The gates were open, the housekeeper let her into the house. The hall was warm, there were displays of flowers. But it was not until her knock on the studio door went unanswered and she pushed it quietly open that the dream from the long night in Hillyard’s flat came back to her. Nick sitting at the console, music pouring from the amplifiers, the strong white light at the windows: the scene was a mingling of old and imaginary images, so that she wasn’t sure if this hadn’t already happened and she wasn’t in some extraordinary way reliving it.
But then, with a certain inevitability, the reality diverged. Though she waited several moments he didn’t realize she was there, he didn’t look round, and after standing uncertainly for a while she went and sat on the arm of a chair.
The music was rich and orchestral, with an overlay of voices, sometimes in chorus. Most of it was taped and he seemed to be adding strands of sound on the keyboard as he went along. After a pause which was no more than a beat, he came in with a solo written for a voice much higher than his own. First he hummed the melody, then he sang in a strained falsetto. The words were from a poem, she thought, or maybe a lament. Despite the odd pitch of his voice and the patchwork of different sounds, the effect was unusual and rather lovely. She tried to imagine how it must feel to create something like this, and felt a thrill of excitement for him.
He stopped suddenly, flicked the tape off, and made a small grunt of dissatisfaction.
Standing up, she said: ‘Sounds beautiful.’
He swung round, not at all startled, and a slow grin spread over his face. ‘
Daisy
.’ He got up and came over and kissed her firmly on both cheeks. He looked wonderful.
Holding her lightly by the shoulders, he pulled back and stared at her. ‘Daisy,’ he murmured again. He appeared pleased, though whether with her or with life in general, it was hard to tell. ‘What, no black eye?’
‘Not today.’
He dropped his hands from her shoulders. ‘No one left to fight, huh?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say
that
. But I was thinking of giving up hand-to-hand combat.’
‘Getting soft?’
‘Just thought I might try a quiet life. You know – for a change.’
He made a disbelieving face and grinned again. ‘Adrian’s free anyway. That’s great. Well done.’
‘Adrian’s out,’ she agreed. ‘But then Campbell might well be in, and the place he’ll be going to has a lot more bars on the windows.’ She explained how Campbell was finding the idea of public repentance difficult.
‘Can’t you coach him?’
‘A gorilla with stage training would be more receptive.’
‘Oh well,’ he laughed, refusing to take the threat too seriously. ‘I’ll keep him company. Two old lags doing our time.’
‘I thought they were dropping the charges. I thought they understood why you had the stuff – ’
‘Bad joke. Sorry,’ he said rapidly, grimacing an apology. ‘They
do
– they
have
dropped the charges. But what about you? There was a time when I thought we’d all be inside together. The Three Musketeers up shit creek.’ The idea entertained him.
‘Oh, Morgan knows I did it,’ she said blithely. ‘I mean, he knows that I know who broke Hillyard’s door down, and I know he knows. And I know he knows that I was in there when I shouldn’t have been. But we don’t talk about any of that. I just say I knocked on Hillyard’s door and got invited inside and we ended up making a deal over the documents. No unlawful imprisonment, no kidnap, nothing nasty. That way I don’t get to perjure myself and Campbell keeps out of further trouble, all at the same time. Well, that’s the theory anyway. Hillyard’s busy pushing his side of the story.’
‘Which is?’
‘That I sent some thugs to break into his place, and he found me there next morning.’
‘Are the police buying that?’
‘They’re doing their best to overlook it. They’re rather keener on getting Hillyard for breaking and entering my flat, for illegal surveillance and assault and a few other things.’
‘And will they get him? I mean, on all of that?’
‘Enough. Though’ – she bared her teeth – ‘I’m not sure anything could be enough.’
‘Nightmares?’ he asked, and she saw his own nightmares reflected in his eyes.
‘A few.’
He reached for her hand and squeezed it.
She put on a look that said it was all right really, which at that moment it most certainly was.
‘Come on,’ he said suddenly, ‘let’s go out before it gets dark. I haven’t seen around the place yet.’
Pausing at the door he jerked his head in the direction of the console. ‘You really liked it?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Well, it’s finished,’ he declared, making a broad arc with his hand as if to encompass an enormous volume of music. ‘At least
nearly
. I worked on it almost every day while I was away.’
She couldn’t help asking: ‘You had the time?’
‘Sure. In the afternoons before the show …’
‘You said you were tied up.’
His expression changed from puzzlement to wry amusement. ‘Now what else would have tied me up, Daisy?’
‘Will you be performing it soon?’ she said rather too quickly.
He was still laughing at her, trying to catch her eye as they went into the hall. ‘I’ll get a rough on tape first. Then … well, we’ll see.’ He added more thoughtfully: ‘Once maybe. With a full orchestra and choir. Yes, just the once. Who knows.’
‘Why not more often?’
He led the way into a small room that was entirely given over to coats and boots. ‘I don’t know … Hearing something once, sometimes that’s enough.’ He held up a quilted jacket for size before helping her on with it.
She sensed he wasn’t ready to explain further, and she didn’t press him. ‘Oh, Campbell wants his jacket back,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘He says he’s looked for it in the wood store a dozen times.’
He frowned as he searched his memory. ‘A jacket?’ Then he gave a short laugh. ‘Oh
that
. He wants it back, does he? Ha! He’ll be bloody lucky.’ But going to a hook behind the hall door he rooted through a pile of coats and, with a grunt of satisfaction, emerged with a well-worn tweed jacket. He held it at arm’s length. ‘This,’ he said scornfully, jerking it up and down until it danced, ‘was used to wrap me up one night. Campbell bloody
tucked me up
with it!’ For a moment he was lost in the past somewhere, but then he turned and looked at her, and there was nothing of the past in his smile. ‘Come on,’ he said.
He threw the jacket on a bench and they went out of the side door and into a formal garden. The air was fresh, the hills were so finely drawn that they seemed to be etched into the sky. They stood looking out over the water for a minute before taking a well-trodden path that led across the park towards the trees.
‘I won’t be staying here,’ he said.
‘Where will you go?’
‘There’s a place in Oxfordshire I thought I might go and look at.’
‘Nice?’
‘Could be.’
‘A farm? Land?’
‘Just a bit of land.’
‘Quiet?’
‘Quiet enough. But much more convenient, much closer to everything.’
Closer to the trust headquarters, to London, to
me
, she thought.
‘Will you come and look at it with me?’ he asked, almost shyly.
‘Yes! Of course I will!’
‘I want to be sure it’s not too
loud
, you see.’
Daisy clasped her chest as if she had been stabbed. ‘Whoever
said
that word!’
They started off again. She asked: ‘The tour – how did it go? Was it all right?’ But he wasn’t going to miss that opportunity either.
‘Rather tied me up,’ he said.
‘You’re victimizing me!’ she complained.
He said more seriously: ‘No, it went well. In the most important way anyway.’
‘The most important way?’
‘It made money.’
‘Ah.’
‘Well, I have to keep you and your projects in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed, don’t I?’
‘In that case,’ she declared, ‘I hope it made pots and
pots
!’
And then the dream converged. He gave a hoot of laughter and, pulling her into the curve of his arm, squeezed her close against him.