Most of the staff were at least twenty years older than I was and behaved as if the gap was even bigger. Exceptions included Polly Hodge, the long-legged accounts typist, who tormented all the men in the office with her micro-mini-skirts but was so wonderfully brainless she never realized it, and Peter Newlove, who was exactly my age and had joined Wren’s at fifteen straight from school (secondary modern, in his case). A whippety lad with a Ringo Starr moustache and an insatiable appetite for Polo mints, he viewed me with a mixture of awe and resentment. University and London were both unimaginable concepts to him. He cultivated me, I think, in the hope that I’d invite him to visit me in the big city after I’d left Wren’s. Naturally, there was no chance I’d ever do that. But he was amusing company during lunchtime forays to his favourite pub, the General Wolfe, at the other end of Fore Street.
Pete pretended not to care what would become of him in a merger with CCC, but his detailed knowledge of feuds and alliances in the Wren family suggested he was pondering the future with some anxiety. George Wren, son of the original Walter, had died a few months previously. His son-in-law, Greville Lashley, was now cock of the walk and was rumoured to be cosying up to the CCC board for all he was worth. He’d married Muriel, George’s daughter and only child, after the death of her first husband, Ken Foster. ‘Suicide,’ Pete gleefully informed me, as if he had some personal knowledge of the event, whereas under questioning he admitted it had happened when he was still at junior school.
Further rumour had it that old George had let the firm’s finances deteriorate to the point where a takeover by CCC was the only way to avoid bankruptcy. Pete was all for it. So were most of the staff, according to him. ‘Provided we get to keep our jobs.’ There was the rub. Lashley would be negotiating to protect himself and the family, not the staff. There was no way to tell how many of them would make it to the promised land with him.
Greville Lashley struck me as a clever, quick-thinking man doing his best in difficult circumstances. Tall, slim and darkly handsome, with distinguished wartime service in the RAF behind him, he always dressed immaculately and drove a mirror-polished Jag. If he was staring ruin in the face, you’d never have known it. But that, according to Pete, was just an act. ‘This year’s make or break – for him and us.’
The problem, apparently, was that the split of shareholdings in the family meant Lashley couldn’t put through any deal he succeeded in negotiating without support from one of George Wren’s two surviving siblings. There was a brother, Francis, who lived abroad and a sister, Harriet, who shared Nanstrassoe House, the Wren residence in Carlyon Road, with Greville and Muriel Lashley, their young son and Muriel’s two children by her first marriage. Harriet was believed to be opposed to a takeover. Francis’s opinion wasn’t known.
None of this was of more than idle interest to me. Unlike Pete and his co-workers, I had no stake in what happened. I’d soon be on my way to a place where the fate of a small Cornish china clay company was supremely unimportant. Still, it was impossible not to be aware of the intrigue and uncertainty that lay behind the workaday routines at Walter Wren & Co. and Pete made sure I was kept informed about what was reckoned to be going on.
The consensus was that a crisis was looming. But how long it would go on merely looming was unclear. ‘You’ll probably have left by the time it comes to a crunch,’ Pete speculated. ‘But don’t worry. I’ll tell you all about it when you come home for Christmas.’ In my own mind, I felt sure I wouldn’t be the least bit interested by then. I’d forget all about Walter Wren & Co. as soon as I got on the train to London on Sunday, 22 September. Oh yes. I already knew the date when I’d be putting St Austell behind me. And it couldn’t come fast enough.
The reality, of course, was that it would come when it came and no sooner. Meanwhile, there was a summer to be enjoyed and I was going to do my best to enjoy it, humdrum working days notwithstanding. And, as it turned out, the crisis Pete had predicted didn’t wait until after I’d gone to break.
The first sign of its imminence came one damp Tuesday afternoon in the middle of August, though at the time its significance was lost on me. I’d just driven back in the van from Charlestown. As I turned into the small yard behind Wren’s, I had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision with a boy who darted out of the back door of the offices and ran straight across my path, heading for the road. He didn’t even seem to notice me and was gone in a flash. All I remembered of him was jeans, a white shirt and a mop of blond hair. But that description was enough to identify him in Accounts and to elicit a frisson of unease that I found distinctly puzzling.
‘Oliver Foster,’ Maurice tartly informed me. Ah, of course. One of the two children of Muriel Lashley’s first marriage. He’d looked about fifteen, which probably made sense. ‘He’s been making a nuisance of himself. Don’t encourage him. He’s a pain in the neck.’
Mutterings from Pete while we were at the tea urn later suggested there was more to be learnt for the price of a lager and lime (his drink of choice) at the General Wolfe at opening time. As he’d probably calculated, I was bored enough to relish any gossip. So, just a little after opening time, off we went.
Oliver and his sister, Vivien, had been sent to private boarding schools outside the county. Not much was seen of them in St Austell. They were both home for the summer and Vivien was about to go up to Cambridge. ‘That outranks London, doesn’t it, Jon?’ Pete observed. (I’d tried to stop him calling me Jon, which no one else did, without success.) ‘Her and Olly are a brainy pair, apparently.’
Exactly what Oliver might be applying his brain to at Wren’s was unclear, but evidently Lashley had sent his secretary, the formidable Joan Winkworth, down to the basement, where records dating back to the company’s formation in 1895 were stored, to fetch something shortly after his return from lunch. Joan had come upon young Oliver searching through the files. He’d scooted off without explanation. She’d reported back to Lashley, who’d reacted by issuing an instruction that the basement door should be kept locked in future, with the key in Joan’s keeping, and emphasizing that no non-staff members were to be allowed the run of the premises. By implication, the ban applied to his stepson as much as to anyone else.
‘I guess Olly came back to finish doing whatever it was Joan interrupted, only to find he was locked out,’ reasoned Pete. ‘He must have been leaving again when you nearly ran him over.’
‘But what would he have been after in the basement?’ I asked. I couldn’t imagine the dusty archives of the family firm holding any sort of attraction for a teenage boy when there were girls in bikinis to be ogled all day down at the Lido swimming pool.
‘Beats me,’ Pete admitted. ‘But some people reckon he’s not right in the head on account of witnessing his father’s suicide.’
‘He witnessed it?’
‘Well, more or less. Ken Foster drove out to Goss Moor, parked at the end of some track and gassed himself in his car. You know – tube through the window from the exhaust. That’s how he topped himself. What he didn’t realize, though, was that Olly had stowed away in the boot. Some kind of prank. He was only seven. Anyway, he was still in the boot when a pair of hikers came across the car. Too late for Ken. I’m not sure what state Olly was in by then. But it’s bound to have affected him, isn’t it?’
I conceded it might have. But that still didn’t explain a clandestine visit to the basement. And why now, nine years after his father’s death?
‘Maybe it’s something to do with the merger,’ Pete suggested. ‘Maybe Olly’s worried about being robbed of his inheritance.’
Incredulity at the idea that anyone of our generation might want to inherit an outfit like Walter Wren & Co. must have been written on my face.
‘It’s all right for you,’ Pete complained, scowling at me. ‘Some of us need to earn a wage. Wren’s isn’t so bad.’
‘It’s had its day, Pete. And if Oliver Foster doesn’t understand that, then he really isn’t right in the head.’
I gave no further thought to Oliver Foster’s state of mind until Thursday, when I found myself down at Charlestown again. Jim Turner had borrowed me to clear a backlog of paperwork, which involved sorting several months’ worth of shipping orders into first date, and then alphabetical, order. I needed some fresh air come lunchtime, so took my sandwiches down to the harbour wall and sat in the sunshine on the bollard at the end of the eastern mole.
There were a few tourists wandering around taking snaps of the quaint old port, but it was otherwise a quiet day in Charlestown, with no loading in progress in the dock. I had the harbour wall to myself.
But it didn’t stay that way. I’d just lit a cigarette when I heard a voice behind me. ‘Can I buy one of those from you?’ The accent was cultured, the tone casual.
I looked round to find Oliver Foster gazing vacantly at me. He was dressed as he had been the previous day, in white shirt, jeans and plimsolls, with the addition of a green sweater tied round his waist. His hands were thrust into his pockets and his face wore an expression of heavy-lidded detachment. A high forehead made him look much older than I knew him to be, despite his unruly mass of blond hair.
‘Well, can I? Would thruppence do it?’ He fished a threepenny bit out of his pocket.
‘You can have one for nothing.’ I proffered the pack.
‘OK.’ He took a cigarette, peering at the label as he did so. ‘Ah. The international passport to smoking pleasure.’ He chuckled, though whether at his own ability to recite Peter Stuyvesant’s advertising motto or my pretentiousness at choosing the brand it was hard to tell.
He flourished a silver lighter. There were some initials inscribed on it that looked like K.L.F. I wondered if it had belonged to his father. He took a long first draw on the cigarette and gazed past me out to sea.
‘I nearly drove into you the day before yesterday,’ I said, reckoning that would get his attention.
It wasn’t immediately obvious I’d succeeded. But after a long pause he said, ‘So, you work at Wren’s.’
‘Yes. Just for the summer. Then I’m off to university.’
‘Where?’
‘London.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘You’re Oliver Foster, aren’t you?’
‘Apparently.’
‘Jonathan Kellaway.’ I offered my hand.
He smiled, amused, apparently, by the quaintness of the gesture. But he consented to a handshake. ‘How do you do, Jonathan?’ He was a couple of years younger than I was, but it was hard to believe. He already seemed to be an adult – mature, self-possessed, cynical even. Pose or not, it was impressive in its own way.
‘Been for a walk?’
‘You could say that. Been visiting. At the Carlyon Bay.’ I took him to mean the premier hotel of the neighbourhood, a mile or so along the coast. ‘Fancied a stroll afterwards. Told my chauffeuse to pick me up here.’
‘Your chauffeuse?’
‘Sister. She’ll be here soon. Very reliable, my sister.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Nineteen. She’s off to university as well.’
‘Really. Which one?’ (I knew the answer, of course, thanks to Pete.)
‘Not London.’ Oliver grinned. ‘Ah, here’s the chariot.’ He pointed with his cigarette towards a bright yellow Mini heading down the road on the other side of the dock. It pulled up at the landward end of the western mole, separated from us by the harbour mouth. A blonde-haired girl climbed out and started walking along the mole towards us. She was wearing a white safari-suit, dazzlingly bright in the sunshine, with several bead necklaces. Large, circular sunglasses and her long, breeze-ruffled hair gave her a glamorous, sophisticated look. Her world, I felt sure, was exactly the one I aimed to enter as soon as I left St Austell.
But the impression she made on me didn’t stop at glamour and sophistication. As she neared the curved end of the mole, with just the narrow mouth of the harbour between us, she pushed her sunglasses up on to her forehead – high, like her brother’s – and smiled.
She was beautiful. That was the realization that hit me almost like a blow. Not pretty or sexy or attractive, or, rather, all of those things with some other magical ingredient thrown in: the shape of her mouth, the sparkle of her blue, blue eyes, the hint of mystery as well as allure in her gaze. She was quite extraordinarily beautiful. She was the sort of girl I’d dreamt of meeting in Paris or Venice or San Francisco. And here she was, not half a world of fantasies away, but standing in front of me, on the harbour wall at Charlestown, in Cornwall.
‘Coming home?’ she called across to Oliver, her voice soft and slightly husky.
‘Glad to see you dragged yourself away,’ he replied.
‘You said you’d want picking up, so here I am. Are you coming?’
‘Guess so. But say hello to Jonathan here before we go. He’s working at Wren’s until he starts at university. Not Cambridge. But still university. This is my sister Vivien, Jonathan.’
‘Hello,’ I said, painfully aware of how sheepish I sounded. But great beauty, as Vivien must have been aware, is an intimidating thing.
‘Hello, Jonathan,’ she responded, smiling at me briefly, before returning her attention to Oliver. ‘Now, can we go?’
And that was how we first met, Vivien Foster and I. I watched her walk back along the mole to her car while Oliver headed towards the bridge across the dock gate. She never once glanced round at me, though she cast several glances in her brother’s direction. It was pretty clear she’d barely noticed me. But I’d noticed her. And I was already certain I’d never forget her.
How right I was.
THREE
I COULDN’T STOP thinking about Vivien Foster for the rest of the day. I wanted to see her again – I longed to see her again – but I knew that wouldn’t be easy. Even if I could engineer an encounter, I suspected she’d give me the brush-off if I asked her for a date. The fleeting glance I’d got from her suggested she’d judged me as barely more interesting than the bollard I’d been sitting on.
By the following morning, I’d more or less abandoned the idea. I set off for work in a glum mood, Mum’s parting report of a fine weather forecast for the weekend doing nothing to lift my spirits. ‘We’ll probably go to the beach hut on Sunday.’ Poor old Mum. I think she genuinely believed what I’d enjoyed as a twelve-year-old I’d still enjoy at eighteen.
The walk to Wren’s was generally as uneventful as it was short, involving a cut through the cemetery to Alexandra Road. Not so that morning, however. As I approached the cemetery gate, I was astonished to see Oliver Foster leaning against it, puffing at a cigarette. He looked cold, with the collar of his thin windcheater pulled up round his neck. It was immediately obvious he’d been waiting for me.
‘Hello, Jonathan,’ he said with a smile.
‘Hello. What are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to talk to you.’ He pulled the gate open to let me through. ‘Smoke?’ He produced a pack. ‘Not Peter Stuyvesant, I’m afraid.’
‘Never mind. Thanks.’ I took one and he gave me a light. ‘Been waiting for me long?’
‘Ten minutes or so.’
‘How did you know where I live?’
‘No other Kellaways with a St Austell phone number.’
‘But you didn’t want to phone me.’
‘Thought face to face would work better.’
‘Better for what?’
‘Take a walk with me and I’ll explain.’ He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t make you late for work.’
‘I’m not worried.’
‘Good.’ He led the way at a dawdling pace along one of the paths between the graves. As far as I could see, we had the cemetery to ourselves – unless you counted its permanent occupants.
‘What’s this about, Oliver?’
‘I need you to do me a favour. Naturally, I’ll do you one in return.’
‘What kind of favour?’
‘Well, I reckon you’d like to get to know m
y sister. I could fix that for you.’
I’d meant what favour he wanted from me, not what favour he could offer me. Already, I’d been outmanoeuvred. ‘What makes you think I want to get to know your sister?’ I asked cagily.
‘All the guys do. Don’t pretend you don’t. It was obvious, anyway.’
‘How?’
‘It just was. But you won’t get anywhere with her without my help.’
The fact that I believed him was hugely irritating, but I was determined not to show it. ‘Maybe I don’t need a go-between.’
‘You won’t get anywhere with her on your own. You’re just not in her league. Those who are generally don’t get anywhere either. Viv’s very … choosy.’
‘In that case, I doubt she’d let her kid brother do the choosing for her.’
‘She wouldn’t know I was doing it. She’s very protective towards me. You saw how she came to pick me up yesterday. She worries about me, you see. And one of the things she worries about is that I don’t have any friends. So, if she thought you were my friend, she’d want to get to know you. You’d have a real chance with her. It’s actually the only chance you’ll get.’
How satisfying it would be, I thought, to prove him wrong about that. How satisfying, but how improbable. ‘Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that I—’
‘Do you play chess?’
The question literally stopped me in my tracks. ‘Chess?’
‘Well, do you?’
I shrugged. ‘Sort of.’
‘Sort of will have to do. Come to the house Sunday morning around half ten. We’ll play a few games. I’ll treat you like the big brother I’ve never had. That’ll get Viv’s attention. I guarantee it.’ He giggled, childishly, reminding me of what was so easy to forget: how young he was. Did I play chess? There was certainly no room to doubt he did.
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