Forty-Four.
I was back in St. Andrews for seven thirty, keeping my promise to my sister that I'd be there for dinner. Jonathan was still quiet, but once or twice during the meal our eyes met, and I knew that he'd be all right. He will too: I've promised him that.
Ellen knew that something had happened between my father and me. We had been a trio for so long that it couldn't be otherwise. But she chose not to ask me and she never has since. I have seen my father since then, of course, even if at first it was only because I care for Mary. We speak cordially again, and once or twice we've even laughed together, yet there will always be a certain distance between us. The police never did come calling on him, but I am fairly certain that he has never plucked up the courage to tell Mary, or Ellen, of his surrender to his weakness. No, I am completely certain, because my sister still speaks fondly of him.
I know also that he has said nothing to Jonathan. I know that because I've made him swear he never will. The one thing that worries me about my nephew is his reaction were he ever to find out the truth about his grandfather, and the real reason for his blackmail. By the same token I've kept the truth about the Neiportes' deaths from him, for I know that he would be unable to live with it, and although I rebelled against the fact at first, he's still my father. However much we'd like to on occasion, we can't change the genes that built us.
Jay joined us for dinner at Ellie's that night. If, when we returned to the estate, he was surprised to find that work on the tree-house 'for gardens that don't have trees' had progressed in his absence, he said nothing about it. However, as it turned out he had indeed found himself a nice coed on that Saturday night in St. Andrews, the daughter of a US senator. He left me to join her in the States a few months later, and has since found a job with the American Secret Service, which is, of course, not secret at all.
Life for me has gone on as what passes for normal ever since. Mathew's Tale was completed, and I'm told will win me a BAFTA. I may have to come back from Australia to get it, though, for that's where I'm heading now, with Susie, Ethel, Janet and her new brother, wee Jonathan. The Gantry Group is in the capable hands of Phil Culshaw, still acting chief executive, and Wylie Smith is taking the chair in my absence. Natalie Morgan has renewed her relationship with Ewan Capperauld, who's always been a sucker for olive-skinned women with big eyes. Duncan Kendall? He's in jail. I'm not sure why.
I still remember that time at Ellie's. When the evening was over, and Susie and I had retired to our room, I was undressing when she said to me, 'You know, Oz, one of the things I love about you?'
I grinned at her, over my shoulder, as I do. 'Whassat?'
'You get things done. I have to say, in that respect, there's a bit of the Jack Gantry in you.'
I looked into the mirror, smiling that all-gathering smile of mine, into bright eyes that deep down, I saw, were as hard as the stone that builds a city, and I said to her, 'Nobody's perfect. Still, I've always thought of myself as a nice guy at heart.'
I have come to believe that we are all governed by the spirits that live within us. Some, like my nephew Jonathan's, my wife Susie's, and, I hope, my children's, are pure and good. Some, like my poor old father's, are fundamentally weak, and have within them the inevitable downfall of their bearer. Some, like Jack Gantry's, are wholly and irredeemably evil from the start.
Mine? The jury's still out on that.
