Salley Vickers - Mr Golightly’s Holiday

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A novel from the best-selling author of ‘Miss Garnet's Angel’ and ‘Instances of the Number 3’.Holiday: a period in which a break is taken from work or studies for rest, travel, or recreation. Many years ago Mr Golightly wrote a work of dramatic fiction that grew to be an international bestseller. But his reputation is on the decline and he finds himself out of touch with the modern world.He decides to take a holiday and comes to the ancient village of Great Calne, hoping to use the opportunity to bring his great work up to date. But he soon finds that events take over his plans and that the themes he has written on are being strangely replicated in the lives of the villagers he is staying among.He meets Ellen Thomas, a reclusive artist, young Johnny Spence, an absconding schoolboy, and the tough-minded Paula who works at the local pub. As he comes to know his neighbours better, Mr Golightly begins to examine his attitude to love, and to ponder the terrible catastrophe of his son's death. And as the drama unfolds we begin to learn the true and extraordinary identity of Mr Golightly and how the nature of the secret sorrow that haunts him links him to his new friends.Mysterious, light of touch, witty and profound ‘Mr Golightly's Holiday’ confirms Salley Vickers's reputation as one of our most original and engaging novelists.

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Mr Golightly’s Holiday

Salley Vickers

Copyright

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2003

Copyright © Salley Vickers 2003

The right of Salley Vickers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007156474

Ebook Edition © APRIL 2010 ISBN: 9780007379651

Version: 2017-07-26

For my own father, who, valiant in the face

of adversity, taught me the charm of the comic

perspective – with all love.

Take hold tightly, let go lightly; this is one of the great secrets of felicity in love…

ROBERT ORAGE

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

March

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

April

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

May

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

June

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Keep Reading

The Research Notes of Johnny Spence

Author’s Note and Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Salley Vickers

About the Publisher

MARCH

1

ONE AFTERNOON IN MID MARCH, WHEN THE green-white snowdrops had blown ragged under the tangled hawthorn hedges, the pale constellations of primroses had ceased to be a novelty, and the more robust, sun-reflecting daffodils were in their heyday, an old half-timbered Traveller van drove into the village of Great Calne. There was, in fact, no other Calne, great or small, in the county of Devon; or if there ever had been, it had long since vanished into the indifferent encroachments of the moor. Great Calne stands at the edge of Dartmoor, one of the ancient tracts of land which still, in the twenty-first century, lends out its grazing free to the common people of England – though it must be said that the ‘common people’ are something of a scarcity these days.

Sam Noble, out walking his bitch, Daphne, named for his mother’s still-born twin sister, and having nothing better to do, watched with naked curiosity as the driver of the car negotiated the corner by the Stag and Badger – where, thanks to the pub’s garden wall, the passage was tight and drivers often came a cropper. He was mildly disappointed when nothing untoward occurred. Sam’s was not an especially malicious nature, but Great Calne did not provide the thrills he had once been used to. Before his retirement, Sam had been a film director, and had had hopes of winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes with a film about women jockeys which had subsequently made waves. However, for the past five years he had lived in Great Calne, where the principal excitement was provided by Morning Claxon’s plans to transform the tearooms into an alternative health centre.

There was another witness to the arrival of the car, a less obvious one. Johnny Spence had, as usual, skipped school and it wasn’t safe for him to show his face till after four o’clock. During the stranger’s arrival, Johnny was hiding, as was his habit, in the upper branches of a yew tree which spread its antique shade over the churchyard wall and on to the garden of the Reverend Meredith Fisher, the latest occupant of the rectory. Johnny, whose researches were thorough, knew that the lady vicar was off doing her counselling training down in Plymouth, and would not be back before six. So he was free to watch the old Morris – which from his calculations must be worth a bit – being brought skilfully round the corner and into the front garden of Spring Cottage, which since the death of Emily Pope had been let out by her daughter, Nicky, to holidaymakers.

Emily Pope had been dead long enough for Nicky to discover that Spring Cottage did not let easily. So far, it had been rented by a couple of families who complained about the out-of-date facilities, and the damp. One woman, from Clapham, claimed to have found toadstools. It had been something of a relief to receive a request via Nicky’s new website – www.moorvacs.co.uk – from the gentleman who had described himself as ‘a writer in need of a peaceful situation within easy walking distance of shops and pub’. Spring Cottage filled the bill nicely. Writers were notoriously careless people – very likely this one would smoke in the bedroom, but then again he was a man, and mightn’t notice that the back plates on the kitchen hob were dodgy, or that the avocado suite in the bathroom (once the pride of Emily Pope) was now badly out of fashion. Nicky, in the first flush of holiday letting, had splashed out on a Norwegian wood-burning stove, sold to her by a travelling salesman who had hinted at further attractions. These had never materialised, and the stove, prominent in the website details, filled the downstairs rooms with smoke when the wind was in the wrong direction. The Clapham woman had complained about this too; but Nadia Fawns, who ran an antiques store over in Backen, had sold Nicky a couple of convector heaters which she hoped would put paid to the heating problems.

Sam Noble, with several backward glances, had made his way with Daphne through the main street of Great Calne and up towards the moor by the time the driver came to unload the Traveller van. Only Johnny Spence was there to observe him more closely. Johnny’s powers of reconnaissance were keen; had he been asked he would have described the stranger as ‘a fattish old guy who looked as if he hadn’t had a proper shave’. But Johnny’s position on the yew bough would not have afforded a view of the newcomer’s most striking feature – a pair of eyes whose true colour was hard to discern, since they had a quality of shifting from the brooding shades of a storm-crushed sea to the limpid freshness of a dawn sky.

It appeared that the visitor was at any rate physically strong since he emptied the Traveller in double-quick time. The contents were comparatively few: a knocked-about suitcase, a baggy holdall, a laptop computer, a rather loud-looking portable stereo and some cardboard boxes, one of which bore the name of a well-known wine store. A drinking man, at least, Colin Drover, who managed the local inn, might have remarked. The visitor had brought his own alcohol – which might have been a disappointment to a publican. But with drink, as with so much else, inclination in one quarter usually leads to exploration of others.

And the publican’s optimism would have been confirmed. When the stranger had unpacked the van, and distributed some of his belongings in the cramped interior of Spring Cottage, he strolled up the main street to the inn, paused a moment to inspect the menu displayed outside, which promised Tasty Snacks & Bar Lunches , and then pushed open the solid double doors to enter the fire-lit warmth within.

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