Sarah Rayne - House of the Lost

He realized he was shivering as violently as if he had a high fever, and he managed to go back to the house and up to his bedroom. He pulled on a sweater and sat on the bed, wrapping his arms round his body in an attempt to bring some warmth back. Then he washed and got ready for Nancy’s bonfire. As he did so, he wondered how he could ever forget the sweet softness of Charmery’s lips and the helpless hard arousal between his legs when she kissed him. Even if he really did hate her now, he would go on wanting her for the rest of his life.

He returned to Cambridge and his final year, but when it came to the finals he did not get the prophesied double first. ‘A very near miss, apparently,’ said his tutor ruefully. ‘I suspect you’ve burned the candle at both ends these last few months.’

‘I have but it gave a lovely light,’ said Theo.

‘Don’t quote to the converted,’ said his tutor sharply. Then, relenting, he said, ‘I think it was more a matter of the mental energy going in other directions, wasn’t it? All those sketches for the Footlights for instance.’

But Theo knew he had lost the double first because of Charmery. There were endless nights when he lay awake aching for her, and when he thought he heard her voice inside the rain pattering on the windows. On those nights he almost wished himself living in the Middle Ages so he could order an alchemist to conjure her up there and then, and he came very close to reaching for the phone, just to hear her voice. But if once he talked to her he would want to see her, and he was afraid of discovering he did not care that she was his sister.

Despite what Helen had said, he wondered whether his mother had known or suspected the truth. She had never, for as long as he could remember, stayed at Fenn House for longer than was absolutely necessary. Was it because she knew Charmery was her husband’s love-child and could not bear to see her more than she had to? But if so, surely she would have hated Helen, and she never had. So it looked as if she had not known. Theo considered asking Petra, but knew he could not. If she really didn’t know it would tear her apart.

But although he won the many fights not to phone Charmery, news of her filtered back to him in gossipy trickles. She left school the following year, and as Petra had prophesied, did not go on to university or seem interested in doing so. The family grapevine reported that she travelled quite a lot – there were two or three months in America, and six months in France, and then another six months in Switzerland. Theo guessed Helen had deliberately arranged this to keep Charmery out of his reach. The rest of the family viewed these travels with disfavour, even Aunt Emily, saying anybody would think Charmery was a debutante or an eighteenth-century fop taking the Grand Tour. Nancy thought it all very extravagant and just hoped Desmond had enough money to fund all this gallivanting. Better if Charmery had trained for a proper job, said Nancy; Helen and Desmond should have insisted on it while the girl was still at school.

‘I don’t know what century Nancy lives in or how she copes with her sixth formers,’ observed Aunt Emily. ‘Parents haven’t been able to insist their children do anything for at least twenty years, even I know that.’

Unexpectedly, it was Theo’s mother who said, ‘But nobody’s ever been able to insist that Charmery does anything she doesn’t want to do.’

After Theo left Cambridge he avoided the family as much and as politely as possible. His absence was noticed and commented on, of course, and apparently became the subject of considerable conjecture. Opinions ranged from the possibility that he had become entangled with some disreputable adventuress who could not be introduced to anyone (Aunt Emily’s belief ), to speculation that he had taken to drink or drugs or both (Nancy), and the suggestion by a mild-mannered aunt on Helen’s side of the family that he might be contemplating a religious retreat from the world. According to Theo’s mother, who attended a fortieth birthday party for Lesley’s mother, this last idea caused much ribaldry among the bluffer uncles who said what about the vow of chastity, ho ho, and added that hell would freeze and pigs would fly before Theo would enter a monastery. Guff thought the absences might be due to Theo having been enlisted by the government to work in a secret capacity, and pointed out that Burgess and Maclean had been Cambridge men.

‘They were also double agents,’ said Nancy, tartly.

‘Yes, but Theo wouldn’t be a double agent.’

‘So there you are,’ said Petra, recounting all this to Theo. ‘You’re either in the hands of a gold-digger, you’re an alcoholic or a drug fiend, you’re about to become a monk or you’re James Bond.’

‘I’ve just had a bit too much of family,’ said Theo, hating himself for deceiving her.

‘A little of them goes a long way,’ agreed his mother, apparently accepting this with perfect equanimity.

‘But I expect I’ll wander back into the Kendal bosom at some point.’

‘I expect you will,’ she said, as if it was not important. ‘One usually does.’

In time life became slightly more endurable. His Footlights’ sketches had caused a few ripples in the world that existed beyond Cambridge’s rarefied atmosphere, and some review work came in, along with the acceptance of a couple of articles for one of the heftier Sunday papers. In the wake of this was a modest commission for a series of four short radio plays.

‘And very good they were,’ said Guff, who had written to the BBC to praise the plays and had received a very nice reply from a young production assistant whom he intended to take out to lunch.

The radio plays led to scripting work for a couple of TV documentaries, which was gratifying and enjoyable. None of it provided a huge amount of money, but for the moment there was enough on which to live and it was possible to view the financial future with a degree of optimism. With some trepidation, Theo embarked on a full-length novel, and after a few false starts and some rejections, his first novel was published when he was twenty-six. When he received the call saying it had been accepted, he found himself longing to tell Charmery, and to see her eyes glowing with admiration and delight for him. He tried not to mind when she did not so much as send him a note or even an email of congratulation.

There were congratulations from other quarters though, because the book received considerable acclaim. ‘Dark,’ said the critics. ‘Dark and dense, and although not entirely comfortable to read, very compelling indeed.’ When it won a small, but prestigious award, they all said they had foreseen it, and began to talk about the Man Booker Prize as a future possibility.

On the strength of this Theo scraped together a deposit for a tiny sliver of a house on the northern outskirts of London, and tried not to think how he would be shackled to the building society for the next twenty-five years.

But his new life was not so bad; there were agreeable contacts in the world of publishing and radio and newspapers, and there were a few girlfriends along the way, although he never viewed any of these relationships as serious. Once again this was because none of them were Charmery. He wondered if he would ever stop thinking about her and wanting her.

And then, five years after that never-forgotten autumn afternoon at Fenn House, midway through an ordinary working morning in the little north London house, he answered a knock at the door and she was standing on the step.

Theo’s emotions spun in wild confusion, but when she said, ‘I can come back later if this isn’t a good time. Of if you’re just going out?’