15
THERE WAS A firm rap on the front door. Giles checked his watch: 7.20 p.m. Who could it possibly be? He hadn’t invited anyone for dinner, and he wasn’t expected back at the House to hear the closing speeches until nine. A second rap, equally firm, and he remembered it was the housekeeper’s night off. He placed yesterday’s copy of Hansard on the side table, pushed himself up out of his chair and was heading towards the corridor when there was a third rap.
‘Hold your horses,’ Giles said. He pulled open the door to find the last person he would have expected standing on his doorstep in Smith Square.
‘Grace?’ he said, unable to mask his surprise.
‘It’s a relief to discover you still remember my name,’ said his sister as she stepped inside.
Giles tried to think of an equally sharp rejoinder, but as he hadn’t been in touch with his sister since the day of his mother’s funeral, he had to accept that her barbed remark was justified. In truth, he hadn’t been in contact with any of the family since Virginia had stormed out of the courtroom and left him standing on the pavement outside.
‘What brings you to London, Grace?’ he asked rather feebly, as he led his sister down the corridor and into the drawing room.
‘You,’ she replied. ‘If Mohammed, etcetera.’
‘Can I get you a drink?’ he asked, still wondering what she could possibly want, unless . . .
‘Thanks, a dry sherry would go down well, after that ghastly train journey.’
Giles walked across to the sideboard and poured her a sherry, and a half tumbler of whisky for himself, as he desperately searched for something to say. ‘I’ve got a vote at ten,’ he eventually managed, passing Grace her drink. His younger sister always made him feel like a naughty schoolboy who’d been caught smoking by the headmaster.
‘That will be more than enough time for what I have to say.’
‘Have you come to claim your birthright and throw me out of the house?’
‘No, you chump, I’ve come to try and knock some common sense into that thick skull of yours.’
Giles collapsed into his chair and took a sip of whisky. ‘I’m all ears.’
‘It will be my thirtieth birthday next week, not that you would have noticed.’
‘And you’ve come all this way just to tell me what present you want?’ Giles said, trying to lighten the mood.
‘Exactly that,’ said Grace, taking him by surprise for a second time.
‘And what did you have in mind?’ Giles felt he was still on the back foot.
‘I want you to come to my party.’
‘But the House is in session, and since I’ve been promoted to the front bench, I’m expected—’
‘Harry and Emma will be there,’ said Grace, ignoring his excuses, ‘so it will be just like old times.’
Giles took another gulp of whisky. ‘It can never be like old times.’
‘Of course it can, you fool, because you’re the only person who’s preventing it.’
‘They want to see me?’
‘Why wouldn’t they?’ said Grace. ‘This stupid feud has gone on long enough, which is why I intend to bang all your heads together before it’s too late.’
‘Who else will be there?’
‘Sebastian and Jessica, a few friends, mainly academics, but you don’t have to talk to them, except perhaps your old friend Deakins. However,’ she added, ‘there’s one person I won’t be inviting. By the way, where is the bitch?’
Giles had thought there was nothing his sister could ever say that would shock him. How wrong he was.
‘I’ve no idea,’ he eventually managed. ‘She hasn’t been in contact with me for over a year. But if you believe the Daily Express, she’s currently to be found in St Tropez on the arm of an Italian count.’
‘I’m sure they’ll make a delightful couple. More important, it gives you grounds for divorce.’
‘I could never divorce Virginia, even if I wanted to. Don’t forget what Mama went through. Not an experience I care to repeat.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Grace. ‘It’s all right for Virginia to be gallivanting around the South of France with her Italian lover, but it’s not all right for her husband to want a divorce?’
‘You may mock,’ said Giles, ‘but that isn’t the way a gentleman behaves.’
‘Don’t make me laugh. It was hardly the act of a gentleman to drag me and Emma through the courts over Mother’s will.’
‘That’s below the belt,’ said Giles as he took another large gulp of whisky. ‘But I suppose it’s no more than I deserved,’ he added, ‘and it’s something I’ll regret for the rest of my life. Will you ever forgive me?’
‘I will if you come to my party, and apologize to your sister and your oldest friend for being such a chump.’
‘I’m not sure I can face them.’
‘You faced a battery of German soldiers with nothing more than a few hand grenades and a pistol to protect you.’
‘And I’d do it again if I thought it would convince Emma and Harry to forgive me.’
Grace stood up, walked across the room and knelt down beside her brother. ‘Of course they’ll forgive you, you silly oaf.’ Giles bowed his head when his sister put her arms around him. ‘You know only too well that Mother wouldn’t have wanted us to be kept apart because of that woman.’
As Giles drove past a signpost directing him to Cambridge, he thought it still wasn’t too late to turn back, although he knew that if he did, he might never be given a second chance.
As he entered the university city, he could feel the collegiate atmosphere all around him. Young men and women in academic gowns of varying lengths were rushing in every direction. It brought back memories of his time at Oxford, cut short by Herr Hitler.
When Giles had found his way back to England five years later, having escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp, the principal of Brasenose had offered him the chance to return to his old college and complete his degree. But by then he was a 25-year-old battle-scarred veteran, and felt the moment had passed, as it had for so many young men of his generation, Harry included. In any case, the opportunity to fight another battle had arisen, and he couldn’t resist the challenge of sparring for a place on the green benches of the House of Commons. No regrets, thought Giles. Well, there were always some regrets.
He drove down Grange Road, took a right and parked his car in Sidgwick Avenue. He walked under an archway declaring Newnham College, founded in 1871, before women could be awarded degrees, by a far-sighted visionary who believed that would happen in his lifetime. It didn’t.
Giles stopped at the lodge and was about to ask directions to Miss Barrington’s party when the porter said, ‘Good evening, Sir Giles, you’ll be wanting the Sidgwick Room.’
Recognized. No turning back.
‘If you walk on down the corridor, it’s at the top of the stairs, third door on the left. You can’t miss it.’
Giles followed his directions, passing a dozen or so undergraduates dressed in long black skirts, white blouses and academic gowns. They didn’t give him a second look, but then why should they? He was thirty-three, almost twice their age.
He climbed the stairs, and when he reached the top step he didn’t need further directions because he could hear exuberant voices and laughter long before he reached the third door on the left. He took a deep breath and tried not to make an entrance.
Jessica was the first to spot him, and immediately ran across the room shouting, ‘Uncle Giles, Uncle Giles, where have you been?’ Where indeed, thought Giles, as he looked at the young girl he adored, not quite a swan, but no longer a cygnet. She leapt up and threw her arms around him. He looked over her shoulder to see Grace and Emma heading towards him. All three of them tried to hug him at once. Other guests looked on, wondering what all the fuss was about.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Giles, after he’d shaken hands with Harry. ‘I should never have put you through all that.’
‘Don’t dwell on it,’ said Harry. ‘And frankly, both of us have been through far worse.’
Giles was surprised how quickly he relaxed with his oldest friend. They were chatting about Peter May as if it were old times, when he first saw her. After that, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
‘The best cover drive I’ve ever seen,’ Harry said, placing his left foot firmly forward while trying to give a demonstration without a bat. He hadn’t noticed how distracted Giles had become.
‘Yes, I was at Headingley when he scored a century against the South Africans in his first Test.’
‘I saw that innings as well,’ said an elderly don who had joined them. ‘A quite magnificent knock.’
Giles slipped away, and wove his way around the crowded room, only stopping to chat to Sebastian about how he was getting on at school. The young man seemed far more relaxed and confident than he ever remembered him being.
Giles was beginning to fear she might leave before he got the chance to meet her, and when Sebastian became distracted by a sausage roll, he moved on until he found himself standing by her side. She was chatting to an older woman and didn’t seem to be aware of him. He stood there, tongue-tied, wondering why Englishmen found it so difficult to introduce themselves to women, particularly beautiful women. How right Betjeman was, and this wasn’t even a desert island.
‘I don’t think Schwarzkopf’s got the range for the part,’ the other woman was saying.
‘You may be right, but I’d still give up half my annual grant just to hear her sing.’
The older woman glanced at Giles and turned to speak to someone else, almost as if she knew. Giles introduced himself, hoping no one else would join them. They shook hands. Just touching her . . .
‘Hello. I’m Giles Barrington.’
‘You must be Grace’s brother, the MP I keep reading about who has all those radical views. I’m Gwyneth,’ she said, revealing her ancestry.
‘Are you an undergraduate?’
‘You flatter me,’ she said, giving him a smile. ‘No, I’m just completing my PhD. Your sister is my supervisor.’
‘What’s your thesis on?’
‘The links between mathematics and philosophy in Ancient Greece.’
‘I can’t wait to read it.’
‘I’ll see that you get an early copy.’
‘Who’s the girl Giles is chatting to?’ Emma asked her sister.
Grace turned and looked across the room. ‘Gwyneth Hughes, one of my brighter PhD students. He’ll certainly find her something of a contrast to Lady Virginia. She’s the daughter of a Welsh miner, up from the valleys, as she likes to remind everyone, and she certainly knows the meaning of compos mentis.’
‘She’s very attractive,’ Emma said. ‘You don’t think—’
‘Good heavens, no, what would they have in common?’
Emma smiled to herself, before saying, ‘Have you handed over your eleven per cent of the company to Giles?’
‘Yes,’ said Grace, ‘along with my rights to Grandfather’s home in Smith Square, as I agreed with Mama, once I was convinced the silly boy was finally free of Virginia.’
Emma didn’t speak for some time. ‘So you always knew the contents of Mama’s new will?’
‘And what was in the envelope,’ said Grace casually, ‘which was why I couldn’t attend the trial.’
‘How well Mother knew you.’
‘How well she knew all three of us,’ said Grace as she looked across the room at her brother.