‘I’m glad I had this chance of seeing this island,’ Tad said as they walked up to Clune. ‘It’s not a bit the way I imagined it.’
From his tone Grant deduced that he had imagined it as a sort of Wabar; inhabited by monkeys and jinns.
‘I wish it had been a happier way of seeing it,’ he said. ‘You must come back some day and fish in peace.’
Tad grinned a little shamefacedly and rubbed his tumbled hair. ‘Oh, I guess it will always be Paris for me. Or Vienna, maybe. When you spend your days in godforsaken little towns you look forward to the bright lights.’
‘Well, we do have bright lights in London.’
‘Yes. Maybe I’ll have another smack at London. London’s all right.’
Laura came to the door as they arrived and said: ‘Alan, what’s this I hear about—’ and then noticed his companion. ‘Oh. You must be Tad. Pat says you don’t believe that there are any fish in the Turlie. How d’you do. I’m so glad you’ve come up. Go in and Pat will show you where to wash, and then come and join us in a drink before supper.’ She summoned Pat, who was hovering, and passed the visitor into his charge, blocking the way firmly on any advance by her cousin. When she had got rid of Mr Cullen she turned again to her charge. ‘Alan, you’re not going back to town tomorrow?’
‘But I’m cured, Lalla,’ he said, thinking that that was what disturbed her.
‘Well, what if you are? There is still more than a week of your leave, and the Turlie better than it has been for seasons. You can’t give up all that just to get some young man out of some hole that he’s got himself into.’
‘Tad Cullen’s not in any hole. I’m not being quixotic, if that is what you’re thinking. I’m going away tomorrow because that is the thing I want to do.’ He was going to add, ‘I just can’t wait to get away’, but even with an intimate like Laura that might lead to misunderstanding.