The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [0]
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
AND ALFRED A. KNOPF CANADA
Copyright © 2011 by Alan Hollinghurst
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
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Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Knopf Canada and colophon are trademarks.
Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Picador an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, London.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hollinghurst, Alan.
The stranger’s child: a novel / Alan Hollinghurst. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN 978-0-307-70044-5
1. Triangles (Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. 2. Families—England—London—Fiction. 3. Family secrets—Fiction. 4. Families—History—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6058.O4467S77 2011
823'.914—DC22 2011010256
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Hollinghurst, Alan
The stranger’s child / Alan Hollinghurst.
eISBN 978-0-307-70044-5
I. Title.
PR6058.O484S77 2011 823'.914 C2011901892-6
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover illustration: painting by Eugene Speicher,
from the collection of J. D. McClatchy
Cover design by Chip Kidd
First North American Edition
v3.1
I M
MICK IMLAH
1956–2009
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part 2
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part 3
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Part 4
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part 5
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Reading Group Guide
About the Author
Also by Alan Hollinghurst
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am very grateful to the Belgian literary organization Het Beschrijf for a month’s residency in the Passa Porta writers’ apartment in Brussels, where part of this novel was written.
ONE
“Two Acres”
1
SHE’D BEEN LYING in the hammock reading poetry for over an hour. It wasn’t easy: she was thinking all the while about George coming back with Cecil, and she kept sliding down, in small half-willing surrenders, till she was in a heap, with the book held tiringly above her face. Now the light was going, and the words began to hide among themselves on the page. She wanted to get a look at Cecil, to drink him in for a minute before he saw her, and was introduced, and asked her what she was reading. But he must have missed his train, or at least his connection: she saw him pacing the long platform at Harrow and Wealdstone, and rather regretting he’d come. Five minutes later, as the sunset sky turned pink above the rockery, it began to seem possible that something worse had happened. With sudden grave excitement she pictured the arrival of a telegram, and the news being passed round; imagined weeping pretty wildly; then saw herself describing the occasion to someone, many years later, though still without quite deciding what the news had been.
In the sitting-room the lamps were being lit, and through the open window she could hear her mother talking to Mrs. Kalbeck, who had come to tea, and who tended to stay, having no one to get back for. The glow across the path made the garden suddenly lonelier. Daphne slipped out of the hammock, put on her shoes, and forgot about her books. She started towards the house, but something in the time of day held her, with its hint of a mystery she had so far overlooked: