Death in Devon

AFTER A BRIEF but exhausting breakfast – Morley expatiating on the history of sausages, the music of Wagner, the music of birdsong, the symbolic meaning of the human hand, and the decline of smithying (‘It’s the bicycles I blame, Sefton, not the cars, and of course people getting rid of the pony and trap’) – Miriam and I loaded the Lagonda and prepared to set off. The weather was sullen, and so was Miriam. After everything had been loaded – massive stationery supplies, mostly – I assisted her in lashing a couple of long planks to the side of the car.

‘Careful with the paintwork, Sefton, or you’ll have to touch it up. We wouldn’t want that, would we?’

‘No, Miss Morley,’ I agreed.

‘Ah,’ said Morley, appearing fortuitously with his trusty Irish terrier. He tapped the long wooden boards with a great deal of proprietorial pleasure. ‘They arrived then?’

‘Apparently,’ said Miriam.

‘Beautiful, aren’t they, Sefton?’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. My attention was elsewhere: I was attempting to fondle the dog, and simultaneously to ignore it, as Morley had advised. But the dog was not impressed – the damned thing was tugging determinedly at the turn-ups on my trousers.

‘Finn!’ said Miriam sternly, and the dog immediately stopped and trotted off. Miriam gave me a pitying smile.

‘Absolutely beautiful,’ Morley was saying to himself, about the boards, which were indeed beautiful – sleek, rounded, polished – though I had absolutely no idea what on earth they were.

‘Solid ash,’ said Morley. ‘Had them made by Grays of Cambridge – the cricket chaps. Not cheap. But worth every penny. They finish them with the shinbone of a reindeer. Did you know?’

‘No.’

‘Gives a lovely finish.’

‘And they are …?’

‘Surfboards, of course,’ said Morley.

I must have looked, I suppose, rather nonplussed. It was still early in the morning.

‘Really, Sefton, have you never seen a surfboard?’ said Miriam, delighted.

‘No. Of course I’ve seen … surfboards and … surfboarding, but—’

‘Well, you’re in for a treat,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ agreed Morley. ‘It’s very—’

‘Liberating,’ said Miriam.

‘Yes,’ agreed Morley. ‘Liberating is exactly the word. Like flying. Being free.’

‘It’ll be a new experience for you, Sefton,’ said Miriam.

‘Hawaiian in origin, obviously,’ said Morley, as he climbed into the back of the car, and Miriam fitted his portable desk with his typewriter stays. ‘I’ve done a little research, I think our best bets are north Devon. Saunton. Croyde. Round about there.’

‘We could camp on the beach!’ said Miriam, clapping her hands, and then carefully slotting Morley’s favourite travelling Hermes typewriter into place.

‘It sounds like it’s going to be quite an adventure,’ I said, climbing into the back next to Morley, who unceremoniously dumped the manuscript of the Norfolk book and a pile of index cards into my lap.

‘Let’s hope so!’ said Miriam, climbing into the front, and starting up the engine, which gave its customary pleasing growl. ‘Better than bloody Norfolk anyway.’

‘Language, Miriam,’ said Morley.

‘I need adventure, Father.’

‘I know, my dear – don’t we all. And Devon is of course the great county of adventurers and explorers. Scott of the Antarctic – from?’

‘Plymouth?’ said Miriam.

‘Correct. And Sir Francis Drake, the old sea dog, born near? Sefton?’

‘Erm. Plymouth?’ I said.

‘Tavistock. So we’ll have to pay respects. And we’ll also have to visit Sir Walter Raleigh’s bench ends in All Saints, East Budleigh.’

‘Great,’ I said, as Miriam raced the car down St George’s long drive.

‘And a trip to Axminster, home of the eponymous carpet. Exeter, obviously. And Ottery St Mary.’

‘Utterly St Mary!’ said Miriam.

‘Ever heard of it, Sefton?’

‘No, I—’

‘Shame on you. Church modelled on Exeter Cathedral, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born there. Ring any bells?’

‘Erm.’

‘Yawn,’ said Miriam.

‘And speaking of bells, it has a clock, I think, that’s said to date from the fourteenth century, and which is one of the only pre-Copernican clocks in the country—’

‘And there’s surfing,’ said Miriam. ‘Which way, Father?’

‘Left.’

And so the conversation and the journey continued across country and down to Devon, hour after hour after endless hour, Morley, like Pliny the Elder, continually making notes along the way – ‘Lavender! Roses! Gypsophila! Dry-stone wall!’ – while I corrected his work on the manuscript of the Norfolk book, and Miriam smoked innumerable cigarettes and offered the occasional taunt and barbed aside: she was, as usual, determined to provoke. Somewhere in Essex, for example, I think it was, we passed a woman riding a horse and this excited a typical little Miriam provocation. She often spoke like someone trying to get around the Hays Code.

‘Medicine may well have something to say on the subject of whether women should ride astride once they have reached maturity,’ Morley had remarked. ‘Side saddle is surely the appropriate method, wouldn’t you agree, Sefton?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said.

‘Oh, come, come,’ said Miriam, cocking her head rather. ‘Surely you must have an opinion on the question of women’s riding styles?’

‘It is a matter about which I have no opinion whatsoever,’ I said.

‘Such a shame,’ she said, revving the engine unnecessarily.