'Not well. I go out at night to learn,' said Edward, miserably. 'When no-one's watching. My father fished,' he added inconsequentially. 'He said it made a man of you.' The silence stretched again, unbearably.

'However did I come to meet someone like you?' Edward asked facetiously, simply to interrupt it. 'You've quite enlivened my summer.'

'Dreams,' the man said abruptly. 'We are all entangled in dreams.' From his mouth, the word sounded oddly obscene. Oh yes?'

'You met me,' the man said evenly, 'when you found me trespa.s.sing in that cottage of yours. It seemed to amuse you. You said you wouldn't turn me out immediately, would even show me another empty place to stay, provided I was good enough to set a little fire inside it, enough to stop it being used. It wasn't much to ask of a man on holiday.'

'We seem to have gone on from there,' Edward murmured.

Into the dreams. You dream of changing the landscape. For which you need your brother destroyed and your mother dead.' Edward would never have put it so baldly. He felt the p.r.i.c.kling of his scalp, a terrible tingling in his limbs of dreadful excitement. And you?'

On my master's behalf? I dream of the proof of wickedness and adultery. I dream of revenge and the satisfaction of honour. "Death, thou art a guest long looked for; I embrace thee and thy wounds. "' Edward scrambled to his feet, lightheaded. Enough was enough.

'Don't tell me what my dreams are. I'll see you here, same time, tomorrow or Sunday.'

The man nodded, the breeze lifting his long white hair off the once spectacular face, his eyes still staring towards the sea.

Sarah Fortune had packed a case for all eventualities except the extremes of country life, being ignorant of what it was; black could be provided. A sueded silk overshirt with the elbow-length sleeves she always wore, slightly padded shoulders, cool and elegant over leggings, completed by a deep cerise belt and a discreet but heavy silver necklace and ear-rings. The child looked ten years older, transformed into a sleek, black cat with a whole decade of confidence.

'Shirt needs an iron. Where is it?'

Oh, in that cupboard. Oh, Sarah! This shirt is positively divine!'

A lawyer dressing a client for a night on the town. If these were the worst eccentricities of country life, Sarah thought she could take to it. In the course of this long foraging through her suitcase, she had heard plenty of family history since Joanna talked non-stop. Such as, Father being a lovable tyrant, they'd all wept buckets; Julian a despicable one. Such as Mother never getting her own way about anything when Father was alive, poor thing. About Edward being marvellous, but constantly misjudged, and about how all Joanna Pardoe wanted to do with her life was to learn to cook properly, get married and have a lot of babies.

Sarah had agreed that feminism was overrated, no, a career was not always a route to happiness, and that yes, family life was a perfectly honest ambition, if you had the temperament for it. Then she heard all about Rick and how wonderful he was and how he didn't love Joanna any more.

Julian had told him to f.u.c.k off.

I suppose,' Joanna finished wistfully, putting on the freshly pressed shirt, which looked easily as expensive as its price, 'that's a better reason for being rejected than being too fat. Heavens, look at the time.'

'Fat? Who's fat?' said Sarah. She had dragged a mirror from the bedroom. Joanna pirouetted in front of it, giggling, half convinced, but better than that, being sure she could convince others of profound sophistication.

'What did you do to my hair?' It was twisted above her head: it would fall throughout the evening, gracefully. Blond tendrils escaped round her ears. 'Look, are you sure I can wear this?'

'You can be sick on it if you like. I wouldn't have ironed it otherwise, would I? Eat your heart out, Caroline what'sit. You look a million dollars. I'd kill for hair like yours,' Sarah added fervently.

'But yours is so lovely.'

No, not always,' said Sarah.

Mrs Pardoe had removed her station to the upstairs window where she often waited throughout the late afternoon, in case the ice-cream van came, not every day, but often enough to warrant her vigil.

She watched her daughter, crossing from the cottages where she had seen her go earlier with the old cow. When she saw Joanna striding back like a modern princess, head held high, face enlivened by a rosy glow of hope, she sat back and sighed with profound pleasure.

Ernest Matthewson was an old friend, one to be trusted. He had such good ideas.

Ernest made her think of food: ice-cream, chocolate cake, steak and champagne. And all those years of being called Mouse.

CHAPTER FIVE.

Malcolm Cook sat with his stepfather and his mother over the evening meal they shared once a fortnight, sometimes under sufferance, although never when Sarah had been included. There were no apologies for absences; the food was elaborate since it never took long for plump Mrs Matthewson to recover from a period of dietetic austerity. Ernest was spared the low-fat yoghurt in the interests of feeding Malcolm, a son who was far too thin in his mother's estimation. She did her best by hiding cream in the soup, serving hot garlic bread ostensibly made with low-calorie spread. Her husband ate heartily while Malcolm failed to be fooled, played the game back, complimenting everything, eating only what he needed.

'Want some more, Malcolm dear? Another potato?'

Everything calm so far, just like a normal Friday dinner, as long as she was careful not to leave them alone for too long. So they all sat with their coffee, their spines sunk into the feathers and the humming birds of the chairs and behaved as if nothing had happened, until the phone rang in the hall and Mrs Matthewson thought it was safe to leave them.

'Father,' said Malcolm, 'why did you send Sarah away?'

I didn't,' Ernest responded indignantly. 'It was her choice, she volunteered. Couldn't wait to go.

She wanted the sea, didn't mind where it was. She's always talking about living in the country, by the sea. Good chance to experiment. Nothing to do with you.'

Malcolm felt in the cigar box on his left, set on an ornate table decorated with more birds. He withdrew one of his father's best, tucked it into the open pocket of his shirt, then lit one of his own cigarettes which Father despised. Ernest winced at the subtlety of these gestures of insolence.

'You must think my stupidity is entirely comprehensive,' Malcolm continued in the smooth, authoritative tones of the advocate he was. 'But sometimes it lapses into an aberration called intelligence. You may have been right about Sarah and I, I doubt it, but did you have to be so cruel to her?'

'Cruel?' Ernest bl.u.s.tered. 'Who said anything about cruel? All right, I thought it was time both of you did a bit of thinking and it seemed like a good opportunity. I must admit to not quite realizing where it was I was sending her. She said it didn't matter. There was something she wanted to do in that part of the world. Someone to see.'

Of course you knew. You were once friends of the Pardoe family. You sent her to sort out an estate which could be sorted out better by someone else in a matter of hours, to the place where Charles Tysall's wife committed suicide, and he followed suit.' He kept his voice calm. Ernest was at his least reliable when alarmed. All he could do at the moment was grunt.

'What happened to the Tysall business empire, Father?'

Ernest snorted in disgust. 'The estate will take years to resolve. What do you know or care about business? You like it down where you are, prosecuting grubby criminals-'

And what else was Charles? The soul of probity? Eton educated he may have been, good family, yes, but he founded his companies on stolen ideas, drove people to ruin, brutalized his wife-'

'There's no proof about that,' Ernest muttered. 'He may have told me things, but he may have fantasized. Don't speak ill of the dead.'

The Persian cat sprang from its cushion as Malcolm leaned over his father. There was a little hiss from Ernest of post-prandial sleep, only possibly feigned. Malcolm, ever aware of the shame of violence which was subsumed in himself by the habit of running twenty miles a week, was far too humane to strike someone already unconscious, although the temptation was certainly there.

If only this old man were not so Machiavellian; if only they had talked more, instead of just enough; if only they had really exchanged information about what had happened to Sarah immediately before Malcolm found her.

If only the son and the mother, in the interests of Ernest's health, had not sought to protect him from information which could shock and alarm, and if only it was not too late now.

I'm thinking about Sarah, not your b.l.o.o.d.y clients,' Malcolm muttered, more to himself. 'Because she taught me about loving, Dad. That's what she did. That's what she does. I don't mean just s.e.x; I mean loving.'

Ernest jolted out of a dream, rubbing his belly.

'Tart. That's the problem. A bit of a tart,' he muttered. 'What did you say?' Malcolm asked. 'I was talking about Sarah.' 'So was I, but what I meant was that I shouldn't have eaten that pie. Too tart,' Ernest grumbled, still stroking his paunch. He looked at his stepson pleadingly.

'Do you know your loyalty to your clients is ludicrous?' said Malcolm. 'You take the code to extremes. I thought you'd have been cured. Would you tell me, for instance, if Tysall was alive?'

'No,' said Ernest. 'He isn't, but I wouldn't. Not for you to do what you were trying to do before.

Prosecute him for fraud when all he ever did was steal other people's ideas. Perfectly good capitalistic practice. I couldn't let that happen to a client of mine. Not even a dead one.'

Again, that terrible temptation twitched in Malcolm's fingers, made him ball his hands into fists and keep them by his sides. The ample figure of Malcolm's mother stood frozen in the doorway, the whole of her suddenly forlorn. After all the work she and Sarah had done, there they were, father and adopted son, back at loggerheads, with love, that dangerous and volatile commodity, as elusive as ever.

'You see? I love it, see?' Rick yelled above the din. 'I mean I just do. Could be all I know and that's for why, but I love it. Can't help it.'

'Can I try?'

'Course you can. Pity Stonewall isn't here. He's the expert. Which one do you want? Try this one, this one's really good.'

Sarah wasn't confused by choice, only the row. There was a background and foreground of thunder, of bleep, bleep, bleep, explosions, machine-gun fire, electronic voices issuing commands, the m.u.f.fled explosions of a dozen bombs, the sound of falling cash. In the corner of the large room, separated from the rest by age, the older generation sat to play bingo in a serious, dedicated row of grey heads with handbags on laps, listening with all the earnestness of a congregation in church to a voice echoing sonorously through a microphone. 'Number eleven, go to heaven, take a dive, number five . . . on its own, number one . .

Above them hung the tawdry prizes for which they concentrated as though their lives would be altered by lime green furry bears, brilliant pink dolls, plastic skeletons, jigsaw puzzles and on the top tier only, dusty under the unforgiving lights, gla.s.s and bra.s.s table lamps with heavily frilled nylon shades, brilliant vases, sets of cheap tumblers, bigger teddy bears with bows, grinning pottery cats with glittery eyes, none of it worth the price of three tickets for a game or the yearning it inspired.

Sarah sat on a pedestal as comfortable as the seat of a bicycle, inserted fifty pence and watched a man with a mask run up the street on the screen in front of her. Windows opened each side of him; the enemy dropped bombs on his head, emerged from doors and windows with the sole purpose of a.s.sa.s.sination. Pressing a b.u.t.ton and pulling a lever in an unnatural feat of coordination would shoot the killers into the sky and save the refugee from the gang of thousands. She failed dismally: he was dead within seconds, gone in a big boom, noisier than all the rest. Game over, said the screen.

'You know what you are,' Rick yelled in her ear. 'Useless! Another?'

To her left, a boy stood, his body braced, his hands moving so fast they were blurred, his eyes transfixed by green monsters which bathed his hair in the same colour, his screen emitting the rat-tat-tat of a rifle and the muted sounds of artificial, bloodless agony.

'No thanks. Where do you go to draw breath?'

'Why?' he shouted.

Is this all there is?'

He grinned. 'Isn't it enough?'

He liked the noise, but heard the message, led her to the back of the arcade where a voice still had to be raised to make sense, although not as much. She was temporarily deaf and blind. The light was eerie here, the carpet ran out into a couple of ante rooms, one containing a table, chair, sink, kettle, cardboard boxes and signs of disuse, the other, more machines, untidy, unlit, strangely lifeless, lurching towards one another. They reminded her of the graveyard.

'Dead ones,' said Rick. 'I don't like to see them really. Some broken. Mostly gone out of fashion.

They change all the time. Nothing lasts long. The kids master them, want something else.

Don't want to see the dead ones. I stay out front. There's nothing else out here, only a back yard.'

He opened a door beyond the silent machines. The remnant of fast-fading, natural daylight on the cusp between late evening and summer night, was faintly shocking after the dazzle of the screens. In that light, Rick looked exhausted. The bruises had merged into the lights of the arcade; out here, they formed extra shadows to his handsome face. An attractive boy, ten years her junior. His face should not have held the merest line. The world should be his for the asking: he should be full of dreams.

After an hour in a pub called the Globe, he had volunteered to show her the arcade, or was it because she had asked? He couldn't remember, forgot as well how he had worried about this rash offer of a drink in the pain of near dawn when she had done his housework, just liked being where he was, with her, half hoping everyone he knew, except Jo, of course, would see.

Which they did, good bit of gossip tomorrow and a lot of explaining to do to poor old Stonewall.

Then, looking up into the stars visible from the back yard of the arcade, he felt suddenly sad, bereft, lonely, wanting to spill his guts, tell her stuff he never told. Also sleepy, the bruised ribs and early rising taking a toll. Must be the beer, the unaccustomed silence, the perfume. He slid down the wall and stayed at the bottom. She squatted beside him.

'Sorry,' he said. 'Things catch up, you know?'

'You've gone all pale, Rick.'

Without thinking, he felt for her hand. Must be drunk.

'You're nice, you know? Why'd you say you'd come out for a drink? You said you fancied a walk by the sea, but I'm a wreck, look at me.'

A nice wreck. Place is full of your friends.'

He struggled to his feet. 'Think that's good enough reason to go out the back way. Cup of coffee's what I need. I live round the corner. Goo'night. Sorry.'

I like coffee too.'

There was a shame in it, sneaking through the alley from the back yard of the arcade on his night off, back up the road to Swamp Cottage, letting her in with him to see the place where he lived.

Tidy, scruffy, but clean; he was good at cleaning, good at nothing else. Strange the way she took over without being bossy, just as she had this morning. Made toasted cheese sandwiches without asking where anything was, terrific. You'd think she'd been here dozens of times, it was like being with Stonewall only not like that at all. It was food he needed, food he had forgotten all day.

A whole day with nostrils full of hamburger onions or ice-cream with a chocolate flake stuck on top; a man forgot to eat, he explained. The room came back into focus, leaking sofa and all, he was still proud of it. He loved the way she ate, long fingers, nibbling mouth, and he still wanted to spill his guts. Wasn't much good for a bargain, was he? She'd wanted to have a look at the sea, talk about the Pardoes and he'd never mentioned anyone but himself And Jo. Oddly, it hadn't felt like a betrayal, talking about Jo. It felt nice when she'd told him about Jo dressing up earlier to go out with the girls. Not with some other bloke. That was the point when the room refocused with shocking clarity. He'd been talking about Jo for twenty minutes.

'Why did Edward warn me off?' he asked out loud. Edward? It was Julian. You told her.'

That was what it was like, being with a woman who listened. You didn't have to explain anything, all your disjointed, drunken, exhausted thoughts were a.s.sembled for you.

'No. I met her once. Told her how her brother told me to f.u.c.k of I meant Edward, of course.

Julian's all right. He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't threaten you if you were behind with the rent, no more than his dad would have done. Edward told me to f.u.c.k off or get evicted. Not that there was any need. I love Jo, you know? We've played together since kids. I fancy her rotten, but what's the use? I'm not much use to a gorgeous bird like that, am I?

Even if I love her. Even if I want her so much I think about her all the time.'

'Why?'

It was the only piece of his evening's rambling conversation which she did not seem to follow, she who seemed to piece together what he said even while he said it, she should have known this last bit, but how? Christ, she'd had half the story of his life, the arcade, his dreams, all but the greatest. She'd been more than perfect, she'd raised his stock with the mult.i.tudes, including his dad, sitting in the corner of the bar with his mouth open, serve him right, and she still didn't know nothing. About him being a virgin, at his age, the only one never quite able, out of fear of failure, and even after fumbling efforts, to do anything but grope.

'Why aren't you any good for Jo?' the woman was reminding him gently.

I got too many kickings from dad!' he yelled, loud enough to be heard over a thousand screens filled with computerized deaths and loud heroes. 'He did for me, Dad did. I think.' He was holding her hand again, didn't know why, there didn't seem too many minutes since he first had, sliding down the wall of the yard, and then here, a moment or two before the focus on his own room came back, still holding. He could smell her, wanted to smell her. Cheese, toast, perfume.

Long sleeves of stuff he liked to touch, felt like suede. Here was this fancy bird, watching him crying like a kid. Just like Stonewall had on the beach this afternoon, when he'd found his dog's collar come in with the tide, as if he'd needed any confirmation that the b.i.t.c.h was dead.

Still holding hands, him and this older bird, sitting on his couch, in tune with all that old corrosive despair and shame. Her doing something else, touching something else, saying not much, putting her chin on his chin, tiny as she was, no doubt so she could look into his eyes and laugh herself sick. Only she wasn't. Smiling but not laughing, she was doing something else. She seemed to have lost her shirt. There were pretty little marks on her arms, like a series of meaningless tattoos.

'Kicking,' she was saying from a distance, 'doesn't do an ounce of harm, never did. Big man like you.'

He thought of the big man he and Stonewall had found, hung like a donkey, skin so white, dead like his attributes. It had mattered more to him than any imprint from Dad's boot, and he also knew he'd seen the last of those. The last, the last, the very last, of both sensations of disgust.

He would wonder later how it was he lost either his fear or his virginity on his sinking, third-hand couch with the stuffing hanging out. He would have liked to remember the details, recall them for inspection.

Rick woke, admiring himself for what he knew he had done for the first time in his twenty-one years. f.u.c.ked someone, slowly, beautifully. Someone who left him with a blanket up to his chin, his feet out of shoes, his head steady, a waft of perfume and a sense of pride which owed n.o.body.

Edward lay after dark and slept. He could have gone fishing, but he didn't. Fishing to prove he could do something, or to please a dead father, or simply to gain power over the fish, he didn't know which. It was an addiction. The old silk coverlet was twisted, the s.p.a.ce next to his own body empty and cold. Ever since little Joanna had crept into his bed to tickle him awake in an orgy of innocence each morning, a practice she had suspended long since of her own accord, Edward woke with the expectation of finding her there.