The Book And The Brotherhood

^he had killed Jenkin. He could not decide what to do with them. If ever connected with him, those odd little things could prove awkward and suggestive evidence. He had to get rid of them, but in London it had proved absurdly hard to decide ^on any really safe method. He took them with him to France and eventually, stopping the car in a wild place far from their farm house, while Jean was unpacking a picnic lunch, he strayed away and dropped them into a deep river pool. The feel of the smooth weighty objects in his hand made him think of Jenkin's body. It was like a burial at sea.

Yes, he understood why Crimond had had to summon him, responding to a nervous urge, an irresistible craving, like the toreador's desire to touch the bull. The woman had gone, the drama remained between him and Duncan. Crimond had always hated the idea of being in debt, he was a meticulous payer, he was a gambler, he feared the gods. The gesture of' baring his breast was natural to him – it was a ritual of purification, an exorcism of something which, like a Grecian guilt, was formal and ineluctable, curable only by submission to a god. But why did Jenkin have to die? Crimond had offered himself as victim to Duncan, but Duncan had killed Jenkin. So Jenkin died as a substitute, as a surrogate, he had to die so that Crimond could live? Had some deep complicity with Crimond brought it about that Duncan could kill Crimond without killing Crimond? By not killing Crimond he had brought about Jenkin's death. Had he even in some sense brought it about deliberately? Duncan recalled daily the dark red hole in Jenkin's forehead and the sound of his body hitting the floor. He remembered the special warm feel of jenkin's ankles and his socks, as Duncan pulled the body along the room, and how, afterwards, he had stepped to and fro over it in his frenzied hurry to tidy up the scene. He remembered Crimond's tears. He also, in the presence of these images, asked himself, retrieving it now from the depths of memory, whether perhaps he had not always, in his play with firearms, had a fantasy of shooting someone like that through the middle of the forehead? Perhaps an old sadistic fantasy, tolerated over many years, had been there to prompt him; and had found him ready because of other ancient things, such as an old jealousy ofJenkin surviving from Oxford days. After Sinclair's death it was to Jenkin, not to Duncan, that Gerard turned for consolation. That microsecond before he pulled the trigger: could it actually have contained a decision? Duncan had wanted to kill Crimond – but had found himself unable to – because he was afraid to- because he did not really want to- yet lie had needed to take revenge on somebody, somebody had to die. It was as if, not strong enough to kill the man he hated, he had killed his dog.

`Your funny eye looks better,' said Jean, who had been staring at him. 'Well, I suppose it isn't actually different. Can you see better out of it?'

`I think so – or I imagine I can – the clever old brain has fudged things up, it often does.'

`It'll fudge things up for us,' said Jean.

They smiled at each other tired complicit smiles.

She went on, 'I can't remember when you first had that eye thing. You haven't always had it.'

`Oh years ago, I was developing it before we went to Ireland.' Something about this exchange made Duncan suddenly feel that it was a good time to tell Jean about the thing with Tamar. He would be relieved to get rid of it. 'I've got something to confess – it's about Tamar – I had a little momentary quasi-sex episode with her one evening when you were away and she came round to console me.'

`With Tamar!' said Jean. 'With that good sweet child! How could you!' She felt an unexpected relief at this sudden utterance by Duncan, as if even some partial shabbily doctored piece of truth-telling could somehow 'do them good'. 'I hope you didn't upset her?'

`Oh, not at all. Nothing happened really. She just threw her arms round me to cheer me up. I was feeling miserable and I hugged her. I was touched by her affection. No harm's done. There was nothing else.'

What a dear old liar he is, thought Jean. I certainly won't question him. 'I expect she was flattered.'

`Perhaps I was! She may not have thought it was anything at all. You're not cross with me?'

`No. Of course not. I'll never ever be cross with you. I love you.'

Jean thought to herself, if Tamar hadn't come round to tell me about Duncan and the child I would never have thought of searching Duncan's desk, and telephoned Jenkin and sent him to Crimond. If Duncan had not seduced Tamar Jenkin would be still alive. If I had not left Duncan he would not have seduced 'Tamar. Is it all my fault or his fault or Tamar's fault, or is it fate, whatever that means? Oh how tired I feel sometimes. It's as if Crimond devoured part of me which will never grow again. Perhaps that's my punishment for having left Duncan. Would the results of all these things ever reach their ends? And poor Tamar, and that child. Sometimes at night.jean thought about the child, Duncan's child, whom they might have adopted. So if Duncan could have children after all, there might yet be another child, not hers, but his, for them to cherish… But that way thoughts must not go, it was too late, it was too complicated, the time for mysteries and new beginnings and unpredictable adventures was over, their task now was simpl^y to make each other happy.

The breeze had moderated, the sea which had been mildly disturbed and covered with flickering points of white had become calmer. The masts of yachts in the harbour were quiet. A fishing boat was moving out, its engine uttering little rhythmic muted explosions. The diffident lazy hollow sound came pleasurably to Jean and Duncan, as if it somehow united and summarised the scene, the harbour and the sea, so beautiful, so full of secure promise. The silk^y light blue unscored undivided sea merged at the horizon into a pale sky which at the zenith, cloudless, was overflowing with the blue sunny air of the south.

`It's time for lunch,' said Duncan. 'There are other pleasures!' Jean always argued that the most perfect time was that of the aperitif. He rose to his feet while jean remained, listening to the parting boat and gazing at the sea.

As he got up Duncan put his hand into the pocket_.of his old tweed jacket and felt something in there, something round and very light and insubstantial. He drew it out. It was a small reddish ball of' what looked like interwoven silk or thread. Duncan suddenly felt himself' blushing violently. It was of course that ball of Crimond's hair which, such an infinitely long time ago, he had picked up from the floor of their bedroom in the tower in I reland. He opened his hand and let the thing fall to the ground where it lay fora moment at his feet upon the pavement. The faint breeze moved it, rolling it very slowly against the iron leg of a coffee table. He had an impulse to pick it up again. Should something so fateful be allowed to vanish into the rubble of the world? It began to move away towards the road where it was swept into the wake of a passing car. After the car had passed he thought he could still see it lying in the roadway.

Jean was getting up. 'Let's go and look at those tiles after lunch.'

They went into the restaurant. Duncan felt pity for himself and wondered if he would soon die of cancer or in some strange accident. He did not feel unhappy, perhaps death, though not imminent, was indeed near; but it was now as if he and death had become good friends.

`We never found that Stone in the wood,' said Lily. `What stone?' said Rose.

`The old standing stone, the ancient stone. I know it's there.'

`There's an eighteenth-century thing with a Latin inscription but it's quite small. I don't think there's anything prehistoric, if that's what you mean.'

`The Roman Road runs along a ley line.'

`Oh really?'

`That's why Jean's car crashed.'

'Why?'

`Ley lines are charged with human energy, like telepathy, so they collect ghosts. You know what ghosts are, parts of people's minds out of the past, what they felt and saw. Jean saw a ghost – probably a Roman soldier.'

`She said she saw a fox,' said Rose. `People don't like to admit they've seen ghosts. They think they'll be laughed at – and they're afraid to – ghosts don't I] k, to be talked about and ifyou see one you just know that.'

`Have you ever seen one?'

`No, I wish I had. There must be ghosts at Boyars.'

`I hope not,' said Rose, 'I've never seen anything.' She di; I not like this talk of ghosts.

`I always thought I'd see a ghost ofjames, but I never did.'

‘James?'

`My husband – you know, he died and left me the money.' `Of course you were married – I'm sorry -'