappy again. Since I have minutes left, I can presumably be confident of achieving that at least.’ He chuckled softly at the hideous memory. At least, I say he chuckled, but the sound was more like the rattling of old and disused pipes in a condemned building. ‘I lay on my bed, listening to you talking outside and everyone leaving, and I wished I were dead. For a while I thought they were going to send for the police.’
‘That lot? No chance. They do not care to make column inches. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed.’ We were nearly at our destination. There seemed to be nothing left to do but tie up the loose ends. ‘Shall I go and tell her about her son’s good fortune?’
‘Why not? Then come down here. I want to hear what she says.’
Candida was quite content to get my call this time and equally content to let me invade her for a cup of coffee that very morning. She lived in the same old Fulham-type house that so many of her tribe have come to occupy since I was young. Harry had obviously made a decent living and she had fixed the place up very attractively. She greeted me with her usual, if to me newfound, calm, good manners, and took me into a pretty, chintzy drawing room, carrying a tray of coffee things. On the table behind a sofa was a large, framed photograph of, I assume, the late Harry Stanforth. He had a bluff, chunky, smiling face, rather an ordinary one really, but that is the great and timeless miracle of love. I saluted him silently, as Candida poured cups for the pair of us. Then she looked at me. ‘Well?’ she said.
I explained about Damian’s search and my part in it. ‘I didn’t want to do it but even I could see he didn’t really have a viable alternative.’
She sipped her coffee. ‘I knew it was something. Though I’m not sure I guessed it was that. So, how do I come into it?’ Then she just sat, patiently waiting for me to continue. I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t making the connection.
‘We think it’s you. We think Archie is Damian’s son.’
For a moment she said nothing but just looked puzzled. Then she gave a little snort of laughter. ‘How? I’m not an elephant.’ It was my turn to look puzzled. ‘I last slept with Damian almost two years before Archie was born.’
‘But, when we talked, you implied that you had a fling with him after the end of your affair.’
‘And so I did. In the summer of 1969. I felt rather sorry for him, the way things had finished with Serena, and when she sent out the invitations to her marriage I looked him up to see how he was coping. We met a few times after that. But then I lost touch with him. That’s why I used you to get him to Portugal a year later. I wasn’t completely sure he’d want to hear from me again, although I don’t now think I need have worried.’
‘But you slept with him on that night.’
‘What night?’
‘When Damian went mad and covered us all with fish stew. Surely you remember?’
‘Are you nuts? Of course I remember. Who could forget? But I didn’t sleep with him.’
‘He woke up in the middle of the night and you were there next to him, in his bed.’
‘And this isn’t an extract from a novel bought under the counter?’
‘You left a note in his room saying you loved him.’
This did bring her up sharp, as she concentrated. She nodded briskly. ‘I did do that. I thought he must be feeling so ghastly after what he’d put us through and I scribbled a note saying… I forget now. “I forgive you,” or something like that-’
‘“I still love you”.’
‘Was it? Anyway, that sort of thing, and I pushed it under his door before I went to bed.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t sleep with him?’
I could see she was on the edge of becoming indignant. ‘Well, I know I’ve been a bit of a slapper in my time, but I think I’d have remembered if I’d gone to bed with Damian Baxter on that ghastly evening. I cannot believe I would have forgotten any detail about that particular night.’
‘No.’ I stared at my cup. Was I back at square one? It didn’t seem possible.
My words were still running round her brain. ‘He woke up and found a woman in his bed, making love to him?’ I nodded and she threw back her head, laughing. ‘Trust Damian. Just when life couldn’t get any lower, he finds himself in the middle of a scene from a James Bond film.’ Her mirth had subsided into chuckles.
‘But it wasn’t you.’
‘I can assure I would remember if I made a habit of that sort of thing.’
And then I knew.
Lady Belton was upstairs, apparently, but she would be delighted to see me if I wouldn’t mind waiting in the Morning Room since, rather illogically to my mind, this was apparently where her ladyship always had tea. I would be delighted.
The Morning Room was one of the prettier rooms at Waverly, cosy rather than grand, but with some of their best pictures and a really beautiful, ladies’ desk by John Linnell, which I would say was currently used by Serena, since it was covered in papers and letters and invitations waiting to be answered. The nice woman from the village who had let me in was settling the tea things as Serena arrived. ‘Thank you so much, Mrs Burnish.’ She had already acquired that slightly heartless charm that is assumed by the well-bred to ensure good service, rather than because of any touching of their heart strings. In fact, I could see in her poise and her clothes and even in her smile, that Serena was well on the way to being what is still sometimes called a great lady. ‘How lovely to see you again so soon,’ she said and kissed me on both cheeks. The fact that the last time we’d met we had made love, and not just love but the most passionate love of my entire life, was somehow, in a way that I cannot exactly define, boxed up and removed to a safe distance by her manner and tone. She was warm and friendly, but I knew then it would never be repeated.
‘I can’t believe you don’t know why I’m here.’
She had poured herself some tea and now she sat, carefully smoothing the folds of her skirt as she did so. She took a sip, then looked at me and gave rather a shy smile. ‘I bet I do. Candida rang to tell me what you’d said.’ Unusually, she seemed rather embarrassed, an emotion I would not naturally attribute to her. ‘I don’t want you to think I always go around sliding into the beds of sleeping men.’
‘You told me yourself it was only with men who are in love with you.’
She nodded. ‘Thank you for remembering that.’
‘I remember everything,’ I said.
She started to talk again. It was obviously a relief finally to let it out. ‘I wasn’t sure at first, because I felt, if he were interested, he would have done something when I sent that idiotic letter. But he did nothing. Nothing at all and I know, because in those days, twenty years ago, I was still in touch with quite a few of the girls who might have written it. What’s changed?’
‘He’s dying.’
Which brought her down to earth. ‘Yes. Of course.’ She looked at the ceiling for a moment. ‘I want to explain. About that night in Estoril. I’ve felt guilty for so many years, particularly over you.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because you were the one who got it in the neck. All you’d done was ask him to a few parties, and suddenly you were labelled a crawling, social-climbing toady and Christ knows what. It must have been awful.’
‘It wasn’t great.’
‘More to the point, it wasn’t true. Most of all what he said about your feelings for me. I know that. I knew it then.’ Serena gave me a slightly secret smile, the one open acknowledgement of what we had enjoyed together, and I was rather glad of it. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing. ‘How much have you heard about what went on at my ball?’
‘Most of it, I think. But only now.’
‘Damian told me he’d used me, he wasn’t in love with me, I was better off without him, all of it. And I just stood there because I couldn’t believe the words he was saying. The music was still playing and some girl was laughing in the anteroom just beyond the door, and I remember thinking how can you be laughing when I’m in here having my life shattered? I loved him with every fibre of my being, you see. I wanted to run away with him, to be with him, to love him to the end of my days and if it meant breaking with everyone I would have done it. But when he started to talk I just froze. I suppose I was in shock, as they say now, but I don’t think we had “shock” in those days. I think you were just supposed to go for a walk and get on with it. Anyway, he stopped and he waited for me to speak. And after a bit I looked at him and said, “Well, if you really think it’s for the best.” And when I was silent he nodded and he gave a funny little bow. I’ve thought of that so often. I can picture it now. A little bow, like a waiter or some assistant at the embassy who’s been sent to make sure you change trains properly, to escort you from the Gare du Nord to the Gare d’Austerlitz or something. Then he left. And I went out on to the terrace, and after a bit I came in again and danced with you.’
‘And I was so glad of it.’
But this time she wanted to tell me the whole story. ‘After that I didn’t really care what happened to me. I suppose I must have had a sort of nervous breakdown, but again, in those days people like us didn’t have nervous breakdowns. That was the sort of thing actresses did, and men who’d embezzled their customers’ money. I think people like us were just a bit under the weather, or getting out of the rat race or taking a break. Mummy and Daddy were pushing me and pushing me at Andrew, and he was keen.’ She stopped, catching my expression. ‘No, he was keen. I know you don’t like him, but he isn’t as bad as you think.’ I made a sort of accepting expression to cover myself. ‘And I didn’t know what else to do. We weren’t trained for anything, then.’
‘I know.’
‘It seemed a way out. I knew Damian didn’t want me, and since I thought of him morning, noon and night, I didn’t see what else to do. Anyway, the point is…’ She shrugged, helplessly. ‘That’s what happened. That is what happened to me.’ She stopped and sighed. Then, suddenly she shivered and, looking up, caught my eye. ‘Somebody walked over my grave.’ What a strange and haunting saying that is. We sat for a moment in silence until Serena said brightly, ‘Do you want some more tea?’
‘Please.’ I held out my cup.
There was more. ‘So I got married and I was pregnant fairly soon and you know, all of that stuff is quite exciting when it’s going on, and there’s lots to do and lots to buy and lots of people making a fuss of you, and I sort of forgot how unhappy I was for a while, and then, when Mary was born, Candida came to see me and we started to talk. And she said something like it wouldn’t have worked with Damian, not when my parents were so against him, or words to that effect, and I hadn’t known they were against him. I mean, I could guess they weren’t for him, I knew that from the dinner, but I didn’t think they’d had a chance to be against him in any thought-out way, because he’d confessed his base motives and dumped me before they’d got to know him. And then I heard what had gone on. Do you know about that?’ I nodded.
Serena was getting angrier. I could see it. Even though all her training was to keep such emotions under wraps, still she could not prevent a trace of her rage from seeping out. She put down her cup and stood, fiddling nervously with the ornaments and invitations that littered the mantelshelf. ‘The more I thought about it, the more furious I felt at what had been done to me. Because now I understood why I’d been bundled up with Andrew. And eventually I decided I had to see Damian again. I had to.’ She was almost panting. I would doubt she had gone over this ground in any detail for quite a time. ‘You know the next bit.’
‘I do.’
‘Of course, once my parents had pushed in, let alone my ma-in-law, I should have cancelled, but I was so desperate just to set eyes on him, just to touch his hand, just to smell him that I didn’t. In retrospect, I suppose they must have been afraid something of the sort was going on.’
‘It certainly sounds like it.’
‘But after I heard you were bringing him it was more than I could do to back out. I knew I should but I couldn’t make myself. So that evening we arrived at your villa and we set off for the walk down the beach. And I asked him about what he’d said and he admitted it had all been a lie. None of it was true. He was in love with me, he said. He would always love me. And I told him that if he’d only told me the truth and not lied at the dance, I would have come away with him that night. I would have packed and left and married him the minute I was twenty-one, and we would have been together for the rest of our lives. He said that he thought he’d done the right thing, the honourable thing.’
‘He had.’
She turned on me, her eyes flashing with fury. ‘Had he? Then fuck your honour! Fuck his stupid honour! I don’t care what his motives were. He lied to me and he ruined our lives!’
‘That was the “deceit” you mentioned in the letter, I thought it was something else.’
She frowned for a moment, trying to make sense of this. ‘Oh, you mean promising love to get me into bed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, he was the opposite. He feigned indifference. That was the lie.’
‘Why didn’t you leave Andrew? When you knew?’
Serena’s anger appeared to be settling. ‘That was my weakness,’ she said sadly. ‘That was the weakness I wrote about.’ She returned to her chair and sat again. ‘Damian asked me that. He said if I felt as I did it was the only thing we could do. He begged me to. But it was a different time. You know what they say: The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. I had a baby. I had family coming out of my ears. The scandal would have been huge, even in 1970, and while my parents were responsible in a way-’
‘In a way?’
She nodded. ‘All right. They were responsible, but they thought they were acting in my best interests.’ She caught my expression. ‘Well, they thought their best interests were my best interests.’ She paused. ‘And I was tired of being pushed and pulled, this way and that, but…’ She almost groaned and I could feel her breath as it left her body. ‘Of course, if it happened today I would have gone with him. I should have gone. I should have done it, but my nerve failed me when it came to it. Damian was half the reason for the waste of our lives. But I was the other half.’
‘And later that night?’
Now she almost smiled at the memory. ‘We were back at the house we’d rented, which wasn’t very far, and of course everyone was absolutely reeling. They helped themselves to huge drinks, even Lady B., and staggered into the many bathrooms to de-fish themselves, and so did I. And after that we all collapsed. But when Andrew went off to bed I said I wasn’t tired. I wanted to stay up. I waited until I knew he’d be asleep, then I walked back.’
‘You walked?’
‘I know. One wouldn’t do it now, would one? Or perhaps you would, if you were young and in love and desperate. Perhaps some things never change. I knew which Damian’s room was, lord knows, as we’d all seen him flounce into it. I’m not sure exactly what I’d have done if the door had been locked. These days it would be locked, wouldn’t it?’
‘You’d have woken him up.’
‘Yes. I suppose so. But it wasn’t, so I slid in, climbed into bed and made love to him in the pitch dark for what I knew would be the last time. He was sort of awake after a bit, but not very, even then. I didn’t mind. I was saying goodbye to the life I should have had. It was a private moment, really.’
‘But why was it the last time? Even if you weren’t prepared to divorce, you could have gone on with the affair.’
She shook her head. ‘No. I couldn’t have been his mistress, making up lunch dates with girlfriends and pretending to miss the train. That wasn’t for us. That wasn’t who we were. We should have formed a union that bestrode the world and frightened anyone who stood in our way. We weren’t a backstreets number, with telephones being put down when the hubby answers. Absolutely not. Once I’d decided not to leave Andrew, from that second it was over.’
‘I hope Andrew has some inkling of what he owes you.’
‘No, but if he did it would wreck everything for him, so it would be rather self-defeating. Anyway, that night I got up and dressed and left, and I never saw Damian again. Finis.’
‘How did you know that Peniston was his? Presumably Andrew put in an appearance occasionally.’
‘Rather an unfortunate turn of phrase.’ Then she smiled, tenderly this time, as she thought of her son, the lovechild. ‘I knew because when he was born he was so like Damian. It was mainly gone before he was two. Isn’t there some theory that newborn babies resemble their fathers, so they’ll be looked after and provided for? His nose, his eyes… I used to thank God that no one noticed, although I did see my mother giving him an odd look right at the beginning. But I always knew.’
‘Why did you write the letter? Why didn’t you just go and see him?’
‘I don’t know. I was feeling sorry for myself. Andrew was being more tiresome than usual, so I’d come up to London to finish off the Christmas shopping on my own and I was drunk. I don’t why I wrote it at all. I wouldn’t have posted it if I’d waited until the next day, but someone picked the letters off the hall table before I got up and that was it.’
I laughed. ‘Exactly what Damian thought had happened.’
Now she was serious. ‘So what’s next?’
‘I tell Damian. He changes his will. Your son is very, very rich. The House of Belton rises in splendour.’
‘Eventually.’
‘I can assure you Peniston won’t have long to wait.’ I remembered one detail, which I supposed we should observe. ‘We’ll probably have to run some sort of DNA test. Would you mind?’
Without a word she went to her desk, opened a drawer and took out an envelope which she handed to me. On the outside of it was written: ‘Peniston’s hair. Aged three.’ ‘Will this do?’ she asked. ‘Or do you need a newer piece?’
‘I’m sure it will be fine.’
‘Don’t use it all.’ But I could see something else was on her mind. ‘Does Peniston have to know? Is that one of the conditions?’
‘Don’t you want him to know?’
She looked around the room. Over the chimneypiece was a portrait of a Victorian, female forebear of Andrew’s, ‘The Third Countess of Belton’ by Franz Xavier Winterhalter, painted with chestnut ringlets and a good deal of bosom. Serena sighed. ‘If he knows, he has to choose between living a lie or spoiling his father’s life by cutting himself off from the Beltons’ history and feeling a fool in front of everyone he’s grown up with.’
‘A rich fool.’
‘A rich fool. But a fool.’ She took a breath. ‘No. I don’t want him to know. I would like him to know that Damian was a wonderful man, I will happily say that we were in love. I want to. But I think that’s enough.’
‘I’ll tell Damian.’
Serena had one more request. ‘I’d like to tell him myself. Can I? Would he allow that?’
I looked at this woman, still healthy, still lovely, still in the middle of life, and I thought of that scarcely breathing corpse. ‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘You could always write him a letter. You’ve done it before.’ We both smiled at this, but I could see that her eyes were starting to fill with tears. ‘I’m not sure he’s up to seeing anyone. Particularly anyone who hasn’t seen him since he was…’ I tailed off. I couldn’t quite find the right word.
‘Beautiful,’ she said, as the first droplet began its journey down her cheek.
I nodded. ‘That’s it. Since he was beautiful.’
I spoke to Bassett as I left, giving him the facts of the case and, on his advice, I drove straight from Dorset to Surrey. By the time I got there, two and a half hours later, there was already a lawyer in attendance who told me that a new will favouring the Viscount Summersby had been drawn up and signed. I was glad, even if it felt peculiar for a moment to take such pleasure in a name that I had hated for so long. Damian had asked for me to be shown up as soon as I arrived, and when I entered his bedroom I realised that we were racing against the clock. Damian lay in his bed, with a fearsome array of tubes and bottles, and leaking things on stands, all of which seemed to be connected to some portion of his emaciated, shrivelled carcase. Two nurses hovered around him, but at the sight of me he waved them away and they left us alone.
‘It’s done. I’ve signed it,’ said Damian.
‘The lawyer told me. You didn’t want to wait for the results of the test?’
I pulled out the lock of hair, taking it from its envelope and handing it to him. But he shook his head. ‘No time. And it’ll be positive.’ I could see the hair itself was much more important to him. He pulled two or three strands from the twisted gold wire holding it together and gestured for me to take them.
‘Give them to Bassett. Now. That’s all they need.’ I rang and the butler came and collected the precious filaments. When I turned back towards the bed I could see Damian holding the rest of the child’s curl as, very slowly, he brought it to his lips. ‘So we made it,’ he said.
‘We made it.’
‘Not a moment too soon.’ His thin lips drew back in a kind of laugh, but it was painful to witness. ‘Tell me the story.’
And I did. He made no comment except when it came to the account of his interview with Serena at the ball. I told him I thought his behaviour had been honourable, but he shook his head. ‘You are supposed to think it was honourable,’ he said. ‘But it was proud. I wanted them to want me. And when I drove down there with her I thought I could make them want me. But they didn’t, and I wasn’t prepared to be the family’s mèsalliance. That was just pride. I spoiled our lives through pride.’
‘She thinks she spoiled your lives through fear on the beach at Estoril.’
For some reason this almost cheered him. ‘She’s wrong. But I’m glad, even now, to think she feels it as I do. That’s selfish, of course. If I loved her less selfishly I would want her to forget me, but I can’t.’
‘She doesn’t want the boy to know. That is, she wants to tell him about you, but not that you’re his father.’ He nodded, but without complaint. I could see he was prepared to abide by this. ‘She asked to come and see you, to explain.’ This produced something like alarm in the rheumy eyes on the pillow, but I shook my head at once to comfort him. ‘I told her no, but she sent you a note.’ I sat on a chair placed for visitors near the head of the bed and took the thick, cream envelope from my inside pocket. He nodded for me to open it. Beneath the embossed address in deep blue, Waverly Park, she had written in that thick, italic writing that I remembered well, ‘I have loved you since I last saw you. I will love you to the end of my life.’ It was signed with one word only: ‘Serena.’ I held it for him and he read it, again and again, his eyes flicking back and forth across the paper.
‘You must tell her you were in time for me to see it and that I feel the same,’ he muttered. ‘Just the same.’ And then, ‘Will you stay? They can sort out what you need.’ I can hardly believe that I hesitated, my head full of those ridiculous, irrelevant things that fall off the shelves into the centre of your brain at the most unsuitable moments, a dinner party I’d said I’d go to, lunch the next day with some friends over from Munich. What gets into one at these times? Before I could answer he reached for my hand, which was resting on the surface of the counterpane, ‘Please. I promise I shan’t detain you any more than this one time.’
I nodded at once, ashamed it had taken me so long to speak. ‘Of course I’ll stay,’ I said.
And I did stay. I was given dinner, together with the lawyer, a Mr Slade, who invited me to call him Alastair, and we made stiff conversation about global warming in the fourteenth century and the Curious Case of Gordon Brown, as we sat playing with our food in the splendour of the lifeless dining room below, until I was shown back into the bedroom I had occupied on that first visit, in what seemed like another era and was in fact only a couple of months before, where Bassett had found me things to shave with, and brush my teeth with, and wear in bed. ‘I’ll collect your shirt and the rest of your laundry and have them back with you for the morning, Sir,’ he said. In truth, Damian had spent his last years in Fairyland, but a lonely Fairyland. That I did know.
It was Bassett who shook me awake in the early hours of the morning. ‘Can you come, Sir? He’s on his way.’ I looked into his face and I saw that his eyes were full of tears, and it struck me that when a man is dying, if his butler cries then some at least of his life must have been well done. I snatched up the brand-new dressing gown provided, and hurried along through the passages to the chamber of death. It seemed quite full when I got there, with both nurses and a doctor and Alastair Slade on hand, who had clearly been ordered to attend in case of any last-minute alterations, but he was not needed. The atmosphere was stuffy and anxious, and I thought of Louis XVI plunging his fist through a pane of glass to give his wife some air at her accouchement. They all turned to look when I appeared, then fell back so automatically, clearing the way to the bed, that I assumed this had been yet another preordained plan in this most ordered of departures.
Damian was only just alive, but when he saw me his lips began to move, so I knelt down and leaned over him, holding my ear as near to his mouth as I could. And I did hear him quite clearly. ‘Please tell her I feel the same,’ he said. Then it was over.
The test was positive, as he and I had known it would be, so there was no doubt that justice would be done when Damian’s affairs were settled. Alastair gave me a copy of the will before we left and invited me to read it through, in case there were any immediate queries he could satisfy, but it was all pretty straightforward, if overwhelming in its sheer magnitude. As I knew, Damian had no surviving close relations and so there was never any chance of a challenge to his some would say eccentric dispositions, and the document was clear enough. I discovered I had been allotted the onerous task of executor. This had been made slightly more bearable in two ways, the first being that I was sole holder of the office, so every other manager, banker, committee member, financial advisor of Damian’s vast empire had to defer to me. The second sweetener of the unwieldy pill was that Damian had left me a large amount of money ‘in gratitude for his kind execution of a tedious task,’ which I had not looked for, but for which I was, and am, extremely grateful. I have no hesitation in saying that the bequest altered my life enormously for the better.
He had also set aside what seemed to me a huge sum to be disposed of by me between, and I quote, ‘the others on the list, as he shall see fit. He will understand this designation. I make no recommendations as to how this should be done, since he is the philanthropist, not I.’ I was shamelessly partisan in the distribution, giving Dagmar the lion’s share which, I am happy to relate, resulted in her leaving William almost at once. I could not forget that she alone had been treated kindly by Damian during his terrible tirade, and I decided this must mean that her happiness was in some way important to him. I gave a sizeable lump to Candida, which she was very grateful for, and another to Lucy, which Philip lost within three years on ill-judged business ventures. Terry, surprisingly perhaps, invested her share well and now enjoys the proceeds. I did not give money to Kieran, since he didn’t need it, but I saw him as the legitimate heir to Joanna’s goodwill, so I purchased the Turner seascape, which I had admired in the library on my first visit, out of the estate and gave it to him. He was pleased, I think. The only other bequest for which I was personally responsible, but which, as executor I was fully entitled to make, was a substantial sum to Peniston’s sister, Mary. This was partly because I felt a twinge of guilt, knowing that she, in truth and unlike Peniston, had the blood of the Beltons running in her veins and partly to substantiate the anodyne notion, helped by the lesser legacies to the other women, that Damian had decided to split his money between those he had loved and their offspring. There was so much money that none of the above made more than the faintest dent in the whole, and the gifts helped the legend that Serena was happy, indeed eager, to foster and promote. Naturally, I needed the promise of silence from Candida and Terry, the only other two who knew, but Candida was Serena’s cousin and was never a risk. I was more concerned at having been indiscreet with Terry and I did think of somehow tying the money to a gagging clause but there was a risk this could prove insulting and counter-productive so I decided to rely on what remained of her decency. Thus far, at least, I have not been disappointed.
The funeral was small and simple, and Damian’s body was laid to rest in the graveyard, fittingly, of the Church of St Teresa of Avila, which had benefited so much from his benevolence during his lifetime. A few months after that, we had a grander and well-attended memorial at St George’s, Hanover Square. The will was public knowledge by this time, and had provided a good deal of conversation in London drawing rooms and at London dinner tables, so there were many faces from the past among the crowded pews, I hope not entirely because the luncheon afterwards, for all the attendees, was to be held at Claridge’s. Serena was very helpful with the arrangements and at her suggestion Peniston read a piece. It was that one about death being ‘nothing at all,’ which I always find rather irritating, but apparently it had been specified. He spoke about his mother’s admiration and love for Damian, which I thought rather courageous and good, and I must admit I was also impressed that Andrew turned up and maintained throughout both service and reception a grave, pompous solemnity, which I assume was the nearest he could come to any manifestation of sorrow. Given the circumstances, even the little he was allowed to know, he could hardly be expected to feel much of the latter. Of course, the enormous inheritance had propelled his dynasty overnight to a place among the top twenty families in England, so it behoved him not to look ungrateful, but still, good manners may never be counted on under any circumstances and I was glad of them from him.
Lucy was there, in a peculiar approximation of mourning dress, with a black, silk evening coat and a huge, plastic, purple flower pinned to its collar. Candida arrived with Dagmar, both of them looking elegant and genuinely upset, which warmed my heart, so far had I come in my estimation of the deceased. And even Kieran turned up, though it might have been to confirm that Damian really was dead. Terry did not make the journey from California. That would have been a lot to ask, but she sent a bunch of those fashionable and hideous flowers, beloved of urban florists, that look as if they feed on flies. One woman rather interested me. She was tall and large, but rather chic in her way, wearing a beautifully cut suit and one of the best diamond brooches I have ever seen. She looked at me and smiled and nodded, so clearly I knew her, and in case she came over to say hello I sought the assistance of Serena as to who she might be. Serena was rather surprised by the question. ‘Surely you remember Georgina Waddilove,’ she said.
‘Fat Georgina?’ I couldn’t keep the astonishment out of my face. ‘What happened?’
‘You have been out of the great world.’ She smiled. ‘She married the Marquess of Coningsby.’
I had been out of the great world indeed. ‘When?’
‘About fifteen years ago. I can’t believe you never heard, although they are in Ireland a lot of the time. It was her first and his second, but the miracle was that he only had girls before and Georgina whacked out two boys, the first when she was forty-three, and the second a year later. So she’s the mother of the heir and the spare.’
‘And is he nice?’
‘Lovely. Exactly like John Thaw to look at and so grateful to Georgina for rescuing him. Number One took off with a friend of his, and he was very cast down when they met, but now he’s as happy as a sandboy.’
Actually, this was a really joyful moment for me. I looked at the smiling and almost quite attractive Marchioness of Coningsby, and I knew that gloom is not universal, even in this misery-memoir age. For some people things do come right. ‘How wonderful,’ I said. ‘I hope her mother was alive to attend the wedding.’
‘She was. But if she hadn’t been, I expect she’d have risen from the tomb to get there.’ Serena laughed and so did I, before the other guests at the party claimed her.
So Damian’s quest was done and I was not unhappy at the outcome, nor, in the end, about what I’d learned on my travels through my lost youth. I had thought that the secret love story of 1968, had been my own hidden and one-sided worship, which had ended in my exile, but I had discovered instead that Serena Gresham and my betrayer had been the lovers of choice for any true romantic. Even so, I cling to my belief that in rediscovering and recognising the workings of my own heart, and in having finally made love, albeit once, to the object of my passions, I had endorsed my life, in retrospect and for the future, to the end of my days. Whatever may yet come to me, something or nothing it remains to be seen, I have known what the poets write about and I am duly grateful.
I was standing in the hall of the hotel, with its wonderfully vivid, black-and-white marble floor, when Peniston Summersby touched me on the arm. Together we walked out on to the pavement, into the still bright, autumn day, as we discussed what had to be done next, since an estate like Damian’s is bound to be a work in progress for many years, but then he hesitated and I knew he wanted to say something to show me that he was aware of his good fortune. ‘It’s a wonderful opportunity. I mean to try to be worthy of it,’ he came up with at last.
‘I’m sure you will be.’
‘And I want to go on with the things that mattered to him. Then there’s cancer research, of course, and. I thought we might look at setting up some new scholarships in his name.’
‘To be honest, I don’t think he’d really care much about perpetuating his name, but I agree with you. Let’s do it.’
It was time to part, but I could see he hadn’t quite finished. Poor fellow, he looked rather awkward, and in the last analysis there is something a bit odd about being left a kingdom worth more than the National Debt because some bloke was in love with your mother forty years ago, which is all he would ever hear about it. ‘Mummy says he was a marvellous man. She wishes I’d known him.’
I considered this for a moment. ‘I think he was a brave man,’ which I truly do. ‘He was unafraid of the rules that frighten people. He made up his own and one must always admire that. I suppose he was an original. It’s something so many of us strive for and so few of us achieve.’
With that we shook hands and I walked away down Brook Street.