by Francis - TO THE HILT

It all, in a way, made sense.

I said, 'Margaret Morden says I don't have to go to the creditors' meeting on Monday.'

'No, better not. She'll persuade them if anyone can.'

'I asked her to root for the race.'

'Race? Oh yes. King Alfred Gold Cup. But no trophy.'

'The winner only ever gets a gold-plated replica. Never the real thing.'

'Life,' he said, 'is full of disillusion.'

When I reached the house in Park Crescent, Dr Keith Robbiston was just leaving, and we spoke on the steps outside with my mother holding the door open, smiling while she waited for me to go in.

'Hello,' Robbiston greeted me fast and cheerfully. 'How's things?'

'I finished the pills you gave me.'

'Did you? Do you want some more?'

'Yes, please.'

He instantly produced another small packet: it seemed he carried an endless supply. 'When was it,' he asked, 'that you fell among thieves?'

'The day before yesterday.' It felt more like a decade. 'How is Ivan?'

The doctor glanced at my mother and, clearly because she could hear, said briefly, 'He needs rest.' His gaze switched intensely back to me. 'Perhaps you, you strong young man, can see he gets it. I have given him a powerful sedative. He needs to sleep. Good day to you now.' He flapped a hand in farewell and hurried off in a life taken always at a run.

'What did he mean about rest?' I asked my mother, giving her a token hug and following her indoors.

She sighed. 'Patsy is here. So is Surtees.'

Surtees was not the great nineteenth-century storyteller of that name, but Patsy's husband, whose parents had been bookworms. Surtees Benchmark, tall, lean and of the silly-ass school of mannerism, could waffle apologetically while he did you a bad turn, rather like his wife. He saw me through her eyes. His own never twinkled when he smiled.

My mother and I went upstairs. I could hear Patsy's voice from the floor above.

'I insist , Father. He's got to go.'

An indistinct rumble in return.

As her voice was coming from Ivan's study I went up and along there with my neat mother following.

Patsy saw my arrival with predictable rage. She too was tall and lean, and stunningly beautiful when she wanted to charm. The recipients of her 'Darling!' greetings opened to her like sunflowers: only those who knew her well looked wary, with Surtees no exception.

'I have been telling Father,' she said forcefully, 'that he must revoke that stupid power of attorney he made out in your name and give it to me.'

I put up no opposition but said mildly, 'He can of course do what he likes.'

Ivan looked alarmingly pale and weak, sitting as ever in his dark red dressing-gown in his imposing chair. The heavy sedative drooped already in his eyelids, and I went across to him, offering my arm and suggesting he should lie down on his bed.

'Leave him alone,' Patsy said sharply. 'He has a nurse for that.'

Ivan however put both hands on my offered forearm and pulled himself to his feet. His frailty had worsened, I thought, since the day before.

'Lie down,' he said vaguely. 'Good idea.'

He let me help him towards his bedroom and, short of physically attacking me, Patsy and Surtees couldn't stop me. Four practised thugs had been beyond my fighting capabilities, but Patsy and her husband weren't, and they had sense enough to know it.

As I went past him, Surtees said spitefully, 'Next time you'll scream .'

My mother's eyes widened in surprise. Patsy's head snapped round towards her husband and with scorn she shrivelled him verbally, 'Will you keep your silly mouth shut .'

I went on walking with Ivan into his bedroom, where my mother and I helped him out of his dressing-gown and into the wide bed where he relaxed gratefully, closing his eyes and murmuring, 'Vivienne… Vivienne.'

'I'm here.' She stroked his hand. 'Go to sleep, my dear.'

He couldn't with so powerful a drug have stayed awake. When he was breathing evenly my mother and I went out into the study and found that Patsy and Surtees had gone.

'What did he mean?' she asked perplexed. 'Why did Surtees say, "Next time you'll scream"?'

'I dread to think.'

'It didn't sound like a joke.' She looked doubtful and worried. 'There's something about Surtees that isn't… oh dear… that isn't normal .'

'Dearest Ma,' I said, teasing her, 'almost no one is normal. Look at your son, for a start.'

Her worry dissolved into a laugh and from there to visible happiness when from the study phone I told Jed Parlane that I would be staying down south for another twenty-four hours.

'I'll catch tomorrow night's train,' I said. 'I'm afraid it gets to Dalwhinnie at a quarter past seven in the morning. Saturday morning.'

Jed faintly protested. 'Himself wants you back here as soon as possible.'

'Tell him my mother needs me.'

'So do the police.'

'Too bad. See you, Jed.'

My mother and I ate the good meal Edna had cooked and left ready, and spent a peaceful, rare and therapeutic evening alone together in her sitting-room, not talking much, but companionable.

'I saw Emily,' I said casually, at one point.

'Did you?' She was unexcited. 'How is she?'

'Well. Busy. She asked after Ivan.'

'Yes, she telephoned. Nice of her.'

I smiled. My mother's reaction to my leaving my wife had been as always calm, unjudgmental and accepting. It was our own business, she had implied. She had also, I thought, understood. Her sole comment to me had been, 'Solitary people are never alone,' an unexpected insight that she wouldn't enlarge or explain, but she had long been accustomed to the solitary nature of her son's instincts, that I had tried -and failed - to stifle.

In the morning, when everyone had slept well, I talked for much longer than previously with Ivan.

He looked better. He still wore pyjamas, dressing-gown and slippers, but there was muscle tone and colour in his face, and clarity in his mind.

I told him in detail what I'd learned and done over the two days I'd spent in Reading. He faced unwillingly the whole frightening extent of the plundering of the brewery and approved of the appointment of Margaret Morden as captain of the lifeboat to save the wreck.

'It's my own fault things got so bad,' Ivan sighed. 'But, you know, I couldn't believe that Norman Quorn would rob the firm. I've known him for years, moved him up from the accounts department, made him Finance Director, gave him a seat on the Board… I trusted him. I wouldn't listen to or believe Tobias Tollright. I'll never be able to trust my own judgment again.'

I said, intending to console, 'The same thing happens to firms every year.'

He nodded heavily. 'They say the greater the trust the safer the opportunity. But Norman … how could he…?'

His pain was more personal than financial, the treachery and rejection harder to bear than the actual loss, and it was the heartlessness of that personal treachery that he couldn't endure.

'I wish,' he said with feeling, 'that you would take over and run the brewery. I've always known you could do it. I hoped when you married that efficient and attractive young woman that you would change your mind and come in with me. So suitable . You could live in Lambourn in her training stables and manage the brewery in Wantage, only seven miles away. Perfect . A life most young men would jump at. But no, you have to be different. You have to go off and live on your own, and paint .' His voice wasn't exactly contemptuous, but he found my compulsion wholly incomprehensible. 'Your dear mother seems to understand you. She says you can't keep mountain mist in a cage.'

'I'm sorry,' I said inadequately. I could see the sense of the life path he'd offered. I didn't know why I couldn't take it. I did know it would result in meltdown.