was concerned, the collection was out of my hands. Perenna Holland had £2,000 spending money in the form of a guaranteed minimum, and the prospect of at least double that if he was right about the interest the collection would arouse.
As soon as I got home, I wrote to her care of thebank. Then I rang Tubby. There was no reply. I rang him again later that night, when I had broken the back of the things that had to be done before I left. There was still no reply. My curiosity unsatisfied, I got out my own collection. It always gave me a feeling of satisfaction to look through the colourful print mosaics of my careful lay-outs and to realise that most of the stamps had been acquired long before inflation had got into its stride. But not this time, for I was very conscious that there was nothing in my collection that was in any way out of the ordinary, nothing that would get Josh Keegan talking the way he had about the Solomons Seal.
In the end I locked the albums away and went to bed. It was after one. An owl was hooting from the big cedar across the moat, and though it was already Saturday, and tomorrow I would be on my way to Australia, the forlorn sound of it seemed to reflect my mood.
A new country, the possibility of a fresh start â I should have been feeling eager, full of anticipation. Instead, the feeling I had was one of despondency, almost foreboding. And that night I had a very strange dream. I was back in that empty house, and everywhere there were masks and strange obscene figures staring at me, and a voice was calling. I donât know whose voice it was or what it was trying to say; it just boomed meaninglessly around the empty rooms, and I woke with the feeling that somebody, something had been trying to get through to me.
I donât often dream, and when I do, my dreamsare usually fairly innocuous. But this wasnât, and I automatically reached out to the next bed for comfort. But it was empty, as it had been for far too long now, and I lay there in the dark, trying to remember some detail that would provide a rational explanation.
In the end I switched on the light, got myself a Scotch and took it back to bed, thinking about that girl, and about Australia. What would she do when she got my letter? The memory of her was very vivid in my mind, and I lay there sipping my drink, telling myself it was nothing to do with me and no chance our paths would cross again. It was finished, but the knowledge that she was gone out of my life for good didnât stop me indulging in fantasy. And all the time I was remembering that booming, unintelligible voice.
Dawn was breaking before I dozed off, and when I finally woke, it was past nine. I rang Tubby, but again I got no answer. I didnât bother about breakfast, but drove straight down to the Crouch. His boat was gone. I went on board my own then, got the anchor up and beat down the river against the tide, tacking through the first yacht race of the day until I was out in the fairway and thumping around in a growing norâeaster off Foulness. It did me a world of good, the voice of my dream and that dreadful little house blown away by the stiff onshore breeze funnelling up the estuary.
Back at my moorings I cooked myself a meal, and afterwards I sat in the cockpit with a drink in my hand, wondering whether I would ever see my boat again. The wind had died with the setting sun, theBurnham waterfront gleaming white in the fading light, everything very still except for the ripple of the tide against the bows and the waterborne sound of voices from the last yachts drifting up on the tide. No sign of Tubby, so clearly he was away for the weekend. The pale glow of the town, the estuary, the tide ⦠I had lived in East Anglia ever since finishing my National Service, and the thought of leaving it for good filled me with nostalgia. Would I always have to be shifting from job to job? Was that the pattern of my life, some flaw in my character, a lack of
As soon as I got home, I wrote to her care of thebank. Then I rang Tubby. There was no reply. I rang him again later that night, when I had broken the back of the things that had to be done before I left. There was still no reply. My curiosity unsatisfied, I got out my own collection. It always gave me a feeling of satisfaction to look through the colourful print mosaics of my careful lay-outs and to realise that most of the stamps had been acquired long before inflation had got into its stride. But not this time, for I was very conscious that there was nothing in my collection that was in any way out of the ordinary, nothing that would get Josh Keegan talking the way he had about the Solomons Seal.
In the end I locked the albums away and went to bed. It was after one. An owl was hooting from the big cedar across the moat, and though it was already Saturday, and tomorrow I would be on my way to Australia, the forlorn sound of it seemed to reflect my mood.
A new country, the possibility of a fresh start â I should have been feeling eager, full of anticipation. Instead, the feeling I had was one of despondency, almost foreboding. And that night I had a very strange dream. I was back in that empty house, and everywhere there were masks and strange obscene figures staring at me, and a voice was calling. I donât know whose voice it was or what it was trying to say; it just boomed meaninglessly around the empty rooms, and I woke with the feeling that somebody, something had been trying to get through to me.
I donât often dream, and when I do, my dreamsare usually fairly innocuous. But this wasnât, and I automatically reached out to the next bed for comfort. But it was empty, as it had been for far too long now, and I lay there in the dark, trying to remember some detail that would provide a rational explanation.
In the end I switched on the light, got myself a Scotch and took it back to bed, thinking about that girl, and about Australia. What would she do when she got my letter? The memory of her was very vivid in my mind, and I lay there sipping my drink, telling myself it was nothing to do with me and no chance our paths would cross again. It was finished, but the knowledge that she was gone out of my life for good didnât stop me indulging in fantasy. And all the time I was remembering that booming, unintelligible voice.
Dawn was breaking before I dozed off, and when I finally woke, it was past nine. I rang Tubby, but again I got no answer. I didnât bother about breakfast, but drove straight down to the Crouch. His boat was gone. I went on board my own then, got the anchor up and beat down the river against the tide, tacking through the first yacht race of the day until I was out in the fairway and thumping around in a growing norâeaster off Foulness. It did me a world of good, the voice of my dream and that dreadful little house blown away by the stiff onshore breeze funnelling up the estuary.
Back at my moorings I cooked myself a meal, and afterwards I sat in the cockpit with a drink in my hand, wondering whether I would ever see my boat again. The wind had died with the setting sun, theBurnham waterfront gleaming white in the fading light, everything very still except for the ripple of the tide against the bows and the waterborne sound of voices from the last yachts drifting up on the tide. No sign of Tubby, so clearly he was away for the weekend. The pale glow of the town, the estuary, the tide ⦠I had lived in East Anglia ever since finishing my National Service, and the thought of leaving it for good filled me with nostalgia. Would I always have to be shifting from job to job? Was that the pattern of my life, some flaw in my character, a lack of
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