Praise for Tell

‘Buckley… asks readers to think about how and why stories are told. This self-reflexivity results in a thought-provoking, artfully constructed narrative enriched by the mysteries that expand and proliferate throughout. It’s a deliciously fraught tour de force.’

— Publishers Weekly, starred review

‘[A] riveting thriller that sweeps you in from the off… Buckley’s prose is unpretentious and engrossing, weaving in a constant sense of foreboding that proves irresistible.’

— Martha Alexander, AnOther Magazine

Praise for Jonathan Buckley

‘Buckley’s fiction is subtle and fastidiously low-key… every apparently loose thread, when tugged, reveals itself to be woven into the themes [and] gets better the more you allow it to settle in your mind.’

— Michel Faber, Guardian

‘Exactly why Buckley is not already revered and renowned as a novelist in the great European tradition remains a mystery that will perhaps only be addressed at that final godly hour when all the overlooked authors working in odd and antique modes will receive their just rewards.’

— Ian Sansom, Times Literary Supplement

‘Few writers manage to conjure such raw unease as Jonathan Buckley… completely compelling.’

— Adrian Turpin, Financial Times

‘Why isn’t Jonathan Buckley better known? His novel of love, death and melancholy comedy, The Great Concert of the Night, is captivating.’

— John Banville

TELL

JONATHAN BUCKLEY

For Susanne Hillen and Bruno Buckley, always

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

First Session

Second Session

Third Session

Fourth Session

Fifth Session

About the Author

Copyright

First Session

I can talk for as long as you like, no problem. You’ll just have to tell me when to stop. How far back do you want to take it? Because Lily is what it’s about, in my opinion. And the mother is part of the story too. Father too. Goes without saying. But maybe better to pick them up later. Shall we start with the crash? Seems an obvious place.

[Pause]

Terrible thing is, Curtis would have been on his way home the next day. He’d been gone a week, going around Vietnam and Thailand, inspecting the factories. Cambodia was the last stop, and he’d done what he needed to do there, so he decided to go to Angkor Wat. That might have been the plan all along. I don’t really know. If you’ve flown halfway round the world you can’t come back without seeing it, can you? Even if you’ve only got time to see a small part of it. You need days to explore the whole place, apparently. So he flew from the capital to this other town, right by the temples. Can’t remember the name. And that’s where the crash happened. He hired a driver to take him out to some part of the site that was fifty miles away. More or less. A good distance. They set out in the dark. That’s the thing to do – see the temples as the sun’s coming up. They were almost there when they hit a lorry, or the lorry hit them. Head-on, in the middle of the road, on a bend. I don’t think they ever worked out who was to blame. Curtis couldn’t remember anything about it. One minute he’s in the car, next thing he knows he’s in hospital with all these tubes coming out of him and his head full of staples. The driver – Curtis’s driver – was killed. Don’t know about the chap in the lorry.

[Indistinct]

Six months before we saw him again, up in Scotland. You could see he’d taken a real battering. Asil brought him up in the mighty Mercedes, the battleship. More on Asil later, and the cars. I was in the garden when the battleship came in, and Asil went round to the passenger’s side to open the door, which was unusual. With people in that world, it’s par for the course. You no longer have to trouble yourself with opening a door. Big politicians, film stars, royalty. They don’t open doors. But that wasn’t Curtis’s style. He didn’t have to make a point about his status every minute of the day. We worked for him, but we weren’t his servants, if you know what I mean. Staff is what we were. Staff and servants are not the same thing. The people I was working with in Scotland, some of the places they’d worked, what their employers really wanted were slaves. Curtis wasn’t like that.

[Pause]

Right, so Asil opened the door and gave an arm for Curtis to grab onto. And when Curtis got out, he clearly wasn’t the person he’d been before. It was obvious, within seconds. The way he looked around. It was like he was having to refamiliarize himself with the place. Fix his bearings. He could have been a patient arriving at some super-deluxe clinic. Then he noticed me, and the smile was a good sign. But all he said was ‘How are you?’ Something like that. He didn’t use my name. Before, Curtis always used your name. It was a kind of courtesy. ‘Hello Jeannie. Hello Viv.’ Some people, you could be there a year and they still wouldn’t know you from Eve. But I had the feeling that my name hadn’t occurred to him immediately. He was having to search his memory for it, and it wasn’t available. The next time I saw him, though, in the morning, he knew my name then. And he knew Rosa’s name right off. She managed the household. The chosen one. Captain of the palace.

[Inaudible]

I didn’t get to speak to him properly for a couple of days, so it was the physical changes I noticed at first. For one thing, he’d lost weight. Quite a few pounds. And the way he walked. He had a stick for a while, and he had to concentrate on where he was putting his feet. Things that should have been automatic weren’t. He was uncertain rather than unsteady, like the ground wasn’t completely even. You’d see him stumble now and then, for a few months after he came back. There were headaches as well. Terrible headaches. I mean, the scar was not small. Like a parting, all the way from front to back. He’d get these head-splitters that could go on for hours and nothing would make them go away. He’d fill a sink with iced water and keep dunking his face in it. What Rosa told me. Dizziness too. He’d be sitting down and suddenly he was bobbing around on the sea. It got him down. You could see that. Someone who’d always been on top of things, on top of everything, and then this was happening. His brain had hijacked him. That’s what he said to Rosa. Hijacked by his own brain. The worst was when he couldn’t find the right word. Not just names. Random words, simple words. He just couldn’t get hold of them sometimes. That went on for some time. And he’d get angry about it. He’d never had the longest fuse, mind you. Read any of the articles about him and they’ll say something to that effect. Lara got that right. We’ll come on to Lara in a bit. Not suffering fools gladly. That’s how they put it. Being angry with himself, though – that was new. The tiredness as well. Not the kind of tiredness you get at the end of a hard day. It was like being hit by a wave. That’s how sudden it was. It smashed him. And for a time he had this sensation of trickling water, in his head. That must have been hard to live with. As if there was cold water trickling inside his skull, like a small pipe was leaking in there. It stopped, after a year or so. But still, it would have driven me round the bend.

[Indistinct]

Same with a stroke. My grandfather, Les, he was a mild sort of chap. Never exactly Mr Sunshine, but not what you’d call a gloomy character either. A bit dull, to be honest. Took things as they came. Then he had his stroke, and from that point on he was a miserable sod. Forever complaining. Finding fault. His speech was damaged, so sometimes you didn’t know what he was moaning about. One arm was completely useless too. Some people, they come out the other side of something like that with a sense of how precious everything is. A new urgency. Engagement. They’ve come close to the edge, and they’ve been pulled back, so they start to rethink their priorities. They realize they only have one shot at life and they’d better not waste it. Seize the day and all that. That wasn’t the way Les took it. No silver linings with granddaddy’s clouds. He was always getting depressed. He felt vulnerable, like the switch might go off at any moment. It affects different people differently. It’s amazing what can happen. Weird stuff. I’m not talking about just going from cheerful to miserable or miserable to cheerful. Sometimes the brain gets completely rewired. Harry, the maintenance man, he did some reading, after what happened with Curtis. Found some weird stuff. One woman, she had an accident when she was skiing. Fell and hit her head on a rock, and she went into a coma. And when she woke up, she could speak a language she hadn’t been able to speak before. Spanish, I think it was. She must have learned some Spanish at school and the knock jogged her memory. That’s what I thought. But Harry said she’d never studied it. She knew two or three words, from cookbooks and recipes. But when she came round she could speak whole sentences. Phrases, anyway. She’d picked up a language the way you pick up a virus. I’ll ask him where he read it, then I can send you a link, if you like. We’re still in touch. I’m in touch with most of them, which tells you something, doesn’t it?

[Indistinct]

What I want to say is that I always liked him. Curtis, I mean, not Harry. But I liked Harry too. Some of us thought Curtis was nicer after the accident, and maybe he was, but he was always a good employer. I’ve never worked for anyone nasty, and being in the garden you don’t have the kind of contact that someone in the kitchen has. You follow me? A gardener, you tend to get respect. It’s your special area. Your domain. But some of the others, they’d encountered some pretty unpleasant people before Curtis. Even the ones who are nice enough don’t seem to understand that you might have a life of your own. Some of them. A lot of them. Or if they do, they don’t think it has anything to do with them. You couldn’t say that of Curtis. We had proper holidays. The accommodation was good, and the pay. The hours were reasonable. People with that kind of money, they tend to expect everyone to be at their beck and call, all hours of the day and night. He wasn’t like that. Still, I think I preferred the later Curtis. He was gentler. He’d talk to you. Well, he talked to us before, but he gave you more time, after the accident. You could almost forget you were working for him. Almost. Before, he was operating at full throttle pretty well all day. Especially after Lily died. She could get him to take a few hours off, once in a while. But he was still putting in the fourteen-hour shifts. There was a huge office on the top floor, in the palace. Afterwards, he took things more slowly. He was detaching himself. But that’s not what happened right away. At first, it was all about recovering. That took a while, for the strength to come back. Most of it. Even then, it was apparent that the old Curtis wasn’t coming back. We talked about Curtis the First and Curtis the Second. Some of us did.

[Inaudible]

… and there wasn’t anything to talk about until January. Conrad and Marisa and the kids came up for Christmas, and Karolina was there for a couple of days. We’ll come on to Karolina. Conrad was the number one son. By preference, not by age. Lara’s article gets that right. He was on his father’s wavelength, and he worked for the company, whereas Carl wasn’t and didn’t. We all preferred Conrad too. I can’t think of anyone who didn’t. But we can talk about the boys later. They can’t be left out of the story. Anyway, it was a quiet Christmas and then Lara reappeared, in January. We’d seen her before, a year earlier. That piece she wrote about Curtis and his collection, and the art market – have you read it? OK, so that’s when she first met him, in London. An interview at the office. The office would have made an impression. I’ve never been there but Asil showed me on his phone. We’re talking about a room the size of a tennis court, and you could see half of Europe out the windows. Curtis’s PA as well. Josefine the Danish goddess. So gorgeous you actually couldn’t look at her for more than two seconds at a time. That’s what Lara said. When you saw that face it was like you’d walked smack into a glass door. Anyway, Josefine gave her a quick tour of the premises, because some of the collection was on the walls of the HQ, then Curtis gave her ten minutes of his time, at the end of the day, and ten minutes turned into an hour, because they’d really hit it off, and the interview went all over the place. The future of the high street, globalization, China, Europe, all sorts of stuff. It gave her the idea of doing a book about him, or with him. Ten Secrets of the Inexcusably Rich. That’s what Harry reckoned it should be called. But that’s not what it was going to be. It was supposed to be about bigger things, as Curtis saw them. Social questions, political questions. The future. That’s why she’d been up to Scotland, to talk about what the book might be. There were some conversations in London too, at the London house. She told me that. It must have been going well, because they did a trip to the Midlands. Back to his roots. Make a note of that, for later. It could be a good scene. So now she’d returned, and some of us assumed that she’d become the designated lady friend. Can’t say I was ever one hundred per cent convinced on that score. Maybe they slept together when she first came up. It’s possible. We can talk about the women as well, if there’s time. But the second visit, I didn’t think the relationship was what you’d call a romantic one. I’m no expert on body language, but it seemed pretty clear to me that this was a professional call, to get the book idea moving again. Say ninety-five per cent professional. It wasn’t going to be a straightforward business, with Curtis not firing on all cylinders, but Lara wasn’t going to give up. And I suppose you could say she was helping him to reconnect with himself. Because it was quite a story, his life.

[Pause]

Is this the place to talk about Lily? If you’re going to have flashbacks, Lily has to be the main one. More than the mother, I’d say. She was lovely. Lily, that is. Not a stunner, like Josefine, but lovely. The thing about Lily is that she had style. Her own style. Very simple, very subtle. You look at pictures of what women were wearing around the time she met Curtis. Women of Lily’s age and background, I mean. Smart women. Bear in mind she was older than Curtis. Five years. Not a lot, but still. She was thirty when they met, so that’s another thing to remember. Not many men go for an older woman. And a woman with a child in tow. The clothes at that time were horrible. Lapels out to here. Shoulders like you’ve left the coat-hanger in. But there was a photo of Lily in the piano room, taken when they’d just got together, and she looks terrific. It was the way she combined things. It was like she could sense what was going to look outdated in ten years’ time. I’m not saying you’d mistake the picture for something taken recently. It’s obviously not recent. But it’s not madly out of date. That’s my point. There were quite a few pictures of Lily around the place, and she looks good in all of them, but none of them really did her justice. Photos don’t see what the eye sees, do they? The whole person is what’s attractive. You need to see them moving, talking. Being in the world. But the camera takes the life out of you, unless you’re dealing with an expert. You know what I mean? And she was completely genuine. One of those people, they say Hello and you like them right away. First time I met her, I knew. It was all in the eyes. Windows of the soul and all that. A lot of women in her situation, the money would change them, and not for the better. Men and women, it’s the same. It can poison you. A risk I’d be willing to take, mind you. But seriously, having money like that, it cuts you off. You start thinking that the money is God’s way of telling you you’re special. One of the chosen. It’s what you deserve. And a kind of armour grows around you. You can’t touch people and they can’t touch you. But Lily wasn’t like that. She enjoyed the trappings, sure. The houses. The land. All that. Who wouldn’t? But for her it wasn’t the main thing. She stayed herself. And you have to remember that when she met Curtis, she was better off than he was. The husband, he had a very good job. She had a comfortable life, a life that a lot of people would have envied, and she left it for Curtis the shop-boy. So it was never about the money. She had a big house, her own car, good clothes. All she had to do was stay at home and look after the kid. That was the deal, apparently. What I gathered. Stay at home, be provided for. I couldn’t quite fathom it, knowing Lily. Hard to imagine her accepting a situation like that. Maybe she’d thought that was the life she wanted. Presumably he was a nice man. I don’t know. Must have been. And why give it up for Curtis? He didn’t have a lot going for him at the time. A nice-looking young chap, he would have been, but nothing amazing in the looks department. Not a heart-stopper. Perhaps she could tell he was going places. He’d just done that sharp bit of business, with the place that went bust. He said it was meeting Lily that really got him going, but the rags to riches thing began before that. Lily wasn’t square one. He’d pulled his first trick before he met her. What it was, he’d heard about this shop that was about to go under. A mid-range place, like the one where Curtis was working. Not designer stuff, but not rubbish either. Anyway, the boss had bitten off more than he could chew and he needed cash in a hurry, so Curtis made him an offer. Not super-generous but better than bankruptcy, and beggars can’t be choosers. Somehow he got a loan to cover it. He could always talk the talk. Smooth but forceful. He was taking a risk, but he knew it was all about the presentation. In the other shop, the failing shop, the presentation was really drab. So Curtis freshened the stuff up, dry cleaning and pressing, and he put the clothes on fancy hangers and rented a space on a short lease. He fixed the lighting and the decor, so it was all looking better quality than it was. And he hired a couple of smart young women. Knightsbridge gals. Never hurts, does it? Next thing you know, it’s flying out the doors. It was all about the packaging. And making people think they were getting a bargain. Smart lad.

[Inaudible]

… husband wasn’t there. Not physically. And nothing happened with Lily, not for some time. Well, it did. Very much so, but they didn’t – you know. Not until they were absolutely sure. She had her daughter with her. And her sister. That would have been an obstacle. This was in Morocco. They met in Morocco. Curtis had gone there with a couple of pals. Lily was there with Katia and her sister. Lily’s sister, I mean. The husband didn’t fancy it. Couldn’t cope with beggars on every doorstep. Food poisoning. And he couldn’t spare the time anyway. He worked for one of the top banks. One of those jobs where you don’t really know what it’s about if you don’t work there. You read the job title and you’re none the wiser. Like I said, it’s hard to understand Lily being married to someone like that. But she was, so we have to assume he had something going for him, apart from the bonuses. Then again, the marriage couldn’t have been in great shape. Otherwise what happened wouldn’t have happened. Perhaps Curtis changed her. You’re not the same person with everybody, are you? Talking to you, I’m not exactly the same as what I’d be if I were talking to Harry, say. And Katia stayed with her father when it all blew up. Given what she was like, there must have been more to him than just the income. Must have been. Couldn’t have been a grey man through and through. But maybe Katia stayed with him to punish her mother. And her father stayed in the family home. There’s that to consider. Lily didn’t come away with much after the divorce. The bare minimum. She didn’t ask for anything. Anyway, Curtis was there with these two lads he’d known since they were at school together. They played in a band. One of them was a drummer, and he was looking to buy some drums in Morocco, small ones, like bongos. Don’t know the right name for them. The other lad was there mainly for the dope. Curtis just fancied a break. Somewhere different. The drugs weren’t his thing. Funny how things turn out. The one who wasn’t looking for anything is the one who hit the jackpot. So they were all in Morocco. I forget where. Casablanca would have been cute, but it wasn’t Casablanca. One afternoon he goes to this market, without his pals. There’s a section with all these sheaves of wool hanging up. Is that the right word? Do you have sheaves of wool? Whatever. There’s every colour you could imagine. That’s why Lily wanted to go there. One of the reasons. The colours you see in Morocco, it makes other countries look dowdy, apparently. That was something she was interested in. Clothes, fabrics and that. So that’s where they bumped into each other. Literally. They bumped into each other. Lily told me that herself. They were watching a man at work on a piece of cloth, dyeing it. It’s all natural dyes. Indigo and saffron and what have you. And not just cloth. Leather as well. If it can take a dye, they can dye it. So there’s this workshop or stall or whatever it was, with these huge tubs of dye. Big vats, all different colours. This man is stirring the cloth round and round. And it doesn’t smell too wonderful. It’s a stinky business. Lily and the others have wrapped their faces with scarves, with perfume sprinkled on them. And she’s wearing a hat as well, because of the sunlight. All you can see is Lily’s eyes peeping out. Her eyes were the outstanding feature. Greeny-grey and huge. Someone I knew, years ago, in London, he used to go to these demonstrations in Hyde Park. Iraqis, I think they were. He used to go along just to look at the women. All you could see was their eyes. Sexy as hell, he said. Ironic, yes? Covering everything up, but leaving the eyes on show. Focuses the attention. So Curtis was eavesdropping while Lily was talking to her sister and explaining things to Katia. Katia’s not yet four at the time. I think that’s right. It was clear to Curtis that this woman knew a thing or two. Then she was talking to the man who ran the workshop. Because they speak French, a lot of them, and Lily could speak French. Not fluently, but enough to ask questions and understand the answers. So Lily is chatting to the man, and Curtis waits for a suitable moment to ask her something. Not making a move. Katia was there, and clearly Lily was her mother. Lily wasn’t available. I know some men will make a move, whatever the circumstances, but Curtis told Lara he was interested in what was going on, more than anything. The processes involved. He wanted to learn. Lara’s right about that – everything seemed to interest him. Almost everything. Not sport. He wasn’t interested in sport. Not at all. A waste of time, to his way of thinking. Told Lara he could never sit through an entire football match. Odd, because he was a very competitive person. When you’re in that world, everything’s competition, isn’t it? So maybe sport wasn’t serious enough for him. Not enough at stake.

[Pause]

Where was I?

[Inaudible]

Right, so Lily told him about the dyes they were using, and what was involved, and stuff like that, and they got talking about the places they’d seen in the past few days. Curtis had found a shop he was sure she’d like. It was tricky to describe how to get to it from where they were. He could take her to it, though, no problem. But she couldn’t go right away, because she’d promised Katia some pool time. He explained how to find the place, but that didn’t work, because of her sense of direction. Basically, she didn’t have one. So they met up the next day. He waited for her outside the hotel, and she came out on her own. Katia and the sister were staying by the pool. But he didn’t think it meant anything, even then, and he didn’t have any ulterior motive. That’s what he told Lara, and why would he lie? No reason to. He appreciated her company. Lily’s, I mean. Here was an opportunity to explore the town with someone who could talk to the locals better than he could. Maybe there was more to it than that, but he wasn’t thinking it could lead to anything. There was a flutter, though. A small flutter. He was surprised she was on her own, and surprised at how pleased he was to see her. A couple of hours later, the situation had changed. It was like crystals were forming. That’s how he put it. But it wasn’t until they met again in London that he realized it wasn’t a one-sided thing. She came to the shop. The original shop, because by then he had two, I think. Maybe three. And of course you’re asking: ‘Why would she have agreed to meet in London if she wasn’t interested in him?’ Well, she was interested in the shop. That’s what he thought. They’d talked about it. And she didn’t pay a visit right away. Weeks went by, and she didn’t appear. He didn’t have a number for her. She had the address of the shop, that’s all. So he thought she’d gone. A chat in the market and a couple of hours walking through the town. That was the end of the story. It had been nice. And then one afternoon she walked in, and it was like the door of a safe coming open. The door of a vault. ‘This is it,’ he thought. ‘Here we go.’ But it was still all softly softly, for a few months. Long conversations, but no bedroom stuff. She didn’t leave the marriage until it had become impossible not to. But you’ve got to feel sorry for the husband. Came as a real shock to him, apparently. He did not take it well. Came as a shock to Lily too. That’s what Curtis told Lara. Lily loved her husband, or so she thought. She respected him. He was a good father. Which made it a lot worse, to realize that something had been missing all along. That there’s love of one kind, which can seem like it’s enough, and there’s love of another kind entirely. And it must have been terrible, to become the person who betrays the innocent party. A friend of hers died, and that was the tipping point. A close friend. This realization that there was no time to lose. Her husband thought she simply wasn’t thinking straight. Bereavement had clouded her judgement. She was vulnerable, and Curtis took advantage. That’s how he saw it.

[Indistinct]

… and what are the odds? Of meeting like that. Curtis and Lily, happening to be at precisely that spot, at precisely the same time, hundreds and hundreds of miles from home. A few minutes one way or the other, and their paths would never have crossed. Those two people, there at exactly the same moment. There, of all places. It’s incredible. Makes you think.

[Pause]

She jumped, and never regretted it, even though Katia turned out to be a problem. We can talk about that. But taking up with Curtis was the right thing to do. The marriage lasted. I think he was devoted to her. If you talk to some of the others, they might have a different angle. Harry will. His line was that it was more a case of Lily sticking with him. Some of those women in London. You’ve got to wonder. All those business trips. If you’re rich, you’re never lonely. That’s what Harry will tell you. In that world, the occasional one-nighter isn’t incompatible with being devoted to your wife. Different rules apply. And Harry’s right, of course. You see it all the time. The rich don’t pay – that’s what Harry was always saying. They get away with things. Some of us thought that something was going on with Karolina. And there definitely was, after Lily died. No doubt about it. But before? I’m not so sure. He never got over Lily, if you ask me. Losing her. The women afterwards, they were a way of keeping his head above water. Some men take to drink. With Curtis it was the women, for a few years. But perhaps he was never perfectly faithful. Who knows? You can’t tell how much guilt is in the mix. Karolina – now, that would be a juicy role for someone. Quite a specimen, she was. Still is, I imagine. Karolina Fahrni. F-A-H-R-N-I. Shouldn’t be too hard to track her down, with a name like that. She lives in London. And other places. She spent a lot of time in New York. But London was home, if anywhere was. She’s Swiss. It would be really useful if you could get to talk to her, because she’ll know things we don’t. But I suspect she wouldn’t co-operate. Not the gossipy type. Discretion’s very important in her line of work. La Stupenda, Harry called her. She was Curtis’s art expert. About a year after he lost Lily, that’s when it began, I’d say. A bit more, maybe. I saw Karolina quite a few times before Lily died, and I’m pretty certain nothing was going on then. After, though, things changed. For a while Karolina didn’t come up to Scotland. Around a year. And when she reappeared, it was pretty obvious. But not after the crash. After the crash, nobody shared a room with Curtis, as far as we were aware. We would have known. It was an odd relationship, I thought. With Karolina. Curtis looked up to her, and he was someone who didn’t look up to many people. And she was an extremely attractive woman. Not gorgeous like Josefine was gorgeous, but powerfully impressive. A thoroughbred. And very clever. But it seemed like they had a relationship only when they were together, physically. I know what you’re going to say: ‘How could we have known?’ Of course, we couldn’t be absolutely sure. We were bystanders. But when she came up to the palace, you had this sense that there hadn’t been much contact in the meantime. And when she left, it was all very cool. Like each of them was going back to their lives. Does that make sense? And there were other women, like I said. The sex women, Harry called them. Not paid-for. God no. I don’t mean that. But women you might see two or three times, and never again. Not proper relationships. With Karolina it was a proper relationship, but a peculiar one. Well, it seemed a bit peculiar to me. They enjoyed being with each other, but it wasn’t what I’d call a romance. Not what most people would call a romance. They’d go months without seeing each other. Neither of them was the centre of the other’s universe. You could tell, when she turned up. It wasn’t like: ‘At last, together again.’ It was more: ‘Really good to see you.’ Harry always used to say that they are not like us, those people. Different values. Different priorities. Anyway, Karolina was a highly intelligent woman. And the way she walked, it was like her head was made out of glass and only lightly attached. Always groomed to the highest finish. Harry used to joke that when Karolina was a baby she would have worn nappies by Chanel. She knew how to carry herself, and the physique was outstanding. Sleek. Magnificent legs. When I last saw her she wasn’t far short of fifty, and honestly, she could have worn the clothes she was wearing when I first set eyes on her. No injections or fillers or any of that nonsense. She used the gym, but not like Jan. With Jan it was all a bit obsessive. As soon as he bought the place in Scotland, Curtis had one of the outbuildings converted into an exercise room. A proper gym, with all these machines and weights, and a sauna. He used it every day, before the crash. Looked after himself. Same with Karolina, and she had the appetite of a butterfly, I can tell you that. So elegant. She was someone you couldn’t imagine hurrying anywhere, or raising her voice. Really quite something.

[Indistinct]

… French, Italian, German, English. Plus Spanish. Five. And when she spoke to you, you couldn’t hear any accent at all. Nothing. Could have been Oxford born and bred. Anyway, she bought his pictures for him. Started out with one of the big auction houses in London, then she went freelance. She advised him what to buy. Or told him. That was his main extravagance, the art. Yes, there were the houses and the cars, but they’re more or less compulsory, when you’re in Curtis’s position. But he wasn’t flashy. I know, you look at the palace and you say: ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ A house with twenty bedrooms and its own private lake. Point taken. But he wasn’t one of those people who has loads of expensive watches, for example, like other people have socks. He had just one, as far as I know, and it wasn’t a stupidly expensive thing. Some of them, they cost a quarter of a million. More, even. Crazy. A lot of these people, they feel it’s obligatory to get a yacht and park it somewhere in the Med, for occasional use in the summer. But Curtis was never going to buy a yacht. He liked his cars, OK. But having a nice car doesn’t get you in the papers, does it? Even a dozen nice cars. The yacht is all about the image. These people aren’t sailors. They barely know what an anchor does. Photo opportunities, that’s what it’s all about. Throwing a party in the harbour at Portofino. Nobody cares if you’ve got a Ferrari. In that world, everybody’s got a Ferrari. That’s what the daughter gets given for her eighteenth birthday. Curtis bought pictures, a lot of pictures. In every room and corridor. All of it modern. Living artists. Some well-known names. Not big to you and me maybe, but to people who know about that sort of thing. Not only big names, though. Some of them just out of college. Every year he’d buy a batch, to encourage them, I suppose. Karolina found them for him, and Curtis signed the cheques. Every year, a dozen pictures came in, a few went out. There was a lot of wall-space to cover. The palace, the London house, and one in Italy. Some of them were terrible. The pictures, I mean, not the houses. Well, I thought they were terrible. There was this huge green thing in the snooker room. Like what you’d see at the bottom of an abandoned swimming pool. A mess of green scum and slime. The paint was about an inch thick, and greasy. Harry said he must have bought it to go with the snooker table. Karolina would tell Curtis where to hang the pictures, and she’d fly in to make sure everything had been done properly. Very precise, she was. Nobody told Curtis what to do, about anything, except Lily and Karolina. If Karolina said a picture had to come down six inches, he wouldn’t argue. Because you couldn’t just bung it on the wall. Other stuff had to be shuffled around, so everything worked with everything else. All about composition and harmony, you see. The pictures were in conversation with each other. I heard her say that. As far as Curtis was concerned, Karolina was always right. Like perfect pitch. She had a perfect eye. That’s what he told Lara. But really, some of that stuff was junk, if you ask me. In one of the bedrooms there was a picture with swear words all over it and a woman lying on the bed, with everything on show. Whoever did that one, they just couldn’t draw.

[Indistinct]

… she was sure of her own judgement. Arguing with Karolina would have been a mug’s game. The way Curtis listened to her, it wasn’t like the way he listened to anyone else. Years ago, he bought this massive photograph of the sea. The sea and the sky. Black and white. Grey and grey, more like. A wide expanse of dullness. Slightly different greys, and a bit of a shine on the water, but no waves. The water as smooth-looking as the sky, as if everything was made of metal. I overheard Karolina talking to him, after it had gone up in the hall. It looked quite good there. Not something I’d want to live with, but it looked nice, all that grey against the white. And she was talking to him about it and about the photographer. Japanese, he was. She had a lot to say on the subject. A real lecture, and Curtis was lapping it up, like he had the fount of all knowledge standing beside him. I’ll tell you something, while I’m thinking of it. A few weeks after he came back to Scotland, after the accident, Rosa was coming down the main staircase, and she saw him standing in front of that picture, with his back to her. She stopped, not wanting to disturb him, but then he called her to come over. He hadn’t turned round. He could tell who it was from the sound of her footsteps. So she went up to him and he said to her: ‘What do you think?’ Meaning what did she think about the picture. It was a surprise, being asked like that. And she didn’t really think anything about it. What was there to think about? It was a big grey picture of the sea. What could she tell him? So she just said that she liked it, which she did, quite. It was very peaceful. Something along those lines. Curtis didn’t look at her. He just kept looking at the picture, and nodded, as if she’d said something really deep. After a minute he said: ‘Thank you.’ The same thing happened to me, with a different one, in the corridor leading to one of the back doors. It was like a tabletop with a load of stuff glued to it. Nozzles and tubes and bottle tops. All of them pink. And there were pieces of paper as well. Pages from magazines and books. Instruction manuals, and adverts. I don’t think I ever tried to read them. Not sure if you were meant to. It was only scraps, and there was so much gunk slathered over them, you couldn’t read much even if you wanted to. Anyway, he asked me the same question: ‘What do you think?’ And I was just the same as Rosa. Caught me on the hop, it did. I had a bit of a panic. But he looked at me and it was quite strange, because there was something personal in it, the way he looked at me. I mean more personal than before. Before, he was always polite. He wasn’t one of those who bark at the underlings. Some of them wouldn’t say thank you even if you’d caught their kid falling out of a window. Curtis was never like that. He’d say ‘Thank you’ and ‘Please’. It makes a difference, even though you’ve got to do what he’s asking you to do. This occasion, though, when he asked me what I thought, it was like I was a visitor. And he could see I was struggling, so he said to me: ‘Be honest.’ And he smiled when he said it. It was a nice smile. Sincere. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I found it touching. I said to him: ‘I’m not really sure, to tell you the truth.’ That’s all I could think of, but he waited, so I had to say something else, and I said: ‘I can’t say I quite get it.’ Then he looked back at the picture, and gave it a good long look, like he was checking every bit of it. Then he gave me another smile and said: ‘Not sure I do either.’ I’ll always remember that.

[Indistinct]

I’ll have to say something about the flings, if you want to call them that. After Lily but before the accident. They could be part of the scenario. Non-speaking roles, maybe. Quite a few of them, and none of them plain, it has to be said. And none of them Curtis’s age either. Thirtyish, on average. Age that Lily was when they met. Make of that what you will. Might mean something. Might not. We’re talking about Curtis in his mid-fifties at this point. Before Karolina became a thing, a woman called Alessia stayed up in Scotland a few times. She was one of the designers. Pencil skirts and close-fitting little jackets and blood-red lipstick. Sexy retro. And you could still pick up her scent a week after she’d gone home. She carried on like we were living in Siberia. Lady Two-Scarves, we called her. Very ebullient, she was. Excitable. As a rule, he liked them darker. Temperamentally, I mean. There weren’t many sunny women. Most of them seemed nice, and/or interesting. Or weird. There was one we called Dead Peculiar. Striking, and sort of glamorous. Artfully casual. Tatty jeans, but with a shirt that you knew must have cost a packet. Good figure and hair – blonde, masses of it. What she did for a living was stuff animals. Not your run-of-the-mill taxidermist, though. She didn’t do things you’d put in a glass case or hang on the wall. Compositions, they were. That’s what she called them. A stoat inside a horse’s skull. A heron and half a dozen mouse skeletons. Creepy little scenes. She’d put animals together that you’d never find together in reality, and have them posed like they were up to something but you had no idea what it was. And the thing is, she was a vegan. Really picky about her food. She said she only used animals that had died from natural causes. Or roadkill. Killed by a glancing blow, presumably. I mean, proper roadkill is basically a pizza with fur, isn’t it? Nothing you could do with that. But she could resurrect things that didn’t look very promising. All you need is the skin and the skull and the limbs. She explained it to me. You make a body of fabric and stretch the skin over it. The skin is the thing. If the number 27 has run over it a few times there’s probably not much hope. Can’t imagine why anyone would go into that line of work, unless they were a bit warped in the head. She was definitely on the strange side. She had this way of laughing suddenly, at odd moments. A sort of yelp. And you’d see her in the garden, with this face on her, like she was doing some heavy philosophical thinking, about life and death and infinity and everything. I’d be thinking: ‘OK love, I get it – you’re a deep one.’ Harry said he heard her yelling in the middle of the night, and couldn’t tell if she was having a bad turn or a lot of fun, if you know what I mean. He thought she was probably an Olympic-standard sex athlete. She was at the palace three times, I think. She could be funny, though. She told Viv a good one, about a chimp. Have we got time? OK. She was on the lookout for a chimpanzee, because she’d been commissioned to make a display with a chimp in it. So she’d notified every zoo in the country that she’d be interested in any deceased chimps that might become available, and then she got a call from some zoo – Liverpool, I think. This chimp had just popped its clogs. She dashed up there to collect it, while it was still fresh. But she was driving a little two-seater, with a tiny boot. This chimp was the size of a small boy and it had gone stiff by the time she got there, so there was only one thing to do – she crams it into the passenger seat, seatbelt fastened, and away we go. On the way back, there was some problem on the road. Traffic seizing up. It wasn’t clear if she could get through. There was a woman passing by, so she wound down the window to ask her if there was any way round the obstruction, and the woman bent down to talk to her, and came face to face with this dead chimp. It was a surprise, shall we say. Keeled right over. Out for the count.

[Indistinct]

… with Lily. She’s the key. It isn’t true that time heals all wounds. There was a beautiful photo of her, on the stairs. I don’t know where it was taken. Somewhere hot. She was standing on a flight of white steps, with this deep blue sky behind her, looking very tanned, very happy. I remember one afternoon, seeing Curtis looking at that picture. I’ll never forget it, because the way he was looking at it, as if he was trying to remember every last thing about it, about the moment when it was taken, but not getting everything he wanted. Like it was a clue.

[Inaudible]

… it was obvious right away. We liked Curtis. Most of us did. We liked working for him. But with Lily it was different. A real affection. If you’d met her in the street, you’d never have guessed she was worth a fortune. You’d see that the clothes weren’t from M&S, but it was never ostentatious. And the way she talked to you, it was genuine. That’s the word. One hundred per cent genuine. Connie, she was the cook when I started, she loved her. Lily would give her a hand from time to time, to learn from her. Because Connie was a brilliant cook. Hundreds and hundreds of recipes in her head, from all over the world. Give her a bag of random ingredients and she could make something wonderful from it. Working at a hotel in the Maldives, the last we heard of her. Decided she needed more UV than you get in the Highlands.

[Pause]

Curtis always said that he wouldn’t have made it without Lily. He was already doing well when he met her, but the shops were minor league. The big idea was her idea. Curtis always admitted that. It’s in Lara’s piece. Catwalk clothes at high street prices. Might not sound like much of a concept, because with a lot of clothes you trace the family tree and you arrive at Paris or Milan. The chains have their designers, and they’re taking their lead from the trendsetters at the top end. But the idea was to accelerate the process, not just let it trickle down. Imitate and simplify. Get the budget version in the shops in the shortest possible time, and don’t churn out stuff by the ton. In a lot of the big stores, it was rack after rack of the same damned thing. Depressing. Curtis and Lily went for limited quantities. Sort of half-exclusive. When it’s gone it’s gone, so if you see something you like you have to snap it up quickly. That’s what Curtis did. He found a way to make it work. Speed up the supply chains. Curtis did all the wheeling and dealing. They were a good team. That’s where the name came from. Porter was Lily’s maiden name. Which was a nice coincidence, because it’s a pun as well. Prêt-à-porter. I don’t think Lily ever had a proper job title, but she was the second in command, in effect. She knew what would sell and what wouldn’t. We look at the fashion mags, people like you and me, and we can’t tell which things are going to catch on and which are going nowhere. Lily kept picking the winners, year after year. Fool-proof antennae. That’s what Curtis said. He had a thing for women who had a good eye. Lily, Karolina. And good business sense. Karolina was a businesswoman as much as anything, I’d say. An operator.

[Indistinct]

Lily spent a lot of time up in Scotland. More than Curtis. Sometimes he’d go back to London and she’d stay, with the boys during the holidays, or on her own. Usually on her own, when the boys got older. They had horses when Lily was alive. She looked the business, in the saddle. With Curtis you could see he was holding on for dear life. With Lily it looked easy. She loved the palace, but she didn’t have many years to enjoy it. Seven years. Not much more than that. The labyrinth, she called it. Months after moving in, she was still finding rooms she never knew existed. Her death was so sudden. Curtis didn’t come up to Scotland for quite a while. He stayed in London. I let myself down badly when I saw him again. Couldn’t stop blubbering. But Curtis was amazing. It had hit him so hard. You could see that. It was like he’d shut off some part of himself in order to keep functioning. He was more Curtis than ever. Business Curtis, I mean. Very long hours in the office. No small talk. Hardly any. He got on with it. And we didn’t see Carl for a long time, after Lily died, but Conrad came up with his father. Long walks and serious talking. Perhaps being groomed for a bigger role. Making the dynasty secure. I’m not so sure, though. My take, for what it’s worth, is that Curtis definitely rated Conrad higher than Carl, and found him a niche within the company, maybe higher than he would have achieved on merit alone. And that was as far as Conrad was going. I mean, the job title changed, but there was some smoke and mirrors going on. Don’t get me wrong. He worked hard. Harder than his brother, at any rate. A lot harder. And he was a company man through and through. But did he have the right stuff? I don’t think so. Ambitious, but uninspiring. If you’re casting the part of Conrad, you do not want someone who dominates the screen. You want a standard chap. A Hugh Mann. That was Harry’s joke. He used to say that Conrad was ‘outstandingly ordinary’. You’d have more fun with Carl, if getting wasted on a regular basis is your idea of fun. Having fun was Carl’s thing, especially when he was younger. Never going to be a builder of empires, but he knew how to party. Lara could have said a lot more about that. The things I could tell you. He had this air of entitlement, which Conrad didn’t have, or not to the same degree. It was obvious he felt he wasn’t quite getting his due. Which is maybe why he moved on, to show he could go it alone. Or half-alone, because obviously Curtis was giving him a helping hand. Carl decided he was going to make his own mark on the world, so he started his own company, leasing offices to start-ups. Not empty offices – all kitted up and ready to go. You move in at nine o’clock and you’re doing business by lunchtime. Set it up a few years after Lily died, not long after he’d got together with Jan, which may or may not have been a coincidence. From what I gather, it wasn’t doing brilliantly even before the pandemic, and it’s really in trouble now. Offices have been emptying, not filling up, haven’t they? Rumour was, Conrad wanted Carl to come back on board. Admit defeat and cut his losses. Because there was all the Bitcoin stuff as well – Carl was heavily into that, and what we heard was that he’d lost a packet. Didn’t go in at the right point or didn’t get out before it all went south. One or the other, or maybe both, knowing Carl. Got to say, I have no idea what it’s all about. Curtis explained it to Lara, and Lara tried to explain it to me, but I was none the wiser when she’d finished. Not sure Lara really got it either. A Bitcoin is a lump of virtual gold, but in reality it’s just a huge string of numbers. It’s a string of numbers that’s worth what the market says it’s worth. Same as real gold. I get that. But I don’t get how a string of numbers can be worth five pounds one week and fifty the next, then five again. I mean, that story about the chap who lost millions because he’d chucked out a hard drive by mistake. That’s like going bust because you can’t find your credit card, isn’t it? The water’s too deep for me, but it’s the world we’re living in. Artificial intelligence, virtual money. It’s the way things are going. Another few years and your five-pound note will be a thing of the past. You just watch.

[Pause]

Anyway, like it says in Lara’s piece, Curtis had no time for it – the tulip craze all over again, he thought, but with computers instead of flowers. She has a nice phrase: ‘techno-mysticism’. That was Curtis’s position. He did not approve at all, and neither did Conrad. Two against one, and Carl in denial, I wouldn’t be surprised. There were some mighty arguments in the last few months. You’ve got a lot of material here. So many ways you could take it. And Conrad wasn’t the greatest admirer of his sister-in-law, while we’re at it. Another source of friction. Sibling rivalry and all that. There’s always friction when big money’s involved. Maybe a touch of the Oedipus situation as well, if that’s your thing. Curtis had more time for Jan than he did for her husband sometimes. He liked looking at her, definitely, which is fair enough, because she was a good-looking woman, and smart, in her way. She thought Curtis was a genius, which Carl most certainly wasn’t. I’ll say one thing for Carl, though – he could play the piano nicely. Made us think there must be another side to him, because it was so lovely. Very calm and quiet, a lot of the pieces he used to play. Tranquil. Wistful. That might be the word. Dreamy. Seemed out of character, because he was quite a turbulent lad. Not dreamy at all. Dissatisfied, maybe. Restless. There was a Steinway in Scotland, and an even bigger one in London. Carl was the only one who played them properly. When I say ‘properly’ – he could play very well, but we’re not talking about anything extraordinary. A bit above grade eight. So the Steinways were somewhat over the top. But if you can afford it, why not? And Marisa could play a bit too. Grade three or four, maybe. She could pick out a tune, as long as it was simple. Conrad had no aptitude at all. Both the boys had lessons, but for Conrad it was a hopeless struggle. He said it himself. And Conrad was not a quitter. He wasn’t getting any pleasure out of it, but he slogged away until it became obvious he was never going to be anywhere near as good as his brother. From the music to his brain, from his brain to his hands – the connections just didn’t work. Maybe that’s why Carl used to play so much, because it was the one area where he was the unquestionable number one. I don’t know. By the time I joined, the boys were in their twenties. Once, I was outside, near the window, and it was open, and Carl was playing, so I stopped what I was doing to have a listen. Really beautiful, it was. Then Conrad came past, and he stopped too. He didn’t say anything to me. He just smiled and shrugged, and raised his eyebrows, as if to say that there was no way of accounting for it. Not that it was amazing that Carl, being Carl, could play the piano. I don’t mean that. Just that any talent was impossible to explain. Sometimes Carl would play for the family, when they were all there together. I’m not sure if Jan was interested in music particularly. Not that kind of music, anyway. Not stuff you have to sit down for, like a book. I always had the impression that it was Carl’s private thing. He’d go in there and play for himself, every time he was up in Scotland. An hour or so, for himself. Even longer. But I imagine Jan enjoyed those little family concerts because they gave her husband the spotlight. He could do something that nobody else in the family could do.

[Pause]

Jan was the family athlete. Spent a lot of time in the gym. Running round the loch and up into the hills, rain or shine. The miles had to be done. The weights had to be lifted. Not just a gym-bunny, though. She has her own business. Cosmetics. Not when Carl met her. She was somebody’s PA then, but as soon as she was hitched to Carl she began to set her sights higher. Eco-friendly stuff. Creams, cleansers, toners, shampoos. Sixty quid for something that’ll last you a fortnight, but no animals were harmed in the making of this product, so everything’s fine. Doing very well, I gather. Which was the cause of some tension, I think. Harry thought she was beginning to wonder if she’d backed the wrong horse. I wouldn’t go that far. But I definitely had the sense that something was shifting in that relationship. You know what I mean? The balance of power was tilting. I felt sorry for him, sometimes. A little. He knew he was a disappointment, to his father. Maybe to himself as well. And some of the others thought that something more than admiration was going on, with Jan’s attitude to her father-in-law. Not an affair. Nobody thought that. Well, one of us did, but he saw sex in everything. But an attraction. It happens. And it’s difficult being the son of someone like Curtis, especially the first son. Like being the kid of a great football player. You’re always going to come up short, however good you might be. Anyway, they met at a party, of course. Carl and Jan. A few years after Lily died. Carl always loved to party. After his mother died he was really burning the candle at both ends. Went off the deep end for a while. It hit them both hard, of course. They weren’t children, but mid-twenties is still too early to lose your mother. Could say it’s always too early, I suppose. I lost mine when I was forty, and I wasn’t ready even then. Conrad was with Marisa by that point, so she helped him stay grounded. She was more or less his first serious girlfriend, I think. Not a ladies’ man, from what I gather. With all that money behind him, he could have had as many girlfriends as he wanted, but that wasn’t what he was like. For a year or so after Lily died, you could see a cloud over Conrad, but he was working his way through it. Then he married Marisa, and Lucien was born, so that changed the situation. New priorities. His brother spent nearly all of his time in London, though. Party central. One time when Carl was up in Scotland, Curtis gave him an almighty bollocking, and we could hear that it had something to do with what had been going on in London. The police had paid a visit. The wrath of God, it was. From Curtis, not the police. When it was over, Carl came out to get a breath of air, and he looked like he’d lost three pints of blood. When he met Jan, the parties didn’t stop. She kept herself in shape, like I said, but she liked a good time, if you know what I mean. The white stuff. They’ve dialled it back now, but they’re both still partial to a dose of magic powder. Some of the stories that Ulla told Lara, things that Ulla had heard from Katia. It’s a bit pass-the-parcel, isn’t it? Things will become clearer, I promise. We’ll have to make time for Ulla. But Jan – she’s an interesting case. Nothing by halves. Used to be even more of a party beast than Carl, I’ve heard, and now there’s the full-on exercise regime, and her own company. Everything organized to the hilt. Harry reckoned she’d already had a bit of surgery on the face. Very discreetly. Which is fair enough, if you ask me. It’s worth fighting for. Only so much that eco-toners can do for you, when time starts to do its damage. She won’t go mad with it, like some of them do, but she’s not going to let nature win any argument. Rosa couldn’t stand her. She might tell you something different, but believe me, she couldn’t bear the woman. Used to say she was going to wear out all the mirrors, what with all the time she spent admiring herself. Rosa said she could see exactly what’s going to happen: Jan’s business will go from strength to strength, Carl will return to the company and go nowhere, and she’ll move on to something better. There are no kids, which simplifies things. Jan was not a breeder. Too much risk of long-term damage to the figure. You could see it when she was with Marisa and Conrad’s kids. Just going through the motions of being Auntie Jan. Like she’d read a manual on how to do it. Always remembered the birthdays. Gave them nice presents. Thoughtful presents. But playing with them, that really wasn’t her style. Not the spontaneous type, and she was never going to risk looking silly. Curtis, now, he was a full-on grandfather. The kids climbing all over him. He loved it.

[Indistinct]

… dynamics of the whole set-up. Mainly because of Jan, it has to be said. For one thing, the way she was with Curtis, sometimes. Not quite flirting. I wouldn’t go that far. Then again. A couple of times, I saw her talking to him when she’d just come out of the gym. Tiny top, tight shorts. Glowing. But it was more a case of admiration, I’d say. Overdone admiration. Maybe she thought that was the deal, with someone like that. You owe them the respect. More than respect. One step down from worship. And her attitude with Marisa. I tell you, you’ve got some material to work with there. Marisa is an interesting woman. More interesting than Jan, I’d say, though not the same trophy value. She’s the brightest of the bunch. Not in terms of being enterprising, but in terms of exams and that. Qualifications. She did a double dose at university. A geography degree and then another one. Geology. She could explain what you were looking at, when you looked at the hills. How it was formed, and when, and how it would have changed over time. She had a good brain, and that’s one of the reasons Curtis liked her company. They’d go for a walk together sometimes, and he never did that with Jan. Walking was not Jan’s idea of fun. Strolling is not exercise. Conrad and Marisa – they were totally solid. Them and the two kids, it was like a model family. The classic two plus two. The way they met, it was quite cute. In the Covent Garden branch. Conrad would do spot-checks, dropping in unannounced, to check that everything was as it should be. So he called in at the Covent Garden shop and there’s this pretty woman trying on a coat, turning around in front of the mirror, undecided. And he surprised himself by saying something to her. ‘I’d say that’s a yes,’ was what he said, and he said it in exactly the way he’d have spoken to his brother, say, if Carl was dithering over an unimportant decision. He wasn’t coming on to her. That was the family story, and I believe it. Quite a shy boy, despite the money. He just thought that this customer should go ahead and buy the coat. She took him to be the manager. A few weeks before, she’d split up with a long-term boyfriend and she was feeling bruised. Certainly not in the market for a replacement. In the market for a new coat, that’s all. But they got talking, then it turned out he was something more than the manager, which allegedly she found hilarious more than impressive, and then Conrad surprised himself again by taking the initiative, because he was realizing that this could be a now or never moment, and one thing led to another.

[Indistinct]

… something wrong with you if you can’t get along with Marisa. But Jan’s manner, occasionally, there was something off about it. You’d see her smile, and you’d have your doubts. But it’s one of those cases where you can’t really produce any evidence. None of us heard her say anything that was out of order. Or do anything. There was this feeling, though, that Jan thought she was just that little bit better, because she’d found a way of getting people to pay silly money for face cream. And maybe because of the hardcore exercise regime. Like a flat stomach was some kind of virtue. You know what I’m saying? People who take all that stuff seriously. It’s a way of raising yourself above the lumpy people. Marisa had no time for any of that, and I think Jan thought Marisa was letting the side down by devoting herself to the kids. As if she’d settled for being a housewife, whereas Jan was out there, blazing her own trail. But Marisa didn’t intend to spend the rest of her life at home. She’d put her plans on hold, that’s all. Until the children got a bit older. I don’t know what her plans were, but hats off to her, I say. A lot of women in her position, with that kind of wealth, they’d pay somebody to take the kids off their hands. I mean, completely take care of them, from breakfast to bedtime. Some of those people, the only reason they have kids is to protect their assets. Pack them off to boarding school at the first opportunity. Six-year-old Tarquin running after the car as the parents drive off, crying his eyes out. ‘Don’t look back, darling. He has to learn.’ Lily and Curtis didn’t do that to the boys. They went to a private school – that goes without saying. In Britain, that’s what you do if you have the cash. But they lived at home. Same with Conrad and Marisa’s boys. Can’t expect them to mingle with the rabble, but at least they aren’t being locked up with the toffs, 24/7. Jen, the family she cooked for, before she started with Curtis, the father actually shook his son’s hand when he came home from school for the holidays. She saw it. On the front steps, the lad steps out of the limo and the father shakes his hand. The boy was fourteen, for God’s sake. Our future leaders. No wonder you get so many creeps and weirdos running the country.

[Indistinct]

… always flitting off somewhere for a couple of nights. Paris, Rome, a quick blast of heat in Abu Dhabi. Five-star hotels and lots of shopping. Jan loved the lifestyle. They both did. She never loved the Scottish palace, though. She appreciated the grandeur, of course. All those rooms and the endless corridors and all that land. But after a few days you could sense she was beginning to go stir-crazy. Especially when the weather wasn’t good. She’d get twitchy, like she was in the world’s plushest open prison. They were both city people. She wasn’t that wild about the wilderness. Nice to have your own personal lake and all that acreage. Good for exercising in. But she was never going to spend any time contemplating the hills. If you talk to Harry, he’ll give you an earful. A hard little madam, he thought she was. Very comfortable with the idea of having things done for her. One of those who thinks success is measured only by your bank accounts, and success is all that matters. The wealth creators up there, the drones below. She wasn’t obviously loveable. After the accident, she always made a point of spending some time with Curtis, just the two of them. Sitting in the garden for half an hour. If you looked out the window and saw them, you’d say she looked like a caring person. The touch of a hand on his arm. What’s the word? Solicitous. But when I say ‘made a point’ – some of us wondered how deep it was. If you want to be cynical, maybe she needed us all to witness the attention she was giving him. It’s possible that something tactical was going on. Looking after her interests and Carl’s, I mean. Making sure she got good marks. They came up less and less often, her and Carl, after the accident. That was noticeable. Sometimes Carl came up without her. Make of that what you will. Anyway, which of us can put her hand on her heart and say we’re always one hundred per cent sincere? She could have been kind and calculating at the same time. And the personality isn’t everything. The personality isn’t the person. It’s a kind of performance. It’s what we see and hear. The personality is the public side, of anyone. They’re not the same thing, person and personality. You talk about a TV personality, not a TV person. Maybe that’s all we saw of Jan – the personality. She put a lot of effort into her business, and I think Curtis respected that. She had energy to burn. A lot of energy, and ambition. I preferred Marisa, though. Marisa didn’t need to live that kind of life. All that luxury. You could imagine her as a park ranger. With Jan, she was always going to latch on to someone like Carl. Marisa would’ve been happy if Conrad hadn’t been Curtis’s son. Which I suppose is the same as saying if Conrad hadn’t been Conrad, which doesn’t make sense, does it? I’ve tied myself in knots here. Can we leave it for today?

Second Session

On to Lara. There’s some good material in that piece. The first one. There’s a lot I don’t agree with, but it does gives you a sense of what he was like then. The way he looked at you, like he was looking over a barrier, and he would come out when he was good and ready, and not before. That’s one of the things the money does, of course. It’s never on equal terms. We’re talking about Curtis the First here. But even Curtis the Second, to an extent. The money never stops working. And what she wrote about the charm. When he decides to come out from behind the barrier. It isn’t entirely complimentary, what Lara wrote. Not what you’d call a puff piece. She makes him sound cold, which some might say was fair enough. And maybe a bit too pleased with himself. But I’d be pleased with myself if I’d achieved what he’d achieved. What she says about his charm being turned off and on, according to circumstances. There’s something in that, I’d say. Some people charm you, whatever they are doing. They can’t help it, no more than they can help looking how they look. But Curtis could help it. He turned it on, and it was very effective. Lara admitted that. Even though she was suspicious, it still worked on her. I know what she means about feeling that she didn’t quite have his full attention. That his mind was working on something else at the same time. Which is hardly surprising, as she says. People like him, they’re always working. As long as they’re awake, they’re at work.

[Indistinct]

… turning the tables. As if he was interviewing her, not the other way round. He kept asking questions, about her work, her family, all sorts of things. Sometimes she thought it was a tactic, to wrong-foot her, knock her off balance. But he was genuinely interested too. He had a restless mind, and he was easily bored. There were always books lying about, all over the house, and they could be about anything – science, history, biographies. A lot of biographies. Not sure he always finished them, mind you. Didn’t have the time. He never read novels, though, except the thing that Lara wrote, and you could argue that wasn’t really a novel. I’ll come on to that. He wasn’t an academic type, but he had a lot of respect for knowledgeable people. Like Marisa. Karolina, obviously. Lara, to an extent. No chip on his shoulder. Hard to see why he would be chippy, when he was making as much in a week as a professor earns in a lifetime, but some people like Curtis do bear a kind of grudge, because there’s a little bit of respect that’s still missing. With Curtis, it was the instinct that Lara found interesting, more than anything else. The gambler’s instinct. Being prepared to risk everything. I’d never have the nerve. That was something they talked about a lot. Knowing when to advance and when to retreat. Like moving more of the business online, away from the bricks and mortar. A load of businesses have gone to the wall in the last few years. Hundreds of shops. Big names, some of them. But Curtis saw it coming, and made adjustments. And I know you can say the adjustments involved a lot of people losing their jobs. If you talk to Harry, that’ll be his angle. It’s the little people who suffer the consequences. And that’s true. I’m not arguing with that. How’s it go? – ‘It’s the rich that’s getting richer, it’s the poor gets all the blame.’ On the other hand, a lot of people didn’t lose their jobs, and I think Curtis did what he could to keep as many in work as possible. Move them into other positions. Some had to go, though, and obviously that’s not good. But the system is what it is. I wish it wasn’t, but it is. It’s not going to change. Harry will tell you I’m just a fan. Blinded by the charisma. I don’t think that’s fair. There were things I admired and things I didn’t like so much. But credit where credit is due. I could also point out that Harry was happy to work for Curtis. We all were. Most of us. And there’s no point in him saying that you’ve got to work for somebody. He chose to work for Curtis, and he knew he was on to a good thing. Which is not to say I have no problems with someone being that rich. Of course I do. If the world was run the way it should be, nobody would be that rich. Goes without saying. It’s wrong.

[Pause]

Where was I? Lara. Yes. So the first interview was in September or October, and she wrote her article, and it was published at the end of the year, then he invited her up to Scotland, all expenses paid, of course. That was January. By then she was already thinking about doing the book. The Curtis book. A publisher was keen on the idea. Some of the crew thought that Curtis had taken a shine to her. This is one of the unanswered questions. Maybe she’ll talk to you eventually. You could take it either way and make a good story of it, but if you’re going for the romantic angle, if you want to call it that, you’d cast it differently, I imagine. Like I said, I never had much sense that a fire was burning. An intermittent spark, maybe. And the women he brought up there tended to be lookers. Lara’s nice enough, in that department, but not in the same league. No offence. The women, after Lily, they weren’t exactly interchangeable, but they did tick certain boxes. None of them under five-eight, none above size twelve. Having said that, though, we occasionally misread the situation. There was one, a six-footer with huge shoulders and terrifying blue eyes. Almost white, they were that pale. Harry called her Fräulein Humdinger. You could picture her in a black uniform, with a cap and a horsewhip. Know what I’m saying? We thought she must be there on business, because she was so obviously a ladies’ woman. How wrong we were. What Harry saw in the gym. I’ll spare you the details. A showjumper, I believe she was. Anyway. I don’t know if he slept with Lara. Perhaps he did, in the beginning. They spent a lot of time together, and there weren’t many women who came to the palace who didn’t – you know. But there were some. And I’m sure she found him more attractive than he found her. Sexually, I mean. Even though he was a lot older. He was attractive, even leaving the wealth aside. I know you can’t leave the money aside, not entirely, but when he turned on the laser vision, it could give you a shiver. With Lara, I don’t think sex was what it was about. There wasn’t that kind of tension. It was something else. And I’ll tell you something in her favour. She wasn’t impressed with all the trappings, the way most of them were impressed. Being served at the table and all that. Lara seemed embarrassed more than anything. She loved the shed, though. More than the house, I think. We’ll have to talk about the shed. It wasn’t a shed at all. That’s just what we called it.

[Indistinct]

… about Asil. He picked her up from the airport in the 911. One woman, one piece of luggage – that’s a job for the Porsche. I saw them arrive. He did this thing we used to call the Asil Turn. Reserved for female arrivals, for maximum impact. You’d have the house on your left and the garden on your right, and Asil would give the steering wheel a quick yank as the car came level with the steps, so it would come to a halt lined up exactly with the central path. You’d suddenly have the house at your back and there it all was in front of you, through the arch – the garden, the hills. The kingdom. The thing is, the approach road didn’t give you much of an idea of what was in store. You came over the ridge and there was woodland on both sides, so you really didn’t get a long-range view. A few glimpses through the trees. And with Asil driving you’re probably not looking around that much. You’re just hoping to God that nothing’s coming round the next corner. When he was younger he did some rally driving, and he still hadn’t got it out of his system. Not completely. But he knew how far he could push it. Once you knew him, you could relax. Well, not relax, exactly. But you didn’t think you were going to die in the next two minutes. Some of us used to like getting driven into town by Asil. Not in the 911 – that was for special occasions. Up there, you took your excitement where you could find it. So he’d do the Asil Turn and suddenly the whole valley was there, and a corner of the loch, and the peaks on the horizon. All the colours. Huge clouds, likely as not. It took your breath away, it really did. Likewise the size of the house. The whole thing was amazing. I was employed on an estate in Devon before, and that was a special place. Much better climate. But it was about half the size of the Scotland house, and nothing like the landscape. First time Rosa saw it, she asked Asil how much of it belonged to the boss. Everyone asked the same question. And Asil answered: ‘Pretty well all of what you’re looking at.’ He was proud of it. Harry said it was like someone from the catering corps showing you the captured territory, as if he’d played a big part in the campaign. He was jealous of Asil, so you need to bear that in mind. Asil was a handsome chap. He was very happy working there. The house. The countryside. The cars. He loved all of it. Even the weather, the way it changed so quickly. It amazed him, I think, that he could get so attached to somewhere that was completely unlike home. His family were from Cyprus. Perhaps that’s got something to do with why he liked it so much. Like falling for someone who isn’t your type. You fall for them really heavily, because they’re so different. We can come back to Asil.

[Pause]

Yes. OK. So, I saw Lara get out the car, and Asil said a few words, and she just nodded when he did his spiel about the estate, and then she gave the house a quick look, like this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. But you could tell it was a bit of an act, not letting her jaw drop. Curtis was in the office, so someone took her to her room. Alicia, it was. Lara had been given the indigo bedroom, right at the end. Huge room. Beautiful furniture. Italian, modern. All of it chosen by Lily, I’m sure. It’s basically a suite in a six-star hotel, but Lara didn’t say anything except ‘Very nice’. But as Alicia was leaving, she asked if there was a map of the house, because she wasn’t sure she could find the front door again. Alicia liked her. Some of the women were not to Alicia’s liking. She could smell a gold-digger from a hundred yards, and this one was not that type, she could tell. By the time they reached the room Lara had already found out where Alicia was from, and she kept asking her questions, all the time she was there. Hardly any of the guests had ever taken the slightest interest. Even with the nice ones, they often didn’t see you as a person. And of course the visitors would see all the art on the walls and they’d think: ‘This man isn’t just loaded, he’s got something going on.’ A hinterland. The women, they’d always get a tour of the collection. But not the garage, unless they asked specifically. The view, the house, the garden, the art – it was a powerful combination. Irresistible. That’s the fact of the matter. First-timers would be amazed. Some of them, it was like they were in a daze for the first few hours. But like I said, Lara wasn’t dazzled.

[Inaudible]

… she’d ghostwritten some autobiographies, and one of them was the life of some chap who’d hacked his way through half the jungles of the world. He’d seen all these incredible things, but couldn’t describe them to save his life, so Lara had to talk to him for days on end and look at a truckload of videos and photos to come up with the words. There was hardly a single sentence in the finished book that had actually come out of the man’s mouth. She also did the life of some stuntman. Another risk-taker. We have a theme. The stuntman had some tales, but she had to leave the best of them out, because the lawyers would have had a field day. Too much movieland dirt.

[Indistinct]

… with Curtis. People were drawn to him. Like bees to money, Harry used to say. And of course you can’t separate the man from the wealth. That’s the point. It’s the defining characteristic. On the other hand, it’s also what the money signifies. It’s the mark of what he’s achieved. Like when you see some ordinary-looking football player with a fabulous girl. It’s not just the Rolex and the limited-edition trainers that have hooked her. Those are the signs that this is an alpha male, no? Natural selection. Never seems to work in reverse, strangely. Successful women with decorative men. What does that tell you? No such thing as a trophy husband, is there? Anyway, it’s what they say about power being an aphrodisiac. There’s an aura that comes with it. Because if you saw him, across a room, say, and you didn’t know who he was, you wouldn’t necessarily be impressed straight off. But if you know about what he’s done, then it puts him in a different light. Money goggles, like Harry used to say. You have beer goggles and you have money goggles. Which is true up to a point. Yes, people look at you differently when you’re loaded, but you feel differently about yourself too. I reckon the confidence came first. You don’t have that sort of success without believing in yourself. But this is a slightly different thing, what I’m talking about. It’s confidence in how you come across, how you present yourself. Someone can have confidence in what they’re doing. An idea they believe in. Could be a business idea, could be some kind of theory. Something scientific. And you really believe in this idea, so in a way that’s believing in yourself. But that’s not the same thing as self-confidence, is it? That comes when the idea succeeds and people are talking about you. When you’ve made your name. And that’s what changes how you present yourself. The confidence, it makes you attractive. That’s when you might develop the laser vision. There’s the clothes too. You didn’t need to know the labels to see it was top-class stuff that Curtis was wearing. His suits, the way they hung. The fabrics. A different class from anything you’ll find in his shops. You could tell, right away. Even someone like me.

[Indistinct]

… it corrupts, more often. A man that Jen worked for once, he was richer than Curtis. Way richer. Huge apartment in Manhattan, empty for fifty weeks of the year. Hundred-room house in the Bahamas, with a helipad in the grounds. That kind of guy. Too much confidence there. Far too much. Thought he was God’s gift to humanity. But there was nothing attractive about that one. Not a single thing. Boring little sod. And I put the emphasis on ‘little’. Arrogant wee runt. I shan’t name names. You can’t buy the charisma or the charm, but the money can give you a nice thick gloss. It wasn’t the gloss that interested Lara, though. More than anything, it was how his mind worked. I believe that. I do. She found him unusual, right away. And not just because the background was unusual. She sensed that there were depths. Over the years, she’d come across a lot of high-flyers. A few top business-people, none of them particularly likeable. Positively nasty, in some cases. Colossal egos and no manners. Obviously Curtis wasn’t all meek and mild. There was an element of playing up to the stereotype, with the staff at his beck and call, and the amazing top-floor office, and the incredible Josefine. The courtiers. That goes with the territory. But he wasn’t totally full of himself and he wasn’t rude. And he didn’t make a pass at her. She didn’t over-rate herself. She knew she wasn’t Vogue material, but some men, once they’ve made that kind of cash, they think it’s part of the deal. If they want something, or someone, they get it. And it doesn’t matter who the woman is. They’ll try it on, just because they can. It doesn’t mean anything, to them. A sex-snack. It happens more often than you might think. She interviewed this footballer, in his house. Recently retired. Fairly well-known. Sometimes on the telly. Married, with kids. He was hinting very heavily that he wouldn’t be averse to a bit of skin-to-skin activity, right then and there. They had an hour before the wife got back. That’s what happens. A friend of mine, he knew this chap who knew a medic at one of the big London clubs. Can’t say which one. And this medic told him that there was a connection between some sexually transmitted diseases and knee injuries. The infection weakens the cartilage, or something like that. So he had to give the players a check-up and a pep talk. In walks one of the squad. The medic asks the lad: ‘When did you last have unprotected sex?’ And the lad has a think, then he looks at his watch.

[Indistinct]

I’m not convinced Curtis needed to be flattered. Nothing to prove to anybody. But you never can tell. The less they should need it, the more they do. Go to any art gallery, it’s full of portraits of powerful people, making sure that everyone is taking notice of them, forever. Same with a book, I suppose. It’s a portrait. The triumph of the self-made man. An inspiration to readers everywhere. He never struck me as someone who had to blow his own trumpet. Lara’s project, though, might have been a classier quality of trumpet. It would have had a rags-to-riches element, naturally, but it was going to be just as much about his ideas. His principles. Curtis the guru. So maybe he liked the idea of being given the opportunity to hold forth. Who wouldn’t? For me, Curtis was a white hat. In that world, one of the good guys. Off-white, maybe. Not spotless, but as close as you’re going to get. Clearly she wanted to keep the project going, after the accident, even though Curtis wasn’t who he used to be. It was going to be difficult, but she never stopped thinking it could be resuscitated. That’s what she told Asil. It’s interesting what she wrote about it, in the second piece. About reconnecting Curtis with himself. Obviously she puts herself centre stage too much, but still, I think there’s something in it. Before the accident, they’d done a lot of talking. Hours of conversations, some of them recorded. Now that would be a resource for your scriptwriter. Lara knew a great deal about him. She’d become a kind of repository. The repository of his life. That’s why he needed to see her. For the rebuilding process. To recover the shape of the story, the various threads. If you go to talk to a therapist, an analyst, you talk about yourself and she’ll remind you of things you’ve said before, and that’s how you build up a clearer picture of yourself. There might have been an element of that. Or he just enjoyed her company, for whatever reason. Simple as that. He liked talking to her, and he didn’t have many people to talk to now. When I think of all the ones who used to come up to the palace. How many of them would I describe as friends? Real friends. A lot of the people who worked for him, he was on good terms with them. OK. But that’s not the same thing. There was this marketing genius called – well, I’ll call him Stuart, to protect the guilty. They got on really well, to all appearances. Played tennis together. There was a tennis court, naturally. Long snooker sessions too. They were friends. After he left the company, we never saw him again. Same with the superstar accountant. Where did he go to? One week he was there, then he was gone. You take the employees and family out of the equation, and who’s left? The women, before the accident. With them, I was usually wondering: ‘And what exactly attracted you to fifty-something squillionaire widower Curtis Doyle?’ It’s a cliché, I know, but maybe it is lonely at the top. Lara was loyal. That’s one way of looking at it. Yes, of course there was an agenda. She wanted something out of him. Let’s not kid ourselves. She had her motives. And she liked being needed. You could see that. I really don’t know exactly what was going on. After the accident they seemed close, for a while. Something went wrong at the end, but it was pretty clear that she enjoyed being a favourite. Thinking she was a favourite, anyway. She needed to be needed. That’s what I’d say.

[Indistinct]

… the connection with the old woman, Hilda. There were two pictures in his office, the Scottish office, above the bank of computers, so they were in front of him while he was working. They might not have been Art with a capital A, but Rosa was sure he got as much pleasure from them as from any of the big-ticket items. They were long narrow things, pencil drawings, coloured pencil. Like scrolls. Maybe six feet by a foot and a half. Lucien and Jack loved them too, because there was so much going on. Dozens and dozens of tiny people and animals and cars and buildings, so Curtis could say ‘Find me the blue dog’ or ‘Find me the lady in the cage’ and the kids would look for them. What they liked most, apparently, were the devils. In one of the scrolls there were these things like devils floating in the air. Blood-coloured, waving truncheons, but they were wearing white socks. Knee-length socks. And there was a frozen river, with cars on it, and all these things swirling up into the sky. The devils and lots of people. And houses as well. Trams and cats and dogs, all floating up, like smoke. The tiny caged woman was in the other one. She had a flock of birds around her. It was another city scene, but there was a cave in one of the buildings, with a big naked man lying in it, white as milk. Anyway, the scrolls were by this woman called Hilda, and the cars on the river were something she’d actually seen when she was young – cars driving on the river. She did the drawing in her nineties, round about the time that Lara first met her, and she was older still when Curtis bought the two pictures. Over a hundred by then. So what you need to know is that Lara wrote a book about this Hilda character. A novel, but never published. When she was in her twenties. The Muse, it was called. Or just Muse. Based on her real-life story, but spiced up with some stuff she’d invented. Quite a lot of stuff, it turned out. Bit of a mongrel, in other words. She let me read it. Me and a couple of the others. Curtis read it as well. Big fat file of typescript.

[Pause]

Lara was doing bits and pieces of freelance work after she left university, for various magazines, and writing stories in her spare time, but getting nowhere. She started a novel. Wrote fifty pages, then ran out of steam. Started something else, and put it aside. So she was getting disheartened. Then she heard the story of this amazing old woman. Past ninety when Lara met her, like I said, but still very much on the ball. Living at home, on her own, looking after herself. The most remarkable person she’d ever met, before Curtis. That’s what she told Asil. She’d heard about her from someone who knew someone who’d heard about her. There might have been a few more links in the chain. I forget. Lara worked her way along, from link to link, and eventually made contact with the woman herself. In the book she’s called Hilda Osborne, but that wasn’t her real name. In real life her name was Hilda something else. Clark. Carter. Can’t recall. Some basic English surname. Because that’s the point, or part of it. The old lady seemed as English as English can be. But she wasn’t. She was born in Vienna, and her original name was Hilde with an ‘e’, not Hilda with an ‘a’. The river in the picture, the frozen river with the cars on it – that was the Danube. For seventy years she’d been living in England, working as a dressmaker mainly. Alterations and repairs. Some made to measure. For a while she must have had an accent, but the years passed and the accent disappeared. And when you get to that age, your world shrinks, doesn’t it? Not many people know about your life. Her husband was dead and the daughters had flown the nest. It was only when she was into her eighties that her story came out. There was this art show, with a prize for the public’s favourite picture, and Hilda won it. A city on fire, with dozens of little figures in it and lots of weird details, like the scrolls. She was eighty-two, eighty-three. Imagine. So the local paper ran a story. ‘Pensioner triumphs in art competition.’ Something along those lines. Lara went up to York to see her, and as soon as Hilda opened the door, she knew this was going to be good. The door opened quickly, and there was this sharp little face smiling at her, like she was looking forward to finding out what kind of person the visitor was going to turn out to be. And there was a sense that she’d been in the middle of something when Lara knocked. She hadn’t just been sitting around waiting for her to arrive. An air of activity, and intelligence. Within a couple of minutes Hilda was showing Lara a room at the back of the house, with an easel in the middle of it and pictures propped against the walls, scores of them, all over the place. The conversation was so easy that Lara ended up staying for four or five hours. The old lady was tireless. Hilda was like me – a non-stop talk machine. Wind her up and away she goes. That’s how the book starts, with the meeting. A conversation between a woman called Lara and this old lady who reveals that her name is Hilde, not Hilda, and that she was born in Vienna, to Jewish parents. It’s what she tells Lara in the book. Her family was not religious. First and foremost, they saw themselves as Viennese. They’d been in Vienna for generations and couldn’t imagine being happy anywhere else. The mother was a teacher and translator, and the father worked for an insurance company. French literature was the mother’s speciality. But they had to get out of Vienna when the Germans came in. Overnight, life in the city became impossible. You could be standing outside a shop and someone in a uniform would hand you a brush and a bucket of water and tell you to start scrubbing the pavement, if you were Jewish. People would stand around and laugh – people you’d thought were friendly until then. Her father was forced out of his job, and nobody was going to give work to her mother. Just to be allowed to leave the country, they had to hand over most of what they owned. Cash and belongings. They went to France, to Paris. This is the story. Lara’s book. The people her father worked for in Vienna had connections with a French company, so they got to Paris, and life was all right for a while. But Hilde wasn’t in France, she was in England. It’s convoluted, but basically there was an uncle who was certain that Austria was doomed, and Hilde listened to him and made plans that involved a young man who worked for a factory in England that had close ties with a business that the pessimistic uncle owned. It was complicated. The long and the short of it was that Hilde got a job in England, where she married the young man, who had become extremely fond of her. And she was fond of him. Fond enough, as she said. When the Germans took over, the parents moved south, and laid low in some tiny village in the middle of nowhere. But eventually they were rounded up. When a letter came back from France with ‘Not at this address’ stamped on it, that’s when she went a bit mad. Her husband couldn’t help her. ‘He could talk to her, across the threshold, but he could never step over’ – that’s what she says. In any case, it probably wouldn’t have worked out. He’d taken on more than he bargained for. A standard housewife was what he’d wanted, but Hilde was never going to be standard housewife material. Back home, she’d been part of an arty crowd. She’d studied textiles and fashion at college, because textiles and fashion were female territory, but what she really wanted to be was a painter. She had lessons with various artists, in lieu of payment for modelling. There were some disreputable specimens among her friends. Hilde’s parents were liberal-minded, but not that liberal. When they let her go off to England they’d hoped they were saving her soul. That was the story. But after the war she found out that someone she’d known in Vienna had also made it to London. She’d been one of his models, and his muse. In England she became his muse again, and quite a bit more. She’d been quite a bit more in Vienna too. She told Lara his name and Lara looked him up. You can see his pictures in a few museums, apparently. There’s one in London somewhere.

[Indistinct]

… the effect she had on people, and it’s not hard to understand why. There’s a scene in the book, where they look at a picture of young Hilde, taken when she was eighteen, in Vienna. You can find it online – I’ve seen it. The photographer was a woman. Emilie something. Quite well known, apparently. You’ll see that Hilde was a fabulous girl. She really was. An amazing figure. She’s standing on a box, full on, with her hands behind her back, and her head is turned to the side and downward, so her hair is covering most of her face and you wouldn’t know it was Hilde unless you already knew her really well. What makes it really stand out is the lighting. I mean, the body is gorgeous, but what makes the picture so special is the light. There’s a spotlight outside the picture, low down, and there’s a wall behind her, so to the side there’s a huge shadow, twice her size. All these wonderful curves. And the light on her skin is really lush. A perfect specimen. Athletic, but with a bit of softness. Not a girly girl. Not at all. And it was very interesting, the way the elderly Hilda looked at it. ‘That is a very good body,’ she said. Just like that, as if it were someone else in the picture, and she was giving them high marks. And when she said to Lara that her last two years in Vienna were the best years of her life, it was the same thing – it was stated as a simple fact. Not an ounce of nostalgia. She could have been saying, ‘Those were the two best years for Vienna’s football team.’ It was impressive. Lara said that if she’d ever looked as glorious as Hilde had looked in her youth, she wouldn’t have been able to look at a picture like that without crying.

[Inaudible]

… where she gets annoyed about the way the men are always given all of the credit. The men who had used her as a model. She hadn’t only given them a great face and body to paint. It was a stupendous body and a lovely face, but she wasn’t just scenery. The men liked Hilde because she gave them ideas as well. Not philosophical ideas. I don’t mean that. But ideas about the pictures, about art. She was well informed and had a creative mind. A lively intelligence. That’s what made her a muse, as much as the body. But now you might see one of these pictures in a gallery or a museum, and the woman is Hilde, but it’s just Seated Nude with Bowl of Fruit, by Herr Bigmann. She contributed a lot, and it’s all been wiped out, except her shape. Same with a lot of women in that situation. They were interesting people. All people are interesting, I know. Or most. But some of these women were special. Collaborators, not just subjects. Some of them were artists themselves. They should have had a career. Hilde should have had a career. Must be odd to know that you’re on show like that. Some sculptor made a bronze Hilde. He did this figure of her that was meant to be part of a monument, but it ended up just being Hilde on her own. It was put in a park in France somewhere. Beside a lake. So now there’s Hilde’s twin, stark naked, standing by the water. Real Hilde has gone, but the bronze Hilde will be there for ever. Her double, in the nude, in her prime, for everyone to gawp at.

[Pause]

She’d sold one of her pictures before she left Vienna. The Mantis Room, she called it. That’s what it’s called in the book. A big white room full of huge insect-things and a woman looking at them from the doorway. A psychologist bought it. He seduced her, or she seduced him, and then he bought the picture. For a while she’d thought she might study psychoanalysis, but she went off the idea when she went off the psychologist. Anyway, in London she was soon separated from her husband, living in a bedsit, doing hand-to-mouth jobs, and some more modelling. But she wasn’t producing anything of her own. Something had gone out of her. She was becoming Hilda with an ‘a’. Then she met a nice man, who wasn’t too bothered about the earlier indiscretions. In fact, the stories gave her a kind of glamour and he found them exciting, in a way, though he might have felt differently if she’d told him the truth. It wouldn’t have been a good idea to confess that she was still earning money as a model, so she didn’t tell him, and she cleared her conscience by closing down that particular sideline, when marriage was proposed. They moved to York, for his work, and she settled down to a life of mothering and part-time work, and she wasn’t unhappy, or not often. She loved her husband, which was more than some women could say. But still. Her real self was on hold. Or it had been mislaid along the way. The daughters left home. One of them emigrated. Then the husband died, so Hilda was on her own. Forced into her own company, she started painting again. Of course, she couldn’t get back to being the artist she used to be, or had been on the verge of becoming. But there had been gains as well as losses. Her mind had not been idle. She had experiences to draw on. It was like one of those desert plants that burst into flower after years without rain. Almost every day, until nearly the end of her life, she made something. Maybe just a sketch, sometimes much more than a sketch. There were a couple of other exhibitions. Small exhibitions, with other modest painters, but nevertheless. She sold a few pictures, not just to Curtis. Recognized at last, in a small way. Might have been a lot more, though. We’ll never know.

[Pause]

Of course, Lara was getting as much out of that situation as she was putting in. It started as a research trip, then it became something else. She saw some potential. She’d take Hilda out for a drive. That was a nice thing to do. She stayed in touch. Not sure, though, if she was really straight with the old lady. She said she told her she was going to write a book, but I can’t imagine that Hilda ever saw the finished article, not with all the things she’d changed. One big thing in particular. A lot of it was true. The racy stuff. The modelling. Being a muse and all that. Her painting, and the career that never happened. The mother really was a translator and the father was in insurance. All true. But the thing is, they were never Jewish. Very much not, if you get my drift. The real Hilde ran away from Vienna all right, but it didn’t have anything to do with the parents being Jewish. You wonder why she did that. Lara, I mean. For the reader’s sympathy, I suppose. A cheap trick, some would say. Disrespectful. That said, Lara doesn’t make the book-Lara a particularly attractive character. Pushy. Ambitious. Quite self-centred. She tells us too much about her feelings. She’s less likeable than the Lara we knew. Or the Lara we met, I should say. The Lara in the book has the same name as the real one, but they’re not identical. Similar, but not the same. For one thing, Lara Wyatt in the book has a husband. She talks to him about Hilda’s life and how the book is going. Our Lara didn’t have a husband. To be perfectly frank, I don’t have much patience with all of that tricksy stuff. Can’t see the point. ‘It’s me but it’s not me. See how clever I’m being here.’ If it’s not you, why use the same name? Just tell it straight. Tell us the truth. Or make it all up. One or the other.

[Indistinct]

… there’d be some mileage in the scene where Curtis meets Hilda for the first time. That was the year after the accident. September, it must have been, after Katia and Ulla’s last visit. Asil drove him down to York, because Curtis still wouldn’t have been up to six or seven hours behind the wheel. They met up with Lara, and stayed overnight in the same hotel. Three separate rooms, but maybe something happened with Asil and Lara that night. It’s a possibility. Would spice up the scenario a bit. Anyway, the next morning Lara took Curtis to meet Hilda. The old lady was in a care home by then, and extremely delicate. Still some spark there, but her memory had gaping holes in it by then, as you’d expect, at a hundred-plus. The past was like a narrow but very deep ravine – that’s how Lara put it. Most of her life was in the ravine, in the depths, where she couldn’t see it, but she could still see some of the things on the other side. Moments from her early years. Not many of them, but she could vividly describe some things from eighty-odd years ago, and Curtis was beguiled, apparently. Most of her pictures had been thrown away when she’d finally had to leave her house. The daughters had taken a selection, and she’d been allowed to bring a few with her, including the scrolls, which Curtis bought, on the spot. He insisted on a high price. High for Hilda. She joked that it would buy her a nice gravestone, which maybe it did. She died the year after. When he said he’d like to buy them, he kissed her hand. Hilda’s reaction made Lara feel a bit queasy, she told Asil. The way she smiled at him – Hilda at Curtis, I mean. The faintest glimmer of flirtatiousness in there. Like an almost invisible twinkle from a very distant star. It was sort of wonderful, but more embarrassing than wonderful. That’s how Lara felt. On the drive back to Scotland, when Curtis was telling Asil about the things that Hilda had described, Asil was wondering what to make of what he was hearing. Some of the scenes seemed far too precise. Recalling exactly who said what and who was standing where. Was she misremembering, maybe without meaning to? Or she could have been exaggerating, for her audience. She’d obviously liked having this rich man for an audience, Asil said. A charming rich man at that. Curtis insisted on introducing him to the old woman, not then, but later, when she was on death’s doorstep. Curtis went to see her a few times that year. He drove himself down to York twice, but for the first of the visits it was Asil driving, and Curtis told him he really did have to meet her. The last glimpse of a vanishing world. So Asil did as he was told, but it wasn’t a good experience for him. ‘Creepy’ was the word he used. The old woman didn’t know what day of the week it was, he told us, and she looked like a skeleton with some waxy paper stretched over it. He’d never want to live that long. But Curtis approached her like she was some kind of holy woman. She didn’t have any new stories by then, but Curtis still did the hand-kiss thing, as if he was meeting the pope. An ancient lady pope. Asil found it all too much. And something changed between Curtis and Lara after the last visit. I reckon it was because of what Hilda let slip, about her family. We don’t know what she said, but it took Curtis by surprise. He thought he’d misunderstood, or she’d misspoken – but no, that wasn’t it. The truth was out. He told Rosa and Rosa told us. She knew that Lara hadn’t been keen on introducing Curtis to the old lady, and she’d assumed that was because Lara had a kind of proprietorial interest in her. Hilde/Hilda was her story and she wasn’t going to let anyone else onto her patch. Or maybe she thought the old lady might find the attention too much. Too overwhelming. But then there’s this other explanation, and maybe that’s part of what happened between Curtis and Lara, towards the end. The chill. Well, not a chill exactly. A downward adjustment of the temperature.

[Indistinct]

… like the one-armed pianist. There really was a famous pianist in Vienna who had only one arm. Composers wrote pieces specially for him. And the Nazi transvestite woman artist – she was one hundred per cent real. You’d have thought that one was made up. There was this dreadful woman, an artist. Named Stephanie, but she called herself Stephan when she was in drag. She grew up on a farm and started painting with brushes made from cows’ tails. Totally true. When the war broke out, the First World War, she dressed up as a man and somehow managed to get herself accepted into the army. After they finally twigged that Stephan wasn’t like the other boys, she got a job as a war artist. Years later, when the Nazis appeared on the scene, she was very keen on the whole project. One afternoon Hilde was in a café, with one of her art teachers, a woman, and this character was sitting at a nearby table, behind her, with three or four other women, all of them horrible. Voices ‘like machines that needed oiling’. Hilda’s words. Anyway, as Hilde’s teacher was getting up to leave, this Stephanie creature put a hand on her arm, lightly, like a friend, and beckoned her to bend closer. Then she whispered in her ear: ‘You will never be anything.’ Because this lady, the teacher, was Jewish. In the book and in real life. It was a promise, not a prediction. That’s what Hilda told Lara. That’s one of the best scenes in the book, I think. And there’s a terrific bit, after the threat from the Nazi artist, when it occurs to Lara that she exists in this old lady’s mind alongside the one-armed pianist and that terrible Stephanie woman, and hundreds of other people who Lara knows nothing about, most of them dead, and then it hits her that of course it’s the same for everyone – we have no idea who we’re living alongside in the minds of the people we’ve met. We’re keeping strange company, every one of us. This isn’t the only world we live in, the one that’s around us, the one we see. We’re characters in hundreds of different worlds. All of us.

[Pause]

That’s the cue for Katia. Lily’s daughter. The troubled one. There has to be a troubled one in this kind of set-up. At least one. She’s someone who has never quite found her niche, you might say. Never could decide how she felt about being part of Curtis’s planetary system. Some of us thought that the fundamental problem with Katia is that she’s had it too easy. The feather bed was always there. And she was never going to be part of the organization. Not a company woman in any sense. This connects to Hilda/Hilde, and to Karolina, in a way, because what Katia really wanted to be, when she was younger, was an artist. But in her case, I don’t think there was ever the remotest chance. Hilda could have done something. The time and the place were wrong. With Katia, there were no obstacles except herself. That’s what I think. It’s what Curtis thought too. That’s not a secret. Videos were her thing. Apparently when she was a student she did one with her stuffing her face with chips and pizza and guzzling beer until she threw up. Naked, of course. In these things, the artist tends to be naked. It’s all about honesty, you see. Must have been interesting for her parents. Since then there’s been nothing that you could call a career. Not that a career is the be-all and end-all, of course. Or that it’s obligatory to settle down. Just to say that Katia’s course has been erratic, and there’s a lot of resentment going on. After college she worked for some supposedly significant artist. Can’t remember the name. It didn’t mean anything to me, but I was assured he was important. Because it’s amazing, some of these big-name people, they don’t actually do the work. I didn’t know that, until I saw this documentary about a major-league artist in New York, and it was like a factory, with all these young people beavering away, following the boss’s orders. He barely lifted a finger. So Katia did something like that for a while, on a smaller scale, and then she spent some time with an outfit that did the lighting for rock concerts and shows. At some point she went to France. She speaks fairly good French, and you can imagine her going down well in France, because she’s quite striking, and petite, like that tiny woman in that French film, what’s her name? Pixie cut. Selling newspapers in Paris. ‘Herald Tribune. Herald Tribune.’ Really irritating. Jane someone. Jean. Jean Seberg. Same haircut and build, but dark, and very intense. A bit unnerving sometimes, to be honest. Always full-on. And one of those faces where you don’t immediately think, ‘She’s nice-looking’, but then you realize that actually the construction is pretty good. A tense little face. Anyway, I’m not completely clear about what she was doing in France, but she soon came back to England, and hopped around for a while. A bit of this, a bit of that. I couldn’t give you the details. Worked in a theatre somewhere, at an exhibition centre. And she did a stint at a couple of clubs in London. You get the picture. All over the place, in every sense. But there’s always been the safety net, that’s the thing. It didn’t matter if nothing worked out.

[Inaudible]

… conflicted, as they say. About so many things. So at first she wanted to be an artist but the whole business of selling art, of buying it and selling it, collecting it – it all made her angry. The art racket, she called it. Karolina made her angry, Lara said. Karolina herself and what Karolina represented. And Curtis was part of the racket too. A lot of things made Katia angry. But if the art racket had given her a break, she’d have changed her tune pretty smartish, I reckon. She had a lot of issues. I think we can say that. The parents’ divorce had an effect, of course. She was, what – five years old? Just about the worst time. Then again, it’s only a divorce. Not like growing up in a slum in Delhi. Thousands of divorces every year, and the kids come out fine in the end, mostly. Once you hit thirty it really is time to stop blaming the parents. And it could be that she’s like she is because that’s who she is and always has been. I know a couple, really nice people, and their son was like something from another planet. As soon as he started secondary school he was taking protection money off some of the kids. Evil little sod. But the parents were sweet. Colin, his name was. Terrible name, terrible kid.

[Pause]

With Katia and the divorce it was an unusual situation. When Lily left, the girl opted to stay with her father. Have I already said that? She was hurt by her mother’s departure and the new man, and she wasn’t going to live with someone she didn’t know. She was especially close to her father. That’s what Curtis told Lara. A daddy’s girl. Most kids, when the parents split, they’re going to be confused. At that age, you can’t understand what’s happening. The world has been tipped upside down. You think it must be your fault in some way. But with Katia, she didn’t seem to be confused at all. Barely started school, but she’d assessed what was going on and arrived at a decision. A verdict. That’s what Curtis told Lara. When little Katia looked at her mother, it was always there in her eyes. More than disappointment – she was passing judgement. As for Curtis, it was outright resistance for a long time, even when she’d calmed down a bit. Going to the park or the zoo or whatever. Even when she was laughing, it was like she was doing Lily a favour by enjoying herself. Curtis said she looked at him with disdain. Not dislike. Disdain. Things got a bit rocky with her father when he remarried as well, apparently. That was ten years after Lily left, more or less. When the stepmother arrived on the scene, Katia adjusted her attitude to her mother and Curtis. Money was coming at him in avalanches by then. Which is highly relevant, I’d say. Curtis tried, but he got very little reward for his efforts. Much less than he deserved. Less than he’d paid for, certainly. The hostility got dialled down, as Curtis got richer. Increased sponging opportunities, you could say, if you were that way inclined. As I am. And the boys changed the situation. Carl and Conrad. When they were small she wasn’t bothered about having half-brothers, but it seems she warmed to the job. Babies and young kids weren’t interesting, leaving aside the problem of having Curtis for a father. Once they reached secondary school age, though, things improved, and by the time they reached their teens, the boys were looking up to her. And you can see why the boys might think she was cool. An arty half-sister who makes crazy films that you aren’t allowed to see. The wacky clothes. The piercings and the whole walk-on-the-wild-side shtick. Carl especially. You could still see that, when they were up in Scotland together, the three of them. By the time I came on board, she was closing in on thirty. Carl’s half a dozen years younger. The way he looked at her, like she knew things that they didn’t. And maybe a bit afraid of her too. With Conrad, the charm had worn off. We’re talking about the drugs now. And the attitude, which is part of the same problem. Her skin, it was like blotting paper sometimes, all rough and pale. Curtis said the only bad patches he’d ever had with Lily were on account of Katia, and the drugs were the reason, nearly every time. The drugs and the boyfriends. The worst was some slob who made out he was involved in the security business. Ran crews all over the country, supposedly. As soon as she got involved with him, Katia was a mess. Furious one minute, weepy the next, then all apologetic, then panicky-paranoid. She seemed to be having a breakdown. Lily called her ex-husband to talk about it. Turned out the husband hadn’t actually spoken to his daughter for a while. There’d been a big argument, mainly because of Mr Security. The father had met him, once. Once was enough. The only way it could have been more obvious that this man was a dealer would have been if he’d had a hat with ‘Get your gear here’ on it. Straight out of central casting. Apart from anything else, the car was a giveaway. There’s not that much money in running a team of bouncers. Upshot was, the parents agreed to insist that Katia had to sort herself out, and after a few months of denials and arguments, she went into rehab, funded ninety-nine per cent by Curtis, I bet. She went through the motions of being grateful. But the default position was resentment. Of anything and everything. The idea of being indebted to Curtis was something that rankled. Not that it ever stopped her accepting the handouts, mind you. She’d led Carl astray when he was still in sixth form. He swore it was just a bit of weed, and Katia admitted they’d shared a spliff. But then he moved on to the white stuff. Lily could tell. Carl and Katia would meet for a drink, and he’d come back with stories about the half-sister’s latest mad adventures, talking fifty to the dozen. So there were scenes, and the alliance between Carl and Katia grew stronger. He had a kind of crush on her. That’s what Curtis told me. All a bit yucky, if you ask me. For a couple of years Carl saw more of Katia than her mother did. Party animals, the pair of them. And after Lily died they turned it up a couple of notches. Not an unusual reaction. And maybe she felt some remorse, on top of the bereavement. Possible. But Curtis never saw much sign of remorse. Didn’t see much sign of her, for that matter. She came to the London house occasionally, mainly for Carl. Then Jan appeared on the scene, which put a bit of distance between Carl and Katia. Perhaps some jealousy in operation there. The three of them hung out together sometimes. It wasn’t a clean break. Just a demotion to second place. Jan liked a good time, but not to the same extent as Katia. There was something self-destructive in the way Katia went about it. An evening wasn’t a success if you could remember any of it the next day. So Curtis was glad that Jan had arrived on the scene, but Katia not so much. Carl became a lightweight, as far as she was concerned. Couldn’t keep up with the pace. The year Carl and Jan got married, Katia decamped to Berlin. Not a coincidence, I’d say. A friend of mine, her son did a year in Berlin, as a student. Said it was full of forty-year-olds who reckoned they were going to make it as a DJ one day. Only a matter of time. I think Katia tried her hand at being a DJ. Harder than you might imagine, I’m led to believe. She went there to be with some woman who ran a bar or a club or something. She’d switched camps, so to speak. Like my ex deciding he wasn’t a ladies’ man after all. Stories I could tell you. I’ve seen a thing or two.

[Inaudible]

… could even feel sorry for her. He reckoned Katia sometimes disliked herself more than anyone else disliked her. I have my doubts. But Harry’s line was that Katia was a very unhappy person, and was spreading some of the unhappiness around. A damaged character. Not damaged by anyone else, mind you. Self-inflicted. As far as I’m concerned, a lot of it was a pose. Going round with your own personalized black cloud means you must be special. But she wasn’t special, as far as I could see. Spoiled is not the same as special. Harry’s way of seeing it was that she knew what she wanted to be, but also knew she could never get there. Whereas Curtis knew what he wanted, and he went out and did it. He had a talent. Not the kind of talent that Katia could admire, but she couldn’t deny that he had achieved something. Katia had the ambition. She put in the hours, when she was young. But the vital ingredient was never there. The gift. My guess would be, if you asked Katia at what time in her life she was happiest, she’d say it was when they went to Paris together, her and Lily, when Katia was in her teens. For Lily too, that was the best period of their relationship. They did half a dozen trips. Lily’s research trips. Out of the blue, one year, Katia asked if she could tag along. Trying to build bridges. Or maybe she just fancied staying in a posh hotel in Paris. But Lily was delighted. The prodigal daughter returns. Katia would have been sixteen, seventeen. Still at school, but no longer a kid. Around the time her father remarried, so there would have been an element of rebound going on, because Katia had problems adjusting to wife number two, like I said. That’s not really relevant. Anyway, she enjoyed being with her mother, and vice versa. It was an important experience for her, visiting the art galleries. One place in particular. I don’t know which one, but it was showing some new stuff, and it inspired her. That’s the story. It brought out the best in her, apparently, being in Paris, having her mother to herself. I’m sure Lily spared no expense. Overcompensating. It was worth it, anyway. It gave Lily something to remember. A time when they were happy with each other.

[Indistinct]

… and to Katia’s way of thinking, a tenth-rate artist outranks any business person. A creative always trumps a money-maker. Maybe she thought her mother had sold out. Perhaps that was what was going on. Tell you what I remember – her looking at the pictures in the hall. The way she was looking at them, it was like she was an investigator who suspected they’d all been stolen. Because as far as she was concerned, Curtis didn’t have an artistic bone in his body. Or a tiny one, at best. Like an ear-bone. He knew that’s what she thought. The art collection was basically for show. That’s what she said to Lily once. Curtis told me. And he could see why Katia would think that’s all it was. She’d been to art college. He wasn’t educated like she was. That’s why he deferred to Karolina. And maybe, at first, there was an element of show, with the collection. But there were pictures in his houses that hardly anyone except himself and the family had ever seen. So it wasn’t purely for display. Katia was never going to acknowledge that. Although you’ve got to admit it’s a good way of making yourself look like a thinking person. Arriving at the Scottish palace and you expect to see a ton of dusty old portraits and highland scenes, but instead there’s all this mad avant-gardy stuff, and so you think: ‘There’s more to this man than meets the eye.’ Then again, there’s more to me than meets the eye. I hope. If not, I’m in trouble. You could say it was a particular kind of image he was putting across. Edgy art. Cutting-edge retail strategies. It fits. But it wasn’t just about his image.

[Pause]

I’ll tell you about Katia’s finest hour. My mother, she always used to say that you can summarize a person with just one story. Absolutely anybody. Capture their whole character in a single scene. There’ll be one story, one anecdote, that tells you exactly who they are. I know that nobody is the same with everyone they meet. We show some people one side, other people another. I agree. But there’s someone at the centre of it, someone who is me. The one who appears when there’s no show to put on. I can’t see that it’s a controversial idea. We all know there are things we would do and things we wouldn’t do, because of who we are. It’s like the Day of Judgement. Your soul gets weighed in the balance. Same thing. A single story gets put on the scales. In the case of Katia, it’s what happened after Lily’s chemo. Just a few months after what turned out to be the last bout of treatment. And bear in mind she’d had surgery too. I mean, what the hell? So she was recovering from all that, or it looked like she might be recovering. A year later it was all over. The end was unbelievably quick. She went back to London and we knew she was due to have more treatment, but she looked OK. A bit underweight, that’s all. Two months later, it was all over. We never saw her again.

[Pause]

Sorry.

[Pause]

So Katia came up to Scotland. The driver at that time, before Asil, was a chap called Jim. Totally different character. Local man. A real old-school chauffeur. Wouldn’t speak unless spoken to. A big softie. And very discreet. Took everything in his stride, except when it came to Katia, because she was something else. He let slip what he thought about her, eventually. Anyway, Jim was dispatched to collect her ladyship from the airport. By Lily. One crucial fact here: Curtis was in London. That might have been a condition of the visit. Jim took the Maybach. The Maybach was this enormous limo. Weighed as much as two elephants. You could drive over broken bricks in that thing and feel absolutely nothing. Katia got in as if she hadn’t even noticed the vehicle. Could have been a bog-standard taxi. Off they go. She’s in the back, staring out the window. Hardly says a word, the whole way. Sat there like a sack of turnips. Jim thought it must be because she was worried about her mother, but it didn’t quite seem that way. More like she’d been ordered to come up and wasn’t happy about it. But we can misread people, Jim said to himself. The first evening, all seemed fine. Katia and Lily had a meal, watched a film, went to bed. No drama. Next day, they went for a walk. Not far, obviously. We saw them wandering off towards the water. It looked like a pretty serious conversation, but that’s what you would have expected, in the circumstances. They came back from the walk. Linked arms. All looking good. They ate together, and then it all kicked off. About eight o’clock. An unbelievable row. The woman had a complete meltdown. Katia, not Lily. You could have heard her halfway to the Orkneys. It was like some stroppy eighteen-year-old being told she’s got to stay at home every night for the next six months. I was outside, and I heard this incredible screaming. Hard to make out the words, but it was pretty obvious that a lot of accusations were flying about. All one-way traffic. She was back on the hard stuff again. You could tell. Her eyes looked like things in a jar. We thought she’d come up to be with her mother, you know. Take care of her for a few days. Just the two of them together. How naïve can you get? Anyway, the row ended with Katia going up to her room. I saw the light go on. Later on, I saw Lily in the kitchen and it was obvious she was extremely upset. There she was, on her own. I could see her, through the window. It was a terrible situation. She needed to talk to somebody, to have some company, but I couldn’t just barge in, you know? We’re not family. She was a lovely woman, but we were staff, not friends. Next morning, we all had to pretend everything was normal. With Lily, that is. We didn’t see Katia. She stayed offside. I got a sighting of her, later in the morning, downstairs. Lily was in there with her. You could see them from the garden, sitting opposite each other, in those big old leather chairs, with a table between them. It seemed that Lily was doing most of the talking this time. Katia was nodding a lot. Ashamed of herself, you’d hope, but I’m not sure if shame was ever in her repertoire. In Katia’s universe, everyone else is the supporting cast. Next thing we know Katia’s standing outside, holding her bag, and her face is all blotchy. She’s not making any attempt to hide the fact that she’s been crying. The opposite, in fact. She’s presenting her weepy little mush to the world. So we could all think she’d been turfed out. And I couldn’t help myself. I said to her: ‘You’re not going, are you?’ As though I’d be so sad if she left. ‘Afraid so,’ she said, and she gave me this half-second smile. Nothing moved except her mouth. A twitch of a smile, so I was free to make whatever I liked of her answer. She didn’t care. That’s what the smile meant. Then Jim brings the Maybach round and she jumps in like there’s a risk of missing the flight if they don’t get a move on. But once they were out the gates, suddenly she was Ms Chatshow, apparently. Hardly opened her mouth on the inward journey, and now she wants to know all about Jim, and his family, and people he’s worked for. And Jim was a man who had stories. I mean, his brother was in the SAS and his sister lived somewhere weird. Peru? Maybe Paraguay. Katia even apologizes for having been out of sorts when he’d collected her. There are a lot of things going on, she tells him. Implication being that she’s having to deal with crisis after crisis, thanks to other people. Despite this, she wants to know about Jim and his world. The smaller world of Jim. Of course, he’s not taken in by any of this guff. He knows what’s going on. She’s showing him what a nice person she really is, no matter what he might hear in the coming days. He can see for himself what a warm and genuine person she is. But it’s so blatantly tactical. He can see that. And when he looks in the rearview mirror she’s putting on this face that he’s clearly meant to notice. She’s looking out at the hills and doing this kind of tragic heroine thing, presenting the dignified profile. She’s been wronged in some terrible way, but she’s rising above the adversity. That’s the message. As they pulled into the airport, she asked him what it was like to work for Curtis. Offering him an opportunity to come clean about the boss. But Jim wasn’t having any of it, which put her nose out of joint a bit. She shook his hand, standing by the car. ‘A pleasure talking to you, Jim,’ she said to him. Something to that effect. Sarcastic. And the way she used his name, like she was some duchess or other. He thought she wasn’t quite right in the head. We never expected to see her up in Scotland again. Not after that performance. Because Curtis did a job on her, down in London. That’s what we heard, from a mole at HQ. Katia went to the office, maybe thinking that she could get away with it there, because Curtis would have to keep it professional, with all the underlings in attendance. If that’s what she thought, she really got that one wrong, because he took her to some soundproofed box on the top floor and when she came out she looked like she needed a blood transfusion, apparently.

[Indistinct]

At Lily’s funeral, Katia went the full Jackie Kennedy, apparently. All-black outfit, regal self-control. A brief exchange of sympathies with Curtis, then home. Incredible that she ever set foot in Scotland again. What Asil told me was that Curtis asked Lara to make contact. After the accident, obviously. But it wasn’t his idea originally. Lara proposed it, and he agreed. I think Lara’s one of those people who has a thing about the whole idea of family. Blood always thicker than water. And of course she’d never actually met Katia. He agreed to it, though. Since Katia had gone to Berlin, there’d been no direct contact at all, as I understand it. Carl still heard from her, off and on. Perhaps we can say that Curtis the First couldn’t forgive her, but Curtis the Second thought they should give it one last try. And maybe he thought Katia might have improved, with the change of scene. Or he wanted to set things in order. Having a near-death experience can give you a different perspective, like I was saying. You hear the clock ticking louder. Anyway, Lara’s call did not go well. She explained the situation, and floated the idea that Katia could come over. Extending a hand. But Katia just smacked it away. Actually, not even that. There was hardly any reaction at all, according to Asil. It was like Lara had rung her to tell her she’d left a scarf behind. It was no big deal. Too long a haul from Berlin, apparently. Not really convenient at this moment in time. But Lara was not a woman to give up easily, as we know, so she got to work on Conrad and Conrad got to work on Carl, because if anyone could entice her ladyship from Berlin it would be Carl, and Lara knew there’d be more chance of success if Conrad acted as her ambassador, rather than going direct to Carl, because Carl thought that Lara was a bit of a cuckoo in the nest. That was her impression. Then suddenly, we get the U-turn. We hear that Katia’s going to be gracing us with her presence. This is July, I think. Lara was given the brush-off in February, and five months later it was all systems go. Because Katia is now a woman in love. It’s all thanks to Ulla. And Ulla came with her. By now, of course, Asil’s taken over from Jim. He drives to the airport, expecting an ordeal, because Jim had tipped him off about Katia, but the woman he picks up is not the same person as Jim’s nightmare. She’s borderline jolly. Has loads of questions about Curtis. ‘How’s he getting on?’ she asks. ‘Is he still running the show?’ Things like that. You’d have thought she’d been away on a long trip and couldn’t wait to see him again. Almost. And she’s chatting away about Berlin. Asil had a cousin there, so they had a conversation about it. And Ulla was something else. A great big lump of smiling serenity. Lady Buddha, he called her. I’ve got to say that I think Lara’s piece isn’t really fair in that respect. Changing the name isn’t enough. She makes it sound like Curtis fell under the spell of this ridiculous theatrical fraud, and that’s not how it was.

[Pause]

And Katia was looking a lot better, I’ll say that. Quite a transformation. She was actually friendly. Everyone got a hello. Curtis was in the hut when she arrived, so I took her down to the water, and she was perfectly pleasant. Talkative, even. I thought she seemed a bit nervous. That’s why she was talking so much. But whatever happened down there, at the hut, it seemed to have been a success, because they came up to the house together, maybe an hour later. They lingered in the garden, walking around. Curtis was pointing things out, and she seemed to be taking an interest. Faking an interest, maybe, but at least she was making the effort. Then Ulla joined them, and next thing you know, they’re laughing away, all three of them. Curtis and the big German really hit it off. A bit too much so, for Katia. We found out later that Ulla had not always been a gay lady. So Katia might have been wondering if the old man was going to swipe her friend, or vice versa. I’m joking, I think. But I’m sure she was put out that Curtis seemed to appreciate Ulla’s company so much. More than hers. There was definitely still a distance between them. Between Curtis and Katia. That soon became apparent, even if it wasn’t overt hostility. I wasn’t absolutely convinced by the new-look Katia, I have to say. There was this sense of her being on her best behaviour. It was like she was demonstrating to Ulla that she’d learned her lesson. Harry thought she’d burned through whatever she got after her mother died and was fishing for another handout, now that Curtis had gone soft. We don’t know. But clearly everyone thought it went OK, because they were back again, a couple of months later, Ulla and Katia, and that went OK too. Lengthy conversations. Bonhomie. They were meant to come to Scotland the following Easter, but then they split up. We’ll need to talk about Ulla next time. There’s your title: We Need to Talk About Ulla.

Third Session

We called Ulla the demi-nun, because she never got as far as signing up for the complete package. I spent quite a bit of time talking to her, mainly during the second visit. Curtis and Katia had a lot to talk about, and when they were shut away together Ulla liked to hang out in the garden. Gardening was one of her interests. She had a lot of interests. Knew about cars as well, Asil said. Discussing limited-slip differentials on the way back to the airport. And she had a taste for speed. Encouraging him to hammer it on the empty roads. Asil was a very happy boy. Anyway, Ulla had a taste for talking too. Taking the opportunity to improve her English, she said, but her English was near enough faultless. She just liked a chat, same as me. We talked about plants, but it was more about her life. She talked about herself a lot, but in a way that wasn’t exactly self-centred, I’d say. It was more about her own experience as an example of something bigger. As material, if you like. Because our own experience is where we all have to start from. It’s all we know. I’m not putting this well.

[Pause]

She was unusual. I rather liked her, initially, though there’s no excuse for one thing Ulla did that really blotted her copybook. We’ll come on to it later. Anyway, when Ulla was telling me about what had happened to her, the big thing, or things, she didn’t come across as a self-centred person at all. More that life had given her a lot to think about. Does that make sense? And when somebody tells you they nearly became a nun, it does tend to get your attention, particularly somebody who looks like Ulla. Because she did not look like someone who’d have been happy living on bread and water, and sleeping on a plank. Not designed for hardship. More or less conical, if you discount the hair, and there was a lot of hair. Wild, it was. Like a hand grenade had gone off in a bale of hay. They were the unlikeliest pair, her and Katia. And we mustn’t overlook the dress, the one she was wearing when we first clapped eyes on her. Turquoise and gold. A parachute. Your costume designer will have a field day, if there’s a part for Ulla. You have to find a way of getting Ulla into it. Such a big character, in every sense. For some of us, she was too much. Not for me. Friendly is always better than not friendly. But you can be a bit too full of life, if you know what I mean. And loud. You felt you were standing right in the beam of a lighthouse, point blank, was how Rosa put it. I think that’s why Ulla did Curtis a lot of good. Like being plugged into the mains. And you can see why Curtis would have felt a connection. The mothers, I mean. Ulla had had a tough time with hers. A mother in name only, like Curtis’s, and the father could have been one of half a dozen different men. Whoever he was, Ulla never met him. The mother had a different boyfriend every other week. Drunk half the time, before and after Ulla was born. She’d go on a bender with some low-life and leave the kid with whatever friend she could find to babysit. By the time Ulla was ten, there were no babysitters. Ten years old and the girl was having to fend for herself. Her mother would leave her some cash to take care of essentials while she was away. And some of the boyfriends interfered with the girl. Need to add that. You can’t bear to think about it, what some kids go through. Sorry, have we got time for this?

[Indistinct]

OK. Then the mother died, when Ulla was eighteen. Overdosed in a train station toilet or something. And despite everything the woman had done to her, Ulla was grief-stricken. She didn’t have any real friends. Night after night she was getting wasted, often on her own, and inevitably she found herself in a dangerous situation late one night, legless, in a street she didn’t recognize. Lying on the pavement, surrounded by men who had only one thing in mind. She had no idea where she was, but she understood what was about to happen. One of the men grabbed her ankles, another took her arms, and at that moment her white knight comes to the rescue. A taxi pulls up, and the next thing she knows she’s in the driver’s flat, on a bed, with a woman looking at her – the taxi-driver’s wife. Turns out they’re church people. In the morning they give her a bit of a talking to. Not too much. Not a sermon. A few words about getting her life back on the right track. She pretends to listen to what they’re saying. She tells them about her mother. Forgiveness is discussed. By the end of the week she’s wiped it all from her mind. She remembers the kindness, but all the stuff about Jesus has been binned. Saturday night, she gets wrecked again. At two in the morning she’s in some park. It’s a warm night, and it’s too far to walk back to her room. She falls asleep in the bushes, and when she wakes up the sky isn’t really light, but it’s not dark either. She works out where she is. The river’s nearby. So she’s standing on a bridge as the sun comes up. Colours are emerging. There’s more detail with every minute, and the river has a beautiful sheen, with wisps of golden mist. Then she closes her eyes, as if the light was a kind of gentle drizzle, and she has this feeling of happiness that she can’t explain. It’s more than happiness – it’s joy. ‘Rising with the light’ is how she put it. She described it very nicely. In English. Joy was rising with the light. But she couldn’t understand what was happening. This joy couldn’t be coming from within her, because she was miserable. She’d been miserable for years. That was the life she had. Yet this happiness is overwhelming her, from outside. It has no cause that she can grasp. At first, nothing came of this sunrise moment. The drinking continued. Boyfriends came and went. None of them decent. Some were terrible. One of them raped her, several times. One Sunday, hungover, she went for a long walk and found herself passing a church, as people were going in. She followed them, more for the company than for the prayers. She sat at the back, feeling sorry for herself. Good reason to. But in the course of the next hour her life was changed. The faith of the congregation was a kind of radiation. She didn’t know any of these people, but she knew she was in the presence of goodness again. Like on the bridge, with the sunrise, she’s overwhelmed by joy, but the effect this time doesn’t wear off. She goes back a week later, and again, and again. God has arrived, and she sees the path she must take. Nobody has any claim on her. She has no relationships of any value. Something above all the noise of her everyday life is speaking to her directly. That’s the source of the joy. She gets it now. The way ahead is clear: she has to become a nun. Really. A nun. In this day and age. But that’s what she decides. She’s a determined young woman. Impulsive but determined. Without determination she would never have survived life with her mother. She convinces herself of her vocation, and convinces the people who have to be convinced. So she’s about to become a novice, but then she falls in love, for the first time in her life. With another young woman who’s preparing to follow the same path. Martha. Martha has feelings too, so this is a crisis for both of them. It’s worse for Ulla, though, because Martha turns out to be made of sterner stuff. Martha decides she must resist temptation and stick to the road of virtue and obedience, whereas for Ulla the sacrifice is too painful. The faith is intact, but she’s struggling to accept that this is the life that God intends for her. Or for anyone else, come to that. Which makes you wonder how she could ever have thought it was the right life for her. After all she’d been through, she would have been susceptible, I suppose. The comfort of a community, without men. But no need to volunteer for a lifetime behind bars, is there? Anyway, the vocation is under threat, and then, months later, she has another huge moment, like the one on the bridge, but in reverse. She’s walking through a different park, late in the afternoon. The sun is low in the sky. All afternoon it’s been cloudy, but now the clouds slide away, and the light comes in at an angle that smacks full against this huge tree. A chestnut. Half the leaves are glowing orange, like hot metal. Then, as if the light has attracted them, some finches arrive, and they flit among the leaves for a while. Ulla is captivated. Above the glowing chestnut tree, vast clouds are slowly leaving the scene. It’s glorious, and Ulla is again shaken. But it’s an entirely different feeling this time. God isn’t announcing himself. He’s not there. What she’s seeing is the tree itself, the sky itself, the light itself, the birds, not a spectacle arranged to fill her heart with joy. There is no creator. It’s a revelation without God. She knows this world is all there is, and she accepts it, just as she had suddenly accepted the opposite, but there’s no sense of loss. The world is not diminished by the removal of God. No – it becomes more wonderful. This is enlightenment, not disillusionment. All the distractions and complications of life, all the information you have to deal with, she’d sensed that it was like a fog, and that there was a light shining behind it. Then the fog had lifted, or so she’d thought, and she’d seen the real reality, the reality of God. But in fact there was still a veil of mist. That’s how she put it. God was a veil of bright mist, and the world had looked lovely because of it. But now the mist had been burned away, and everything looked even lovelier. The actual world had become perfectly clear. And so she escaped the nuns, to be happy and gay, and ended up running a bookshop-café with a gang of like-minded women. The Berlin booky-cooky commune, Harry called it. Which is where she met Katia.

[Pause]

She asked about my family, my life, and seemed to be listening. And when she came back, later that year, she’d remembered my son’s name. I thought she was a kind person. Odd as a jar of sausages, but kind. She went for a dip in the loch, first thing in the morning. In the buff, which was quite a spectacle, I can tell you. Blue she was, with the cold. And she slept on the floor. There was a massive bed in their room, very comfortable, but it was too soft for her, because of her back. She had a bad back. Viv kept coming across Ulla in peculiar places. She’d open a door and there she was, inspecting the laundry room or an unused bedroom. She spent quite a lot of time in the kitchen, on account of Jacqui, I reckon. Katia was definitely peeved by that, because Jacqui was an attractive girl. And Ulla was not. Physically, I mean. Looked like a giant wombat, Harry thought. The mystical marsupial, he called her. Are wombats even marsupials? Didn’t think so. Anyway, Jacqui was one thousand per cent not that way inclined. So much for the gaydar, eh? Jen thought that Ulla wasn’t really trying it on with Jacqui, but Viv was sure she was smitten, and Lara told me something, later, that Ulla had said to her, about one of her friends, who was totally convinced that anyone could seduce anyone else, given enough time and effort. Absolutely anyone. A woman, this friend was, and not a looker, apparently. But highly successful, in bedroom terms. Ulla was a good few years older than Katia, but age is no hindrance when you’ve got the maximum life force, I suppose. Anyway, Jacqui told us that Ulla needed to let her know that she’d had a dream in which Jacqui had appeared. Subtle, no? But it wasn’t like: ‘I had a dream about you last night.’ More: ‘You had a walk-on part.’ Or in this case, a fly-on, because she’d seen Jacqui flying a tiny plane over the trees. And horses were running all over the hills, except there were dozens of them and they were the size of golden retrievers. It didn’t feel like a chat-up, Jacqui said. It was as if someone was just letting you know that they’d seen you in town yesterday. That was one of her things. Ulla had a thing about dreams. Obsessed, Lara said. Lara was there for the second visit. That was one of Curtis’s experiments, Rosa thought – bringing them together to see what the collision would produce. Ulla kept a notebook beside her bed, so she could write her dreams down as soon as she woke up, while it was all still fresh. She asked Lara about hers, but not so she could provide a dose of analysis. ‘I had a dream about my father last night. I knew it was my father but he was ten feet tall and had boobs. What does it all mean?’ That wasn’t what she was about. It wasn’t psychological. She even asked me about mine, but it wasn’t so she could diagnose my issues. We spend so much of our lives asleep, and dreaming, and it’s an interesting subject. Mysterious. That was Ulla’s line. For example, are your dreams in colour? I’d have thought that was an easy one to answer, until I talked to Ulla. When they first did research on it, what they found was that most people said their dreams were in black and white. A big majority. Fifty years later, more research. This time, most people said colour. Big majority again, but for the opposite answer. That’s what she told me. Maybe it had something to do with colour films and TV, some people thought. But recently, they did it again – same question. Now it’s flipped back – most people say black and white. What’s going on? It’s not possible that we used to dream in black and white, then switched to colour, then switched back. What’s the explanation? It has to be a problem with the way we report on what’s happening inside our own heads, doesn’t it? We can’t describe the dream because the dream is never there to be described. Somebody speaks to you in a dream. It’s someone you knew years ago. You recognize her face. But what was she wearing in the dream? What colour was her hair? You don’t know. A face appeared, that’s all. Or something that felt like a face. If somebody in real life spoke to you, even if only for a minute, you’d be able to answer those questions. What was she wearing? What about the hair? If you spoke to them in a room, you’d be able to say something about the room – the colour of the walls, the furniture. In real life, you’d know, because you saw it. It’s like if someone tells you to picture a triangle. You imagine a triangle, but it’s not a triangle you can measure. You can’t measure the sides or the angles. It’s just a vague idea of a triangle. You ‘see’ it, but you don’t see it. Same when you think of someone’s face. Like Ulla said, when she closed her eyes she could see Katia, but it’s never anything like a picture of Katia. It’s not a crisp image. More like an after-image, or a dream. You’re not really seeing. It has a kind of reality, but it’s not a reality with any substance. It’s neither in colour nor in black and white. You think: ‘It has to be one or the other.’ Either with colour or without. By definition. But does it? It’s baffling, what goes on inside our heads. You’d think it’s straightforward. You experience something, so you should be able to describe it. It’s something only you can know. But you can’t describe it. You can’t even be sure what it is.

[Pause]

Ulla drove Lara round the bend. She could be patronizing. Ulla, I mean. That has to be said. Very much saw herself as a woman of wisdom. But I liked her, at first, up to a point. Until the incident. Asil liked her too. She spent as much time hanging around the garage as mooning over Jacqui. Entirely on account of the cars, he said. Asil was very easy on the eye, though.

[Indistinct]

… there was a kind of competition going on between Ulla and Lara, for the king’s favour. Ulla said she was considering writing a book about her experiences. Evening Sunrise she was going to call it. I rather liked that. Curtis had encouraged her, so she was pumping Lara for advice about publishing, but Lara thought she was at least fifty per cent bogus. She said she could hear the change of gear, when Ulla was holding forth, like she was wearing an earpiece and someone was feeding her these thought-provoking sentences. Too much of it had a second-hand feel, Lara thought. I think she was disappointed that Curtis seemed to fall for it, but he was nobody’s fool. And where do any of us get the things we say? When you think about it. It’s always recycled. You think something because somebody else has already thought it and said it. I reckon Lara was peeved. If Ulla ever wrote her book, it would be interesting. Not run of the mill. Nuns deserve a better press, Ulla reckoned. Living simply, living slowly. Paying attention. Leading a quiet, well-ordered life. You could say that’s a bit rich, given that she ran away from it, but that was another one of her things – no regrets. Look back and learn, and find the good in every experience. Be open to whatever life brings you. Let the world speak to you. Be receptive and let your mind meander. Apparently she was talking to Curtis about the possibility of staying in the hut for a few weeks. She thought it would be the perfect place to write. An inspiring spot. Inspiring and rent-free. Lara told Asil that Curtis had pretty well agreed to let her stay some time the following year, in the spring. Then Lara squealed on her. A strange turn of events. Lara always stayed in the same room, near the room that used to be Lily’s office. There was a short corridor in that corner, a cul de sac, and Lily’s room was at the end of it. Curtis had barely touched it since she died. Her desk was still there, and her notebooks, and shelves of fashion books and old magazines. An archive. Anyway, the door was always kept shut, except for some dusting once in a while. So, on the morning in question, Lara went up to her room to pack her bags, because she was going back to London that afternoon, and she noticed that the door of Lily’s office was open, very slightly. Then she heard a sound from inside, and she knew it couldn’t be Curtis, because she’d just been talking to him downstairs and there was no way he could have got to Lily’s room without overtaking her. She listened. Definitely somebody in there. She opened the door, gently. And what did she see? Ulla, kneeling beside this big wooden chest, an old-fashioned travelling trunk, the sort of thing you’d see on the Orient Express or the QE2. We knew that some of Lily’s clothes were in it, but none of us had ever taken a look. Ulla had opened the lid and was rooting around inside. There were some things on the floor beside her, in a heap. She pulled out a dress, held it up, turned it round like she was some kind of tailoring expert, then dropped it onto the pile. It was incredible. She seemed to have no idea that Lara was watching her, until Lara enquired: ‘May I be of assistance?’ And what’s totally amazing is the way Ulla reacted. She wasn’t startled, and she didn’t say a word. She just gave Lara a glance, then turned back, and lifted the pile of clothes, then lowered them into the trunk, and closed the lid. Then she said, ‘No thank you’, and stood up. Not the slightest hint of embarrassment. She looked at Lara steadily, as though waiting for her to leave. ‘I don’t think you should be in here,’ Lara told her. Ulla smiled and answered: ‘Why is that?’ It was said so calmly, so reasonably, that for a moment Lara was at a loss. Could Curtis have given Ulla permission to investigate Lily’s room? The idea lasted about two seconds. It was ridiculous. Of course he hadn’t. Lara was so furious she couldn’t trust herself to speak. She just folded her arms and stood there, by the doorway, glaring. Ulla was the first to crack. She moved to the door, giving Lara a look that said: ‘You are making a mistake here, my dear.’ Lara stepped out into the corridor, to make sure that Ulla was really retreating, and Ulla turned her head slightly, enough to let Lara see a little smile, a smile suggesting that Ulla knew something that Lara didn’t. That night, Katia and her lady friend had to eat without company. The big chill. And Curtis didn’t come out to wave them off in the morning. Departing a day ahead of schedule. On the drive to the airport, Ulla made some unpleasant remark about Lara, and Asil told her that he thought Lara was a nice woman, which put a quick end to that topic. Asil thought Katia wasn’t too pleased with Ulla. Like she’d ruined the situation by doing something stupid. He’d never been completely sold on Ulla, it has to be said. Good to meet a woman who knew about cars, but he thought she was much too full of herself. Lara was convinced the woman just didn’t see why it was such a big deal, ransacking Lily’s clothes. Nobody had specifically told her she couldn’t go in there, so what was the problem? Why should it be forbidden, when the stuff belonged to a dead woman? The dead are dead. Ulla was all about Life, not Death. Life and Truth. A box full of a dead person’s clothes was just a box full of dead material. No difference between taking a look at them and taking a look at the garden or the garage. They were all Things, and all Things were of interest to her. And if the room was out of bounds, it should have been locked. That’s how Lara imagined she saw it.

[Indistinct]

They split up the following year. We don’t know who dumped who. My bet would be that Ulla did the ditching. Katia was the needy one in that set-up. Whichever it was, in the summer she actually contacted Curtis, to discuss the hut. Ulla, I mean. She rang him up to talk about when she might be able to use the facility, and to apologize, after a fashion. Amazing, given what had happened. Curtis had to explain that he wasn’t inclined to offer her the run of the premises, in view of the circumstances. To say nothing about how Katia might feel if her ex were allowed back on site. And it was like Lara said – Ulla didn’t think that the business with Lily’s room was anything to make a fuss about. She was sorry to have caused an upset, but that was as far as the apology went. Leaving aside the rights and wrongs, it was all history now. That’s what she told him. ‘We must always look forward.’ Her parting gift. One last nugget of wisdom. Unbelievably tactless. Tact must be another of those hang-ups that Ulla couldn’t be bothered with. But she took the refusal without any resistance, it seems. Thanked him for last year’s hospitality and said goodbye, as if nothing controversial had occurred. But shall I tell you Ulla’s joke? Did I mention that? Ulla told me a terrific joke, and I want to be fair to her. It’ll take a minute. Two minutes. OK. A bit of context. I was talking to my brother, Terry. He rang me, because he’d had a win on the horses. Another story. Anyway, I was on the phone, and we were having a laugh when Ulla walked past, on her way to the hut. She stopped by the gate, waiting for me to finish the conversation. I found myself telling her more than I meant to. She could have that effect. It was strange, how she drew stuff out of you. The human plughole. So I told her about Terry and his weakness for the horses, and that I was worried that he didn’t have things totally under control. I prepared myself for Ulla’s advice. A dose of philosophy. But she told me she completely understood his addiction. Any addiction. The feeling that you’re going to hit the jackpot with the next bet, or it’s all going to go to pieces. She wouldn’t trust herself in a casino because there was a risk she wouldn’t be able to stop. And of course she could see that this wasn’t at all what I’d thought she would say. I’d given her that satisfaction. Then she said, like she was reaching into her bag for a treat: ‘Do you want to hear a joke?’ It was the funniest joke she’d ever heard. Fire away, I said, thinking: ‘This is not going to be good.’ It’s about a guy called Abby, in New York. He’s been in the jewellery business for thirty years. Modest income, but it’s steady and he likes his work. One day he’s in his shop, examining a necklace or something, when he hears a voice. Big booming voice, coming from above. ‘Abby,’ it says. ‘I want you to sell the business.’

Abby looks around. There’s no one there – just him.

‘Abby,’ says the voice again, ‘I want you to sell the business.’

‘Sell the business? Why?’

‘Sell it, Abby. Just do as I say. Do it now.’

Abby doesn’t know what’s going on. Maybe it’s early dementia. He goes home. Says nothing to the wife. Next day, he hears the voice again: ‘Abby, sell the business.’ Every day he hears it, the booming voice: ‘Abby, sell the business. Do it now.’

He tells his wife he’s thinking of selling the shop. He tells her about the voice. She thinks he’s losing his mind. Very next day, a man walks into the shop and offers to buy him out. A huge amount of money. Abby sells.

A month later, Abby’s at home. He’s bored. No idea what to do with himself. Then he hears the voice again: ‘Abby, I want you to go to Las Vegas.’

‘What?’ says Abby.

‘Go to Las Vegas, Abby. Take the money and go to Las Vegas.’

Abby tries to ignore it, but the voice keeps on. Every day it tells him: ‘Abby, go to Las Vegas.’ He’s never been to Las Vegas. Last place on earth he’d want to go.

Abby cracks. He goes to Las Vegas. At the airport, the voice gives further instructions: ‘Abby, get to a roulette table. Right away. Go to a casino and find a table.’

He goes to a casino. He’s never been anywhere near a casino before. He goes to the first roulette table he sees.

‘Abby,’ says the voice, ‘put everything on number eight.’

‘What?’ says Abby.

‘All of it, Abby.’

‘I’ll be ruined.’

‘Abby,’ the voice insists, ‘put it all on number eight. Do it, Abby. Do what I say. Everything on number eight. Do it now.’

Abby puts all his chips on number eight. A minute from now, his life will be destroyed. He’s weeping as the ball goes round and round. Unable to watch, he clamps his hands over his eyes. He hears the ball rattling round the wheel. Then the ball is no longer making any sound; the room has gone very quiet. Silence on all sides. Abby lifts his hands from his eyes. He looks. The ball is sitting on number eight.

And the voice yells: ‘Unbefuckinglievable!’

[Indistinct]

… exact words. Like I said, her English was impeccable. Then she just waddled off. Job done.

[Pause]

I should say a word about the hut. We called it the hut, or the shed, but it wasn’t a shed. It was a hut in the same way a crown is a hat. It was a deluxe cabin in the woods. A beautiful little building. It won some award. From the house, it was invisible, and it stayed invisible until you were almost on top of it. Not exactly camouflaged, but it blended in with the trees and the water. And it had grass growing on the roof. Very clever the way it was done. The walls are all wood. Burned wood. It’s a Japanese thing, apparently. But the architect wasn’t Japanese. Finnish. Akseli Lehtinen. He did some work on the London house as well. He came up to Scotland once, when I was there. Very neat, very fastidious. Black suit, black shirt, wire-rimmed glasses with tiny lenses. They have an affinity with lakes, the Finns. It’s in their blood. Lakes and snow and forests. That’s what makes them what they are. Along with the language. That’s a huge and fascinating subject, the language, but I’m out of my depth there. Let’s stick with the hut. There were no windows on the house side. On the water side it was pretty well all glass, but at the back it was nothing but burned wood, so even if the lights were on it didn’t show up. Or hardly. The blocks of wood were inches thick. As sturdy as stone. The design was really simple, but it’s a kind of simplicity that isn’t easy. Everything looked exactly right. Every last detail. And felt exactly right. The door handles, the way they fitted your hand. It was a pleasure, just opening that door. I mean, a rhino would have bounced off it, but it was so well balanced a child could have opened it. The click of the latch, even that was a lovely sound. A quiet little tick. Curtis appreciated anything that was well made. He had this car, they only built five hundred of them, and when they’d reached the five hundred mark they took the factory apart. Didn’t make a profit on it. Couldn’t possibly make a profit. Everything handmade. No expense spared. The expense is the point, I know. But someone offered Curtis more than a million for it, Asil said, and he wouldn’t take the money. Must be nice to feel you can turn down a million.

[Indistinct]

You could swivel the panels outward, so that there was no wall at all. Really ingenious. And with the panels closed it was absolutely silent in there. It was mainly Lily’s idea, the shed. I think that’s the case. She used to work in there sometimes, but I don’t think that’s why they had it built. It was all about the view. From the main house you could see a lot of the glen and the hills, but only a sliver of water. It’s when you got beyond the trees that everything opened up. Lily was quite an anxious woman. That wasn’t apparent when you first met her. She struck you as a very capable person, and down to earth. Very together. After a while, though, you began to see that she was a worrier. And when you met Katia you could see that Lily had something to worry about. Carl too. And then there was her health. We found that out later. Healthwise, the women in her family didn’t have a great track record. She never knew either of her grandmothers. An aunt had cancer too. Lily always felt it was coming for her, that’s what Curtis told Rosa. There were things going on in Curtis’s head that we had no idea about. Same for all of us, of course. After the accident, his way of thinking was different, but Lily was a constant. I’m sure of that. In fact, I think he felt the loss even more sharply when he was recovering. Like he was haunted. That’s why he spent so much time down by the water. All that time he spent in the shed, it was time spent with Lily.

[Indistinct]

… a real ghost, too. Might as well bring him into it, while we’re down by the loch. He had a name. Malcolm, he was called. Jacqui said she heard him once. If it was going to be anybody it was going to be Jacqui. She heard someone near the water, crying quietly. Gave her a funny turn, it did. A nice girl, but an overactive imagination. It happened a couple of hundred years ago, the thing with Malcolm. Dismissed from the big house for stealing a jewel, I think it was. Unjustly accused, it turned out. The item was found, but by then it was too late. He’d been sent packing, in a blizzard. They found him weeks later, after the snow had melted. He was sitting at the foot of a tree near the loch, with his cloak frozen solid around him, like a stone casing, and it was impossible to move the body, because it had become heavier than iron, so they had to bury him right there, and that took days of digging, with the soil being so hard. From then on you could sometimes hear him, crying and moaning, by the water. If you were in the right mood. And the loch in winter could put a lot of people in the mood. In a high wind, with the trees creaking. Karolina liked that story, as a story, not because she believed in ghosts. Turned out that she had a fascination with that kind of thing. Folk tales. She knew hundreds of them. The Brothers Grimm, stuff like that. She knew all their stories, and other stories from all over the world. That’s what Curtis said. He talked to me about her, after she’d gone. We were all pretty certain she wasn’t coming back. There was definitely a farewell feeling, when she was there in March, the last year. We got that wrong, though. It was strange, the conversation I had with Curtis, if you can call it a conversation. You’d have thought he’d overheard somebody making some disparaging remarks about her, and he wanted to set the record straight. Like we underrated her – which none of us did. Might not have warmed to her, but that’s a different matter. Anyway, he wanted me to know that she had a brain like an encyclopaedia. Or a library of folk stories. If there was a story about a young woman being changed into a bird so she could escape a terrible man, for example, she could tell you about a dozen other versions of it, from Germany, Italy, Latvia, Spain. Like she had them all catalogued and cross-referenced in her head. The tale of the ghost servant and the snow and the immovable corpse – it was similar to something she already knew. From Russia, I think it was. She told Curtis that her mother used to recite folk tales to her at bedtime, but she couldn’t explain why it became such an interest. Maybe we can never explain. Like my uncle Rory. Obsessed with the Aztecs and the Incas and all that. Even he didn’t know where it’d come from, the obsession. Such a mild-mannered wee chap, but he loved all the gruesome stuff. Human sacrifices and that. Anyway, Karolina. Her visits became less frequent after the accident. Curtis wasn’t buying much any more, so that would have been a factor. Paintings, I mean. There was a picture of a woman with a wooden face, and a thing that looked like an aerial photo of streets and tower blocks but it wasn’t a photo and the buildings were just models. Those were the last ones he bought, as I remember, and Karolina came up to put them in the correct places. But before the accident, there was a delivery every month, and there was always this energy between them, him and Karolina. I’m not just talking about a sexual attraction. When a new picture arrived, and Karolina turned up, there was a buzz in the air. An excitement. Often it was the first time he’d seen the thing in the flesh, as it were. Karolina would have sent him a picture, a picture of the picture, and that would be enough. He’d tell her to go ahead. Now it had gone much quieter, after the accident, but Karolina was a dynamic woman. She needed to be in a dynamic environment. Harry thought it was all about the business side of it. The air went out of it because Karolina wasn’t making so much commission any more. I’m not saying the commercial aspect wasn’t important, but I don’t think the money in itself was the be-all and end-all. More like – I don’t know. If the relationship is a machine, a fast machine, and one component breaks down, a cog or something, then the whole thing comes to a halt. Does that make sense? Or the buying and selling was the fuel. Maybe that’s better. The fuel was running out, rather than the machine was broken. Anyway, it was different. You could see that. The way they looked at each other. Before the accident, the attraction was obvious. After Lily, I mean. You’d see them talking, and you knew. There was an age difference, of course, but it didn’t seem to be an issue. You could see he was older, but you didn’t think: ‘That’s not right.’ He looked after himself, like I said. And the money can take years off a man. Afterwards, he looked his age. Maybe that was a factor. Didn’t matter so much before, but now it did. I don’t necessarily think that reflects badly on her. Just being realistic. The sex, it requires compatibility. But it didn’t seem like an affair had ended. There wasn’t any pall of sadness. If you saw them together, and didn’t know their history, you wouldn’t guess that something had come to an end. That there’d been more intensity to it, quite recently. It was as if they had both made the adjustments that had to be made, and were getting on with things. The first time she came up, after the accident, Curtis was really glad to see her, but you’d never have thought that she’d been anything more than someone who was important to the company. You know what I mean? But I suspect that Curtis was sorry to be losing whatever it was that they’d had. More unhappy than Karolina, I think. But I don’t know. Under the surface, she might have been a seething mass of romantic misery. Under the Prada jacket. Doubt it, though. I don’t think she had a breakable heart. She’d quickly recalibrated. And like I said before, it had always seemed a strange set-up anyway. An on-off affair. They could turn it off when they were apart, but when it was on it was really on.

[Inaudible]

… it wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d never put in another appearance. She’d have seen him in London, so she knew that Curtis Mark Two was a different proposition from Mark One. Original Curtis was someone whose wavelength she was perfectly tuned to. She wasn’t an easy-going woman and he wasn’t an easy-going man. Neither of them had any time for the lukewarm. They made a good pair. But the first Curtis was gone, so I expected her to go too. I’d have put her in the same camp as Jan, more or less. Or the neighbouring camp. Like I said, Jan wasn’t completely comfortable around Curtis, after the accident. You could see it. The effort was obvious. Harry always said that Jan was one of those people who doesn’t visit a friend in hospital because hospitals give her the creeps, and I think there’s something in that. And, to be honest, I thought that would be the case with Karolina as well. You know, there were similarities. High-gloss individuals. Karolina was a woman who had to have everything in order. A perfectionist. The clothes, in the way she carried herself, the way she spoke. All of it. Made Jan look a bit underprepared, if anything. Both high maintenance, but with Karolina there was no way anyone apart from herself was going to do the maintaining. A totally independent unit. But I was wrong. Karolina stuck around, and that tells you something. You’d see them walking down to the water. I’d be working and they’d stroll past. It wasn’t romantic. You wouldn’t think they were a couple. And it wasn’t like she was taking care of him. I mean, she cared for him, I think, but not in a nursing kind of way. And there wasn’t a lot of talking. That struck me. With Lara, they were talking all the time. The never-ending interview. But with Karolina, you could tell they went back a long way. It was that type of silence, with deep roots. When you’re close to someone, there’s less talking. Am I contradicting myself? I’m not putting it very well. I know what it was – she was more like a sister. Something like that. You might have thought they were related, if you’d seen them.

[Indistinct]

They met just once, Lara and Karolina, up in Scotland. October, I’m pretty sure. Might have been September. And it was a real meeting. I mean, they didn’t just happen to be there at the same time. Curtis must have wanted them to meet. Another experiment. The Curtis book wasn’t yet dead in the water, so maybe the idea was that Lara could fill out the picture by talking to Karolina. I mean, Karolina was never going to dish the dirt on him, was she? Not saying there was any dirt to dish. Might have been. Skeletons in every closet, I suppose. The conversation was all about Curtis the collector, according to Asil. That’s what Lara told him. But the two women didn’t really click. Not chalk and cheese exactly, but they could have lived next door to each other for a year and never have become friends. You know what I mean? Different ways of taking the world. There was no way Karolina was ever going to confide in Lara, and Curtis would have known that. Which made some of us think he was just playing a kind of game. Put them together and see what happens. Not sure what could possibly have happened, mind you. It wasn’t like chucking a cat into a kennel. Perhaps he just thought they might enjoy talking to each other. He liked them both. Rosa might tell you that Lara was starting to get on his nerves a bit, but I don’t think that’s true. Not at that point. Anyway, Lara got the sense that Karolina was checking her out. Assessing where she was coming from. The boys would have asked themselves the same question, I’m sure. Carl especially. With any of the women, he was thinking: ‘Is this one in it for the money?’ I don’t think they ever suspected Karolina, but she was a special case. She was a self-sufficient unit. With Carl especially, the inheritance was always at the front of his mind, and you’re bound to have a few doubts about a person’s intentions, when there’s all that money involved. Tough on the woman as well, to know that the family is wondering what you’re up to. But most of them, like I said, weren’t in it for the long term. It was obvious. I think one of the reasons he kept on with Lara was that she wasn’t interested in him in that way. She was interested in him as a subject. The money was central to the story, but it didn’t make her eyes light up. Some people admire the rich because they’re rich. Lara wasn’t one of them.

[Inaudible]

… she was almost in awe of Karolina. Perhaps not in awe. Unsettled by her, let’s say. Envious, a little, I think. She wouldn’t have wanted to be like Karolina, but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t envy her. Aspects of her, if not the whole package. The confidence, I’d say. The poise. And the language skills. Lara wasn’t the most self-confident woman in the world. Focused, yes, but not wholly at ease in the world. Does that make sense? You could see Lara shrinking into herself slightly whenever Karolina was talking to her. Or addressed her. That’s a better way of putting it. Karolina did have this air of inhabiting a realm that was more refined than the one we ordinary civilians live in. Not a snob, exactly. Not high and mighty. But someone who glides through life, where others trudge. And it can be a bit of a downer, coming up against someone who’s that polished. Standing next to Karolina, anybody’s going to feel like they’ve wilted. But Lara was an impressive character, in some ways. You could meet her and not think that confidence was an issue. She didn’t seem to be intimidated by Curtis and everything that came with him. The house. I was, the first time I went there. Like being interviewed in Buckingham Palace. You’re thinking: ‘This man is worth how much?’ Lara stood up to him. But she was a nervy character. She had this thing with her hair, the way she used to twist it round and round her finger. And there was a shyness about her. It was a peculiar mixture. Driven and hard-working. You could see that. Tenacious. But a sort of diffidence as well. It worked for her, I think. Something in her manner, it made you take the first step and keep it going. That’s why she was a good interviewer. Some journalists, it’s too much about them. You read these pieces in the paper, and it’s obvious they want to make a confrontation of it. They need to let you know what they think, all the time. Judge and jury. Lara wasn’t like that. She’d rather listen than talk. That first interview, with Curtis, she admitted to him that some of what he was saying was going over her head, and he found himself explaining it for her, even though he couldn’t really afford the time. Some interviewers go for the toadying approach, and others treat it like a kind of combat, but with Lara it was more that she wanted to be totally thorough. To get it right. She was always widening things out, connecting things. He actually enjoyed talking to her. That’s what he told Asil, and what Asil told us. But she didn’t get Karolina to open out. Lara reckoned Karolina found her a bit lacklustre. Anyone would, sitting opposite Karolina. But it went both ways. Lara told Asil that Karolina made her think of Blade Runner. The beautiful automaton who’s very nearly human.

[Pause]

With Karolina, though, I sometimes wondered if there was anything much to be discovered. I have to say that. It could have been all surface. A terrific surface, I grant you that. She knew a hell of a lot about art and the art market. We know that. An expert. And all the folk tales. But that could be just a matter of memory, couldn’t it? Not the same as having a good mind. Perhaps that was the problem. Even so, Lara wrote that book about Hilda, so you’d have thought they’d have had something in common. The art. But I suppose that’s not really what it’s about. Interests aren’t the whole picture. It’s like with all these dating websites. He looks presentable in his picture and you look OK in yours, and you tick all your boxes and he ticks exactly the same ones, so it’s a perfect match, then you meet them and it’s like: ‘Not in a million years.’ Immediately. And I don’t mean because the picture’s ten years old. I’m talking about character. You don’t just tot up all the things you’re interested in and all the things you know about and the end result is who you are. Karolina could talk like a professor, but maybe there was nothing deeper. Maybe it was all cut and paste. I asked Lara what she made of her, and I remember exactly the word she used. ‘Astute.’ That’s what she said. Make of that what you will. I suspect Lara was a bit put out by Karolina’s indifference to her book. The Hilde/Hilda book. She knew about it, obviously, from Curtis. Lara knew he’d told her about it. My hunch is that the book couldn’t register on Karolina’s radar because it wasn’t out there in the world. A book isn’t a book until it’s published. Until then, it’s just typing. Loads of people think they’re writers, but just writing a ton of words doesn’t make you a writer, same as painting pictures doesn’t make you an artist. To be an artist, people have to agree that you’re an artist. People have to talk about what you’re doing. Same with writers. Even being published isn’t enough. There’s got to be reviews. I’ll bet you that’s how Karolina thinks. Before she knows what to think about something, she needs to know what other people think. She’s a businesswoman first and foremost. An arty businesswoman. That’s what she’s about. Art is the currency. That’s why Curtis respected her. One reason, anyway. She was canny. But Lara’s old lady artist wasn’t anyone special. Nobody she’d ever heard of. Not one of the A-team. Not even the C-team. Maybe she didn’t think that Lara was someone who could have written a book she’d want to read. Who knows? One of the things I liked about Lara was that she didn’t have this thing about being a writer. When I asked her if I could read her book she was slightly embarrassed at first. Perhaps she was too meek for Karolina. Or too meek-seeming.

[Indistinct]

… because Karolina wasn’t ever going to let any man get his hooks into her, and I’m not convinced that Curtis was looking for another wife. And you couldn’t say that Curtis seemed hugely upset when she went. I mean, when she left in March. Which turned out not to be the final goodbye, after all. It all seemed final, but it seemed amicable too. They walked out to the car together, and he opened the door for her and said something. Whispered in her ear, and she nodded and smiled. A rueful kind of smile. I said to Rosa: ‘We’ll not be seeing that one again.’ I’d love to know what he whispered to her. If you include that scene, you could make something up, couldn’t you? Self-control would be an asset, in Curtis’s line of work. A poker face, when you’re negotiating a deal. Never let the other side know what you’re thinking. Even after Lily died. I mean, we could tell he was devastated. You’d see him in the garden, looking lost. But when you dealt with him face-to-face, you wouldn’t know he was a man in grief. So he was never going to go wobbly over Karolina. ‘Lara wins.’ That’s what Harry said. He thought she’d seen off her rival. Not in a romantic sense. More that she was now the number one confidante.

[Pause]

I remember something else that Rosa told me. A little incident that you might want to use. Karolina was someone who didn’t cry readily. I can say that with confidence. Very much someone who kept the lid tight. Not likely to laugh, not likely to cry. ‘Very hot and very cold’ was Harry’s description, and bear in mind that Harry thought she was gorgeous. The cold ones can turn out to be the hottest. Anyway. Rosa went upstairs, and came upon Karolina. There was a gallery at the top of the stairs, a long landing with windows all along it on the garden side. Rosa stopped before she reached the landing, because Karolina hadn’t noticed her. Then Karolina wiped an eye, and said something that Rosa didn’t quite hear, but it seemed she was being invited to look at whatever Karolina was looking at, which turned out to be Curtis standing by the fountain. The fountain was in the middle of the paved part of the garden, where the paths crossed. He was standing to the side of it, gazing up the valley, stock still. For a full minute, looking in the same direction all the time, as if there was something unusual out there, though there wasn’t anything to see that wasn’t there every day of the week. Then he went down towards the shed, at which point Karolina did a little sniff, to snuff out the last bit of emotion – that’s how Rosa put it. She had the impression that Karolina was annoyed with herself for being upset. Or maybe for being seen to be upset. Then she started telling Rosa about how the owners of some of the big estates had actually employed people to pretend to be hermits. Back in the eighteenth century. They’d have fake ruins built in the grounds, in the woods or wherever, and the ruins might have fake hermits in residence. They’d pay some old chap to live in the cave or the cell, dressed in rags and reading his Bible by candle-light. Visitors could go and gawp at the hermit and feel uplifted. Or something. It might be a long-term contract, so they had to stay in character all the time. Not allowed to cut their hair, for example. But some of the bosses saved themselves the trouble of paying for a real person and used a dummy instead. In a few cases a mechanical one, like an old fairground thing. The hand would hold a quill and move it across a piece of paper, or you’d look through a hole in the wall and see the man raise his hands in prayer. All true, Karolina promised Rosa, and Karolina really wasn’t someone who’d make something up for a laugh. She wasn’t even smiling, not until she made a remark about Curtis being the only man ever to install himself as his own fake hermit. Karolina sounded almost angry, apparently. She did the sniff again, and gave Rosa the sort of smile you’d give a friend if someone else in the group had just said something that really wasn’t very funny. That’s what Rosa told me.

[Indistinct]

It was after that – after Karolina had been seen off – that Curtis and Lara did another trip to the Midlands. Back to the roots, Part Two. The Magical Mystery Tour, Harry called it. Did I mention the first trip? I forget. No? It was before the crash, the first expedition. A research trip. Curtis drove down to meet her, in the mega-Mercedes. Asil wasn’t on board, which led to some speculation, inevitably. But why would he drag Asil along? No need for him to be there. So Curtis showed her where he’d lived with the Coopers. He’d not been back since Mrs Cooper died. More than twenty years. Have we had the Coopers yet? The foster parents. They’d lived in a flat above their shop, in a side-street in the centre of town. The top two floors. It became a betting shop years ago, and nobody was living upstairs any more. It was grim, Lara said. Weeds overflowed from the gutter. A curtain was dangling from a broken rail in the room that used to be Curtis’s bedroom. The whole town had gone sharply downhill. Lara said she’s never seen so many boarded-up places in one street. Three or four in a row, again and again. The main street, it used to have a proper market, when Curtis was living there. Rows of fruit and veg stalls. Now there were just a few people selling T-shirts out of boxes. Pawn shops and pound shops, right in the middle of the high street, where there used to be a Woolworths and a Littlewoods and loads of family-run businesses. All gone. Curtis could remember the shops that had been there when he was a teenager. All of them. They walked from one end of town to the other, and he named the whole lot. When he’d left home, there were no gaps anywhere on the street. If a business closed down, another took its place straight away. A few years later, it was starting to bleed to death, because they built this huge shopping centre out of town. Death by chain stores. There’s no stopping the money machine. I’m not sure if there was ever a branch of Porter in that part of the world. Doubt it. Wrong demographic, as they say. One in Birmingham, definitely, but not there. Doesn’t matter, though. All part of the same process. And buying online is creating so many problems. Not the only factor, but a major one. Even the chain stores are struggling to pay the rent. We’re all implicated. Let’s be honest. We want the cheapest deal. The whole system is the problem. There’s not some law of nature at work here. It doesn’t have to be this way. This is what Harry will tell you, and he’s right. It’s a question of decisions. Decisions made by the people at the top. But can you turn back the clock? The world is what it is, more’s the pity. Business is business. Curtis gave work to a lot of people, you could say. The company has created hundreds of jobs, not just in the shops. There’s a supply chain, with work at every stage. The Porter stuff isn’t inexpensive. But the clothes are made in Vietnam and Romania and Bulgaria and God knows where else. All over the place. Just check the labels. I think they’ve always been pretty good about that side of things. They have standards. No sweat shops. No children on the factory floor. Regular inspections. But still, it’s mainly about cost-cutting and profit, and it does damage. We’re all involved, like it or not. None of us want to pay more than is necessary. If you have a coat made in Cambodia and the same thing made in the UK, for thirty pounds more, most customers will go for Option A. They have to. There’s no real choice, unless you’ve got cash to spare, which a lot of people haven’t. That’s life. The money machine.

[Indistinct]

Anyway, the Coopers. It was a sports shop, mainly. Sports kit and equipment. Footballs, tennis balls, racquets, shirts, shorts, swimming trunks. Other stuff as well – air guns, board games. The kind of place that you don’t find any more. When he was young, Mr Cooper had been a promising footballer. Could even have been a professional, Curtis said. One bad tackle put an end to all that. Football boots in those days were dangerous things. My grandfather kept a pair of his. Toe-caps like army boots. You could have kicked a hole in a wall with them. Brutal. Mr Cooper took a mighty kick to the ankle, and after that there was no longer any possibility of a career. Eventually he opened the shop, and it did all right. This is when Curtis told Lara about it, on the tour. She could sense a chapter taking shape. Curtis said he had a story that he thought she’d find useful, about something he’d done when he was young, something he’d felt ashamed about for a long time, and could still feel ashamed of, if he really put his mind to it. The shop was small, so it was easy to keep an eye on the shelves and the racks, most of the time. And the pricier things were stored behind the counter or at the back, in the office. Same for the air guns and knives. But it wasn’t possible to keep an eye on everything all of the time, and occasionally something would disappear. Boys from one particular school were the usual culprits. Whenever a group of them came in, Mr Cooper needed to be extra vigilant. He caught a lad pocketing a cricket ball from the window display. Only a ball, but the most expensive one. A couple of weeks after that, a Saturday morning, Mr Cooper had to take some parcels to the post office, and he left Curtis to hold the fort. Things were managed differently in those days. A gang came in. They might have been lurking in the street, waiting for the boss to vacate the premises. So these lads invaded the place, and made a commotion, and when they left there was an empty space in the window, where there should have been one of those special quality cricket balls. A few weeks later, it happened again. Same modus operandi. Mr Cooper pops out, the gang pops in, and something goes astray. Some time later, a woman comes into the shop, and asks if she can have a word. She opens her handbag and takes out something she’d found in her son’s room: a cricket ball, nearly new. She might not know anything about cricket, but she knows this is something her son can’t afford with his pocket money. Asked about it, he said he’d bought it from a boy in his class – Curtis. Half price, for a brand new ball. Suspecting a lie, the woman had thought it best to enquire. Mr Cooper thanked her, and assured her that everything was in order. It had never occurred to him that Curtis might be the thief. They’d not had any real difficulties with him. A few issues at the start. Establishing the house rules and all that. But once the teething problems had been settled, Curtis had been a relatively easy proposition. Much easier than the boy they’d looked after a few years before, who turned out to have a thing about smashing car windscreens. Curtis could be feisty, but you could reason with him, nine times out of ten. So this was a blow. That evening, Mr Cooper sat Curtis down at the table, and reported what the woman had told him, but not making any accusations, just giving the boy an opportunity to explain. Which didn’t stop Curtis trying to con his way out of it, with some cock and bull story about how this lad really didn’t like him, and was trying to stitch him up. His dad – that’s what Curtis called Mr Cooper, his dad – listened to the alibi, and said nothing. He just looked at Curtis. The silence was enough to make Curtis confess. He asked for a previous offence to be taken into consideration. In fact there had been more than one previous offence, but he couldn’t admit to everything. That’s what he told Lara. When the confession was over, Mr Cooper still said nothing. He stood up and left the room, to discuss the situation with his wife. Judgement was coming. Curtis sat there for a full fifteen minutes, awaiting his sentence. This is the end of the road, he thought. They’ll be throwing me out. Back to square one again. Then Mr Cooper returned, alone, which was unexpected. He was carrying a box file. Must be my reports, Curtis thought. But it wasn’t. What was in the box file was a load of paperwork relating to the shop, because what Mr Cooper had decided to do was not to punish the boy but to do the opposite, in a way. To show him how the business was run, what costs were involved, how much was coming in, how fine the margins were. To treat him like an adult, as someone who could take over, one day. Curtis had betrayed him, but his dad responded by taking him into his confidence. Taking the high ground. Showing him that we’re all in this together. This is all much ado about nothing, you could say. It was only a cricket ball and a few other items, for God’s sake. But the value of the thing is neither here nor there. It’s the principle. And it did the trick. The boy never sinned again. More than that: the seeds of success were sown. Realizing he was born for this retail lark. That was the implication. It made a neat story.

[Inaudible]

… about the accent. It was obvious where he was from, the moment he opened his mouth. It’s a powerful accent, that part of the country, and it’s not what most people would call a boardroom voice. But he didn’t set out to remove it. It just got lost along the way. Moving to London, you can understand how it would get rubbed off, unless you made a conscious effort to keep it, to show how genuine you are. If you’d heard him speak, you couldn’t tell where he was from, unless you were a real expert. To us, the voice was completely neutral. A traitor to his class and to his town, he said he was, to Lara. He was joking, but with a grain of truth, maybe. Or he wanted her to think there was a grain of truth in it. Hard to know. But it’s complicated, because if you look at the money they were making, the Coopers, they were on the lower rungs. Blue-collar income. Third-hand car. Never went abroad. But they didn’t want him speaking the dialect. The real dialect I mean. Not the same thing as the accent. They didn’t see themselves as lower-rung people, and that’s what the dialect was about. His father never went to a pub in his life. That’s what Curtis said. Both of them voted Conservative, Curtis thought. Then again, they were in two minds when Curtis started making serious money. Proud of him, of course, but it made them uneasy, the quantity of cash that was flowing around. It took him a long time to persuade them to let him buy them a house. Nothing extravagant, just a comfortable place on a nice road. And a new car. A Honda. Something like that. An ordinary car. Plus a holiday or two. A few weeks in Spain. They never saw the Scottish palace. Both of them died before he bought it, but they visited him in London and they weren’t comfortable there. London made them nervous, and the house seemed to make them feel like they were staying in a five-star hotel, despite Lily and the children. They could never completely relax. Anxious about marking the walls or damaging the furniture. In the morning, they’d make the bed before coming downstairs. That’s where Curtis left the subject, with Mrs Cooper making the bed, then he changed tack, because there was a risk of getting upset, Lara thought. She wanted more, as you would, but she couldn’t press him. You couldn’t put pressure on Curtis. Like trying to open a bank vault with a spoon.

[Pause]

But he was tipping out the anecdotes as they walked around the town, one after the other, overwhelming her with material. A tale for every premises. He was entertaining her, diverting her. So one place used to be a shoe shop, and for a while young Curtis had had a crush on a woman who worked there, who looked a bit like Brigitte Bardot, if you used some imagination, and it turned out that this woman was having an affair with the manager of the shop across the street, and the first that anyone knew about it was when she walked through the door one day and tipped a jam jar full of engine oil into his till. Next door was a shop that had another anecdote attached to it, and then came another, and another. A sports car had crashed into the window of a clothes shop one night. Demolished the whole shopfront, but amazingly the driver wasn’t badly hurt. Hardly hurt at all, in fact, because he climbed out of the car and made a run for it. It was a Saturday night. Curtis could still picture the scene, perfectly clearly. The car was at ninety degrees to the road. It was hard to imagine how the driver had managed to crash into the shop head-on like that, rather than at an angle. The car was an Austin-Healey Sprite, red. He could see it. The roof covered with fragments of glass, and smashed-up mannequins lying all over the place. He hadn’t actually seen the driver running away. He and a group of friends had been coming back from a club, and they’d seen the blue lights flashing when they came round the corner. A funny thing: years later – one of the last times he had visited Mr and Mrs Cooper – he bumped into one of the group, someone called Gerry, and they got talking about this and that, and the topic of the crash came up, and Gerry could recall seeing the driver. He could tell Curtis which street the man had run into. The thing is, though, that Gerry couldn’t recall anything else about him, not a single thing, and Curtis knew it was because he hadn’t seen him. None of them had seen the driver. Gerry knew the name of the street because that was part of the story. It was in the local paper. Over the years Gerry had retold the story of the crash dozens and dozens of times, with the car jammed into the shopfront at ninety degrees and mannequins strewn left, right and centre, and he’d added the extra thing about the driver running down the street so many times that he’d come to believe that he’d actually seen what he’d only read about. With each retelling, every piece of the story had become more certain. Nothing Curtis could say would make the slightest difference to Gerry’s version of what had happened that night. The figure of the running man would always be there, running away. A shadowy figure, but as real as anything he could genuinely remember. And Gerry would also have been quite drunk on the night in question. Curtis didn’t remember him being drunk, but it was a reasonable assumption, because Gerry was the big drinker of the gang. His parents ran a pub at the top of the high street, and Curtis showed Lara where it had stood. The pub had been a hotel a long time ago, and when Gerry’s family ran the place there were all these abandoned rooms upstairs, some with old furniture still in them. At night, when the draughts made the doors and windows creak, the place felt like a haunted house. And there was a full-size snooker table downstairs, which the boys weren’t allowed to use, but sometimes, when Curtis stayed over, they’d come downstairs in the middle of the night, just to roll the balls from one end of the table to the other. That was something else that Curtis recalled vividly for Lara: the bright green table lit up in the middle of the huge dark room, and the air still smelling of beer and smoke. Gerry’s father came down one night and found them, after they’d taken a few sips from the taps, thinking that a drop or two wouldn’t be detectable, but of course the boy’s father could tell right away, and Curtis was banned for a while, because he was a bad influence.

[Inaudible]

… you remember someone doing something, years back, and you know it happened more or less as you recall, that it was this person who did this thing in this way, but can you describe them, like you can describe someone who was in front of you an hour ago? You can’t. Your mind’s eye is seeing them, but you can’t describe them. The mind’s eye isn’t an eye. It’s not that kind of picture you’re getting. Not really a picture at all. Even the person you saw an hour ago. You can’t see them like someone who’s there. The fade-out happens right away. It’s what the police always say. Eyewitness often doesn’t mean much. My son-in-law, Jack, one time, he stepped in to stop this chap beating up another chap. Broad daylight, in the middle of London. And the man who was doing the hitting, he turned on Jack. Screaming in his face. Throwing punches. All Jack could say when the police asked him about it was that the man was about his height and had dark hair. Turned out he had half an ear missing and a huge blue star tattooed on his neck, but Jack hadn’t noticed. Shock, that is. It messes the brain up.

[Indistinct]

He showed her where the club used to be. It was now a tattoo parlour. He could remember the band that was playing on the night of the crash. Nobody Lara had ever heard of. A local band, very loud. Next day, Curtis couldn’t hear anything except the ringing in his ears. Noisy rock was very much his thing, and he had things to say about the subject, about the way everything gets lumped into categories, so if you liked Led Zeppelin that meant you were a Heavy Metal fan, so you must have liked Black Sabbath and Deep Purple and every other big-din outfit. But there were nuances, and the nuances are getting lost now, when you have all these experts pontificating about a period that was finished before they were born. You know, you hear these people talking about how something captured the zeitgeist. Any given year could have a dozen zeitgeists, if you ask me. Pick a year and look at the albums. Sex Pistols, Sister Sledge, Bob Marley, John Denver – all the same year. That’s my thing, that period. Disco more than anything. I was only a kid at the time, but I love it. You’d never guess, would you? Anyway, the band that young Curtis really loved was a German crew called Amon Düül. He made Lara listen to one of their albums. Or one side of it. An ordeal, Lara said. Twenty-minute songs that weren’t really songs. A lot of knob-twiddling, if you know that I mean. But what was interesting was the effect it had on Curtis. It really seemed to move him, much more than visiting the town had done. He hadn’t listened to that album for years, he said, but the moment it started he was back in his room above the shop, lying in the dark.

[Pause]

So everything was fine during the first tour, and afterwards. He’d given her so much to work with. Even the stories that didn’t have much to do with Curtis told her something about him. Every detail means something. Second time round, though, it didn’t go so well. Curtis seemed to be undermining her, or undermining the project. I’ll tell you what I think. I reckon Lara found Curtis an even more interesting subject now that he wasn’t the original Curtis. And maybe Curtis had a sense of the way she might be taking the book, and wasn’t happy with the idea. That she was going to make use of him, in the way she’d made use of Hilda. It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s how it turns out. There’ll be a novel, about someone bearing a similarity to Curtis. Because there’s a connection here, I’m sure. Before the second tour, he’d visited the old lady more than once. Like I said, he seemed to have become very fond of her. Strangely fond. Devoted, sort of. That’s what Asil said. His attitude towards Lara changed – Curtis’s attitude. And I think it had something to do with the feeling that Lara had exploited her. Or exploited her story. I don’t know. It’s a hunch. Anyway, what Lara told Asil was that Curtis became difficult, as the day wore on. The second tour of the native soil, I’m talking about. He had some more stories, but they had an air of hearsay, she said. As though none of it had much to do with him. He told her about the crash again, and he seemed to have forgotten that he’d told her about it before, in great detail. On the repeat telling it was a slightly different spot where the crash had happened.

[Indistinct]

… and they walked down to the park, supposedly because he wanted to see the tennis courts, which he associated with a particular girl. She was a year older than him, and a year counts for much more when you’ve only clocked up fourteen or fifteen of them. And her father was a GP, so there was a class element too. She was glamorous. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever plucked up the courage to speak to her. She was a good player, and unusually elegant, he told Lara. Proper tennis whites. The best-dressed girl he knew. That’s what he said. So you could say he’d had an interest in clothes from an early age. Destiny. Perhaps she was a proto-Karolina too. But this is an example of what I was talking about before, about there being moments when Lara wondered if he was feeding her a line. Giving her what she wanted to hear. He actually said that to her, apparently. ‘Is this the sort of thing you have in mind?’ Or: ‘Is this what you need?’ Almost aggressively. They walked through a shopping arcade that had seen better days, and came to a row of bus stops. Not an inspiring view. Curtis looked at the buses as if they’d hiked miles to see something that had turned out to be totally uninteresting, and he said: ‘I’m done.’ Then: ‘Are you done?’ Then they went back to the car park, via the place where he’d lived with the Coopers. He gave the shopfront a bow, with a hand over his heart, making a joke of it. Then they drove to the hotel, out in the country-side. Nothing more was said about the Coopers. The conversation was mostly about Lara’s life. As if to redress the balance. Like he was saying: ‘I’ve talked about me. Now it’s your go.’ He got her to talk so much about herself that she became bored with the sound of her own voice. She wondered if that was the desired effect. ‘Perhaps this is what wisdom is supposed to feel like,’ he said to her, at one point. Achieving indifference to the past, that’s what he meant. But Lara was sure he wasn’t indifferent. It bothered him that so much of the substance had become available to him now. So much of it had become flat and monochrome. No texture, no flavour. Fossilized, almost. What he was remembering, in many cases, was just the facts of what had happened. If that. The externals, not the interior. Like a stack of empty boxes. That’s how Lara described it. Incidents that he’d talked about before had become boxes, many of them neatly labelled, but with nothing inside. Anyway, he turned in early, in a cloudy mood. And the next day he sprang his mother on her.

Fourth Session

They hadn’t been driving for long, and had come to a halt at some lights, when he pointed across her and said: ‘My mother used to live down there.’ As if it had only just occurred to him. His real mother, he meant. His birth mother. This was pretty well the first time he’d mentioned her, apparently. Whenever he’d said ‘mother’ before, Mrs Cooper was who he meant. He’d been raised in foster homes, because his birth mother had given him up. That’s pretty much all Lara knew about her. So she asked the obvious question, to which the answer was that Curtis had no idea if his mother was alive or dead. Dead, he assumed. He could have been referring to a pub that might have been knocked down by now. A pub he’d never even been in. That’s how offhand he sounded. But it occurred to her that maybe it was a front. That could be why he’d taken this route, so he’d have a reason to make that offhand remark. And perhaps he was making amends for the day before, kind of. That’s how it seemed to Lara. Strange woman. The mother, I mean. The father isn’t part of the picture. Never was. Same story as Ulla’s – the incredible disappearing father. So maybe that was a point of contact with Ulla. A bond. Anyway, Curtis’s father did a bunk before the child had put in an appearance. He was quite a bit older than the mother. She was barely twenty, and he was the wrong side of thirty. She was mad about him, and she’d believed he was nearly as mad about her. They weren’t engaged yet, but it was in the air. That’s what she felt. So when she realized she was pregnant, she thought everything would fall into place. Marriage, children. The glue of parenthood. She was an idiot – that’s what she said to Curtis, when they finally met. The thing is, it was his father who’d started talking about babies. On Sundays they would go for a walk in the park, and they’d see people with their kids, and from time to time, if the parents and the kids looked like people whose life you might like to have, they’d talk about the possibility. He was beginning to think he might have missed the boat. That’s what he’d say to her, gazing wistfully at the young mums. Turned out the babies and toddlers were only the incidental details. He had a thing about young mums, that’s all. He let it get to the point of no return, six months gone or thereabouts, and then he did a U-turn. The subject of marriage came up one evening, and that was his moment to come clean. Very apologetic, but he simply couldn’t hack it. No point pretending. Best for all concerned if he called it quits before everything got too messy. Hands up: he’d got it badly wrong. Didn’t feel good about himself, but there you are. Like he should get a medal for being honest. Then he sloped off to another twenty-year-old. Who, it turned out, had been simmering on the back burner for a while. Because your pregnant girlfriend, you know, she isn’t as hot as she used to be. Putting on the pounds, and those pounds might not come off. And then there’s going to be the screaming infant to contend with. Your life’s no longer your own.

[Indistinct]

… not the biggest problem, being left in the lurch like that. Because she was glad to be shot of him, now she knew exactly what kind of bastard he was. She was furious, rather than distraught. Disgusted. But she was depressed by being a mother. From day one, it was all wrong. And it wasn’t the kind of gloom that people talk about when they talk about post-natal depression. Of course her chemicals were all out of whack. She felt weird. But she could see through the weirdness. She understood what was down to the hormones and what wasn’t. Day after day she thought about the situation, and she knew soon enough that she was seeing clearly. It wasn’t that she was pining for her old life. For the freedom. Some women think they’re going insane in the first few months. They feel they hate the child they’ve given birth to. Curtis’s mother didn’t hate her child. She didn’t hate him and she didn’t love him. There was nothing. Feeding the infant, looking after it, was a full-time job. She’d known all along that it would be a full-time job. Some new mothers are surprised by how tough it can be. Curtis’s mother was not surprised, except in one respect: she had allowed herself to imagine that happiness would arrive as soon as the baby became an actual thing, out in the world, a kissable infant that would gaze at her and swamp her heart with adoration. Then nothing had happened. Absolutely zilch. She did what she had to do for him, and she did it thoroughly. She was as conscientious as any properly married woman. Despite the circumstances, her mother was supportive. Give it a few months, she said. Be patient. So Curtis’s mother gave it a few months, and still there was nothing you could call love, only the weight of obligation. Her coldness appalled her, but it couldn’t be willed away. In the same way that she knew that she would never like certain people or certain colours or certain tastes, she knew it would never be right. And she told him all this, years later. Like he hadn’t been the baby she was talking about. Telling him he was lucky to have got away from her. And Curtis told Lara, and Lara told Asil. And so on, down the line.

[Pause]

People think being depressed means that everything’s black, but sometimes it’s more like being behind glass, but you can’t see the glass. It’s light, not dark, but you’re not really in the thick of things. You’re cut off. It was like that, every day. So she gave him up and never regretted it. She met a better man, who knew without needing a trial run that he didn’t have what it takes to be a father, so they didn’t have any kids together, and they never regretted it. And then one day Curtis gets in touch. Adult Curtis, now a father himself. He had the two boys by then. That’s what changed his perspective, because he’d never had any inclination before. That’s what he told Lara. One day he was playing with the kids and he found himself thinking: ‘I wonder.’ And it was fine, the reunion. Not a big dramatic number. None of that Hollywood nonsense. ‘I love you, mum’ – ‘I love you too, son.’ Nothing like that. No tears, no recriminations. It was just a long talk. All very reasonable, allegedly. I’m sceptical, I have to say. It couldn’t have been that easy, but that’s how Curtis reported it, Lara said. They were outside his mother’s house, and it was as if he was talking about a story he’d heard about two completely different people. Not the slightest flicker of emotion. It was a long time since he’d seen her. He’d moved on. Water under the bridge. Like they say: you can’t step into the same river twice. Except you’re not stepping into it, are you? The river is your life. You are the river. You can’t step into yourself and you can’t step out.

[Indistinct]

… street after street of identical houses. It had been more than thirty years since Curtis had last been there, but he knew the route exactly. So some parts of his brain were working perfectly. The house was at the end of a row. A small house. The windows had been replaced recently. All the paintwork was fresh, and there was a trim little flowerbed at the front. The curtains were open. They looked in. This wasn’t an old person’s house. His mother would be in a nursing home, or the cemetery. It looked as though nobody was at home, but Lara wanted to knock. Somebody might answer. They might be able to provide some information. Curtis went back to the car. They drove on, and that’s when he told Lara about the time he’d met his mother. When he was young, he had never felt any great need to find her. Not that he could remember. By the time he was with the Coopers, he didn’t care at all. Mrs Cooper was the kindest woman, and much kinder than his biological mother, by definition. Giving birth – what was it anyway? Some kind of medical procedure, an operation. Somebody had to give birth to him to get him into the world. What did it matter if Mrs Cooper wasn’t the one who’d had to go to hospital to pop him out? He was happy with her and her husband. It was as if there had been some kind of organizational mix-up at the beginning, but it had been sorted out now. He was in the right place, and the woman who’d had the birth operation was out of the picture, for reasons that he didn’t feel inclined to enquire about. That was the story. Not many children would think like that, but he’s an unusual case. Was. And perhaps it’s not as unusual as we think. Not now, the way things are changing. The whole idea of the family. With IVF and donors and all that. Lot of kids nowadays, there’s no way of knowing who the father might be. You’ve got lesbians having kids and women giving birth for other women. In India there are these clinics full of women having other people’s babies. Couples who can’t have kids, just paying other women to do it for them. Wards full of them. A production line. Not right, if you ask me, having your body hijacked like that. Nobody would do it if they weren’t desperate. But it’s the way things are going, so we have to get used to it. Biological mum plus biological dad plus kids – we’ve moved on from all that. Before he’d left primary school, Curtis had been taken away from the first family. He told Lara he couldn’t remember much about them, but he knew he’d set fire to something. He’d been difficult. The adults, he thought, didn’t see eye to eye about him, and maybe about a lot of other things as well. As he remembered it, the fosterers were arguing all the time in the last year he lived with him. And their daughter, she was another factor. She was a couple of years older than Curtis, with a lot of friends, and the friends seemed to dislike him. He would get angry. Anything could set him off, and there was nothing he could do about it. It was like suddenly feeling very sick and having to throw up. You can’t stop yourself. If you ask me, it’s attachment issues. He needed his mother. The real one. That’s what the anger was about. So Curtis got passed on to another couple. With them, he had problems with the husband, who was one of those people who knows that a child needs rules. Especially a child like Curtis. The husband’s own father had been an army man, so making rules and obeying them were in the blood, and it was very much a household where the man ruled the roost. There were rules for everything. Mealtimes, lights-out time, how long you could spend in the bath, putting your clothes away, everything. Every day had a timetable. On Sunday the family got driven out to the countryside, rain or shine, for a dose of pleasure and exercise. The children were under orders to enjoy themselves. The parents set the pace, and the kids had to keep up. In addition to Curtis there was another boy and a girl, the parents’ own. The Robot, Curtis used to call the son, but only to himself. The son was the Robot and the father was the Führer. He called him the Robot because the regime seemed to suit him down to the ground. The girl was a different proposition. Wasn’t wholeheartedly on board with the project, but she did what had to be done to keep the waters calm. Curtis often wondered why they’d taken him in. It was a form of public service, he’d had to assume. Their mission was to improve him, and to do their bit for society while they were at it. Once a week there was swimming, the father and the kids. A set number of lengths and you weren’t going home until they were done. Because children have to do sport. Every boy and girl. He might have been a stickler for discipline, but he was not a sexist. Same principles applied to everyone. Build the body, build the character. It was building Curtis’s character too, but not quite in the way that was intended. It was making him independent, rather than a team player. The girl was what made the situation tolerable. And it was a nice house. That was a factor too. The girl was three years older than Curtis and a year older than her brother, and pretty, and clever. Biding her time, Curtis sensed. They became close. Too close, the parents began to think. That was one reason why Curtis had to go. The removal didn’t upset him. It had been on the cards for a while, and it was what he wanted. He told Lara about listening to them talking about him at night, when they thought he was asleep. Discussing the problem. The outbursts of anger were less frequent than before, but they still happened. And he answered back more often than was acceptable. One evening, at the pool, he stopped a length short of the allotted distance and refused to go on. The others got dried and dressed and were taken home, leaving him to walk. He waited for his eviction. He and the girl talked about how they could still get together after he had left the house. But nothing happened. There were other episodes of insubordination, and spells of solitary confinement, which didn’t work. And still nothing happened. So he decided to speed things up. Devised an exit strategy. He stole some money from the Robot. Didn’t spend it, just relocated it from the Robot’s room to his own. It didn’t need a Sherlock to work out where the money had gone. Which was the point. Curtis wanted to be found out. He confessed right away. Then he awaited his expulsion, and waited, and waited. Evidently the adults could not bring themselves to admit defeat. The nuclear option was called for. He stole more money, twice. At last, he was written off as a hopeless case, and handed over to the Coopers, where everything was fine. And for a while he continued to see the sister. They’d made plans, in anticipation. They met on the sly, sometimes after school, sometimes when she was supposed to be at a friend’s house. She had become an accomplished liar. One afternoon, her brother spotted them, and of course the Robot ratted on her, and that was the end of that. The Führer reacted as if his daughter was jeopardizing her entire future by consorting with the monster of ingratitude. It was more than her life was worth to aggravate her father any more. End of Curtis’s first love. Which all proves what I was saying. He was an orphan. Not technically, but in effect. He was rejected. It’s always with you. Even if he didn’t feel it, it was there. You can have something wrong with you, with your body, and not be aware of it, until the doctors do some investigating. You can have symptoms and not know what’s causing them. Same with your mind. The anger was a symptom. But it made him who he was, I’d say. It spurred him on. He wouldn’t have become who he became if those years had been different. That’s what he said to Lara. He never felt that he needed his mother. He just needed not to be with the Führer and Eva Braun. But Lara thought Curtis was being evasive. Well, not evasive exactly. Reluctant to acknowledge it, to himself. I assume this will all be in her book, eventually.

[Indistinct]

… because you can’t see the back of your own head. You think because you’re you, you’ve got access that other people don’t, because they’re on the outside and you’re on the inside. But on the inside it can be darker than outside. And you’re too close to what you’re looking at. Like having your nose right up against a picture. You can’t really see it. I’m going in circles here. Let’s just accept that this is what Lara told us Curtis told her. We can only work with what we know. What we heard. Anyway, what he said was that once in a while he might have had a moment of curiosity. The idea of his real mother bubbled to the surface every now and then. This was later, when he’d left home. The Coopers’ home, I mean. When he was with the Coopers there was no reason to think about his mother, because he was happy there. When he was on his own, though, he’d occasionally revisit some of the things that had happened in the past few years, and he might slip into imagining what had happened before the time he could remember. It was like wandering over the hills and then you come to the coast, to the cliffs, and there’s a haze over the sea, and of course you wonder what’s over there, beyond the horizon, on the other side of the mist. That’s how he put it. Lara wrote it down. It was nothing more than a daydream, he said. Not even that. It wasn’t really dreaming. Just a brief idea passing through. Nothing he had any inclination to act on. Then he met Lily, and the boys came along, and that alters everything, when you have kids. Which meant that he found himself wondering what it would be like to meet his mother, after all these years. Would she even want to see him? What would she have to say to him? Come to that, what would he have to say to her? For a while he didn’t do anything except picture all the various scenarios. It would be interesting, to find out which of the outcomes he’d imagined would turn out to be right. Or maybe it could pan out in a way that he’d never considered. That’s generally the way it is. You can never anticipate exactly how something will turn out. Every day has its surprises. Cut a long story short, he found out where she was living. That was easy enough. She was still in the Midlands. For several weeks he considered what he should do, but the decision had really been made the moment he had found out where she was. One evening he phoned her. He heard the voice of his mother. He had no memory of any voice, of course. He had no image of her. Not a single photo. When she answered the phone and he gave his name, there was a pause, and she just said: ‘I thought so.’ The shock of his reappearance had been immediately overcome, it seemed. She spoke to him calmly, politely. He took his lead from her. Everything was conducted with perfect neutrality. He asked her if they should meet. That’s what he told Lara. Not ‘Could we meet?’ but ‘Should we meet?’, as though asking for her opinion. As if discussing a script. As he spoke to her, he was intrigued by the way this conversation was being conducted, by the tone that he had fallen into, so easily. A visit was agreed. Once this phone call had taken place, a visit had to follow. Logically. A couple of weeks later, he went to the house, the one that Lara saw. It was a neat little house, and she was a very neat woman. Quite tall, about five-nine, with not an ounce of fat on her and clothes that could have come straight from the dry cleaners. Narrow hips and no curves at all. Her hair was like a complicated helmet. A tweedy skirt and fresh white blouse. She sat on the sofa with her feet touching and knees together. Hands in her lap. You can picture the type. The shoes seemed to be brand new, straight out the box. Curtis said he felt like the vicar making a visit, it was all so delicate and restrained. Tightly buttoned. It could have been a place that didn’t belong to her, where everything had to be left exactly as she’d found it. Like a show-home. Nothing out of place. No sign that the room was actually lived in. He assumed everything had been dusted and polished in preparation for his arrival. She put out a tray of little cakes, and a pot of incredibly weak tea. The cups were bone china, with tiny roses and swirls of gold painted on them, and frilly handles. ‘Call me Lizzie,’ she said. ‘Lizzie’ didn’t feel right, and neither did ‘Mum’. Lizzie was not the right name for this woman. Too perky. She was slightly nervous with him, at first, but more because he was so successful than because he was her son, technically. It wasn’t clear if she’d been following his career for some time, or had only got up to speed once she knew he was coming. The latter seemed likelier. During the call, he’d said something about his business, and there hadn’t been much of a reaction. She wanted to know the story, but her interest was the sort of interest you might take in the success of someone who had once lived next door. Something like that. She worked in a department store, overseeing the women’s clothing floor. So it was a coincidence that clothes had become his business too. That’s all she meant: it was a coincidence. Not that there was something in the genetics that had directed them both to clothing. She was making conversation. It was easy enough to talk to her, but there was no substance to it. No revelations, no confessions or apologies, no soul-baring. When he told her about the Coopers she was glad that they had been nice to him. There was no sense that they were talking about the people who had been his stand-in parents. Her replacements, in other words. Doing the job she’d decided she’d rather not do. It was only after they’d been talking for an hour or more that he found out she’d been married and widowed. The husband had died three years before. In the circumstances you’d think there’d be a picture of him somewhere in the living room, wouldn’t you? But like I said, there weren’t any, of anyone. I know, I’m talking like I was there, but I’ve got a good head for this kind of thing, and Lara knew how to set a scene. When Lizzie met him, her husband had been working at the same store, in accounts. ‘A good husband,’ she called him. The tone was one of satisfaction rather than of love, as though he’d signed a contract on getting married and had fulfilled his duties to the letter. That’s how Curtis remembered it. A mutual enthusiasm for walking, proper walking, had brought them together, she explained. Every year they went hiking in the summer, usually in Norway or Switzerland or Austria. They’d tried Italy one year, but hadn’t liked it so much. ‘And your wife?’ she enquired. In the course of the phone call, Curtis had disclosed that there was a wife, and sons. She had not committed the children’s names to memory. Her grandchildren. Nonetheless, she had questions about them. Many questions. She proceeded through them, as if she had memorized a questionnaire. It was clear that these questions were as far as it would go. It was simply information about the offspring that she wanted, not a relationship with them. Then Curtis broached the big one. The elephant in the room. What he asked her was: ‘How about you? Any children?’ That’s what he heard himself say. Not: ‘Any other children?’ But: ‘Any children?’ As if he himself didn’t count. And she said: ‘Oh no.’ She produced a sharp little smile and headshake. Curtis did an impression for Lara. It was as though he’d asked his mother something like: ‘Did you ever take something from a shop without paying for it?’ Something that insignificant, and out of character. The husband had made it plain that he didn’t want children. It sounded as if there had been an interview before the relationship was allowed to get going. He was the sixth of seven children, and had grown up determined to live in a child-free environment. That’s what he told her. Fatherhood was not for him, and motherhood was not for her, she informed Curtis. She could have been excusing herself for sending him to school in odd socks. It was impressive, in a way. The total absence of anything approximating to remorse, or warmth. He almost admired it, he said to Lara. Almost. When she told him about the man who had made her pregnant, there was no sense of grievance or regret, or anything. These were the facts. It was as if she were relating a story she’d heard, about a character called ‘Me’. As for the outcome of the pregnancy, what had been done had been done for the best, for all concerned. That was pretty well the extent of the discussion of what she’d done with her son. She could have been referring to the amputation of a mangled toe. Something to which she’d agreed without a moment’s hesitation. It was uncomfortable, for a while, but unavoidable. Necessary. No point dwelling on it. He had the impression that she thought this attitude would be something he could relate to, as a successful man of business. Always looking to the future. Never resting on his laurels.

[Indistinct]

He didn’t dislike her. Disliking her would have made no sense. She seemed to be missing some bit of brain-wiring that comes fitted as standard with most people. An empathy chip. That’s how Curtis put it. Feelings that we take for granted were simply unavailable to her. She was an amazingly cold woman, but it was impossible to take it personally. She was what she was. He couldn’t resent her for it. It’d be like resenting someone for being short-sighted. And Curtis wasn’t going to resent being born, was he? Anyway, one good thing to be said about her: the reason she’d agreed to see him wasn’t because she thought there might be some profit in it. Financially, I mean. Someone else, in her position, might have had an eye on the benefits. So she wasn’t a totally selfish person. A totally selfish person could have thought: ‘Well, that’s my retirement sorted out.’ It wouldn’t have surprised him if she’d dropped a hint or two, Curtis said. He didn’t know how he would have reacted. But there was nothing. They talked about the business, how it had started, how it had boomed, Lily’s part in it, and she seemed pleased for them. Not because she had a guilty conscience and it made her feel better to hear how well he’d done. She genuinely seemed to be happy for him. Happy rather than proud, because she didn’t pretend to have any investment in him. So there’s something in the plus column. And Curtis didn’t offer her anything. Like I was saying, he’d wondered if he might, when he met her. You never can tell how it’s going to play out, when push comes to shove. But he didn’t feel the slightest inclination to put his hand in his pocket, not at the time, and not afterwards. When he left the house, they both knew that this was as far as it would be going. She wouldn’t be in touch, not because she felt she had no right to do that, but simply because there wasn’t any point. Curtis wouldn’t be calling her. He knew that, and she knew it too. It had been an experience, a small experience, and now it was done.

[Indistinct]

… did think about her, occasionally. About the visit. From time to time it troubled him, slightly. He would tell himself: ‘But this is my mother.’ It was like a voice in his head, whispering to him, rather than an idea of his own. That’s how he put it, Lara said. As if the words were coming from outside, telling him what would be normal. But why should he care? It was a baby that was given up, not Curtis. A baby from years and years ago. It wasn’t him, no more than a pip is a tree. Problem with that is, a tree doesn’t have any memory. And the connection is a biological fact. Whether you like it or not, there’s a bond, and you can’t break it. Before the baby is born, it’s getting attuned to its mother’s voice. Every second of the day, it lives in the sounds of her body. By the time it comes out into the air, the connection has been imprinted. It’s deeper than words. Some would say one womb sounds much the same as any other. Could be anyone’s squelching. And the voice is just a rumble. But I read somewhere that the baby knows its mother, right away. From the first moment. It can hardly see, but it knows who its mother is. But apparently you could stand his mother next to Mrs Cooper in an identity parade and you’d have no idea which of them had actually produced him. He didn’t resemble his biological father either. ‘You look nothing like him,’ she told him. Perhaps her way of making him feel better, though in fact it didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. His father had been a sperm provider with a bad personality, and that’s all. Tom Roberts was his name, she told him. Curtis assumed it was an alias. I mean, how generic can you get? Tom Roberts. She’d never seen the man again, from the day he walked out. Banished forever, from her home and her heart, if ‘heart’ is the right word in this context. She’d never uttered his name again, until now.

[Pause]

After that jaunt, we didn’t see Lara for quite a while. Three months or more. Something had changed, definitely, between the two of them. And with Curtis himself. The best conversations I ever had with him were during that period. Proper conversations. The garden had always been more Lily’s thing than Curtis’s. I mean, he enjoyed it, but he enjoyed it with her, rather than for itself. She was knowledgeable. From time to time we’d talk about changes we could make. After she died, Curtis didn’t spend a great deal of time there. He might linger on his way down to the hut. When the weather was good, he sometimes took the papers outside and sat on one of the benches. But I think the garden was mainly just a part of the view for him. The foreground of the glen. Something he took for granted. After the accident, though, he paid more attention to it. We’d sometimes do a circuit together. He’d ask questions, about the plants, and I’d explain a thing or two. Sometimes he’d repeat the name, two or three times. It seemed to be a sort of exercise. A memory test. He’d be irritated with himself if anything slipped, which it often did. It would really annoy him. The information he needed was somewhere inside his head, but he couldn’t dredge it up. It was like his brain had silted up. That’s what he said to Lara. The plants were a real blind spot with Curtis. He could still read a story in the paper in half the time it would take you or me, and remember virtually all of it, for a while. Names, places, dates. In the garden, though, things just wouldn’t stick. Rhododendrons were fine. Rhododendrons and roses. Almost everything else was touch and go. It baffled him, how anyone could know the names of them all, never mind what care they needed. Telling one variety from another. ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ he said, and he meant it.

[Pause]

There was one conversation in particular. I’ll never forget it. I was taking a break, perched on the wall at the end of the garden, near the gate, gazing towards the water. And suddenly Curtis was there, right behind me. I hadn’t heard him, until he said: ‘Mind if I join you?’ Then he hoisted himself up on the wall and swung round, so he was facing the same way as me. Three or four feet away. I sat there, waiting for him to speak, but he didn’t say a word at first. Just looking at the hills. I waited a bit more. It was a lovely afternoon. Huge white clouds and a steady breeze, so the shadows were putting on a good show. When the sunlight broke out, it was like a flood of milk flowing down the slopes. Very beautiful. That’s what Curtis said, after a while. ‘Very beautiful.’ But he said it in an interesting way, as if someone had told him that the view from this spot was glorious, and he was glad to find that he hadn’t been misled. ‘It is,’ I said. Another long pause. Then he starts talking about something that had happened when he was with the Coopers. It was very odd. The thing is, he was getting depressed again, after that second expedition. As bad as when he came out of hospital. He was spending more and more time in the hut. It can take a long time to recover from injuries like that. You’re making adjustments every day. There were ups and downs, and I think the bad days were becoming more frequent again, after that second trip. But I don’t think any of us saw it coming, what happened. Not at that point. Like I said, I had some interesting conversations with him. This one especially. So we’re sitting on the wall, and suddenly he’s reminiscing about this incident from years ago. He volunteers it, out of the blue. And it’s not even an incident. More an episode. It’s as though we work together, and we’re in the habit of chatting like this. He’s telling me about the time they went to Betws-y-Coed. A place in Snowdonia. Him and the Coopers. A very warm day, and Curtis went off for a walk, on his own, which the Coopers were fine about, because Curtis often needed to be alone. He was fifteen. Two rivers come together at this place, and the parents decided to follow one of them while Curtis took the other. Meet back by the station in a couple of hours. So Curtis sets off, and he comes to this amazing spot by the water, with trees overhanging the rocks, and thick grass under the trees, like a mattress. The river is as clear as tap water. The leaves and the grass are glowing, and there’s nobody around. He has the spot completely to himself, so he lies on the grass, under the branches, and the only sound is the chortle of the river flowing around the stones, and the occasional sigh from the leaves. Heaven, Curtis said it was. Beyond happiness. It only lasted five minutes, maybe, then some walkers turned up and the bubble burst. But it made no sense to talk about the number of minutes, because for as long as it lasted there was no sense of time passing. It was like time in a dream. You know how it is. You have a dream that feels like it’s gone on for half the night, then you wake up and you look at the clock and you see it’s been just a few minutes. ‘Clockless time’ – that’s what Curtis said. And that gets me talking to Curtis about me and my sister, how we used to spend whole afternoons in the park, in a semi-wild bit, where the grass was very long, so you could lie in it without anyone being able to see you, and just stare into the sky. It was the park that made me interested in gardens, I’m sure. That’s what I told Curtis. Couldn’t have been the garden at home. A few square yards of concrete tiles. And maybe that’s how I became a talker. I used to make up stories for my sister, when we were sky-gazing. And at night too. We shared a room for years. Perhaps that’s another reason for liking the open air. All those years cooped up in a tiny house, with parents who’d reached the end of the road with each other. I don’t know. That’s by the by. The main thing is that I told Curtis about the park, and getting interested in plants, and how much I loved the garden, Curtis’s garden, and the glen. I was rabbiting on, but he was listening. Not enough people have a passion in life, he said. He was gazing at the hills, and he did this small frown, a sort of quizzical look, then he said that his only talent was for making money. Lily was the one who’d understood clothes. For him, it was only a means of generating revenue. It could just as easily have been property or cars. That’s what he said. It was his great good fortune that he’d met Lily, and came to develop some sort of eye for the stuff he was selling. I was starting to feel a bit uneasy, because you never know, the dam might have been about to burst, and that would not have been a comfortable situation. Maybe some kind of confession in the offing. So I switched back to me, and how much I loved the valley. The stillness of the water, the silence, the bees, the birds, the heather, the skies, blah blah blah. He’s nodding, but looking down, at the ground, and he’s frowning again, like I’m describing something that we’ve both seen, some incident, and the way I’m describing it isn’t quite how he’d seen it, but he’s wondering if I might be right. To be honest, it was a bit disconcerting. Really, I was only blathering, but he seemed to be paying attention, as if there was something in it. But I was just waffling. A few seconds later, apropos of nothing, he asked me what I’d made of Ulla. So I said something bland. ‘Quite a character.’ Maybe not exactly that, but something you could take whatever way you wanted to take it. Then he told me that Ulla and Katia weren’t together any more, and I said that I was sorry to hear that, and he looked down again and nodded. A non-committal kind of nod. He didn’t say anything about why or when they had broken up, but after half a minute or so there was a wry smile. A smile like that, it’s showing and hiding at the same time. You know what I mean? Semi-secretive. This was not like him at all. Curtis was always direct. He came straight to the point. If you’re the biggest person in the room, you never have to beat around the bush. Anyway, with anyone else I would have asked what he was thinking. It was that kind of smile. Inviting you to ask a question. But you didn’t ask Curtis questions. So I had to wait for him to explain, and after a bit more looking at the hills he eventually said: ‘Not every day you come across an Ulla.’ Then he laughed. A real laugh, like he’d just been told a really good joke. A proper laugh, not just a smile with a bit of sound, but I still didn’t know what he really thought of Ulla.

[Indistinct]

… expression changed, in an instant. Suddenly he was thoughtful again, and he said: ‘She had a way of seeing things.’ Then there was a monologue, all quietly delivered, about how Ulla saw things differently. That was the basic point. Circling around and around the thoughts of Ulla, like they were something that you couldn’t quite grasp, or land on. He could understand why people might not take to her. Ulla understood it too, he wanted me to know. She was too much for some. Too blunt. This was after the incident with Lily’s clothes, bear in mind. Bluntness is the least of it, I’m thinking. But it was as if Curtis had somehow set that aside. All I could do was give him a watery smile, which was all that was needed. He’d spent a lot of time talking to her, he told me, as if I hadn’t noticed. It really did seem that he’d forgotten what we’d all seen with our own eyes. ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’ was a rule that Ulla lived by, he told me, and she’d had a lot of interesting things to say about this idea, about what she understood the instruction to mean. Is it saying we have to love everyone? And what if you don’t love yourself? Does that mean it’s OK not to love other people? But how can you love yourself? It’s not the same thing as having a high opinion of yourself. How can you even see yourself, never mind love yourself? You can examine an object, because the object isn’t you. But how can you examine yourself? What’s doing the looking? It’s you, yourself. So what examines the thing that’s doing the looking? It’s like asking an eyeball to look at itself without a mirror. There’s no mirror. And so on. A lot of stuff in that vein.

[Indistinct]

The point was that most people make themselves whatever other people want them to be. What Ulla was saying was that we shouldn’t do that to ourselves, and we shouldn’t do it to other people. Being free, that was more important than anything. Without that freedom, love doesn’t mean anything. So don’t let others impose on you, and don’t impose on them. Have to say I thought that was pretty rich, coming from Ulla, of all people. She was a hefty presence, in every sense, but perhaps that’s not quite the same thing as imposing. The woman hardly ever shut up, and you were sort of carried along by the words. Her sentences were like long, winding paths. Sometimes he couldn’t tell where she was going, Curtis said. It was a kind of improvisation, always throwing out these ideas. Maybe ‘images’ would be a better way of putting it. Anyway, she’d come up with these phrases that would make you see things in a different light, according to Curtis, but when it was all over, it would have been very hard to summarize what she’d said, because there was so much to disentangle. It was brilliant, Curtis thought, but difficult to paraphrase. Like poetry. You might get the general drift, but you can’t say exactly what it means. In my experience, if something means anything you can generally say what it means, but there you go. What had set him off was remembering one of his walks by the water with Ulla. A beautiful afternoon, like this one. Not this one right now – the one with me and Curtis sitting on the wall. They’d been walking for an hour or so, not talking much. It was easy to be silent with her, apparently. Then there was this spectacular moment: a crack in the clouds, a flare-up of sunlight on the hills and the water. He couldn’t describe it. They just stood side by side, him and Ulla, taking it in. A minute or two later, the effect was over. Curtis moved on, but not Ulla. She stayed where she was, staring ahead, then she closed her eyes, and stood there, like a statue. He wondered if this was what inspiration looked like. Maybe she was forming a sentence in her head, because she was thinking about her book, the one I was talking about. That’s what Curtis thought, so he walked off, leaving her to think. She didn’t seem to notice that he’d gone. For a good three or four minutes she stayed rooted to the spot. Then she snapped out of it, as if the current had come back on, and caught up with him. Like I waited for Curtis to speak, he waited for Ulla. He said to me: ‘Shut your eyes for a moment.’ He closed his eyes. It was interesting, he said, how the world changes when you listen to it, instead of looking. When they were down at the hut, Curtis and Ulla, they would sit for a while, just listening. When you shut off the sight, the sounds flow into you from all directions. It’s a kind of surrendering. You can’t choose what to hear. There’s more of a sense of space all around you. The wind in the trees. A bird in the distance. Another one, in a different point in space, behind you. And after a while there’s no such thing as in front or behind. It’s all space and sound. Everything simply is. You lose the sense that you’re at the centre of it all. More than that, you become dispersed. That was Ulla’s word for it. Dispersed. Whereas when you’re using your eyes, it’s very much you who’s in charge. You select what you’re looking at. That’s the point. You look at something. You take aim. You can’t listen at something. Listen to is not the same thing at all. The sound comes in, whether you like it or not. It comes in from all around. And that’s what Ulla was talking about. Sight is something that goes out from us, into the world, but what Ulla had trained herself to do, or could sometimes manage to do, was to reverse the flow, from outside to inside. To see things as they really are. The world, not her world. To receive what’s visible, rather than to impose herself on it. Because that’s what we do. It’s as if you’re taking possession of what you’re seeing. And you could argue that in Curtis’s case he really had taken possession. Quite literally. That was the point he made. ‘The problem is, I do own it.’ That’s what he said. When he looked at the hills, he couldn’t help but be aware that he was looking at them, and checking on himself, on what he was feeling. ‘Am I being sufficiently uplifted?’ Something like that. Which brings us back to what we were saying about being a child. You don’t have that problem when you’re young. Not to the same extent. You’re not thinking about what you’re feeling.

[Pause]

There were some changes in the organization as well, after the second Midlands expedition. Curtis went down to London at the end of August, for three or four weeks. Best part of a month, we didn’t see him at all. There was talk of a boardroom tussle. A clash of personalities. That’s what we heard. Not sure what was going on, but whatever it was, Curtis was stepping back a bit. I mean, he was still putting in the shifts, when he was in Scotland, in the office upstairs. Video conferences that went on for hours. And he did a few more trips to London, later in the year, but shorter ones. Monday to Friday. After the accident, Scotland became home, rather than London. With every month, it became clearer. The London house really became Conrad and Marisa’s place, except for the top floor, which was Curtis’s. I think that’s how it worked. The Scottish palace was home, and he was spending more and more time down by the water, in the five-star shed. Sometimes you’d see him wandering off, and it was like he was still a patient. Not in a hospital. What do you call it? A clinic, with loads of fresh air. Lakes, mountains and all that. A sanatorium. Some of us thought he seemed bored a lot of the time. Disconnected. Must be an occupational hazard, when you can afford anything you want. That’s what makes life interesting, wanting what you can’t have. There always has to be something out of reach. Like heaven. Something wonderful that you’ll have eventually, if you behave yourself.

[Inaudible]

… on a downward slope, in retrospect. You’d hear him from time to time at the piano, in the evening. The point is, Curtis could not play the piano. He was just making nice sounds. On that piano, anyone could make a nice sound. It was a baby grand, for Carl’s use, like I said. I’ve been in houses with proper pianos that nobody ever used. Just furniture. But Carl could really play. I’ve already said that, haven’t I? Anyway, Curtis went through this period of playing the same few notes, over and over again, softly. A few little phrases. Very small tunes. One hand only. You’d think he’d suddenly developed – what do you call it? Compulsion disorder. Obsessive compulsive disorder. Or maybe he’d always had it, in another form. To get that kind of success, a touch of OCD must come in handy, I’d say. Call it ‘drive’, if you prefer. He’d had some lessons, piano lessons, when Carl was learning, but he couldn’t make progress. That’s what he told Lara. A Russian woman would come to the house for Carl, and sometimes she stayed on for an hour with Curtis, but the mistakes got him down too much, and he had absolutely no feeling for rhythm. And of course he couldn’t afford the time to practise. So we’d hear him at the piano, and that could be quite strange, but what was more worrying was that we’d see him staring at some of his pictures for a long time, as if he hadn’t ever looked at them properly before. Or there was a puzzle to be solved. Have we done this?

[Indistinct]

The pictures were just there, like family photos on the mantelpiece. Once in a while you might give them a glance, but you don’t really look. You know them. You take them for granted. In those last few months, though, you’d see him having a good long examination. That slimy green thing, in the snooker room, Rosa saw him gazing at that one for ages, as if he was peering into a pool that might have a special fish in it. That’s what she said. And the big photo that was on the landing at the top of the stairs for a while. I loved that one. A picture of a street in a small town, somewhere in America. It might have been dawn, or it might have been sunset, and there was a car in the road, with the bonnet all smashed up and the doors open, and somebody was walking across the street behind it, taking no notice. At first glance you’d think it was a real scene, but then you realize it’s all staged. A woman was watering the roses in one of the front gardens, and every light in her house was on, but you couldn’t see anyone inside. And somebody was on a porch, staring at the car, bored. All sorts of details. The more you looked, the more you saw. It made you think of a whodunnit, but you couldn’t even work out what exactly had been done. A good half-hour Curtis spent looking at it, according to Harry. And he saw him examining that picture with all the stuff stuck all over it, poring over it, inch by inch. Harry reckoned he was thinking: ‘How could I have paid fifty grand for this load of crap?’ That’s Harry for you. It was more than fifty grand, I can tell you that. A lot more. Fifty grand is nothing, in that world. I saw this programme about it, the art racket. Unbelievable, what some people spend. There was some hedge fund guy, showing the crew around his apartment, overlooking Central Park. You’ve never seen anyone more thrilled to be who he is. Art on every wall. Sculptures all over the place. I suppose you’d call them sculptures. Things you can walk round, anyway. All by living artists, or freshly dead. The names meant nothing to me. He’s pointing them out and going: ‘I paid six for that one and nine for that one and eight for that.’ And what he means is six million dollars, nine million. Lunacy. There was this auction in London. A big picture up for sale, by a famous artist. Looked like someone had squirted fifty tubes of paint on the canvas then run the world’s biggest squeegee over it. So the man with the hammer gives the room a big smile and says: ‘We start the bidding at fourteen million,’ and nobody bats an eyelid. It’s like everyone’s thinking: ‘Fourteen million? Seems reasonable.’ Ridiculous. Nothing’s worth that much. And that was just the starting line. It went for more than that. A lot more. You don’t know who’s bought it or where it’s going. Probably into a vault somewhere, so nobody ever sees it until it’s time to sell it again. It’s a commodity. They can pretend it’s about the art, but it’s not. It’s about the investment. Some of these people, they’ve made their zillions on the stock market or in property or whatever, then they pull back from the front line and start dealing in art. Maintains the revenue stream and makes you look like you’ve got some deep culture going on. The hedge fund guy, there was this lump of nonsense he’d bought for three, and it was now worth twenty. For no good reason. It’s like a weather system. The wind blows this way, the wind blows that way, and some people have the wherewithal to predict where it’s heading, but some just have a guess and nobody can be absolutely certain about when things are going to happen. Where exactly the rain’s going to fall.

[Pause]

There was a doodly thing in the dining room. A big picture, with words scrawled all over it. Lots of little drawings and splashes of paint around the words. Sketches and graffiti. It looked like the painter hadn’t been able to make her mind up about what she was going to make of it all. According to Lara, Karolina tipped him off that this was an artist on the way up, and she bought it for him. Got embroiled in a bidding war with someone on the other end of a phone line, but Karolina was under orders to win at all costs. This is what she told Lara herself. She wasn’t boasting. Just explaining how it worked. Upshot was, Curtis paid way more for the doodly thing than anyone had ever paid for anything by this woman. Then word got round that there was this collector who’d paid way over the odds. But Karolina’s instinct was right. She knew what she was doing. The stupid price tag had set the bar. Anyone wanting a picture by this person would have to go in high, because the crazy price was now a fact. So her value goes up and up, and a few years later Curtis sells the picture that kicked it all off, and Bob’s your uncle. Cashback. Must have been a very nice earner on the side, thanks to Karolina, of course. But I don’t think the investment angle was the main thing for Curtis. He always put them on the wall, instead of stashing them in a bank, and what Karolina told Lara was that he was going to make the collection public, after he died. Apparently he’d been talking to Akseli Lehtinen about converting some old warehouse or factory into a home for it. That was the intention, Lara said. I’ll bet you that Carl wasn’t too keen on that idea. Squandering the inheritance. I don’t know whether it’ll happen, but we’ll find out, sooner or later, I suppose. Needless to say, some of us were more impressed than others. I can tell you now what Harry will say about it. The generous benefactor, giving the community a big fat dose of Art. Reputation laundering. Makes you look good, when you’re no longer around. But there’s no pleasing some people. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Create a gallery and you’re only in it for the glory. Sell it, and you’re only interested in the money. Well, we’ll see.

[Indistinct]

… before Katia materialized, for the last time. Carl and Jan were there already. She’d split with Ulla a few months before, so I’d warned the others that we shouldn’t be expecting a ray of sunshine. And a ray of sunshine she was not. She looked awful, like she’d spent the previous month in a darkened room. Asil gave me a look when they arrived from the airport. Code red. When she got out, she did this wincing thing, like there was too much sunlight for her. In Scotland, in September. The hair needed a great deal of attention. Curtis didn’t appear immediately. He was down by the water. Carl was the first one out the blocks, without Jan. A super-significant hug on the back steps. You’d have thought she’d just come from a funeral. And that was the last I saw of her until the following day. I gather her mood eased up in the course of the evening, thanks to some pharmaceuticals. That’s what Rosa thought, and I’m sure she was right. Katia and Carl disappeared for a game of snooker, and the game seemed to go on for a very long time, and involved a fair amount of shrieking. Next morning she looked like she needed a few hours extra sleep. Jan kept her distance. It wasn’t a friction-free relationship, like I said. She had to permit Carl his evening’s silliness with Lady Laughalot. Then they were playing tennis, Katia and Carl, in the morning, while Jan was in the gym, doing some proper exertion. You could hear Katia screeching half a mile away. It was so bad, I went down there to take a look at what was going on. The hand-eye co-ordination was something else. Hers, I mean. Swiping with the racquet like someone had anaesthetized her arm. Maybe that’s a side-effect, because it turned out that damage had been done to the snooker table as well. Clumsiness rather than vandalism, I’d guess, but with that one you really couldn’t be absolutely sure. And the thing was, neither of them saw fit to tell anyone. Only a tiny rip, OK, but it was still damage. It needed to be fixed. But they just left it, so Rosa had words with Carl, and apparently he was a bit sheepish about it, but with Katia it was like, ‘What’s the problem?’ She knew Rosa wasn’t her number one fan. There was trouble brewing. Jan had just had it with her, you could tell. Simply couldn’t be arsed any more. Maybe she resented her because she brought out the worst in Carl. Like he regressed when Katia was there. There was one moment, in the garden. Jan was coming back from the shed, and Katia was mooching about, waiting for Curtis to become available, I think, and they crossed paths, as Jan was heading for the house. They exchanged a few words, but barely any. It was like a scene from Checkpoint Charlie. One coming off duty, the other one taking over. Nothing sisterly going on there at all. And Katia’s appointment with the big man did not go well. The drugs would have been on the agenda, I suspect. Some old wounds reopened as well. And Rosa overheard her talking to Carl, about some loony scheme she had, which basically sounded like a version of Ulla’s café-bookshop. Presumably to get her own back. Anything Ulla could do, she could do better. But really, you wouldn’t put Katia in charge of the washing up, never mind a café. In a foreign country. Her father was Irish, so she could live where she liked. Did I say that? So let’s assume she wanted a special payment, to get that dodo airborne, and Curtis said no, which would have gone down like a cup of cold sick, because Curtis was doling out cash left, right and centre by then, and everybody knew it. Scholarships and grants and what have you. Whatever it was, within the hour she was back, from the summit conference by the water. Not looking too delighted with the way things were panning out. Harry bumped into her later, and said she had the eyes of a murderer. But there was no yelling, and they all ate together, on the last evening. Not a great vibe at the table, apparently, but none of the kitchen crew could work out where the mood was coming from. Who was having problems with who. Could have been Carl and Curtis. Carl and Katia. Katia and Curtis. Jan and Katia. Jan and Carl. Any combination you like. Take your pick. It didn’t feel like a row was going to break out as soon as they had the room to themselves, but the air was thick and heavy. Like somebody there had done something awful, but talking about it wasn’t going to improve the situation. Same thing in the morning, when she left. Curtis was there to say goodbye. You couldn’t say it was frosty. It was just dead. A one-second hug. The statutory minimum. On the drive back to the airport, she wanted Asil to explain why anybody in their right mind would do what Asil was doing for a living. As though he owed her an explanation. She refused to believe that he actually enjoyed it, then she clammed up. Half an hour of silent texting, giving off a ‘Thank God this’ll soon be over’ vibe. The feeling was mutual. So that was Katia done and dusted. Curtis tried his best with her, like I said. What was her problem? For me, it’s not a particularly interesting question. Pampered druggie with a nasty personality. That’s the simplest. She had a nickname for him: Il Magnifico. That’s via Asil. Meaning that Curtis really liked being a patron. Having people dependent on him. Which I’m sure he did. She could always have said no, though, couldn’t she? She didn’t seem to object to the money when some of it was getting diverted in her direction. If you talk to Viv, she’ll probably give her theory an airing. That huge row with Lily, the screaming match, Viv thought it might have been about Curtis and Karolina. Or Curtis and someone else. Most likely Karolina. Perhaps Katia was laying into Curtis and Lily wasn’t having any of it. Standing by her man. Has to be pointed out that Viv didn’t much care for Karolina. And Curtis had broken up Katia’s first family, don’t forget. Made her father miserable for years. So Viv put two and two together and made five. She has more of an imagination than me. On the subject of Karolina, I’ve said all I have to say, I think. Maybe they thought about it, sometimes, early on, and some people will tell you the thought is a sin just as much as the act. If that’s true, we’re all screwed, I reckon. As it were.

[Pause]

Another strange thing was the meal. We had this big meal, some of the staff, with Curtis. Not Asil, though. He’d quit, after Lara’s last visit. We’ll come back to that. This was October, a few weeks after Katia’s exit. The meal, I mean. The first one. There was another one, before Christmas. None of this is in the thing that Lara wrote, because she was out of the picture by then. One day Curtis said to Rosa that it would be a nice idea for us all to get together. Conrad and Marisa and the kids had gone back to London, so it was just us and Curtis, rattling around in the palace. We wondered what was up. Perhaps there was going to be some announcement. That’s what I thought. I couldn’t see how it could be good news. Maybe he was going to sell up. Like I said, he’d seemed bored, and things had been happening with the company, so perhaps he was in the mood for all-round changes. In for a penny, in for several million pounds. He’d not given any indication that he was thinking of moving out, but then again he’d been doing some odd things recently. So I was prepared for: ‘Thank you all for your service. Goodbye and good luck.’ But that wasn’t what happened. There was no agenda. Just an evening together, with lots of wine. Very good wine. I’d never tasted anything like it, and I’ve had nothing like it since. You hear about these bottles costing a hundred pounds or whatever, and you think: ‘How different can it be?’ Well, it really is different, I can tell you. Your supermarket wine, even the better stuff, that’s like someone strumming a guitar. The wine that Curtis served up – a whole orchestra in a bottle. Really. That good.

[Indistinct]

He wanted to talk to us. Listen more than talk. He was asking us about our families. The people some of us had worked for, you might as well have been a machine for all the interest they took, like I said. The family Jacqui was with before she came to Curtis, the staff were just things that came with the building. Flesh-and-blood domestic equipment. The woman, she never bothered learning anyone’s name. Everyone was just ‘You’. Middle Eastern, they were. Maybe it was a cultural thing. But a woman Viv worked for once, she was every bit as bad. In public, not a hair out of place. Used to be a model, allegedly, though Viv showed me a picture of her and she really didn’t look like much, to be honest. All right, but not outstanding. Anyway, she spent most of her time shopping. Behind closed doors, she was an absolute pig. She’d leave the bathroom in a state like you wouldn’t believe. Throwing up everywhere and just leaving it for the serfs to mop up. Because she used to have these parties, for all her piggy friends. Every week, more or less. People in all the bedrooms, up to all sorts. Horrible. I can’t tell you what used to go on. Well, I could, but I won’t. She was married as well. In theory. The husband was almost never there. He lived elsewhere, for tax reasons. Terrible people. Depraved, even. There were kids as well. Two boys. Come the school holidays, the boys flew off to some island to be with their father for a few days. Private jet, of course. They took along a couple of friends as well, for company, because obviously the parents weren’t going to be wasting their time hanging out with their whelps. Every evening, the dad stuffed a wad of cash into their pockets to keep them going. Each one of them. Hundreds of pounds in pocket money. Disgusting. Viv lasted three months, and nobody lasted longer than six.

[Pause]

Have to say, I found it an awkward experience, the meal. Not exactly relaxing. I mean, I was OK with it. Like I said, I’d had some good conversations with him, over the summer. And Rosa was fine, too. Just the three of us, it would have been better. But we all wondered why he was doing it. It was like the Last Supper, the way we were seated. You’d expect Curtis to take his place at the head of the table, but he had us sitting in two rows. He had to be facing the door. It was a superstition with him. He had to have the door in front of him, whatever room he was in. He was superstitious in other ways as well. Doors always had to be closed. An open door made him twitchy. And there was a colour he couldn’t abide. Teal. Some association with Lily, maybe. But the food was lovely, and the wine, and we learned things about each other. The juniors especially, they saw a side of him they’d not seen before. He told us an interesting story, after Rosa had told him about her nieces. I’d already heard Rosa’s thing, but it was new to Curtis. Years ago, one of the girls met a boy, a really nice boy. It looked like it was getting serious, but in the end the relationship fizzled out. His name was Steve. Not unusual. But her sister, at around the same time, started going out with a lad who was also called Steve. The nieces are twins. So that was funny. Steve One and Steve Two, going out with twins, in different cities. But what’s super-odd is that Steve One had a sister called Barbara, who was married to a man called John. And Steve Two also had a sister called Barbara, likewise married to a man called John. Well, he was a Jonathan, but everyone called him Jon. So it was Steve times two and Barbara plus John times two. What are the odds, eh? Millions to one, must be. And it really took Curtis to the fair, that story. He loved it. Rather too much, maybe. Too delighted by it, I thought. Which made me think something wasn’t quite right, but maybe he was just trying a bit too hard to lighten the atmosphere, you know. Break down the barriers. Make it not quite so much the big boss and his little people. Anyway, then he told us a story himself, later on, when there was a lull. A similar kind of thing. He’d heard it on the radio, he said. And this was peculiar too, because it was about some young woman who’d been adopted. Bit like Curtis. Anyway, this woman decided one day to try to make contact with her biological father. Her mother had died a few days after the girl was born. Some medical complication. And her father couldn’t cope with having a baby on his own. So she goes into adoption. Cut a long story short – she contacts him when she’s in her twenties, and they meet, and it’s great. They hit it off right away. All very emotional. Couldn’t be better. He lives thirty, forty miles away. Not too far. So there’s a second visit, soon after, and this time she takes along a load of photos of herself and the adoptive family, taken over the years, so he can see her growing up. To strengthen the connection. They spend a couple of hours going through the pictures. There’s a lot to be said about them. Then they come to this one photo, taken at a funfair, of herself with the adoptive father, both of them holding candyfloss. Her father, the biological father, is looking at this picture, and suddenly he turns white. There are tears in his eyes, and she thinks it must be because it upsets him, seeing his daughter with this man who had taken his place. It must be hard. That’s what she thinks is happening. But that’s not it. That’s not what’s going on. She says to him: ‘Are you all right?’ And he says he’s fine, and he points to something in the background of the picture. And she looks, and she goes dizzy when she sees what he’s pointing to. The picture is very clear. She and her father – her adoptive father – are standing in front of a queue for one of the rides. You can see a dozen faces in the queue. And one of them is her father – her real father. He’s there, a few feet behind his daughter, lighting a cigarette. It’s him. Absolutely certain. It’s him. Fifteen years ago, they’d been standing just a few feet from each other, at exactly that moment, when the shutter was pressed. Exactly the same spot, exactly the same time. Incredible. Made my eyes water, it did, and Curtis’s too, I think, a little. And of course, I asked myself: ‘Why has he told us this?’ Because I knew he’d been fostered, and Lara had told us about his mother, so I really didn’t know what to make of it. You couldn’t help thinking that there were connections to be made.

[Indistinct]

… he thought we’d like the story, and that’s all there was to it. But I’ll tell you the other thing that struck me, that evening. The loneliness. This is a lonely man. That’s what I thought. I know what you’re thinking. If he’d wanted company, all he had to do was click his fingers. Hundreds of names in his contacts book. Doesn’t mean he couldn’t be lonely, though. Contacts aren’t the same thing as friends. How many people really matter to you? How many do you really connect with? It’s not many, I bet. For me, half a dozen, tops. Makes no difference if you’re loaded. And I think Curtis had lost a lot of connections. Not saying they all abandoned him. Could have been more a case of Curtis cutting some loose. He was a changed man. But we didn’t see a lot of guests up there. You can’t buy friends. Hangers-on, yes. But not friends. That’s why Lara was important to him for a while, I’m sure. I know it’s a cliché that it’s lonely at the top, but I’m sure it can be. You get to the top of the mountain and you’re the only one there. At the end of the evening, he said he had another one for us, another story, an even better one, but he was going to save it for the next time. Everyone was thinking: ‘There’s going to be a next time?’ That’s when it hit me, the loneliness. Why not just tell it now? It wasn’t like we had so much to say to each other that we needed to do it all over again. We’d run dry a few times. There were some pauses. For most of us, one evening would have been enough. It wasn’t like we were waiting for him to give us some tips on making a fortune. Having said that, there was one bit of instruction. Harry might tell you it was a lecture, but it wasn’t. It arose from a question that one of us asked him. I forget who. Anyway, he brightened up, as though we’d provided him with an opportunity to open up, so to speak. He gave us a few simple problems, to answer quickly. Multiple choice. Do you pick A, B or C? A game. It was about probability. The point was that you weren’t supposed to spend any time thinking about the answer. You have to respond straight away. It was all about what we do without thinking. It was fun. For me, it was fun. We tend to act on hunches, instead of being logical. All of us. That was the point he was making. Hunches were maybe a sore point, because of Carl and his daft decisions. So Curtis tossed a coin ten times and one of us had to call it each time. We all had to have a go. And it was interesting, because we were all doing it wrong, it turned out. If it came up heads twice in a row, we’d call tails for the next one. Or we’d keep switching: heads; tails; heads; tails; heads; tails. Thinking that was logical. But the logical thing is to choose one and stick to it, ten times out of ten. All heads or all tails. That’s the way to maximize your chances. When you think about it, it’s obvious, but it was only obvious when he said it. There was another one, with three doors. Something is behind one of the doors and you have to guess which one. If you’re wrong, do you change your mind about your second choice? I didn’t understand that one, even when he explained it.

Fifth Session

Right. On to the end of Lara. When she came up, after the second excursion to the Midlands, you could see the project was in difficulty. Not totally ruined, however. If they’d hit the buffers, why would she bother travelling up to Scotland? Why would he bother having her there? A phone conversation would have been enough. Jen thought Lara wanted to see Asil. That’s possible. She’d been up in Scotland in the spring, and some of us were pretty sure that something had happened then, and maybe that had something to do with Curtis’s attitude during the trip. It’s possible. Anyway, she came up again in September, after Katia’s departure, and you could see that there’d been a shift. He came out, when she arrived, and it was all quite cordial, but ‘cordial’ isn’t a word you use about friends, is it? A business discussion is cordial. It was like she was somebody who was about to leave the company, but on good terms. That’s how it felt to me, all the time she was there. She was only around for three nights. Two days. Whenever I saw them, it was always Lara doing the talking. Trying to persuade him to keep going, I thought, and that’s what Rosa said later. Lara had sent Curtis some stuff she’d written over the summer, and he wasn’t happy about the way it was going. From what I gathered, there was much more of herself in the new version. It had become a series of conversations, with biographical material woven in. What really bothered him, apparently, was that she’d put in some things that he’d regarded as being off the record. Not the very personal stuff. That would have been a really stupid thing to do. But she’d made him sound too much like a prophet of doom. Climate change and all that. And there was a bigger issue, which was that she had him saying things he was adamant he hadn’t actually said. Putting words into his mouth. That was the main complaint, Rosa told me. Curtis wasn’t happy with Lara’s methods. And perhaps he had a point. We know she didn’t record every conversation. She recorded a few, but often she just took notes and wrote them up afterwards. Sometimes there weren’t even notes. According to Asil, she could have jotted down the notes a week after the chat and they would still have been spot-on, because she had an amazing memory for speech. That’s what he told Rosa. Like a photographic memory, but for words. I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember exactly what I said five minutes ago. But that’s what Asil said. She could remember things he’d said when he picked her up from the airport for the very first time, before the accident, as if it had happened the day before, not a couple of years back. Of course, there’s a problem there, because if we’re going to take that as the truth, it has to mean that Asil has a superhuman memory too, because if he couldn’t remember it himself, how could he know that she was remembering it properly? See what I mean? I suppose he could say that he remembered it when she told him what she remembered. It brought it all back. But that still begs the question, no? So there’s a lot of exaggeration going on there, for whatever reason. Says as much about Asil as it does about Lara the Memory Woman. Anyway, Asil was so impressed, he gave her a test. I think this happened during the visit I’m talking about. September. He showed her a clip on his phone, from some film or TV show, and the next day he asked her about it. One of those Nordic crime things, it was. He asked her what the suspect had said to the policewoman, and what the policewoman had said back. And Lara could repeat it exactly, word for word. Allegedly.

[Indistinct]

… and Asil couldn’t see the problem. OK, so the book had strayed from the original idea. No surprise there. Curtis had strayed from the original Curtis. Asil read some of what she’d written and he thought it was terrific. Goes without saying. Curtis’s ideas about how life will look fifty years from now. Transport. Artificial intelligence. Machine learning. Health. All sorts of stuff. Brilliant, Asil said it was. But Curtis didn’t care for it, and Lara went away to have another go. And you’ve got to say, she didn’t look like she was giving up, when she left. Not exactly buoyant, but not downhearted. This is where I need to say a bit more about Lara and Asil. There are different views, naturally. Some people thought a relationship was brewing right from the start, from the very first time she came up. There was some electricity, supposedly. Asil was a nice-looking chap all right, but I’m not sure anything was going on at all until later. Much later. An attraction, maybe, but nothing in the way of action until the spring of the last year, before the second Midlands trip, at the earliest. Possibly not even then. Remember, there was a long pause after the accident happened, nine months or thereabouts, and when she came back up to Scotland again it seemed pretty clear to me that there hadn’t been any contact in the interim, between herself and Asil, I mean. If there had been, they were bloody good actors, that’s all I’m saying. No question, though, that things had moved to another level by the end. The last time she came up, it was all systems go. No question. This was after her horrible conversation with Curtis. I’ll come on to that in a minute. She might have been dismissed by Curtis, but she didn’t care. Other fish to fry now. That was the message. When Asil quit, it was pretty obvious to everyone that it must have had something to do with Lara. Maybe with Curtis’s attitude, or perhaps he just wanted to be with her. I could see he wasn’t wild about her going back to the Midlands with Curtis. It bothered him. And Harry took the opportunity to wind him up a bit, about Curtis and Lara, which was a risky thing to do, when you bear in mind that Asil put his sister’s boyfriend in A&E when he found out he was two-timing her. Safe to say there was a bit of friction between those two. Asil and Harry. He used to say that Asil bought his shirts a half-size too small, so we could all get a glimpse of the luscious chest hair. Tight around the biceps. Definitely envious, Harry was. But Asil could be a bit of a dick at times, you have to say. Pardon the language. Harry’s niece, she was a plumber and she played for a football team, and Asil thought that was pretty funny. Women and football. A woman plumber, come to that. He had some very old-fashioned notions. The relationship between Katia and Ulla, for example. It made him queasy. But in his defence, I don’t believe he ever tried it on with any of the girls. Jacqui would definitely have been game. But I think it would have gone against his principles, mixing work and pleasure like that. And he wouldn’t have been one for a meaningless bit of fun. That’s my impression. Lara wasn’t staff, of course.

[Inaudible]

There was something a bit off, in those last few weeks, in Curtis’s attitude with Asil. You didn’t often see them having a chat like before. It’s possible there was some kind of jealousy on Curtis’s side too. Viv thought it might have been like the way some fathers feel when they’re no longer their daughter’s number one man. My father was pretty horrible for a while, when I got my first serious boyfriend. Always finding fault. I couldn’t do anything right, for as long as the boyfriend was on the scene. It was ridiculous. With Curtis, though, my guess is that it was something different. What he didn’t like was the idea that Asil and Lara could be talking about him. That Lara had set to work on him. On Asil, I mean. I think he was more bothered about Asil than about Lara, in a way. Asil was never a doff-your-cap kind of driver. That’s not how he got the job. He was an expert. A real mechanic, and a first-class driver. Curtis always had a lot of respect for expertise. Same in the kitchen. Same in the garden. Asil understood the machines. Once in a while, they’d go out for a drive, Curtis and Asil. Advanced driving lessons. And whenever he bought a car, he’d always take Asil’s advice beforehand. So I suppose the thing with Asil and Lara might have been a breach of the terms and conditions, so to speak. When you think about it, Asil must have overheard a lot of things, driving Curtis up and down the motorways. Thousands and thousands of miles, with Curtis talking on the phone. He’d have heard a lot of things. Most of it incomprehensible or dull, but still. Maybe he signed a non-disclosure agreement. Wouldn’t be a surprise. I’m not saying that she hooked up with him for research purposes. I mean, she was an ambitious person, but there are limits. He was an attractive proposition, if Mediterranean macho is your thing. What Rosa thought, though, was that the sadness appealed to Lara as much as the hair and the physique, and I think she was on to something there. Think of Hilda. Lara had a thing about sad stories, and you didn’t have to look too hard to see that Asil had some sadness in his soul. Not a moper. I’m not saying that. Not like Katia, making sure we all took note of her inner demons. But there was a weight in there. You could see it. His wife was the main issue. She walked out on him, for reasons unknown. Unknown to us, I mean. Maybe to him as well. She went to visit her family back home, in Turkey, and on the day she was meant to be flying home she rang him to say she was staying where she was. With their daughter. The girl was just two years old, and Asil’s never seen her since. So there was that. A way to a woman’s heart is to make her feel sorry for you. Then there’s the whole Cyprus issue. His family were from a village in the southern half, near the coast. After the Turks invaded, the villagers were evacuated to the north, and Greeks were moved to the south, but Asil’s parents had already uprooted themselves and come to England by then. Asil’s first school was in London, so he barely remembered the village, but his parents did, and that’s the point. They remembered it and missed it, every day. Asil would tell you there’s a bit of the homeland lodged in his soul. A particle. Not definite enough to be called a memory, but once in a while he’d have this vague feeling, like déjà vu. I know we’re not talking about Iraq or Syria or something like that. There was the option of moving to another part of the island. But imagine it. Imagine you’re told you have to move, say, fifty miles from the place where your family have always been. That would be hard. So near, but on the wrong side of the border now. Making a clean break might not seem a worse choice. And they can’t ever return, because there’s no village to return to. They did go back, to take a look, thirty years after they’d left. The whole village had been left to crumble. It’s a question of roots. Asil liked London. He always said that. He made some good friends, but there was an undertow, all the time. His sister, she returned to the island, to the north. Some relatives were there, and she could never tolerate the weather in England. So she went back and promptly got married to a local man. Asil went over for the wedding. The whole clan was there, and it was wonderful. Great weather, delicious food, lovely people. But he knew he couldn’t do what his sister had done, because he’d become more of a Londoner than she’d ever managed to become. In Cyprus, he knew he was a Londoner. In London, though, he still felt like he was playing a part. Harry will tell you that Asil really loved being the man with the ballast of sadness. The hidden woe. But not totally hidden, obviously, because then nobody would know it was there. It gave him a sort of distinction. Being in two cultures, but not completely at home in either of them. It’s a kind of mystique. Like I said, Harry was not a huge fan. But I liked Asil. I like most people. Best of luck to them, I say. Him and Lara. I’d be interested to know if they’re still together. If you do get to talk to her, let me know. And you definitely want those characters in your film, don’t you?

[Pause]

Anyway, Curtis offered her some cash to call a halt. I’m not sure if she’d ever been given an advance for the book. I suspect things were put on hold after the accident. I don’t know. But Curtis raised the idea of a pay-off, and proposed another face-to-face. You’d have thought a phone call would suffice, but presumably he thought that he would prevail if they discussed it in person. Hospitality and charm would do the trick. Venting the full-force charisma on her. When she arrived she had the look of someone who’d been summoned, and was going to fight her corner. You could sense there was going to be a clash. They went straight into session, in the TV room. No time to lose. A couple of hours later, she was out again. I saw her looking very out of sorts, like she hadn’t been expecting whatever had just happened. It wasn’t a lovely day, but she went walking off, straight through the garden, down to the water. This was October. I didn’t get a clear look, but I think she was crying. She got out her phone, then Asil appears, in a hurry. No sooner had they passed the garden gate than Curtis came out, heading for the garage, and he drove away. God knows where he was going. Didn’t say anything to anyone, and none of us heard him come back, but he was in the office the next morning, when Lara left. It was hours before the flight when Asil drove her off, and it was late in the afternoon when he came back. A couple of days later, he hands in his notice. Time for a change of scene, he said. We had Lara to ourselves for a while, after her consoling chat with Asil, and she unloaded a lot of stuff, mostly to Viv, because she clicked with Viv better than anyone else. A lot of stuff. She told her about the pay-off. Wouldn’t say how much, but not a small amount, it’s safe to assume. Small for Curtis, not for Lara or someone like me. Nonetheless, she was not going to take it. She felt insulted, she told Viv, and she was more determined than ever to finish her book. She was fond of the word ‘journey’. Curtis hated it, she told Viv. It was such a cliché, and it was wrong as well – life is not a journey, he told her. Yes it is, she insisted. His life was very much a journey. It might look like one from where she was standing, he argued, but that was just the view from outside. ‘So you know where you’re going, do you?’ he asked her, and there was an edge to the question that she didn’t like. Then he changed tack again. The whole thing was getting far too personal, he said. Well, it had always been personal, Lara pointed out. How could it not be? He accused her of being obtuse. His relationships were of no concern to anyone other than himself, he told her. So the conversation turned into a discussion of relationships. We are who we are because of our relationships with other people, Lara said. An uncontroversial idea, she thought, but Curtis made an argument out of it, somehow. Maybe she’d been talking to people he’d rather she hadn’t talked to, about him. That’s a possibility. Then Lara made the mistake of mentioning Katia and Ulla. Nothing objectionable, she told Viv. Nothing that should have caused offence, or been taken as criticism of anyone. Just an observation, more or less quoting Curtis himself. Exactly what it was, we don’t know. But whatever it was, she knew right away that she’d overstepped the mark. We don’t know what he said to her at this point either, but it wasn’t what he said that upset her. It was the look. A glance, but there was so much in it, she said. Worse than anger – it was contempt. That’s what she saw. In an instant, it was as if an entirely different person was looking at her, or the other way round – like he was looking at someone who had taken Lara’s place. Almost with loathing. It was such a blow, she didn’t know what to think. The hostility was out of all proportion to anything.

[Indistinct]

No. It wasn’t that she didn’t know what to think – it was more that everything was instantly turned upside down. Like some kind of special effect, with mirrors and a quick change of the light, and the whole scene changes. She wondered if the glance could have been something involuntary. His brain on the blink. After the accident, he’d had moments when he felt that his mind had short-circuited. Sometimes he’d thought he was having a mini-stroke. That’s what he’d told her, and we’d seen it. Curtis staring into space, in the garden. But this wasn’t one of those moments. He was speaking perfectly clearly. He’d meant it. She saw what it was, and that glance altered everything. It virtually wiped out almost everything that had happened before. She couldn’t unsee it. Scales falling from your eyes. Like you think your marriage is fine, then your husband one evening says he’s got to talk to you and you realize you’ve completely misunderstood what’s been going on. The flash of truth. It was only a glance, you might say. But that’s like saying a crack in a ceiling is just a tiny part of the whole surface. The crack is all that matters. So what she was thinking was that maybe, fundamentally, he’d never had any respect for her, because the look seemed to be coming from deep down. He might have thought she could be of use to him, but there was no real respect in what he thought of her. And later, after he’d driven off, when she was mulling it over, it brought back a similar moment, when she’d first interviewed him. She’d asked a question that he really didn’t like. She was interested in the fine line between being really smart, in business terms, and doing things that some people might think weren’t quite in order. Where’s the line? You can see how that might be sticky ground. It wasn’t a personal question, but maybe she put it clumsily. Anyway, whatever she asked him, he seemed to hear an accusation. The way he looked at her, it was like a trapdoor opening, just a fraction of an inch, for a second. That’s how Lara put it, Asil said. A chink of darkness rather than a chink of light. But that was a different situation. It was only a glitch, and the interview was quickly back on track. And of course they didn’t know each other then, whereas now, in this scene I’m talking about, they’d been on good terms for a while, or so she thought. Not quite as good now as before, but good enough. Nevertheless, she made a connection with that moment in the first interview. Perhaps what he thought of her now wasn’t all that different from what he’d thought of her then. She knew he’d come to like her. Given all the time they’d spent together, of course he liked her. He enjoyed her company. Maybe more. But you can do all that and still basically not have much respect for a person. You can like them but not really rate them. You can even have sex with someone and not like them very much. Never worked for me, I have to say. But there you go.

[Indistinct]

… some of the crew would tell you it’s mountains and molehills. Or she was exaggerating, for effect. Best supporting role. Or what she saw is what was there, and it connects with what we were talking about before, about the kind of mentality you need to get to the top. You need to wear a mask, and keep it tight. And be ruthless. I saw this documentary a few years back. They were talking to this woman. She had a big job with a big company in London. Extremely intelligent woman. She talked very well, but in a way that was slightly too controlled. No sense of humour whatsoever. So you’d think maybe she was on the spectrum. But she’d been diagnosed as a psychopath. Quite cheerful about it, she was, like it was a category for the most super-special people. High achiever with a brain that would be highly dangerous in a different context. In every boardroom there’s somebody who fits the bill. They have a different outlet. A killer instinct. In business, that’s a good thing. That’s what we’re told. But that’s not Curtis. If he was a psychopath, I’m the Duchess of Dorset.

[Pause]

But Lara’s rewriting history again when she says she took it as a sign that he was losing his grip. ‘A glimpse of the abyss’ – that’s what she wrote. That’s overcooking it, and it’s not what she thought at the time, I can tell you that for a fact. What she thought at the time was that he was turning in on himself, and that’s not the same thing at all. Like closing the shutters on the windows. The windows of a very large building. That’s how she put it to Viv. There were a lot of windows left open still. She wasn’t concerned. Rather disappointed, and upset, but not worried. And that was the last time we saw her. It’ll be interesting to see if that article is the end of it. I very much doubt it. The coast is clear now, isn’t it? She’d wanted Curtis’s approval. He’d given her a lot of his time, so she felt an obligation to keep him on board. But now he’s not around to get angry, and I can’t imagine she could care less what Carl or Katia think. I mean, she’s not going to let it all go to waste, is she? All that talking and typing. She’s got some juicy material. The messed-up family. The money. Change the names, make some stuff up. People like a mystery, but they like a solution more, so you feel you’ve arrived at the destination. She’ll make something up again. My guess is that she’s going to do a Hilda on him. Who knows – maybe Asil has some beans to spill? I’ll bet you that’s what she’s up to, and that’s why you’re not getting anywhere with her. Protecting her patch. That’s my hunch.

[Indistinct]

Then Karolina returns, just once more. The revolving door. One out, one in. Suddenly we’re told she’ll be here at the weekend, get the room ready. She always took the grey room. All different shades of grey, from shadowy white to off-black, if that makes sense. A few degrees too chilly for my tastes. The ambience, I mean. Kind of appropriate, you could say. Anyway, it was around the middle of November. Very near the end, in other words. There might be a connection. I’m not convinced, but you have to keep an open mind. It might have contributed. The last drop of water that triggered the mudslide. The weather wasn’t great, and I never thought Karolina was much of a one for the great outdoors. Which was funny, in a way, with her being Swiss. I’d always thought it was part of the package, if you were from that part of the world, same as being from Scandinavia. You’re born on skis, and in the summer you go hiking. But I never saw Karolina anywhere beyond the hut. The hills weren’t heel-friendly. Some people just belong indoors. So it was a bit of a turn-up when she came out in the morning, all togged up for some proper legwork – hefty boots, jackets, gloves, the lot. A surprise, I can tell you. You’ve never seen such expensive-looking gear. She could have survived the North Pole in that kit. But, credit where it’s due, she was a lot more robust than we thought. Than I thought, certainly. Willowy but a lot of stamina, it appeared. Once she got that gear on, she wasn’t the same woman. Zipped up and raring to go. Food supplies in the backpack. Left at about ten and out for hours, they were. You could see them, on the other side of the loch, moving up towards the ridge. That’s pretty tough going. We were amazed that Curtis could manage it. Furthest he’d been since the accident. Raining too, from about two o’clock, without a break. They got back in the middle of the afternoon, sopping on the outside, bone dry on the inside, thanks to the finest rainproofs money can buy. Karolina looking pretty fresh. Glowing, in fact. Wonderful complexion, that woman. It took a lot out of Curtis, though. Rather too ambitious, it turned out. In the evening, they watched a film. All seemed rather cosy and domestic. You could hear them laughing, and that was unusual. It was unusual for Curtis, at that time, and unusual for Karolina at any time. Not sure I’d ever heard her laugh before. A one-second smile at best. It made us wonder. And the next day they drove off to the other estate. Curtis driving the four-by-four, and it all seemed quite jolly. Karolina in her designer survivalist outfit.

[Indistinct]

He’d acquired another chunk of Scotland. Did I mention that? Some way further north. He bought it not long before the accident. Even more acreage than the land around the palace, but no big house. There was a house, but not a mansion. Fishing and shooting country. That’s how it had been run, for years and years, but Curtis was going to put an end to that, and turn as much as possible back into woodland. That’s not just a matter of backing off and letting nature take its course. You have to intervene. I talked to Marisa about it, a lot. She was extremely keen on the whole project. I wondered if it had been her idea, in fact. They had a plan. There has to be a proper plan, because what comes to mind when you think of the Highlands, all that heather and bare rock – that isn’t natural. It’s not a true wilderness. Used to be trees as far as the eye could see. Same all over Europe. Ninety-nine per cent of the ancient forests have gone. Literally, ninety-nine per cent. And now there are too many deer, because there’s a lot of money in deer. Idiots pay a fortune for the chance to shoot a stag. It’s profitable, but lousy for the land. The deer eat the saplings, and in the winter the animals starve to death. But even if you cull the herds, the forests won’t just spring back to life, unless you don’t mind waiting a few hundred years. So Curtis was having trees planted. Thousands and thousands of them. Birches, willows, aspens. He loved the aspen in particular. Populus tremula. A beautiful, beautiful tree. The last summer, he took me over there a few times. Me and him, with Asil. We walked along the stream, by the first aspens, and he seemed as happy as I’d seen him since the crash. Perhaps as happy as he’d been since Lily. Because he could see it, in his mind’s eye, how it would look in time, especially in autumn. Aspens are glorious in autumn. Millions of fluttering yellow leaves. The shimmer. He joked about bringing wolves back too, which Asil thought was a terrific idea, as you might expect. Macho animals. I think it’s such a good thing, what Curtis was doing, but I don’t know what the situation is now. I hope the boys keep the momentum going. Anyway, he drove up there with Karolina, and they were away for the whole day. Came home after dark, and it did seem that this could be the start of a new phase, with the two of them. Exactly what it was, there was no way of telling, but something appeared to be happening. They both seemed very relaxed. Asil took her to the airport in the morning and he told us she was as near to chatty as you were ever going to get with Karolina. I mean, there were calls to be made, but there were interludes of what you could only call conversation, mostly about Cyprus, apparently. She knew her stuff, Asil said. The ins and outs of the situation, politically. From her mood, you’d have thought she’d just spent the weekend at a spa. Previous occasion she’d been up in Scotland, we were sure we were waving goodbye to her. This occasion, we thought we’d soon be seeing her again. Wrong on both counts.

[Pause]

Then we had another get-together, Curtis and the crew, at the start of December, and it was a bit weird, because we all knew that Lara had been cut adrift, and maybe Karolina’s status was under review, but none of us really knew what was going on. And Curtis was spending a lot of time down in the hut, and sleeping in it too, sometimes. He had a bed down there. And a telescope. A huge great thing, on a tripod, with dials and knobs all over it. Used to be Carl’s, because Carl decided one year that he was interested in astronomy. Fantastic skies you get up there. No light pollution. So Curtis bought this telescope for him, and there was a kind of platform on the roof, where Carl would set it up, but the enthusiasm soon petered out, because if you want to know what you’re looking at, you have to do some work, don’t you? Lot of calculations to be made. Too much like hard work. Anyway, Curtis was spending almost as much time in the hut as in the house, but there was no cause for alarm. Sometimes there was this air of preoccupation about him, like I said, but there’d always been something on his mind. Wouldn’t have been Curtis otherwise. He had a lot of plates to spin. I think anyone who says they knew that a crisis was imminent is doing a bit of a Lara. But we all do it, to make things fit, in retrospect. I know that. Like when you take a photo of something from a distance, and things look closer to each other than they are in reality. When we look back, the perspective is all crushed up. Such and such a thing happened, but when we remember it we can’t experience it again exactly as it was. We make a story of it. It’s something we need to do. There has to be a build-up.

[Pause]

It was strange, the Last Supper, Part Two. We didn’t think it was going to happen. I know he’d hinted there would be another one, but Curtis didn’t seem to be in the right frame of mind for a social event, and we thought he might have come to feel that one gathering was enough after all. Some of us had run out of things to say the first time around. Things that you could say in the presence of the boss, I mean. So it was a bit of a surprise that he suggested it. A suggestion from Curtis was more than a suggestion, of course. Nobody’s going to say they’re terribly sorry but they’re washing their hair that night, are they? I felt sorry for him. I did. And to be honest, everyone appreciated a break from the routine. It might be a bit awkward for some of us, but it was still an occasion. Conrad and Marisa and the kids came up from time to time, and Carl and Jan, less often, and there were people from the company every now and then, but it was nothing like it used to be. Since the accident, really. For me, it wasn’t a huge difference. The garden never stops. But for some of the others, there wasn’t enough to do. Full pay for bugger all. Viv was doing a language course online and by the end of the year she was reading magazines in French. God knows how many rooms Harry redecorated. Anyway, we had another meal and it was much more stop and start than the first one. It wasn’t a formal event, but there was still a degree of formality. You can’t avoid it. The huge room, the expensive plates and cutlery, the superfine glasses. He had these big wine glasses that were so thin, the glass would bend, very very slightly, if you pressed them carefully. I didn’t try it, but Viv gave it a go and she said she could feel it flexing. Anyway, it was memorable for a couple of reasons. Memorably awkward, some would say, but a couple of other reasons too. The main one was the handouts. There was a Christmas bonus every year. An envelope for each of us, on a table in the hallway. When the meal was over, we trooped out and there they were, all arranged in a fan shape, these beautiful pale cream envelopes. Handmade in Italy, with a little card inside. This gorgeous textured card. I never threw mine away. I have problems letting things go. It wasn’t the done thing to open them then and there, obviously. We didn’t all get the same amount. It depended on what you were paid normally and how long you’d been with him. So mine would have been one of the biggest, after Rosa’s, but even so it was pretty startling. I went back to my room and opened the envelope, and it made me catch my breath. Couple of minutes later and there’s a knock on my door and it’s Viv, holding her envelope like it’s a message from Buckingham Palace. She says to me: ‘What’s this all about?’ Hers was the same. Five-figure sums, we’re talking. I said I had half a mind to give him a kiss next time I saw him. I wouldn’t have done that, obviously. But Viv was thinking that something was up. This had to be the final handout. The only explanation, she thought. But he hadn’t said anything during the meal, and he would have done, if that’s what it meant. He wouldn’t have given us the cash then sprung the bad news on us in the morning. And I’ll say something else for him: he could have given us the money before the meal, then have a nice evening basking in all the gratitude, but he didn’t do that. I know he was going to get the gratitude anyway, but if he’d handed out the envelopes first, he would have had a chorus. He always paid well. Way above the going rate. People wanted to work there, even if it was a bit remote. But this was incredible. Not totally out of character, though. Maggie, the cleaner he inherited from the slave-drivers, the people who owned the palace before him – when he found out she hadn’t seen her son in two years, he bought her a flight back to the Philippines. Next day, called her into the office and asked her to pick her date. Now, I know you can say it’s no big deal to someone like Curtis. And that’s true. To Maggie, it was pennies from heaven. To Curtis, it’s equivalent to finding 50p down the back of the settee. I can do the maths. All I’m saying is that he didn’t have to do it. Most people in his position, it wouldn’t cross their minds. The richer, the meaner. That’s the rule. But I totally accept that it’s a question of scale. Take all the money in those envelopes, add it all up, and you’ve got less than what flowed into Curtis’s pockets every night while he was asleep. A lot of people in Curtis’s position, though, they begrudge every penny. With Curtis, it wasn’t like that. The grants, the scholarships, the rewilding. He put a lot back. We’re not talking about Francis of Assisi, giving it all away. It’s setting aside a portion. An affordable portion. A small slice of the cake. But he was a White Hat, in a world of Black Hats. That’s what I’d say. Rumour had it, he was preparing to dole out a whole lot more. Not just the art collection. That’s the impression Lara had. Perhaps more than an impression. We’ll have to wait and see. And I know you can say it was all about the image. That’ll be Harry’s line, inevitably. People see the money being handed out, and they don’t think about where it’s really come from. That’s Harry’s angle. They see the output but not the input. A billionaire pays for a hospital in Africa. Twenty hospitals. That’s the output. He pays the people in his factories the bare minimum, and the profits pour into his bank accounts. That’s the input. We see the big gesture. The hospitals. And we all applaud. OK. All I’m going to say is those bonuses had nothing to do with the image. It wasn’t like we were going to run off and tell the papers. I liked him. He was good to work for. And Harry was happy to work for him. Remember that, when you talk to him. He enjoyed the meal too. He talked to Curtis about the wildlife, because he was going to take a holiday in North Africa in the spring, for the migrations. Harry, that is. He was a birdwatcher. Wouldn’t think it to look at him, but he’s got a lot of knowledge in there. They talked about Morocco. A bit close to the bone, I thought, given that’s where Lily came in, but it seemed to be fine with Curtis. That was one of the livelier moments of the evening. There were lulls, like I said. Viv had to remind Curtis about the story he was going to tell us, the one he’d mentioned last time. It had slipped his mind. That’s the other thing I meant, when I said there were a couple of things I remembered. The money was one, and this story was the other. But I’m going to save it for a while, if that’s all right with you. I’d like to leave it till the end, to go out on an up-beat. A kind of up-beat. Because we don’t really have an ending. Not yet. Perhaps we never will. You’ll need one. You’ll need to find some way to tie it up, I imagine. Can’t leave a film hanging in mid-air, can you?

[Indistinct]

… the clouds were darkening later that month, but even then it didn’t feel like there was any emergency. Just that the atmosphere was sometimes oppressive. Not every single day, but often enough. Conrad and Marisa came up, with the boys. A couple of nights they were there, that’s all. Wasn’t a summit meeting or anything like that, as far as we could see. They just fancied a dose of the Highland air. They all seemed glad to be together. Conrad and Marisa wanted him to come down to London for Christmas, but he’d decided to stay up north. Maybe Karolina was expected. That’s what Marisa said to Rosa – she thought Karolina might be flying in. If that was the plan, he never told any of us, and Karolina didn’t appear. He never mentioned her. Certainly not to me. Then Carl came up, a few days before Christmas, with Jan. This was the first time, I think, that there was no kind of family gathering at Christmas. Birthdays never seemed to mean much to Curtis. I remember his birthday when Lily was alive, and hers. But after she died, the day would arrive and the phone would ring, and that was more or less all there was to it. But Christmas was different. They’d all get together, the brothers, the wives, the kids. The Scottish palace was a great place for Christmas, especially for the children. A huge tree in the hall. Big open fires. Much more chance of snow than down south. Sometimes they’d stay to New Year. Anyway, Carl and Jan flew in for the weekend. Again, nothing to report. Except there was one moment I could mention, between the two visits. Viv went upstairs, and there was Curtis on the landing, outside the office, looking out of the window. So Viv held back for a minute, but he just stayed there, and the longer he stood there the less it seemed that he was really looking at what was out there. I mean, his eyes were open and they were aimed at the hills, but what Viv said was that it was like someone who was sleepwalking. He was just standing there, facing the view, blank. Unsettling, it was. Viv backed away, but just as she was retreating he noticed her, and he sort of ushered her to go past. He was standing with his back against the wall, so she had to go between him and the window, and when she passed him he gave her this very odd smile. Watery, she said it was. That was her word. ‘Watery’. As if he’d been ordered to smile and didn’t mean it. But his eyes were worse. Normally you look at someone’s eyes and you’re looking into them. You’re looking in and they’re looking out. But Viv said it wasn’t like that at all. His eyes were like dirty glass. You know with old oil lamps, the way the glass gets all smoky and greasy? Horrible, she said it was. She told me about it right away, because it had given her the creeps, but I saw him later, when he came out to the greenhouses, and he seemed fine to me.

[Indistinct]

… nothing much to say about Carl’s visit. The air was different when those two were around, different from his brother and Marisa I mean. A kind of low-level interference, a background hum. Or like static in the atmosphere. A sense that things weren’t being said. Things that should be said but couldn’t be said. I don’t know. There was always the possibility of a row. Let’s just say that. But there wasn’t a row. It all passed off quietly. Once they’d gone, Curtis was more or less on his own. Those of us who lived in, most of us went back to our families, so Curtis was rattling around in that huge house, for a week. Jacqui was pretty well the last to leave, and she was leaving for good, because her boyfriend had a new job in Manchester. She’d handed in her notice. Her last morning, she went into the kitchen, quite early, around seven. Curtis was sitting on one of the stools by the window, looking out. Bear in mind it’s a colossal kitchen. So she thought she could get to the fridge and back out without disturbing him, but when she opened the fridge door he heard it and turned round, and for a second it was as if he didn’t see anyone there. He looked in her direction, but she might as well have been invisible. The way she described it, it was exactly the same as Viv – he seemed to be asleep with his eyes open. Then he snapped out of it, and was as nice as anything. They had a chat about her plans for the future, and the boyfriend. Even gave her a hug. She said she cried afterwards. Jacqui was a sensitive girl. A sweetheart. If any of us had a feeling of doom, it was Jacqui. She said at the time she was feeling spooked. Something really bad was going to happen. Got to be said, though, Jacqui had been spooked before. A big one for psychic energies, and she was picking up a very bad vibe when Katia and Ulla were around. There we all were, thinking that Katia had taken a turn for the better, but Jacqui really didn’t like what she was picking up. Even said to me one morning it wouldn’t surprise her if it all ended very badly indeed. Katia taking a knife to Ulla in a jealous rage. Because you remember that Ulla took a bit of a shine to Jacqui. And she was cute. Jacqui, not Ulla. Obviously. And she was absolutely sure that Carl and Jan were heading for a divorce. Might turn out to be right with that one. And you never know, there’s still time for Katia to flip her lid completely. Anyway, she’d felt something was wrong even when Conrad and Marisa and the kids were there, the last time. The children kind of camouflaged it, because they were having a great time, and they couldn’t help but lighten the mood. Under the surface, though, it was a different story. This is what Jacqui said to me. The kids were the sunshine on the water, but down below, the sharks were closing in. That’s what she said. The sharks were closing in. It wasn’t anything she’d seen or heard, but she had this feeling of dread. She also had an imagination. Away with the fairies, sometimes, that girl. One occasion, a couple of years ago, she really got a fright when this very strange thing happened. Coming down the main stairs, to the hall, she passed Marisa, who was going up. Then Jacqui goes to the front door and looks out, and there I am, in the garden, and who am I talking to? I’m talking to Marisa. God knows what had happened there. Some kind of hallucination. But she was really knocked back by it, I can tell you. I had no idea what had upset her. Staring at us like she was seeing an apparition of the Virgin Mary. Goes without saying that she’d seen the ghost at the loch. She was susceptible. Do I mean ‘suggestible’? Either way, I’ll leave it there. It’s not going to be a ghost story. Or maybe it is.

[Indistinct]

There was a bizarre episode in the first week of January, after we’d all come back. ‘Bizarre’ isn’t quite the word. A rehearsal, you might call it. Curtis went AWOL, for a couple of nights. He took the Range Rover and drove away, late morning. He didn’t give the impression that there was anything urgent, and didn’t say where he was going. There was a new driver, Asil’s replacement, and Curtis didn’t say anything to him. No luggage. We just assumed he fancied a drive, but then it got dark and there was no sign of him. Perhaps he’d gone up to the other estate, we thought. It got later and later, but still no Curtis. Rosa sent him a text, around eleven. No answer. Another at midnight. No answer. But, you know, he’s the boss. None of our business what he’s up to. There was a lodge up at the other estate, so perhaps he’d decided to stay there. Odd that he hadn’t let anyone know, and we were sure he’d taken nothing more than the clothes he was wearing. He might have driven off the road somewhere. In that case someone would find him, you’d think. It was a possibility, though. Rosa thought we should wait until the next day, which we did. By lunchtime we were talking about giving Conrad a call, to ask if he’d heard from his father, because Curtis still wasn’t picking up, but we decided to give it another few hours, and if he hadn’t appeared by the time it got dark we’d let the family know. People were starting to speculate. Viv was talking about Agatha Christie, because she went missing once. Agatha Christie, not Viv. Left her car by a quarry somewhere. In Surrey, I think it was. It was all over the papers. Hundreds of people looking for her. A full-on manhunt. Womanhunt. It took ages to find her. Turned out she was holed up in Harrogate. Anyway, we go to bed and at eight o’clock next morning he drives up. Says hello to Rosa like there’s nothing untoward in the situation. He went up to the office and stayed there until the evening. Came down about nine. Everything as normal. Rosa said she had a sense that a load had been lifted. Something had become clearer, maybe. That’s how he looked. As if something had been decided. Then we had another visit from Carl, on his own, which suggested there was something serious to discuss. He came up on the Thursday, even though a storm was on its way that weekend. A real storm, I mean. Cold, windy and wet, then snow, but he came up anyway, in the car, so it must have been something urgent, we thought. Flights were cancelled. He’d dropped Jan off en route. Someone she had to see in Leeds, as I remember. It was late when he arrived, so the man-to-man session had to wait until the morning. They talked in one of the upstairs rooms, and you could hear Carl’s voice through the ceiling. A constant drone. It wasn’t like the rows that Katia kicked up. Carl was a moaner more than a shouter. You had that sense with him, that there was always a complaint in the offing. It must have been about money. His career and money. I reckon he was worried that his father was offloading too much of the birthright. Harry was convinced that Jan was an issue too. Like I said, he thought there was something more than admiration going on there, with Jan’s attitude to Curtis. A Freudian angle. Harry watches far too much television, if you ask me. Always on the lookout for a bit of melodrama. Mind you, the situation did get really melodramatic pretty quickly. Whatever they were talking about, it went on for the best part of the morning, and when Carl emerged he had a face on him like he was coming down with food poisoning. Went straight past Rosa without so much as a glance. We didn’t see Curtis for a while. He came into the kitchen, around lunchtime, to make himself a coffee. Viv was there, but he wasn’t in a chatty mood. He went back up to the office. In the afternoon, they shut themselves in again, upstairs. More rumblings, for a couple more hours. In the evening they ate together, and Jen said it was like going into one of those soundproofed rooms where you don’t get any reverberation off the walls. Totally dead air. Carl was nice to her, but it felt like niceness with a point to it. ‘At least somebody round here knows how to be pleasant.’ That seemed to be the message. But Curtis was tight-lipped. He’d said all he had to say, apparently. A bottle was brought up from the cellar, and Jen got the impression that Carl put paid to it single-handed. Carl goes to his room, then Jen sees Curtis having an argument on the phone. From the kitchen you could see into the conservatory and that’s where Curtis was. She couldn’t hear him, obviously, and she couldn’t see a great deal, not clearly, what with the snow and the way Curtis was walking back and forth, but she could see that he was furious with somebody. He kept shoving his fingers through his hair, the way you do when someone is driving you mad. He was yelling. Like I said, yelling was not really his style. Of course, he might not have been angry with the person on the other end of the line. Could have been the message that was making him angry, not the messenger. He was talking to Conrad, I suspect. Harry will tell you it must have been Jan, and Viv’s idea was that it would have been Karolina, but it wasn’t her, I’m positive. Beneath Karolina’s dignity to get involved in anything that involved shouting. I reckon her pulse never ran above fifty beats per minute. And shouting was going to get you precisely nowhere with Karolina. It could have been someone we knew nothing about, of course. Someone in the organization. One of the hundreds of people we’d never heard of. Curtis had more contacts on his phone than you or me could run up in twenty lifetimes. The police must have a list. Anyway, when the call was over, Curtis went down to the hut. I saw him. Maybe an hour later, I’m getting ready for bed, when I look out the window and I see Carl going down the path, in the direction of the water. Which is also strange. It’s getting late, and he looks like a man on a mission. So then it’s the morning of the tenth. The Monday. Whenever Curtis spent the night in the hut, he’d come up to the house by eight at the latest, for breakfast. It got to nine, and he hadn’t appeared. That’s unheard of, so Rosa gives it another thirty minutes then goes to check the hut. No sign of Curtis. The bed hasn’t been slept in, and there are no footprints in the snow, none that she can see. So Rosa goes upstairs, knocks on Curtis’s bedroom door, gets no answer. Tries again, still no response. She opens the door, and it’s the same story. Like a hotel room before the guests have arrived. While she’s upstairs, Davie appears. That’s Asil’s replacement. He isn’t really part of the story. He reports that one of the cars is missing. It seems Curtis has gone for an early-morning drive, in the dark, in the snow. He’s taken the hybrid SUV. Why that one? Not the obvious choice in terrible weather. Maybe he’d set off in electric mode, so nobody would hear him going. It’s a very strange thing to do. On the other hand, going AWOL in January was a very strange thing to do, and like I said, it’s not our place to keep tabs on the boss’s whereabouts. Nonetheless, we’re getting concerned. Carl finally makes it downstairs, looking rough. He doesn’t seem to find it alarming that his father should have driven off in the dark, without telling anyone where he’s going, but he calls Curtis’s mobile. It goes through to voicemail, so then he rings Conrad, who hasn’t heard anything from Curtis since the previous evening. Rosa calls Lara. Unlikely she’ll be any use, but you never know. Lara’s not been in contact with Curtis since the day she left us, she tells Rosa, but she gives him a call, then reports back. Voicemail. Maybe he’s not answering the phone because he doesn’t have it with him. Highly unlikely – Curtis was a man who got a hundred messages a day. But we keep ringing his number, and then Viv searches the hut and finds the phone under the bed. When the light starts fading, we’re getting properly worried. Even Carl. Time to bring in the police.

[Inaudible]

Next day someone gets in touch to say she thinks she saw Curtis near Achanalt station the previous evening. A man answering to his description. What would Curtis have been doing at Achanalt? Then again, what was Curtis doing anywhere? Next day, a woman reports that she saw a man acting strangely, that morning, at a place called Syre. He was standing on the bridge, just standing there, looking down at the river. The woman pulled over to ask if everything was all right and he told her he was fine. He had an English accent and was very polite, she said, but he had his hood up, so she didn’t get a clear view. It could have been Curtis. The day after, in Thurso, way up north, he was seen at the ferry terminal. There was also a CCTV image that looked rather like him. But then the police get a call from a chap who says he saw a man who resembled Curtis walking along a road a few miles from the other estate, at more or less the time he was supposedly in Thurso. He didn’t speak to him, though. He drove past and didn’t stop. Then the SUV is found, not all that far from where the walking man was spotted. It’s tucked into a stand of trees some distance from the road, as well camouflaged as any car could be hidden in those parts. Cue for the specialists to arrive on the scene. They bring the tracker dogs along, and when the wind dies down they send up a helicopter, equipped with one of those cameras that pick up your body heat. Apparently, you don’t have to be alive for those things to find you. You stay warmer than your surroundings for quite some time. But there was a huge area to cover, and conditions weren’t ideal for a search, what with the snow and everything. The chopper couldn’t stay aloft for long.

[Indistinct]

… how many square miles. Any time of year, people go missing up on those hills. You can easily get lost, in weather like that. You lose your bearings. People have vanished without trace. You can’t check every single crack in the earth, and you can’t dredge every stretch of water. There are scavengers as well, of course. Horrible thought, but it’s the reality. Then again, animals don’t eat clothing, and not a scrap’s been found, so far. Or do they? Maybe they do. It’s all deeply strange, but stranger things have happened. There was a walker who went missing a couple of years back, in Wester Ross. Not exactly the same area, but same part of the world. Same terrain. They knew where that man was heading, but he just disappeared, and that was in good weather too. May or June I think it was. Dozens of people looking for him, with all the technology and paraphernalia. They knew where to search, fairly precisely, and there was a lot of daylight, but they found absolutely nothing.

[Pause]

When the weather warmed up, and there were still no clues, things started going a bit Lord Lucan. With Curtis, I mean. Remember him, Lord Lucan? People were seeing him all over the place, for years. Curtis was spotted somewhere in Norfolk. Then a village in Spain. Sardinia. Norway, walking by some fjord, supposedly. Beard, long hair. Looking a bit confused, allegedly. And Jamaica. He was seen in Jamaica, not looking confused. Harry said he was waiting for him to turn up in South America, because he must have had a load of money salted away, and in a lot of countries they don’t ask too many questions, if you’re the sort of person who has a few million to stash in the local bank and you know who to pay off. Curtis’s passport was in the office in Scotland, but Harry will tell you that there’s always a way, with people of Curtis’s class. Connections and limitless cash. The world operates differently if you’re one of the elite. Wherever you are in the world, anywhere, there’s a branch of the elite. The untouchables. There was that Italian chap who had something to do with the banker they found hanging under a bridge in London. Remember that? When the police investigated, they uncovered an almighty conspiracy, with the mafia and the Vatican and the banks all involved, and every road seemed to lead to this one individual. The name escapes me. A Freemason. He was arrested and put in the slammer, but he diverted a load of cash into a prison guard’s account and promptly did a bunk. From Switzerland, of all places. You and I couldn’t escape from Switzerland. Not a chance. We’d be back inside by nightfall. But this chap did it, easy peasy. For years he was on the Most Wanted lists everywhere, and they just couldn’t find him. Probably in Argentina most of the time. Gave himself up in the end, I think. Maybe they weren’t looking too hard. I can’t say Harry ever had anything like a half-convincing reason why Curtis might have decided to spirit himself to Brazil or wherever, but big men have big secrets, that’s what Harry will tell you. Leaving aside the point that it makes no sense whatsoever, it’s impossible to vanish nowadays without being dead, if people want to find you. The moment you use a bank card, they’ve got you. And you can’t scratch your bum when you’re out shopping without half a dozen cameras watching you do it. There are computers that recognize faces and send an alert. In China they have cameras everywhere now. You drop your chewing gum on the pavement and the next thing you know the government’s cancelled your bus pass. I reckon there’s more going on here than we realize. With cameras, in this country. There was that show on TV not long ago, with people going off-grid, being hunted down by an ex-SAS man. Didn’t take him long to find every single one of them. No sweat. What Harry will tell you is those people on TV got caught because it was only a game. Nothing at stake. But Harry really needs to get a grip, that’s what I say. This isn’t a TV thriller. There’s not going to be any great revelation. No plot twist. But I understand that there’s the box office factor. You might feel obliged to go off-piste and turn it into something else entirely. Not a docu-drama. Use the reality as a starting point, then ramp it up. Make it a murder. Maybe a grudge that we knew nothing about. Or it turns out there’s a stone-cold lunatic on the staff. Revenge of the underling.

[Indistinct]

… all in very poor taste. Viv will tell you it’s too soon to close the case. People have come home after disappearing for longer than this, for all sorts of reasons. And she’s right. It happens. But that’s got nothing to do with Curtis. Curtis isn’t missing. He’s dead. His behaviour was a bit odd at times, after the accident, I grant you that. But he’s not run away. Curtis is dead. We don’t know where or how or why, but he’s dead. Viv’s line is that he couldn’t have done away with himself. Too much out of character, just to abandon everything and everyone. He wasn’t someone who’d give up. Not in any circumstances. And he couldn’t have done that to the family. Or Karolina. Viv will say it must have been an accident. Misadventure. Call it what you like. Out on the hills, in bad weather, a person can come apart very quickly. The cold, the wind, the emptiness. Your mind can just shut down, and you surrender. You get cold, you get exhausted, and you lie down. Before you know it, your body is shutting down completely. It’s not the Himalayas, but it doesn’t have to be. But if you’ve died in a fall, or you’ve died from exposure, you can’t hide your own body, can you? OK, they can’t search every nook and cranny, but still. The odds are, they’d find you eventually. What I think is that they’ve not found anything because that’s what Curtis intended. It’s the obvious explanation. Then you’ve got to explain the explanation, and that’s really difficult. Maybe suicide is often out of character. You know what I mean? You’re not entirely yourself when the crisis hits. I don’t know. But if that’s what happened, then it would have been because of Lily. I know even the biggest companies can suddenly go into a nosedive, but that wasn’t the case here. It’s still doing fine, as far as I know. No rumours of any problems. And I don’t think it had anything to do with Carl, or Katia, or Karolina, and it had absolutely nothing to do with Lara. She rang Viv a few days later, by the way, fishing for information about the last days. Turned on the waterworks, talking about how Curtis had changed after the accident. All that stuff about self-image. You’ve read what she wrote, in the second piece. It’s too much. The accident made a difference, I’m not denying it. But if Curtis did away with himself, Lily would be the reason. That’s what he lost. That’s what he could never get back. It weakened his heart, losing her. You never know when the heart is going to fail. The literal heart. You can carry a weakness for a long time, and then one day it hits you. Same with the heart I’m talking about. You can go on for years and years and suddenly it breaks.

[Pause]

It’s terrible, the thought that he’s out there somewhere.

[Indistinct]

I have to be going. But I do just want to tell you that story, before we wind up. The one Curtis told us, at the last meal. To end on an up-beat. Not a proper ending, not the sort you’ll need, but I’d like to share it. When I think of him, it’s what will come to mind first, along with those conversations in the summer. It’ll only take a couple of minutes. He’d heard it from Lara, and Lara had heard it from Hilda. Or she said she’d heard it from Hilda. No reason to think she’s invented this one. It was something she’d wanted to put into her book, but she couldn’t find a place for it. It’s a book in itself. The backbone of a book. Anyway, the woman in the story was someone Hilda had known back in Vienna. Lea. In fact they were related, in a way, but it was a very complicated connection. So complicated that Hilda herself was no longer sure exactly where she fitted. Half-sister of a cousin of a cousin. That sort of situation. They weren’t close, but they knew each other. They might have met a dozen times in total. Same age as Hilda, more or less. Lea’s family also left in the Thirties, and they settled in London, where eventually Lea found Hilda again. They stayed in touch, intermittently, for the rest of their lives. Like I said, they weren’t that close. Lea was a nurse, but her great love was opera. Don’t know why I said ‘but’. She was a nurse and she loved opera. Especially Mozart. When she was living in Vienna, she would spend any money she managed to save on opera tickets. One night, outside the opera house, before the performance, she got talking to an interesting young man, a law student named Adrian. Not exactly handsome, but attractive. Intelligent. Very articulate. At the interval they resumed their conversation. When the opera was over, they resumed again. They walked through the city, talking, for another hour. Adrian was more than interesting – he was fascinating. The opera that night was The Magic Flute – his favourite of them all, it turned out. He knew a lot about The Magic Flute. He knew an amazing amount about all sorts of music, because he was not just a law student, he was a musician as well. A cellist. The cello was his main instrument, but he could play piano too. Lea could tell that he was being too modest about his ability. When they finally said goodnight, he invited her to a concert that was being held a week or two later, in someone’s house. His family knew some very well-connected people. It turned out, when she got there, that Adrian was not attending the concert – he was performing in it. With one of his teachers on piano, he played something by Debussy. So it was to the sound of Debussy that Lea fell in love. Or it was when she was listening to the music of Debussy that she knew that this was what had happened to her. She had fallen in love, so quickly. Not long afterwards, her father informed her that they were going to get out of the country. He could see the skies were blackening. Dreadful people were making plans. It would be perilous to delay. Left to themselves, Lea and Adrian would already have been talking about marriage, but his parents were snobs. Worse than snobs. Their son was not going to be marrying any nurse, and a Jewish nurse at that. So there was nothing to be done: Lea had to leave, and Adrian had to stay. She wrote to him, he wrote to her. But the distance did its work. Distance and time. And they were young, after all. Each of them would find someone else, in time. The letters dwindled, first from his side, then from hers. He wrote to tell her that he had become engaged. That was the last letter she ever received from him. Adrian fought in Russia, and was wounded badly enough for his war to be over. After the war, his wife divorced him. He met and married an English girl, and they moved to London. None of this was known to Lea. She herself got married, and was happy. Her life was fulfilling. She worked in the hospital where her husband was a specialist; they had two children, a son and a daughter. A loving family. Adrian was forgotten. Leap forward, to forty years after the end of the war. Lea, by now a widow, calls Hilda, also a widow. There is something she has to tell her. Something wonderful. A few days before, as a birthday treat, her daughter had taken her to the opera, in London. Not The Magic Flute – that would be too much. But Mozart. This time it’s Don Giovanni. Five minutes to curtain up. Her daughter is reading the programme, and Lea is scanning the audience below, the people in the expensive seats. She becomes aware that behind her, two or three rows back, someone is speaking German. It’s a male voice. Not youthful. A younger woman answers him, in German, fluent German, but with a slight non-German accent. It’s when the man says Ich weiß nicht – I don’t know – that she hears something in the voice. He says something else, and the feeling of familiarity becomes stronger. It’s uncanny. Even though it’s impossible, it could be Adrian’s voice that she’s hearing. She listens. The man laughs, quietly. The laugh is Adrian’s laugh. She’s so sure of it, she daren’t look round, and then the lights go down. She can’t pay attention to what’s happening on the stage, because her mind is now awash with memories of walking with Adrian. She remembers parks, shop windows, cafés, the river. The nostalgia is overwhelming. It’s the music that is affecting her, she lies to her daughter. When the lights go up again, she turns round, and she sees a silver-haired man. He is standing up, beside a woman who must be his daughter. He drapes a scarf over his shoulders. Lea had always found it endearing that one of Adrian’s ears was folded down at the top. Before he was born, he must have had a hand pressed to that side of his head for a long time. That’s how he’d explained it. It would unfold eventually, his parents were promised, but it never did. The silver-haired man in the opera house turns, and Lea sees the folded ear. At exactly that instant, Adrian notices the elderly woman who is staring at him and he knows, immediately, who she is. They are not falling for each other again. Of course not. Nonetheless the air is changing around them. Another life is beginning. They are now in their seventies, and they will have six years together, not as husband and wife, as they should have been, but as companions. Not lovers, but friends of a rare kind. Hilda’s words. ‘Friends of a rare kind.’ Their lives have been good since they parted, once the painful time was over; these six years at the close will also be good. They are much as they were, at heart. No regrets, only gratitude, and a lot of stories to share.

[Pause]

I’d say he was a romantic too. Curtis, I mean. Deep down. Underneath the money. Being rich doesn’t mean you can’t have a heart. That story moved him. You could see that. I don’t think the idea of fate meant anything to him. Destiny is what you make it – that was Curtis’s way of thinking. But Lea’s story was a kind of folk tale, maybe. The beggar who turns out to be the prince’s long-lost twin. That kind of thing. We like to pretend there’s some mysterious power at work. And I know you can say: ‘What about his other women? Romance wasn’t what they were all about.’ But I think that proves the point. None of them were ever going to match up. Not even Karolina. Nobody could take the place of Lily. I’m repeating myself.

[Pause]

I’m done. The end.

[Pause]

Sorry.

About the Author

Jonathan Buckley is a writer and editor from the West Midlands, now living in Brighton. In 2015 he won the BBC National Short Story Award for ‘Briar Road’, and he is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement. Tell is his twelfth novel. His previous novels were published by Fourth Estate and Sort Of Books in the UK, and NYRB in the US. Tell was the joint winner of the 2022 Novel Prize, a global, biennial award for a book-length work of literary fiction written in English.

Copyright

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Copyright © Jonathan Buckley, 2024
This first edition published in Great Britain
by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2024

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