Tremenheere?'
'Cornwall. The very end of Cornwall. Heaven on earth. An old Elizabethan manor and a view of the bay.'
'You sound like a travel agent. Who lives there?'
'Gerald and Eve Haverstock. He's my uncle, and she's a darling.'
Laura remembered. 'They sent us crystal wineglasses for a wedding present.'
'That's right.'
'And a sweet letter.'
'Right again.'
'And he's a retired admiral?'
'Who didn't get married until he was sixty.'
'What a complicated family you have.'
'But all charming. Like me.'
'When were you at this place . . . Tremenheere?' The word was difficult to say, especially after a neat brandy.
'When I was a boy. Brian and I spent a summer holiday there.'
'But I've never met them. Gerald and Eve, I mean.'
'That doesn't matter.'
'We don't even know if they can have me to stay.'
'I'll ring them later on and fix it.'
'What if they say no?'
'They won't say no, but if they do, we'll think of something else.'
'I'll be a nuisance.'
‘I don't think so.'
'How would I get there?'
'I'll drive you down once you're out of hospital.'
'You'll be at Glenshandra.'
‘I shan't go to Glenshandra until you're safely delivered. Like a parcel.'
'You'll miss some of your holiday. Some of the fishing.'
'That won't kill me.'
She had finally run out of objections. Tremenheere was a compromise, but it was at least a plan. It would mean meeting new people, living in a stranger's house, but as well it meant that Phyllis would go to Florence and Alec would go to Scotland.
She turned her head on the cushion and looked at him, sitting there, with his drink cradled between his knees. She saw his thick hair, black, streaked with white, like silver fox fur. His face, not conventionally handsome, but arresting and distinguished, the sort of face that seen once could never be forgotten. She saw his tallness, easily disposed upon the low stool, his long legs spread, his hands clasped loosely around his glass. She looked into his eyes, which were dark as her own, and he smiled, and her heart turned over.
He is, after all, a very attractive man.
Phyllis had said, Can you see a man of Alec's integrity having an affair with his best friend's wife? But how Daphne would love having him at Glenshandra on his own.
The thought filled Laura with a pain that was ludicrous, because she had spent the last half hour persuading him to go. Ashamed of herself, filled with love for Alec, she put out her hand, and he took it in his own.
'If Gerald and Eve say they can have me, and if I say that I'll go, you promise you'll go to Scotland.'
'If that's what you want.'
'That is what I want, Alec'
He bent his head and kissed the palm of her hand and closed her fingers around the kiss as though it were some precious gift.
She said, ‘I probably wouldn't be much good at fishing anyway . . . and you won't have to spend all your time trying to teach me.'
'There'll be another year.'
Another year. Perhaps in another year, everything would be better.
'Tell me about Tremenheere.'
TREMENHEERE
The day had been perfect. Long, hot, sun-soaked. The tide was out, and the beach, viewed from the sea, where Eve, after an energetic swim, drifted blissfully on the rise and fall of gathering waves, revealed itself as a curve of cliff, a sickle of rocks, and then the wide, clean sweep of the sand.
It was, for this particular beach, crowded. Now, at the end of July, the holiday season was at its peak and the scene was littered with bright spots of colour: bathing towels and striped windbreaks; children in scarlet and canary-yellow bathing suits; sun umbrellas and huge, inflatable rubber balls. Overhead, gulls swooped and screamed, perched on the cliff tops, dived to devour the flotsam of a hundred picnics, dropped in the sand. Their screams were matched by human cries, which, across the distance, pierced the air. Boys playing football, mothers shrieking at wayward toddlers, the happy screams of a girl being mobbed by a couple of youths who appeared to
'Cornwall. The very end of Cornwall. Heaven on earth. An old Elizabethan manor and a view of the bay.'
'You sound like a travel agent. Who lives there?'
'Gerald and Eve Haverstock. He's my uncle, and she's a darling.'
Laura remembered. 'They sent us crystal wineglasses for a wedding present.'
'That's right.'
'And a sweet letter.'
'Right again.'
'And he's a retired admiral?'
'Who didn't get married until he was sixty.'
'What a complicated family you have.'
'But all charming. Like me.'
'When were you at this place . . . Tremenheere?' The word was difficult to say, especially after a neat brandy.
'When I was a boy. Brian and I spent a summer holiday there.'
'But I've never met them. Gerald and Eve, I mean.'
'That doesn't matter.'
'We don't even know if they can have me to stay.'
'I'll ring them later on and fix it.'
'What if they say no?'
'They won't say no, but if they do, we'll think of something else.'
'I'll be a nuisance.'
‘I don't think so.'
'How would I get there?'
'I'll drive you down once you're out of hospital.'
'You'll be at Glenshandra.'
‘I shan't go to Glenshandra until you're safely delivered. Like a parcel.'
'You'll miss some of your holiday. Some of the fishing.'
'That won't kill me.'
She had finally run out of objections. Tremenheere was a compromise, but it was at least a plan. It would mean meeting new people, living in a stranger's house, but as well it meant that Phyllis would go to Florence and Alec would go to Scotland.
She turned her head on the cushion and looked at him, sitting there, with his drink cradled between his knees. She saw his thick hair, black, streaked with white, like silver fox fur. His face, not conventionally handsome, but arresting and distinguished, the sort of face that seen once could never be forgotten. She saw his tallness, easily disposed upon the low stool, his long legs spread, his hands clasped loosely around his glass. She looked into his eyes, which were dark as her own, and he smiled, and her heart turned over.
He is, after all, a very attractive man.
Phyllis had said, Can you see a man of Alec's integrity having an affair with his best friend's wife? But how Daphne would love having him at Glenshandra on his own.
The thought filled Laura with a pain that was ludicrous, because she had spent the last half hour persuading him to go. Ashamed of herself, filled with love for Alec, she put out her hand, and he took it in his own.
'If Gerald and Eve say they can have me, and if I say that I'll go, you promise you'll go to Scotland.'
'If that's what you want.'
'That is what I want, Alec'
He bent his head and kissed the palm of her hand and closed her fingers around the kiss as though it were some precious gift.
She said, ‘I probably wouldn't be much good at fishing anyway . . . and you won't have to spend all your time trying to teach me.'
'There'll be another year.'
Another year. Perhaps in another year, everything would be better.
'Tell me about Tremenheere.'
TREMENHEERE
The day had been perfect. Long, hot, sun-soaked. The tide was out, and the beach, viewed from the sea, where Eve, after an energetic swim, drifted blissfully on the rise and fall of gathering waves, revealed itself as a curve of cliff, a sickle of rocks, and then the wide, clean sweep of the sand.
It was, for this particular beach, crowded. Now, at the end of July, the holiday season was at its peak and the scene was littered with bright spots of colour: bathing towels and striped windbreaks; children in scarlet and canary-yellow bathing suits; sun umbrellas and huge, inflatable rubber balls. Overhead, gulls swooped and screamed, perched on the cliff tops, dived to devour the flotsam of a hundred picnics, dropped in the sand. Their screams were matched by human cries, which, across the distance, pierced the air. Boys playing football, mothers shrieking at wayward toddlers, the happy screams of a girl being mobbed by a couple of youths who appeared to
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