‘All right,’ I said. ‘What about that little river?’
‘Wet, brown, fast, silky. Too easy, Ma. Let’s do people.’
‘Mr Kinloss. Remember him?’
‘Fat, grey, polite, mysterious.’
‘Good. Yes! I never thought of that.’ She was fast, Blythe, never taking more than a few seconds to come up with her adjectives.
‘Now it’s your turn,’ she said, brightly. ‘Do me. And be honest.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘No, you do me, then I’ll do you.’
I felt a little shadow of worry — this could have consequences, I realised, not necessarily welcome, but there was no avoiding the issue. Annie had wandered off with her bottle of lemonade and was tossing pebbles into the shallow burn that gurgled by our picnic spot — she couldn’t hear our conversation, I was sure.
I looked at Blythe.
‘Pretty, stubborn, clever, complicated.’
She thought about this, frowning, making a little moue with her lips, weighing up the epithets and seeing if they fitted.
‘Now you do me,’ I said.
‘Pretty, stubborn, clever, complicated,’ she said instantly.
I laughed and she joined in but I had received the message — especially as she now glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Annie hadn’t overheard. I was beginning to think she’d laid a trap for me — and now there was a private bond between us. She was telling me — so I reasoned — like mother, like daughter. She was probably right.
‘Now do Andrew Farr,’ I said, wanting to break the mood.
‘Dull, shifty, boring, dominated.’
Annie wandered over.
‘What are you two laughing at?’ she asked, irritated.
I remember receiving the A level results for the twins in the post and undergoing the ritual opening of the envelopes at the breakfast table. Annie had done well; Blythe less so — but she said she didn’t care. She was going to be a musician, A levels were of no use. I agreed.
Annie secured a place at one of the new universities, Sussex, to read for a degree entitled ‘International Relations’, whatever that was.
I took her out to dinner in Oban, to celebrate (Blythe was away, somewhere). I looked at her across the table and allowed my love for serious Annie to brim. She had a long thin face — Blythe’s was rounder, prettier — and she was taller than Blythe, also.
‘Ma, would you mind if I asked you a favour?’ she said.
‘Anything.’
‘You know that, because of Papa’s title, I’m “the Honourable” Andra Farr?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I don’t ever want to be called that. I got a letter from the university and it called me “the Honourable”. I was so embarrassed.’
‘That’s all right, darling. I understand.’
‘I just don’t want that title ever to be used. Ever again. No disrespect to Papa, and all that.’
‘Of course. I don’t much like being “Lady Farr” either.’ I squeezed her hand. ‘It’s expunged.’
At the university, in her hall of residence, she was less than an hour from Beckburrow and, much to my surprise, went there every other weekend or so to spend time with her grandmother, who was old, and ailing, but still feistily alert. While Annie was there she unearthed a cache of my early photographs, and others of the period. She sent me a small selection: there was a tattered one of me when I was twenty, standing in the pond at Beckburrow, posing; and one of me as a little girl with my father, taken by Greville. It must be in 1913 or 1914, just before he went off to war.
I remember one odd moment. Blythe and I were out for a walk on the beach with Flim — Annie had gone south to check out her new hall of residence.
‘I hate that bitch, Benedicta,’ Blythe said, all of a sudden.
‘Well, so do I,’ I admitted. ‘Nasty piece of work. Grasping, smug, malicious, insincere.’
‘Do you think if someone killed her anyone would mind for one minute? For one second?’
‘Don’t say that sort of thing, Blythe, not even as a joke.’
‘It’s not a joke. She kicked us out.’
I took her hand — she was flushed, there was a real rage building.
‘It doesn’t matter, darling. We wouldn’t have been happy there, at the House. It was never really our home.’
It seemed to mollify her. She was leaving as well, the next day, for London, to stay with Dido and Reggie Southover at their rather grand house on Camden Hill. Blythe wanted to audition for folk bands or rock groups — she didn’t care, keyboard or guitar, she just wanted to play music. Dido was her inspiration and they became quite close. There was a musical gene in the Clay family, shared by Dido and Blythe — they were different from the rest of us, the littérateurs, the photographers.
I remember I had a rare letter from Charbonneau telling me the news of the birth of his second child — a son, Luc. He enclosed a photograph of himself, ‘So you won’t forget what I look like.’ I saw he’d put on weight and grown a moustache again. He was standing on a terrace on the Italian Riviera, somewhere, and I supposed he vaguely wanted me to feel jealous about the high life he was leading. I couldn’t help thinking he didn’t look particularly happy.
Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, 1962.
*
THE BARRANDALE JOURNAL 1977
I liked to quiz Greer about her old subject, cosmology, as there were aspects of it that intrigued me, to her occasional exasperation.
‘So the Big Bang happened thirteen billion years ago?’ I once asked her, when we were out for a walk.
‘Thirteen point eight billion years ago. Give or take a day or two,’ she said. ‘Oh God, you’re going to ask me more questions, aren’t you?’
‘Because I’m interested,’ I said. ‘You’ve stimulated my interest, Greer. You should be pleased.’
We were walking down from the heights of Cnoc Torran, that we’d climbed that morning, heading back for lunch at the cottage. We had a magnificent view of the various islands around Barrandale. I could see Mull as clearly as I’d ever seen it — I could see a red car driving on the road along the north end of Loch Don.
‘The Big Bang explains all this,’ I said, gesturing freely towards Mull and the ocean beyond. ‘Everything started then.’
‘Everything. It explains everything. You and me. This grass, the clouds above.’ She pointed. ‘That insect — and the universe. It all began then.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ I paused to tie a lace on my walking boot.
‘Well, we have something called the “standard model”. It explains almost everything.’
‘Almost.’
‘Yes.’
‘And the stuff you can’t explain?’
Greer looked at me shrewdly. ‘I know I’m going to regret this.’
‘That’s where your dark matter comes in, doesn’t it,’ I said. ‘Dark matter explains the things that don’t add up, in theory.’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘And dark gravity. And dark energy.’
‘I know it sounds rather spooky and exciting, but it’s complicated. There has to be dark matter to explain the anomalies.’
I snapped my fingers.
‘You need all these “dark” things to explain why the “standard model” doesn’t supply all the answers.’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘You see that’s what I love about cosmology. It’s exactly the same for the rest of us.’
‘You mustn’t do this, Amory. We hate this. Scientists hate this. . this appropriation. You don’t understand.’
‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘Or yes, I do. Just like you cosmologists, we can’t explain everything. Things don’t add up. What about “dark” love? Why did I fall in love with that hopeless person? “Dark” love explains it. Why did I get this annoying illness? “Dark” disease. Stuff I can’t see is affecting me, the way I act.’