Page 70 of Oz
I shake my head. “You lecture that much you should work at a university.”
He laughs but then falls silent, staring across the table at Silas who has his head bent over some plans that Jasper has. “I don’t think I’m going to lecture you this time.”
“Why?” I hesitate. “Not that it means anything. I mean, I’m only here for another few weeks and then I’ll be back home with you.”
He turns to me and there’s something almost sad about his face. “Sure, you will, Ozzy. Sure, you will.”
I open my mouth to argue but the waitress comes with the bill. As we stand up he seizes my arm. “Did you say you were coming up to London soon?”
“Yes. I need a dinner suit for the party and Silas needs to look at some deeds at his solicitor’s office. Why?”
“Why don’t you show him around, take him to some of your old haunts.”
I stare at him. “You want me to take the Earl of Ashworth to the Pig and Fiddle in Tottenham and then maybe to Mungos for Bear Night?”
“Why not?” There’s something challenging in his eyes that I can’t work out. “After all, you call him Silas and that’s who you’re involved with. So why not showSilasyour old life?”
“It isn’t my old life. It’s myactuallife. I’ll be back in a few weeks.”
“Then it won’t hurt, will it? It might show you something that you’re happily ignoring at the moment.”
“What am I ignoring?” I’m totally bewildered and it shows in my voice.
He shrugs and hugs me. “What’s staring you in the face. The difference this time around.”
“You’re so cryptic today I think it’s time for you to readThe Da Vinci Code.”
He laughs and nothing more is said.
Later on, I wander out of the house and into the gardens with Chewwy at my heels. The heatwave is slowly cooling as we head into September and the night has a delicate bite to it now, a harbinger of autumn. I look around at the gardens which are a riot of last-minute blowsy colour and sigh. I won’t be here when the trees turn colour and the winds roar around the house. I’ll be in London, working in another office.
I wonder fancifully if a part of me will stay here and roam the halls with Lionel. Maybe we’ll become drinking buddies and look critically at Silas’s next choice of bedmate. My stomach twists and I rub it absentmindedly. I’m not thinking of that now. I have a few weeks left with him and I’m going to make the most of it.
At the thought of him, I wonder where he is. Then on the breeze I hear a faint thud and a clinking coming from the far end of the gardens. This is a much wilder, isolated area where the apple orchard can be found along with an overgrown grassy area where, according to Silas, the Home Guard used to do their drills during the war. The sheep are often in the fields nearest to it, so their bleating and complaining drifts in.
The old bowling green is also there, and I smile when I step onto the grass and see that my guess was right. Silas is just standing up from straightening the rows of skittles that are now as orderly as a military parade. He’s drinking from a bottle of Jack Daniels and dressed in a pair of denim cutoffs, their ends white with age, and a faded red Edinburgh University t-shirt. He looks like a student and completely at home.
He smiles widely when he sees me and holds one arm out in invitation. I wander into his embrace immediately and feel his arm close around me. Chewwy slumps down under a blackberry bush and gives a gusty sigh of contentment.
Silas grins and kisses the top of my head before handing me the bottle. I take a sip, the alcohol heating my throat, and sigh happily.
“Have they gone?” he asks.
“Yes. They’ve gone back to the hotel tonight and back to London tomorrow.”
“They could have stayed here and been welcome.”
I smile. “I know. Thank you. Shaun would have been happy to, but I think it’s probably best that Jasper doesn’t experience firsthand the idiosyncrasies of our house before we rent it out.”
Something about that statement makes him smile but he covers it quickly. “Like the cupboard in the kitchen when the handle comes off in your hand?”
I nod. “And the toilet where you have to put your hand into the cistern to be able to flush it.”
He laughs. “It never happens in Lord Branton’s house.”
I stand for a minute, enjoying the warmth of the sun and inhaling the scent of cut grass and Silas’s aftershave. Finally, I stir with Shaun’s words on my mind. They’d seemed like a challenge and an invitation to see something about Silas that I’m not noticing. “So, when are you thinking of going to London?”
He kisses my hair. “Next week. I’ll only be a couple of hours with the solicitor. Then we can get your suit and afterwards whatever you fancy. What about a play?”
