26

I should have written to Mrs Cambourne sooner. Of course I should. If I’d written to her from Scotland—if I’d gone straight down to see her—or if, at the very least, I had telephoned—then perhaps I could have salvaged something. In spite of whatever evidence James might have given to the contrary—the brusque departure he had witnessed, my missing clothes, maybe even something Oliver had said—I could have claimed that we had had a lover’s tiff and that I’d driven north for a few days to cool down. Yes, it might have been possible … if only I had acted promptly and had met with a vast amount of luck.

She wouldn’t have needed to know about my relationship with Elizabeth. Not until such time as a conveniently postdated marriage might have been acceptable.

With a vast amount of luck.

(Though, in truth, the whole concept of ‘luck’ now seemed superfluous. More than that—it seemed repugnant.)

But I’d been too stunned: I hadn’t been thinking. And when I finally wrote to her, early in June, it was an act of idiocy. For how did you explain the inexplicable: that matter of a ten-week gap?

Up until then, indeed, I must have recognized the utter futility of sending any form of condolence; especially the full and frank confession which I sometimes felt tempted to make, in the hope of partial absolution. But on the particular evening I composed and posted my short message Elizabeth had gone to bed early and I was slightly drunk.

“Dear Mrs Cambourne,” I wrote.

“I have only just heard what happened and I can’t find words to tell you of my sorrow. Your sense of loss must be infinite. Anyone who knew Oliver must surely miss him dreadfully and I know I don’t need to tell you how great the void in my own life. He was the best friend a man could ever have, just as I am sure he was also the best son. Perhaps I could come to visit you sometime in the near future?

“Yours very sincerely,

“John Wilmot.”

But three days later I received these few words in reply:

“Mr John Wilmot.

“Were you the best friend a man could ever have? I think a visitor from hell would be more welcome.

“Sarah Cambourne.”

Yet didn’t she understand? That’s exactly what I would be.

Her letter was brutal … although neither surprising nor unreasonable. But I remembered our time of closeness during Oliver’s depression on Boxing Day. We had been similarly close on many other occasions—in fact, a great deal closer than, over that same period, I had been with my own mother—but as members of a trio, not a duo. I particularly recalled a Sunday when the three of us had driven to Forest Green to have lunch at a small hotel, and how we’d afterwards sat in the lounge to drink our coffee. A small, genially fussy old gentleman had played a recording of the Queen’s Christmas broadcast, which his son-in-law had taped for him and which by now he probably knew word for word. He had begun by playing it quite softly, to another old gentleman sitting in the same corner, but when it seemed that the remaining seven or eight of us were also listening, he had given several tentative though hopeful nods—and had obligingly turned up the volume; had obviously mistaken the silence of surprise for the silence of respect.

At least, on the part of some of us. With others, evidently, it had been the silence of respect.

For when, following the speech, the National Anthem had been put on, a retired army officer had at once sprang to his feet and stood stiffly to attention. His wife followed suit and so did the two old gentlemen. Hesitantly, sheepishly, the rest of us joined in. But the anthem seemed to last forever and there was something so absurd in the spectacle of all of us caught there in this unnatural attitude—self-consciously reverential—that Oliver and I were sufficiently ill-advised as to look at one another.

Oliver instantly transferred his attention to the floor; I reached for my handkerchief; but still I saw his shoulders shake and I couldn’t suppress a muffled sob.

His mother, standing between us, stared straight ahead, admirably solemn and aloof—until, almost at the end, when that magnificent composure started to crack and, after a brief but hopeless struggle, she too succumbed.

The three of us sat down some twenty seconds later dabbing at our eyes and feeling like naughty ten-year-olds. Under such conditions it was hard to take part with any sincerity in the grateful murmurings that ensued.

“You wicked reprehensible pair!” she said, as we drove away. “Shall we ever dare show our faces there again?”

And now, unforeseeably, it was our giggling together that I chiefly remembered as I stared down disconsolate at the curt note in my hand. I had saved it until I’d found a good time to read it: away from Elizabeth, the driving rain, the hurrying pedestrians: and until, also, I had managed to summon up the courage.

“Not bad news, I trust?”

It was Mr Chauncey the under-buyer: a kindly if somewhat colourless man, fifty-odd with small children.

“What?”

“I was wondering if you felt ill? Are you going to be all right?”

“No. Yes. I’m sorry?” I scarcely knew what I was saying. “Oh … ill? Yes! I’m not sure.”

“Then why don’t you take your coffee break a bit early? You don’t have to hurry back. It’s not busy, we can manage.”

“Thank you,” I mumbled.

It struck me for the first time, standing on, of all places, the down-escalator in Selfridge’s and thinking about being ill, that not so long ago in this world there had lived a man who had once cleaned up my vomit … and still gone on loving me.

Elizabeth had read my book. “I mean to read it again, Johnny. It was good—and very funny in places. Oliver thought it was outstanding, didn’t he? And maybe he’s the one who knew. But … well, I want to be as truthful as I can. I just feel you could do better.”

I nodded, in unconcerned agreement. “It gave me some valuable practice—that’s really all.”

She relaxed, perceptibly.

“But, darling, you seemed so pleased with it. And Oliver did too,” she repeated—more anxiously again.

“No, Oliver hadn’t read it when he spoke as he did to your father. And when he did read it … well, he didn’t like it, either.”

In one way I could talk about it easily: the book was dead for me, had been since March; it was she who’d brought it up again. In every other way it was an ordeal. Why hadn’t I been able to let him know that I agreed with his verdict? In my heart I must have appreciated its soundness, nearly as soon as I had heard it. (Oh God—and why hadn’t I accepted that offer of working with him on a new synopsis?) Now the only thing to prevent me from throwing the typescript in the dustbin was the knowledge that he had handled it, had looked with care at every page, and by doing so had made of it a relic.

“Honey, I never knew anyone take criticism in such good part.”

I shrugged. “That isn’t what Oliver would have said.” But I wanted to forget the novel. “Elizabeth, tell me something. Do you think it’s possible that, somehow, your parents didn’t hear about what happened to him?”

She hesitated.

“That’s funny, I really don’t know. Why?”

“I’m puzzled, that’s all. They certainly didn’t mention it in Edinburgh. But, on the other hand, they didn’t think of asking him to use his influence, either.”

“Perhaps,” she said, speaking rather slowly, “they didn’t realize that his influence would be so strong.”

“And something else. Do you suppose Oliver’s mother knows about us?”

“Heavens. That’s anybody’s guess.” She smiled. “But in any case—why don’t you write to tell her?”