The driver surveyed the dark shell of her once lovely home. ‘Was that yours?’ he asked, awed. The children were crying in the back, but were so full of hamburgers their distress was more token than anything else, and trauma on the whole avoided, which was what she had anticipated.

  ‘Let’s just get away,’ Ruth begged. ‘It does the children no good to look at a scene like that. The end of the life they’ve known.’

  He accelerated obligingly. Ruth looked back when the taxi reached the top of the hill and saw No. 19 Nightbird Drive as a lost tooth, a black and empty socket, in an otherwise gleaming, smiling mouth and was glad.

  ‘What about Harness, what about Mercy?’ wept the children. They did not mention the guinea pig, and she did not remind them.

  ‘They’re alive,’ said Ruth, ‘and I’m sure the neighbours will look after them; they’re so fond of animals!’

  ‘Our books, our toys!’ they wept.

  ‘Gone, all gone,’ she said. ‘But I’m sure your father will buy you more.’

  ‘Are we going to live with him?’

  ‘You have nowhere else to live, my dears.’

  ‘You, too?’

  ‘No,’ said Ruth. ‘Your father lives with someone else now, and there’s no changing that. But I’m sure she’ll be happy to have you, she loves him so much.’

  THIRTEEN

  MARY FISHER LIVES IN the High Tower. She loves it there. Was there ever a more enchanting address? High Tower, the Old Lighthouse, World’s End? When Mary Fisher bought the place five years ago it was a ruin. Now it is the outer and visible sign of her achievement. She loves the way the evening sun stretches across the sea on to the old stone and makes everything a warm soft pinky yellow. Who needs rose-tinted glasses when reality is so cosy? It can be done, you see. Mary Fisher has done it.

  It is dangerous to love houses, to put your trust in buildings.

  Who needs a knight in shining armour when Bobbo is there, in his beautifully laundered shirt, in his well-cut, fine-seamed suit, made in best, in softest mohair, and full of adoration, admiration? Mary Fisher has made her books come true. It can be done. She’s done it.

  It is dangerous to love men, to put your trust in love.

  It is even more dangerous to have house and man in the same basket.

  I could have told Mary Fisher that but she didn’t ask me. Besides, she devils do not offer advice. Why should they?

  The flames were wonderful. They warmed my chilly blood.

  FOURTEEN

  GARCIA ENJOYED WORKING AT the High Tower. He had personal charm, physical strength and an easy nature and was well suited to his work. He alone could keep in order the Dobermans which guarded Mary Fisher’s property: they loped at his heels and so he had no trouble in keeping the rest of the staff — two maids, a cook and a gardener — in order too. Garcia had his own room, with a sea view, and which was warm in winter and cool in summer. He was young and healthy. He sent his wages home to his mother in Spain; he did not know that she had married again. In his spare time he would go down to the village and drink. There were three young village women and two young fishermen all in love with him, and because he could talk fast and convincingly and had great sexual energy, none of them minded too much about the existence of the others. If any man could be deemed happy that man was Garcia.

  Garcia admired Mary Fisher for her style, her looks, her wealth. He thought she was placed above him as the shiny moon is above the dark earth, there where nature had ordained. During the four years of his employment he had made love to her on five occasions. He saw it as only right that he should serve her needs, tactfully and unobtrusively. If she cried in the night he would go to her, and in the morning they would be mistress and manservant again, formal as ever.

  Other of her lovers came and went, all richer, grander and more powerful than he, and he did not resent them. How could he? Their rights in the world were greater than his. The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, and so forth. And she needed her lovers — as indeed she needed him, Garcia, for her work, for her writing. How was Mary Fisher to describe the tremors of the flesh, the yearnings of the heart, if she did not feel them? They are so soon forgotten, just like the pangs of childbirth.

  When Bobbo arrived with his two suitcases Garcia was at first merely disconcerted. When Mary Fisher welcomed Bobbo in, became pink and tremulous and fluttery with pleasure, and made room for his clothes in her closet, Garcia was displeased. He had assumed that were Mary Fisher ever to join her life to another’s it would be to someone even richer and grander than she. She would cease to be the moon — she would become the sun. Bobbo, Garcia had always felt, was only a cut above a servant himself; an advisor, a professional. A city man who knew nothing of the sea or of coastal life; who walked on the edges of cliffs to show that he was brave and strolled at the sea’s edge in a storm to show who was master, and who did not understand what salt did to glass, or wood or human flesh, and ordered the windows opened in a high wind, the better to feel the force and glory of nature. Not only did he lack power, he lacked wisdom. Garcia sulked and sent a maid up with the early morning tea.

  When Garcia saw the taxi come up the drive of the High Tower and Ruth and the children get out, he was gratified. Ruth, he knew, meant trouble. She had come to dinner once, and torn a hole in a valuable rug and spilled red wine on a white Portuguese lace cloth, leaving a stain which not even professional cleaning could remove.

  Mary Fisher was in the studio with Bobbo when the taxi arrived. Garcia took it upon himself to ring through on the internal telephone but neither Mary nor Bobbo answered. They were, he assumed, too busy making love to answer. He felt angry, dispossessed and restless, like a rooster in the farmyard when one of the hens prefers the second-in-command.

  Ruth rang the bell on the great oak door. The Dobermans leapt up against it, barking, shaking the massive boards. He heard the sound of wailing, frightened children. He restrained the dogs and opened the door.

  ‘I have come to see my husband,’ said Ruth above the uproar. ‘And the children have come to see their father.’

  She stood upon the steps like a figure carved in stone: a giant chess piece, a clumsy black rook come to challenge the little white ivory queen. The dogs whined and fell silent. Garcia thought she had the same expression in her eyes, a reddish glitter, as his mother had on the day she’d flung his drunken father out, risking murder at his hand. He crossed himself. Ruth smelt slightly of smoke, which made him think of hell-fire. He stood aside to let her pass. He was both frightened and challenged by her. Garcia of the five compliant lovers, three female, two male, thought he could dice with the Devil if he wanted. And why not? All a man had to do with fear was outface it.

  ‘Where are they?’ she asked, and Garcia pointed upwards. He saw no reason to save Bobbo and Mary from the consequences of their actions. Ruth nodded and went up the circular stone stairway that was the centre of the house. The stairs were wide and low — the cold indoor stone warmly carpeted in pink. The children toiled up behind her, complaining because there was no lift. Ruth moved her large bulk upwards, round and round, with surprising ease. Garcia, following on behind, thought perhaps he could manage her: she would be his three girl friends rolled into one. He could reduce the loving courtship rituals the village girls demanded by two-thirds and still find satisfaction. The term ‘bulk buy’ came into his mind.

  Ruth reached the top landing of the lighthouse. Mary Fisher’s great studio room spread itself out beneath cantilevered oak beams. The wood was old, hard and seasoned by salt water. Once these beams had formed the backbones of Elizabethan battleships, men o’war; or so the architect had said. The cost of the conversion from lighthouse to dwelling had been some $250,000 and had provided employment for many, locally and from afar. Ruth knew this: she was familiar with Mary Fisher’s accounts. Bobbo had spent a lot of time with them at Nightbird Drive, as if he could not get enough of them at the office but had to bring them home.

  Mary Fisher and Bobbo were in the act of love on the white sofa, as Garcia had assumed they would be, when Ruth interrupted their pleasure.

  Bobbo wore his best white silk shirt and grey jacket and nothing else. Mary Fisher wore nothing. She made little mewing sounds of pleasure, but hardly, Garcia thought, loud enough to drown the sound of the telephone. If they did not choose to answer it they had no one to blame except themselves for what happened next. Bobbo and Mary Fisher did not at first notice Ruth’s presence, or the children’s; when they did it was Bobbo who wished to stop and Mary Fisher who wished to continue.

  Andy and Nicola stood with their mouths open. Their mother did nothing to spare them the sight of their father’s lanky, passionate half-nakedness as he disengaged himself from Mary Fisher.

  ‘Take the children out of here,’ said Bobbo, sharply, pulling on his trousers, forgetting his underpants. This is no place for them.’

  ‘It is the only place,’ said Ruth, ‘they will ever get to view the primal scene.’

  ‘Poor Bobbo,’ said Mary Fisher. ‘I see what you mean. She is intolerable.’ She pulled a yellow fringed shawl around her shoulders, and belted its fronds around her waist with a pink silk cord, so it hung like a dress of the most expensive kind, through which glimpses of delectable flesh could occasionally be seen.

  ‘Garcia,’ said Mary Fisher, ‘you really should have prevented this intrusion.’

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ said Garcia, averting his eyes, as if his mistress’s nakedness were unknown to him. ‘There was no stopping her.’

  ‘I imagine there seldom is,’ said Mary, forgivingly.

  ‘Nicola and Andy,’ said Ruth, ‘you are in a very wonderful and interesting place. It is a converted lighthouse. That is why there are so many stairs. And this is a very famous, very rich lady, who writes books. Her name is Mrs Fisher and your father loves her very much, and you must love her too, for his sake.’

  ‘Miss Fisher,’ corrected Mary Fisher.

  ‘I’m sure you will love being here,’ Ruth went on. ‘Look! You can see seagulls outside the windows and if you look down there’s a swimming pool carved into the rocks below. Isn’t that wonderful?’

  ‘Is it heated?’ asked Nicola.

  ‘I can’t look down,’ said Andy. ‘Heights make me feel sick.’

  ‘Then look over here, Andy; there’s a cocktail bar carved right into the old stone wall. Lot of mixers and peanuts and crisps, too. You’ll love those. I’m sure Mrs Fisher will get in orange juice as soon as she can. Won’t she, Bobbo?’

  Bobbo stood between his two children as if he felt he ought to defend them, but was not quite sure against what.

  ‘Garcia,’ said Mary Fisher, ‘I think this lady is simply upset. Take the children down to the kitchen, please. Feed them, or whatever it is that people do with children.’

  ‘They are not bears, Mary,’ said Bobbo, ‘to be fed with buns.’

  Mary Fisher looked as if she doubted this.

  ‘Ruth,’ said Bobbo, ‘please take the children home. If you want to talk to me I’ll meet you for lunch somewhere in town. But really there is nothing for us to discuss.’

  ‘I can’t go home,’ said Ruth.

  ‘You must,’ said Mary, little lips pouting. ‘You simply have not been invited here. You are trespassing. I have dogs, you know. I could set them against you, if I so wished. Intruders have no protection in law. Isn’t that so, Garcia?’

  ‘Ma’am,’ said Garcia, ‘I wouldn’t advise setting the dogs on anyone. Not Dobermans. Enemies today, you and me tomorrow. It’s the taste of blood, like sharks.’

  ‘Even so,’ said Mary Fisher.

  ‘Mary,’ said Bobbo. ‘There is no point in getting upset. It is obvious that the children can’t stay here. They must go home where they belong, with their mother.’

  ‘Why is it obvious?’ asked Ruth. Nicola was helping herself to peanuts at the bar and Andy had turned on the little portable TV, rather loud. They knew they would be advised when some decision as to their future had been reached. In the meantime they found the discussion both painful and boring.

  ‘Because I’m simply so bad with children,’ said Mary Fisher. ‘Look at me. Do I seem the maternal type? Besides, if I ever had children they would most certainly be my own. Wouldn’t they, Bobbo?’

  She looked lovingly up at Bobbo and he looked lovingly down, and both envisaged their mutual children, as unlike Andy and Nicola as could possibly be.

  ‘And what is more,’ Mary Fisher went on, ‘this house is simply no good for children. There are so few doors and so many stairwells to fall down, and the dogs are snappy. Isn’t that so, Garcia? The best place for them is with you, Ruth, in their own home, with their own mother. Of course Bobbo should visit them, eventually, and he means to do so as soon as you have calmed down, but you know how he dreads rows. And it wouldn’t be good for Andy and Nicola to see you two at loggerheads. We have to think of them.’

  ‘As soon as you are in a smaller house, Ruth,’ said Bobbo, ‘you’ll feel better. There’ll be less work. You won’t be tired and depressed all the time. And I’m not insensitive. I do understand that living in Nightbird Drive, with all the memories it holds for you, of life with me, must be upsetting for you. The sooner it’s sold, the better.’

  ‘I’m glad we’ve had this talk,’ said Mary Fisher. ‘It clears the air. Bobbo needs all the capital he can raise. We want to build an office for him here: a cantilevered extension. I know the tower looks large, but it’s simply amazing how small it really is. With all the advances in information technology in recent years he can all but run his practice from here, and need only go to the town office twice a week. We don’t want to hurry you, Ruth, but the sooner the house is sold the better. Bobbo wants to pay his way: he simply doesn’t want to have to feel indebted to me; I’m sure you understand that.’

  ‘The thing is, Mary,’ said Ruth, ‘there simply isn’t a house to sell. It burned down this morning. And there simply isn’t a home for me to take the children back to, unless we burrow in the ashes, so they’ll have to stay here.’

  When Bobbo had finished blaming Ruth for her carelessness, and Mary Fisher had telephoned the police and the fire department to verify Ruth’s story, and Andy and Nicola had realised that the guinea pig was dead, and the noise had died down, except for an occasional asthmatic gasp from Bobbo, Mary Fisher said, ‘I suppose that in the circumstances the children had better stay, for just a day or two, while we work something more sensible out. Garcia, will you drive Mrs Patchett to the station? She must have had such a tiring day. She can just catch the evening train, if she goes now.’

  And she left the room, her little white behind twinkling through the yellow fronds, her part in the conversation clearly at an end. But not before she’d caught a glimpse of Nicola’s casual heel grinding crisps into the Persian rug, and Andy spurting Coca-Cola from his mouth all over the whitewashed walls, as he accidentally sneezed.

  Ruth prepared to go.

  ‘But what about their things?’ asked Bobbo, following after her. ‘Where are their things? Trainers and underpants and jerseys and toys and colouring pencils and so on.’

  ‘All gone. Burned. Buy some more.’

  ‘I’m not made of money. And it’s Saturday, and the shops are closed, and it’s Sunday tomorrow.’

  ‘It very often is,’ said Ruth. ‘Just when you want something you find the shops are closed.’

  ‘And what about their school, Ruth? They’re going to miss school.’

  ‘Find them another.’

  ‘There are no schools round here.’

  ‘There are always schools for those who want them,’ said Ruth.

  ‘But where are you going?’ he demanded. To friends?’

  ‘What friends?’ she enquired. ‘But I’ll stay here, if you want.’

  ‘You know that’s out of the question.’

  ‘Then I’ll go.’

  ‘But you’ll leave an address?’

  ‘No,’ said Ruth, ‘I don’t have one.’

  ‘But you can’t just desert your own children!’

  ‘I can,’ said Ruth.

  Garcia escorted Ruth to the front door. The Dobermans panted after her. She exuded some new scent: of triumph, freedom and fear, all mixed. They found it heady. Their noses ruffled up under her sage-green smock.

  ‘The dogs have good taste,’ said Garcia. He sat her in the back of the Rolls-Royce. ‘Which way are you going?’ he asked. ‘East or west? Platform One or Two?’

  ‘Either will do,’ she said. ‘Just put me on a train.’

  He understood that she was crying. He looked over his shoulder and saw her large shoulders shaking.

  ‘It had to be done,’ she said. ‘There was nothing else to do. It was them or me.’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on them,’ said Garcia, and meant it. ‘Anytime you want to telephone, I’ll let you know what’s going on.’

  ‘Thank you, Garcia.’

  ‘Do you want him back?’ he asked. He supposed she would. Men have trouble believing that women can ever do without them.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ruth, ‘but on my own terms.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘They’re rather special,’ was all she’d say.

  She took the eastbound train; a very tall, very large lady with a dirty face and red-rimmed eyes, wearing a sage-green, tent-like dress and carrying a black refuse sack full of personal belongings hitched over one shoulder.

  ‘Why does that woman look so funny?’ asked a little boy, who sat opposite Ruth in the train.

  ‘Hush, hush!’ said the mother, and took him to sit somewhere else.

  FIFTEEN

  MARY FISHER HAS BUILT her tower around her, and cemented the stone with banknotes, and lined the walls inside with stolen love, but still she is not safe. She has a mother.

  Old Mrs Fisher lives in a house for the elderly. I know, because a monthly payment goes to the matron, and there is a question as to whether the extras (one bottle of sherry a week, four packets of chocolate-chip biscuits) are tax-deductible. The file is thick. Bobbo is good at detail. So is Mary Fisher. Bobbo moves his tongue over Mary Fisher’s left nipple, quickly, from right to left, and she gives a little gasp of pleasure.