‘It’s my business, really. My trade.’ I told him about the six travel guides. ‘The company used to send me to all those places to set up holiday expeditions for real rugged types. I had to learn how to get them out of all sorts of local trouble, especially if they struck disasters like losing all their equipment in raging torrents. I wrote the books and the customers weren’t allowed to set off without them. Mind you, I always thought the book on how to survive would have been lost in the raging torrent with everything else, but maybe they would remember some of it, you never know.’
Gareth, helping make breadcrumbs in a blender, said a shade wistfully, ‘How did you ever start on something like that?’
‘My father was a camping nut. A naturalist. He worked in a bank, really, and still does, but every spare second he would head for the wilds, dragging me and my mother along. Actually I took it for granted, as just a fact of life. Then after college I found it was all pretty useful in the travel trade. So bingo.’
‘Does he still go camping? Your father, I mean?’
‘No. My mother got arthritis and refused to go any more, and he didn’t have much fun without her. He’s worked in a bank in the Cayman Islands for three or four years now. It’s good for my mother’s health.’
Gareth asked simply, ‘Where are the Cayman Islands?’
‘In the Caribbean, south of Cuba, west of Jamaica.’
‘What do you want me to do with these breadcrumbs?’
‘Put them in the frying pan.’
‘Have
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I went for Christmas. They sent me the fare as a present.’
‘You are
I paused from cutting up the beef. ‘Yes,’ I agreed, thinking about it. ‘Yes, I am. And grateful. And you’ve got a good father, too.’
He seemed extraordinarily pleased that I should say so, but it seemed to me, unconventional housekeeping or not, that Tremayne was making a good job of his younger son.
Notwithstanding Tremayne’s professed lack of interest in food he clearly enjoyed the pie, which three healthy appetites polished off to the last fried crumb. I got promoted instantly to resident chef, which suited me fine. Tomorrow I could do the shopping, Tremayne said, and without ado pulled out his wallet and gave me enough to feed the three of us for a month, though he said it was for a week. I protested it was too much and he kindly told me I had no idea how much things cost. I thought wryly that I knew how much things cost to the last anxious penny, but there was no point in arguing. I stowed the money away and asked them what they didn’t like.
‘Broccoli,’ Gareth said instantly. ‘Yuk.’
‘Lettuce,’ said Tremayne.
Gareth told his father about fried worms and asked me if I had any of the travel guides with me.
‘No, sorry, I didn’t think of bringing them.’
‘Couldn’t we possibly get some? I mean, I’d buy them with my pocket money. I’d like to keep them. Are they in the shops?’
‘Sometimes, but I could ask the travel company to send a set,’ I suggested.
‘Yes, do that,’ Tremayne said, ‘and I’ll pay for them. We’d all like to look at them, I expect.’
‘But Dad...’ Gareth protested.
‘All right,’ Tremayne said, ‘get two sets.’
I began to appreciate Tremayne’s simple way of solving problems and in the morning, after I’d driven him on the tractor up to the Downs to see the horses exercise, and after orange juice, coffee and toast, I phoned my friend in the travel agency and asked him to organise the books.
‘Today?’ he said, and I said, ‘Yes, please,’ and he said he would Red-Star-parcel them by train, if I liked. I consulted Tremayne who thought it a good idea and told me to get them sent to Didcot station where I could go to pick them up when I went in to do the shopping.
‘Fair enough,’ the friend said. ‘You’ll get them this afternoon.’
‘My love to your aunt,’ I said, ‘and thanks.’
‘She’ll swoon.’ He laughed. ‘See you.’
Tremayne began reading the day’s papers, both of which carried the results of the trial. Neither paper took any particular stance either for or against Nolan, though both quoted Olympia’s father at length. He came over as a sad, obsessed man whose natural grief had turned to self-destructive anger and one could feel sorry for him on many counts. Tremayne read and grunted and passed no opinion.
The day slowly drifted into a repetition of the one before. Dee-Dee came into the kitchen for coffee and instructions and when Tremayne had gone out again with his second lot of horses I returned to the boxes of clippings in the dining-room.
I decided to reverse yesterday’s order; to start at the most recent clippings and work backwards.
It was Dee-Dee, I had discovered, who cut the sections out of the newspapers and magazines, and certainly she had been more zealous than whoever had done it before her, as the boxes for the last eight years were much fuller.
