drew a deep sigh. Time enough, Diane always told him whenever he raised the matter with her. Another year or two, she’d said the last time he’d brought it up, then I really will settle down to it.
He replaced the photograph and picked up another, more recent, more formally posed: Stuart on his eighteenth birthday. It was like looking at a portrait of himself as a young man. I suppose it might not be all that many years before we have Stuart thinking about getting married, he told himself with a lightening of his spirits. Not that Stuart had any steady girlfriend as yet. Mansell fervently hoped that when the time came his son would have the sense to find himself a girl with old-fashioned ideas of a home and babies, not some hard-nosed modern female with her sights set chiefly on a career.
He put the photograph back and returned to his desk. He sat staring ahead, lost in thought.
Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, they were what gave life and substance to it all, made the whole shooting-match more than a dance of shadows on a flickering screen. The unbroken line of one’s own flesh and blood stretching into the misty centuries ahead, that was what took away the sting from the stabbing thought of one’s own mortality, that must in the end prevail, struggle against it as one might.
Over in Fairbourne, Edgar Holroyd’s day didn’t begin quite so early. At six-thirty precisely he opened his eyes in the spacious front bedroom looking out over the common. Never any need for an alarm, he always woke at the same hour, winter and summer; he had trained himself to that useful habit long ago, as a lad.
A still morning, little sound of traffic as yet. Pale streaks of light stole in around the edges of the curtains. From the trees screening the garden the collared doves murmured their ceaseless calculation: Thirteen six, thirteen six.
He glanced across at the other bed. Claire lay with her back to him, curled in a posture of deep sleep. He moved his covers gently back, eased himself noiselessly out, silently drew on slippers and dressing-gown.
With barely a whisper of sound he let himself out of the room and went stealthily along the landing, into the small bedroom he had used as a dressing room since his marriage. He got into jogging gear and went down to the kitchen where he drank a glass of orange juice and ate the single piece of rye crispbread he allowed himself before setting out.
He went for his early-morning jog in all but the worst weather. Every evening, if at all possible, he took a brisk walk. He had begun these habits years ago, they were by now deeply ingrained. Claire never accompanied him on either sally, it had never occurred to either of them to suggest it.
His watch showed his customary time as he let himself out of the house and set off at his customary pace to cover his customary route.
Upstairs in the front bedroom Claire caught the sound of the side door opening and closing. She had surfaced to full consciousness before Edgar left his bed but she had lain motionless and kept her eyes closed while he was still in the room.
She switched on the light, flung back the covers and sprang out of bed. She pulled on a robe and slippers, darted across to a mirror. This morning it was her hair that occupied her attention. Time for a new style – making her third in as many months. Before that, she hadn’t changed her hairstyle since her marriage; she smiled now at the thought.
She lifted her shining tresses, pinned, unpinned, pursued a fresh inspiration; another and another, arriving at last at an effect that satisfied her. She gave a decisive nod; at her next hair appointment she would definitely suggest something along those lines.
She turned from the mirror and went to the wardrobe, she ran her hand along the rail, appraising. The first day of autumn was only a little over a week away. Some new clothes for the new season. Her blue-grey eyes sparkled. She began to hum a tune.
The area immediately to the north of Whitethorn Common contained a variety of dwellings: terrace houses, red-brick semis, large Victorian and Edwardian residences turned into flats; here and there an old cottage clinging to its original garden, reminding the district of its rural past.
A little further out, a fair-sized council estate had sprung up after the First World War. It had seen several changes; many of the houses had passed into private hands.
In one of the more attractive parts of the estate a small grove of trees separated a group of dwellings from their neighbours. One of these dwellings, a semi occupying a corner plot in a pleasant cul-de-sac, was the home of Harry Lingard, Jill Lingard’s grandfather. It had been his home since boyhood, he had lived there alone since the death of his wife three years ago. They had had one child, a son, father of Gareth and Jill; he had been carried off in his thirties by a virulent form of pneumonia. His widow had married again two years ago and lived now with her second husband in a northern city.
Harry had been up since five-thirty, endlessly busy as always, every moment of his time structured and purposeful. A wiry little man, nimble and vigorous for his seventy-two years, a teetotaller and non-smoker, with an alert eye, a weathered face, a fringe of sparse, iron-grey hair surrounding a gleaming pate.
He had been a regular soldier, a driver, never rising above the rank of private but never disgracing himself either; he had served throughout the Second World War. When his army days were over he found himself a job as a driver-porter with Calthrop’s, an old-established firm of auctioneers and estate agents in Cannonbridge; he stayed there until he retired at sixty-five. He had immediately found himself another, lighter job as a yardman at Mansell’s, where he was still working.
During his time at Calthrop’s he had always done a bit of dealing – perfectly legitimate – on the side, mainly buying in the saleroom old items of furniture in a dilapidated condition at knockdown prices, working on them at home, putting them back in the saleroom later; he had always shown a worthwhile profit. He still kept up this practice, nipping along in his dinner-hour on viewing day, leaving his bids with a porter.
He owned his council house, he had been the first tenant on the estate to exercise the right to buy, exercising it in the teeth of entrenched opposition from the forces of local bureaucracy. The house was his pride and joy. Since the purchase he had modernized and extended, refurbished every inch, carrying out all the work himself.
On this calm September morning he ate his customary sparing breakfast while listening with keen attention to the business news on the radio. It was broad daylight by the time he set off a little later to fetch his morning paper. He glanced ceaselessly about as he strode along, keeping a citizen’s eye open for broken paving-slabs, blocked road drains, overflowing litter bins, overgrown hedges, graffiti, acts of vandalism. He halted now and then to jot down anything worthy of attention in the notebook he always carried.
As he rounded a corner he caught sight of someone he recognized going into the paper shop: Edgar Holroyd. He quickened his pace, he wanted a word with Holroyd and he intended to have it here and now. Repairs to tenants’ houses on the estate were falling behind again. Though no longer a tenant himself, Harry still fought the tenants’ battles for them, orchestrating every campaign. He was a well-known figure at the local library, thumbing through legal tomes and consumer manuals in the reference room.
Inside the shop, Edgar turned from the counter with his newspaper and saw with annoyance that Harry Lingard had stationed himself in the doorway, blocking his exit. Harry’s expression told him plainly he was about to be tackled.
Harry wasted no time in greeting or preamble but launched at once into a spirited attack on the council’s procrastination and penny-pinching. He pulled out his notebook and embarked on a rapid recital of individual cases.
Edgar was humiliatingly aware of the shopkeeper, the other customers, cocking sharply interested ears.
