Audrey got out and removed Susan’s backpack and Merlin’s suitcase that had perhaps once been Noël Coward’s out, and four cardboard book boxes. These had handwritten labels in bold marker pen over the publishing house logos: “Sayers-Allingham-Marsh-Christie,” “Vivien’s Recs—None too difficult for Merlin,” “Rare Edns, We Want These Back,” and “Best Novels in English and Translation 1920–1950.” As soon as she had stacked the boxes up, Mister Nimbus jumped up on top and surveyed what might be his new territory, though he did incline his head to the ravens, suggesting he had the wisdom to share.
“Meter says two hundred and sixty pounds,” said Audrey cheerfully. “But I’ll settle for a cuppa char before I go back.”
“You can have several,” promised Susan. “And probably some cake, or at least biscuits. It rather depends on what Mum’s been—”
“Susan!”
Jassmine came flying out the farmhouse door, struggling to take off her painting smock to show the vintage violet silk dress beneath but succeeding only in breaking the necklace she wore, sending beads spraying everywhere. She laughed and let the smock fall, enfolding Susan in a careful embrace that avoided her slung-up arm and shoulder.
“My shoulder’s a lot better,” said Susan, forestalling Jassmine’s question. “Mum, this is Merlin. Merlin, this is Jassmine.”
“Oh, poor Lenny,” said Jassmine, staring at Merlin appreciatively. “Though I did hear he’s already taken up with Kerry O’Neill. She plays clarinet, you know.”
“Does she?” asked Merlin blandly. “I understand clarinet goes very well with the French horn.”
“It does, doesn’t it,” said Jassmine.
“And this is Merlin’s aunt Audrey,” said Susan. “Who was kind enough to drive us here.”
“Delighted to meet you, Jassmine,” said Audrey, without a trace of Cockney at all. She offered her hand, but it was not the bare right that Jassmine looked at, but the gloved left. She hadn’t noticed Merlin’s, because he was gripping his crutches and leaning forward.
“Oh,” she said faintly, stepping back. “You’re one of those booksellers. Like the one . . . the one . . .”
“No, not like Merrihew,” said Susan quickly, taking her mother’s arm. “Merrihew was a . . . a . . .”
“Traitor,” said Merlin bleakly. “And we will do everything we can to try to make amends for what she did.”
“I didn’t remember,” said Jassmine slowly. She had a faraway look in her eyes, but also seemed to Susan to have come more into herself, to be fully present, always a rare occurrence in the past. “I couldn’t remember . . . but a few days ago it started coming back. . . .”
“I found Dad,” said Susan quietly. “He was made to leave you, Mum. It wasn’t his fault.”
Jassmine nodded slowly. She wiped a tear away, and smiled, a smile of fond remembrance.
“I know,” she said. “It would never have lasted anyway.”
“What?” asked Susan.
“Rex and me,” said Jassmine. “We had fun, but we were from different worlds. Him and his mountain and the lake, and me all for the city and the music scene and everything. Back then. To be honest, he was often rather selfish. We never would have stayed together.”
Susan stared at her. This was not how she had imagined her mother taking the news of her father’s discovery and potential reappearance.
“But I got you from it, darling!” said Jassmine brightly. “That was the best thing!”
“I agree,” said Merlin. He pointed to the fallen beads with the ferrule of his right crutch. “Should we pick those up? I say we, but I mean Audrey.”
“Oh no,” said Jassmine. “Leave them for the ravens, they like that sort of thing. Come and have some tea! I’m dying to hear about everything that’s happened. I’ve made the blue room up for you and Merlin, Susan—not yours; I thought you’d prefer the big bed—”
“Good idea,” said Susan gravely, while Merlin pretended to be scandalized.
Acknowledgments
I first visited the United Kingdom (from Australia) in 1983, when I was nineteen. I was very fortunate that my aunt Judy married Gerry Heavey, an Englishman who returned home for a visit at the same time I was there, and he and his parents extended their kind hospitality in London, providing me with a base of operations for my travels over the next six months. I owe many thanks to Gerry, and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Heavey (as I called them; it was a more formal era). It was during this time that I decided I wanted to try to become a writer. In fact I wrote the first short story I ever sold during that trip, on a Silver-Reed typewriter that I had to sell in order to buy a bus ticket to Heathrow, having a return air ticket to Sydney but otherwise having spent every penny.
I walked up the Old Man of Coniston in 1983, and again when I returned the next time, in 1993. I have to thank Arthur Ransome for that, for the Swallows and Amazons books I loved as a child (and still do), which provided an impetus to visit the Lake District that first time, and numerous times since, including my honeymoon in 2000, when my wife, Anna, and I stayed in a hotel on the shores of Lake Windermere and a sudden fog came up and rolled over the lawns, across our balcony, and into our second-floor room. . . .
I have returned to the United Kingdom and to London in particular numerous times since that first visit, these visits often made easier and more pleasant due to the hospitality of my sister-in-law, Belinda McFarlane. Not to mention extremely cultural, since she is a violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra and always gets us tickets for wonderful concerts and performances.
Many of my visitations to the United Kingdom have been working ones, to promote my books, and I have been fortunate to have been so well looked after by publicists, editors, and other staff from my various publishers over the years: HarperCollins, Egmont, Bonnier (Hot Key and Piccadilly Press), and now also Gollancz.
The initial idea for this book actually came when I was on tour for my book Goldenhand. I was
