House of the Lost by Sarah Rayne Page A

her, she always seemed in a hurry. There was a class she should be at, she said, or a sixth-form meeting. She was sorry if he kept getting voicemail, but there was a rule about not having phones switched on between 8.30 a.m. and 6 p.m.
    ‘Really tedious, but I’ve only got another couple of terms of it,’ she said, and Theo tried not to think that this new gushing way of speaking struck an unpleasantly false note. ‘It’s lovely to hear you, but I’ll have to dash because it’s the debating society in ten minutes and I’m one of tonight’s speakers.’
    ‘But I’ll see you at Fenn in October?’
    ‘Yes, of course .’
    I’ve lost her, thought Theo bleakly, and it’s my own fault. I should never have let that afternoon in the boathouse happen. But she was as eager as I was. She was loving and warm and we were so close.
    He tried to compose sonnets to her – paeons of praise to her beauty, and burning words of love and longing. Unfortunately, his first attempt was unpleasantly lewd, the second sounded like a reproving head teacher and the third had the dubious rhythm and scansion of a limerick. All three endeavours were crossly consigned to the bin in screwed-up balls, which was highly suitable since Theo’s own life at the moment seemed to be screwed-up and ballsed-up and might as well be thrown into the bin or down the loo and flushed into the Cam.
    He reminded himself she was still very young. Perhaps in another year? Or two years. Oh God, two years is a lifetime, thought Theo. I’ll feel like some medieval knight serving seven years for his lady. It had better not be bloody seven years, though, or I’ll forget what to do in bed. I’ll bet when Lancelot stopped riding around on quests and finally got it together with Guinevere he wasn’t exactly a tiger in the sack.
    On the crest of this last thought, he returned to composition, and at white-hot speed wrote a satirical sketch for the Footlights in which Lancelot had to embark on a new crusade, not in search of the Holy Grail this time, but of the Round Table equivalent of Viagra, blaming his sorry state on his long enforced celibacy. The sketch was performed with gusto, and caused considerable mirth among the students. Theo, fêted and congratulated after the show, told himself he could one day recover from Charmery and there might even be a life to be lived that did not contain her. He did not believe it, though. He did not think anyone who had loved her would ever recover from her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    Theo counted the days until that October holiday at Fenn House. The Kendals liked Melbray in autumn, and Helen and Desmond nearly always went to Fenn for two or three weeks. As Helen said, Charmery’s half term usually coincided with the half terms of Lesley and the twins, and Theo could generally come down for a long weekend as well. There were walks through crunchy autumn leaves and one or two local events which they enjoyed, and there was Desmond’s mulled wine which was nearly a legend by itself.
    Guff was not there that year; he had gone to Scotland, having become enamoured of fishing – the sweet young thing from the boutique had obtained waxed jackets and waders for him, he said, although he had been shocked at the cost. Nancy was there, though, because of helping with the local Halloween Festival. You could not really trust the residents to get the decorations right, she said, they were apt to tip the thing over into outright paganism if not watched.
    ‘It is outright paganism,’ said Great-aunt Emily who had arrived in a hired car, pleased to be part of the festivities, but not best pleased at finding Nancy in self-appointed command of the kitchen. ‘It’s an old Celtic festival – I know that because I once had an admirer who was Irish and he told me about the Samhain bonfires. I believe there used to be all kinds of wild goings-on.’
    ‘Well, we aren’t going to have wild goings-on here,’ said Nancy. ‘I daresay we might run to a