Even so, it was not quite all rubbish. The funny thing was that there were times when I had envied Damian. I envied his power among these men and women. I had known many of them all my life but within a matter of weeks of their meeting him he had more power over them than I had ever achieved. He was handsome, of course, and charismatic and I was neither, but finally it wasn’t that. Newcomer as he was, he did not allow them to dictate the rules of the game, but I… maybe I did. Had I not given more leeway to the jokes of Lord Claremont and his ilk than I would have done to those of a social inferior? Did I not pretend, by never arguing, that the fatuities I’d listened to after dinner in a series of great and splendid dining rooms were interesting comments? I had sat up late with fools and laughed and nodded and flattered their fathomless self-importance without revealing a trace of my real feelings. Would I have bothered with Dagmar were she not a princess? Did I not maintain civilities with someone like Andrew, a man I despised and would have actively disliked even if Serena had never been born? Would I have given him the little respect that I did if there weren’t a faint impulse within me to bow down before his position? I’m not sure. Were my mother alive and able to read this, she would say it was all nonsense, that I was brought up to be polite and why should I be criticised for that. One part of me thinks she would be right, but another…

At all events the evening finished me in that world for many years. Damian was gone from their sight, but so, to a large extent, was I. With a few, a very few, exceptions, I dropped out of their round, at first because of embarrassment, but later in disgust with my own self. Even Serena seemed to back away from me or so I thought. For a time I would still drop by occasionally, once or twice in a year, to see her or to see the children or, I suppose, because I could not stay away but I felt that the shadow of that evening was always with us, that something had died, and at last I accepted it and severed all connection.

Of course, today I am older and kinder and, looking back, I judge that I treated myself harshly. I do not think Serena was responsible for my exile. Nor do I blame any of the others because I think I did it to punish myself and I was wrong. The truth is that Damian spoke that night out of anger and a desire for revenge, although I am still not quite sure why I was the target for such heavy, apparently unprovoked blows. It may simply be that he blamed me for pulling him into the unholy mess in the first place. If so, with the wisdom of hindsight, I’m inclined to think he had a point.

SIXTEEN

I rang Damian when I got back from Waverly and told him everything I’d learned. And I voiced a thought I hated to find in my brain. ‘This is a silly question, but you’re sure it’s not Serena?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Because I know now there’s so much more to your story than I’d seen.’

‘I’m glad, but no, it’s not. I wish it were in a way, but it can’t be.’ I could hear that he really was pleased to hear that I’d come some way towards understanding what that year had been for him. ‘I last slept with Serena in the autumn of 1968. She married in the spring of 1969 and there was no baby in between. I only saw her one more time after her dance, and that was for the evening in Portugal when she wasn’t staying in the villa and she had her dreary husband, silly parents, horrible in-laws and a baby girl in tow. Besides, even if I’d muddled all the dates it would have to be that child, Mary, who I hear is still the spitting image of her ghastly daddy Andrew.’ All of which was true. The missing mother was not Serena Belton.

‘Then it’s Candida. It must be.’

‘Did you talk to her about me?’

‘A bit. She mentioned that you’d gone out together, but it was quite early on in the Season.’

‘Yes. But we never fell out. We were always friends and we picked up again when it was finished, just once or twice, for old times’ sake. I know you weren’t all that keen on Candida, but I liked her.’

I was very interested by this. With all these women he seemed to have been so much more aware of them, so much more clear-sighted as to their true natures, than I had been. ‘She did imply there was a little hanky-panky when the year was over. Is that when the baby might have begun?’

‘No, it wasn’t then. That was finished a long time before the holiday.’ There was a short silence at the other end of the line. ‘She came to me, after that dinner, when everyone was asleep. I woke in the night and she was with me, naked in my bed, and we made love. Then, when I woke up in the morning she was gone.’

‘Did you see her the next day, before you took off?’

‘Nobody had surfaced when I went. I just called a taxi and disappeared. But she left a note in my room, for me to find, so we parted on good terms.’

‘Did you meet up afterwards? In London?’

‘I never saw any of them again. Including you.’

‘No.’ I too had gone to the airport at dawn, but somehow we managed to avoid each other. On my part consciously. And no, like all of us I had not seen Damian from that day until my summons.

He interrupted my thoughts. ‘That is, I did see Joanna. Just once, but we know it wasn’t her.’

‘And Terry.’

He was puzzled for a second, and then he nodded and smiled. ‘You’re right. I’d remembered it as being before we left. But you’re right. It was when we got back. Poor old Terry.’

‘What did the note say? From Candida?’

‘“I still love you” and she signed it with that funny scrawl of hers. I was very touched. I don’t think I have ever been unhappier than I was that night.’

‘Which goes for everyone who was there.’

‘I used to pray that I would never be so unhappy again. Since I have minutes left, I can presumably be confident of achieving that at least.’ He chuckled softly at the hideous memory. At least, I say he chuckled, but the sound was more like the rattling of old and disused pipes in a condemned building. ‘I lay on my bed, listening to you talking outside and everyone leaving, and I wished I were dead. For a while I thought they were going to send for the police.’

‘That lot? No chance. They do not care to make column inches. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed.’ We were nearly at our destination. There seemed to be nothing left to do but tie up the loose ends. ‘Shall I go and tell her about her son’s good fortune?’

‘Why not? Then come down here. I want to hear what she says.’

Candida was quite content to get my call this time and equally content to let me invade her for a cup of coffee that very morning. She lived in the same old Fulham-type house that so many of her tribe have come to occupy since I was young. Harry had obviously made a decent living and she had fixed the place up very attractively. She greeted me with her usual, if to me newfound, calm, good manners, and took me into a pretty, chintzy drawing room, carrying a tray of coffee things. On the table behind a sofa was a large, framed photograph of, I assume, the late Harry Stanforth. He had a bluff, chunky, smiling face, rather an ordinary one really, but that is the great and timeless miracle of love. I saluted him silently, as Candida poured cups for the pair of us. Then she looked at me. ‘Well?’ she said.

I explained about Damian’s search and my part in it. ‘I didn’t want to do it but even I could see he didn’t really have a viable alternative.’

She sipped her coffee. ‘I knew it was something. Though I’m not sure I guessed it was that. So, how do I come into it?’ Then she just sat, patiently waiting for me to continue. I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t making the connection.

‘We think it’s you. We think Archie is Damian’s son.’

For a moment she said nothing but just looked puzzled. Then she gave a little snort of laughter. ‘How? I’m not an elephant.’ It was my turn to look puzzled. ‘I last slept with Damian almost two years before Archie was born.’