Louise Paxton’s memory may not have withered, but my association with her family showed every sign of doing so. Sarah invited me to a party at The Hurdles on the last Saturday in June. A crowd of her fellow students from the College of Law were there to celebrate the end of the course, with Bella presiding good-humouredly over their exuberances. I felt old and out of place and wished I hadn’t gone. Sarah was busy playing the part of hostess and couldn’t spare me much attention. It was Bella, in fact, who brought me up to date with her plans.
“Rowena’s going to take up a deferred place at Bristol University in the autumn. Keith thinks she’ll be able to cope with student life by then. And he hopes Sarah will be able to help her. She’s trying to arrange to do her articles in Bristol. Then they could live together. That would give Rowena some of the security she needs. I shall be sorry to be left alone here again, but… well… maybe I won’t be for long.”
“Another lodger?”
“Not exactly. Not yet, anyway. I’m planning to go abroad next month.”
“Where to?”
“Biarritz, as a matter of fact. Keith’s asked me.”
“Really? Well, I… I hope…”
“We enjoy ourselves? Thank you, Robin. I’ll try to make sure we do.”
So Sir Keith was in Biarritz with Bella, and his daughters-I later learned-were on a Greek island together when the anniversary of the Kington killings came round. I hardly remember where I was. But I know where my thoughts were dwelling.
The summer of 1991 was a good one for Timariot & Small. The cricket bat business was relatively unaffected by the general economic recession. I suppose that’s why we had so few qualms about the takeover of Viburna Sportswear following Jennifer’s favourable report on its finances. She and Adrian went out there again in August to finalize the terms and Simon was looking forward to spending much of the Antipodean spring in Melbourne, setting up various cross-promotional schemes. As works director I had no need to go myself, since Viburna’s former chairman and chief executive, Greg Dyson, was staying on to manage production at the Australian end. Viburna Sportswear formally became a subsidiary of Timariot & Small on 1 October 1991. The way was clear for Adrian’s international ambitions to take flight.
My own ambitions were less easy to define. I was on top of my job and deriving satisfaction from seeing some of my innovations work well there. In less than a year, I’d settled into the company as if it were an old and comfortable jacket. I liked the staff and relished accommodating my ideas to their idiosyncracies. I enjoyed the blend of tradition and efficiency, of ancient craft and modern commerce. But outside the hours I spent at the factory there was an emptiness in my life I should have wanted to fill, a solitude I should have regarded as loneliness. Instead my efforts to meet people and make friends were half-hearted, almost insincere. There were a few contemporaries from Churcher’s I’d see from time to time, most of them married with children. There were the regulars at the Cricketers to while away an idle evening with. Or Simon to get roaring drunk with if I felt in the mood, as occasionally I did. But that was all.
At least until Jennifer tried to pair me off with a friend of hers who ran an interior design business in Petersfield and was recovering from an acrimonious divorce. Ann Taylor was an attractive and sensitive woman of my own age. I liked her from the first. Her vivacity. Her humour. Her subtlety. And she liked me. There was no mistaking that. It could have worked between us. It could have led to something. Instead, I let it slip through my fingers. A horribly misjudged weekend in Devon forced us both onto the defensive. After that, there was no dramatic breach, no final parting of the ways. Just a drift into brittle indifference.
“What’s wrong with you?” demanded Jennifer in her exasperation. “You were made for each other.” And maybe she was right. Or would have been. But for a memory I couldn’t discard.
“Who’s Louise?” Ann had asked me in our hotel room in Devon the morning after the fumbled night before. “You seemed to be speaking to her in your sleep. Something about a mirror.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“I don’t think so. The name was quite clear. I don’t mind… if it’s somebody you once… knew well.”
“No. It’s nobody I ever knew.”
The simple lack
Of her is more to me
Than others’ presence,
Whether life splendid be
Or utter black.
I have not seen,
I have no news of her;
I can tell only
She is not here, but there
She might have been.
One Sunday morning in the middle of October, I was surprised by a telephone call from Bella, inviting me to join Sir Keith and her for lunch at Tylney Hall, a country house hotel near Basingstoke. I accepted at once, even though I knew I wasn’t being asked for the pleasure of my company. The drive up was idyllic, autumnal sunshine bathing the trees and hedges in golden light. Some of the same fleeting lustre seemed to cling to my hosts, who were waiting for me on the terrace when I arrived. Sir Keith wasn’t just smiling. He was clearly extremely happy. A healthy glow warmed his features, a button-hole and jazzy tie signalling relaxation and indulgence. While Bella looked more than usually glamorous in a tight-waisted pink suit and shot-silk blouse. The glitter of diamonds drew my eyes to her wedding finger. And there, beneath an engagement ring I’d never seen before, was a plain band of gold.
“I wanted you to be one of the first to know, Robin,” said Bella as she kissed me. “We were married on Thursday.”
“I hope you’ll excuse the secrecy,” put in Sir Keith. “But we thought a low-key ceremony was best. You know how some people can be.”
“But not you, Robin,” said Bella, smiling sweetly. “We trust.”
“No,” I hurriedly replied. “Of course not. My… heartiest congratulations.”
So it was done. Bella had become the second Lady Paxton. No doubt she’d have preferred a grandiose celebration of this apogee of her social achievement, but Sir Keith had insisted on discretion and it was easy to understand why. Fifteen months wasn’t long, some would have said, to mourn a wife of twenty-three years. I’d have said so myself, come to that. Fifteen years wouldn’t have seemed sufficient to me. Not when Louise was the wife he’d lost. And the sort of wife he’d never find again.
Naturally, however, I gave them no hint of my true opinion. I supplied instead a fair impersonation of just what Bella wanted me to be: the token relative, expressing his well-bred pleasure at their news. We lunched lavishly and lengthily in the oak-panelled restaurant and I listened politely while they poured out their hopes and expectations of a new life together.
“I’m winding up the London practice and giving up my consultancies,” Sir Keith announced. “I’m sixty-one, so perhaps it’s about time. I suppose I’d have carried on for another five or six years if it hadn’t been for… Well, retirement is a fresh start. For both of us. We’ll be able to spend more time in Biarritz. And anywhere else Bella wants to go.”
“The girls have been quite splendid about it,” said Bella. “No resentment. No resistance. They just want their father to be happy. And I mean to see he is.”
“I suppose it’s easier because they’ve both flown the nest,” Sir Keith continued. “Sarah’s with an excellent firm of solicitors in Bristol. And Rowena’s started her course at the university there. She’s settled in well. Put last year’s… difficulties… firmly behind her. They’re sharing a flat in Clifton. Cosy little place. You ought to go up and see them. They’d like that.”