But when Roper is not in residence, menus are forgotten, workmen sing and laugh ― and so in his soul does Jonathan ― and happy conversations break out everywhere. The buzz of handsaws vies with the thunder of the landscapes' bulldozers. And Jed, walking pensively with Caroline Langbourne in the Italian gardens, or sitting with her for hours on end in her bedroom in the guesthouse, keeps herself at a careful distance and does not promise to love Jonathan even for an afternoon, let alone for absolutely ever.
For ugly things are stirring in the Langbourne nest.
* * *
The Ibis, a sleek young sailing dinghy available for the pleasure of Crystal guests, is becalmed. Caroline Langbourne sits in the prow, staring back to land as if never to return. Jonathan, not bothering with the tiller, is lounging in the stern with his eyes closed.
"Well, we can row, or we can whistle," he informs her languidly. "Or we can swim. I vote we whistle."
He whistles. She does not. Fish plop, but no wind comes.
Caroline Langbourne's soliloquy is addressed to the shimmering horizon.
"It's a very odd thing to wake up one morning and realise," she says ― Lady Langbourne, like Lady Thatcher, has a way of singling out the unlikeliest words for punishment ― "that one has been living and sleeping and virtually wasting one's years, let alone one's private money, on somebody who not only doesn't give a damn about you but behind all his legal flim-flam and hypocrisy is actually the most complete and utter crook. If I told anybody what I knew ― and I've only told Jed a bit because she's extremely young ― well, they wouldn't believe the half of it. Not a tenth. They couldn't. Not if they're decent people."
The close observer keeps his eyes tight shut ― and his ears wide open as Caroline Langbourne charges on. And sometimes, Burr had said, just when you're thinking God's handed in His notice, He'll turn round and slip you a bonus so big you'll not believe your luck.
* * *
Back in Woody's House, Jonathan sleeps lightly and is wide awake the moment he hears the shuffle of footsteps at his front door. Tying a sarong round his waist, he creeps downstairs, all prepared to commit murder. Langbourne and the nanny are peering through the glass.
"Mind if we pinch a bed off you for the night?" Langbourne drawls. "Palace is in a bit of an uproar. Care's blown her top, and now Jed's having a go at the Chief."
Jonathan sleeps fitfully on the sofa while Langbourne and his paramour noisily do the best they can upstairs.
* * *
Jonathan and Daniel lie face down, side by side, on the bank of a stream high on Miss Mabel Mountain. Jonathan is teaching Daniel to catch a trout with his bare hands.
"Why's Roper in a bait with Jed?" Daniel whispers, so as not to alarm the trout.
"Keep your eyes upriver," Jonathan murmurs in return.
"He says she should stop listening to a lot of junk from a woman scorned," says Daniel. "What's a woman scorned?"
"Are we going to catch this fish or not?"
"Everybody knows Sandy screws the whole world and his sister, so what's the fuss?" Daniel asks, in near-perfect imitation of Roper's voice.
Relief arrives in the form of a fat blue trout nosing its way dreamily along the bank. Jonathan and Daniel return to earth, bearing their trophy like heroes. But a pregnant silence hangs over Crystalside: too many secret lives, too much unease. Roper and Langbourne have flown to Nassau, taking the nanny with them.
"Thomas, that's totally unfair!" Jed protests too brightly, having been summoned with huge shouts to admire Daniel's catch. The strain is telling in her face: pinches of tension pucker her brow. It has not occurred to him till now that she is capable of serious distress.
"Bare hands? However did you do it? Daniel won't sit still even to have his hair cut, will you, Dans, darling? Plus he absolutely loathes creepy crawlies. Dans, that's super. Bravo. Terrif."
But her forced good humour does not satisfy Daniel. He sadly replaces the trout on its plate. "Trouts aren't crawlies," he says. "Where's Roper?"
"Selling farms, darling. He told you."
"I'm sick of him selling farms. Why can't he buy them? What will he do when he hasn't got any left?" He opens his book on monsters. "I like it best when it's Thomas and us. It's more normal."
"Dans, that's very disloyal," says Jed, and studiously avoiding Jonathan's eye, she hastens away to offer more comfort to Caroline, who strides alone on the beach, contemplating the vileness of man.
* * *
"Jeds! Party! Thomas! Let's cheer this bloody place up!"
Roper has been back since dawn. The Chief always flies at first light. All day long the kitchen staff has been toiling, planes have been arriving, the guesthouse has been filling up with MacDanbies, Frequent Fliers and Necessary Evils. The illuminated swimming pool and the gravel sweep are freshly groomed. Torches have been lit in the grounds and the sound system on the patio belts out nostalgic melodies from Roper's celebrated collection of 78s. Girls in their flimsy nothings, Corkoran in his Panama hat, Langbourne in his white dinner jacket and jeans, form eightsomes, pass partners, drawl and squeal. The barbecue crackles, the Dom is flowing, servants scurry and smile, the Crystal spirit is restored, even Caroline joins in the fun. Jed alone seems unable to kiss her sorrows goodbye.
"Look at it this way," says Roper ― never drunk but the better for his own hospitality ― to a blue-rinse English heiress who gambled away everything one had at Vegas, darling, such fun but thank God one's houses were in trust, and thank God too for darling Dicky. "If the world's a dung heap, and you build yourself a spot of Paradise and put a girl like this in it" ― Roper flings an arm round Jed's shoulders ― "in my book you've done the place a favour."
"Oh, but Dicky, darling, you've done us all a favour. You've put sparkle into our lives. Hasn't he, Jed, darling? Your man's a perfect marvel, and you're a very lucky little girl and never you forget it."
"Dans! Come here!"
Roper's voice has a way of producing silence. Even the American bond salesmen stop talking. Daniel trots obediently to his father's side. Roper releases Jed and places a hand on each of his son's shoulders and offers him to the audience for their inspection. He is speaking on impulse. He is speaking, Jonathan immediately realises, to Jed. He is clinching some running dispute between them that cannot be resolved without the backing of a sympathetic audience.
"Tribes of Bonga-Bonga Land starving to death?" Roper demands of the smiling faces. "Crops failing, rivers dried up, no medicines? Grain mountains all over Europe and America? Milk lakes we don't use, nobody gives a toss? Who are the killers, then? It's not the chaps who make the guns! It's the chaps who don't open the larder doors!" Applause. Then louder applause when they see that it matters to him. "Bleeding hearts up in arms? Colour supplements wingeing about the uncaring world? Tough titty! Because if your tribe hasn't got the guts to help itself, the sooner it's culled the better!" He gives Daniel a friendly shake. "Look at this chap. Good human material. Know why? Keep still, Dans. Comes from a long line of survivors. Hundreds of years, strongest kids survived, weaklings went under. Families of twelve? Survivors bred with the survivors and made him. Ask the Jews ― right, Kitty? Kitty's nodding. Survivors, that's what we're about. Best of the pack, every time." He turns Daniel round and points him at the house. "Off to bed, old boy. Thomas'll come and read to you in a minute."