Patrick loved getting up early and he made runny porridge on the Aga. Va Va heard loud classical music blare from the wireless on the kitchen windowsill and ran down to beg Patrick to draw faces on her porridge with trickles of golden syrup. The children knew that Patrick was susceptible to a certain look, eyes wide and innocent.
‘Daddy, can we have biscuits for pudding and then go and buy some sweets at Mr Cardew’s?’
‘Anything, loves, anything,’ he agreed absently, leaning over the white, cold washbasin in the cloakroom as he shaved.
After breakfast he kissed their sticky faces and shut himself in the study. The children knew they must not disturb him, but would creep to the door and crouch outside on the flagstones, listening as he played back poems he had read into a tape recorder. He sounded different when he talked to them, and Va Va asked why.
Patrick looked grave, but he winked and said, ‘Now my love, you are getting serious.’ She had no idea what he meant.
The study was exciting. It was warm and smelt of cigarettes; it was usually forbidden territory, piled high with books and papers. Va Va sat on Patrick’s knee and talked into the tape recorder while Brodie wrote wispy letters in a notebook. Patrick liked the children’s interruptions, but one day, when the milkman, the man who drove the Sunshine Bread van and the butcher had all waved cheery good-mornings to him through the window, he took his books and his green chair upstairs and made the big spare room his study.
He hated talking to anyone during the day. He once went to the village shop, and only once. Mr Cardew, the shopkeeper, jaunty in his Camp Coffee apron, greeted him with delight. ‘Mr Lincoln, come for some gaspers, have you?’ He rubbed his hands together, beaming. ‘Can’t write those poems without something to light the fire, can we?’ and he cackled mightily.
Patrick was horrified. He never went to the shop again, but drove five miles to Aylthorpe to buy his cigarettes.