day after that, as my flight didn’t leave until after ten at night the following evening. This time I found a sheltered cafe by the harbour and sat in a window seat sipping an espresso, reading Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and watching the dance of the spray through the window. I seemed to be pinning a lot of hopes on this visit, I thought, not to mention spending a lot of money. But the money wasn’t a problem, and nor was my time at the moment. I just hoped I wouldn’t leave empty handed. I had come this far, and I needed to know the full story.
After about an hour and two strong coffees, I drove back up the hill to the white cubist house. The first thing that raised my spirits was the silver BMW in the driveway. The front door was also slightly ajar, and I could hear the sound of radio voices coming from inside. I rang the bell, the door opened and a head as brown and bald as a varnished banister knob and as pitted as a walnut shell peered out at me, a birthmark like a teardrop where his hairline used to be, a bristly grey goatee beard around his mouth.
‘William?’ I asked. ‘William Strang?’
He eyed me with suspicion. ‘Who wants to know?’
‘My name’s Chris Lowndes,’ I told him. ‘You don’t know me, but I live in Kilnsgate House.’
‘Then you’re a long way from home, aren’t you?’ he said, but his manner softened. ‘You’d better come in. Never let it be said that Billy Strang doesn’t know how to treat a visitor from the old country. And Billy’s the name. Always has been, always will be.’ There was little, if any, Geordie left in his accent, which had also taken on a hint of South African cadence. It wasn’t strong, though the result was a very unusual mix. Even Henry Higgins would have been hard pushed to guess where Billy Strang came from. He was a couple of inches shorter than me and seemed in good shape, whippet thin, sinewy and economic in his movements, as if he used just as much energy as he needed and was keeping plenty in reserve.
I followed him through a hall with a high white ceiling and a parquet floor. ‘I called earlier, but you were out,’ I said.
‘Tennis club.’
‘Do you play?’
‘Of course I play. Why shouldn’t I?’
‘No reason.’
‘Just because I’m eighty doesn’t mean I can’t still give these young whippersnappers of seventy or so a good run for their money.’ He grinned. ‘Besides, the widow Cholmondeley’s always there on a Tuesday, and I fancy my chances there. Lovely arse on her. Come on. Sit down.’ He pointed towards a huge sofa with matching armchairs upholstered in zebra skin. I thought that was probably as illegal as it was tasteless, but maybe it was fake. A tiger-skin rug lay on the hardwood floor in front of the huge fireplace. No fire burned. Instead, I heard the hum of a central air-conditioner and felt the artificial chill. A ceiling fan whirred above, distributing the coolness. ‘Drink?’ he offered. ‘I don’t indulge any more, myself, but there’s pretty much anything you want.’
‘I’d better not,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to drive back to Cape Town later.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He went to the cocktail cabinet and poured himself a squirt of soda. ‘I suppose you’d better tell me why you’re here, then,’ he said. ‘But first you can tell me how Kilnsgate is. It’s been a bloody long time.’
As I told him, I saw a wistful expression pass across his lined and tanned face, and his eyes seemed fixed on a point somewhere way beyond me.
‘I haven’t really thought about those days in years,’ he said.
‘Why did you leave?’
‘England? Because it was fucked. They sent me off to kill Mau Maus in Kenya for two years, and when I got back I couldn’t think of a thing I wanted to do in the old country. Not a thing. Kenya gave me a yen for adventure, for Africa. There were a lot of opportunities for private soldiering back then, if you weren’t too fussy who you worked for. I did a few things I’m not proud of, then I met a bloke from Southampton who ran a tobacco farm in Rhodesia, as it then was. Hard work, but what a life. All there for the taking. Until the troubles started, of course. He said I was welcome to come and work for him any time, so I did. Twenty pounds in my pocket. I soon had a few acres of my own and a well-bred English lady for a wife. I lasted until 1980 through sheer stubbornness, but it was clear long before then the way things were going, and that the stubbornness would be the death of me if I didn’t get out soon. I’d already seen my neighbours butchered. It was a bad situation all round. And a dangerous one. Luckily, I’d been smart with my money, put most of it in bank accounts in Jo’burg or London. It wasn’t hard to arrange a quick move over the border before the natives came and hacked us to pieces like they did my friends and neighbours. My well-bred English lady had already left me by then and gone back to her family in England. Didn’t have the stomach for it. I got involved in the wine business here on the Cape. Did very well at it, too. Retired ten years ago. That’s it. Potted life story so far. And now you’re here. But I’m sure you didn’t come all this way just to hear about me.’
‘Partly. It’s an interesting story. I went to America. Los Angeles. It was a bit safer there.’
He laughed. ‘That’s arguable. Still… we’re both alive to tell the tale.’
‘Yes. Look, I’ll get to the point. When you were seven, you were evacuated to Richmond, and you spent some time up at Kilnsgate House, didn’t you?’
‘That’s right. About four months in all. Some of the happiest days of my childhood. It was a funny time, though. As if the earth was standing still. People were expecting bombing raids and poison gas attacks every day, but nothing happened.’
Now I was approaching the true purpose of my visit, I was beginning to feel apprehensive about broaching the subject. After all, perhaps at the age of eighty, after a successful life, a man might not appreciate talking about being abused at the age of seven, might not even remember it, if he believed that those same months were the best of his childhood. I would have to edge my way there gently, if I possibly could. ‘How did you take to it? It must have made quite a change for you?’
‘Oh, yes. I was a city boy through and through. Not a slum kid, mind you, my dad had a decent job in a shoe shop, then later in a department store, but I certainly wasn’t well versed in the ways of country life, outside a few books I’d read. Still, I wasn’t as daft as some of the kids who thought apples grew in boxes and cows were no bigger than dogs.’
‘So how was your time at Kilnsgate?’
Billy thought for a moment. ‘Happy, as I told you, for the most part. That first month the weather was marvellous, and school was out till late September because of the war, so I got to explore the area. It was like an extended holiday. Are the lime kilns still there?’
‘Indeed they are.’
‘I used to hide in them if I wanted to disappear for a while.’
‘Why would you want to disappear?’
‘I was a kid. Playing. It was a bit lonely up there, so I lived in my own world. Maybe I was hatching my famous plans to defeat Hitler. Or maybe I was on the run from the Gestapo.’
‘What about school?’
‘It was OK. I got teased a bit because of my accent. But there were some good kids there, too. It was certainly no worse than the school in Newcastle.’
‘And the Foxes?’ I ventured.
‘I got lucky there,’ he said. ‘They wanted to set an example, but they also wanted someone who knew how to use a toilet and wash behind his ears. I fitted the bill. Rationing or no, we always had plenty of food – Hetty Larkin made wonderful cakes and pies – and Mrs Fox used to play piano for me and sing of an evening. Voice of an angel. I’d never heard anything like it before. Not that she couldn’t manage the occasional popular song, mind you. We’d have a good knees-up, every now and then. Usually when she had her girlfriends up and old misery-guts was away somewhere.’
I paused, remembering Grace’s exquisite but untrained voice on the recordings Louise had given to me. ‘Misery-guts?’ I said.
Billy wrinkled his nose. ‘That’s what I called him. Dr Fox. Ungrateful of me, I suppose, but he was bit of a tartar, really. Luckily, like I said, he was away a lot. Important war business, don’t you know. Or so he implied. Now I come to think of it, he was probably telling the truth, even that far back. But I didn’t like him right from the start.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s hard to say, really. I just sensed something… cold, maybe even a bit cruel, about him. He frightened me. I remember once I had a nasty boil on the back of my neck and he lanced it. Hurt like hell. Didn’t bother to be
