Especially if your grandmother was a little weird. And it was hard to escape the fact that Phil’s grandmother was more than a little weird.
He wished he had hesitated just for a moment at that turning to double-check the road when the woman had beckoned him to go forward. She looked like one of his friends’ mums – he had just done what she had told him without questioning it. What an idiot!
‘Hello, Phil.’
Phil recognized the voice of his French teacher and scrambled to his feet. Mr Parsons was a prematurely wizened sixty-year-old with a clipped, very English accent and a deep love of French literature, which over the previous two years he had managed to pass on to Phil and the rest of his A-level class. There was not much Phil wouldn’t do for Mr Parsons.
Standing just behind him was a man a little older than the French master, bald with fluffs of grey hair sticking out above his large ears. Phil would have pegged him as another teacher, except he didn’t recognize him, and he was wearing a suit. Apart from the headmaster, teachers at Phil’s school stuck to old sports jackets and rumpled trousers. ‘Hello, sir.’
‘Sadly, Phil, I am no longer “sir” to you. And not even really “Mr Parsons”. Call me Eustace.’
Naturally, Mr Parsons’ pupils had gleefully been calling him ‘Eustace’ behind his back ever since they had discovered that was his first name, but Phil felt honoured to be permitted to call him that to his face.
‘This is Charles Swann,’ said Mr Parsons. ‘Phil Dewar, one of my pupils. Former pupils. Going to Edinburgh in September.’
‘Provided I get the grades.’
‘As I said, going to Edinburgh in September.’ Mr Parsons grinned with confidence. ‘What will you have, Charles?’
‘Oh, a pint of bitter, please.’
‘Can I get you another, Phil?’
‘Thank you, sir. I mean, Eustace. A pint of Brakspear’s.’
The bald man sat down opposite Phil and pulled out a packet of cigarettes, offered Phil one, which he declined, and lit up. ‘Nice pub,’ he said, taking a puff. ‘Your local?’
‘My house is on the other side of the village. Do you live around here? I haven’t seen you about.’
‘Oh no. I live in Surrey. Woking.’
‘Are you a teacher too?’
Swann grinned. ‘Sometimes I wish I was. No, a civil servant.’ He leaned back in his chair, examining Phil. ‘Eustace tells me your exams are all finished now. Have you got any plans for the summer?’
‘I was supposed to be spending a month hitch-hiking around Europe, but it looks like that’s fallen through. I crashed my father’s car last week, and now I can’t afford to go.’
‘My commiserations,’ said Swann. ‘I had a bad smash when I was your age. Lucky to get out alive. All my fault.’
‘I suppose this one was mine,’ said Phil.
Mr Parsons reappeared, clasping two pints. ‘Here you are, Phil. I have to go, I’m afraid. I’ll leave you here with Charles.’
Phil accepted the pint and put it down next to his existing glass. He looked at his teacher in confusion.
‘Charles will explain. This is the first time I’ve met him. But he is a very good friend of a very good friend of mine. He is who he says he is.’ Mr Parsons looked straight into Phil’s eyes as he spoke.
‘All right,’ said Phil, confusion morphing into interest. ‘Thanks for the pint.’
He turned to Swann, who was still watching him carefully as he smoked his cigarette. The man’s gaze was shrewd, with a hint of steel. Definitely not a schoolteacher. ‘What are you planning to do instead?’ Swann asked. ‘Now you can’t go hitch-hiking.’
‘My grandmother has offered to take me around Europe. I’m supposed to drive her. Technically it’s a job, but actually she bailed me out.’
‘That’s decent of her,’ said Swann.
‘She’s a decent woman,’ said Phil. ‘A little odd sometimes, but she has always been good to me.’ He sipped the smaller of his two pints. ‘What do you want? You said you worked for the civil service?’
‘I do. I’m semi-retired now.’
‘Which department?’
‘I couldn’t say.’ Swann looked at Phil levelly.
Phil had read enough spy novels to know what Mr Swann was saying. A thought occurred to him. ‘Is that Swann as in À la recherche du temps perdu?’
‘It is, actually. Eustace thought you would appreciate it.’
Phil couldn’t help grinning. Mr Parsons had overreached himself with inflicting Proust as an off-syllabus novel on his class the previous autumn term.
‘So Swann is not your real name?’
‘Obviously not,’ said Swann. ‘But it will do us for now.’
‘OK.’ Phil sipped his pint. His heart started beating faster. He was going to study languages at university and he had fantasized about how one day he would be approached by the secret service in exactly this way. Was it happening already? Phil knew that Mr Parsons liked him, respected him even. Would MI5 or MI6 or whomever Swann was with want him to learn Russian? Phil had always fancied the idea of learning Russian.
He decided to take the initiative. He had no idea whether he would agree to be a spy, but he knew he wanted to be asked. ‘Are you recruiting me?’
‘No,’ Swann replied, with a smile revealing chaotic yellow teeth. ‘Or not exactly. There is something that we would like you to do for your government. For your country. But before we talk about that, I want your word that you won’t discuss what I am about to say with anyone. Not your family. Not your friends. Certainly not your grandmother.’ The grin had gone.
Phil didn’t want to keep this a secret. In particular, he wanted to tell his mates from school all about Mr Parsons’ friend. But if he didn’t promise he would never find out what ‘this’ was. Mr Parsons had trusted him.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’ And he meant it. He would keep his word and justify Mr Parsons’ trust.
‘Good man,’ said Swann. ‘This is what I would like you to do, if you are willing . . .’
Chapter 3
The train pulled into St Austell. Phil closed his hefty volume of War and Peace, which he had long planned to take with him on his European trip, since it was a book big enough to last him five weeks: 130 pages done, 1,270 to go. He grabbed his bulging green rucksack and dropped down on to the platform. He had one five-pound note in his pocket, borrowed from his mother, to pay for the taxi to Mevagissey, the fishing village near which Grams lived.
He emerged from the station entrance to find his grandmother, and her TR6, waiting for him.
‘Stick your bag in the boot and hop in,’ she said. She took the passenger seat, and Phil sat at the wheel. The boot was already two-thirds full of luggage.
‘I thought I was supposed to go to your house. How did you get the car here?’
‘I drove.’
‘The magistrate let you off?’
Grams smiled. ‘You didn’t really believe that? Your parents, maybe, but not you, surely?’
Phil grinned. ‘So you weren’t caught drinking and driving?’
‘Of course not! I would never do such a thing. Now, let’s get going.’
‘All right. Where to? Dover?’
‘Not quite yet. We’re going to start in Devon. Chaddington Hall.’
Phil loved driving the TR6. They sped across Bodmin Moor with the roof down. It was a cool day for June with small white clouds chasing the car eastwards, scattering quick black shadows across the green moor. Phil usually drove his mother’s dull, underpowered Renault 5 with the weird gearstick, and occasionally his father’s big, heavy, slightly scary Rover. The TR6 beat both of them hands down, and along the straight bits of the A30 he was able to push above eighty without any complaint from his passenger.
Stupidly, Phil had forgotten to bring any of his tapes. Grams slotted in one of her own, some opera, and although Phil flinched at the first screech, he enjoyed the way the music swelled around them as they barrell
ed across the moor.
‘Do you really need me to drive, or were you just being generous?’ he asked.
‘Oh, no. I’d much rather you drove. I’ve lost my confidence, recently. And I’m very glad you agreed to come.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. I have a feeling I will need a fit young man with me.’
‘To do what, exactly?’
‘To deal with the unexpected.’
‘Are we expecting the unexpected?’ Phil asked with half a smile.
‘Yes, I rather think we are.’
Phil slowed behind a line of cars following a caravan. ‘Where are we going? You said you were posted to Paris and Berlin?’
‘That’s right. Or rather Roland was.’
Phil remembered his grandfather well: he had died five years before, when Phil was thirteen. Phil had liked the old man. The family had visited his grandparents a few times in Mevagissey, and Grandpa usually took Phil out fishing around the local coves in a little motorboat. They never caught much, but it had been fun.
‘Will we be going anywhere else?’
‘Possibly. Probably. I don’t know yet.’
‘This all sounds very mysterious.’
‘Oh, it is,’ said Grams. She was silent for a moment. ‘One of the reasons I asked you to accompany me is that I want to tell you a story. My story. The story of what I did before the war. I mentioned I’ve been thinking of revisiting my life then. But I also want to share it, so someone knows about it when I’m gone.’
‘But you’re not going anywhere, Grams,’ said Phil. ‘I don’t know how old you are, but you can’t be much more than sixty.’ Phil tactfully lopped a couple of years off his best guess.
‘Sixty-four,’ said Grams. ‘And you never know. Roland was only seventy-two when he died.’
That still seemed to give Grams another eight years at least. She looked pretty healthy to Phil. Not even really an old lady.
‘Why me?’ said Phil. ‘Why not Mum?’
Grams smiled. ‘My story would be difficult for your mother. It might be difficult for you. But I think you are the right person to hear it. I’m sure you are.’
Phil wasn’t completely convinced by that explanation, but his curiosity was aroused, as his grandmother had no doubt intended.
‘All right. We start at Chaddington Hall? That’s where you grew up, right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And your father was a lord?’
Phil’s parents had discussed Chaddington Hall once or twice, but when he had pressed his mother for details of her grandparents, she had been evasive, to the point that Phil had almost doubted their existence. The idea that his family could have had any lordly ancestors seemed faintly ridiculous to him; his mother behaved in a resolutely middle-class fashion. But Grams? There was a touch of the aristocrat to her. And she had become a ‘lady’ herself when Grandpa had been knighted for his services to diplomatic cocktail parties or whatever. Dad’s father, who still lived with his wife in a nice village outside Glasgow, had been in insurance.
‘He was Lord Chaddington,’ Grams said.
‘Is there a Lord Chaddington now?’
‘No. I did have a brother. Hugh. But he died, so there was no heir to the title.’
Phil hadn’t heard anything about a Hugh. He would have been Phil’s great-uncle. Why had his mother never mentioned an uncle? There was a Great Aunt Sarah in Australia, presumably Grams’s sister, but Phil had only met her once, and couldn’t remember that very clearly.
‘So who owns Chaddington Hall now?’
‘It’s a prep school. My sister and I sold it in 1967. Most of the proceeds went in death duties. I telephoned and they are expecting us. It will be the first time I have been back since my father died. And it’s the place where my story starts.’
Soon after they crossed the River Tamar from Cornwall into Devon, they turned off the A30, and followed a number of ever-smaller roads that twisted and turned through little valleys and wooded lanes where the trees met overhead. Grams did the navigating without the aid of a map, which was fortunate, because Phil had completely lost his sense of direction. They emerged from a wood and over an uncharacteristically low hedge he caught sight of a broad bare hillside about five miles away.
‘Dartmoor,’ said Grams.
‘Are we going up there?’
‘Not quite.’
They meandered closer to the hills, until they passed a small sign announcing Chaddington. The village was tiny, just a few cottages, a couple of farms and a squat stone church with a squat stone tower. Trees encroached from all sides.
‘Let’s go the back way,’ Grams said. ‘Turn left here.’
She indicated a tiny lane opposite the church.
‘There’s more of a back way than this?’ said Phil, but he did as she suggested. He wasn’t sure why: even though they were heading towards the moor, it was impossible to see much above the high banks and hedges. The lane twisted and turned, passed a farm, and then straightened up for a hundred yards or so. Phil braked as the lane lurched over a small rise, and plunged into a hollow surrounded by trees, where it turned sharply to the right. Grams seemed to shiver and looked over her shoulder at the curve. Phil felt a flash of irritation: he had braked in plenty of time.
They emerged from the trees and soon came upon a slightly bigger road and a pair of grey gateposts, guarded by a tiny lodge. A large blue painted sign proclaimed: ‘Chaddington Hall School’ and underneath it: ‘Preparatory School for Boys 7–13 Years’.
Phil turned in, and guided the TR6 along a driveway running through a sports field split up into a number of cricket pitches. Boys of different sizes were playing – it was a Saturday afternoon in summer, after all.
‘This used to be the park,’ said Grams. ‘It makes sense they would turn it into playing fields.’
Chaddington Hall appeared ahead of them at the end of the long drive: a rambling house surrounded by lush vegetation. Plants climbed to left and right of the front door up towards the roof, and a thick, ancient tree stood on a circle of lawn to one side, its long branches stretching out towards them. The house appeared kindly rather than imposing, ancient grey brickwork wrinkling the facade.
‘That’s a chestnut,’ Grams said. ‘We used to love climbing it. I bet the schoolboys still do.’
‘I bet it’s out of bounds,’ said Phil. ‘That’s what schools do: ban the stuff that’s fun.’
He drew up next to a line of cars and a couple of minibuses parked on a tarmac apron to one side of the drive.
‘I’m pleased to see they haven’t messed the house up,’ Grams said. ‘At least on the outside.’
‘If they’ve turned it into a school, it’s bound to look different on the inside,’ Phil warned.
‘I know.’
As they walked up to the entrance, a small boy in grey shirt and shorts charged past, then stopped and pushed open the heavy door for them. They entered a square black-and-white-tiled hall, an imposing wooden staircase rising opposite. To their left, an open door marked ‘School Office’ revealed a large desk, behind which sat a middle-aged woman in a tweed skirt. She rose and approached them.
‘Lady Meeke? I’m Mrs Woodfield, the school secretary. We spoke on the telephone.’
Grams shook her hand and introduced Phil.
‘Would you like a tour? I’m sure the place has changed a lot since you lived here, but I hope some of it will bring back memories.’
‘Thank you, I’d love one.’
And so Mrs Woodfield showed them around the house, or rather the school. Phil had never been in a boarding school before, and he felt sorry for the kids who were shut away there for weeks on end, especially the smaller ones. But he had to admit the place had a friendly feel to it – this was no Dotheboys Hall. It did smell of small boys: strains of socks, body odour, school food, old books, ink and carbolic twisted through the corridors, dormitories and classrooms.
It wasn’t a large school, but Phil was am
azed at how dozens of children could eat, sleep and work in a home that had been built for just one family. His grandmother’s family. They passed through the dormitories upstairs.
‘This was my room,’ said Grams. Phil could see how it might once have been a delightful bedroom, looking out over a lawn sloping gently down to a stream, with Dartmoor rising behind it. Now four small single beds and two bunk beds took up almost the entire floor space.
They passed through other dormitories that had belonged to Hugh and Sarah, although they weren’t permitted to see Lord and Lady Chaddington’s bedroom, which was now part of the headmaster’s quarters.
Downstairs, the dining room was still a dining room, but narrow tables and benches had replaced the Chippendale table and chairs, and most of the other rooms had been turned into classrooms, as had the stables outside. Scrappy notices and solemn wood-and-gold honours boards proclaiming scholarships to minor public schools adorned the corridor walls, along with a random selection of prints: county maps, local churches, Indian hunting scenes. The classroom art was more educational: posters of an internal combustion engine and Roman legionaries marching along a straight road.
Finally they came to the school library.
This was a magnificent hexagonal room of bookshelves reaching two storeys high, a wrought-iron gallery giving access the higher shelves. A hexagonal skylight let in the June sunshine.
‘I’m so pleased you kept this!’ said Grams, her eyes shining. ‘Oh, this was my favourite room in the house, Philip! My grandfather built it in the last century. And stocked it. There were wonderful books here.’ She cast her eyes along the shelves. ‘They’ve all gone, now.’
Mrs Woodfield sniffed. ‘We’re very proud of our library.’
‘Oh, of course!’ said Grams. ‘Every school should have a library.’ She glanced along a row of history textbooks. ‘It’s wonderful that children learn to love books here. It’s just . . . it’s different.’
‘The grounds will have changed too,’ said Mrs Woodfield. ‘Although I suspect what we now call the headmaster’s garden will be pretty much the same as it was. You are welcome to wander around outside, if you wish.’
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