CHAPTER 13
Peter Jeffries stood in the study of Chalton Manor, looking out onto the back garden. He must get out there and do some deadheading, he decided, otherwise the cosmos would stop flowering, and he loved the riot of colour they would continue to produce all summer if they were treated properly. The garden was huge, of course, and he couldn’t possibly manage it all, but he liked to tell the few people he knew that most of it was a “conservation area”, which fooled no one, but they all enjoyed the joke.
Janica would have loved it, he thought, and a wave of sadness swept over him. Her framed picture stood on his desk, standing proud and tall and beautiful, long dark hair pulled back and tied in a knot on her head, smiling broadly, her body canted to one side and supported on one hip, their beautiful Lisa, three years old, bright-eyed and wondrous. He could barely bring himself to look at them, his family, and now he was the only one left. It was said time healed everything, but he couldn’t see how that might happen, or how long it might take. Oh Janica, Lisa. How I miss you.
He had been in many difficult situations during his career, life-threatening situations, in which some of his colleagues, his best friends, had been lost. He remembered escaping from HMS Aries after she had been hit in San Carlos Bay, and days later, the battle of Goose Green, where Captain Jeffries had successfully led his company’s assault on the enemy positions and many men on both sides had died, some at his hand. Only afterwards did the full horror of what they had been through become apparent, and the fight to deal with the trauma had been almost as difficult as the fight itself.
But deal with it he did, and he went on to other areas of conflict and saw much the same thing time and time again, wondering what it was all for. Who was it all for? A tiny number of extremists and despots in positions of power. Men, intoxicated by and addicted to power, holding sway over the lives of millions, until the threat of losing it to other men drives them to irrational and unspeakable cruelty. It was ever thus.
Peter had always thought he was doing something noble, something honourable and just, fighting for the cause of freedom and justice against tyranny and oppression, and he had paid a heavy price, physically and emotionally. But nothing had affected him so profoundly as the events of the last three years, and had he been remotely religious, he would surely have lost his faith overnight. But as he had always said to others who sought his advice, and he was never slow to dispense it, get a grip. There are no guarantees, ever.
But he now knew his own advice to be fatuous and simplistic. Philosophy was not his strong point, and he was too old to start changing now. He also knew that his time was limited, necessarily curtailed, and he was at least sanguine about that. Surprising, he often thought, having dodged bullets successfully for so long, that he would eventually succumb to the enemy within. And that made him think, if there is a God, show yourself now, because I could do with a bit of help once it’s all over. Bit late for that.
The grandfather clock chimed ten o’clock, and the sound resonated around the building like a church bell in a huge cathedral. And then it stopped, and the sounds of silence returned, reminding him how alone he was now, and he didn’t know how he could continue to bear it. He picked up the picture, opened the top left drawer of his desk and carefully placed it inside, face down. He closed the drawer and raised his head to look again out of the window. What would his father think of him now? He had made such a mess of things.
***
Sir John Jeffries had expected his only son and heir to follow him into the family business, just as he and his father had done before.
Established in 1735 as a firm importing silk from the Far East and then engaged in manufacturing all types of cloth, Arnold Jeffries & Son had grown over two hundred and fifty years to be one of the most highly regarded firms of its type in the country, if not the world. Even after production had long since ceased in England and inevitably transferred to South-East Asia, the company had diversified into design and had become a supplier of premium grade cloth to high-end couturiers in Europe and the US.
Knighted for services to the textile industry, Sir John was also a philanthropist, benefactor and patron of several charities, and together with Lady Caroline, whose own charity work was legendary, became a pillar of the community. So it was with some dismay and consternation that they received the announcement from their recently graduated only son, Peter, that at the age of twenty-one he intended to break with family tradition and join the army. The ensuing family rift which persisted for over twelve years almost healed at the premature death of his mother, when Sir John finally acknowledged that his son, now thirty-four and having risen up the ranks to be a Major in the Intelligence Corps, may have actually made a success of his life.
Whilst Peter’s military career had been exemplary, his personal life had been less so. At twenty-three he married the Honourable Phoebe Torrington, only daughter of Sir Arthur and Lady Torrington. Sir Arthur was a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Defence and Peter had met Phoebe at his Sandhurst passing out parade. He was smitten. They made a perfect couple and a grand wedding was organised, there being no shortage of resources from either side of the family.
The intention was to start a family immediately, but three years passed without issue, and with Peter away for months at a time, the opportunities to procreate were limited. Furthermore, Phoebe, unprepared for the privations and disruptions afforded by army life, found herself increasingly bored and alone in army accommodation, however comfortable and relatively opulent that might be for a senior army officer.
Without children to keep her occupied and a regularly absent husband, she inevitably found solace in both the gin bottle and the arms of Second Lieutenant Jack Anderson, a young subaltern in the fourth regiment of the Royal Dragoon Guards. Peter and Phoebe divorced on their sixth wedding anniversary.
Peter threw himself back into his career, serving in Northern Ireland and then the Falklands, and by the time he was in his late forties, he was a full colonel serving with the UN Protection Force in Yugoslavia, with special responsibility for intelligence gathering and interrogation.
There, he met a young Montenegrin interpreter, Janica Simovic, twenty years his junior, with whom he worked closely interrogating suspected Serbian terrorists. He became entranced by this tall, dark-haired, stunningly beautiful young woman and she, overwhelmed by this dashing English army officer almost twice her age, agreed to his proposal of marriage without hesitation.
Fifteen years later, Sir John Jeffries, a widower since 1984, died leaving his entire estate to his only son. Peter had no interest in the family business and promptly sold the three-hundred-year-old company to a Hong Kong-based conglomerate. He retired from the army, and moved into Chalton Manor with his young wife and fourteen-year-old daughter.
***
The grandfather clock chimed once for a quarter past ten, and Peter snapped out of his thoughts. He had to get away for a while, clear his head. The sun was shining and it was a perfect summer’s day. He would take Carician out for a few days. Disappear up the river, see the world from a different perspective; something he always found whenever he was on the water.
She hadn’t been out at all this season, what with the distractions of the last few months and his visit to Nepal, and she may need coaxing back into life. He turned with a new purpose, threw on his floppy hat and set off down the garden towards the riverbank.