ploughman took revenge on the dairymaid who had jilted him. Forty years earlier, the mere mention of the man, whose ghost was reputed to haunt the grounds, had been enough to give Duncan nightmares. The ghosts who haunted him now, however, were both more benevolent and more insidious. There was his grandfather who had bought the house in the late 1920s and so skilfully assumed the style of a country gentleman that, shortly before his death, he had declared his greatest disappointment to be his grandson’s poor seat on a horse; and his grandmother, who was so cowed by her husband’s aspirations that she had withdrawn into herself, reluctant even to visit the nursery for fear of saying the wrong thing. There was his much-loved nanny who had vanished one day with no explanation, untilAlison revealed triumphantly that she had been caught ‘going to the toilet with Daddy’, leaving Duncan feeling disgusted, betrayed and, for a few months, intensely religious. Above all, there was his father himself, whose lavish bonhomie as he opened the house to friends, neighbours, business associates and vintage car enthusiasts had endeared him to everyone except his son.
His father’s presence remained so palpable that Duncan could still smell the citrus tang of his eau de cologne as he stepped out of the car and half-expected to see him standing at the door. Instead, they were greeted by Chris, the chubby, balding thirty-five-year-old, whose diverse roles as his mother’s carer, cleaner, cook and confidant led her to describe him as her general factotum, although Chris himself, with a degree of self-mockery that Duncan had yet to penetrate, favoured either ‘maid-of-all-work’ or ‘aide-de-camp’. He ushered them into the overheated drawing room where Adele was sitting with her feet on a beaded gout stool, reading a large-print library book. In Henry’s honour, she was wearing a new violet jersey dress and lavender cardigan, set off by an amber brooch and necklace. An ash-blonde plait lay curled on her shoulder like the fraying trim of an old armchair.
The faint whiff of decay emanating from his mother’s cheek made Duncan grateful that Henry merely shook her hand. After submitting meekly to her stock rebukes that he was neglecting himself, he sat down in his father’s wing chair and listened with amusement as she complimented Henry on his elegance. Although she addressed him with the same mixture of archness and condescension that she did any unattached man, Adele approved of Henry. In contrast to his predecessor, who had insisted on weighing the demands of his parish against those of his growing family, he had both the time and the temperament to minister to her needs. Even the mild high church tendencies that had initially aroused her suspicions turned out to be a blessing, since the clouds of incense thatirritated her chest gave her the perfect excuse to request Communion at home.
Adele had suffered from asthma ever since her father’s suicide. He was Stafford Lyttleton, whose renown as the composer of
The Sacred Knot
and
Agincourt
, and founder of the Early English Music Society had been eclipsed by his subsequent association with Mosley’s Blackshirts, for whom he wrote several marching songs. He had been interned along with other leading party members in 1940 and, although he renounced his fascist views on the revelation of the death camps, his reputation was irrevocably damaged and his music no longer played. In 1948 his wife divorced him, forcing the nine-year-old Adele to testify to his cruelty in court. Three years later, deserted by his friends, disowned by his colleagues and reviled by the public, he shot himself.
Her father’s blighted career and violent death imbued him with an air of tragedy in his teenage daughter’s eyes, which intensified over time. Confident that posterity would recognise his genius, she had welcomed the approach five years ago of a BBC director who professed to be a devotee of his
His father’s presence remained so palpable that Duncan could still smell the citrus tang of his eau de cologne as he stepped out of the car and half-expected to see him standing at the door. Instead, they were greeted by Chris, the chubby, balding thirty-five-year-old, whose diverse roles as his mother’s carer, cleaner, cook and confidant led her to describe him as her general factotum, although Chris himself, with a degree of self-mockery that Duncan had yet to penetrate, favoured either ‘maid-of-all-work’ or ‘aide-de-camp’. He ushered them into the overheated drawing room where Adele was sitting with her feet on a beaded gout stool, reading a large-print library book. In Henry’s honour, she was wearing a new violet jersey dress and lavender cardigan, set off by an amber brooch and necklace. An ash-blonde plait lay curled on her shoulder like the fraying trim of an old armchair.
The faint whiff of decay emanating from his mother’s cheek made Duncan grateful that Henry merely shook her hand. After submitting meekly to her stock rebukes that he was neglecting himself, he sat down in his father’s wing chair and listened with amusement as she complimented Henry on his elegance. Although she addressed him with the same mixture of archness and condescension that she did any unattached man, Adele approved of Henry. In contrast to his predecessor, who had insisted on weighing the demands of his parish against those of his growing family, he had both the time and the temperament to minister to her needs. Even the mild high church tendencies that had initially aroused her suspicions turned out to be a blessing, since the clouds of incense thatirritated her chest gave her the perfect excuse to request Communion at home.
Adele had suffered from asthma ever since her father’s suicide. He was Stafford Lyttleton, whose renown as the composer of
The Sacred Knot
and
Agincourt
, and founder of the Early English Music Society had been eclipsed by his subsequent association with Mosley’s Blackshirts, for whom he wrote several marching songs. He had been interned along with other leading party members in 1940 and, although he renounced his fascist views on the revelation of the death camps, his reputation was irrevocably damaged and his music no longer played. In 1948 his wife divorced him, forcing the nine-year-old Adele to testify to his cruelty in court. Three years later, deserted by his friends, disowned by his colleagues and reviled by the public, he shot himself.
Her father’s blighted career and violent death imbued him with an air of tragedy in his teenage daughter’s eyes, which intensified over time. Confident that posterity would recognise his genius, she had welcomed the approach five years ago of a BBC director who professed to be a devotee of his
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