The Silent Tide (8 page)

‘Do you know Joel Richards?’ she said, indicating the young man who’d stood up from the sofa. He looked oddly familiar, though she couldn’t think from where.

‘I don’t think so,’ Emily said brightly, as he came forward. ‘Hello.’

Joel Richards was tallish and broad-shouldered. His reddish-brown hair, though long, was neatly trimmed, as was the trace of a beard. Hazel eyes met hers and there was warmth in them. He was smartly dressed in a soft-brown suit and collarless shirt.

‘Hi, Emily,’ he murmured with an easy charm. His accent had a northern tinge, pleasing to the ear. A firm hand enveloped hers. His eyes said,
Do I know you?

‘Joel,’ said Mrs Morton, ‘was talking about Duke’s College in London. They hold some of Hugh’s manuscripts.’

Duke’s, that was Matthew’s college. And Emily suddenly knew where she’d seen Joel before.

‘Weren’t you at the poetry launch in Frith Street last Friday?’ she asked him. She remembered how he’d stood on his own, surveying the room. How he’d given her that same small, secretive smile.

‘That’s it. I thought I’d seen you somewhere,’ he said, his face lighting up. ‘Tobias Berryman is a friend of mine. He took me along as we were having dinner together later.’

‘Oh, you know one another – how simply marvellous,’ Mrs Morton said with a touch of sarcasm, bringing everyone’s attention back to herself.

‘And this is Hugh’s study.’

Mrs Morton opened the door off the hall with an air of reverence, as though they might be interrupting the great man at his desk. There was, of course, no one there, though the foggy daylight gave the room an eerie atmosphere. A big, leather-topped desk lay before the window, a sheaf of papers splayed across it, a fountain pen lying by the blotter.

‘These are all first editions.’ Mrs Morton was showing Emily the bookcase. The volumes were in many languages and the majority, Emily gauged, were
The Silent Tide.
She spotted a copy of the novel whose title she’d forgotten, the one her teacher had made her read, about the writers on an island retreat, then noticed one even more familiar. It was an exact copy of the little book she had in her bag:
Coming Home.

Mrs Morton was now opening the top drawer of one of several large metal filing cabinets at the back of the room to show Joel some of the files. ‘The correspondence with Kingsley Amis, yes, here . . . the letters about the honour Hugh really had to refuse . . .’ she was saying. Emily would have liked to ask why Hugh Morton refused it, but Mrs Morton had forgotten her.

Emily edged
Coming Home
off the shelf and examined it quickly. There was no inscription in this copy, no mention of any Isabel. She toyed with the idea of showing her own book to Hugh’s widow, but something stayed her, the not-knowing who Isabel was. She watched Jacqueline and Joel together, and how Jacqueline seemed to trust him.

Joel had already told Emily how he had introduced himself to Hugh and Jacqueline once at a literary party in London the year before he died. He’d admired all Morton’s novels and had felt compelled to meet the great man and tell him so. Jacqueline added that when Joel wrote to her in sympathy after her husband’s death, she remembered the young man who’d spoken so charmingly to her husband and who’d impressed her by his knowledge of the books.

said, sitting down again. or like Joel had visited Stone House several times since Morton’s death, but he didn’t seem to mind being made to do the tour with Emily today. So far they’d politely marvelled at the impressionistic oil painting of Hugh Morton in the hall, and the table in the breakfast room where the great man had sometimes worked on sunny mornings, his beloved Persian cats sleeping close by. In the dining room they had studied several photograph albums of awards ceremonies, of the Mortons holidaying in various exotic locations with other distinguished literary figures, Jacqueline cool and elegant in headscarves or shady hats. The number of such pictures had dwindled as the years had gone by.

After they’d finished in the study, Lorna served sherry in the drawing room and Emily took out her notebook to consider her list of questions.

Could Joel tell her a little about what else he’d written? Did he have an agent? Was there an outline for the proposed biography? How long did he think the book would take to complete, and so on? ‘I’m sorry to bombard you, but my boss is going to want to know all this,’ she told him.

Nervous under this questioning, Joel spilled his sherry while placing his glass on the side table.

‘I do have an agent,’ he said, wiping his fingers on a tissue Emily gave him. He named someone Emily hadn’t heard of at a small, but reputable firm.

Emily knew that Hugh Morton’s books were notionally looked after by one of the bigger literary agencies, but that Jacqueline made all the decisions. She wasn’t surprised that the agent in question wasn’t there today.

‘I’m a freelance writer,’ Joel was telling her. He mentioned several important commissions he’d had: writing the official history of a big City firm; ghostwriting the bestselling memoirs of a senior business figure. He’d also scripted a TV series about the 1950s that was in the process of being filmed. ‘That’s when I became very interested in Hugh Morton. I’ve always admired his novels.’

He must have been paid reasonable money for some of these, Emily thought. Parchment wasn’t going to be able to offer more than a modest advance for this biography, and the thought worried her.

‘Joel really understands dear Hugh,’ Jacqueline Morton broke in. ‘He recognises how central he is as an English writer, don’t you, Joel?’

‘I certainly feel Hugh’s reputation is ripe to be reevaluated.
The Silent Tide
was actually a very modern book. The character of Nanna, for instance . . .’

‘Joel thinks Nanna is a woman for her time,’ said Mrs Morton, interrupting once again, ‘in the way of Tolstoy with Anna Karenina.’

The pair of them regarded Emily as though daring her to challenge this. Emily hesitated, wondering if they really wanted her opinion.
Anna Karenina
was a favourite novel of hers and nothing to her mind compared with it, but Nanna in
The Silent Tide
was a powerful symbolic figure. She said, ‘I do see what you mean. Zara Collins is perfect to play her, isn’t she? Have they consulted you about it?’ she asked Mrs Morton.

The old woman’s expression hardened. ‘They had the courtesy to show me the script,’ she said, ‘but they’ve not listened to any of my concerns. Too much has been left out, but what can one do?’ She sighed. ‘I’m sure the series will be very popular, but it’s certainly not what Hugh would have envisaged.’

‘At least it means a new generation will buy the book,’ Emily said. Lily Catchpole e McKinnon

‘I do hope you’re right.’ Now Jacqueline looked coy. ‘There are some, do you know, who used to tell me that I was Hugh’s principal inspiration for Nanna.’ She gave a light laugh and sat back in her seat. ‘Ridiculous, of course, but people will say these silly things.’

Emily and Joel smiled politely. Emily thought the idea most unlikely, but Mrs Morton was clearly charmed by it.

‘I can assure you,’ Mrs Morton went on confidingly, ‘that our marriage was a much happier affair than Nanna’s.’ She glanced at a large black and white photograph hanging on the wall near her chair. Emily leaned forward to see it better. It was of a family group. Hugh was instantly recognisable. Jacqueline must have been in her prime, a young mother, dressed a bit like Jackie Kennedy. A baby boy sat straight-backed on Jacqueline’s knee and another boy of three or four leaned against her. Standing behind the seated grownups was an older girl peeping over their shoulders at the camera. From her shy expression, Emily supposed her to be Lorna. What a perfect family they appeared.

Emily looked back at her notebook, where she’d been jotting down Joel’s answers. Finally she asked Jacqueline Morton, ‘Um, the source material. I mean, you’ve given Joel full access to the papers, haven’t you?’

Mrs Morton appeared irritated by this question. ‘It’s important to me that a full and accurate record of Hugh’s life and work is presented,’ she said, emphasising each word, ‘and I will be supporting Joel in every way I can. There’s something I wanted to ask
you.
I assume he’ll be able to look at anything about Hugh’s books in Parchment’s archive?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ Emily said, making a note of this. ‘I don’t know what there’ll be, but I’ll find out.’ Being so new, she hadn’t had a chance to think about where ancient files might be kept, but there must be a system.

‘Brilliant,’ Joel said, making a note of his own. ‘I’ll give you a call about that.’

Lunch, served by Lorna in the austere dining room, was delicious, lamb in a red wine sauce and fluffy mashed potato, comforting and piping hot. It was a stiff occasion, though, with Jacqueline Morton seated at the head of the table, as if at a board meeting. Poor Joel started by eating with his fork only, American fashion, until Jacqueline Morton’s frown shamed him into picking up his knife. Emily once had a great-aunt just like Jacqueline, and didn’t feel nervous of her exactly, but she was beginning to suspect that the woman needed to be watched. There was something going on about this biography that she didn’t trust. However good a writer Joel might be, he’d have to be a strong character to insist on including anything Jacqueline Morton didn’t like. Emily resolved to speak to him about this as soon as she could, though she wasn’t sure how to frame it.

Mrs Morton turned her steely attentions on Emily. How long had she worked for Parchment? What writers had she worked with? She appeared to be satisfied with the answers. Then came some low-key probing of her family background and her education.

‘Dad’s a headmaster,’ Emily told her, taking a sip of red wine, ‘and Mum – well, she used to work in a bank, but then she had us so she left.’

‘Us? You have brothers and sisters then?’

‘Just an older sister. She was a fashion buyer for a department store, but she’s given that up since my niece and nephew were born. They’re still only three and eighteen months, you see.’

‘No, of course it wouldn’t do,’ Mrs Morton said, in a tone that brooked no argument. ‘Children need their mothers to be at home.’ Emily met Joel’s eye and he gave an embarrassed shrug.

The old lady talked about her own children, the boys, James and Harry, now middle-aged men. ‘Harry has three children, and James one, all grown up now, of course. And all doing
very
well for themselves.’

‘Do you see them often?’ Joel asked, laying down his knife and fork.

‘Not as much as I’d like. They do have such busy lives.’ There was a wistfulness in Jacqueline’s voice and Emily suddenly glimpsed a chink in her armour. ‘I still have Lorna, though, haven’t I, dear?’ Jacqueline smiled at her daughter, but there was something patronising in the smile.

Lorna stood up. ‘Will you have more cabbage, Joel? No?’ The top button of her blouse had come undone and as she leaned forward to pick up the vegetable dish, a delicate chain with a gold ring on it swung out. She shoved it back and did up the button, but it was too late, everyone had seen that it was a wedding ring.

Emily helped stack the dishes, though Lorna refused to let her help take them to the kitchen. Whilst Lorna was out of the room, Mrs Morton draped her napkin on the table and said in a low voice, ‘Of course, it was simply dreadful for us all when Malcolm left her, so early in their marriage, too, but it was a godsend to have her back home.’ Emily was struck by the awful sense that the woman was not really sorry at all about Lorna’s heartbreak. Instead she was thinking about her own convenience.

It was at this point that she began seriously to dislike Jacqueline Morton.

After lunch they drifted back to the drawing room. The downstairs bathroom being occupied, Lorna directed Emily to one upstairs. When she emerged onto the landing afterwards, she noticed a door standing open almost opposite and couldn’t help peering in.

It was painted in the same cold blue and white as the hall and the drawing room, and in a bedroom the effect was merciless. Everything was meticulously tidy, the curtains folded back and secured by tassels, the bedspread on the double bed perfectly draped, the silver-backed brushes on the dressing table symmetrically arranged. Only a library book on a bedside table next to a spectacle case proclaimed that the room was occupied. It was obviously the master bedroom, and it wasn’t hard to guess that Jacqueline slept there. What had it been like when Hugh was alive? Emily wondered, for now it spoke entirely of Jacqueline. Maybe the couple hadn’t shared a room. Whatever the explanation, there was something disturbing about this sterile atmosphere. Just then she heard voices in the hall so she stepped back guiltily and hurried downstairs.

Later, Joel offered to drive Emily to the station to get her train. It appeared that he was staying on to take another look at some of Hugh’s correspondence.

‘Oh, Lorna will take Emily’ Mrs Morton said immediately. Poor Lorna, Emily thought. Jacqueline’s daughter had only just come in to sit down after washing up.

‘It’s really no trouble,’ Joel told Emily and before their host could draw breath to disagree, Emily accepted.

Outside, the fog had begun to clear, and as she walked with Joel to the sporty black car, Emily turned to view the frontage of the house. She found the grey stone too grim for her liking, but the classical lines were softened by a great wisteria plant, which when blossomed must be beautiful.

‘How old is the place, do you think?’ she asked Joel.

‘Early Victorian. Most of it, anyway’ There were more modern additions, a newish conservatory to one side, and a flagged terrace in front studded with little flowerbeds.

They got into the car, which Joel turned in a single, graceful arc. ‘It should only take twenty minutes,’ he said.

‘This is really kind of you,’ Emily said.

‘No problem.’ He pressed a button and a woman’s sultry voice began to croon. For a while they were silent. The drive met the lane on a blind corner and it was a relief once they were clear. When they were through the village, Joel picked up speed, the car clinging to the bends, and Emily sensed his enjoyment. The engine was smooth, the car comfortable with low bucket seats. She felt cocooned from the gloomy world outside.