And yet there were moments – the moments in between the other moments – when he knew for a certainty that he was in an alien medium, and out of his depth, and going under. If he closed his eyes he was once again seven years old (the sailboat off the Welsh coast, the bang on the head from the loosened boom, the cartwheeling drop overboard); and, once in, he sank. Is this the way to death then? he wondered. But it was not an unhappy memory. He continued his leisurely descent, too stunned and winded to swim or even struggle; and he seemed to be watching a pretty cartoon, a silent Fantasia – sinking through the fathoms of the Bristol Channel, and hoping to witness as much of this blue-black world as he survivably could before someone (his Uncle Mick or one of his older cousins) hoisted him out again.
Morley Hollow
‘Father Gabriel will be looking in. Keep left. Now he’s sort of nonconformist for a priest in two respects. For a start, he’s not poor. Now signal right. In fact he’s very lavish. Normally I’d be bringing tons of food and drink but I can save a few quid because Father Gabriel’ll be doing all that. Now turn. He adores spending money. He’s actually far less pious than my parents. What they adore is poverty.’
‘They what?’
‘Didn’t you know this about Catholics? In a minute the road forks and you go straight ahead. They adore poverty. And cold and damp and discomfort. And dirt. One mustn’t forget dirt. It’s called mendicity. It’s meant to uh, to relieve you of distractions from your full devotion to God. Poverty doesn’t relieve me of distractions. Does it you?’
‘No. But I don’t mind being distracted from my devotion to God.’
‘Oh very droll. Keep going. It’s in the cul-de-sac at the end on the right, and it’s the one with its own sludge driveway and not just a concrete slot for a Ford Cortina. Ooh look. Clever him, he’s beaten us to it. Well at least you’ll get a proper drink. They usually serve an oloroso called Folkestone Dew. Eighty pee from Safeway’s. Get me close to the grass but leave him room to back out. Mind your shoes.’
The bungalow was called Morley House, even though it was if anything slightly smaller than the other very small bungalows in Morley Hollow, where every bungalow had a name – Dunroamin’, HiznHerz, Journey’s End, Shangri-La…
‘Don’t be deceived by the exterior. It’s not a suburban villa. It’s more like a cowshed with the odd stick of furniture in it. You expect to see stacks of sleeping sheepdogs.’
They climbed out and edged past and around Father Gabriel’s car, a Mark IX Jaguar, perhaps twenty years old but fiercely burnished. It looked like a hearse but one with artistic lines and contours; the interior with its leather and walnut had the sealed fixity of a confessional. He said,
‘What’s the other heretical thing about Father Gabriel? He’s not poor…’
‘Uh, oh sorry. And he’s not queer.’
—————
I held up my furred toothglass to receive more champagne. The three Phelpses were still in the kitchen unpacking the hamper, and Father Gabriel was genially saying,
‘So, Martin – I may call you Martin, mayn’t I? – you’re here, no doubt, to see Sir Graeme. And to clarify your relationship with his youngest child. A testing moment.’
I shrugged and smiled. ‘So will there be a little inquisition?’
‘Mm. There’s such a scene in one of your father’s fairly recent novels. What is the title? Anyway, it’s most amusingly done. The father, a Mr Cope, asks his daughter’s suitor four questions, the first of which is – I take it you’re sleeping with my Vivienne?’
‘Would you like a seat,’ I said and shuffled sideways along the ankle-high sofa.
‘No, I’ll remain perpendicular for now, thank you – having crouched all morning behind the wheel. You know, going about my rounds.’
He stood over me, sixtyish, sleek, still solid, with thick pewtery hair fringing his clerical collar (a tight black band almost entirely concealing a tight band of white); he also wore a silk-backed waistcoat, striped City trousers, and succulent galoshes.
‘Mr Cope asks four questions, all of which the young suitor answers with an indignant negative. Are you sleeping with my Vivvy? The second is, Then I take it you’re sleeping with some other young lady – or young ladies? The third is, So perhaps you prefer your own kind? And the fourth is, Ah, then you must surely rely on those solitary practices they warned us about at school?’
‘I remember. And when he says no to that, Mr Cope disqualifies him as unnatural.’
Father Gabriel laughed – we both laughed. ‘He means no harm, Mr Cope. It’s really just a tease, isn’t it, or a rhetorical snare. The trick is to say yes to the first question.’
‘Or failing that to say yes to the second question. And then go on about how your feelings for Vivvy are on a far higher plane.’
‘Very good, Martin. And very filial too.’
‘The novel is Girl, 20,’ I said. Which soon left both of us rather staring at the fact that Phoebe was girl, thirty-six. ‘So I suppose Sir Graeme won’t ask whether…’
‘No, he won’t. Nor will he ask whether you intend to make an honest woman of her. Because he of course knows that Phoebe’s gone her own way – she doesn’t want to be made an honest woman of. And she’s honest already, by her lights, God bless her.’
Crockery and cutlery were being laid out on the Fablon-decked table in the corner. Phoebe and her mother started gathering an assortment of kitchen chairs, and Sir Graeme, jerking upright with a corkscrew in his hand, called out,
‘Oh Martin! Would you care to wash your
