awkwardly thrust it aside. The lawn in front of the house sloped to the leafy spiraea hedge, now in scattered points of raspberry-pink blossom. A gap in the hedge led to a small enclosed field of mown hay which fell steeply to a wood, over the top of which the sea was stretched out, filling the horizon with a silvery blue glitter. There was a strong murmuration of bees. In the deep dappled green of the wood birds called and fell about obscurely in the branches. Ducane sneezed. 'Bless you! I hope you don't mind the hay. It has a wonderfully remindful smell, somehow, hasn't it. Oh John, I am so glad to be back. One is, isn't one? I feel a bit tired though, in a nice way. The sun is tiring, don't you think. Look how brown I am. And Octavian's quite coffee coloured all over. Well, almost all over! When he wore that fez thing during the last week he looked just like that super eunuch in the Entfiilhrung. Oh, John, I've got a funny present for you, one of those charming Moroccan hats, I meant to bring it down, they make them in the villages.' 'How kind of you.' 'I just haven't managed to get around and see everyone yet. I hope everybody's all right? Nothing's happened here, has it? I thought somehow people were a bit nervy.' 'Who's a bit nervy?' 'Well, you for instance.' 'It's not that we're nervy, it's that you're relaxed. You've got vine-leaves in your hair. You're full of wine and olives and Mediterranean sunshine and' 'Yes, yes. But after all you've had the sun too.' 'It doesn't shine in my office in Whitehall.' 'John, you're being childish. I believe you need a holiday. I must speak to Octavian about it. Oh look, isn't that a cuckoo, and there's another one chasing it.' Two hawk-like birds flitted out of the wood and doubled back to become invisible among the receding green hollows where the sun pierced the thick foliage. Cu-cuckoo, cu-cuckoo. 'Crazy birds,' said Kate. 'Do they think about nothing but sex? Chasing each other all day long and no responsibilities. Do you think they spend the nights together too?' 'Copulation is a daytime activity in birds,' said Ducane. 'At night they are quiet. Unlike human beings.' 'I adore you when you sound so pedantic. Tell me, why are cuckolds called after cuckoos? That's one bit of ornithological information I can't ask the twins for!' 'Something to do with eggs in other people's nests, I suppose.' 'Yes, but then the lover ought to be the cuckoo, not the husband.' 'Maybe it's a past participle. Cuckooed.' 'How clever you are. You have a plausible answer for everything.' 'True or otherwise.' 'Yes, you are nervy, all of you. I must go round and attend to you, each one. See what happens when I go away! Everyone gets unhappy. I can't allow it! Even Mary was quite sharp with the twins this morning, so unlike her. And Paula looks positively hollow-eyed. She didn't seem at all pleased when I handed her that letter from Aden. And Barbie's in one of her antisocial moods and won't consort with anyone who isn't a pony, and Pierce is impossible. Mary told me some extraordinary story about his kidnapping Montrose.' 'He behaved very badly,' said Ducane, 'but it's all over now.' He kicked the strewn sheets of mown hay at his feet and sneezed again. 'You sound just like a schoolmaster. I'm not going to lecture Pierce. Anyway I expect you and Mary have already done so. I think Barbie is being horrid to him. And then there's Theo. I've never seen him looking so morose. When I said hello to him this morning he just looked through me. Why, there he is now going down the path. I bet you he'll pretend not to notice us. A gap at the far end of the spiraea hedge led into the kitchen garden and from it a path led down beside the line of ragged hawthorns towards the wood. It was the most direct route from the house to the sea. Theo was walking very slowly, almost uncertainly, down the path. 'Theo!' Ducane shouted. His tone was peremptory and angry. Theo paused and turned slowly round to look at them. He looked at them with the vague face of one who, on his way to the scaffold, hears his name distantly hallooed in the crowd. 'Theo!' Kate cried. Theo eyed them. Then he lifted his arm a little, moving it awkwardly as if it were paralysed below the elbow. His hand made a floppy gesture which might have been a wave and might have been an invitation to go to the devil. He continued his slow shuffling towards the wood. 'Poor Theo,' said Kate. 'I think he's upset about Mary and Willy, don't you?' 'You mean he feels he's losing Willy? Possibly. I suspect Willy's the only person Theo really communicates with.' 'Heaven knows what they find to say to each other! I'm so glad about Mary and Willy, it's so right. It's not exactly an impetuous match, but then they're not exactly an impetuous pair. I do. think they're both deeply wise people. And Mary's so sweet.' 'She's more than sweet,' said Ducane. 'Willy's lucky.' 'He's very lucky and I shall go up and tell him so before lunch. It was a good idea of mine, wasn't it, matching those two. It keeps them both here.' 'You think so?' said Ducane. 'It wouldn't surprise me if they both went away.' 'Oh no no no no. Whatever would we do without Mary? Besides, no one is to leave. You are all my dear – children.' 'Slaves.' 'You are a sour-puss today! Now if only we could find some really nice man for Paula. He'd have to be terribly intellectual of course. We'd have to build another house I suppose. Mary and Willy will be in the cottage. Well, Octavian did think of building another bungalow up by the graveyard, it wouldn't show from the house. Only I do like having us all under one roof. Do you know, I used to be so afraid that you'd fall for Paula. She's so much cleverer than me. I was quite anxious!' 'I adore Paula,' said Ducane. 'I respect and admire her. One couldn't not. But' 'But what?' 'She isn't you.' 'Darling, you are eloquent today. Oh look, there go the twins going down to bathe. Twins! I say! Do find Uncle Theo and cheer him up. He's just gone into the wood.' Trailing their white bathing towels along the dulled prickly green of the hedge, the twins waved and went on, followed by prancing darting Mingo, who uttered at intervals not his seabark but his rabbit-bark. 'Those are the only two really satisfactory human beings in our household,' said Ducane. 'You are severe with us! Yes, the twins are super. Fab, as Barbie would say. It's sad to think they'll have to grow up and become tiresome creatures like Barb and Pierce.' 'Sexual creatures you mean. Yes, we are tiresome.' 'You are tiresome. Well, now let me tell you all about Tangier. It was perfectly extraordinary seeing all those women wearing veils. And they wear their veils in so many different ways. Or should one say «the veil» like one says «the kilt»? It wasn't always becoming, I assure you. And there was this extraordinary market place – ' 'I've been to Tangier,' said Ducane. 'Oh all right, I won't tell you!' Kate, who was always delighted to go on holiday, was always delighted to come back. She loved the people who surrounded her and felt a little thrill at the special sense, on her return, of their need for her, a tiny spark as at the resuming of an electrical connexion. She was glad to be missed and prized that first second at which she, as it were, experienced being missed. This time, however, as she had already expressed to John, things seemed just a bit out of gear. Her people seemed preoccupied, almost too preoccupied to rejoice as they ought to at her
