Death of a Ghost by Charles Butler

Author:Charles Butler [Charles Butler]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007394838
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-12-09T05:00:00+00:00

OSSIAN HAD TAKEN Death of a Mayfly to the garden to read. He wanted to be able to say he had finished it when he wrote Lizzy that letter at last, but the sun was far too bright, the book a little too heavy to be comfortable. Instead, he laid it over his face and let the words seep through the skin of his closed eyes.

The dinner gong awoke him suddenly and sent the Gordius book splashing to the grass. He slid out of his seat and went into the house. As he reached the saloon, he was aware of someone close beside him.

“She’s made a start then?”

It was Colin’s voice, just by his ear.

“Pardon me?” said Ossian.

“My sister. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean! She’s good, isn’t she?”

Ossian recovered himself. “At croquet? Yes, very – thrashed me.”

Colin laughed. “And after? Perhaps she offered to help you improve the grip on your mallet?”

Ossian turned slowly and stood to face Colin nose to nose. Or nose to forehead – he was a good half-head taller than Colin these days, and fitter too. It pleased him to see Colin flinch slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Colin made a rough, throat-clearing noise. “Our Sue has a good eye, I’ll give her that. And now, I bet, you can’t get her out of your head. I’ve seen it all before.”

“What’s it to you?” said Ossian.

“There’s no mystery,” smiled Colin. “Sue has a way of getting under people’s skin. Her methods can be pretty brutal. I warned you, didn’t I? You can’t pretend I didn’t.”

Colin’s face wasn’t cherubic any more, not like when they were kids. He looked as shifty as a puddle slicked with oil. Ossian didn’t know what to make of him.

“Just back off,” Ossian said as they went through the French windows to where dinner was laid out on the patio. “I can look after myself, you know.”

He wondered if he sounded as if he meant it.

Jack and Catherine were in high spirits over soup. They were planning a trip up the valley, in search of views of sky and chalk, and whatever it was that had hung such a subtle green veil over this part of England.

“You ask why I don’t paint portraits any more?” Jack was saying. “But I do! The landscape is a vast and intimate portrait of the people who inhabit it. That’s what I missed in America. They had geology there, not landscape. Without history, a rock is a rock is a rock. When I came back, I understood that more clearly than ever.”

Mr Frazer, from the way he was murdering his breadstick, was clearly finding Jack’s rhapsody an irritation. Now he saw his chance to pounce. “And yet this morning you were objecting to the marina project precisely because it would disturb an unspoiled coastline. So which do you want, Jack? A garden or a wilderness? Get your story straight.”

“It’s a question of scale,” said Jack, adroitly shifting ground. “You can’t turn the entire south coast into a garage forecourt.

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