Stephanie Read online

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

  We publish in ebook and Print on Demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

  www.panmacmillan.co.uk/bello

  Contents

  Winston Graham

  Dedication

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  BOOK THREE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Epilogue

  Winston Graham

  Stephanie

  Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE was an English novelist, best known for the series of historical novels about the Poldarks. Graham was born in Manchester in 1908, but moved to Perranporth, Cornwall when he was seventeen. His first novel, The House with the Stained Glass Windows was published in 1933. His first ‘Poldark’ novel, Ross Poldark, was published in 1945, and was followed by eleven further titles, the last of which, Bella Poldark, came out in 2002. The novels were set in Cornwall, especially in and around Perranporth, where Graham spent much of his life, and were made into a BBC television series in the 1970s. It was so successful that vicars moved or cancelled church services rather than try to hold them when Poldark was showing.

  Aside from the Poldark series, Graham’s most successful work was Marnie, a thriller which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1964. Hitchcock had originally hoped that Grace Kelly would return to films to play the lead and she had agreed in principle, but the plan failed when the principality of Monaco realised that the heroine was a thief and sexually repressed. The leads were eventually taken by Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. Five of Graham’s other books were filmed, including The Walking Stick, Night Without Stars and Take My Life. Graham wrote a history of the Spanish Armadas and an historical novel, The Grove of Eagles, based in that period. He was also an accomplished writer of suspense novels. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Private Man, was published by Macmillan in 2003. He had completed work on it just weeks before he died. Graham was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 1983 was honoured with the OBE.

  Dedication

  To George Astley

  My most grateful thanks to Dr David Jackson,

  whose help and advice have been quite invaluable.

  Also, at an earlier stage, to Dr Denis Hocking,

  my friend for so many years.

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter One

  I

  The Portuguese colony of Goa was taken over by India in the spring of 1961. In 1974 the leading hotel group in India, observing the long stretches of unspoiled beach, the rich vegetation and the good climate of the recent possession, decided to put up a luxury hotel there. It was built on the site of one of the old Portuguese forts erected to protect the colony from Turks, Frenchmen, Englishmen, pirates and other undesirable visitors. There were also wells there, and it had been used as a watering post for sailing vessels calling in on the long voyage back to Portugal.

  The hotel, built with elegance and good taste in such a way as to merge into the countryside, was a great success, and nine years later a number of spacious, self-contained luxury bungalows, each in an acre of garden, were added on the slopes above the hotel. On 13 April 1984, which was a Friday, in one of these superior bungalows, a man and a woman were making love.

  It was four o’clock in the afternoon, the sun beat down out of a sky from which all the colour had been sapped, a fresh breeze was drawn in off the yellow Arabian Sea. The hotel flag fluttered tautly. A surf had grown up along the great flat arc of the beach, creating a fine mist so that one could only see about the first two miles of the lightly bronzed sand.

  Presently the girl moved out of the air-conditioned bedroom, parting the lace curtains as she went to sit on the verandah. The man joined her and rang for tea. Out here the heat met them, but it was not overpowering; the breeze filtered through the eucalyptus trees and the palms, keeping the air warmly light.

  They were silent for a while, content with savouring their mutual pleasure, having nothing more to say to each other than what in the passion of the moment had already been said.

  A tall rather bony man with dark wiry hair receding at the temples, Errol Colton looked to be in his early forties but was in fact thirty-eight. He had a mobile, humorous, sophisticated face with an expression that suggested he had seen a lot of life and found most of it wryly amusing.

  Stephanie Locke, who was twenty-one, also looked older, in spite of her slender, loose-jointed build. She was tall and pretty with a narrowly oval face, bright eyes and a quick and easy smile. When she ran, but only then, her knees seemed too close together. There was a vitality and a volatility about her which was not without a sense of strain, of nerves near the surface. Her fair hair, loose now, was normally done in a ponytail.

  The sound of a car in the drive told them their tea was being brought up in a taxi from the hotel.

  ‘I could have made it here,’ Stephanie murmured as the little dark-skinned waiter appeared coming up the pathway balancing a laden tray.

  ‘It’s my view’, Errol said, yawning, ‘ that you should never do anything you can get someone else to do for you.’

  ‘Except in bed,’ she suggested.

  ‘Well, wench, I don’t yet include that under the heading of a chore …’

  The smiling waiter brought in two thermoses and sliced lime and sugar (and hot milk just in case they had changed their minds), and some biscuits and slices of plum cake. Errol signed, and the waiter bowed and, still smiling, left. She poured the tea. It was a peaceful moment. After the taxi had driven away, the only sound was the faint rustling of the wind.

  He yawned again.

  ‘Sleepy?’

  ‘Not more than is physiologically normal. But it’s too early for a nap, and life’s too short.’

  ‘Race you to the end of the beach,’ she suggested.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ The beach was six miles long. ‘I might potter out and take some more shots.’ Errol was a keen and expert photographer and had brought three cameras with him.

  ‘If you do,’ she said, ‘I may stay in and write to Daddy. I owe him something more than a postcard.’

  Errol squeezed some lime into his tea. ‘Give him my love.’

  ‘You don’t even know him.’

  ‘The man who produced you must be worthy of affection … He knows about me, I suppose?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And approves?’

  In spite of their intimacy they had talked very little about their personal lives.

  ‘You’ve asked me before. I honestly don’t know. I don’t see much of him and … It’s a different ball game from when he was young. Would you want your little Polly to play fast and loose?’

  ‘Not at her present age. But yes, it’ll come to that, I suppose – always assuming that coming away on a holiday with me can be
called playing fast and loose.’

  ‘More or less, by Daddy’s standards. After all, you’re a married man, old enough to be my uncle, and you mean me no good.’

  Errol rubbed his ear. ‘Who knows what may come of it yet? After all, I bought you a brooch in Bombay. There can be worse wages of sin than that.’

  ‘It’s lovely. Did I remember to say thank you for it?’

  ‘You certainly did.’

  ‘One thing I knew I’d forgotten. I should have said: “You shouldn’t’ve.”’ She had risen to get a scarf, and she stooped and kissed him. He wrapped his arm around her bare legs.

  ‘You weren’t exactly innocent when I met you.’

  ‘As I’ve told you often enough, there was nothing serious for me until I saw you blowing on the horizon like a …’

  ‘A sperm whale,’ he suggested.

  She giggled. ‘Yes.’

  When tea was finished he took off his thin black Chinese silk robe and put on a shirt and a pair of shorts. She lit a cigarette and rested her bare feet on the verandah rail.

  ‘He’s a cripple, you’ve told me.’

  ‘Who? Daddy? Yes.’

  ‘How does he manage to write those articles on gardening if he can’t do any gardening himself?’

  ‘Oh, he can. He buzzes around in his electric chair. And he’s always potting and repotting things on the bench – or superintending planting … But d’you mean you’ve actually read articles by him?’

  ‘I’ve seen ’em. And didn’t he do a thing on television?’

  ‘Last year. A short series.’

  ‘I think I looked in once – before I ever met you. Suzanne was watching. She likes that sort of thing. Dark-haired, rather stout. You must take after your mother.’

  ‘He gets fat because he can’t take exercise – it’s simple enough. But yes, my mother was blonde.’

  ‘She left him, you said. I’ve often thought that must take a bit of doing – walking out on a cripple.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t call him a cripple – he’s just lame, has to use a chair, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, call it what you will. She left a lame man with two young daughters.’

  ‘He was only slightly lame at the time – walked with a stick. But yes, she fell in love with this Brazilian. It was the big thing in her life, apparently. Daddy told her she was free to go.’

  ‘In spite of you and – what is it? – Teresa. In spite of you and Teresa? I call that a bit thick.’

  ‘Don’t you think you should come off your morality plinth, Errol? After all, you’re spending a lot of money bringing a dumb little undergraduate to India and lavishing presents on her while your underprivileged wife languishes at home. And you’re taking risks –’

  ‘What risks?’

  ‘You said your board of directors didn’t approve of your mixing business with pleasure.’

  ‘Did I? Oh, to hell with that. Incidentally, I don’t see Suzanne as at all underprivileged. She lives extravagantly and well and I spend most of my spare time with her when I’m at home.’

  ‘Which must be seldom.’

  ‘Let’s see, did you meet her once?’

  ‘I saw her with you at that concert at the Sheldonian.’

  ‘She’s a great one for music. I’m almost tone deaf, you know.’

  Stephanie put out her cigarette, watched the last smoke curl up as the end was crushed in the ashtray.

  ‘She’s your second attempt, love. Tell me about your first. Didn’t you dump her in Greece?’

  ‘That sort of thing.’ Errol was not a man to show either annoyance or embarrassment. ‘It reminds me, I must get something to take home for Polly, as it’s her birthday soon. I wonder what those fellows on the beach have for sale.’

  ‘Oh, pretty shoddy stuff.’

  ‘I’m not sure. That thin little scarecrow I took photos of – he had a couple of brooches that didn’t look bad.’ Errol picked up a case containing two lenses. ‘I might go up to the fort first, see if I can get a telescopic view of the headland. Will you be all right for an hour?’

  ‘You left me to my own devices in Bombay often enough. I didn’t get into trouble. Remember?’

  He grinned.

  She said: ‘When you smile your eyebrows peak up in a most devilish and attractive way. I wonder you haven’t had three wives.’

  ‘I shall yet.’

  ‘You know what my father calls you? He hasn’t met you but I suppose he knows I wouldn’t fall for an ordinary bloke.’

  He bent over her. ‘What does he call me?’

  ‘Errol Flynn.’

  He studied her, without a smile this time.

  ‘It won’t do. I never conquered Burma.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It was a joke. You’re too young to understand.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Never. It’s nothing – Ah!’

  She attacked him and he had to grasp her hands. They wrestled and almost upset the tea things.

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘Help! Help!’ he called, pulling himself free and retreating into the bedroom. ‘It was only a film he was in. I swear it isn’t worth repeating. Stop it, woman!’

  ‘Explain!’

  She grabbed at him again and they collapsed onto the bed. Laughing still, his eyes kindled, he pinned her back upon the bed and pulled the bathrobe vigorously off her, so that she was wriggling naked in his arms. He kissed her, and with fierce gestures grasped her flesh, pressing it, kneading it, smoothing it, inciting it. When she lay back for a moment defeated and breathless he stood up, tore off his own clothes and came back upon her and took her again with an avid relish that left the afternoon’s lovemaking well away.

  II

  Later they played tennis for an hour, a game they both knew pretty well. He had all the heavy guns, but with her nimbleness of foot and long legs she was all over the court returning everything he sent across. He won the first set 6–4, but in the second, tiring, he found himself trailing 2–5. Thereupon he changed his tactics and began to play heavily sliced shots which, when they bounced, leaped away at disconcerting angles. Perhaps it was not he who beat her in the end but her own sense of fun. Seeing a lob come over and knowing it was going to break extravagantly, she would begin to laugh and so muff the return. He won 7–5. Bitterly complaining that he had cheated her, she was led away for a long cold beer and a rest in the amber light of the setting sun.

  They dined late, off Goan prawn curry and chicken Basquerie and pineapples and ice cream. The warm air made the darkness more intense outside the circle of the lights.

  He said: ‘Let’s see, we’ve three more days. Tomorrow’s free. Sunday morning I’ve ordered a taxi to take me into Old Goa. I want to photograph the ruins and the churches. It was quite a city once.’

  ‘I know.’ She would have liked to go with him, but he had clearly not included her in the idea, so there it was.

  ‘You’ll not be bored?’

  ‘Bored? When there’s all this sun and this sea?’

  ‘Tomorrow … let’s bathe first thing and then go into Panjim. Coming through, it looked a tatty little place, but I’m told there’s one good eighteenth-century church, and there’s a fishing village at the end of the peninsula I’d like to see – can’t remember its name – Dona something. I’ll get the same taxi.’

  ‘Sure. Fine.’ She felt sun-and-sea soaked and tired and beautifully relaxed and slightly tipsy. There was no good wine, so they had drunk gin and tonics. Her normally talkative nature was lulled. Life was extravagantly good, and she was happy to drift along with him gently steering.

  It was not to turn out quite to plan. Errol woke the next morning with sinus trouble and a splitting head: too much sun, he supposed, so they cancelled the trip; he spent the morning in bed, and she went on the beach alone.

  From the hotel you walked past the swimming pool and the arranged deck chairs, and it was forty-odd steps to the beach. Errol was quite content with the pool,
but he had humoured her in this, and they sat each day under one of the bamboo and raffia umbrellas within a few yards of the sea. She went to her usual place and spread a towel, lay on her face half in sun, half in shade.

  They had been away ten days: it would be just over two weeks in all, and it had done her a power of good. Oxford had become a bit of a rat race. The crowd she went with – Tony and Bob and Fiona and Zog and the rest – all had more money than she had and a pretty well insatiable appetite for spending it. She’d had a wonderful first two years. She had found herself bright enough to keep up with the work and yet still be able to have the fun of going to parties all over the place and sitting around in endless late-night conversations. She had turned down the option of a year abroad at the end of the second year. A good many of her immediate contemporaries reading Modern Languages had been away this year, but as most of her close friends were reading other subjects she had decided to stay with them, as it were, and carry straight on. Her languages were so good already that she thought with a bit of cramming before Schools she ought to be sure of a reasonable second. Thank God the University had not yet split the second class, as she had heard they might.

  And after the ‘reasonable second’, supposing she got it, what then? She thought she could probably land a job as an interpreter. Her father was completely bilingual in French, and she had become the same. If the worst came to the worst, she knew that Errol would find her a job. Always supposing that before then she had not married him, or they had not split up. She was aware that either might easily happen.

  It was through Zog that she had met Errol. (Zog was not his real name but everybody called him that because he was Albanian and was some not-too-distant relative of the former King.)

  Zog knew Sir Peter Brune, the rich scholarly aesthete, who had an estate near Woodstock, and had got her invited along with Tony Maidment and Fiona Wilson to one of his well-known weekends. Errol Colton was a fellow guest and was alone because his wife had flu. Stephanie had seen this attractive young-middle-aged man, and had noticed his eyes kindle when he first looked at her. She was not unused to being looked at admiringly but this was a little different. His look was not a stare for he had the good manners to glance quickly away, but it was very concentrated. And when he was introduced to her he knotted his eyebrows and looked at her and spoke to her as if no one else in the room existed. Nor it seemed did anyone else at the party or in the world exist for him except her for the rest of the weekend.