‘Are you staying with Mrs Skelmerton?’

  ‘Yes, do you know her? Will you show me how to get back to her house? I don’t mean to take me back. I mean just show me on to the road and then I can find the way.’

  ‘Of course I will.’ He seemed very small and wet. ‘Do you want to ride?’

  He looked doubtful. ‘I shouldn’t think your pony could take the two of us.’

  ‘I’ll walk, and you can ride.’

  ‘Oh, no, that wouldn’t be fair.’

  ‘In that case—’ I dismounted – ‘we’ll all walk. You and me and Daisy. She’ll think this is her lucky day, going back to her stable without anything heavier on her back than a saddle.’

  He said, ‘Can I take her reins?’

  I handed them to him. He handled them competently, a child used to ponies. We moved off, three abreast, Daisy’s hooves making a pleasant sound on the hard sand.

  I said, ‘You should watch out for the fret. It can be dangerous if you get caught on the cliffs, specially with the tide coming in.’

  ‘Watch out for what?’

  ‘Fret. That’s Northumbrian for sea-mist.’

  ‘Do you know other Northumbrian words?’

  ‘Some. Country words. Do you live in the country?’

  ‘No, London. We lived in America for a bit, but we live in London now. I’m here for a week, staying with Mrs Skelmerton. It’s nice, but the house is so big. I don’t much like my bedroom either. You keep thinking there might be ghosts.’

  ‘I don’t think Skelmerton’s that sort of a house.’

  Around Daisy’s placid nose, the boy looked at me suspiciously. ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Because I have lived here all my life. And I’m sure I’d have heard if there were ghosts.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘In the village.’ He was quiet for a little, probably still thinking about ghosts. To change the subject, I asked him his name.

  ‘I’m William. But most people call me Tiger. I’m even called Tiger at school. It’s funny, because I didn’t tell anybody I was called Tiger. They just seemed to know.’

  ‘Why are you called Tiger?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Perhaps you were a very fierce baby and bit people?’

  He gave this due consideration. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so.’ He thought some more. ‘Anyway, babies don’t have teeth for ages.’

  There was no question of having to find our way home. Daisy led us like a homing pigeon, up and over the dunes, along the paths which had been trodden to mud by grazing cattle, through the gate and up the lane which led to the village.

  Here, half a mile or so from the sea, the mist thinned out a little and the village street revealed itself to us, wet and empty. Tiger looked up and down, and then said, ‘Now I know where I am. I can find my way back now.’ He handed me the reins and tipped back his head to look up into my face. His eyes were dark as blackberries, his soft hair plastered wetly to the shape of his skull. He said, ‘Thank you so much.’ He smiled. And it was then that I knew who he was.

  * * *

  Skelmerton is a small village. It has one large house, one medium-sized house and a lot of old stone cottages. The large house is Skelmerton Manor where old Mrs Skelmerton lives alone in shabby grandeur, surrounded by a tangled garden and a small park filled with grazing cattle. The largish house is called The Shrubberies and is owned by the Priestly-Browns who are newcomers, having only lived in the village for ten years. Mr Priestly-Brown works in Newcastle, commuting by train each day, and Mrs Priestly-Brown is a woman of immense energies and confidence. She runs everything she can lay her hands on, and when she has been particularly maddening I tell myself that she is also pretentious and condescending. My father, however, merely points out that she is hardworking, generous and deeply concerned with the community as a whole. But then he is a clergyman and the medium-sized house is the rectory, where we live.

  The cottages are simply cottages, with small windows crammed with net curtains and potted geraniums. One or two of them have been bought up by other commuters who have built on garden extensions, or thrown out picture windows, but not enough to spoil the look of the place.

  All in all, it is a very nice village, and my father has been rector of St George’s, Skelmerton, for fifteen years. He also looks after the parishes of Abbots Whelper and High Houghton which involves, on Sundays, a fairly tight schedule and a good deal of nippy driving. He is a very good priest; I think because he has a sense of humour.

  When we came to Skelmerton, my mother was alive. It was she who turned the Rectory from a gloomy, chill mausoleum into the charming, sun-filled house it is now. It was she who created the garden out of a neglected wilderness; tore out all the old laurels and felled the monkey puzzle trees, and planted azaleas and silver birches which stand, in springtime, knee-deep in a carpet of daffodils. I always think that a garden is the best sort of legacy a person can leave. When she died I was in London, nursing, and everybody said, ‘You can’t give it up. You can’t go home.’

  But I did anyway and I’ve lived in Skelmerton ever since.

  * * *

  That day of the fog, when I finally bicycled up the short drive that led to home, I saw Mrs Priestly-Brown’s car at the door, and my heart sank. I put my bicycle away, went up to my room to change and tidy up, taking as long about it as I decently could, but when I came down she was still there, perched across the hearthrug from my father with the fire blazing merrily between them and the warm air filled with the scent of the blue hyacinths which I had planted last autumn.

  She was a small, slender woman (no one so energetic possibly put on weight), always dressed with immense chic, never glimpsed without lipstick, pearls and nail varnish. Her hair was grey, discreetly blued, never a curl out of place. She always made me feel a mess, however hard I tried.

  ‘And here’s Caroline!’ she cried, as though I were about to do some sort of trick. ‘Had a nice ride, dear? Your father and I have just had a good long chat about the summer fête. Just as well to get it cut and dried without a lot of people interfering.’ Perhaps this sounded, even to her ears, a little close to the wind, so she added swiftly, ‘Not that everybody in the village doesn’t work like a slave when the time comes, but there’s such a lot of groundwork to be put in first.’

  I looked at the clock and said, ‘Have you had tea?’

  ‘Oh, ages ago.’

  ‘A glass of sherry then?’

  ‘No, I won’t, thank you all the same. I must be off. But first …’ she sprang to her narrow feet and stooped to pick up a businesslike bag which bulged like a briefcase … ‘I want you both to come and have a drink at The Shrubberies tomorrow evening. About six o’clock, just one or two people, not a proper party, quite impromptu.’

  My father muttered something about impromptu parties always being the best.

  ‘That’s what I told Mrs Skelmerton. I was up at the Manor today, collecting for the children’s home …’ (I could imagine her in the Skelmerton drawing-room, oozing charm and rattling her tin. I suspected that, like the rest of us, she was rather in awe of Mrs Skelmerton, but that didn’t stop her ruthlessly name-dropping) ‘… and the idea occurred to me then.’ She turned to me. ‘You will come, won’t you, Caroline?’

  She had an expression on her face which I knew well. Not just on Mrs Priestly-Brown’s face, but on the faces of other match-making ladies. Poor Caroline, it said. Twenty-seven and living at home with a parson for a father. What chance does she have of meeting anybody? We must be kind to her.

  ‘I’d like to,’ I murmured.

  She went on, with an arch light in her eye. ‘She has the most charming man staying with her.’

  I said, coolly, ‘Is he called Leo Walton?’ It was astonishing how easy I made it sound, how casual.

  ‘Why … yes. How did you know?’

  ‘He came to Skelmerton a long time ago. Ten years at least. We met him then.’ I turned to my father. ‘You remember him, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He can be marvellously bland. ‘But, Caroline, how did you know …?’

  ‘I thought I saw his son on the beach this afternoon.’ And I wanted to add, for Mrs Priestly-Brown’s benefit, Leo Walton has been married for ten years to a beautiful girl called Cynthia, and he has a little boy called Tiger, who has inherited his father’s smile.

  But of course I didn’t. And the next moment Mrs Priestly-Brown said, ‘Poor little boy.’

  I frowned. ‘Why so poor?’

  ‘You can’t have heard. And why should you? Mrs Skelmerton only told me this afternoon when she was showing me out to my car. I said, what a charming man, and she said yes, and brave too. And I said, why so brave, and she told me – so tragic – that his wife had been killed in a car crash about a year ago. It happened in America; he was working out there for his firm. They were so devoted to each other she said.’ She looked at my father. ‘Sometimes one hears of such things happening and one wonders why.’ At the expression she saw in his face, she floundered a little. ‘Of course, I know there doesn’t have to be a reason. At least not a reason we mortals can understand. But …’

  He took pity on her. ‘Yes, I know. And we had no idea about Leo’s wife. Thank you for telling us.’

  She cheered up a little. ‘And I can expect you both tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ my father began, but I interrupted. ‘I’ve just remembered – I shan’t be able to come after all, I have to go, and …’ I cast about frantically for inspiration, ‘… have tea with Deirdre,’ was all I could come up with.

  My father gazed at me in open disbelief. Deirdre is a dim girl who was at school with me. She lives in a gloomy house out beyond Rothbury and I have been heard to say that I would rather be found dead than spend half an hour in her company. He said, at last, ‘How nice.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mrs Priestly-Brown looked gratifyingly disappointed. ‘Can’t you put her off?’

  ‘No, not possibly. I am sorry, but it’s really impossible. Poor Deirdre. She doesn’t have much of a life with that old aunt.’ And Mrs Priestly-Brown said no, of course not, but did not sound convinced. And she took herself off, obviously deciding that not only was I twenty-seven and unmarried, but in imminent danger of cluttering up what remained of my life with Good Works.

  * * *

  I was seventeen when Leo Walton came into my life. I had finished school and when Mrs Skelmerton phoned to ask if I would like to go up to the Manor and play tennis with some young people who were staying with her, it made me feel marvellously grown-up, which just shows what an innocent I was. I had a new tennis dress, very short, which showed off my tan, acquired as the result of an unexpectedly hot spell of weather. I had to bicycle up to the Manor as I hadn’t yet passed my driving test, but even that didn’t dampen my good spirits.

  As I came up the drive I saw that a knock-up was already in progress on the old hard court that was apt to sprout thistles in unlikely places. I got off my bicycle and parked it incongruously against the great curving stone balustrade of the front steps, and was about to make my way down to join the rest of the party, when a voice spoke behind me.

  ‘Hello.’

  I turned and looked up. He had appeared from the front door and was coming down the steps towards me. He wore jeans and a striped cotton sweater and a pair of very old, dirty tennis shoes. His hair was very dark, his face tanned, his eyes unexpectedly light beneath darkly-marked brows. He was smiling. He said, ‘You must be Caroline.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Mrs Skelmerton told me to look out for you. I’m Leo Walton.’

  I said, ‘How do you do?’ and fell in love.

  I suppose that sounds very old-fashioned. But that’s just the way it happened. One moment I was just Caroline, the person I had always known, living a life without surprises or secrets. The next instant my entire existence had altered; had taken on new dimensions, new horizons. I had been headed one way, now I moved in a totally different direction. Being in love with Leo was a new universe and he was its axis, and around that axis I was to spin for ever.

  He said, ‘You look very professional, I expect you’ll knock us all off the court.’

  I had been captain of tennis at school, but I only said, ‘Not really.’

  ‘I didn’t come prepared for tennis and I hoped that my lack of equipment would be good reason to sit and spectate, but the delusion was swiftly dispelled. These shoes belonged to the late Mr Skelmerton and they’re at least three sizes too big, and smelly to boot.’ I began to laugh, and he laughed, too, and said, ‘Come along, we mustn’t keep the others waiting.’

  * * *

  It was the beginning of a wonderful week. One thing led to another; the tennis party to an enormous barbecue on the beach, and the barbecue to an expedition to Dunstanburgh. Here Mrs Skelmerton, like some ancient warrior, led us up crumbling towers in the teeth of the east wind, and stood, pointing with her stick and treating us all to a lecture on rounded bastions, fortifications and garderobes. And it was fun because Leo was part of it all. Everybody liked him. The fact that I was never alone with him didn’t bother me in the least. In fact I decided, if I did find myself in such a situation, I should be scared stiff and become utterly tongue-tied. But I was wrong. Because one morning I was waiting for the bus to take me to Alnwick where I had promised to do the weekend marketing for my mother. As I stood there, propped against the bus shelter and making up fantasies about Leo Walton, he suddenly appeared alongside me, sitting behind the wheel of a dashing red car. He said, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To Alnwick.’

  ‘Hop in, then; I’ll take you.’

  I hopped in, the basket on my knee. He put the car into gear and we zoomed off, through the village, up and over the hill. It was a bright morning with a south-west wind, and the sky was blue, ballooned with great banks of white cumulus which cast scudding cloud shadows across the face of the moors.

  He said, ‘What a view.’ He smiled at me. ‘And what a fantastic place to live.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘In London. I work there, so I live there.’

  ‘Have you known Mrs Skelmerton for long?’

  ‘All my life. She was a friend of my grandmother’s. I used to come here when I was a boy. But you weren’t here then. There was a different rector.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Now you’ve left school, will you stay here?’

  ‘No. I’m going to do nursing. I think.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In London.’ Another fantasy took shape. I saw him asking me for my address, coming to take me out to dine in some glittering spot, driving me down Park Lane in this very car.

  ‘Any particular hospital?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know yet. I’ve got to go down and have interviews.’

  ‘It’s hell, isn’t it, trying to ease your way into some sort of profession? It’s so easy to make some mistake at the very beginning and then you get in a mess, and you have to go back to the beginning and start all over again.’

  I said, ‘Like Ludo.’

  ‘Or Snakes and Ladders.’

  * * *

  He only had to go to the gunsmith’s for some fishing tackle, and I had a list that would take me an hour, but he said that he would wait and drive me home, and that I would find him in the bar of the Swan. I had never been into the bar of the Swan in my life. In fact I had never been into a bar but I wasn’t going to tell him that, and when I had finished the shopping I just walked in as to the manner born, and he was waiting for me, sitting on a high stool and reading the newspaper. I said his name, and he stood up and folded the paper. ‘Put the basket down and tell me what you want to drink,’ he said, and I asked for a glass of cider, and he had some beer, and we sat together in the gloom and the stuffiness of the little bar, it seemed the nicest place I had ever been.

  I did not see him again until the Sunday. I don’t go to church every Sunday, my father being the open-minded man that he is, but this particular Sunday I felt rather like it even if it was only to pray with enormous fervour that Leo should continue to like me for ever and ever.

  Our pew was at the very back so I sat there watching everybody coming in. Just five minutes before the service was due to start I heard a car arrive outside, the sound of voices. The next moment Mrs Skelmerton marched in like a general at the head of his troops. Behind her, dutifully, came her house-party from the Manor. I waited for Leo, and he brought up the rear, but with him was a girl I hadn’t seen before. She was hatless and her hair was dark and curly, and she wore a red skirt and a nut-brown velvet jacket that I would have given anything for. Leo never saw me. But as I stared at their backs the girl turned up her head to whisper something to him, and he bent his head the better to listen, and his hand cupped her elbow. There was something about the tender possession of his touch that turned a cold knife in my heart. I had never been jealous before and to experience it now, for the first time, in church was the most terrible thing that had ever happened to me. But I couldn’t take my eyes off them, and as she turned to make her way into the Skelmerton pew I saw her delicate profile, the sweep of her lashes, the blackberry darkness of her eyes.

  She was called Cynthia Ross, and three months later Leo married her. I never spoke to her, because that morning I was first out of church and halfway home before any of the rest of the congregation had shifted from the pews. And that evening I heard that she and Leo had gone back to London together. And I never saw him again.

  * * *

  I never loved any other man, but in ten years you can learn to live with almost anything, and slowly I accepted the fact that I had lost him, and the years passed by and I knew that he had probably forgotten all about me. On this basis, I had been prepared to meet him again, to go to Mrs Priestly-Brown’s, to shake hands, to say ‘How nice to see you again,’ to be introduced to his wife, and to smile into the dark eyes which had looked up at me from the rain-washed face of her small son. And we would perhaps sip a sherry and remember that long-ago time, and laugh about the late Mr Skelmerton’s tennis shoes, and Mrs Skelmerton’s guided tour of Dunstanburgh.