answer to the morning, a mesmerizing play of light and depth. A few dead leaves were floating on it, and others had sunk and patched the blue concrete bottom. Dragonflies paid darting visits. He crouched and stirred the surface with his hand. On the far side Jasper had lifted Catherine up to sit on the tiled shelf, with the water lapping between her legs, and him hanging on to her, looking as if he'd like to do the same. She made some quick remark about Nick's being there, and then called, 'Hello, darling!' Jasper turned and floated free and gave Nick his sure-fire smile, said nothing, but lazily trod water and kept looking at him. He had a tiny repertoire, a starter kit, of seducer's tricks, and got obvious satisfaction from deploying them, regardless of results. Nick found him embarrassing and resistible, which didn't preclude his figuring in some of his most punitive fantasies: in fact it made them all the more pointed. Jasper kicked across the pool towards him and it looked at first, in the welter of refractions, as if he was naked; then, when he sprang out streaming on to the poolside, he saw that he was wearing a little cut-away flesh-coloured item. 'What do you think of Jaz's thong?' said Catherine, obviously assuming that Nick fancied him.
'Yeah, I don't like to wear it when her mum's about,' said Jasper considerately. He posed for Nick, held in his brown stomach, and flashed him his number-two smile.
'What do you think?' said Catherine, grinning, a bit breathless, in her tone of sexual fixation.
'Hmm,' said Nick, peering at the sleek pouch in which Jaz's crown jewels, as he called them, were boyishly slumped. 'You'd have to say, darling, it leaves disappointingly little to the imagination.' He made a sorry moue and strolled off to the lounger at the far end of the pool, where he had left his book.
He was reading Henry James's memoir of his childhood,
Next day Toby was teaching Nick and Wani how to play boules: they were out on the dusty compacted square of the forecourt. Wani had been wet about the game until he turned out to be good at it, and now he was absorbed and unironical, tripping after the ball, yapping and grinning when he bombed the other boules away from the jack-ball, or
Toby had just flung the
'Good flight, Gran?' said Toby, kissing her cheek.
'It was perfectly all right,' said Lady Partridge, with her usual indifference to a kiss. 'It's quite a trek from the airport. Sally's been explaining to me all about operas'-and she gave the three boys a shrewd smile.
Sally Tipper said, 'The first-class seats were just the same as tourist class, you got proper china, that was all. Maurice is going to write to John about it.' She watched her husband, who came and shook hands with Toby, and said, 'Tobias,' in a coldly pitying tone.
'Welcome, welcome!' said Toby, in a weak flourish of good manners, avoiding the eye of the man who might have been his father-in-law, and going to the boot to take care of the bags. Nick got an inattentive hello from each of them, and the feeling, which he'd had in the past, of being an element they could neither accept nor ignore. Catherine came out of the house, as if to inspect some damage.
'Oh, how are you, Cathy?' said Sally Tipper.
'Still mad!' said Catherine.
Then Gerald and Rachel appeared. 'Good, good…' said Gerald. 'You found us…'
'We thought at first it was sure to be that splendid chateau up the road,' said Lady Tipper.
'Ah no,' said Gerald, 'we're not at the chateau any more, we muddle along down here.' There was a complicated double round of kisses, ending up with Sir Maurice facing Gerald and saying, 'Oh no, not even in France…!' and laughing thinly.
The Tippers were not natural holidayers. They came beautifully equipped, with four heavy steel-cornered suitcases, and numerous other little bags which had to be handled carefully, but something else, unnoticed by them, was missing. They muttered questions to each other, and gave an impression of covert anxiety or irritation. When they came down on their first afternoon Sir Maurice said a lot of faxes would be coming through for him, and could they be sure there was enough paper in the machine. He was clearly looking forward to the arrival of the faxes above all. Wani sucked up to him and said he was expecting some faxes too, meaning that he would keep an eye on the machine, but Sir Maurice gave him a sharp look and said he hoped they wouldn't impede his own faxes. It was only four thirty but Gerald was marking his guests' arrival with a Pimm's, and Lady Partridge, with her son as her licence, accompanied him in a gin and Dubonnet. The Tippers asked for tea, and sat under the awning, glancing mistrustfully at the view. When Liliane, slow, stoical, and clearly unwell, came out with the tray, Sally Tipper gave her instructions about different pillows she needed. Sir Maurice talked to Gerald about a