'Didn't Alma rein him in?'

'She had the sense to stay out of it until Bella Hutton turned up. Is there an issue between those two?'

Marta shrugged. 'I don't know, but I can see why you're out here. Where's everyone else?'

'Back at the hotel, except Archie. He went to have a drink with Bridget.'

'Ah. Leaving his notebook at home, presumably.'

'Quite.'

Marta stubbed her cigarette out on the floor. 'Do you mind?'

'No,' Josephine said truthfully, taking the packet out of her hand. 'For what it's worth, I liked Bridget.'

'So what were you so deep in thought about just now?'

'Nothing very original, I'm afraid.' She paused while Marta lit her cigarette. 'I promised myself I wouldn't start taking stock of my life at every big birthday, but that's exactly what I was doing. Forty obviously matters more than I thought it would.'

'You must be pleased, though? You've got a Hitchc.o.c.k movie, a string of stage hits and another book about to be published. Oh, and half a racehorse. That's not bad for forty.'

'But I haven't got you.'

Her directness seemed to take Marta by surprise. 'Why do you say that?' she asked. 'I'll move heaven and earth to be with you, Josephine, whenever you ask me to. I don't know how to make that any clearer.'

'It's not you I'm doubting,' Josephine said, looking out across the square. 'But that sort of life isn't real, is it?' Her eye fell on a bust of Shakespeare, perched playfully on one of the balconies that linked the two buildings on the southern side of the village and convincingly lifelike from a distance. 'We're like one of Clough's tricks, you and I: it's beautiful and intense and exciting, but if you look at it for long enough you see straight through it.'

'You told me not to ask any more of you,' Marta said quietly. 'You said that's how you wanted it to be.'

'No. I said that was how it had to be. It was never a matter of choice.' Josephine took Marta's face in her hands, wanting her to understand that this frustration was only with herself. 'But there are times when I'd swap intense and exciting for something more normal, for what you and Lydia have. You're not continually a.n.a.lysing your own relationship. You laugh, you bicker, you look out for each other and make plans.' She paused. 'You talk about moving to Hollywood together.'

'Is that what this is about?' Marta asked, exasperated. 'I don't want to go to Hollywood, Josephine. It isn't an option.'

'No, you're probably right. I think this evening put Lydia off any travel plans she was tempted to make, at least for now.'

'Not just for now. I'm not going anywhere. There's no way that I would ever . . .'

Josephine cut her off with a kiss. 'Please, Marta a don't look that far ahead. It's tempting fate, and I don't want either of us to make promises we might not be able to keep. Things change. People change.'

'I didn't know you felt like this. I thought it was out of sight, out of mind the minute you crossed the border.'

'Don't think I haven't tried, but I can't do it any more. I can't be content in that other life because part of me is always with you.' Such thoughts were a familiar part of the hours she spent alonea but Josephine had never intended to speak them aloud; suddenlya thougha there seemed little point in keeping anything from Marta. 'Sometimes, just for a minute, I let myself think about what it would be like if you and I were free to do whatever we wanteda' she admitted. 'I imagine you in my house, in my bed; going shopping or walking over the sands at Nairn. And then I have to stop because it hurts too much and I can't bear all the things I don't know about you, the things you only find out when you're with someone all the time.' The quiet of the square conspired with Marta's silence to make Josephine feel vulnerable and uncertain. 'Because I'm not free, Marta. I have people who expect things from me. A father to keep an eye on, a house and a reputation to look after, sisters who take things for granted now because there was a time when it suited me to let them. I could never drop everything and go to Hollywood with you, even if you wanted me to.'

'And neither could Lydia. Have you met her mother?'

Josephine laughed. 'Once was enough. But that's what I mean by normal. I could never share my whole life with you in the way that Lydia does. I have to keep it all in compartments and remember to be someone slightly different in each one. Lydia's always Lydia. All right, she flirts with the odd producer if it'll get her a part, but pretending to be someone else is her job. It shouldn't be mine.'

'So what are you trying to tell me?'

Josephine heard the fear in her voice and wondered how she had managed to stray so far from what she really wanted Marta to understand. 'That I love you,' she said, trying again. 'I love you and I'm scared a scared that I won't be able to do all the things I want to do in the time I've got left. Scared because there's another war coming, and people will disappear and the joy will go out of everything. Scared because I'm trapped by my own decisions and I might never be able to find a way back. That's my fear a running out of time before anything changes. And you're the only person I can say that to. The only person who makes it go away.'

Marta let her hand rest gently on Josephine's cheek. 'And you don't think that's real?' she asked softly. 'Come on a let's go somewhere more private.'

Josephine stood and turned towards Neptune, but Marta caught her arm and nodded in the opposite direction. They left the square and took the steps down to the beach, using the lights from the hotel to guide them, and then, as they faded, a torch which Marta had brought with her. 'You came prepared,' Josephine said dryly, wondering where Marta was taking her. 'I wouldn't have thought you were the Girl Guide type.'

'And you'd be right. I can't say uniforms have ever been my thing.'

The tide was out, and they followed the headland round until they reached a stretch of coastline dotted with tiny coves. The path narrowed and Marta slowed down to let Josephine walk in front. Up ahead, she could see a faint light coming from one of the small caves; it was further inland than the rest and, as she crossed the sand to reach it, she realised that it was filled with candles, tucked into crevices in the rock where they were sheltered from the night air. The floor was covered in blankets and cushions, and a picnic hamper stood waiting on a makeshift table. Josephine stared at it in astonishment. 'This is what you've been doing?'

'Happy birthday.' Marta stood close behind her and kissed the back of her neck. 'We're just in time a it's not even midnight.' She put her arms round Josephine's hips and spoke softly into her hair. 'I know it's hard, but you don't always have to imagine it.'

Josephine turned and looked at Marta for a long time. 'I once asked you not to change anything about my life, didn't I?' Marta nodded. 'Well, now I'm begging you not to leave it as it is.'

3.

The weather was threatening to compete with the outbursts that had been a feature of the evening so far, but Archie was glad to be outside. Hitchc.o.c.k's gathering had brought together the sort of people he most despised, people whose personalities he would never understand, and he was relieved to have an excuse to leave them behind in exchange for something more familiar. He laughed to himself as he left the hotel, amused by the irony of his situation: never, as a young man, could he have imagined himself turning to Bridget for sanity and a world that made sense, and he wondered what had made the difference a whether it was wisdom, as Josephine had suggested, or simply a happy acquiescence.

White Horses formed a gateway between the hotel grounds and the headland, and seemed to Archie to act as mediator between the civilised world of the village and the miles of untamed woodland that surrounded it, ensuring that the values of one did not encroach too far on those of the other. It was a simple, single-storey building and its whitewashed walls shone proudly in the lantern light, as if pleased to offer a contrast to the more elaborate style of the rest of the village. A lamp was on in the window but there was no answer when he knocked, so he waited a couple of minutes and let himself in. The cottage was small and seemed designed for a solitary lifestyle a a contemplative life, he would have said, were it not for the thoroughness with which Bridget had made herself at home. His job had trained him to read people's lives from where they lived, usually in the most tragic of circ.u.mstances, but there was no need here for either his professional expertise or his personal knowledge: any stranger would know instantly that the room's occupant was happy with her own company, and that was exactly what Bridget had always been. It was one of the things he admired most about her: the ability to stand on the outside without ever seeming detached, to mix without letting anything of herself be compromised, and it was true of both her life and her art.

The two mingled easily here, although the basic necessities of eating and drinking played a secondary role. He walked over to the central table, which most people would have reserved for dining, and looked affectionately at the clutter of paper, pencils and half-finished sketches, at the mug used to wash brushes and the plate which had become a makeshift palette, and felt a sudden connection to his past which was both welcome and unsettling. The battered old box which Bridget used to store her paints was, he noticed, the same one that she had carried twenty years ago. He unclipped its lid and ran his finger across the row of small tubes, variously shrunken and misshapen with use, reading the names of the pigments: ceruleana chrome yellowa crimson alizarin. He had always loved the words she used, a secret language of colours and techniques which punctuated her everyday speech and made her inseparable from what she did; the words were not his, and yet they had become familiar to him, an important part of his life, signposts in their conversation. Now, he was surprised to discover how directly they still spoke to him.

He heard footsteps and laughter outside, and, when Bridget opened the door, he was surprised to see her with Hitchc.o.c.k's cameraman. Like him, Spence had changed into something more casual since dinner, but neither of them could hold a candle to Bridget for informality; she was wearing the paint-stained overalls he had seen her in earlier, and not an inch of the dark-blue material seemed to have escaped unscathed. They were in the room before he had a chance to close the boxa but, if she felt any irritation at having caught him looking through her things, she didn't show it. 'Archie!' she said, dumping a large bag on one of the chairs and letting two overexcited dogs off their leads. 'I didn't expect you so early. How nice.'

The words were genuinea and the awkwardness which Archie felt was of his own making, but that didn't help to ease his embarra.s.sment. 'Sorry,' he said, 'but you told me to make myself at home. I didn't realise . . .' He tailed off, hoping that the disappointment didn't show in his face and angry with himself for a.s.suming that he and Bridget would be on their own. It had been a casual meeting, after all, and the offer of a drink was made on the spur of the moment; she had probably been regretting it all evening.

She dismissed his apology with a wave of her hand and deftly moved one of the border terriers off the remaining chair. 'Do you know Jack Spence? He's here with those film people.'

Archie couldn't help smiling at the way in which she made film sound like a dirty word. 'We haven't been formally introduced,' he said. They shook hands, and he noticed that Spence didn't seem any more comfortable than he was. 'But we've shared some difficult moments thanks to Mr Hitchc.o.c.k.'

'You were there too? Well, I'll let you get to know each other better while I have a quick shower. I won't be a minute.'

She left the room, shadowed by one of the terriers. 'That was a very eloquent parting shot,' Archie said to Spence when they were alone. 'And a very moving one. I rather got the impression that your boss's evening backfired on him.'

Spence shrugged. 'I've no doubt he'll make me pay for it sooner or later. Usually I don't mind being his p.a.w.n, but occasionally it grates.'

'Does he make a habit of games like that?'

'All the time.' He sat downa and the other dog jumped onto his lap; Archie tried to ignore the suggestion of familiarity and how much it piqued him. 'I've sat through dinners where the food was blue, had a loan repaid to me in farthings, and looked on while he smoked Elsie Randolph out of a telephone box. At the wrap party for The Farmer's Wife, he hired a bunch of actors to play the waiting staffa just to see how long it would take us to notice. Some of his stunts are funnier than others, but they're all designed to keep us in line.' He leant forward and accepted a cigarette. 'It doesn't take a genius to see that film is his way of controlling people. A set is his doll's house, and we're his dolls.'

'So Portmeirion is his set for the weekend?'

'Oh, this is just a rather peculiar audition for the people who haven't worked with him; for those of us who have, it's a test of our loyalty ready for the big move.' He spoke the last three words as if they were capitalised. 'We're all under scrutinya and he won't miss a thing. What gets past him certainly won't get through Alma's net. They're quite a team.'

'Don't you resent having to perform all the time? People who choose your side of the camera don't expect that.'

'It's tedious, and sometimes it gets out of hand, but we accept it because he's brilliant.' Spence must have seen the scepticism on Archie's face, because he addeda 'Hitch really is that good, you know. Most people would tolerate far worse to work with him. For every stroke of genius the audience sees, there are two or three more behind the scenes.' He grinned. 'Anyway, I get off lightly because I'm almost as good as he is.'

'As modest as ever, I see.' Bridget sat down on the arm of his chair. She had changed into a sleeveless white linen dress, and her skin shone deep brown in the lamplight. From where he sat, Archie could smell the subtle scent of jasmine.

'What's wrong with that? I said almost.' Spence stubbed out his cigarette. 'We're all schoolboys at heart, I suppose. It's just that most of us try to hide it and Hitch chooses to make it a feature.'

It was the same line of defence that Archie had used with Ronnie but, now that he had seen Hitchc.o.c.k's sense of humour in action, he couldn't help feeling that she had been right after all: behaving like a schoolboy was a dangerous trait in someone who wielded that sort of power. He said nothing, though, and asked insteada 'Are you part of the big move?'

Spence shook his head. 'No. I have other plans.'

He didn't elaborate on what they werea and Bridget stood up. 'I'll get us some drinks. What will you have?'

'Not for me, thanks,' Spence said, gently moving the dog from his lap. 'I'd better be going. I'll catch up with you over the weekend.' He raised his hand to Archie and kissed Bridget's cheek.

'Let me know how you get on,' she said, and Spence nodded. On his way out of the door, Archie was sure he saw him wink. 'Ever the soul of discretion,' Bridget added wryly when he was gone.

'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt your evening.'

'You didn't. We just b.u.mped into each other in the woods. He was angry about something but that's always his way: he's got a terrible temper, but it blows itself out as soon as it arrives.' She peered out of the window. 'Let's hope this storm will do the same when it finally gets here.'

'Do you know him well?' Archie asked casually.

'Jack? As well as you can ever know someone like him, I suppose. We go back a long way. His family was part of the set that used to mix with Clough's, here and in London, so we met each other as kids and then ended up at the Slade together. I often see him when I'm here.' Archie felt someone nuzzle his hand, and he reached down to respond. 'That's Carrington, by the way,' Bridget said, and he was touched that she should have named her dog after the painter; their friendship stretched back to art school, and Dora Carrington's suicide in the early thirties must have devastated her. 'And this is Lytton.' She indicated the dog who had remained glued to her side. 'Ironically, he's a one-woman kind of chap. That would have made her laugh.'

'You must miss her,' he said, hoping that the tenderness in his voice would make up for the inadequacy of the words.

'Yes, every day. It was such a shock, and so inevitable.' She crouched down and scratched the dog's head, and he looked adoringly up at her. 'She was never going to carry on after Lytton died. It was a loneliness too far, and nothing had a point to it without him. Even painting was meaningless, because he wasn't there to see it. I can understand that. We all need someone to impress, someone who matters.'

He wanted to ask who mattered for her, but didn't trust himself to be gracious with the answer. In any case, he sensed she wanted to talk about something else, so he picked up their earlier conversation. 'I thought Jack Spence was only here because of Hitchc.o.c.k. Does he come back often?'

'Whenever Clough adds a new building. They're very close, those two. It took Jack a while to get back on his feet after the war, and Clough gave him some work to help him out. Architectural photography, mostly a nothing as glamorous as what he's doing now, but easier on the eye than the things he had to cover abroad. No dead bodies in sight.' Her voice took on the cynical, ironic tone that had become second nature to their generation as they struggled to find new ways to distance themselves from the horror of war. 'He photographed this headland as it was when Clough bought it, and he's recorded its transformation ever since. Not that he needs the work now, but I think he has a great affection for it.' Archie noddeda and she laughed. 'Don't look so uncomfortable. I told him you were coming, but I didn't expect you to leave your party so early.' She kissed him and let her hand linger on the back of his neck. 'I'm flattered. And wine, too.' She rinsed a couple of gla.s.ses in the sink and looked for a corkscrew among the debris on the table.

'I would have let it breathe but I wasn't quite sure about your a uh a system,' he said, amused.

Bridget ignored the comment, then found what she was looking for and made an expressive gesture with it. 'You have to leave your systems at the door with me, Archie,' she said. 'Surely you remember that?' He nodded and pa.s.sed her the bottle. 'Let's take it outside,' she suggested. 'It's hot in here, and we can keep an eye on the weather. I don't want to start that d.a.m.ned mural from scratch.' The back door of the cottage led to a private inlet with its own tiny rowing boat; there was a pretty walled area with a small table and chairs, lit by lanterns and well shielded from the public footpath. Bridget sat down and smiled at him. 'So how did you get caught up in Hitchc.o.c.k's foreplay?'

He laughed. 'That's an interesting description.'

'Jack's term, not mine. He senses worse to come over the weekend. Did Josephine's c.o.c.ktails go well or badly?'

'Well, but we were wrong-footed by the invitation after dinner. Hitchc.o.c.k's a hard man to refuse. Did Jack tell you about it?' She nodded. 'At least we weren't expected to take part, but it was bad enough as a spectator sport.'

'Jack said it was all about fear.'

'That's right. If it hadn't felt quite so voyeuristic, it might have been interesting. I'd never realised that what you're afraid of says so much about who you are.'

'So what are you afraid of? If it's not a professional sin for a policeman to admit to fear at all?'

'Being wrong.' She looked at him disbelievingly, and he tried to explain before she teased him for his arrogance. 'That's not as egotistical as it sounds. I mean being wrong professionally. There's too much at stake.'

'Accusing the wrong man, you mean?'

'Or missing the right one. People are badly served either way, and it's not a mistake you can put right.'

'I would have thought knowing that was half the battle,' Bridget said seriously. 'And from what I remember, you're not short of compa.s.sion or understanding. I doubt you're often wrong.' She grinned. 'Professionally speaking, anyway. If I were in trouble, I'd want you on my side. But isn't the law infallible?'

'Oh yes. Just like we learnt our lesson from the war, and this government will be more effective than the last.' His wryness matched hers. 'You'll be pleased to know that the older I get, the less faith I have in my systems.'

'Now that can't be a bad thing.' She raised her gla.s.s. 'To the wisdom of age. Shame we have to wait for it.'

'I'm not so sure about that. Hitchc.o.c.k talked about his greatest fear being a knowledge of the future. It was the most sensible thing he said all night, actually; knowing what's in store for you and not being able to do a thing about it would be terrible.' He drained his gla.s.s and watched as the first flicker of lightning split the sky across the water. 'A bit like having another war waiting in the wings, I suppose. It's hard to believe that it could have been worse, but the knowledge of what we were heading for would have made it so. This time, some of us won't have the luxury of ignorance.'

Bridget was quiet. He knew she was thinking back to that time in the hospital, when a with kindness, patience and understanding a she had slowly talked him back to sanity. 'You must have nightmares about going through it again.'

'Yes, and about what we might put up with as a nation to avoid it. But even on a day-to-day level, there'd be no point in hoping or striving for anything if you knew the future, no sense of discovery. You'd know how every painting was going to turn out before you picked up your brush. And as far as people are concerned, you'd miss out on all the joy, all the excitement, all the love, because you'd be obsessed with counting the days. You'd blunt your emotions to stop yourself getting hurt. Of course, some of us do that anyway.' Bridget looked at him curiouslya but he didn't give her the chance to ask. 'What about you? What are you frightened of?'

'Losing my . . .' She stopped and took longer to consider her response. 'Not being able to express myself, I suppose,' she said at last. 'Having a vision that I can't communicate, either because I'm not talented enough or because of some physical disability. You never quite get the painting you set out to create, but to have a sense of beauty and not be able to share it in some way, or a demon that you can't exorcise somehow through your work a that would be a form of madness for me, I think.' Her face had a childlike earnestness when she was trying to understand or explain something; with a smile, like the one she gave him now, it crinkled into life and was completely transformed. 'Of course, some critics would say I'm there already.'

He couldn't have explained it, even to himself, but Archie's curiosity about Bridget's life became suddenly more urgent. Impatient to chip away at the distance that twenty years had created, he askeda 'What about the good things? Are you happy?'

The question sounded absurdly simplistic but she didn't treat it that way. 'Yes, Archie, I'm happy. Most of the time, anyway. There's not a day goes by when I don't want to work, and how many people can say that? It hasn't always been easy being a . . . well, being a painter isn't the most secure of jobs. Unlike some people, we don't get promotion.' He smiled, and listened as she talked about Cambridge and her friends, noticing that she spoke generally rather than about one specific person. All those years ago, that was how their feelings had begun a unconsciously, as friendship. They had got to know each other slowly, without the urgency of love, but the discoveries seemed richer for being leisurely. She had expected nothing from him, had made it clear that he was to do the same a and, because their time together was free of the pain of love, he realised now that he had carried it with him happily. He thought of Bridget without bitterness, regret or any of those other small betrayals that a more intense attachment can breed. And for that reason, she held a unique place in his life. He tried to put his thoughts into words, but she stopped him almost immediately. 'You think I didn't love you?'

Archie was taken aback by the question. Bridget looked at him, half teasing, half serious, and he remembered how he had always struggled to work out what those eyes were saying a but he had never minded. Something in her calm, relaxed ability to accept life as it was and at the same time grab all it offered was the antidote to his own need for precision and direction, and, for a while, it had made his life richer. 'Of course I loved you, Archie,' she said, taking his hand. 'Just because I didn't want to make a lifetime of it doesn't mean it was less than that. People are so funny about love. It always has to lead somewhere, as if it's only the beginning of something and never enough in itself.'

The storm, which seemed to have been prowling around the headland, looking for a way through Portmeirion's defences, finally found its way ina and thunder cracked loudly above them. Bridget laughed as the first big drops of rain fell onto the table between them. 'Wonderful timing,' she said. 'Now I've got to go and secure that mural. It's not dry enough to withstand this yet.' She stood up and pulled him to his feet. 'You can come and help me while you think of something to say.'

4.

'You're angry with me, aren't you?'

'No, Hitch. I'm just tired. Don't worry about it.' Alma smiled unconvincingly at her husband's reflection in the dressing-table mirror and carried on removing her make-up. 'It's been a long day.'

'And you're angry.'

She sighed and turned to face him. 'I just don't understand why you do it.' He sat on the end of the bed, his face flushed from the wine and the heat of the room, and she could see from his expression that he didn't know either. She worried about his health more and more these days: his weight had always fluctuated but he was heavier now than he had ever been, and recently he had even begun to take short naps on set; it would only be a matter of time before someone mentioned this in an interview, and rumours would go round that his best was behind him. Alma recognised the streak of cruelty that entered her husband's jokes whenever he was undergoing a personal crisis. She had seen it several times already in the course of their marriage: when The Lodger was shelved, for instance, or when Blackmail failed to win over American audiences. This time, the intensity of it frightened hera and she had to make him see that. 'I think you went too far,' she said.

'Blame David. He invited them.'

'Only because you told him to. And sending him after Turnbull with a bottle of single malt doesn't suddenly make everything right.'

He looked defensive. 'How was I to know they were going to behave like that?'