Death in Devon. Ian Sansom
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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.
‘Thank you,’ said Morley. ‘No need.’
For navigational purposes Morley had cut up and mounted onto thin oak boards a large Philip’s Road Atlas of Britain, dividing England county by county into squares of approximately nine by six inches. It was my job to arrange these giant county playing cards, as it were, into some kind of meaningful hand, and then to deal out the route, card by card, to Miriam, with Morley adding his own inevitable comments and elaborate instructions: ‘Avoid Cambridge at all costs, Miriam – whole place stagnant with marshes and dons!’; ‘Ah, yes! Beautiful lute-like Berkshire! Belly to the west, neck to the east!’ Etcetera, etcetera. Morley would also make requests for ludicrous detours and stopping points – ‘Do we have time for a dawdle through Hampshire?’ ‘Up to Bristol? Cardiff?’ – which Miriam, thankfully, resisted.
‘This is the route, Father, that we are sticking to, if we wish to arrive any time today. Repeat after me: Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire and Dorset.’
‘And Devon!’ cried Morley.
A giant county playing card
‘Obviously,’ said Miriam. ‘No slacking. No shilly-shallying. No funking.’
‘No Bristol?’ said Morley.
‘Correct,’ said Miriam. ‘And no Bath, no Basingstoke, no Bournemouth. So please don’t ask. I have the wheel, Father. Mine is the power.’
‘Onwards, Boudicca!’ cried Morley. ‘To defend the nation!’
We stopped for a filthy tea somewhere near Salisbury, at the inexplicably named Nell Gwynn Tea-Rooms, a place decorated both inside and out with an unfortunate combination of fake wooden beams and very shiny yellow bricks.
‘A Tudorbethan lavatory,’ said Miriam, as we pulled up. ‘How quaint.’
‘Worse than Mugby Junction,’ said Morley, which seemed to be an allusion to something or other: it certainly made Miriam laugh. They often enjoyed little jokes like these, based on a lifetime’s shared experience and reading: I imagine Milton and his daughter might have enjoyed similar happy reminiscences. Our Nell Gwynn tea consisted of cold potato soup and rather hard and arid little rolls which produced in us all such indigestion that we had to consume several