LITMIR.BIZ

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silk shades. The tables were separated by clumps of stately palms in pots, and phalanxes of gliding waiters.

      ‘Are they there?’

      ‘Yes. Both of them.’

      ‘Oh, hell. Come on, then.’

      ‘Amy.’ Isabel’s protest was as automatic as always.

      Tony Hardy came up behind them in a dinner suit that had clearly belonged to his father. The door was held open for them by the waiter that Amy had come to think of as her favourite. He was very young, with a dark, almost monkey-like face that split into a huge smile. She grinned sideways at him in answer, and between Isabel and Tony she marched forward to the dinner table.

      They slid into their seats, murmuring their apologies. Richard telegraphed them a greeting by dissolving his poker face into a mass of wriggling eyebrows, and then returned immediately to his impassive calm.

      It was a dinner just like hundreds of others, Amy thought sadly, as she bent her head over her soup. She wondered why they didn’t feel on the inside as they must look on the outside to the people watching them — happy, and comfortable, and like other families. Like her friend Violet Trent’s family, for example. Amy could remember, just about, times when they had been. Times when her father had smiled more, and when his gruffness had easily dissolved into affection. When Mother had been more … well, just more accessible, and there had been fewer friends and parties and pressing engagements filling her days. Mother was wonderful, of course, she reminded herself. No one else’s mother was anything like her. There just wasn’t enough of her to go around. Isabel minded that she was so busy too, Amy knew that. Yet Mother could always make time for Richard. He was the special one, to her. But that was quite natural too, of course. He would be going away to school all too soon, and they would all miss him dreadfully. And someone had to make up to him for Father being so harsh. Amy wondered if fathers were always like that to their sons, if it was supposed to make them more manly.

      She thought of one of the things that had happened, on this very holiday, one of the odd, dark things that she never mentioned afterwards even to Isabel, but which she knew they all still remembered.

      They had been sitting beside the hotel swimming pool one morning, sunning themselves, Isabel and herself, with Richard and Tony. Richard was reading a book with Tony. Amy remembered that it was a book of modern poetry with a yellow cover. Tony was explaining it, talking about how the words made pictures with sounds and also meant things that you couldn’t see at first. Mother was still upstairs. She often didn’t come down until just before lunch. But unusually, Father had been there, sitting in a chair close by. He was frowning, not quite looking at his newspaper.

      Suddenly he had stood up and gone over to Richard. He had said something like, ‘Come on, my boy, let’s see you do something real for a change.’

      Then he had jerked Richard to the edge of the pool. They had balanced there for a second or two, and Richard had gone flailing into the water.

      To the other people looking, Amy thought, it must just have looked like a father and son rough-and-tumbling together. But it wasn’t really like that at all. Father had been angry and pleading, both together, and Richard had been defiant. Father wanted him to do something and Richard didn’t want to do it, not now and not ever.

      Then when he was in the water he was just a frightened little boy, because he couldn’t swim. There was a moment when they saw his face under the water, turned up with his eyes wide open. And then he was splashing and choking on the surface. It was Tony who slid in beside him and helped him to the poolside, and Father had just watched them with a frozen face. Richard had hauled himself out of the water and gone back to his place without looking at anyone, and no one had ever talked about it again.

      Amy could remember other things too, going back over the years, as if Father and Richard had been fighting a silent battle that the rest of them were only aware of for a fraction of the time.

      It was peculiar that it should be like that, because Richard was such a funny, likeable boy. He could mimic anybody, from Mr Glass to Violet Trent’s mother, and he often reduced Isabel and herself to helpless laughter. Mother enjoyed his mimicry too, but he never ever did it when Father was around. Richard could be serious and sensible, too. He often talked about things much more intelligently than other children of only eight.

      Why not with Father? Richard put on his shuttered face when he was present, and Father went on being scornful and angry with him.

      Amy asked Isabel why they didn’t seem to like each other. It wasn’t right, was it, for a father and son?

      Isabel had said in her gentle way that she didn’t know for sure, but she thought it was something to do with Airlie having been killed in the War. If Father had loved Airlie very much, as he must have done, perhaps it was hard for him to love Richard in just the same way.

      ‘He should be glad to have him,’ Amy muttered. ‘Is it why Mother and Father don’t make each other happy?’

      Isabel looked at her. They had never quite put it into words before. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, very quietly.

      ‘When I marry,’ Amy said, ‘it won’t be like that at all. I shall marry a man who is rich and handsome and witty, and who adores me.’

      Isabel was laughing. ‘You’ll have to find one, first.’

      ‘Oh, that will be easy. We’ll both find one. Just wait and see.’

      ‘Amy, will you stop staring into space like a halfwit? Adeline, these children have no manners.’

      Another family dinner, like hundreds before it. At last it was over. Mother had looked beautiful, had smiled at them and asked them what they had been doing, and had listened carefully because she really did want them to enjoy themselves. Father had been silent, except for telling Tony that he thought trailing around empty churches was hardly educational. Tony had politely said that it seemed sensible to encourage Richard in what he was good at, like languages and art, and history and architecture, instead of forcing him to do things that he didn’t enjoy. Amy and Isabel had talked to fill the empty spaces, and they had probably looked the picture of a happy family on holiday together.

      Adeline kissed the children good night, with an extra hug for Richard that crushed the shot-silk wrap against his cheek. Hugh Herbert was waiting for her in the cocktail bar. They would have a drink, and then they would dance again. Adeline had been completely exhilarated by their first one. They had swung out over the floor like ice-skaters. Hugh Herbert was charming and flattering. Why not? Adeline asked herself. Gerald had already gone off, unsmiling, with barely a word for her.

      Isabel and Amy went upstairs to their suite. They were not allowed to stay downstairs after dinner. They would sit and read or write letters, with Bethan for company, and at ten-thirty they would go to bed and listen to the music coming up from the ballroom.

      Tony’s last job of the day was to see Richard up to his room. The boy went uncomplainingly, looking forward to losing himself again in the adventure story waiting beside his bed. A little later Bethan would come up to make sure that he had washed and cleaned his teeth properly, and that his pyjamas were on the right way out. As if it mattered, Richard thought. But then what did matter? It was difficult to decide. Perhaps when you knew just how much importance to give to people and the things that they did, perhaps then you were grown up. Clearly he had a long way to go yet.

      Tony Hardy went up to his room and took off his dinner suit, his boiled shirt and his bow tie. He pulled on a jersey and ran his fingers through his hair. Down by the tiny harbour in Biarritz where the fishing fleet came in, there were a couple of little bars where people went to drink vin ordinaire and cognac, to listen to Basque songs, and to talk. The chance to be there and listen, to talk a little himself, made all the rest of this worthwhile. Even dinners like the one he had just sat through.

      Tony closed his door softly behind him and ran down the broad, shallow stairs with his mouth pursed in a silent, celebratory whistle.

      On the morning of their last day in Biarritz, Amy went out for a last walk along the sea front.

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