Rufus had refused to give up. One Saturday in May, Alison had been playing tennis at boarding school, when she had noticed a persistent giggling from the benches by the sidelines. Along one side of the courts was a beech hedge, intended to isolate the daughters of the clergy from the pernicious world at large. The smaller girls had spotted a young man peering through a gap in the hedge. It had been Rufus. He had cycled sixty miles to let Alison know that he had won a place in agricultural college. Burning with embarrassment and with the second-formers tittering in chorus, Alison had approached the gap, lowered her head and listened to Rufus’s jubilant announcement. She had stared at the ridiculous, smug face framed by the beech leaves and she had told Rufus that she was glad he would be going to agricultural college, and she hoped it was as far away as possible. They had not spoken since.
The summer passed. In September, Rufus went off to college in a dark blue suit and a striped scarf, and Alison started her last year at boarding school. Tom stayed in Middle Slaughter and helped burn the stubble on Hopkin’s Farm. In the next weeks, he wrote a few letters to Alison, but he had difficulty in expressing himself in words. He knew better than to surprise her with a visit.
It was a profound relief when she came back for the Christmas vacation and was still content to meet him. They went for long walks on the frost-white footpaths around the village. They always parted at the vicarage porch with a short embrace and a few kisses. Alison was very proper. Tom had more than once invited her home, but she had resolutely declined. The reason, he suspected, was that his home was the Harrow, and her father would be shocked if Alison set foot in a public house. This seemed to be confirmed when she told Tom, ‘I’ll be eighteen next holiday, and then I can do as I please. Let’s wait till then.’
So the next vacation, on the Friday after Easter, the day finally arrived when Tom treated Alison to her first drink in the Harrow. He secretly dreaded the amusement it would give the regulars, but as it turned out, their arrival caused no comment at all, for there was a bigger diversion. There were strangers in the Harrow.
They were a couple from London on their way, as the man explained with a wink, to spend the weekend at a cottage in Wales. He was a freelance journalist, a fluent, amusing talker who was soon entertaining the entire clientele with stories of famous people whose secrets he had somehow discovered. He had one of those prodigious moustaches once known as ‘RAF’, though he belonged to a later generation. He smoked cigars and seemed to have rubbed shoulders with everyone of note in London, yet it was obvious to all that the collar of his shirt was frayed and his suit was shiny at the points of wear and tear.
If either of them had money, it was she. Her sable jacket was the real thing and so were the diamond and ruby rings and earrings. She had blonde hair worn long, with silver highlights. She wore a musky perfume that penetrated the cigar fumes. She might have been thirty-nine; forty was unthinkable. The thoughts that were abroad in the Harrow that night were laced with envy of her weekend companion.
He emptied his glass. ‘Not a bad beer,’ he said. ‘Not bad at all.’
‘Have another?’ offered Rufus, who was back from college with some of his grant unspent.
‘That’s very decent of you. The lady’s is a Pimm’s.’
‘I don’t think I’d better, Charlie,’ said the woman.
‘Of course you will. I’ll drive the rest of the way. I’m steady as a rock if I stay on beer.’ Charlie turned to Rufus. ‘You take the order, old chum, and I’ll collect the empties.’
Rufus may not have intended to buy drinks for everyone, but that was what happened. The regulars needed no prompting. They chanted their orders with the familiarity of monks at prayer.
While the order was being set up, the man called Charlie said confidentially to Rufus, ‘Any idea who she is?’
‘Who do you mean?’
‘The little raver I’m with. In the fur jacket.’
Rufus shook his head. ‘Should I know her?’
Charlie nodded. ‘You’ve seen her picture plenty of times. Come on, you recognise her.’
Rufus gave the woman another look. ‘I’m sorry. I’m damned sure I don’t.’
Charlie looked as if he had taken offence. ‘She’s famous, man.’
‘I’m a student at college,’ said Rufus in his defence. ‘I don’t watch the telly.’
‘You read the papers, don’t you?’
‘She’s not a politician?’
‘Does she look like one?’
‘I give up. Who is she?’
‘Which paper do you read?’
‘The Chronicle.’
‘I thought so. You really ought to know her.’
‘Well, there’s something familiar, I admit,’ said Rufus so as not to appear completely ignorant.
Charlie addressed the room in general. ‘Anyone got a copy of the Chronicle?’
On the window seat to the right of the door, Tom and Alison were drinking white wine, grateful for the attention the strangers were getting. Nobody had passed a comment yet about Alison’s presence.
Tom’s father, the landlord, retrieved a copy of the Chronicle from under the counter and handed it to Charlie, who passed it to Rufus. The mystery of the woman’s identity was now the focus of attention of every person present.
‘Turn to the centre pages, lad,’ instructed Charlie. ‘Now turn over again. What do you find?’
‘Letters to the Editor,’ Rufus read aloud. ‘Your Stars Today. Well, I’ll be damned!’ He stared at the page and across the room at the woman. Her large brown eyes returned his gaze without self-consciousness. She was used to being pointed out as a celebrity. ‘Deborah Kristal!’ said Rufus. ‘The fortune-teller.’
‘Don’t call her that, for heaven’s sake,’ said Charlie between his teeth. ‘She’s not some gypsy at the Derby with a crystal ball. She’s an astrologist, and she takes it very seriously. It’s highly technical. They use computers these days.’ He picked up a tray of drinks and carried it across the room. ‘Anyone had a birthday lately?’
The question produced a sudden silence in the room.
In the window seat, Alison whispered urgently to Tom, ‘Take me home now.’ They got up to leave.
Charlie turned back to Rufus. ‘Never mind. What’s your birth month, old boy?’
Desperate to escape the spotlight, Rufus had an inspiration. ‘It’s Alison’s birthday today. Her eighteenth!’
‘Marvellous!’ said Charlie. ‘Come over here, my dear, and Miss Kristal will tell you what the future holds.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Alison quickly.
‘She’s the vicar’s daughter,’ someone explained. ‘She’s shy, poor child. She’s had a very sheltered life.’
‘Do it for both of ’em, then,’ Tom’s father suggested. ‘My Tom isn’t bashful.’
‘What a splendid idea,’ said Rufus at once. ‘Cast their horoscopes and tell them if they have any future together.’
‘I would need more information,’ said Miss Kristal. ‘I do not have my charts with me. I can make only a few broad observations.’
‘Tom was born on August the twenty-eighth,’ said his father.
‘In that case he is not afraid of a good day’s work,’ said Miss Kristal. ‘He is healthy and strong, loyal and courageous. He does nothing by halves. He knows what he wants out of life and he will move mountains to get it. His manner may be a shade too overbearing at times, but he hides nothing from the world. He is an honest, open-hearted man.’
‘Tom, I’d like to leave,’ said Alison for the second time, but Tom lingered by the door, too interested to move.
‘The young lady has positive qualities, too,’ went on Miss Kristal. ‘She has the highest standards and she expects others to conform to them.’