WHEN TIM WAKENS he is still determined to follow his plan. Just after breakfast, however, there is a knock at the door. Wooster barks and Tim goes to see who is there. A middle-aged woman with a kind, tired face smiles at him.
‘I don’t think we’ve met before,’ she says, ‘but my name’s Stella. I look after Francis. He’s feeling better and he’s asked me to invite you up for a cup of coffee if you’re free.’
Just for a moment Tim is caught off balance. It’s as if Francis has read his mind. Wooster comes out and greets Stella as if she is an old friend.
‘Hello, old fellow,’ she says to him. ‘You can stay with me in the kitchen.’
‘Right,’ says Tim. ‘That’s good. Really good. So what do I do? Just walk in?’
‘Give me chance to get finished upstairs, say half past ten?’
‘Great,’ says Tim. ‘Thanks.’
He goes back inside feeling surprised and pleased, looking forward to seeing Francis, though a small part of him fears it. Will he be able to continue to dissemble, to maintain his fiction with Francis? Perhaps they will simply discuss poetry? Tim begins to look through his collection, wondering how widely read Francis is: how modern. He becomes absorbed and then, glancing at his watch, realizes that he’ll be late if he doesn’t take Wooster for his walk straight away.
Half an hour later Stella is waiting for him as he opens the gate and crosses the yard to the farmhouse. She leads him along a passage, past the kitchen and into the hall.
‘Up you go,’ she says to Tim, putting a restraining hand on Wooster’s collar. ‘Door’s down on the right. He’ll be looking for you.’
She puts a hand in her apron pocket and produces a biscuit with which she lures Wooster back towards the kitchen and Tim hears the door shut. He hesitates for a moment, looking upwards, and then runs up the stairs. He stops at the top, looking each way along the spacious landing and then he sees the shadow in the doorway and hurries forward.
‘Tim,’ says Francis, balancing on a Zimmer frame, holding out his hand. ‘This is kind of you. Stella’s brought the tray up so we shall be left in peace for a while.’
He shuffles back to allow Tim to go past and he enters the big, sunny room with an exclamation of pleasure. With its book-lined walls and the big desk, this is just the kind of room he’s always wanted for himself.
‘What a splendid eyrie, sir,’ he says. ‘And what a view.’
‘It’s mainly for the view that I commandeered it,’ Francis admitted. ‘My wife would have liked it for our bedroom but I considered it a waste. Better things to do in a bedroom, I told her, than stand looking out of windows.’
Tim gives a crack of laughter and looks at the old man with amused surprise. ‘I have to agree with that.’
‘Of course you do and I wish you’d call me “Francis”. Pour the coffee, will you? My hands shake too much these days. I like mine black.’
There is a comfortable armchair on each side of the little rosewood table and Francis lowers himself into one of them while Tim deals with the coffee pot. He’s surprised how much at ease he feels.
‘So you’ve settled in?’ the old man continues. ‘You’re happy here?’
‘I love it here,’ Tim answers. ‘It feels like home.’
‘That’s a great compliment.’ Francis accepts the pretty bone-china cup and saucer that Tim pushes towards him. ‘I was born here. I’ve lived here all my life. My children were born here.’
‘I envy you,’ Tim says, looking around him. ‘It must be wonderful to have a place of your very own in the world. To be stable and rooted. You are very lucky.’
The old man watches him over the rim of his cup and Tim looks back at him. There is something here, some kind of recognition between them, that he can’t quite define.
‘I have been lucky,’ Francis admits. ‘Much luckier than I deserve. But I’ve been very selfish, too.’
Tim hardly knows how to answer.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says inadequately. ‘We’re all selfish, though, aren’t we?’
‘Probably. It’s that sense of guilt we struggle with that can be so destructive, don’t you find?’
Tim frowns. It’s almost as if Francis knows about his own secret, but how can he? The old man is watching him and Tim feels an overwhelming desire to tell him the truth but still he resists.
‘I can’t imagine,’ he says rather lamely, trying for a lighter note, ‘that you’ve ever been capable of real treachery.’
‘Ah, but I have,’ says Francis sadly. ‘I betrayed my wife. I was unfaithful to her with a much younger woman who bore my illegitimate child. I have never acknowledged him as my son and I made his mother swear that she would never tell another soul that I was his father. I was afraid for my career, you see. And for my pride, of course, though I pretended that it was for my wife’s sake, and for my legitimate sons. And even now, I can’t quite admit it, though Nell and Liz are dead and it no longer matters. I can’t face the thought of what my sons would think of me.’
Tim stares at him, shocked. ‘God,’ he says, ‘that’s hard. For all of you.’
Francis nods. A little pause. ‘I see you walking in the woods. Have you found Pan?’
Tim is relieved at the change of subject. ‘I have,’ he says. ‘And there’s someone who garlands him with flowers. Are there children locally who go there and into the dogs’ graveyard?’
‘So you’ve found the graveyard, too. It’s a long while since I’ve been there. I can’t walk so far these days.’
‘So it isn’t you who puts flowers on Brack’s grave?’
Francis gives a great sigh; he smiles reminiscently. ‘Ah, dear old Brack. Short for Bracken. What a fellow he was. A cairn. Cheerful, cheeky. You know the breed?’
Tim sets down his coffee cup carefully in its saucer. ‘I had a cairn like Brack when I was a child. I called him Ban.’
His breath comes quickly. The day with Mattie has breached his defences and suddenly he feels weak and tired. Francis is watching him with that same compassion and he has a great longing to tell it all at last.
‘What happened to Ban?’
‘I opened the garden gate, though I’d been warned not to. I didn’t mean to. It had always been too stiff before. But that morning the catch clicked open and gate swung enough for Ban to get out. My mother was just across the road coming back from shopping. Ban ran out to meet her and I followed him. My mother ran forward to stop me dashing into the road and was hit by a car. I killed her.’
Francis is silent for a moment. ‘It was an accident. A terrible accident.’
‘Yes.’ Tim stares at his cup. ‘I know that really but somehow it doesn’t help. My father couldn’t bear it and simply left. Disappeared.’
‘What happened to you?’
‘I went to live with my grandmother. My mother’s mother. She looked after us. Me and Ban.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Four. Nearly five.’
‘How terrible,’ Francis says. ‘How very terrible.’
‘So many people ask, you see. When you’re little, I mean. “Where’s your mummy?” and you have to explain that she died in an accident. Even when you’re older and you make friends people want to know, don’t they? About your family. You can never get away from it. Anyway, why should I? It was my fault she died but I’ve never told anyone the whole truth before.’
He feels empty and exhausted. He’s kept this secret for so long that now – suddenly dragged into the light – it almost seems unimportant. He rubs his forehead with his fingers, drinks some coffee.
‘I’m so sorry, Tim,’ Francis says. ‘Please forgive me. I had a feeling that there was something weighing on your mind and I wondered if it might help to talk. I had no business to interfere. I was completely out of order.’
Tim shakes his head. ‘You weren’t interfering. You were trying to help me. I’ve never told anyone before. It’s too . . . well, just impossible, really. Is that why you told me about your secret? To encourage me?’
‘Something like that. We’re all damaged, aren’t we? We all have weaknesses, fears, secrets we keep hidden. Sometimes it’s good to unburden ourselves. Forgive me, Tim.’
Tim is silent. He wants to tell Francis the rest of it but he can’t do it. He already feels too emotional – and, anyway, it’s not fair on the poor old man who looks so frail and vulnerable.
‘It’s wonderful being here,’ Tim says at last. ‘It’s been the best thing in my life. There’s nothing to forgive, Francis. And I’m glad I told you. And thank you for telling me. For trusting me.’ He hesitates. ‘So who is it that puts flowers on Brack’s grave and brings posies to Pan?’
He smiles, trying to bring a lighter touch, but this time it is Francis who hesitates, shakes his head.
‘There’s a footpath across the field to the hamlet,’ he says. ‘Anyone might come that way.’
Tim watches him; he feels that Francis is withholding something. His expression is inward, remote and immensely sad.
‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ Tim asks. ‘I know you have people to help you but is there anywhere I could take you in the car? Just for an outing, perhaps?’
Francis looks up at him. ‘Yes,’ he says quickly. ‘Yes, there is. Only you’d have to be able to deal with my wheelchair.’
‘I expect I could manage that,’ Tim says. ‘What do you have in mind?’
‘I’d like to go to Mass,’ Francis says unexpectedly.
‘To Mass?’
‘Yes. At Buckfast Abbey. I prefer to go to one of the weekday services when it’s quieter, and I haven’t been for a long while. Do you think you could manage it?’
‘I’m sure I can. I imagine that Bank Holiday Monday will probably be pretty busy at the Abbey so shall we say Tuesday?’
‘You know the Abbey? You’re not by any chance a Catholic?’
Tim shakes his head. ‘No, though I’ve visited the Abbey a couple of times. But Gran made sure we went to church on Sundays so I’m not a raw beginner.’
They both laugh, tension eases. They drink their coffee and make a plan for Tuesday.