days the only thing that really mattered was appearances. You could do whatever you liked as long as you knew the right form. Though I must admit the business with your father took everyone by surprise. They had been very discreet about it. And she was so very young — a schoolgirl. Even so, she was enchanting. Men liked her.’
‘They still do,’ Lydia said. ‘What actually happened when my parents met? Nobody would ever tell me. Only bits and pieces. Did they know each other before?’
‘No — your mother wasn’t even out. She had just left school and she was there for Christmas with her friend Mary, who was a god-daughter or something of Aunt Connie’s. That was why your mother had been invited — to keep Mary company, and then Mary spent most of her time in bed, laid up with a feverish cold. It was obvious that some of the young men were eyeing her over but I didn’t realize your father was interested. He seemed much older, and of course he had that cloud hanging over him.’ Mrs Alforde smiled fondly. ‘Poor Willy. He was rather dashing in those days, despite everything. He didn’t shoot, and nor did your mother of course, so perhaps that’s what threw them together.’
‘Long country walks when everyone else was busy?’
‘Very likely. It would have been noticed if they had spent much time together in the house. Anyway, the party broke up and we thought no more about it until the following Easter. That was when it all came out. Your grandfather wrote to Gerry’s Uncle Henry — a real stinker of a letter, it was — and more or less accused him of letting his only daughter get pregnant while she was under his roof. He knew your father was responsible — your mother must have told him. Unfortunately he also knew your father by reputation, so he wasn’t pleased about that, either. Still, after a lot of discussion, everyone decided that the only thing to do was make the best of it. Your parents were married very quietly in some provincial register office where no one knew them. And a few months later you were born. Then one didn’t hear very much.’
‘Where did they live?’ Lydia asked.
‘I don’t think they lived together after the wedding — your grandfather saw to that. Your mother must have stayed at home, and I believe your father was abroad for a lot of the time. Then your grandfather died and your parents divorced. And Fin Cassington was already on the horizon.’
They drove in silence for another few minutes. Lydia stared at the twisted grey ribbon of the road. She wasn’t sure what she had hoped to hear — perhaps that, against all the odds, she had been the child of a grand passion, at least conceived in love. That her parents had been happy in the early days of their marriage. That they had wanted her. Instead, the only emotions that seemed to come out of their story were lust and greed, regulated only by a desire to observe the proprieties.
Mrs Alforde cleared her throat. ‘I’m sure they’re both fond of you. In their way. Nothing turns out quite as we’d like, after all. Gerry and I would have liked children, for example, but it wasn’t to be. Would you light me a cigarette, dear? You’ll find some in the glove compartment. Have one yourself.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Lydia said, alerted not by Mrs Alforde’s words but by an infinitesimal alteration in her tone.
‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve been feeling so sorry for myself I’ve not been thinking of anyone else.’ She lit two cigarettes and passed one to Mrs Alforde. ‘You must think I’m a selfish little beast.’
‘Not at all. We all have a right to feel miserable sometimes.’
‘It must have been perfectly foul for you. The war and everything.’
‘The only thing I really mind about is what happened to Gerry. I don’t mind about not having children, or not now. One gets used to it. And as for having to sell Rawling that’s neither here nor there. Owning land is an awful burden nowadays, and I never really liked the house. But Gerry’s another matter. I should be grateful that he came home in one piece when so many others didn’t, but he doesn’t deserve to be as he is. So fragile. It’s such a waste. He dreams about bombers almost every night.’
‘Over London?’
‘Yes. He came through France with hardly a scratch, though he must have seen the most ghastly things. Probably did them too. But he was there in Southampton Row, on leave, when they dropped the bomb on the Bedford Hotel. It was the big one in ’17 — a lot of people were killed, and he was one of the injured. That’s why he can’t use his arm. And now he can’t get the idea out of his head: swarms of bombers like rooks and the bombs falling like hail. Civilians dying in droves. Nowhere to hide. Nothing one can say can reason him out of it.’
‘I suppose it’s the next best thing to impossible,’ Lydia said. ‘Arguing him out of it, I mean.’
The car swerved again. Mrs Alforde said, ‘I don’t follow. Why?’
‘Because he could well be right.’
There was something about Julian Dawlish that made people want to trust him. If he had been a dog, he would have been a St Bernard patrolling the Alpine passes with a keg of brandy attached to his collar and panting to offer a warming drink to any benighted traveller he might encounter. His face and perhaps his behaviour seemed to promise an inner philanthropy. Even Mrs Renton, not the most trusting of human beings, wasn’t proof against his peculiar form of charm. That was why she let him into the house and allowed him unescorted upstairs. That was why, when Rory opened his flat door, he found Dawlish standing outside with a smile on his face and Rory’s suitcase in his hand. And that was why Rory smiled back with a pleasure that was both unforced and unexpected.
‘Hello, Wentwood. The lady who let me in said I could come up. Hope it’s not a bad time.’
‘Of course not.’ Rory opened the door more widely, aware that his unexpected visitor had a good view of the unmade bed through the open door of the bedroom; in the sitting room he would soon be passing within eighteen inches of the remains of Rory’s breakfast on the crumb- and ash-strewn table. ‘This is very kind of you.’
Dawlish put down the suitcase. ‘Phew.’
‘Everything all right?’ Rory said suddenly.
‘Absolutely. If you mean at Cornwallis Grove, that is. Though in point of fact Fenella’s not there at present. She’s in Mecklenburgh Square.’
Rory swept a pile of papers from the seat of the one comfortable armchair. ‘Do sit down.’
‘Thanks, but no. I’ve left Fenella measuring up for curtains. I was only in the way so I thought I’d run your things over. But I promised I wouldn’t be long.’
The two men went downstairs. Rory was relieved to get Dawlish out of the flat. He himself had grown accustomed to the place, after a fashion; but having Dawlish there made him see it abruptly and cruelly through Dawlish’s eyes. A squalid little place, he thought, dirty and utterly depressing. And it was costing him more than he could afford. Ahead of him his life stretched as a vista of ever more unpleasant homes.
‘You and Fenella will almost be neighbours,’ Dawlish said. ‘Which reminds me: would you like to pop over there for lunch today? Just a scratch meal, she said.’
Rory thought there was pity in Dawlish’s eyes. Damn the man. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘But I’m not sure I can.’
‘Shame. But if circumstances alter, do come along. It’s number fifty-three, the basement entrance. One o’clockish.’
They passed the first-floor landing. Rory half-hoped Lydia would be there. He wouldn’t have minded Dawlish meeting her — she came from the same social drawer as Dawlish, if not the one above. But she had gone out for the day, according to Mrs Renton, with a lady who had called for her in a car. Judging by the snores, Captain Ingleby-Lewis was still asleep, which was just as well. Serridge was out. That left Mrs Renton, who had returned to her sewing machine, and Malcolm Fimberry, who was unfortunately standing in the hall, pince-nez askew on his nose, his hair carefully arranged so that it looked like a heap of buttered curls, and his flies undone.
‘Hello, Wentwood. I wonder if you could lend me a pinch of tea? I’ve run out and I don’t want to ask Mrs Renton again.’
He peered at Julian Dawlish, so Rory had to introduce them. The three of them went outside. A large maroon Lagonda was standing outside the front door. Two small boys were examining it with careful nonchalance.
‘That’s a fine car,’ Fimberry said, bestowing a cautious pat on the nearside front mudguard.
‘Not mine, actually,’ Dawlish said, looking as close to embarrassed as Rory had seen him. ‘It’s my brother’s bus. Mine’s in for a service.’ He glanced around him, clearly trying to distance himself from the magnificent vehicle. ‘Interesting place — I’ve never been here before. What’s that chapel over there?’
The question loosened Fimberry’s tongue in much the same way that brandy in its early stages loosened Ingleby-Lewis’s. Soon he was describing the vanished palace of the bishops.
Dawlish plunged into the flow. ‘That chapel, Mr Fimberry — is that where they’re having the meeting on
