The Squire Quartet. Brian Aldiss

She came and shook hands.

      ‘You’re keeping everything in good order. I’m burning some old stuff.’ He heard the guilt in his voice. ‘Old papers, actually.’

      ‘It’s a pleasure. I love coming over to the Hall. I come every day without fail – generally about this time of day. I like it when evening’s setting in, not being the kind who’s afraid of ghosts.’

      ‘I’ve never seen a ghost.’

      As she went over and closed the door of the Aga, she said, ‘I’m only sorry that you and Teresa aren’t still here together.’

      She had turned from the cooker. They were close. Squire looked with pleasure at Matilda’s pale, honest face. It was slightly spotty about the mouth. Her hair was more attractive, richer, than he recalled. He sensed the warmth of her spirit as she regarded him with shining eyes. Something in her bodily gesture, an eagerness, appraised him of her mood; the knowledge must have shown in his eyes, for she suddenly became embarrassed and dropped her gaze, moving away defensively.

      ‘I thought perhaps you’d like a cup of tea. That was why I came over.’ She started to busy herself with preparations, filling the kettle, switching it on, getting out cups and saucers.

      ‘It’s been a gorgeous day …’

      ‘I remember you when you were a baby, Matilda.’

      She put the milk bottle down and regarded him seriously.

      ‘I’m a grown woman now, Tom, as you are probably aware.’

      He smiled. ‘Yes, I am aware.’

      ‘What are you burning?’

      ‘Just a few old documents. Records of my past. I suppose I have their contents by heart well enough.’ He stirred the pages with a poker. The school magazine was slow to burn. He watched it blacken.

      There was a long silence, in which she stared at the Aga with him.

      ‘Your heart can’t be very easy at present.’ Another silence. ‘I wish there was something I could do.’

      She took her coat off and laid it over the back of a chair. Her neat and modest figure was shown at its best by her green cotton dress.

      ‘I am very grateful for what you are doing.’

      ‘I suppose I meant more personally.’

      As the kettle boiled and switched itself off, he said, ‘You could pray for me.’

      Matilda frowned. ‘There’s no need for you to be ironical.’

      ‘I wasn’t.’

      Filling the teapot, she said with a sigh, ‘I suppose it’s my sheltered upbringing, what else, but human relationships – I do find them difficult to handle.’

      He laughed dryly. ‘We all do. It’s believed that the human race was once endogamous. Ever since exogamy set in, everyone’s found relationships a bit sort of difficult. Fascinating, of course, but difficult to handle, as you say.’

      Accepting the cup she offered, he walked round the other side of the table and took a chair. They sat facing each other. As they sipped, the paper in the stove turned to ashes.

      ‘Would you care for a biscuit?’

      ‘No thanks.’

      ‘You’re not – are you going to sleep here alone this weekend, Tom?’

      ‘I must get back to Blakeney before dark.’

      ‘There’s a whole hour and more of this lovely twilight before it’s dark. And it was Full Moon last night.’

      The kitchen was filling with dusk already, making of her face a pale blur. He felt her personality, tender and sensible, radiating across the scrubbed table towards him.

      ‘I’m glad of the tea,’ he said. ‘And I’m glad you came. But I’ve got to be going.’

      ‘Let me know the next time you’re coming up. I’m always at home.’

      She drew the one open shutter into place, and the kitchen faded into darkness.

      12

      Tribal Customs

      Ascot, Berks, New Year’s Eve 1977

      Near Ascot, and not far from the famous racecourse, lies the area of Hazeldene, a developer’s paradise of the thirties. It remains far enough from London by road and near enough to it by train to serve as a refuge for the semi-rich. Half-timbered leather-work shops abound and, on Saturday afternoon when the Jags are parked in front of their mansions, children and adults appear on well-groomed horses, to canter through stretches of bracken which have somehow survived among the desirable residences. Here Tom Squire’s old friend and publisher, Ron Broadwell, had his home.

      It was the last day of the year, cold and windy, and the weeping silver birches tossed behind neat beech hedges. At seven in the evening, it had already been dark for two hours.

      As Squire drove towards the Broadwell house, he recited a poem aloud:

      ’Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the days …

      The sun is spent …

      The world’s whole sap is sunke,

      The generall balme the hydroptique earth hath drunk.

      He had once been able to recite the whole poem; now parts were gone from memory. He had recited it long ago to a Serbian girl called Roša – who had laughed heartily – as they stood on the steps of the Avala memorial outside Belgrade, one midnight, drunk. He smiled at the recollection. When Squire was at Cambridge, Donne and Eliot had been the fashionable poets, and he had never lost his love of them. There were no poets like them.

      The Broadwell mansion, ‘Felbrigg’, was visible from the road, sprawling tentatively behind its paddock and a white ranch fence. A tarmac drive with real old-fashioned streetlamps burning at each end led to the house. Lights blazed in the windows. As he drove up, he caught the twinkle of lanterns on a Christmas tree; it held promise of a pleasant evening ahead.

      Both Ron and his wife Belinda came to the door to greet him. Ron was a large solid man with a cheerful florid face, a crop of shaggy dark hair tinged with white, and a predilection for the good things of life. He appeared with a big cigar in his mouth. Belinda was a tall lady running unhurriedly to fat, a smiling woman with a miller’s face who, despite many years of marriage to Ron, still spoke with a slight Virginian accent. She wore a long black velvet gown with the air of one humorously aware she was doing something typical of her.

      Belinda had previously been married to Ron’s partner in the publishing house of Webb Broadwell, but that marriage had lasted no more than a year. ‘Webb was great stuff as a publisher,’ she confided to Squire once. ‘But not so damned hot when it came to handling a shy virginal wife. I guess he performed better between bawds.’

      They greeted Squire heartily, as he handed over to Belinda’s safekeeping an enormous box of Swiss chocolates. In the large bright hall, the Christmas tree glittered. Ron’s dogs barked excitedly in a distant part of the house. The air was spiced with the flavour of good things.

      Squire gave Belinda a big kiss. ‘Mmm, good old Virginny – I feel better already.’

      ‘Very pleased you could make it,’ Broadwell said, hanging up Squire’s coat. ‘All the Broadwell tribe cleared off the day after Boxing Day, having eaten us out of house and home. So this evening we have plenty of room for the Squire tribe. Teresa phoned me from Malta this morning, and she hopes to join us about nine.’

      ‘Fine. At least there’s no fog to delay flights.’ They stood in the hall, smiling at each other.

      ‘Teresa said Malta was pleasant,’ Belinda said. ‘We hope that you and she will get things together again this evening, Tom. If she can enjoy Malta, she can put up with you.’