The House At Sea’s End

younger than my husband,’ she says. ‘We were married in 1937, I was only twenty, Buster was forty-four. I had my first child, Tony, when I was twenty-one. Barbara came along a year later. Jack was the baby.’

‘Where is your oldest son now?’ asks Nelson. He wonders why Jack, ‘the baby’, has inherited the house over his brother’s head.

‘He died when he was still in his thirties. Of cancer.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Nelson.

‘The inspector is asking about the Home Guard,’ says Jack quickly, perhaps to deflect attention from the dead Tony. ‘Are any of them still alive?’

‘The Home Guard were mostly older than my husband. He was forty-six when the war started. He’d fought in the first, of course.’

‘Got the MC,’ chipped in Hastings. ‘The Military Cross.’

‘Yes, he got a medal, Jack,’ says Irene in a faintly chiding tone, ‘but he never forgot the horror of it all.’

‘So are none of the Home Guard still alive?’ pursues Nelson.

‘Well, there were a few young boys. You could be in the Home Guard if you were too young or too old to fight. I’m not sure about Hugh or Danny. Archie’s still alive, though. He sends us Christmas cards, doesn’t he, Jack? He must have been about sixteen when war broke out. He joined up later, of course.’

‘Archie?’ says Nelson, getting out his notebook. He’s prepared to like Archie; it was his dad’s name.

‘Archie Whitcliffe.’

‘And the other two – Hugh and Danny?’

‘I think Hugh still lives somewhere nearby. I saw him a few years ago, just after his wife died. I don’t think he’s dead though. I always read the In Memoriam column in the local paper.’

Cheerful, thinks Nelson. He supposes though, at Irene’s age, the In Memoriam column is just a way of keeping up with your friends – Facebook for the over-eighties.

‘Do you remember Hugh’s surname?’

Irene’s face crumples. ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t.’

‘That’s okay. And Danny?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know anything about him.’

While Nelson is digesting all this, the door opens and a girl comes in, this time accompanied by two spaniels.

‘Is Flo’s paw better, Dad?’ she asks and then stops, looking around in surprise.

Hastings is positively beaming. ‘My daughter, Clara,’ he says.

So this is the famous Clara. Ruth knows that Clara has finished her degree (she is the one who wants to change the world) but, otherwise, she would have taken her for a teenager. Clara Hastings is tall, taller than her father, and slim, with thick blonde hair cut in a shoulder-length bob. She is devastatingly attractive.

Hastings introduces Ruth and Nelson. Clara shakes hands politely with Nelson but her face brightens when she hears the word ‘archaeologist’.

‘That sounds fascinating. I’d love to do something like that.’

‘I like it,’ says Ruth guardedly.

‘I’m out of work,’ confides Clara. ‘Dad despairs of me. I’ve got a degree in law but I just don’t want to be a lawyer. All that making rich people richer. I want to do something useful with my life.’

‘What about the police force?’ suggests Nelson, deadpan.

The girl wrinkles her nose. ‘Well…’

‘Clara’s a real Leftie,’ says her father fondly. ‘She’s against all kinds of authority.’

Clara would get on well with Cathbad, thinks Ruth. Aloud, she says, ‘Are you looking for work? We might have some casual work on one of our spring digs.’

‘Oh that would be great,’ says Clara. ‘In the meantime, I’ll do anything. Dog-walking, gardening, babysitting.’

‘Babysitting…’ repeats Ruth, thoughtfully.

As they leave Sea’s End House, the rain starts. Within minutes they are drenched, buffeted by great wet winds from the sea. As they reach the car park, they see that the lights are already on inside the pub.

‘Have you had lunch?’ asks Nelson. He isn’t wearing a coat and his shirt is sticking to his back but he doesn’t seem cold. He always seems impervious to the elements.

‘I don’t want lunch,’ says Ruth but she is shivering. Her hood has blown back and her wet hair is trickling down her neck.

‘Come on,’ says Nelson, sensing weakness. ‘Just a sandwich.’

‘Okay,’ says Ruth.

The trap is set.

The Sea’s End is a squat, pebble-dashed building. Presumably, on a summer’s day, it’s the perfect place for a glass of white wine or a jug of Pimms. There are tables outside (though the sun terrace has long since fallen into the sea) and there is a spectacular view across the bay. But on a wet March afternoon the place seems dour and charmless. Ruth gets the feeling that, as this is the only pub in the village, the landlord has not tried very hard to keep up with the times. The walls inside are pine-clad, the floor covered with rather dirty lino. The tables are pine too, and sport plastic menus and ketchup bottles. A group of men stand drinking at the bar, watching Bargain Hunt on television.

‘Blimey,’ says Ruth, tapping a grooved wall. ‘It’s like being in a sauna.’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ says Nelson. ‘I’ve never been in a sauna.’

‘I thought you went to the health club.’

‘For a swim, yes, or to the gym. I don’t go in the sauna.’ He sounds horrified.

‘You should try it. In Norway everyone goes in the sauna and then they run outside into the snow.’ As she says this, she thinks of Erik, who had a sauna in the grounds of his Norwegian lake house. She remembers black sky, white snow, naked figures running laughing through the trees. It had been innocent, she tells herself rather defiantly, a Scandinavian Eden.

‘Rather them than me,’ says Nelson, looking at the menu. ‘What’ll you have?’

‘Oh, just a ham sandwich and a Diet Coke. I’ll buy it.’

‘No, you’re all right.’ Nelson gets up and goes to the bar. Ruth watches him rather warily. The exchange has put her on her guard. The last thing she wants is another row with Nelson over money.

But when Nelson comes back to the table, he doesn’t seem inclined to chat. He checks his phone and then places it carefully on the mat in front of him. Then he moves it to the left of the mat, then to the right, then on top of it, then below, then to the left again.

Ruth can’t stand any more. ‘What did you want to talk about?’

‘Talk?’ He says it like it’s a foreign word.

‘Yes, talk. That’s why you got me here, isn’t it? Why you suggested lunch.’

‘I just thought you might be hungry…’ Nelson begins, but he has the good grace not to go on. ‘I don’t know, Ruth,’ he says, looking down into his (full fat) Coke. ‘I’m so confused. I think about you and Katie all the time.’

Ruth finds herself breathing fast. ‘Don’t,’ she says. ‘Don’t think about us.’

‘You can’t say that, Ruth. She’s my daughter. I want to help. I want to be involved. I want to give you money, at least.’

There is a pause while the landlord slops their sandwiches down on the table. Ruth tries to speak calmly. ‘I know you want to help but you can’t, can you? If you start giving me money, Michelle will find out. I’ve got to do this thing on my own.’

‘But she’s my-’

‘I know,’ Ruth interrupts. ‘But you’ve got your family. You don’t want to break up your marriage. I respect that. But I’m afraid it means that I make the decisions about Kate.’

Nelson looks as if he is about to explode. The thought of anyone else making decisions is complete anathema to him. But, quite suddenly, all the fight seems to go out of him and he says, in a low voice, ‘I just want to be involved.’

‘You can see Kate any time.’

‘Yes, for half an hour, sitting in my car.’

‘And that’s another thing,’ says Ruth. ‘If you keep offering to look after her, someone will suspect