His wife came out of the bungalow with a couple of children, and I started up the car. "All clear ahead," he called, and I pulled away from the ditch and drove up the hill until the curve in the road hid the bungalow from sight. Then I pulled across to a lay-by on the right, where there was a pile of stones and timber. I had reached the summit of the hill, and beyond the lay-by the road curved down to Tywardreath, the first houses already in sight. Chapel Down… Chapel Park… Could there have been a chapel here in former days, long since demolished, either on the site of the caravan-owner's bungalow or near the lay-by, where a modern house fronted the road? Below the house a gate led into a field, and I climbed over it, circuiting the field and keeping close to the hedge until the sloping ground hid me from sight. This was the field the caravan-owner said was Chapel Park. It had no distinctive feature that I could see. Cows were grazing at the far end. I scrambled through the hedge at the bottom, and found myself on the precipitous grassland a few hundred feet above the railway, looking straight into the valley. I lit a cigarette and surveyed the scene. No chapels tucked away, but what a view, Treesmill Farm away to my right, the other farms beyond, all sheltered from prevailing wind and weather, immediately below me the railway, and beyond it the strange sweep of the valley, no pattern of fields, nothing but a tapestry of willow, birch and alder. A paradise, surely, for birds in spring, and a good place for boys to hide from the parental eye — but boys never went birds-nesting nowadays, at least my stepsons didn't.

I sat down against the hedge to finish my cigarette, and as I did so became aware of the flask in my breast pocket. I took it out and looked at it. It was a handy size, and I wondered if it had belonged to Magnus's father; it would have been just right for a nip of rum in his sailing days, when the breeze freshened. If only Vita had disliked flying and had chosen to come by sea it would have given me several more days… A rattle beneath me made me look down to the valley. A solitary diesel engine was coming up the line, going hell for leather without its load of carriages, and I watched it worm its way, like a fat, swift-moving slug, above the willows and the birches, pass under the bridge above Treesmill, and disappear finally into the gaping jaws of the tunnel a mile distant. I unscrewed the flask and downed its contents. All right, I told myself, so what? I'm bloody-minded. And Vita's still in mid-Atlantic. I closed my eyes.

CHAPTER SIX

THIS TIME, SITTING motionless with my back against the hedge and my eyes shut, I would try to pin-point the moment of transition. On the previous occasions I had been walking, the first time across fields, the second up the churchyard path, when the vision altered. Now it would surely happen otherwise, because I was concentrating on the moment of impact. The sense of well-being would come, like a burden being lifted, and with it the sensation of lightness as feeling went from my body. No panic today, and no dismal falling rain. It was even warm, and the sun must be breaking through the clouds — I could sense the brightness through my closed eyelids. I took a last pull at the fag-end of my cigarette and let it drop.

If this drowsy content lasted much longer I might even fall asleep. Even the birds were rejoicing in the burst of sunshine; I could hear a blackbird singing in the hedge somewhere behind me, and more delightfully still a cuckoo called from the valley, distant at first, then near at hand. I listened to the call, a favourite sound, connected in my mind with every sort of carefree boyhood ramble thirty years ago. There, he called again, immediately overhead.

I opened my eyes and watched him wing his strange, unsteady flight across the sky, and as he did so I remembered that it was late July. The cuckoo's brief English summer ceased in June, along with the blackbird's song, and the primroses that were blooming in the bank beside me would have withered by mid-May. This warmth and brightness belonged to another world, an earlier spring. It had happened, despite concentration, in a moment of time that had not registered in my brain. All the sharp green colour of that first day was spread about me on the sloping hill below, and the valley with its tapestry of birch and willow lay submerged beneath a sheet of water, part of a great winding estuary that cut into the land, bordered by sandbanks where the water shallowed. I stood up, and saw how the river narrowed to mingle with the tumbling mill-stream below Treesmill, the farmhouse altered in shape, narrow, thatched, the hills opposite thickly forested with oak, the foliage young and tender because of spring. Immediately beneath me, where the field had shelved precipitously to the railway cutting, the ground took on a gentler slope, in the midst of which a broad track ran to the estuary, the track terminating in a quay beside which boats were anchored, the channel there being deep, forming a natural pool. A larger vessel was moored in mid-stream, her sail partly stowed. I could hear the voices of the men aboard her singing, and as I watched a smaller boat alongside pushed off to ferry someone ashore, and the voices were suddenly hushed, as the passenger in the small boat lifted his hand for silence. Now I looked around me, and the hedge had gone, the hill behind me was thickly wooded like the hills opposite, and to my left, where there had been scrub and gorse, a long stone wall encircled a dwelling-house; I could see the roof-top above the surrounding trees. The path from the quay led straight uphill to the house.

I drew nearer, watching the man below descend from the boat at the quay, then proceed to climb the road towards me. As he did so the cuckoo called again, flying overhead, and the man looked up to watch it, pausing for breath as he climbed, his action so ordinary, so natural, that it endeared him to me for no reason except that he lived, and I was a ghost in time. A time, moreover, that was not constant, for yesterday it had been Martinmas, and now, by the cuckoo's call and the Primroses in flower, it must be spring. He came close, breasting the hill, and as I recognised him, though his expression was graver, more solemn than that of the preceding day, the analogy came to me that these faces were like the diamonds, hearts and spades in some well-thumbed pack of cards shuffled by a patience-player; however they were sorted, they still formed themselves into a combination that the player could not guess at. I did not know, nor they, how the game would go. It was Otto Bodrugan climbing the hill, followed by his son Henry, and, when he raised his hand in greeting, so instinctive was the gesture that I raised mine in answer, and even smiled; but I should have known the futility of my action, for father and son brushed past me towards the entrance gate of the house, and Roger the steward came forward to greet them. He must have been standing there watching them approach, but I had not seen him. Gone was the festive air of yesterday, the mocking smile of the would-be go-between; he wore a dark tunic, as did Bodrugan and his son, and his manner was as grave as theirs.

"What news?" asked Bodrugan.

Roger shook his head. "He is sinking fast," he said. "There is little hope for him. My lady Joanna is within, and all the family. Sir William Ferrers is already come from Bere, accompanied by the lady Matilda. Sir Henry does not suffer, we have seen to that — or, to speak more plainly, Brother Jean has done so, for he has been at the bedside night and day."

"And the cause?"

"Nothing but the general weakness of which you know, and a sudden chill with that late frost we had. He wanders in his mind, speaking of his grievous faults and asking pardon. The parish priest heard his confession, but, not content with that, he begged to be shriven by Brother Jean as well, and has received the last rites." Roger stood aside to let Bodrugan and his son pass through the entrance gates, and now the extent of the building came into view, stone-walled with tiled roof fronting upon a court, an outside staircase leading to an upper chamber, the steps similar to those serving a farmhouse granary today. There were stables at the rear, and beyond the walls the track wound uphill towards Tywardreath, the thatched cottages of the serfs who tilled the surrounding lands scattered on either side of it. Dogs ran barking across the court at our approach, crouching low, ears flat, as Roger shouted at them, and a scared-faced servant emerged from a corner of the building to drive them off. Bodrugan and his son Henry crossed the threshold, with Roger in attendance, and I his shadow close behind. We had entered a long, narrow hall, extending the full width of the house, small casement windows giving upon the court on the eastern side and looking down to the estuary on the west. There was an open hearth at the far end, the banked turf barely smoking, and across the width of the room was a trestle table, with benches alongside. The hall was dark, partly because of the small windows and the smoke that lingered in the atmosphere, partly because the walls were plastered a deep vermilion, giving the whole a rich and sombre air. There were three youngsters straddling the benches, two boys and a girl, their sprawling attitude of dejection suggesting a numb bewilderment at the approach of death rather than actual sorrow. I recognised the eldest, William Champernoune, who had been presented to the Bishop; he was the first to rise now and come forward to greet his uncle and cousin, while the younger two, after momentary hesitation, followed his example. Otto Bodrugan bent to embrace all three, and then, as children will at the sudden entrance of adults in a moment of stress, they seized the opportunity to escape from the room, taking their cousin Henry with them.