Best Kept Secret

circumstances I’d be happy to oblige, Bob,’ said the captain, ‘but the owner’s on the bridge, so I’ll have to ask his permission.’
    ‘Thank you,’ said Giles and the harbourmaster in unison, before the line went dead.
    ‘Are there any circumstances in which you have the authority to over-rule a captain?’ asked Giles as they waited.
    ‘Only while his ship’s in the estuary. Once it’s passed the northern lighthouse, it’s deemed to be in the Channel and beyond my jurisdiction.’
    ‘But you can give a captain an order while his ship’s still in the estuary?’
    ‘Yes, sir, but remember, it’s a foreign vessel, and we don’t want a diplomatic incident, so I wouldn’t be willing to over-rule the captain unless I was convinced a
criminal act was taking place.’
    ‘What’s taking them so long?’ asked Giles as the minutes passed. Suddenly a voice crackled over the intercom.
    ‘Sorry, Bob. The owner’s unwilling to grant your request as we’re approaching the harbour wall and will soon be in the Channel.’
    Giles grabbed the microphone from the harbourmaster. ‘This is Sir Giles Barrington. Please put the owner on the line. I want to speak to him personally.’
    ‘I’m sorry, Sir Giles,’ said the captain, ‘but Mr Martinez has left the bridge and gone to his cabin, and he left strict instructions that he’s not to be
disturbed.’

HARRY CLIFTON

1957

33
    H ARRY HAD ASSUMED that nothing could surpass the pride he felt when he heard Sebastian had been awarded a scholarship to Cambridge. He was wrong. He
felt just as proud as he watched his wife climbing the steps and on to the platform to receive her business degree, summa cum laude, from Wallace Sterling, the president of Stanford University.
    Harry knew better than anyone the sacrifices Emma had made to meet the impossibly high standards Professor Feldman set himself and his students, and he had expected even more from Emma, as he
had made clear over the years.
    As she left the stage to warm applause, her navy hood in place, like all the students before her, she hurled her mortar board joyfully into the air, the sign that her undergraduate days were
behind her. She could only wonder what her dear mother would have made of such behaviour from a 36-year-old English lady, and in public.
    Harry’s gaze moved from his wife to the distinguished professor of business studies, who was seated on the stage only a couple of places away from the university president. Cyrus Feldman
made no attempt to hide his feelings when it came to his star pupil. He was the first on his feet to applaud Emma, and the last to sit down. Harry often marvelled at how his wife could subtly make
powerful men, from Pulitzer Prize-winners to company chairmen, bend to her will, just as her mother had done before her.
    How proud Elizabeth would have been of her daughter today, but no prouder than his own mother, because Maisie had experienced every bit as painful a journey before she could place the letters BA
after her name.
    Harry and Emma had dined with Professor Feldman and his long-suffering wife Ellen the previous evening. Feldman hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Emma, and had even suggested that she
should return to Stanford and, under his personal supervision, complete a thesis for a PhD.
    ‘What about my poor husband?’ Emma had said, linking her arm through Harry’s.
    ‘He’ll just have to learn to live without you for a couple of years,’ said Feldman, making no attempt to disguise what he had in mind. Many a red-blooded Englishman hearing
such a proposition made to his wife might have punched Feldman on the nose, and a less tolerant wife than Mrs Feldman might well have been forgiven for initiating divorce proceedings as her three
predecessors had done. Harry just smiled, while Mrs Feldman pretended not to notice.
    Harry had agreed with Emma’s suggestion that they should fly to England straight after the ceremony, as she wanted to be back at the Manor House before Sebastian returned from Beechcroft.
Their son was no longer a schoolboy, she mused, and only three months away from being an undergraduate.
    Once the degree ceremony was over, Emma strolled around the lawn, enjoying the celebratory atmosphere and making the acquaintance of her fellow graduates, who, like her, had spent countless
lonely hours of study while residing on distant shores, and were now meeting for the first time. Spouses were introduced, family photographs