‘Thank you.’

  He straightened up, glancing at his watch. ‘We ought to go.’

  * * *

  As they drove, he told her about the Kinnertons. ‘He and my father were in the Army together. I’ve known them all my life. Their son Ben was my friend. She’s a manic gardener, and he’s a JP and sits on the bench and drives everybody crazy because he seldom remembers to turn on his hearing aid.’

  They came at last to the house, driving up through impressive gates and a winding, tree-lined driveway. The surface of the road was appalling, rabbits darted to and fro in the glare of the headlights, but when they turned the last curve of the drive, the house lay before them, and Rachael saw the long, low shape of an Elizabethan manor, random lights shining from the leaded windows. As they drew up, the front door was opened, and a pack of assorted dogs poured at them, barking senselessly, but without rancour. Behind them came their host. A tall, white-haired and white-moustached old gentleman, hawk-nosed and dignified. He wore a dinner jacket which was probably fifty years old and a prehistoric hearing aid wired to one ear, and attached to a bulky contraption which he had tucked in the top pocket of his jacket.

  ‘Hello, my dear boy, splendid to see you.’ He had a high hooting voice of a very deaf man. ‘And who’s this? Rachael, you say? How do you do, my dear. Now come along in …’

  They followed him indoors and he shut the door. The hall was large and panelled and rather dusty. Dogs’ baskets and drinking bowls stood about, along with some gardening boots. There were beautiful, faded Persian rugs. A sullen fire burned in an enormous grate, giving off no heat whatsoever, but they shed their coats and were led into the library, and here a much more cheerful fire burned behind a tall club fender, and there were sagging sofas, and more dogs, and cupboards filled with exquisite china, and a great many family snapshots in tarnished frames.

  Mr Kinnerton was pouring their sherry when the door opened and they were joined by Mrs Kinnerton, as small and plump as her husband was tall and thin. She wore a black velvet dress, with one or two diamonds pinned haphazardly upon the bosom. Her hair was equally haphazard, bundled into a vague knot, and thus she bore down on them, smiling and cosy.

  ‘Oh, William, so lovely to see you. Give me a kiss. So good of you to come at such short notice.’ She raised her voice. ‘Darling, are you pouring sherry, because I want a whisky and soda.’ She turned to Rachael. ‘I can’t tell you what a day I’ve had. These friends of Ben’s asked if they could stay for the Taunton races tomorrow, and I completely forgot it was my cooking lady’s weekend off. So I’ve been struggling in the kitchen.’

  ‘How many people have you got staying?’

  ‘Only four. But it seems to mean an awful lot of potatoes to peel.’ Her hands were a gardener’s hands, knotted and rough, the nails broken. She was not the sort of woman ever to wear rubber gloves.

  ‘It was sweet of you to invite us, too.’

  ‘Well, you know, these young people, they don’t want to spend an evening with boring old us. That’s lovely, darling!’ She shouted at her husband as he gave her her drink.

  He said, mildly, ‘You don’t have to shout. My contraption’s turned on.’

  ‘I never know when it is and when it isn’t.’ She laughed gaily, and Rachael laughed too, because somehow with Mrs Kinnerton even the hearing aid had turned into a joke. ‘Now, come and sit by the fire and tell me what you’re doing in Devon …’

  But there was no time for this because at that moment came voices and footsteps from the direction of the hall. The door opened and four people came in. Two men and two girls. One of the girls was slender in red culottes; the other in flame-coloured chiffon. One of the men was tall and fair. The other …

  * * *

  Standing close to the roaring fire, Rachael felt herself grow icy cold. She heard the steady thud of her own heart, and a shivering tremble passed, like a shock, through her body.

  ‘Now, I must introduce you all. Charles and Miranda Bailey, and this is Lucinda Bailey, and Randall Clewe.’

  Rachael’s fingers stiffened. The smooth stem of the sherry glass slid through her hand. She heard the splintering tinkle as it smashed on to the flagged hearth. In horror, she looked down and saw the glittering shards of crystal, the wine spreading outwards in an uneven puddle.

  ‘Oh, I am so sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, we’ve got dozens of them.’ That was Mrs Kinnerton. ‘Don’t try to pick it up, anybody, you’ll cut your hands.’

  ‘I’ll get a dustpan and brush,’ said William instantly, and made for the door.

  ‘In the kitchen,’ Mrs Kennerton called after him. ‘Ask somebody.’

  ‘I … I don’t know what happened,’ Rachael went on apologising.

  ‘I did that last week at a party,’ said one of the other girls helpfully.

  ‘Easy to do,’ everybody agreed.

  ‘Let’s not talk about it any more,’ decided Mrs Kinnerton, and went on, slightly flustered with her introductions, but Randall cut them short. Coming forward he said, ‘Rachael and I know each other,’ and he took one of her icy hands in his own, and kissed her cheek. He smiled. ‘Hello, Rachael.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that nice?’ said Mrs Kinnerton, slightly disconcerted. ‘Now, darling, has everybody got a drink?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Randall.

  ‘I’m staying with my cousin.’

  ‘I had no idea you were in Devon.’

  You weren’t meant to. But she did not say this. She was still cold, trembling with nerves, and somehow it was difficult to think of anything to say. She only knew that she didn’t want him here, in this house, in this room, at this party. She did not want him near. He was too attractive, too confident, he had meant too much to her for too long a time. Why did fate have to play such a trick? Why couldn’t she be left alone, in peace …

  The girl in the flame chiffon came up and slid her arm through Randall’s. ‘I’m madly jealous,’ she said, smiling, but not with her eyes. ‘Who is this you are chatting up?’

  ‘This is Rachael.’

  ‘Hello. I’m Lucinda. Darling, I haven’t got a drink and I’m longing for a cigarette.’

  He gave her the cigarette and went to find her a drink. Lucinda puffed inexpertly into Rachael’s face. Rachael wondered how old she was. Probably no more than nineteen.

  ‘We’re down for the weekend. For the races.’

  It sounded very sophisticated. ‘Yes, I know,’ said Rachael.

  ‘I’ve never been to Taunton before. I mean, I go to Ascot …’

  Over her shining head Rachael saw William return from his visit to the kitchen, cheerfully bearing a dustpan and brush. Everybody stood aside to make room for him, and he proceeded neatly and deftly, to clear up the debris of the broken glass.

  ‘I don’t mind about the glass,’ Mrs Kinnerton said again. ‘It’s the dogs’ feet I worry about.’ And she relieved William of the pan and brush, and bore them back to the kitchen.

  William said, ‘Rachael, don’t look so agonised. It’s all over. It didn’t matter.’

  ‘It was a dreadful thing to do.’

  He went on gently, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re so pale.’ He took her fingers in his. ‘And so cold.’ His hand felt warm and comforting.

  ‘I’m all right now,’ she told him.

  * * *

  The evening, as unreal as an act from a play, progressed. After another ten minutes or so of chat, a gong rang somewhere and they all trooped across the chilly hall into a dining-room so large that the table in the middle was dwarfed into insignificance. There they stood about, expecting to be formally seated, but Mrs Kinnerton was busy ladling out soup from a huge cooking pot on the sideboard hotplate, and told them to sit where they wanted. William deftly pulled out a chair for Rachael, and then firmly planted himself next to her, but once the rest of them had sorted themselves out, he sprang to his feet and helped to hand around the soup. A plateful of steaming broth was placed in front of Rachael, and over her shoulder he said, under his breath, ‘Scotch broth. Just the thing for icy shivers.’

  The soup was followed by roast saddle of lamb and then apple fool and Devonshire cream. Mr Kinnerton, having tried politely to make conversation with the inattentive Lucinda, turned his attention to Rachael. He told her how he’d inherited the house from a cantankerous uncle. How his wife, almost single-handed, had turned the land from a wilderness into the famous garden it now was. ‘Grew shelter belts, you know,’ he told Rachael. ‘Once you’ve got shelter you can grow pretty damn anything. Remember what it used to be like, William?’

  Cheerfully, they reminisced. Rachael’s eyes returned to Randall. Across the table he and Lucinda were talking, low-voiced, as though they exchanged intimate secrets. All evening, Lucinda had scarcely been able to take her eyes off him, or her hands. They seemed constantly to find reasons to touch him, to possess him. I was like that, Rachael told herself, without pride. She is me all over again. How many girls had there been before herself? How many would follow Lucinda? She suddenly felt tremendously sorry for the girl. Because she had it all in front of her; telephones that never ring, letters that never come. The agony of disappointment, the final heartbreak.

  And Randall, the catalyst behind all this emotional upheaval. Randall, the charmer, irresistible to women. Sophisticated, but in many ways naive as a schoolboy. She saw him in the future, grown older, thickened by good living, his girlfriends becoming progressively younger. An ageing Peter Pan. She thought, Poor Randall. And this was astonishing, because the last thing she had ever imagined was herself feeling sorry for him. At that instant, as though she had said his name aloud, he looked up and met her eyes across the table. Lucinda was still murmuring away, but he did not seem to be listening to her. He simply looked at Rachael, and for a long moment neither turned away. And then Lucinda touched his arm, and his attention was diverted. He turned back to her and the tiny interlude was over.

  And that, Rachael told herself, was my last goodbye to Randall.

  * * *

  They had driven for a long time in silence. As they came through Duncoombe the clock in the church tower struck one o’clock.

  She said, ‘I didn’t realise it was so late.’

  ‘Are you tired?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Too tired to talk?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Why you dropped the sherry glass.’

  Rachael said nothing. William brought the car around a steep bend in the road, and then, where it widened before them, drew into the side and turned off the engine. It was very quiet. Ahead, a new moon was rising up into the sky. William opened his window, and the smells of the country night drifted in on a wash of cold air.

  He said, ‘Perhaps you ought to talk. Perhaps now is as good a time as any.’ He sounded as tranquil as ever. ‘Why did you drop the glass?’

  ‘I was taken by surprise.’

  ‘By Randall Clewe.’

  ‘Yes.’ He did not comment on this, and his silence was encouraging, it made talking easy. She did not feel hurried nor driven into a corner. ‘I knew him for a long time. I was in love with him for a long time. Then I said goodbye to him because I knew there wasn’t any future – there wasn’t any point in our going on. That’s why I came to Devon to stay with Sally. To get away from Randall.’

  ‘Are you still in love with him?’

  She tried to say no, but found that she couldn’t. ‘I … I don’t know. It isn’t important.’

  ‘Why isn’t it important?’

  ‘Because … I’m sorry for him. I’m sorry for him because he’s going to go on thinking he’s having a marvellous time, and actually he’s not having anything. Just a sort of perpetual youthful jaunt. And one day he’s going to wake up, and it’s all going to be over, and he won’t have anything to show for it. Except perhaps a string of scalps, and a lot of voices saying, “Randall Clewe – I was in love with him”.’

  After a little, William said gently, ‘It’s very difficult – almost impossible – for someone like me to understand the workings of the female mind.’

  ‘You mean you didn’t like him?’

  ‘I suppose I have nothing in common with him.’

  ‘Would you trust him?’

  Again a pause, and then regretfully, ‘No,’ said William. ‘Will you go back to London?’

  ‘Sooner or later.’

  ‘You wouldn’t think of staying here, in Devon?’

  Rachael turned her head and looked at him. ‘What would I do here?’

  ‘Marry me. I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you in Sally’s shop. But you were so withdrawn, so cautious. There was a barrier there and I didn’t know what it was.’

  ‘William … I can’t give you any sort of answer. Not just yet.’

  ‘I don’t expect you to. I just wanted you to know what I felt.’

  ‘Oh, William …’ She raised her hand and laid it against his cheek.

  ‘That’s a beginning,’ he said. ‘You’re thinking about it, at least.’ He took her hand from his cheek and put a kiss in its palm and then leaned forward and kissed her mouth. ‘And that’s another beginning.’ He sounded content. He settled back into his seat, started up the engine once more. They moved forward and the lights of Tudleigh came into view, and far up the hill the lonely light over Sally’s front door. It twinkled through the trees, across the darkness. A beacon, thought Rachael, and it felt a bit like coming into harbour after a long lonely journey.

  Anniversary

  It was a special evening. Yet disquieting, too, because Janey Ashcroft knew it, she couldn’t be sure if David as well realised that it was special. That was how it was with them. A closeness, a rapport that was almost entire, except for these small niggling uncertainties which, most of the time, she was able to ignore, but sometimes, like tonight, grew like balloons to such size and importance that she wondered how she was going to be able to cope with them.

  Because it was an occasion – for Janey at any rate – she wore her new dress, had washed her hair, brought a dozen chrysanthemums home from the shop so that the flat should look festive. When David arrived, crisp and cool-cheeked from the fresh evening air outside, she greeted him with a friendly kiss, and banked down the stupid disappointment that he had brought no present, no memento; and only realised in that instant that she had even vaguely expected such a thing to happen. Flowers would have told her that he remembered. Even one flower she could have pinned to her dress. Or a bottle of scent, or a little box to be taken from his jacket pocket and pressed into her hand: Happy anniversary, darling.

  But nothing materialised. They simply kissed; he said she looked gorgeous. They went into the sitting-room, and it was full of the scent of chrysanthemums, and David, at home in this flat as he was in his own, poured a couple of drinks and sat himself in the armchair by the fire, and Janey sat opposite on a low stool, and they kissed again.

  He said, sounding like anybody’s husband, ‘Did you have a good day?’ And Janey told him about her day, which had been neither good nor bad, simply ordinary, with Miss Potter in a panic about flowers for the wedding next Saturday, and the delivery van breaking down in the middle of the main road, which entailed a dozen frantic explanatory phone calls.

  ‘And you?’ she prompted, sounding like anybody’s wife, but with David, even disasters became funny. His detached description transformed the terrifying Sir Bruce into a comic character, turning the entire office upside down for the transcript of his vice-chairman’s report, only to find it meekly sitting in the middle of his own desk. Janey laughed, and he added, sympathetically, ‘Poor chap.’

  ‘Was he apologetic?’

  ‘No. Just red-faced, blustering slightly. You know the sort of thing.’ He smiled at her. ‘Where do you want to eat tonight?’

  ‘I’m easy.’

  ‘Gaston’s?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  ‘Just as well. I booked a table.’

  Of all the restaurants to which he took her, it was Janey’s favourite. Small, French, informal. There were potted palms and mirrors, and the menu scrawled in chalk on a blackboard, and always the most marvellous smells of delicious food being prepared. They were welcomed with enthusiasm, shown to the usual table in the corner by the window, brought the menu and two glasses of sherry. Outside it had been breezy, and Janey took a mirror out of her bag in order to adjust a stray lock of hair. She smoothed it away from her forehead and looked up, over the rim of the mirror, to meet David’s eyes. He raised his glass to her. He said, unbelievably, ‘Happy anniversary, darling.’

  She could feel her face melt into an enormous, unstoppable smile. ‘Oh, David.’ She dropped the mirror into her bag, put out her hand, and his own closed over it, and held it close against the surface of the table.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d remember.’

  ‘But you did.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The first anniversary of the night we met. We’ve known each other for twelve months. Does it seem twelve months since that terrible party at Lucy’s?’

  ‘I had a cold.’

  ‘And I hadn’t wanted to go to the damn thing in the first place, but Lucy insisted.’

  ‘You had an expression on your face that made you look like a boot.’

  ‘I don’t know why you spoke to me.’

  ‘Only because nobody spoke to me. They must have been afraid of catching my cold.’

  ‘I wasn’t afraid. I must have been immune.’

  Immune. She wondered if he was immune, not only to colds in the head, but also to this longing that Janey had for permanence. For a future with him. For … marriage. Just that. She wanted to marry David. She didn’t care about weddings or white veils or bridesmaids or any of the conventional trimmings. She just wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. But David, for some reason, was different. David never mentioned the future. He never even talked about other people being married. With him, the subject simply never came up. Perhaps it was because of his own parents, who had divorced when he was a small boy. Perhaps it was because he didn’t want to be tied down with responsibilities. Perhaps it was just that he had never met anybody that he loved enough. And that category, inevitably, included Janey.