Perfect Strangers

Miriam was beginning to look irritated. ‘It’s not familiar, I’m sorry. It’s not my birthday, or Michael’s, or anyone I know. And it seems a little short for a bank account number or routing code, doesn’t it?’

Josh nodded. They had of course noticed that, but they were hoping Asner’s wife would see some significance not obvious to them. Sophie put the book away, feeling a flutter of despair. Surely they couldn’t have come all this way for nothing?

‘Think, Miriam, please,’ she said. ‘Perhaps Michael left something behind, a journal or a notebook?’

‘Really, I can’t help,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t have any diaries or notebooks. When the Ponzi scheme was discovered by the authorities, the investigators took the files, the computers, even the cell phones. They took everything.’

Dismay had spread across Miriam’s face, and Sophie’s heart sank. Oh God, she really doesn’t know anything, she thought.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Asner, we didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just . . . well, I hoped you might have the answer.’

‘No, don’t apologise,’ said Miriam. ‘I can see you’re desperate, and why wouldn’t you be when people on all sides seem to be out to get you? I can certainly identify with that feeling.’

She stood up, gathering the empty glasses on to her tray.

‘Why don’t you come up to the house?’ she said. ‘I don’t have the answer you’re looking for, but I do have something you might like to see.’

They followed her up the lawn and into the cool darkness of the house. It was modestly furnished – mismatched furniture and whitewashed walls – with a distinctive nautical Cape Cod feel to it: gingham drapes with rope tie-backs, a stripped dresser with carved wader-bird ornaments. Leaving her tray on a table, she led them through into a comfortable living room dominated by two leather sofas facing a media centre.

‘It’s in here somewhere,’ she said, opening a glass-fronted display case and looking inside.

While she was waiting, Sophie walked over to a bookshelf, fascinated to see what kind of reading matter Michael Asner might have gone in for. There were the usual suspects – Stephen King, James Patterson, Michael Crichton – and a surprising number of sailing books, just like her father. She was about to comment on it when she heard the TV clicking on.

‘Here it is,’ said Miriam, bending over the DVD player. ‘Now, if I can just . . .’ Then, to Sophie’s amazement, suddenly there was her father on the screen in front of her. Only it wasn’t the Peter Ellis she remembered. He was younger, much more handsome and happy. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. The colours were oversaturated and the picture was grainy, but there was no mistaking her dad, in his tweed jacket and flared jeans. His hair was longer – well, he had hair! – but the glasses were the same and the slightly stooped way he stood made something in her chest hurt.

‘He’s so . . . young,’ she said, feeling a pang of sadness, and yet this connection back to her father gave her a strange reassurance that everything would be okay.

‘Home movies,’ said Miriam, smiling at Sophie’s reaction. ‘Super 8, I think. Michael had them all converted on to DVD about five years ago. I’d forgotten we still had them. This was when Mike and Peter were at Oxford, of course.’

On the TV, Peter Ellis was standing by a river waving at the camera.

‘Bring it closer!’ Sophie heard him say. The picture cut to a boat sitting in the water, the name clearly visible on the bow.

‘Iona?’ she gasped. It was her dad’s beloved sailing boat.

On the TV, she could now see Michael Asner – younger, and actually quite handsome – sitting at the back of Iona, his hand against the tiller, a cricket jumper tied around his shoulders.

‘I think they were all fixated with Brideshead Revisited and Chariots of Fire back then, some stupid imagined ideal of Englishness. Michael told me he tried, but he didn’t fit in.’

‘Weren’t there other Americans at Oxford then?’ asked Josh.

‘Oh yes, but old money, New England, Ivy League types who rowed and swanked about in their school scarves. Mike was from Sacramento, he had long hair and listened to all that horrible rock music.’

Sophie gave a sad smile. Julia had never approved of her father’s taste in music, but he would play Pink Floyd and Deep Purple at full blast when they were in the car together. It was one of their little shared things.

‘The two of them were thrown together out of necessity,’ continued Miriam. ‘I believe your father was a grammar school boy, wasn’t he? From a blue-collar background? He didn’t fit in with the stuck-up private school guys any more than Michael got on with the jocks, so they scraped the money together for the boat. That way they could join the sailing society and fit in with the money crowd. I don’t think it worked too well.’

The film finished and switched to another scene: a birthday party for someone Sophie had never seen before. Miriam stepped across and ejected the DVD.

‘Thank you,’ said Sophie. ‘It was kind of you to show me that.’

‘Not at all.’ Miriam smiled and crossed to the bookshelf, taking down a leather-bound album. ‘Here, I think I’ve got one you can keep.’

She opened the book; it was full of photographs stuck to the page with old-fashioned photo corners. She turned the pages until she got to a spread of snaps presumably taken at the same time as the Super 8 film: pictures of Michael Asner standing proudly by the Iona. She pulled out one of Sophie’s father standing with his arm around his friend, the boat’s sail visible in the background. ‘There you go; I’ve got plenty of these as you can see. Something to remember your visit by.’

Sophie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Thank you so much, I’ll treasure it.’

‘Could I just ask,’ said Josh. ‘Peter and Michael were obviously very close at Oxford. Why did they fall out?’