Streaking. Brian Stableford

can’t believe that,” Lissa said. “A mind as strong and capable as yours isn’t about to lose its grip just yet. But of course you must have a moment with Canny. I’ll wait downstairs for a while. I promised to be in my hotel in York by eleven, because I need to catch up with my sleep before taking the long haul out to Venezuela, but I won’t go without saying goodbye unless I have to.”

      It was the first time that she had spoken Canny’s nickname; Canny was profoundly glad that she hadn’t called him “Can” or “Canavan” in spite of hearing both from his mother’s lips.

      “Thanks, Lissa,” Canny said. In the circumstances, her promise to wait seemed to him an extraordinarily generous offer.

      Lissa closed the door behind her, very neatly.

      “You know what these are, don’t you?” said the dying man, drawing the keys out from beneath his pillow, where Bentley must have placed them.

      Canny knew that it wasn’t a good time to say “Of course I do”, let alone “Get on with it”. It wasn’t as if he’d never been in the library before, although he’d never been in any hurry to take up the burden of scholarship on which his father had always urged him to make an early start. He could have picked up the keys from their resting-place any time he liked, rules or no rules. The formal passing was purely symbolic—just another little ceremony, insufficiently burdensome ever to have been put to the proof—but Canny made no objection. He said his lines dutifully, trying not to sound weary—although his lack of sleep the previous night would certainly have given him an excuse.

      “That’s almost certainly part of the ninety-nine per cent of it that’s bullshit,” Lord Credesdale told him, forthrightly, when they finally returned to normality. “I wish I’d been able to figure out which is the odd one per cent, but I couldn’t. You might do better. I hope I didn’t use more than my fair share, if it turns out to be a wasting asset, but you know how it is—they don’t all win, and when the tide’s going out it’s sometimes hard enough to stay even. You haven’t been fucking that tinted Sindy doll, I hope?”

      Canny shook his head and pursed his lips. “She’s not a doll, Dad,” he said, curtly. “She’s heard of the Land of Cockayne, she uses words like ‘crenellations’ in everyday conversation, and she’s prepared to compromise her diet for a ’73 Pomerol. She thinks the Restoration’s beautiful, in its own way, and rumor has it that she doesn’t go in for fucking at all—not even photographers or footballers. She’s got where she is on looks alone, without pimps or producers’ casting-couches. And of all the great Yorkshire traditions, the casual racism is the one least worth preserving—I’d really rather you didn’t die with a sin as stupid as that one staining your soul. Now you’ve seen her at close range you know how believable her reputation is.”

      “So what does she want with you?” was the brutal counter to that.

      “She’s certainly not after my money, Daddy—or the family secrets. She’s no more a Mata Hari than a Sindy doll. I doubt that she wants anything at all—but that’s not mutual. On the other hand, I’m not desperate. Even if I never get to kiss her, I like her a lot. Okay?”

      “I’m sure she’s a lucky girl in every respect,” said the dying earl, with the faintest of sardonic smiles. “I’m sorry. Can’t help worrying. I suppose you’re free to make your own arrangements, while you’ve nothing to lose, but there are warnings in the journals against sirens.”

      “She’s not a siren, Dad. She’s not a Mata Hari, or a Jezebel, or a Delilah, or any other kind of femme fatale—and the only reason the earls of old were so bitter about female beauty was that they couldn’t get any half-way good looking woman to give them a second glance in spite of their money and status. Lissa’s a woman like any other—except that she can have any man she wants, and has no reason at all to pick me. She’s just curious, bored with her usual entourage and her usual routine. Let it alone, will you? Can I go back to her now?”

      Yet again, his father could only contrive a nod now that the reserves of bile had spilled out of him. He’d been able to talk to Lissa Lo with an approximation of charm and fluency, but he still hadn’t mastered the art of talking to Canny with the aid of any other motive force than resentful disapproval.

      “Tomorrow,” Canny murmured, determined not to let it go just yet. Then he went to say goodbye to Lissa Lo, and to tell her that she was welcome to drop in any time she liked.

      She had obviously been crossing words with his mother again; to judge by their respective expressions, Lissa had scored all the palpable hits.

      “Thanks,” she said, when he had offered the invitation. “It’s a fascinating house, and I was interested to meet your family. Sometimes, I miss having a home—but my mother’s been a nomad for years now and I hardly remember what it was like to have a real home. She’s in England at present, but we might relocate to the USA next year. It’s so difficult to choose where to settle, given the rate at which the climate’s changing.”

      “I really am very grateful for the lift from Monte Carlo,” he said, as he walked her to the stables, where her car was waiting. “The hours it saved me might turn out to be precious. No matter what Old Hale says, Daddy will be lucky to last the week, and there are things we need to settle.”

      “I understand,” she assured him. “I don’t suppose we’ll be bumping into one another on the Riviera again, but while mother’s in England I’ll be popping back as often as I can. I’ll ring you, if there seems to be a chance we could get together.”

      The last few words reverberated in his mind, and in his body too. If there seems to be a chance we could get together. It was explicit, then: there did seem to be a chance. Except that, given her reputation, he couldn’t be sure what “get together” was supposed to imply.

      He opened the door of the hire-car for her, but he dared not make any further move. He waited for her to turn her face towards him, and to lean forward to kiss him lightly on the cheek.

      There was no passion in it at all, but it thrilled him more than any other kiss he had ever received.

      “I’d really like that,” he said. “Any time. Any time at all. Have a good time in York—and Venezuela. Drive carefully—the roads around here can be awkward after dark, at least until you get on to the A64.”

      “I always do,” she assured him—although there was something in her tone that made him uncertain as to whether the assurance was believable.