‘Do you know, my mind has gone completely blank and I can’t think of one,’ he responded. ‘But it is true, honestly.’
Laughing, she reached for her white mackintosh cape. The weather had improved dramatically during the last couple of days, but Karen didn’t trust it. It was still November. And she really did absolutely hate getting her hair wet. It went frizzy at the front and stuck out at an angle at the back and sides.
He grinned at her. ‘If you’re ready, the car is waiting,’ he said.
She found that a rather curious turn of phrase, but he did not give her time to pass comment. He spoke again almost immediately, as she picked up her car keys from the little narrow console-table she kept next to the front door.
‘Nice piece,’ he remarked. ‘Georgian?’
She nodded, mildly surprised yet again. Not only did she not see him as a gardener, but neither would she have put him down as a man with any interest at all in antiques.
In the car park, he steered her towards a black Range Rover. A uniformed soldier-chauffeur sat in the driver’s seat. Suddenly, the phrase ‘the car is waiting’ made sense.
‘One of the perks of the job,’ said Parker-Brown quickly, yet again giving her little time to say anything. ‘And it means I can have a drink.’
She still said nothing. Just go with the flow, girl, she told herself.
He took her to the Cott Inn at Dartington, where they drank bitter and ate piping hot steak-and-kidney pies. Conversation came easily, considerably more so than she would ever have expected.
‘I much prefer this to eating formally, I do hope you agree,’ he said, as they sat together by a raging fire.
Karen settled back in her chair, idly watching the flames. She did feel extremely relaxed in this man’s company, that was for certain.
‘I do, I love it,’ she replied. ‘But I would have put you down for a formal man. I mean, with your background I wouldn’t have thought you’d ever had much experience of anything other than formal dining.’
‘Well, that’s pretty true of army life,’ he said. ‘Number one dress and the regimental silver and all of that—’
‘I’m sure,’ she interrupted. ‘And one would assume that with your sort of family background, too...’
It was his turn to interrupt.
‘Karen, what on earth sort of background do you think I have?’ he asked.
She paused and studied him carefully. His face was giving nothing away.
‘Well, public school and Sandhurst, I suppose,’ she said. ‘And with a name like yours, a pretty upper-crust family, I should imagine.’
He grinned quickly, but was rather serious when he spoke again. ‘My father was also a fusilier, another professional soldier, but he wasn’t an officer,’ he began. ‘He was a corporal in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. His name was Graham Parker and I can barely remember him. He was killed in Northern Ireland in 1968 when I was just four years old and I don’t think we ever saw a lot of him at home...’
Karen found herself doing mental arithmetic. That made Gerry forty, at least a year or two older than she had judged him to be, but still young to be a full colonel, she was sure.
‘It was only really the beginning of the troubles, not long after the civil rights march in Londonderry which is generally reckoned to have been the start of it all, and only weeks into the Royal Fusiliers’ first tour of duty over there,’ Parker-Brown continued. Karen noticed that his voice had acquired a far away note. ‘He was actually very, very unlucky. But enough of that. It was all a long time ago.’
Parker-Brown flashed that grin again.
‘Anyway, my mother remarried a couple of years later, a plumber named Martin Brown. He adopted me and brought me up, and did his best to be a father to me. But my mother never wanted me to forget my real father and she thought it was important that I retained his name, which is how I became Parker-Brown. That was her solution. And Martin went along with it.’
‘I see,’ said Karen. ‘But what about your first name. Gerrard. I mean, isn’t that a bit posh for a corporal’s lad?’
‘Ah.’ Parker-Brown was smiling easily now. ‘It seems that my mother had been watching a film shortly before I was born, in which Gerrard Street, in the West End of London, featured briefly. She’s always suffered from occasional delusions of grandeur, my mum, and she so much liked the sound of Gerrard, which she did indeed think was suitably posh, that she decided that should be my name. Which is why I have two Rs in the middle, rather than the usual Gerard with one R. Unfortunately, she didn’t realise until too late that it’s actually a street full of Chinese restaurants and knocking shops, and not the tiniest bit posh.’
Karen laughed and shook her head.
‘Not what you expected, eh?’ he enquired.
She shook her head again.
‘So, didn’t you even go to public school, then?’
‘Absolutely not. State primary and then a grammar school. Thank God for the eleven-plus. The system may not have been perfect, but it did give kids like me a real chance. I always wanted to go into the army, and more particularly I wanted to be a fusilier like my dad, and in spite of having lost her husband in action, my mother encouraged me. She has always said she knew it was what my father would have wanted. He’d been a dedicated career soldier, you see, although in the ranks. She was more than happy for me to chose a military career. I don’t think she imagined that I’d be an officer, though — as you pointed out — she did give me the right name, I suppose. Anyway, grammar school gave me that opportunity. I passed the right exams and, yes, I did go to Sandhurst. That’s the only bit you got right.’
‘And now you’re a full colonel. At what? Forty? That’s quite young, isn’t it?’
‘Youngish. My promotion from lieutenant colonel only came through last month, but there you are. Life is full of little miracles, isn’t it?’
‘She must be very proud of you, your mum.’
‘I think she is. It hasn’t all been plain sailing, though. Certainly not in my personal life.’
‘Ah.’
‘Yes. Ah, indeed. My wife and I have been apart for some time. She seemed to prefer a chinless wonder with a title, which should not have been a huge surprise, really. I made the mistake of marrying into the army aristocracy, or what passes for it, and I don’t think I was ever quite what she required. I thought I was head over heels in love, but sometimes now I think I was in love with my wife’s family set-up more than anything else.’
She was surprised by his honesty. His directness. Indeed, he really was a thoroughly surprising man.
‘Do you have children?’
He nodded. ‘A boy and a girl, aged twelve and thirteen. They’re both at boarding school. There is, of course, as far as their mother and her family are concerned, no alternative to a boarding-school education. I seem to see them less and less. Actually, I think that nearly always happens with fathers whose exes have custody of their children, whatever people tell you.’
‘Maybe,’ Karen said non-commitedly. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘No children, then?’
‘No.’ Karen answered abruptly. She liked learning about other people’s lives, but was never so keen on giving much away about her own. And she was, after all, at an age when she was fast having to accept that it was highly unlikely she would ever have any children, which was something, even though she had never been particularly maternal, that she did not like to dwell upon.
‘And husbands, past or present?’
Karen studied him through narrowed eyes. She hadn’t given it a thought, but, of course, Parker-Brown did not even know if she was married or not, because as usual she had said so little about herself. Yet he had still asked her out. Just for friendship, he had said. She wasn’t so sure. Was he always this attentive to, and this interested in, his friends, she wondered. Or did he have an ulterior motive.