Familiar Rooms in Darkness

by Caro Fraser

  Familiar Rooms in Darkness

  Caro Fraser was educated in Glasgow and the Isle of Man. After attending Watford School of Art she worked as an advertising copywriter for three years, then read law at King’s College, London. She was called to the Bar of Middle Temple in 1979 and worked as a shipping lawyer, before turning to writing. She is the author of nine other novels, five of which are part of the highly successful, critically acclaimed Caper Court series. Her most recent novel, A Perfect Obsession, was published by Michael Joseph last year. She lives in London with her husband, who is a solicitor, and her four children.

  PRAISE FOR AN IMMORAL CODE

  ‘A brilliantly constructed plot… Fraser engages her readers quickly and never lets go’ Tatler

  PRAISE FOR JUDICIAL WHISPERS

  ‘Witty… polished… Rumpole eat your heart out’ She

  PRAISE FOR THE PUPIL

  ‘A sparkling debut’ Daily Mail

  Familiar Rooms in Darkness

  CARO FRASER

  MICHAEL JOSEPH

  an imprint of

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  MICHAEL JOSEPH

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published 2003

  1

  Copyright © Caro Fraser, 2003

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright

  reserved above, no part of this publication may be

  reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,

  or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

  photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  EISBN: 978–0–141–90647–8

  Harry Day

  Poet, playwright and author, whose talents spanned generations

  Although latterly best known for his novels and plays, it was as a poet that Harry Day achieved his first literary success. His collection of poems, Before the Dusk, was published in 1949 under the pen-name H. M. W. Day (his middle names were McCardle Wentworth) when he was just nineteen. The poems were mainly lyrical, often tinged with a wistful melancholy, and set out to deal with spiritual and temporal themes by magnifying life’s trivial issues and its mundane and harsh realities. Following National Service he took a variety of jobs, including night-watchman and carpet salesman, to finance his writing career, and over the next decade he continued to publish regular volumes of poetry, always to critical acclaim.

  In 1958, as Britain came to terms with its post-war identity, Day found a new voice as a playwright. He abandoned his poetic pen-name and wrote his first play, Crying Out Loud, as plain Harry Day. The play ran for a sell-out season at the Royal Court theatre and was voted Best Foreign Play on Broadway in 1959. In this year, too, he met and married the actress Cecile Patterson, who played the leading role of Christine in the first production. His second play, Foremost First, established him in the front ranks of the new social realists, along with Wesker, Delaney and Osborne. The critic Kenneth Tynan wrote of Day: ‘Social realism, for Harry Day, is not merely a dogmatic formula. Amongst all other contemporary English dramatists, he uses it as a uniquely powerful means of conveying true theatrical emotion.’

  For the next fifteen years Harry Day continued to write for the theatre, but in the mid seventies his career took another direction. Following his divorce in 1975, he began to move in a new circle, socializing with pop stars, fashion designers and artists, and in 1976, in a quest for spiritual enlightenment, he travelled to India, where he wrote Pale Journey, the first volume of the celebrated Green Juniper trilogy. The novel, set in both India and England, was an instant bestseller, as were the subsequent two volumes, establishing Harry Day as the new guru of young, enlightened, middle-class English intellectuals. Day remained in India for five years before returning to England in the early eighties.

  Throughout this decade Harry Day’s output as a novelist was prodigious, and each new publication was eagerly acclaimed, though there were critics who maintained that much of his work was superficial and lacking in integrity. His eighth novel, Adventures Of…, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, was his least commercially successful.

  Harry Day’s novels often touched on the subject of drugs, a theme prevalent in the Green Juniper trilogy, and indeed he admitted, in later years, to considerable experimentation with a variety of substances, including LSD and mescaline, and was a lifelong proponent of the beneficial effects of marijuana. In 1987 he was arrested for possession of cocaine, and spent three months in Brixton Prison, an experience which he turned to good account in his subsequent novel, June to September. This novel saw a return to his early lyrical poetic style, and although well received by faithful Harry Day enthusiasts, it marked the beginning of a decline in his popularity as a novelist.

  His literary energy remained undiminished, however, and it seemed that advancing age drew him ever closer to young people. He co-wrote a number of plays for the National Youth Theatre Foundation, published two volumes of comic verse for children, and, somewhat bizarrely, was a regular contributor to the eclectic music monthly Rox. He was a lifelong rock-music enthusiast, and could frequently be spotted at the Brixton Academy and other rock venues.

  A minor stroke in 1996 forced Harry Day to limit his activities, and his time was spent largely at Gandercleugh House, the Suffolk home which he shared with his second wife, the actress Briony Nugent, and at his house in France. He lost none of his conviviality, and continued to throw parties and to entertain a wide circle of friends and admirers. Throughout these years he returned to his first love, poetry, but the lukewarm reception of his 1997 collection, New Bearings, discouraged him from further publication, though he continued to write until his death.

  He is survived by his first wife, his son Charles, his daughter the actress Bella Day, and by his second wife.

  Harry Day, poet, playwright and author, was born on 6 November 1930. He died of cancer on 22 December 2002, aged seventy-two.

  1

  It was an August afternoon, and a party was in progress at Gandercleugh, Harry Day’s country house in Suffolk. Guests mingled on the oval lawn, and the air was warm with talk and laughter, drowsy with the sound of wood pigeons from the deep woods beyond. Harry was already very ill; he knew this would be the last summer of his life. The knowledge lay dispassionately within his heart, unconnected to his present and continued existence. Harry Day would be alive right up until the moment of his death, and that seemed sufficient. He did not feel unwell. In fact, he felt far more robust than his appearance suggested he had any right to be. He sat on the terrace in a cane chair, an elegant but frail figure, a glass of wine in one thin hand, surveying the scene. He paid great attention to detail, scrutinizing the company, the faces, attent
ively trying to glean the depth of every moment. Some of the guests he knew well, some hardly at all. At the moment he was paying particular attention to a tall young man who stood a little way off at the edge of the terrace, leaning on a stone cupid, talking to Francis Cleverley, literary editor of one of the Sunday heavies and an old friend of Harry’s. The young man was very handsome, with dark, curling hair and a strong face. He was listening closely to Francis, nodding now and again, smiling occasionally. Though he was half a head taller than Francis, his very body seemed to curve in towards the older man in a kind of physical deference. Circumspection pervaded every aspect of his young being. He must be a journalist or a reviewer of some kind, thought Harry, to be sucking up so assiduously to an old bore like Francis.

  ‘Tired, darling?’ Briony, Harry’s wife, rested a light hand on his shoulder. He glanced up at her. She was dressed in peach-coloured trousers and a pale silk top. Her skin was clear, her eyes luminous, make-up perfect. Nobody would have guessed she was nearer fifty than forty. She possessed a wholesome radiance, and even the fine lines round her eyes and mouth when she smiled were part of her charm. When he looked at her at times like this, Harry saw what everyone else saw: Briony Nugent, household name, sitcom queen, subject of endless women’s magazine interviews and Radio Times covers, the darling of the middle classes. What would they all think, he wondered, if they could know her as he did?

  ‘Far from it,’ replied Harry.

  ‘Just be careful how much you drink.’ She indicated the glass in his hand. ‘Remember what the consultant said.’

  ‘Bugger the consultant.’ He knocked back the remains of his drink. ‘Who’s the young man talking to Francis?’

  Briony glanced across, and Harry watched her, observing how her look of mere inquiry switched swiftly to one of predatory sexual assessment. How marvellously predictable she was. ‘Not a clue. Don’t you know? It’s your party.’

  ‘Anthea put together the guest list. It’s what I’ve got an agent for. I’ve never even heard of half the people who review my books.’

  Briony plucked at the sleeve of a passing man. ‘Ralph, darling, who is the very good-looking young man talking to Francis?’

  Ralph glanced towards the end of the terrace. ‘That’s Adam Downing. He’s a freelance, does reviews for the big Sundays, and for the Spectator and the Literary Review, the odd feature here and there. You’ll have seen his name.’

  Harry nodded. ‘Yes, indeed. How odd that I haven’t met him before. Darling, would you tell Mr Downing I should very much like to meet him?’

  Briony gave her husband a swiftly considering glance. ‘Of course.’ She sauntered to the end of the terrace. Francis Cleverley looked up at her approach and they bent towards one another to exchange light kisses. ‘Francis, darling, forgive me for interrupting –’ She turned to Adam with a smile. ‘You’re Adam Downing, I believe?’ They shook hands. ‘Harry would so much like to meet you. Would you mind, Francis?’

  She led Adam along the terrace to where Harry sat, and made introductions. Harry put out a hand and Adam shook it. ‘Do sit down,’ said Harry, gesturing to a chair on the other side of the little table on which he had placed his empty glass.

  ‘This is quite a thrill for me, meeting you at last,’ said Adam, his eyes alight with sincerity. ‘I’ve always been such a great admirer of your work.’

  ‘I’ll just go and see that everyone has everything they need –’ Briony was about to head off in the direction of the lawn.

  ‘While you’re at it,’ said Harry, ‘pass one of those bottles from the table. Mr Downing and I could both do with a refill.’ He gestured towards a long trestle table, manned by a uniformed maid, at the end of the terrace nearest the house.

  Reluctantly Briony did as Harry asked her, then left to attend to the other guests.

  Harry poured them both a glass of cold Chablis. Their talk skimmed briefly over current literary events, then homed in where it belonged, on Harry and his work. One of the more beguiling aspects of being an ageing celebrity, thought Harry, was the way people liked to talk about you. And how well Adam did it too.

  After thirty minutes and two glasses of wine, Adam felt emboldened. ‘Mr Day, can I ask you –’ He twiddled his glass diffidently.

  ‘Call me Harry. I feel we’ve become rather good friends, don’t you?’ Harry’s glance ranged speculatively over Adam’s handsome features.

  Adam gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘If you say so. I wanted to ask why you’ve never written about your life.’

  ‘An autobiography? You know, my dear boy, living one’s life is such a labour, it always surprises me that anyone can take the pains to go back over it all.’

  ‘But a life such as yours – such fantastic scope! All the literary disciplines you’ve mastered, the people you’ve known – it would be a fascinating story.’

  Harry waved a hand. ‘My publishers have asked me, of course. But, d’you know, I don’t much interest myself any more. I don’t care to look back. I’m living on time which, if not exactly borrowed, is certainly fairly minutely proscribed. I haven’t the health and strength to undertake an autobiography now. Anyway, I don’t think I could bear to tell the truth about myself. I suspect that if ever I were to embark on such a project, I’d only finish up telling dreadful lies. I’m an inveterate liar. It must go with the territory of being a writer of fiction. Now you –’ He smiled as he touched Adam’s sleeve, ‘–as a journalist, you are accustomed to taking the objective view, the scrupulous view. I’m of the belief that a biography is far more likely to paint a thoroughly honest portrait of an individual than that individual ever would of themselves.’

  ‘But a person writing about himself is in possession of every scrap of information – intimate details, recollections, unrecorded experiences. How could any biographer hope to better that?’

  ‘Well, that’s just it, you see. Which of us is prepared to tell the entire truth about ourselves? I should think the average autobiography is as likely to be an exercise in concealment, or at any rate careful dissimulation, as a full and frank revelation. A biographer, with adequate access to the people and materials relevant to a person’s life, is far more likely to come up with a truthful and rounded picture of that life, wouldn’t you say?’ Harry reached out for the wine and extended the bottle towards Adam, who shook his head. Harry replenished his own glass.

  ‘But it still finishes up being merely a point of view,’ said Adam. ‘No matter how many papers and letters and diaries a biographer has access to, no matter how many interviews he or she conducts, the end product is merely a distillation, surely. The essence of that individual, the true essence, their own voice, is always going to be lacking.’

  Harry smiled. ‘It’s a subject that interests you, I can see. Would I suit you, as a subject? Would you care to write my life?’

  Adam was a little taken aback. ‘I didn’t mean to be presumptuous –’

  ‘You haven’t presumed anything. I ask the question because, naturally, it’s something that has preoccupied me of late. I’m dying, you see – pancreatic cancer, very difficult to treat–’ He waved a thin hand in nonchalant acknowledgement. ‘And naturally that predisposes me to concentrate on the business of living, for the moment. Setting false modesty aside, I’m aware that I’m a ripe subject for a biography. The vultures will start circling as soon as I drop.’ He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘I don’t care for the idea of my life being raked over, becoming the subject of speculation and lies. I think that’s rather terrifying.’

  ‘Why should it be? Why should any biography not be quite candid and fair?’

  ‘Fair? Now that’s an interesting word… fair. Honest might be more appropriate, wouldn’t you think? Surely a good biographer wouldn’t scruple to tell the truth about his subject, whatever he might discover?’

  ‘Well… yes, naturally. But I think you have to have respect for your subject. Anyone who undertakes to write the life of another person must surely already have a
certain admiration for them, or their work, to want to do it in the first place. I’m not talking about hagiography, necessarily, but when a person achieves success or distinction because of certain talents and abilities, or work they’ve accomplished, then it can’t serve much purpose in chronicling the development of that person’s life to expose all kinds of irrelevancies, merely because they happen to be salacious and good for publicity.’

  Harry nodded thoughtfully. ‘It’s an interesting question, certainly, the nature of truth and its usefulness.

  Briony approached them. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you both, but it’s time for Harry’s medication. I think you should come indoors for a little while, darling.’

  Adam, taking his cue, stood up.

  ‘I have enjoyed talking to you, Adam,’ said Harry, as he, too, got slowly to his feet. ‘We’ve touched upon a fascinating topic. You must leave your phone number with Briony. I’d like to discuss it with you some more.’

  A fortnight later, Harry invited Adam Downing to lunch. The late-August air was still balmy, and they ate outside on the terrace, just the two of them. Harry told Adam that Briony was in London.

  ‘A busy girl, my wife. She’d stay down here all the time, if I let her, but I insist she doesn’t let her work drop. She’s in great demand at the moment.’ Adam murmured something that sounded like mild agreement. Harry paused and surveyed Adam’s features with lazy pleasure. ‘So, Adam, tell me all about yourself. Tell me about your family, where you went to school, that kind of thing.’

  ‘My family? Well, not a great deal to tell there. My mother died when I was quite young. Eight. My father was a good deal older than she was, and he didn’t quite know how to cope with me. So I was sent to boarding school – which I didn’t much mind.’ Adam ran his long fingers repeatedly over the edge of the wrought-iron table as he talked, his glance not touching Harry’s. ‘My father’s business meant he spent a good deal of time in the States, so more often than not I went to my aunt and uncle in the holidays. My mother’s sister. Very kind people.’ He smiled. ‘I think of them as my real family.’