Several fishing boats were drawn up on the narrow beach and there was a boat-house and jetty that belonged to the Talbot estate. A sport fisherman was tied up there, gleaming white with a blue stripe. It was called Mary Ellen.
Justin said, ‘Have you taken the boat out since you’ve been back or been flying with Phil Regan? I thought you’d be airborne all the time after you got your licence.’
Instead of replying to his question she said, ‘You know, don’t you?’
‘August the fifth, Nineteen sixty-odd, Father Alan Winkler, St Mary the Virgin Church, Dun Street, Mayfair. A good address.’
‘He was a nice old man. Very understanding. He held my hand and prayed for me and you and your father, and said that, in the circumstances, it was God’s will that you should be baptized.’
‘The persuasion of the truly good,’ Talbot said. ‘How could you resist that?’ He kissed her gently on the forehead. ‘What a wonderful person you are. I expect that’s why I can’t take girls seriously, and never have. They’re lucky if they can get a week out of me.’
‘But you aren’t going to tell me how you suddenly know? Oh, the secrets between us, darling.’
‘I’ve an idea that Mary Ellen knew, am I right?’
‘I had to tell her because I told her everything and she blessed me, for it was your father’s dying wish. As far as telling you … she felt it should be left to the right moment.’
‘I’m forty-five, Mum, if you remember. A long time waiting.’
‘We all have our secrets, even from our loved ones.’
‘And you think that applies to me?’
‘More years ago than I care to remember, you were spending a week’s leave at Marley Court when a dispatch rider delivered an order. You read it, told me you’d been recalled for some special operation, went upstairs to pack and left the order on the study table. I know I shouldn’t have, but I read it and discovered my son was serving in Twenty-second SAS.’
‘So you knew, all those years, and never told me?’
‘I couldn’t. It was a betrayal, you see, and I couldn’t live with you knowing that. My punishment was that I’ve had to imagine supremely dangerous things happening to you every day. So, yes, my darling boy, I knew then, every time, just as I know now.’ She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I’ve tried to give up these things, but I’m damned if I can. Let’s move on. You must be famished.’
‘I’d like to call in and see Jack Kelly before we go up to the house,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind, that is.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘A little early for the pub. It’s only four-thirty.’
‘I’m sorry, Mum.’ He laughed, looking like a young boy again for a fleeting moment. ‘I suppose I am putting off seeing Colonel Henry for as long as possible. And I do have letters for Jack from his extended family, relatives we have working out there in Pakistan.’
‘Of course, love. I’ll drop you off and get on up to the house and see how Hannah Kelly is coping.’
They continued in silence for a while and finally he said, ‘I’ve been thinking about our secrets. If it leaked out that I’d operated in the SAS during my army service, I think it would finish me here.’
‘I agree, but they’ll never know from me. Answer me one question as your mother, though. Did you actually take part in SAS operations in Ulster during the Troubles?’
He had so much to lie about, particularly his present activities. Perhaps he could more easily avoid that by admitting a sort of truth.
‘Yes, I did, and on many occasions.’
She kept on driving calmly. ‘In view of the personal difficulties in your background, our situation in Kilmartin, couldn’t you have avoided it? I understood that the Ministry of Defence allowed choice.’
‘It was still left to the individual to make a personal decision.’ He was getting into real trouble here. ‘It’s difficult when the regiment’s going to war, for an individual to opt out.’
‘I could see that with the Grenadier Guards,’ Jean said. ‘But you volunteered to join the SAS, am I right?’ ‘Yes, that’s true.’
‘So you knew what you were getting into. Covert operations, subterfuge, killing by stealth, action by night. You must have known that your enemy would be the IRA.’ She shook her head. ‘Why did you do it?’
He broke then. ‘Because I loved it: every glorious moment of it. Couldn’t get enough. Some psychiatrists might say I