The Shell Seekers Read online

  But it was all fairly draining. She realized that it was Friday and the end of the week, and was grateful for this. She worked on until six o’clock, clearing her desk, before finally gathering up her belongings, taking the lift down to the basement garage, collecting her car, and setting off for home.

  The traffic was appalling, but she was used to rush-hour traffic and accepted it. Venus, with mental slam of the watertight door, ceased to exist; it was as though the afternoon had never happened, and she was back in L’Escargot again, with Nancy.

  She had been brusque with Nancy, accused her of over-reacting, made little of her mother’s illness, dismissed the country doctor’s prognosis. This was because Nancy invariably made mountains of molehills … poor girl, what else did she have to do with her boring life … but also because Olivia, as though she were still a child, did not want to think of Penelope as anything but well. Immortal even. She did not want her to be ill. She did not want her to die.

  A heart attack. That it could happen to her mother, of all people, who had never been sick in all her life. Tall, strong, vital, interested in everything, but most important, always there, Olivia remembered the basement kitchen at Oakley Street, the heart of that great rambling London house, where soup simmered, and people sat around the scrubbed table and talked for hours over brandy and coffee, while her mother did the ironing or mended sheets. When anyone mentioned the word “security,” Olivia thought of that comforting place.

  And now. She sighed. Perhaps the doctor was right. Perhaps Penelope should have some person living with her. The best thing would be for Olivia to go and see her, talk things over, and, if necessary, see if they could come to some sort of an arrangement. Tomorrow was Saturday. I shall go and see her tomorrow, she told herself and felt at once much better. Drive down to Podmore’s Thatch in the morning and spend the day. With the decision made, she put it all out of her mind and allowed the resultant void to fill slowly with pleasurable anticipation of the evening that lay ahead.

  By now, she was nearly home. But first she turned in at her local supermarket, parked the car, and did some shopping. Crusty brown bread, butter, and a pot of pâté de foie gras; chicken Kiev, and the makings of a salad. Olive oil, fresh peaches, cheeses; a bottle of Scotch, a couple of bottles of wine. She bought flowers, an armful of daffodils, loaded all this loot into the boot of her car, and drove the short distance that took her to Ranfurly Road.

  Her house was one of a terrace of small red brick Edwardians, each with its bulging bay window and front garden and tiled path. From the outside it looked almost painfully ordinary, which only increased the impact of its unexpected and sophisticated interior. The cramped rooms of the ground floor had been transformed into a single spacious apartment, with the kitchen divided from the dining area only by a counter, like a little bar, and an open staircase leading to the upper floor. At the far end of the room, French windows led out into the garden, and these gave a strangely rural view, for beyond the garden fence was a church with its own half acre or so of land, where Sunday-school picnics were held in the summer-time, and a huge oak tree spread its branches.

  Because of this it would have seemed natural had Olivia decorated her house in country style, with sprigged cottons and pine furniture, but the impact she had contrived was cool and modern as a penthouse flat. The basic colour was white. Olivia loved white. The colour of luxury, the colour of light. White tiled floor, white walls, white curtains. Knobbly white cotton on the deep, sinfully comfortable sofas and chairs, white lamps and shades. And the result was not cold, for this pristine canvas she had splashed with touches of primary brightness. Cushions of scarlet and Indian pink, Spanish rugs, startling abstracts framed in silver. The dining-room table was glass, the chairs black, and one wall of her dining room she had painted cobalt blue and hung with a gallery of photographs of family and friends.

  It was, as well, warm, immaculate, and shiningly clean. This was because Olivia’s neighbour, with whom she had had a longstanding arrangement, came in each day to wash and polish. Now, she could smell the polish, mingled with the scent from a bowl of blue hyacinths, bulbs she had planted last autumn and which had finally reached their peak of scented perfection.

  Unhurried, consciously unwinding, she set about her preparations for the coming evening. Drew the curtains, lit the fire (which was gas with sham logs, but as comforting and genuine as a proper fire), put a tape on the stereo, poured herself a Scotch. In the kitchen, she concocted a salad, made a dressing for this, laid the table, put the wine to cool.

  It was now nearly seven-thirty, and she went upstairs. Her bedroom was at the back of the house, looking out over the garden and the oak tree, and this too was white, with a thick fitted carpet and an enormous double divan bed. She looked at the bed, and thought about Hank Spotswood, deliberated for a moment or two, and then stripped and remade it, replacing the sheets with clean ones of shining, icy, freshly ironed linen. When she had done this, and only then, she undressed and ran herself a bath.

  For Olivia, the ritual of her evening bath was her one indulgence in total relaxation. Here, soaking in scented steam, she allowed her mind to drift, her thoughts to wander. It was an interlude conducive to pleasant reflections—holidays to be considered, clothes for the coming months, vague fantasies concerning her current man. But somehow this evening, she found herself back with Nancy, wondering if she was home by now in that dreadful house with her graceless family. True, she had problems, but they all seemed to be self-induced. She and George, with all their pretensions, lived far beyond their means, and yet managed to convince themselves that they had the right to so much more. It was hard not to smile at the recollection of Nancy’s face, jaw sagging and eyes goggling, when Olivia had told her the probable worth of the Lawrence Stern paintings. Nancy had never been any good at hiding her thoughts, especially if you caught her unawares, and the blank astonishment had been, almost at once, replaced with an expression of calculating avarice, as Nancy doubtless envisaged school bills paid, the old Vicarage double-glazed, and security ensured for the entire Chamberlain clan.

  This did not worry Olivia. She had no fears for The Shell Seekers. Lawrence Stern had given the painting to his daughter as a wedding present and it was more precious to her than all the money in the world. She would never sell it. Nancy—and for that matter Noel—would simply have to bide their time until nature took its course and Penelope turned up her toes and died. Which, Olivia devoutly hoped, would not be for years.

  She mentally abandoned Nancy and let her mind move on to other, more attractive concerns. That clever young photographer, Lyle Medwin. Brilliant. A real find. And perceptive, too.

  “Ibiza,” he had said, and she had, involuntarily, repeated the word, and perhaps he had caught some question in her voice or expression, for he had at once made an alternative suggestion. Ibiza. Now, she realized, squeezing her sponge so that hot water trickled like balm over her nakedness, that memories had stirred and stayed, hovering around at the back of her consciousness, ever since that small and apparently insignificant exchange.

  She had not thought of Ibiza for months. But, “Rural backgrounds…” she had suggested. “With goats and sheep and hardy peasants tilling fields.” She saw the house, long and low, red-tiled, hung with bougainvillaea and trellises of vines. Heard cowbells and cocks crowing. Smelt the warm resin of pine and juniper, blown in from the sea on a warm wind. Felt again the nailing heat of the Mediterranean sun.

  3

  COSMO

  On holiday with friends during the early summer of 1979, Olivia met Cosmo Hamilton at a party on a boat.

  She disliked boats. She disliked the close quarters, the claustrophobia caused by too many people crowded into too small a space, the constant banging of shin and head on davit and boom. This particular boat was a thirty-foot cruiser, moored out in the harbour and reached by means of a power dinghy. Olivia went because the rest of her party were going, but she did so reluctantly, and it was just as bad as she had fe
ared, with too many people, no place to sit, and everybody being dreadfully jolly and bluff, drinking Bloody Marys, and discussing with much noisy laughter the momentous party they had all been to the previous evening, and which Olivia and her friends had not.

  She found herself standing, hand clamped around her glass, in the cockpit of the yacht, along with about fourteen other people. It was like trying to be sociable in a very crowded lift. And another awful thing about being on a boat was that there was no way you could leave. You couldn’t simply walk out of the door and into the street and find a taxi and go home. You were stuck. Jammed, moreover, face to face with a chinless man, who seemed to think that you would find it fascinating to be told that one was in the Guards, and how long it took one to drive, in one’s fairly fast car, from one’s place in Hampshire to Windsor.

  Olivia’s face ached with boredom. When he turned for a moment to get his glass refilled, she instantly made her escape, stepping up out of the cockpit and making her way forward, passing en route an almost totally naked girl sunbathing on top of the cabin roof. On the foredeck, she found a corner of empty deck and there sat, her back propped against the mast. Here, the babble of voices continued to assault her ears, but at least she was alone. It was very hot. She stared despondently at the sea.

  A shadow fell across her legs. She looked up, fearing the Guardee from Windsor, and saw that it was the man with the beard. She had noticed him as soon as she stepped on board, but they had not spoken. His beard was grey, but his hair was thick and white, and he was very tall and spare and muscular, dressed in a white shirt and faded, salt-bleached jeans.

  He said, “Do you need another drink?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you want to be alone?”

  He had a charming voice. She did not think he looked the sort of man who would refer to himself as “one.” She said, “Not necessarily.”

  He squatted beside her. Their eyes came level and she saw that his were the same pale, soft blue as his jeans. His face was lined and deeply tanned, and he looked as though he might be a writer.

  “Can I join you then?”

  She hesitated, and then smiled. “Why not?”

  His name was Cosmo Hamilton. He lived on the island, had lived here for twenty-five years. No, he was not a writer. To begin with he had run a yacht charter business and then had a job as agent for a firm in London which ran package holidays, but now he was a gentleman of leisure.

  Olivia, despite herself, became interested.

  “Don’t you get bored?”

  “Why should I get bored?”

  “With nothing to do.”

  “I have a thousand things to do.”

  “Name two.”

  His eyes gleamed with amusement. “That’s almost insulting.”

  And, indeed, he looked so fit and active that it probably was. Olivia smiled. “I didn’t mean it literally.”

  His own smile warmed his face, like a light, and caused his eyes to crinkle up at the corners. Olivia felt as though her heart, very stealthily, was stirring and turning over.

  “I have a boat,” he told her, “and a house and a garden. Shelves of books, two goats, and three dozen bantams. At the last count. Bantams are notoriously prolific.”

  “Do you look after the bantams, or does your wife do that?”

  “My wife lives in Weybridge. We’re divorced.”

  “So you’re alone.”

  “Not entirely. I have a daughter. She’s at day school in England, so she lives with her mother during the term and then comes out here for the holidays.”

  “How old?”

  “Thirteen. She’s called Antonia.”

  “She must love being here for holidays.”

  “Yes. We have a good time. What are you called?”

  “Olivia Keeling.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “At Los Pinos.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “No, with friends. That’s why I’m here. One of our party was given the invitation and we all tagged along.”

  “I saw you come on board.”

  She said, “I hate boats,” and he began to laugh.

  The next morning he turned up at the hotel in search of her. He found her alone, by the pool. It was early and her friends were presumably still in their bedrooms, but Olivia had already swum, and had ordered her breakfast to be served on the poolside terrace.

  “Good morning.”

  She looked up, into the sun, and saw him standing there in a dazzle of light.

  “Hello.”

  Her hair was wet and sleek from her swim and she was wrapped in a white towelling robe.

  “May I join you?”

  “If you want.” She put out a foot and pushed a chair in his direction. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “Yes.” He sat down. “A couple of hours ago.”

  “Some coffee?”

  “No, not even coffee.”

  “What can I do for you then?”

  “I came to see if you’d like to spend the day with me.”

  “Does that invitation include my friends?”

  “No. Just you.”

  He was looking straight at her, his eyes steady and quite unblinking. She felt as though she had been thrown a challenge, and for some reason this disconcerted her. Not for years had Olivia been disconcerted. To cover this unfamiliar nervousness and give herself something to do, she took up an orange from the basket of fruit on the table and began to try to peel it.

  She said, “What am I going to say to the others?”

  “Just tell them you’re going to spend the day with me.”

  The peel of the orange was tough and hurt her thumbnail. “What are we going to do?”

  “I thought we’d take my boat out … take a picnic.… Here.” He sounded impatient, leaned forward and took the orange away from her. “You’ll never peel it that way.” He reached into his back pocket, produced a knife and began to score the orange into four sections.

  Watching his hands, she said, “I hate boats.”

  “I know. You told me yesterday.” He returned the knife to his pocket, deftly peeled the fruit, and handed it back to Olivia. “Now,” he said, as she silently took it, “what are you going to say? Yes or No?”

  Olivia leaned back in her chair and smiled. She broke the orange into segments and began to eat them, one by one. In silence, Cosmo watched her. Now the heat of the morning was intensifying, and, with the delicious taste of fresh citrus on her tongue, she felt warm and content as a cat in the sun. Slowly, she finished the orange. When it was done, she licked her fingers and looked across the table at the man who waited. She said, “Yes.”

  Olivia discovered that day that she didn’t hate boats after all. Cosmo’s was not nearly as big as the one on which the party had been held, but infinitely nicer. For one thing, there were just the two of them, and for another they didn’t just bob pointlessly about at the mooring, but cast off and hauled up the sail and slipped away, past the harbour wall and out into the open sea and around the coast to a blue deserted inlet that the tourists had never taken the trouble to find. There they dropped anchor and swam, diving from the deck, and clambering aboard again by means of a maddeningly contrary rope ladder.

  The sun was now high in the sky and it was so hot that he rigged an awning over the cockpit and they ate their picnic in the shade of this. Bread and tomatoes, slices of salami, fruit and cheese, and wine that was sweet and cool because he had tied lengths of twine to the necks of the bottles and lowered them into the sea.

  And later, there was space to stretch out on the deck and peacefully sunbathe; and later still, when the wind had dropped, and the sun was sliding down out of the sky, and the reflected light from the water shimmered on the white-painted bulkhead of the cabin, room to make love.

  The next day he turned up again, in his battered tough little drop-head, a Citroën 2 CV that looked more like a mobile dustbin than anything else, and drove her away fro
m the coast, inland, to where he had his house. By now, not unnaturally, the rest of her party were becoming a little peeved by Olivia. The man who had been included for her delight had taxed her with this, and they had had words, whereupon he had relapsed into a fetid sulk. Which made him all the easier to leave.

  It was another beautiful morning. The road led up into the mild hills, through sleepy golden villages and past small white churches, farms where goats grazed in the thin fields, and patient mules harnessed to grinding wheels trod in circles.

  Here it was as it had been for centuries, untouched by commerce and tourism. The surface of the road deteriorated, modern tarmac was left behind, and the Citröen finally ground and bumped its way down a narrow, unmade track, dark and cool in the shade of a grove of umbrella pines, and came to rest beneath a massive olive tree.

  Cosmo killed the engine and they got out of the car. Olivia felt the cool breeze on her face, and caught a glimpse of the distant sea. A path led on, downhill, through an orchard of almonds, and beyond this lay his house. Long and white, red-roofed, stained purple with bougainvillaea blossom, it commanded an uninterrupted view of the wide valley, sloping down towards the coast. Along the front of the house was a terrace, trellised with vines, and below the terrace a small tangled garden spilled down to a little swimming pool, glinting clear and turquoise in the sunshine.