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This is to let you know the arrangements for next weekend. George will drive Tolly and me down to Speymouth before breakfast on Friday but it will be best if you arrive with the rest of the house party in time for lunch. The launch will meet the nine thirty-three from Waterloo. Be at the harbour at Speymouth by eleven-forty. Ivo Whittingham and my cousin Roma will be on the train and you'll also meet a girl, Cordelia Gray. I shall need some extra help during the weekend and she is a kind of temporary secretary, so there will be someone young on the island for you to practise talking to. You should also be able to get some swimming so you won't need to be bored. Bring your di
Love, Clarissa
It was odd how soon relief could change to a new and different anxiety, even to resentment. Reading the letter for the second time he wondered why he should have been invited to the island. It was Clarissa's doing, of course. Ambrose Gorringe didn't know him and would hardly be likely to include him among his guests if he did. He remembered vaguely having heard about the island, the restored Victorian theatre, the plans to stage the Webster tragedy, and he sensed that the performance was important to Clarissa, amateur production though it might be. But why should he be there? He was expected to keep out of her way, not to make a nuisance of himself; that much was evident. He could disport himself in the sea or the pool. He supposed that there would be a pool and pictured Clarissa, pale and golden, stretched out in the sun and beside her this new girl, this Cordelia Gray with whom he was supposed to practise making conversation. And what else did Clarissa want him to practise? Making himself agreeable? Paying compliments? Knowing what jokes women like and when to make them? Flirting? Showing himself to be a susceptible heterosexual male? The prospect made his mouth dry with terror. It wasn't that he disliked the idea of a girl. He had already created in his mind the girl he would like to be with on
Courcy Island – on any island; sensitive, beautiful, intelligent, kind and yet wanting him, wanting him to do to her those terrifyingly exciting and shameful things which would no longer be shameful because they loved each other, acts which would reconcile for him in sweet responsive flesh, finally and for ever, that dichotomy which so occupied his day-dreaming hours, between romanticism and desire. He didn't expect to meet this girl, on Courcy or anywhere else. The only girl with whom he had so far had anything to do had been his cousin Susie. He hated Susie, hated her bold contemptuous eyes, her perpetually chewing mouth, her voice which alternately whined or yelled, her dyed hair, her grubby, beringed fingers.
But even if this girl were different, even if he liked her, how could he get to know her when Clarissa would be watching them, marking him for articulacy, attraction, wit, checking up on his social performance as she and this Ambrose Gorringe would be checking up on his musicianship? The reference to his music made his cheeks burn. He was insecure enough about his talent without having it diminished by this coy reference to his 'pieces' as if he were a child showing off to the neighbours at a suburban tea party. But the instruction was clear enough. He was to bring with him something showy or popular or both, something he could play with practised bravado so that she wouldn't be disgraced by any nervous misfingerings and she and Ambrose Gorringe would together decide whether he had enough talent to justify a final year at school, a chance to try for a place at the Royal College or the Academy.
And suppose the verdict went against him? He couldn't return to Mornington Avenue, to his aunt and uncle. Clarissa couldn't do that to him. After all, it was she who had brought the order of release. She had arrived una
'Are you happy here?'
'No.'
'I don't see how you could be, actually. This room's pretty gruesome. I've read somewhere that a million copies of that print have been sold but I didn't realize people actually hung it on their walls. Your father told me that you were musical. Do you still play?'
'I can't. There isn't a piano here. And they only teach percussion at school. They have a West Indian steel band. They're only interested in music where everyone can join in.'
'Things which everyone can join in usually aren't worth doing. They shouldn't have put two different papers on the walls. Three or four might have been bizarre enough to be fun. Two are just vulgar. How old are you? Fourteen, isn't it? How would you like to come and live with us?'
'For always?'
'Nothing is for always. But perhaps. Until you grow up, anyway.'
Without waiting for his reply, without even looking into his face to watch his initial response she turned to the silent man at her side.
'I think we can do better than this for Martin's boy.'
'If you are sure, my dear. Not a thing to decide quickly. Shouldn't make an impulse buy of a child.'
'Darling, where would you be if I hadn't made an impulse buy? And he's the only son I'm ever likely to give you.'
Simon's eyes were turning from one face to the other. He remembered how Sir George had looked, the features stiffening as if the muscles were bracing themselves against pain, against vulgarity. But Simon had seen the hurt, visible, unmistakable, before Sir George had turned silently away.
She had turned to him.
'Will your aunt and uncle mind?'
The misery, the grievances, had spilled out. He had had to prevent himself from clutching at her dress.
'They won't care! They'll be glad! I take up the spare room and I haven't any money. They're always telling me how much it costs to feed me. And they don't like me. They won't mind, honestly.'
And then, on impulse, he had done the right thing. It was the only time he had done exactly the right thing where Clarissa was concerned. There had been a pink geranium in a pot on the window-ledge; his uncle was a keen gardener and grew cuttings in the lean-to greenhouse at the side of the kitchen. One of the flower heads was small and delicate as a rose. He had broken it off and handed it to her; looking up into her face. She had laughed aloud and taken it from him and slipped it into the belt of her dress. Then she had looked at her husband and had laughed again, a peal of happy triumph.
'Well that seems to have decided itself. We'd better stay until they come home. I can't wait to see the owners of this wallpaper. And then we'll take you to buy some clothes.'
And so, with such promise, in such an exhilaration of surprised joy, it had all begun. He tried now to recall when the dream had faded, when things had first started to go wrong. But, apart from the first meeting, had they ever really gone right? He sensed that he was worse than a failure, that he was the last of a series of failures, that earlier disappointments had reinforced her present discontent. He was begi