'Twenty-two. The boat badly needed a refit. It took me some time to get organised for the charter game, but at twenty-four I was in business. I've never looked back. It wasn't the future which was forecast by my father or my schoolmasters,' he added sardonically.
'I'm sure you've been told that I left England under a cloud.'
'I believe so. But that's long ago,' she answered, with a meaning glance at John.
The little boy seemed intent on his breakfast, but he might be taking in more of their conversation than Ash realised. Most of it would be over his head, but with children of his age unguarded remarks by adults could result in embarrassing questions at awkward moments.
In case Ash didn't take the hint, she asked, 'What was your mother's nationality?'
'She was Greek. I don't remember her, only my father's second wife who didn't care for foreigners of any sort, but particularly those of my complexion. It's as well she isn't alive to see England becoming increasingly cosmopolitan.' His dark gaze flicked over Christie's fair hair and pale skin. 'Perhaps you share her views?'
She shook her head. 'I teach at a very mixed school. There are problems when people of different nationalities and races start living together on terms of equality, but I don't believe they're insuperable. I think life would be a great deal duller without the very mixed cuisine which most people eat nowadays. I certainly shouldn't like to think I was never going to eat another pizza, or a curry, or a doner kebab.
Food-wise, there's everything to be said for a multiracial community.'
'My stepmother wouldn't have agreed with you. She disliked even French food,' said Ash. 'But as you have a more adventurous palate, how would it be if I took care of the supper tonight and gave you a Caribbean speciality?'
'It would be very nice—if you think you can get the ingredients.'
'With the number of West Indians in London—no problem,' he assured her. 'John can come shopping with me instead of staying with Mrs Kelly. It will give us a chance to get to know each other.'
John had finished his breakfast. Christie sent him to the bathroom to start brushing his teeth.
Alone with his half-uncle, she said, 'Liking small doses of other people's children is not the same as having a child on one's hands all the time. Frankly, I just can't see how you could fit John into your life.
Surely your wealthy passengers wouldn't want a small boy underfoot? And how could you captain a schooner
and
nurse him through measles and mumps, which he's sure to have sooner or later?'
'Your Mrs Kelly has her equivalents in my part of the world. How could you manage without her?' was his calm reply.
'At least I can give him my undivided attention for two days every week, and all through the long school holidays.'
He looked at her long and intently, and after some moments she found herself unable to meet that oddly piercing scrutiny.
'More coffee?' she asked uneasily.
'Thank you.'
As she refilled his cup and waited for his comment on her last remark, she was suddenly intensely aware of the sinewy brown forearms resting on the edge of the table, and the breadth of his shoulders under the blue cotton shirt. The kitchen was not so warm that she felt uncomfortable in a cardigan. Yet he, newly arrived from a much warmer climate, had his shirt sleeves rolled up to his biceps, and the top two buttons of his shirt open.
Obviously he was superbly fit, with the kind of vitality induced by an energetic outdoor life in an unpolluted atmosphere. Most people looked like that for a few days after a holiday, but not all year round and especially not in the winter. Maybe it would be wrong of her to deprive her nephew of the chance to grow up like his half-uncle: tall and strong, with a dark coffee tan.
Ash said, 'I think we should postpone any further discussion until tonight. What time do you get home?'
She told him, and excused herself to go to the bathroom to supervise John's morning wash and explain the change of routine to him.
By the time John was dressed, Ash had put the kitchen in order, and was washing out a shirt. 'Where shall I hang this to dry?' he asked.
'There's a line which goes over the bath. If you hang it on that, and leave the wall-heater on for an hour or two, it should be ready for ironing by this evening,' she suggested. 'I'm going to pop upstairs and tell Mrs Kelly that John won't be coming today.'
Her neighbour, also a widow but thirty years Christie's senior, came to the door without delay, for she too was an early riser, but wearing a cherry red housecoat and matching lipstick.
From time to time she had hinted that Christie's appearance would be enhanced by make-up and more colourful clothes. But although she had been devoted to her late husband, Mrs Kelly admitted that she would like to marry again if she met a suitable widower.
Whereas Christie had put marriage behind her and, by dressing like a modern nun, except that she wore no veil, attracted little male interest and reminded herself—although this was scarcely necessary while she still had occasional nightmares which brought the past vividly back to her—that she had no right to encourage such interest.
'Christie! Is anything wrong, my dear?' asked the older woman, finding her on the threshold.
'No, nothing. I'm sorry to interrupt your breakfast, Margaret. Did you enjoy the play last night?'
For a few minutes, as she greeted her friend and listened to her enthusiastic report of a visit to a West End theatre, Christie's clear grey eyes were alight with the friendly warmth which made her well liked by her women colleagues and popular with her pupils?
But, when Margaret enquired where John was, the smile left her eyes as she answered, 'He's with his uncle, Paul's half-brother. He arrived late last night from abroad and is only here for a short time. John is going to spend the day with him. I thought you would like to know early, in case you felt like spending the day with one of the girls.'
Margaret Kelly had two married daughters living on the far side of London.
'No, I must spend today at the sewing machine, or I shan't have my Christmas presents finished. What's he like—your visitor?'
Christie had always been the kind of person who received confidences rather than gave them. Very often, while standing beside her in a bus queue or at the supermarket check-out, some lonely fellow human being would begin a conversation which would rapidly develop into their life story, or details of ill health and other problems. Perhaps they sensed that she had been through life's storms and would not reject their need for sympathy.
But although Margaret was a kind, understanding woman, Christie felt that she did enough for her by looking after John during school hours. She had not told Margaret about her past unhappiness, or about the worries which had loomed over her since learning the conditions of Paul's will.
'He seems very pleasant,' she said guardedly. 'He's certainly the most capable man I've ever met. He cooked our breakfast, and I left him washing out a shirt. John will be quite safe in his charge, I'm sure of that.'
'He stayed the night with you?'
'Yes.' Christie knew that Margaret's surprise was prompted by her knowledge of the limited sleeping facilities in the lower flat rather than by any moral disapproval. 'He didn't turn up until after twelve, and we talked for some time, and then he suggested dossing down on the sofa. At that time of night it seemed rather inhospitable to push him out to a hotel.'
'Oh, yes, I was forgetting about your sofa. Mine, being a two-seater, is no good as a makeshift bed. Where has he come from?'
'From Antigua in the West Indies.'
'An expensive journey,' was Margaret's comment. 'He must be a good-hearted man to concern himself with John's welfare. What age are his own children?'
'He's a bachelor.'
'Oh?' Again Margaret looked surprised. 'In that case perhaps he'll be able to help you financially.'
'Perhaps. Enjoy your sewing day. You'll be able to get on faster without having John on your hands.'
'Oh, he's never any trouble, bless him. Thank you for letting me know, dear. See you later.'
Descending the stairs to her own floor, Christie was inclined to wish that she had confided in Margaret and could have asked her advice.
She found John contentedly playing with a simple wood" And plastic construction set, and his half-uncle still in the kitchen.
'May I use your shoe cleaning brushes?' he asked her.
'Of course.' She fetched them for him from her broom cupboard.
His chestnut brown leather slip-ons did not look in need of a polish, but evidently he was as particular about his appearance as her father, an Army officer, had been. "Never trust a man with dirty shoes" had been one of the adages he had impressed on his teenage daughters.
Looking back, Christie thought she might not have married so young if her father had lived. He had retired from the Army at about the same time that she had started her domestic science training. Her mother had died when Jenny was sixteen and Christie thirteen; and the plan had been that he and his younger daughter would set up home in a cottage on the south coast near the large resort where she was training.
For a year this arrangement had worked well. Then, shortly after her engagement to Mike, her father had become seriously ill. He had died when she was not quite twenty.
With none of the home-making problems besetting most young engaged couples, she and Mike had married forthwith. He, like her, had lost both his parents, and was living in uncomfortable digs which he had been glad to exchange for the comforts of the cottage and Christie's already expert housekeeping.
He had been twenty-one when he died, still in love with his bride and, she felt sure, with no suspicion that her father had been wise in trying to dissuade her from becoming engaged before she had finished her training.
She knew now that she had never really loved Mike and, if he had lived, she would have grown to detest him. But if some of the fault lay with him, a great deal more lay with her for not recognising the difference between herself and other girls. There had been plenty of signs, but—
'Do John's outdoor shoes need cleaning?'
Ash's question interrupted her thoughts. With a slight start she returned from the unhappy past to the uncertain present.
'They may not be up to your standards,' she conceded, forcing a smile.
She fetched the little boy's shoes. They were fairly new but, at the rate he was growing, would soon need to be replaced. The price of keeping him well shod and comfortably clothed was one of her many worries about him. With the worst of the winter still to come, he would probably need a new fleece-lined anorak before the cold weather was over. She felt a sudden pang of envy for Ash living in a climate where thick clothes were never necessary, and the rain came in short heavy downpours instead of long days of drizzle.
'You may need an umbrella before the day's out,' she said, peering up at the sky through the kitchen window. 'I'd better leave you mine. It isn't far to my bus stop, and I have a good waterproof mac.'
'No, no—you take your umbrella. If it starts to rain while we're out, we'll pick up a taxi.'
'There aren't many about in the suburbs. You have to ring up for them.'
'Then we'll ring up. Don't worry about it.' There was a note of raillery in his voice which made her feel foolishly fussy.
She flushed. 'I'd better be going.'
It seemed a very long day. Christie found it difficult to concentrate for thinking of Ashcroft Lambard and his right to take charge of the child who was all the happiness left to her.
During the mid-morning break, she rang up the local solicitor how had acted for her when she had bought the flat. His clerk said he was very busy and couldn't possibly see her at such short notice. When Christie said it was a matter of the greatest urgency, he relented and made an appointment for her. The consultation made her half an hour late getting home. When she unlocked the door—having given a spare key to Ash—instead of entering a flat which had been empty all day, she was greeted by an appetising smell of cooking, and the sound of music from the living-room.
Christie hung her raincoat in the cupboard in the lobby. It had been a grey day, but dry.
There was nobody in the sitting-room. But a vase of dark red carnations stood in the centre of the dining-table, and the room was warm instead of chilly, suggesting that the gas fire had been alight for some time.
She crossed the passage which led to the kitchen and bedrooms. The kitchen door was half open. Ash was sitting at the kitchen table, wearing her striped butcher's apron, with John perched on one of his thighs, poring over a large new picture book.
In the moment before they looked up, she was struck by the contrast between the child's rounded, unformed features and the hard angularity of the man's face. No painter could do justice to that remarkable bone structure. It would take the skill of a sculptor, and some dark burnished metal, to capture the shape of his cheekbones, the lean jaw, the forceful chin.
'Hello! How have you two been getting on?' she asked, with a cheerfulness she was far from feeling.
The man set the child on his feet and rose to his own towering height.
'We've had a good day,' he said, smiling. 'How has your day gone?'
'Oh . . . quite well. Something smells very good. A new book, John?'
'Yes, Uncle Ash bought it for me. He bought a present for you, too.'
'The carnations . . . yes, I saw them. They're lovely. Thank you very much,' she said to Ash.
'No, not the flowers,' he replied. 'In America, flowers or a pot plant are the usual offering to one's hostess. As you won't be here to water a plant, cut flowers seemed more suitable.'
'What do you mean I won't be here?'
'Run and fetch the envelope I left on the table in the other room, will you, John?'
As the child scampered out of the kitchen Ash turned to open the refrigerator. He took from it a dark green glass bottle, the top sealed with dull gold foil.
'I hope you like champagne.'