Happy anniversary, darling.

  A year. They had known each other a year. They had this closeness, this rapport. But the final certainty was missing, and it was this void that, because she loved him so much, she was learning to live with.

  Over coffee he said, ‘If it’s fine on Saturday, let’s go down to the country.’

  ‘David, I can’t.’ He frowned. ‘I told you. I’m going to Gloucestershire with my parents.’

  His face cleared. ‘The silver wedding weekend. You did tell me and I’d forgotten. In that case, I shall be dutiful and go and spend the day with my mother and sweep up her leaves.’

  ‘I am sorry.’ She could hardly bear to think of the next Saturday passing without their spending it together. Perhaps it would be raining, or brisk and sunny. She imagined a walk over the downs, lunch in a pub. He would wear a polo-necked sweater of incredible age, and Janey would have to run from time to time, to keep up with his long legs. She found, to her shame, that she almost wished the silver wedding wasn’t happening.

  She said, as much for her own sake as his, ‘There’ll be other Saturdays.’

  ‘Of course. And twenty-five years of wedded bliss is something to be celebrated. Where are you staying?’

  She told him. ‘The Red Lion in Wittiscombe. They were there for their honeymoon. So it’s all very romantic.’ She hesitated for a second, trembling on the verge of the insane idea of asking David to join the party. Her parents had met him and liked him. Her mother in particular would be thrilled if he came. But … it was an insane idea. A silver wedding was no occasion to spring on a marriage-wary man, but rather to be treated lightly, with an attitude as casual as David’s own. She said, ‘At least it’ll be a good excuse for them to get out on the Wittiscombe golf course and have a needle match. I just hope my mother doesn’t win, or they won’t be talking to each other by the evening.’

  David laughed. She thought, I’m getting quite good at this de-bunking lark. And then, a little bitterly, I’ve had twelve months’ practice.

  * * *

  Janey’s parents lived in Bristol. The following Friday she duly caught a train to Cheltenham, where she was met at the station by her father. As soon as she stepped down off the train on to the platform, she saw him. Balding slightly, blue-eyed, wearing his tweed overcoat and an expression of cheerful anticipation. They hugged and he relieved her of her cases and she looked around and said, ‘Where’s Mamma?’

  ‘We drove up this afternoon. She’s already installed at The Red Lion. At this moment I expect she’s soaking in a hot bath and relishing the thought of a dinner that she doesn’t have to cook herself. She can’t wait to see you.’

  The family car was parked outside in the station yard. Mr Ashcroft loaded Janey’s cases into the boot, and they headed out of the town and out into the country.

  ‘Heaven,’ said Janey, ‘to get out of London. How are all the arrangements going for the great celebration?’

  ‘Wait till I tell you,’ said her father. ‘Something splendid has happened. We’re going to be joined by the Cressingtons.’

  Janey digested this information, but it meant little to her. ‘That sounds like the title of a play, and the name Cressington rings a bell, but apart from that I’m none the wiser.’

  ‘Janey! You must have heard us talk of Bill Cressington. He was our best man.’

  ‘Of course. How stupid of me. But then I’ve never met him.’

  ‘How could you? He was always abroad, in Europe or South America or somewhere. He comes from a family with banking interests all over the world.’

  ‘Lucky Bill Cressington.’

  ‘And the extraordinary thing was that I met him quite by chance last week when I was in London for a meeting. Walked bang into him in the middle of Piccadilly, looking very tanned and handsome and pleased with life. He’s just got back from a spell in the West Indies where he collected wife number three.’

  ‘And did you know wives number one and two?’

  ‘I suppose I met them fleetingly, but never for long enough to be able to say I actually knew them.’

  ‘He sounds fascinating, but not really your type at all. How on earth did you meet him?’

  ‘We were at university together. He was wild and wealthy and totally irresponsible, but so bright that he always managed to pass his examinations without appearing to do any work at all. A maddening man.’

  ‘What does he look like now after all these years of riotous living? A bit seedy round the edges?’

  ‘No, not seedy at all. He’s good fun, Janey. You’ll like him.’

  ‘If you like him, then I shall too. And very satisfactory to have your best man at your silver wedding. It brings the whole business around in a nice, neat, full circle.’

  * * *

  By the time they reached Wittiscombe, it was dark. The car came around the final corner and the main street lay before them, lamplit and lined with charmingly irregular gold stone houses. It curved up and away from them, leaning into the slope of the Cotswolds, and outside The Red Lion cars were parked on the cobbled ramp and light streamed out from uncurtained bow windows.

  ‘All we need,’ said Janey, ‘is an unseasonable snowstorm and we’ve got a ready-made Christmas card. I always forget how marvellously picturesque this place is.’

  They collected her bags and went inside, and the hotel was warm with log fires and welcoming smiles and people said ‘good evening’ and ‘how nice’ and the register was signed, and a lift bore them upstairs, and Janey was shown to her room which was small and looked out over the garden at the back of the hotel. There was a door into a private bathroom, and on the other side of the bathroom another door, which led into her parents’ big double room, and there was Mrs Ashcroft, out of her bath and into her dressing-gown and enjoying what she called a toes-up on the bed.

  She was reading a paper, which she tossed aside in order to open her arms to her daughter. ‘Darling!’

  Janey bounced on to the bed, and they hugged. ‘Heaven to see you! Did Pa find you all right? Isn’t it gorgeous here? So quiet. I’m going to revel in doing nothing, and not a meal to cook for three days. Did Pa tell you about the Cressingtons coming? You didn’t see them on the way up, did you? They should be here by now.’

  ‘No, we didn’t see them. But I’ve been told all about them, West Indies, third wife and all.’

  ‘She’s bound to be gorgeous. He always had a taste for glamorous women. It’s such fun, their coming. It will make everything sophisticated and slightly romantic, just the way a silver wedding celebration should be. None of us creeping around looking old, and Bill will flirt madly with not only his wife, but with you and me as well and we shall all feel cherished and beautiful. I can’t think of anything nicer. Darling, tell me about London, and the shop. And … everything …’

  Her voice trailed tactfully into nothing.

  Everything, spoken in that tone, meant David. Mrs Ashcroft was painfully cautious about asking any questions. She never brought up David’s name, she never interfered. But still, Janey knew. She replied, in a robust and casual tone which matched her mother’s, ‘Everything’s ticking along. No problems.’

  ‘You’re looking thin.’

  ‘Better than looking big.’

  ‘You’ll look big after this weekend. I’ve never seen such menus. And a special dinner laid on for us tomorrow night, and champagne on the house.’

  ‘Do you feel as though you’ve been married for twenty-five years?’

  ‘Sometimes it feels like fifty. And then I think of you as a baby and I wonder where all the years have gone.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Heavens, I must get off this bed and go and do something about my hair. And then we’ll go downstairs and see if we can find the Cressingtons.’

  But they didn’t have to look very hard, for the Cressingtons were already in the bar, waiting for them, and there was, in the midst of all the decorous pre-dinner sherry-sippers, an immense reunion. Kisses and hugs and introductions. Bill Cressington had obviously lost none of his glamour and revelled in the fact. Grey-haired, a little heavier than the stripling who had been best man at the wedding twenty-five years ago, he had a disconcerting expression in his eyes which would either madden or enchant a woman. In a dark suit, smoothly and expensively cut, a striped shirt, and a tie which could only have come from Rome, he radiated an aura of well-being which was as stimulating as a gust of sea-air. He told Mrs Ashcroft that she was more beautiful than ever; he appeared to keel over with delight at the very sight of Janey, and finally he introduced his wife.

  ‘… and this is Tania.’

  She was well-named. Janey couldn’t imagine her being called anything else. She was quite young – perhaps twenty-eight, or twenty-nine, tanned from the West Indian sunshine, her eyes sky blue, her hair long and straight, falling like a silken curtain halfway down her back. She appeared to be wearing no make-up at all, but her lashes were long and thick and very black, and when she smiled her teeth were shining and white as a well-cared-for child’s. She wore some sort of caftan, woven with gold threads which caught the light, and there was a gold bracelet at her wrist and gold rings in her ears. That was all, but she was simply the most spectacular girl that Janey had seen for a long time.

  Tania said, glancing at her husband, ‘I’ve never seen Bill so thrilled about anything. He was so pleased meeting your father in London that way. You know, after all these years, they just walked into each other in Piccadilly. It’s the sort of coincidence I used to think only happened in books. But they do happen to Bill. All the time. It’s the most extraordinary thing.’

  ‘Then you don’t mind being caught up in a sort of old boys’ reunion?’

  ‘Why should I mind?’

  Janey looked over to where her parents and Bill were already deep in nostalgia. ‘They’re going to be doing this all weekend. “Do you remember old Miffley?” “And whatever happened to that girl with teeth you used to play tennis with?” You and I will be expected to listen and pay attention and laugh at all the right moments.’

  ‘We don’t need to,’ said Tania comfortably. ‘We can talk to each other. I’m sure you’d like a drink. What would you like Bill to order for you?’

  That evening, dinner became so hilarious that Mrs Ashcroft, with a sympathetic eye towards the rest of the residents, kept saying ‘Ssh’. Nobody took any notice of her. Over coffee they began to discuss how they would spend the following day. Janey’s parents were determined to play golf. Bill obviously wanted to join them, but was charmingly considerate of his young wife.

  ‘Darling, what do you want to do?’

  ‘Play golf too,’ Mr Ashcroft tried to persuade her.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Tania.

  ‘Neither can I,’ said Janey.

  ‘In that case,’ said Tania, ‘Janey and I will go and look at Wittiscombe Manor. It’s open to the public and they have two Gainsboroughs and a Turner.’

  Her husband surveyed her with the expression of a proud father, parent of a brilliant child. ‘How did you find that out?’

  ‘There’s a notice in the hall, I read it while you were buying cigarettes.’ She turned to Janey. ‘Would you like that?’

  ‘I’d love it.’

  ‘It’s only two miles away. We could walk there if it’s a nice morning. And then Bill and your parents can play a three-ball foursome or a two-ball threesome or whatever it’s called.’ She smiled expansively around the table. ‘So it’s all arranged.’

  * * *

  Saturday dawned cloudless, a little misty, but with the promise of a beautiful day. As the sun rose in the sky the mist was burned away, and the village lay golden and peaceful in the sunshine. After breakfast, Janey went out and sat on the steps outside the front door and watched her parents and Bill load the Ashcroft car with golf clubs and suitable shoes. Tania, wearing jeans and with her lovely hair tied up in an old silk scarf, had gone off to do some shopping. Now she could be seen coming back down the cobbled street towards them, holding out a brown paper bag out of which she was already munching a green apple. As she approached she explained this to Janey: ‘If I’m going for a walk, I have to have apples to eat.’

  Bill laughed. ‘You know what you are, my darling? An apple alcoholic. It’s a recognised disease.’

  ‘If you’re very good,’ said his wife, ‘I’ll give you one, and you can eat it to cheer you up when you’ve missed all those two-foot putts.’ He took an apple from her, put it in his pocket and gave her a kiss. Not a married man’s peck but a proper kiss, on her mouth.

  ‘What would I do without you?’ he asked her, smiling down at her.

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You’re the most beautiful girl and I love you.’

  ‘For that,’ she said, ‘you can have another apple. For the other pocket.’

  They were ready at last. Janey and Tania stood, waving, until the car was out of sight. Then Janey said, ‘What a super husband.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘So appreciative and unselfconscious, kissing you in the middle of the street. Most men would rather die than do that.’

  ‘But he’s always like that. And he makes me laugh and he’s so marvellous to live with.’ They turned and began to walk up the gentle slope of the street. ‘You know,’ Tania went on, ‘it’s no secret that he’s been married twice already, but I simply can’t imagine why any woman would leave him. They must have been out of their minds.’

  ‘When did you meet him?’

  ‘About a year ago. I was working in the West Indies helping to run a boutique.’

  ‘Had you always lived out there?’

  ‘No, I sailed out there in a yacht with three chaps. I was meant to be the cook, but I wasn’t much good at it.’ She threw away the core of her apple and helped herself to another.

  ‘Where do you live now?’

  ‘In London. We’ve got a flat there.’

  ‘Don’t you miss the West Indies?’

  ‘Only on horrible days. And I’d rather be in London with Bill than in the West Indies without him.’ She tipped up her face to the sun and took a great sniff of fresh air. ‘And this is better than either of them. Goodness, I’m glad we came!’

  They walked on. As they left the village behind them, Wittiscombe Manor revealed itself, high on the hill above them, caught in a fold of the Cotswolds, its narrow chimneys spiring above the foliage. The road wound up the slope, and there were random cottages, where children played Saturday-morning games in gardens aflame with dahlias and chrysanthemums. But when they came at last to the Manor, they met with disappointment. For although the gates stood open, and the drive curved temptingly away from them through the trees, a notice announced that the house was closed.

  ‘How maddening,’ said Janey.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Tania. ‘Let’s just go anyway.’

  ‘But we can’t.’

  ‘We’ll pretend we never saw the notice. Come on. We can’t do any harm.’

  It was like being at school; being wickedly brave because the other girl was braver than you were. ‘Well, if we’re accosted by a furious gardener, you’ll have to talk us out of it …’

  They went up the drive, and presently the trees opened out and the old house slumbered before them, ageless, timeless, smothered in Virginia creeper and set in lawns which sloped away down to a ha-ha wall and then a little park. Cows grazed in the park. They seemed to be the only living creatures around.

  They came to the house and stood, looking up at its beautiful, irregular face. There was an immense oriel window and a crest carved in the stone over the door.

  ‘I don’t even know the name of the family who own the place,’ said Tania, but words were scarcely out of her mouth when, in front of their astonished eyes, the door began slowly to open, and a little woman stood there, wearing a brown dress and a pink apron. She had fuzzy white hair and spectacles and she said, ‘Good morning.’

  Tania was not in the least disconcerted. ‘What a lovely day.’

  ‘I saw you come up the drive from the bedroom window. There’s nobody home. The family’s away.’

  ‘I’m afraid we’re just rubber-necking. You know. Sightseeing.’

  ‘The house is closed.’

  ‘Yes, we saw the notice. We just came to look at it. We’ll go away now.’

  But Tania’s charm was irresistible. The housekeeper, or whatever she was, hesitated only for a moment. Then she said, ‘Well, the family’s away, like I said. Do you want to come in? I could show you around.’

  ‘Oh, that would be lovely. If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble.’

  ‘No. No trouble. I’d be pleased to. Come away in.’

  And so, after all, they saw the house and the Gainsboroughs and the Turner. And they were shown the family drawing-room, and the room where Queen Elizabeth had slept, and when the guided tour was over, the housekeeper took them into the kitchen and made them a cup of tea, and then told them that if they wanted they could go out at the back and have a wander round the garden.

  Tania said, ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course. You won’t do no harm. I can tell. I’m not one to be mistaken about people.’

  ‘You are kind,’ said Tania and, when they had said goodbye, she gave the housekeeper a kiss, quite naturally, as though they had known each other all their lives.

  The garden was as delightful as the house. They strolled through a maze of rose-beds, into a wild garden where a magnolia of immense age spread its branches over a tangle of marigolds, love-in-the-mist and vivid blue lobelias. Lawns climbed behind the house in a series of terraces, and the girls went right to the top and found a stone summer house, and there sat in the sunshine with all the Vale of Evesham spread out before them. There was only birdsong to be heard, and the occasional drone of a distant jet.